My name is Phumi.
I was one those Christians who “knew” Jesus, but did not really obey what was written in the Bible. Here is my story before I believed that Jesus is the Saviour. It all started in December, a month where everyone plans who they will meet, what type of alcoholic drink they will drink, and who
they will be dancing with. I too had those plans; I was known as the greatest dancer. But something told me to read the Bible. That was my first time I read the Bible. It felt so interesting; for the first time I felt a connection between me and God. This feeling made me to repent, and to follow Jesus. As I read the Bible, I asked myself, am I really a true Christian, and where will I go if die? because the Bible says not everyone will go to heaven, but only those who do the will of the Lord. I then asked my mom so many questions about Christianity and I also attended teenage workshops. The word of the Lord spoke to me. “Do not the love the world so much.” I became so confused and asked myself what this message really means. The Holy Spirit Himself told me that a Christian should not do what people in the world do, but to seek the Kingdom of God. I decided to make the biggest decision–to be a born-again Christian. I was baptized by the Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit. I was born by flesh, but now I am born by spirit in heaven. The angels praise when someone is born in heaven. I always thank God for the day he warned me about loving new technology and fashion, because the devil attracts Christians with all these things (and with many other things). I don’t say fellow Christians shouldn’t buy these things, but beware of Beelzebub seeking for your soul. We are living in the last days–it is now your time to choose between Jesus or the devil. Jesus loves you! I am only 18 years old, but I have surrendered to Christ. It is your choice . . .
you do not have to give up dancing because the bible says rejoice in the lord always and again I will say rejoice this time dance with the gospel songs for this is your passion and you do not have to give up fashion also because after all a billiver uses fashion to bring the gospel but this time again work for making dresses and clothes but this time write bible verses in these clothes and I recommend that you go to the Anglican church they are more faithful Christian church it is a classical traditional churchthe sing old classical hymns from the middle ages and they play these hyms on the traditional church organ.
Phumi – Only follow the voice of the Holy Spirit of our Lord Jesus and the Bible.
The advice given by Jay to continue to dance is fine, so long as it s in church or at home, because you will not be among Believers in dance halls or discos, nor will they play beautiful Christian music with words that glorify Jesus.
The idea of creating fashions to draw people to Jesus is a bit weird, unless he means to wear a t-shirt with a Christian logo on it.
The Bible says that we win souls to Christ through sharing the Gospel with them, not by wearing the latest fashions.
Also Jay somehow thinks it necessary to have the “traditional church organ” with which to worship Jesus!
I am all for the old hymns, but I know of some Pentecostal and some Baptist Churches who have these in their worship service – minus the old organ.
Read the Book of Acts of Apostles and go for everything in there that you see!
The Book of Acts tells us how to be empowered for the Christian life.
God bless you richly!
She said the DEVIL attracts Christians with things like fashion – not using it to attract people to Christ
Hi don’t tie yourself to any denomination. The book of Acts tell us Christians met in their homes and shared food and drink together. Don’t look to the traditions of men who will sway you from the truth but by prayer and thanksgiving live your life. Sounds like a great testimony.
Freedom from religious memes. Religions in general are parasitic and destructive. A religious meme is a mind virus, an infection that takes over people’s minds to ensure its own spread. Most religions teach that they are the one true path to salvation and all nonbelievers are cast into hell or some other unhappy place. A religious meme carries exactly the same fear driven psychological motivation as a chain letter “If you propagate me than something nice will happen, if not than something horrible will happen.” In order for religions to justify themselves against attack by logic or reason, religions place absolute reliance on faith (belief without proof), which is seen by them as being superior to logic and reason. The two types of self-referential statements “Propagate me” and “I am the only truth” provide the driving force for memes to invade the minds of their hosts. In addition, many memes contain the instructions “Help people who believe in this meme, and attack people who do not” and a strong tendency towards hatred and intolerance.
To be able to establish itself in the mind of its hosts it will use some or all of the following mechanisms:
1-Promise heaven for belief, this may involve frustrating the host’s natural sexual urges and redirecting them into sexual fantasies of the hereafter.
2-Threaten eternal punishment in hell for disbelief.
3-Boost the believer’s egos by telling them they are the ‘chosen one’ or superior to believers in false memes.
4-Disable the faculties of disbelief by claiming that faith is superior to logic or reason.
5-Establish itself as the only true meme, usually by some sort of holy book containing a circular self-referential argument such as:
*X is the one true meme
*We know X is the one true meme because the source of universal truth has approved by The holy book.
*We know the source of universal truth has approved X because The holy book contains statements which say so.
*We know what X says is true because X is the one true meme.
6-Holy War – Convert or kill all nonbelievers.
7-Intimidation and terrorism – threaten and discriminate against unbelievers.
8-Enforced social isolation or even death to apostates – an apostate is a host which has cured itself of a meme-infection. They are especially dangerous to the meme brotherhood because they might pass on meme-resistance to others.
9-Censorship and disinformation-Forbid rational analysis of the meme itself and spread lies about rival memes.
There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. You should be happy right in the here and now. Life is now or never. Just stop and be an ordinary person, and great happiness can be born from that attitude of insight.
Interesting comment. I am not sure how to take it. Is the commenter seeking to make some point about religion or is the commenter warning us not to believe the comment? Certainly the statements made by the commenter are untrue, if they are intended to be a critique of Christianity, and they are unproven religious statements that we are are called to believe if they are statements about how we are to live or evaluate religions. It seems that the commenter is warning us not to believe such unproven, truth statements. And if the point of the comment is that this life is all there is and we should seek happiness, that is itself an unproven truth statement that we are called to believe, and thus according to the warning given by the commenter, a statement we should not believe.
Christianity has never been about blind faith, but rather about informed faith, a faith that considers the evidence and makes a decision based on the evidence. God first demonstrated to Abraham who He was and then gave Abraham an opportunity to believe in Him. Christ performed many miracles which, as Scripture points out, became the foundation for the faith of the disciples. Jesus rose from the dead and was seen by over 500 people at various times in the next 40 days. One writer of the New Testament pointed out that at the time of his writing, many of these witnesses were still alive. They could be sought out and questioned as to what they saw, heard, touched, and experienced. Christianity has never been a blind faith, but one based on experiences with the living God. That is one of the reasons we provide a site for testimonies, so that the ways God has interacted with people may form a basis for the accumulation of evidence to undergird and provide a reasoned basis for faith. Through the centuries and today there have been intellectual giants who have come to faith in Christ based on reason and logic. Christianity does not call for blind faith. The Apostle Paul constantly reasoned with people about faith.
The statements about belief in a heaven for believers and a hell for unbelievers embodies two important concepts. First, is there a heaven. Second, does the religion teach rightly about heaven. The comment seems to assume, without showing the evidence, that there is no heaven or hell. But such begs the question. If there is a heaven, denying that it exists does not change reality any more than denying that the sun exists affects the reality of the sun. If a religion rightly teaches that heaven exists and that the way to get there is by faith, than that religion is doing the world a great favor. Only if there is no heaven or if the religion teaches wrongly about how to get there is the religion doing a disservice. To determine whether heaven exists or not and whether the religion is teaching properly about how to get there, again we must examine the evidence. We have repeated accounts given by people who say that they have experienced heaven or seen hell. The annuals of human history is not that we come to the end of life on this earth and we die and that is it. Rather, we have multiple accounts of people seeing and experiencing curious events at the intersection of life and death. Such may not be proof, but it certainly is evidence. In almost every culture of the world, there is a belief in the afterlife. Again, this is no proof of its reality, but the possibility that there is an afterlife cannot be easily dismissed from any alternative analysis. What evidence is there that this life is all that there is? Further, if we find someone to be particularly truthful and they tell us about an experience with heaven, are we to dismiss it because we do not believe it is true.
Life is certainly more than genetics, because identical twins who share identical genetic makeup, while they may share many similar characteristics, are still different people.
I had a friend who was a nurse. I knew her as a very humble and honest person. She told me about an event that happened when her mother died. Her mother was very frail and unable to sit up in bed. As she was at her mother’s bedside, she saw her mother suddenly sit up in bed, stare just beyond the foot of the bed, and ask my friend: “Do you see him?” When my friend asked who she saw, thinking that her mom may be seeing a vision of her husband, her mom responded “See Jesus.” Her mom’s eyes were wide open for those few seconds, then closed. She fell back into the bed and was gone. Again, this is not proof of an afterlife, but it is part of a great body of evidence to be considered.
I suggest that if the commenter intended this to be a comment about Christianity, that the commenter needs to become better informed about what Christians actually believe. Certainly, Christ did not call us to convert or kill unbelievers, but rather to bear witness and to share the good news of salvation with unbelievers. Christ specifically tells us not to kill.
If the commenter meant for the comment to be a spoof on its own truth claims, I am afraid that this may be lost on many readers.
bla bla bla. Heard it all before. You need to GET SAVED!
Thanks Hank all you’ve done is intellectual dribble to the point of putting your own knowledge above everyone else and God. Repent believe and be baptised. Simple.
Hank,
There is wisdom in questioning whatever religion someone peddles. TRUTH can withstand scrutiny (although if someone makes up their mind to suppress the truth they won’t be convinced “even if someone comes back from the dead” to tell them).
You logically observe that a circular reasoning is suspect. Jesus did not employ circular reasoning. When questioned about Himself, he pointed to facts – the evidence going on around him – dead people brought back to life, blind seeing, lame walking. One could criticize these statements are in Christianity’s “Holy Book.” However unlike the Book of Mormon or Quran, the Bible was not a single book but many. #6 ,7&8 don’t apply to a message that teaches turning the other cheek (not…
Have faith in god and Read his word the bible for direction
HELLO MY DEAR ,PRAISE AND GLORY TO OUR LORD. I APPRECIATED YOUR BRAVE STAND .REALLY OUR SAVIOUR AND FATHER AND ANGELS ARE VERY HAPPY ABOUT YOUR COMITMENT .BUT BEWARE OF SATAN’S WICKED PLANS. FOLLOW THE WORD OF GOD AND GUIDENCE OF HOLY SPIRIT .DON’T LOOSE YOUR FAITH AT ANY SITUATION .GO TO CHURCH REGULARLY AND BE A LIVING EXAMPLE OF CHRIST TO THE WORLD AS THE CHILDREN OF CHRIST.KEEP IN PRAYER.OUR GOD LIFT YOU AND POUR HIS GRACE IN ALL SITUATIONS.BE FRUITFUL IN JESUS.MAY GOD BLESS YOU .
Blessed!
Thank you for sharing. I am encouraged to hear you are setting your heart to obey! Be blessed! (Psalm 1)
Phumi, My advise to you is to seek out a knowledgeable, and trusted mentor. All too often new believers are birthed and left to fend for themselves. God did not draw you to Him just to lose you to confusion about Him. There is nothing complicated about serving the Lord. I for one will keep you in prayer and believe that God will place the right mentor for you in your path. Take care.