Welcome to your first lesson on faith. Believing in the unseen.
Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
You don't need to see it to believe its there.
Of course it does. If you believe in and love God then your heart is set on Him not on what you want to do.
Nasty with faith? Some can really ram it down people's throats can't they. I guess thats what people are like when they so passionately believe in something that is very apparent to them. Sometimes you don't even have to believe it to see the evidence before you. But if anyone has hurt your feelings deliberately in anyway that brother needs to be rebuked.
Who is "they" specifically do you mean? Those people that don't believe and or/nor do His will?
God is justice. So by nature, justice must be served on all those that sin against His supreme and Holy will. He's not doing it to be "mean" for the sake of it. He
HAS to do it as that is His nature. Everything has been laid out for us in the bible all you have to do is accept His Son as your personal Lord and Saviour. If you go on and keep sinning after you have come to know the truth then there isn't indeed any sacrifice left for you. But God is much more passionate and compassionate about you than you think or give Him (or could ever) give Him credit for. I believe He is even now working out a plan to find your heart that He will achieve one day.
But you can't go on sinning because there is no sacrifice for the sinner that goes on sinning even though they "know" it to be wrong. These are the people that think they are okay with God but are not and are the ones that need to let go of that sin and hold onto God and the joy that comes with the hope and faith in Jesus that even though we are dead in our sins, in our faith, as poor as it often is, yay, even while we are sinning, He intercedes for us. He. Our Lord and Saviour who lives today seated at the right hand side of God our Father Himself. He steps in and saves us instead of being thrown into that lake of fire because we believe in Him. Yay even though we are sinners, plural or sinning. He steps in for us as our lawyer and His sacrifice on the cross for us is our redemption. Truly He was wounded for our transgressions, and He was crushed for our iniquities. Evil punished innocence and evil lost when it done that. Thanks be to Christ.
Oh brother, ye of little faith and compassion and knowledge too. It is not "
by works" you are saved and redeemed. But by "
faith"! How many times do some people need to hear these words!
Being a bad neighbor wont keep you out of Heaven if you are a believer. We're all essentially just bad neighbors until we're made perfect again. We will all be judged and rewarded according to our works yes. This much we know. Whether you was a good Christian or a bad Christian. You be rewarded suchly. If you was a believer then you will be saved to spend eternity with our Lord and Father forever. And everyone gets a mansion too!
John 14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
You are right though that IS the highest most ultimate goal at the end of the day. To have love and know the love of God. If I have all the riches and fame in the world for ever but I don't have love, I have nothing, I am nothing. After all, God is love. Infinite love whos ways and thoughts are much higher than ours. Real love isn't just some random chemical reaction thats happening in our brains. It's deeper than that and comes from your heart, your very soul. Although I suspect you are a person who thinks you could explain it all mathematically and through science?
What things is it that you mean a Christian "clings" to specifically? Do you mean The Holy Bible? I understand more about the world I live in now that I know the truth and how things work than I did before. I am millions of other people around the world learn this truth when they come to know about Jesus. If you deny it all (and there's so much of it) then you are surely just kidding yourself. There is no fear of the unknown for the Christian. Just hope of eternal bliss with Him. Although I'm sure we'll still have to work.
But who are you to say that person isn't right to do live like that since we all have to taste death and find out the same way eventually anyway.
So what have we learned from yourself from your comments in this thread and what is the best thing for us to do now?
We've learned that it's be our faith in God that will grant us eternal life. If we have faith, we have hope. If we have hope, hope that comes from having the bible, then we have joy and all the rewards that come with it after in the next life.
We've learned that if we have love for our father like any child/son/daughter should have for their parent then we'll have a healthy working relationship the way it should be.
We've learned not to judge anyone else for their belief or way of life since we all came from dust and return to it anyway.
We've learned that some Christians can be very zealous and over do it when preaching/debating etc and this can cause the recipient to become annoyed. We only need to share the word and His message. In such a way as to let our light shine through to the world. Not force it on anyone. All we need to do is plant the seed. Let God provide the water.
All the best!