Posted by Dr. Ray Langston on June 8, 2011, 4:44 pm, in reply to "Re: "peace of mind""
Posted by GIT on June 8, 2011, 1:57 pm, in reply to ""peace of mind""
How can one with a sinful nature recognize sin unless it is made manifest by one who has no sin.
Anyone can look at this world and realize it is screwed up, mostly because of the evil in this world, you don't need to be a follower of any organized faith to see that....
Christians are not the only imperfect followers of a faith.
True, I think the examples are mostly of Christians because Christianity was and still is the predominant faith in the US, more visible, more followers that people encounter in everyday life as compared to other faiths.
Jesus Himself speaks out the most against those who "appear" to be godly and really are not. He spends more time in the NT admonishing those who like to look religious than anyone else.
Yes, he did, and for good reason, I think if he were here on earth today, he would be doing the same thing, to the same extent (maybe even more).
The point to Christianity is an ongoing and growing relationship with God. It is dieing to ourselves and allowing Him to take the reigns.
My personal experience, spending most in the Christian world/Christian circles is that most though they may say that it's all relationship with God, for most it's formality and tradition, those that truly see it as a relationship, usually are the most sincere about it....
It is loving one another. It is not judging one another but judging the sin we see in each other and admonishing one another in love.
That was the example that Jesus wanted Christians to follow, but that's in short supply, oftentimes, I can't tell you how many times, growing up Christian, that whether it was implied, or explicitly expressed, that I was supposed to look down upon people of other faiths, or people who weren't of any faith. It was considered as though they were evil people, I have known some great Christians, but life experience has shown me that those outside of Christianity can be great, hardworking, honest people as well, sometimes even more so than those in Christianity.