Addressing a post from some time ago

You know, I have been really wanting to respond to this post for a very long time. However, since you address so many things, I never knew where to start. Since I have a test tomorrow and I do not yet know the material at 1 in the morning, I figured now would be a good time to respond.

I guess I would say that I do indeed feel God in my life, at least much of the time. Though sometimes he feels very far off, almost absent, other times I feel Him next to me and in this I am more certain than anything else in my life.

I know you mentioned the "euphoria" as being the catalyst of your religious experience. If I understand you right, you believe that you were somehow tricked into feeling this way, in believing something that wasn't there. While much religious music and architecture it meant to affect the person, it is never meant to deceive them. Generally it is supposed to inform the worshiper/visitor that they are in a special place, a place set aside(holy)for God. In essence, it is supposed to quite all the distractions in your mind so that you can reflect on the holiness of God.

I do not know about the alter call stuff and all that entails, since I am Lutheran and we do not do that sort of thing.

I would like to address your post-experience reaction. You discount your experience because in the aftermath, the joy or emotion or whatnot faded as time goes on leaving you feeling mislead. I want to ask you a question: what indeed did you do to foster the faith that was apparently started at those times?

Many people will have a fervor for faith in God but then they do nothing with the gift that they were given. If you do not believe in double predestination and if you believe that you have free will, that means that you have to do something to seek God. He is not always going to be in your face. He is not always going to make things great for you, because he wants you to seek Him. He is not going to radically change the way you think because he values your free will. If you want to know Him and if you want Him to change you, you need to hear what He has to say. You need to stay in his word, seek his guidance, and pray for his spirit.

Some people say they don't need someone else telling them how to view and understand God. What arrogance! Didn't you need someone to tell you how to understand science, math, the English language? No one would say,"I don't need someone else to tell me what happened in the past. I can know it on my own without archaeological, eyewitness, and historical information." That would be ridiculous. The same goes with God. You can have a vague idea of what God is by observing nature, but this is but a shadow. You can't truly know God unless he reveals himself to you. He does this through his Son, Christ Jesus. And we read what his Son had to say and, most importantly, what he did, in scriptures.

You say you wonder why you why God hasn't touched your life. Well, I gather from what your wrote here and our conversations in the past that He has. Yet the question remains, what did you do in response?

I will respond to one more thing. Many of you have blamed Christians for acting in various ways and not always acting as they should. I must stress, Christians are sinful people like everyone else. Some do not have good instruction and believe they are better than others, but this simply is not the case. Christians are not perfect, and they never will be in this life time. That is the whole point. That is the whole reason Christ came. Anyone that claims he is perfect, or even a good person by God's standards, is fooling himself. Christ died for us because we are slaves to our sin and are, by our sinful natures, enemies of God. Yet while we were still in our sins, Christ died for us. In your baptism, you are brought into this new covenant with Christ. This is our central message. This is what we proclaim. Don't let "Christians" get in the way of your relationship with Christ.

Long post. I'll stop now. As always, no offence taken from yours or any other's views. I welcome and comments of reflections.