when a response is required...
I can see why people feel the need for religion. They spend so much time obsessing and fearing what comes after death that they don't realize that they haven't lived until it's too late. This consept is so stupid to me. Why waste the time you have here so that you may POSSIBLY have it better in the future? Living for religion is living someone else's life. This is one of the biggest problems I have with the entire institution. Live your OWN life...make of it what you will. This is one thing I can never accept, and this is why I pity all those machinations that cannot see the forest for the trees. May they find what they so ardently seek.
so you pity me? oh my friend. why did you not say this before? why did you not warn me that i was only seeing half of the picture? am i truly such a blind and brainwashed prisoner?
[here is my defense:]
i am not afraid of death. that is not to say that i have not lived those terrifying moments of uncertainty. i remember very vividly that night in december where i sat uncontrollably shaking on the steps of my front porch as my mother lay seizing in her bed. i remember screaming to God i was not ready to lose my mother, i was not that strong. that entire month was a struggle-- but two brain surgeries and five months of radiation later it seems that death will not take her yet. i realized that if i fear anything, i fear losing the ones i love. but even then it is only a temporary loss, because of the hope we have been called to have.
despite what you may say, it is not the fear of death that draws people to God. it is the promise of life that does so. even Christ himself said in John 10:10, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." there is a freedom in knowing Jesus Christ and walking with Him that is incomprehensible. i am no longer controlled by my sins. i am no longer controlled by how people see me. i am no longer controlled by anything. i even choose to follow Christ out of love. i am not controlled by Him. because, you see, without a choice, "i love you" means absolutely nothing.
i would not call the time i spend here wasted. ha, hardly. every day is a fight, every day is an adventure... and it is that much more wonderful to know that death is not the end. believe me, i take nothing for granted. every day, every minute, every second is a gift from God to be used. i would not trade the life i have lived for anything.
but i do agree with you that i pity those who live for religion. religion in itself is dry and empty. so are most things created by man.
i made the choice long ago to live for Christ. He is the someone i have sought and found.
Paul writes in Phillipians 1:21 "to live is Christ, to die is gain."
we waste nothing. we gain everything.
please do not take offense to anything i have written. but please do take it to heart and think about it.
this is the way of things.
~
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1
so you pity me? oh my friend. why did you not say this before? why did you not warn me that i was only seeing half of the picture? am i truly such a blind and brainwashed prisoner?
[here is my defense:]
i am not afraid of death. that is not to say that i have not lived those terrifying moments of uncertainty. i remember very vividly that night in december where i sat uncontrollably shaking on the steps of my front porch as my mother lay seizing in her bed. i remember screaming to God i was not ready to lose my mother, i was not that strong. that entire month was a struggle-- but two brain surgeries and five months of radiation later it seems that death will not take her yet. i realized that if i fear anything, i fear losing the ones i love. but even then it is only a temporary loss, because of the hope we have been called to have.
despite what you may say, it is not the fear of death that draws people to God. it is the promise of life that does so. even Christ himself said in John 10:10, "I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." there is a freedom in knowing Jesus Christ and walking with Him that is incomprehensible. i am no longer controlled by my sins. i am no longer controlled by how people see me. i am no longer controlled by anything. i even choose to follow Christ out of love. i am not controlled by Him. because, you see, without a choice, "i love you" means absolutely nothing.
i would not call the time i spend here wasted. ha, hardly. every day is a fight, every day is an adventure... and it is that much more wonderful to know that death is not the end. believe me, i take nothing for granted. every day, every minute, every second is a gift from God to be used. i would not trade the life i have lived for anything.
but i do agree with you that i pity those who live for religion. religion in itself is dry and empty. so are most things created by man.
i made the choice long ago to live for Christ. He is the someone i have sought and found.
Paul writes in Phillipians 1:21 "to live is Christ, to die is gain."
we waste nothing. we gain everything.
please do not take offense to anything i have written. but please do take it to heart and think about it.
this is the way of things.
~
"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1