Pathways to Being Willing

I have written to you once before. A while ago now. I really like your site. I personally feel I need to hear that “God is a God of Love and He does not teach through fear or use fear in any way“  rather a lot.

I would like to ask you just a couple of questions. I can understand how you would interpret much of the old testament in terms of this being man’s thinking much of the time, rather than direct revelation of a loving God. But what do you make of those areas of the gospel where Christ himself uses what could be called a language of fear, of anger and wrath. The cleansing of the temple, some of the more critical denounciations of Jesus towards pharisees (declaring some of them as ’sons of hell’) and actually, there are many more little and subtle indications within the gospels that I would say that Christ definately sometimes spoke in a way which was fear-inpsiring, rather than peace-inspiring.

If I were Judas, for instance, and I heard ‘there is a devil among you’ from Christ, I think I would have been pretty afraid, that the Christ himself calls me a devil. Would that not be a cause for fear? Whether or not Judas comprehended Christ as the Son of God, is for me, beside the point. An honest appraisal of this passage clearly demonstrates, as other passages do, that Christ sometimes did not use a language and a manner, that could be called ‘loving’ in the sense that you portray on your site.

Believe me, it would be much easier for me to agree with you. I would rather sense God as all-loving, always compassionate and merciful. But would I be denying him of something of his Holiness, if I refused to believe he never convicts us on those things which displease him?

 (this is a copy of an email request received by David and has been republished here. All personal information has been removed)

There seems to be an almost unending series of problems in my life and I rarely find an answer that really fixes the problems. They say you should be able to pray and ask God to help you or guide you, but how does this work? I’ve asked for help on countless occassions and have never really seen any consistent results that could allow me to determine whether or not a few of the things that did work out, would have worked out anyway.

How does God talk to you? How does God respond to prayer? How does God reveal himself? There are so many questions and I have yet to confirm that any help has ever come from God. Just how does God guide you in making the hard decisions in life?

(extracted from common questions found online)

There seem to be so many places on earth that have yet to receive the word of God, and so many places, even within the United States, where there are an insufficient number of churches, private schools, tv stations, etc…that could be further promoting the Gospel.

 Of course, all this costs money and  if everyone truly tithed as required by God, we would have no problem…but this really does not happen. Where are we supposed to get the money necessary to perform God’s work? How do we finance things necessary to promote the Gospel and spread the word of God?

(extracted from common questions found online)

It’s very clear in the Bible where God hates the enemies of its chosen people, since his usual response is to have his enemies killed. God has very clearly been shown to destroy entire cities because of how he so detests the actions of the people living there.

 Modern Christians sometimes say, “God hates the sin…not the sinner“, but that is a flowery cover and a lie since God does not destroy just the sin he hates, but also destroys the sinner.

There are almost endless examples of what God clearly disapproves of, and even across multiple cultures, it’s clear that the entire concept of God has to do with hating those who do not follow him and then giving the right to kill to those who do. It’s very confusing. Who or what does God hate?

(extracted from common questions found online)

What’s the point of asking God for things when it seems as though God almost always says “No!”. I’d like a better job… “No!” I want to pay of all my debt… “No!” I’d like to go on vacation some day… “No!” Would you heal the pain in my back… “No!”

Overall, I really can’t find any consistent pattern where God really says “Yes…I’d love to”. It seems as though God is unfair and extremely picky in what he might consider being helpful with. God is like an absent parent or landlord that shows hardly any interest at all until there is an extreme emergency…and often an emergency that could have been averted had he reacted sooner. Why is this?

(extracted from common questions found online)

Depending upon how you read the Bible, it can indicate that lack and suffering is normal or even required, yet it also talks of promises of having all your needs met and living in a land of milk and honey.

When Jesus is used as an example of how to live, it implies that you should not own anything and not even have a job to provide for yourself. According to how Jesus was shown to have lived, you should have no material possessions. One scripture often referred to is where it says that a rich man can squeeze through an eye of a needle easier than to reach heaven..in other words, the rich will likely go to hell. With this being the case, how do you raise a family, send kids to college or save for your retirement?

Does God want us rich with plenty, or does he want us poor and lacking…always depending on those around us? Many churches push the concept of getting richer by convincing parishioners that the more they give through tithing, the more God will give them. How does all this fit?

(extracted from common questions found online)

According to the Bible, satan had been cast down to earth to tempt, torment and distract everyone who was ever born. If any single person, (Adam or Eve) gave into temptation even once, God handed over the fate of all their descendants to the hands of satan and basically sealed the book on the fate of billions that they would have an eternal existance of pain and suffering.

If God really loved us, why would he allow satan to roam free or to even exist in the first place? And even if satan was allowed to roam free, why is everyone born condemned because of one event that happened thousands of years ago?

(extracted from common questions found online)

I’ve heard all kinds of things about how the Harry Potter series is the work of the devil or how Harry Potter is misleading young children into serving Satan. These claims sound rather extreme, yet there seems to be a clear division between one group of people who see this strictly as entertainment and another group of people who say this is a sign of the end times where Satan is geting his final foothold.

Overall, how does God really view this? How does God really see things? What does Harry Potter truly represent?

(extracted from common questions found online)

We are told to ‘let God drive’, let God pilot your life’, ‘put God in charge’, ‘trust in God’…and the list goes on, but nothing often seems to change or improve. How exactly does God guide us? How do we learn to recognize God’s voice over all the other seemingly ‘correct’ voices?

(extracted from common questions found online)

Cancers appear to go away or into remission…spinal cords appear to recover, wounds appear to heal quickly, a bad cold or flu goes away, yet, in all the history of recorded miracles, none have included the restoration of a missing limb. Why is this? And why isn’t the obvious answer that all these other so-called miracles are simply things that can be claimed so easily…with no real evidence? The logical solution should be that there are no miracles,  which should appear obvious since there is no way to claim that a limb has been restored unless it really has, thus, none have been claimed to have grown back. How gullable are we?

 (extracted from common questions found online)