With this paragraph, you betray the sugar coating of the rest of your post. If you are unable to accept the idea that that which leads you to God is right for you, while that which leads you away from God is wrong for you, then there is no basis for further discussion on this topic between us.
You are free to believe what you wish, and I am free to believe what I wish. God gave us this power, and no man may take it away. If that troubles you, it is your problem, not mine, although I hope you may learn to overcome that stumbling block someday. I assure you that such thinking will not bring you closer to God. As a famous man once wisely observed, "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" (Matthew 7:3)
I also hope you will understand why I refuse to accept the strawmen you are offering me. I have said what I have said, and stand by it. Am I guilty of sloppy thinking? Perhaps. If you accept the notion that talking to God is sloppy thinking, then most certainly I am guilty of it.
The truth is that God is everywhere, and when I speak of "turning to God" or "turning away from God" I am really referring to the process by which we, as individuals, come to relate to and understand God or ignore Him. Although God is vast and magnificent beyond our understanding, it is still incredibly easy to communicate with God and listen to what He has to say. Any system of belief which opposes direct communication between you and God is false, hurtful and to be avoided at all costs.
If your statements and inquiries are motivated by genuine love and concern, then more power to you. But this is not what I sense. Rather I sense judgment and a need to establish who between us is right or wrong on a topic where such a concept is relevant only between each of us and God.
If your intent is to establish whether or not you are right or I am wrong, then you are wasting your time. What matters is not what is between you and me, but what is between each of us and God.
If you can accept that, then there is no need for us to disagree at all.
If you're unable to accept the fact that "right for you but not for me" is as illogical in matters of faith as it is in determining whether one should drink strychnine or Tylenol--then yes, I agree that further dialogue is probably pointless. I use the same logic in my theological beliefs as I do in every other aspect of my life; I'm sorry if that offends you beyond the bounds of "agree to disagree."
You are free to believe what you wish, and I am free to believe what I wish. God gave us this power, and no man may take it away.
WHAT IN THE SAM HILL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??? Where in the world did you get the idea that I was trying to take away your right to choose? How does pointing out that ideas--including ideas about God's identity, nature, and relationship to Man--have consequences and not all ideas are equally valid equate to the online equivallent of "convert or die"? I think you may be just a weeee bit too touchy on this subject.
It's interesting that you should take that tone on this particular thread, which was originally about the right of Jews to believe that Yeshua is the Messiah of Israel and to share those beliefs with other Jews. Do not they have the right to believe as they wish and voice those views, as you demand for yourself?
What troubles me is not your right to believe as you will and act on those beliefs within the bounds of civilized society, but your hypocracy in refusing that right of respect to the Christians on this forum, Jew or Gentile. Sloppy thinking--black is white, war is peace, slavery is freedom if you just want it to be--also troubles me, and that is all I meant to voice.
As a famous man once wisely observed, "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" (Matthew 7:3)
Having been a one-time follower of said famous man, you should use His words with more care and in context. The mote and the beam in this proverb both represent sin, not differing viewpoints. If I tell you not to watch a rated-R movie while looking at porn, then I have a beam in my eye. If, on the other hand, I simply point out the irrefutable fact that two worldviews with mutually exclusive claims cannot both be correct, then this has nothing to do with the proverb in question.
I also hope you will understand why I refuse to accept the strawmen you are offering me.
What strawmen? Either Jesus Christ is the Son of God and deserves to be worshipped as such, or He isn’t and serves only as an idol in place of God. Both viewpoints cannot be correct at the same time.
If you accept the notion that talking to God is sloppy thinking, then most certainly I am guilty of it.
If you accept the notion that a man can look at a red light and choose to believe that it is green, and that will make it okay to run on through the intersection (never mind the mac truck coming from the other direction), then you are guilty of sloppy thinking. If you agree that green is green and red is red regardless of what we want to believe of it, but simply disagree about which is which, then you’re not, and we simply have a disagreement on that subject. I am capable of disagreeing with someone without viewing their certainty that their position is right without taking it as a personal attack of my human right to believe as I choose. From your post, you apparently have trouble with this.
In fact, your entire post is an exercise in self-contradiction, and I say that without meaning any vindictiveness at all. On the one hand, you call my simple statement that both of our viewpoints, being mutually exclusive as to the position of Jesus Christ in God’s order, cannot be correct at the same time as a personal attack on your freedom of religion—never mind that there is absolutely nothing at all in my post that could reasonably be construed as such. On the other, you presume that your viewpoint that “that which leads you to God is right for you,” no matter what your belief or path may be is absolutely correct, and try to lecture me from that vantage point. You even presume to call it “the truth” that “God is everywhere” while decrying my attempt to state nothing more than that there is indeed absolute truth, even (especially) in religious matters. Okay, so if someone disagrees with you and believes that God is really in a specific statue somewhere, would you say that they are on the right path to finding God? Make up your mind and stop looking for traps, accusations, and attacks that aren’t there.
Any system of belief which opposes direct communication between you and God is false, hurtful and to be avoided at all costs.
I agree. I part company with Roman Catholicism with its hierarchy of church, saints, and Mary because of that—for that matter, I part with many Protestant denominations for similar reasons. “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (who also happens to be God, 1 Tim. 2:5). While I believe in learning from others, I also believe in ultimately testing everything by God’s Word, guided by the Holy Spirit.
I too have spoken with God, and He has told me, in words, in inclinations of my heart during prayer, and by confirmation in history that Jesus Christ is indeed the Messiah, who died for my sins. If the voice that speaks to you is not doing the same, then either God is confused, incapable of communicating His truths clearly, lying, or else we are simply not speaking to the same Person. That’s not a condemnation, just another observation that we cannot both be correct.
Rather I sense judgment and a need to establish who between us is right or wrong on a topic where such a concept is relevant only between each of us and God.
First of all, to turn this around for a moment, I sense in you a need for judgment as well—indeed, your post is nothing more than a long, harsh judgment of my character and motivations based on too little information. Perhaps you would be better served to take my words at face value rather than to try to psychoanalyze me on the basis of a few paragraphs, a feat that no true psychologist would attempt—which means that you as a layman shouldn’t either.
Secondly, the purpose of my post was not to establish in a few paragraphs which one of us is right and which is wrong—obviously, we are both convinced that we are right, or we would hold different positions that we found more compelling—but rather simply to establish that there is such a thing as right and wrong when it comes to the understanding of God and the proper way to approach him, which your original post that I was responding to denied.
Let me repeat that: You have attacked me for the grievous sin of saying that there is indeed such a thing as sin, such a thing as a wrong way to approach God.
Now, it is possible that God gives leeway in an honest person who tries to worship Him in the wrong way. But even if so, if we are truly honest people who seek to elevate God above ourselves, who seek His will above our own, who want to be in a right relationship with Him, then we should never be afraid to constantly reexamine our walk, to see if it truly honors God as He would be honored. Yes, to do so is often uncomfortable for both sides, but if we avoid it for that reason, are we not elevating our own comfort above the will of God?
I was raised a Christian, but I went through my own apostate phase. While I never formally repudiated my faith, I did not live in accordance with it; i.e. I was a hypocrite in the classical sense of the word. During that phase, I too tried to relax and be comfortable with the notion that all roads led to God one way or the other. When I truly wanted to know God’s will, I sought it out. I purposely sought out dialogues and even debates with those of other faiths. I wanted them to take their best shot at converting me, at disproving the ample evidences that I found available that Jesus of Nazareth really had been executed, but that He rose from the dead. And I prayed nightly that God would give me wisdom and lead me closer to Him. I did this because I wanted to make sure that no part of my being, body, spirit, or mind was held back from Him. In the process, I found my faith and my walk with God solidifying, not crumbling.
I firmly believe that when we take a double-minded “my way works for me, but not for you” approach, that we dishonor God by treating Him as less real than our human relations. I furthermore believe that in so doing, we lose so much out of our relationship with our Lord that we would weep if we knew it. I believe that an open and honest dialogue, one in which we each acknowledge that both sides cannot be right, but choose to love each other and discuss the issues openly and without rancor, can only be of benefit to all involved.
But those who dismiss the concept of Jews believing in the Messiah out of hand don’t want that open dialogue. In fact, they want the government to shut the JfJs down, to make it illegal for a man to walk up to another and say, “Hey, I’d like to tell you about something that changed my life,” on the basis of a stupid semantic trick. But until the Jewish community formally disavows ties with the many atheist and agnostic Jews of the world, until Israel turns them all out, the Jewish community has no right to say only to the Messianic Jews, “No, we’re a religion, not a culture, and you can’t stay.” That’s hypocrisy of the basest sort.