Wednesday, June 23, 2010

postheadericon Sex before marriage. What does the Bible say?

The idea of dating in modern times is that of finding someone to have a fairytale relationship with which may even come with benefits. This perception of dating has evolved over the years, and with it, the social acceptance of sexual and romantic activity between couples has vastly changed.
The true purpose of dating is to find a suitable partner for marriage therefore it is against Gods wishes for us to date someone knowing for certain that we are not going to marry them. It is perfectly acceptable to end a relationship with a spouse however once married; the couple is joined for life. It may seem easy to get a divorce however a divorce only separates two people in legal terms. Marriage is in fact a lifelong sacrament ordained by God. Once a couple is married, their souls are unified for life.
Most aspects regarding relationships are clearly defined as right or wrong however some are creating uncertainty among Christians so I will now cover one of the most frequently asked questions about sexuality.
Why can’t we have sex before marriage?
First of all, get all negative views of sex out of your head. Sex is a creation from God. He intended it to be good and pleasurable however, he intended for it to be an act of upmost love and devotion between couples of which is declared through marriage. As said earlier, dating is a process of finding a suitable partner for marriage therefore you are bound to go through a process of trial and error before you find your truthful spouse. It is because of this that having sex with your boyfriend/girlfriend is not accepted. God wants us to share this loving experience with only one person in our life.
No matter how much a couple loves each other, even if they are engaged and they are to be married in an hour, it is still a sin to have sex outside marriage. Your body is the temple of God therefore you should remain pure. Most Christians have an understanding of this however; the most uncertainty is within the reasoning. When you asked you parents as a child, “why can’t I……” they would sometimes reply with “because I said so.” This would be rather annoying because without reasoning you cannot understand the issue involved with your actions therefore it is easy to give into temptation and do whatever your parents have disallowed behind their backs. As a child, my parents would watch a movie that may have been inappropriate for a child to watch. When I asked “why can’t I watch this?” they would respond with “you are too young. This is an adult’s film.” The truth of the matter is there is no age where something becomes acceptable. It is just as wrong for them to be watching a film full of sexual references as it is for a ten year old to watch it.  The same applies to premarital sex. Often enough in families, the children will become aware of sex at much younger ages than ever and they will start asking questions. Once they have reached a suitable age, it is important to explain the true reasons of why sex before marriage is wrong rather than simply saying “you are too young.”
So what are the true reasons?
Marriage is coming before God and offering yourself to another person in which you will be united for life. When a couple has sex, their bodies become one and their souls unite. If you have sex before marriage, then leave your partner, how are you supposed to unite your soul again in a new relationship?  
As Christians, we believe that The Bible is the very own word of God. Corinthians 6:15 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit. Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God?
The very own word of God has indicated to us through the Bible that two people become united through sexual intercourse and will become one flesh.
EPH 5:31 “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.”
The Bible specific says that when two people have sex they are united. It also says that a man will be united two his wife. From this, we can see that God intends for us to have sex only within marriage. 
Thursday, June 10, 2010

postheadericon The Lords Prayer on pin heads.

Convicted forger A. Schiller was serving his time in Sing Sing prison in the late 1800s when guards found him dead in his cell. On his body they found seven regular straight pins whose heads measured the typical 47/1000ths of an inch or 1.17 millimeters in diameter. Under 500 magnification it was found that the tiny etchings seen on the heads of the pins were the words to The Lord's Prayer, which is 65 words and 254 letters long. Of the seven pins, six were silver and one was gold - the gold pin's prayer was flawless and a true masterpiece. Schiller had spent the last 25 years of his life creating the pins, using a tool too small to be seen by the naked eye. It is estimated that it took 1,863 separate carving strokes to make it. Schiller went blind because of his   artwork.


Reference:
 http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Prayer.html
Tuesday, June 8, 2010

postheadericon How can God exist if there is suffering in this world?

This question is probably the single largest hurdle for Christians. When an atheist asks this, usually the Christian will respond with some rational explanation that states that God has a special plan for all that suffer. This may well be true however, to an atheist it looks like another excuse.
It is fact that a perfect God does not interfere with the free will. This means that if we do evil, God will not decide to take control of our souls and lead us back to him.
Physics tell us that darkness does not actually exist. It is in fact an absence of light. Likewise, coldness is an absence of heat.
God created everything. He did not create evil, because evil does not exist. Evil is in fact a lack of love for God in our hearts.
Because God does not interfere with our free will, he does not force us to love him, we have the choice. Sin is a result of evil, and evil is a result of lacking love for God.  God is not responsible for evil.
Greed is evil, and greed is something that as humans we are sometimes tempted to portray. Most suffering in this word is due to our greed. There is enough food to feed everyone that exists however, our own greed means that people in developing countries have to suffer.
Before saying, “If God was real, he would stop all the suffering in Africa”, consider the fact the as humans, we have the power to stop this suffering. We got ourselves into this mess, and God is not just going to pull us out if we are not willing to do our part.
Suffering will continue for as long as Earth exists. Use it to remind you that we all NEED Gods salvation.


Monday, June 7, 2010

postheadericon How do I know if I belong to the right church?

If this question is constantly on your mind, you are not alone. It is the main cause of doubt regarding faith, and it is very frustrating. 

The only way to answer this question is to say this: God uses ALL of the churches for his works, and people from all churches can and will have a personal relationship with God.
I believe that it is fair to say that there is no perfect church. People that work within a church are only human; they sin like all of us and therefore are subject to mistakes, just like all of us. As a Catholic, I believe that there is an ultimate truth, which each church has different opinions of based on various interpretations of the Bible. Some of these opinions may greatly affect your faith and personal beliefs therefore the best thing that you can do, is to pray to God for guidance that you may base your beliefs on a personal relationship with God rather than what your church specifically tells you. By doing this, you will be directed to the right church. With all this in mind, please remember that the MOST important thing is your personal relationship with God. Just because a priest, or a member of your church is portrayed as doing something that goes against Christian beliefs, it does not mean that your church should be based on the stereo-typical labels that go with it. For example, the media tends to target priests due to a few of them that may have made wrong decisions. This does not automatically make your church in the wrong. 

postheadericon Understanding the Impossible

There is only one God. God is the Father, God is the Son, and God is the Holy Spirit. The father, The Son and the Holy Spirit are all individual beings, they are all God, yet there is only ONE God.
If you are wondering how this is possible, then consider the fact that God is indeed perfect and therefore ANYTHING is possible for God. This fact is a common cause of people choosing not to believe in the existence of a creator. It is too hard for our minds to comprehend the slightest possibility of a God existing that is in some sense individual however made from three different beings. Consider this; all of a sudden, you embrace all the powers of God, and you decide to create a human being. You decide to give this human all the normal abilities of a normal person, except the ability to see the color red, nor to even have knowledge of its existence. You let this person live for many years and they feel completely normal without knowing of this color, then you say to the person, “Did you know there is another color in the spectrum. One that no-one has ever seen before”. The person will think you are crazy. They will say, “That’s impossible”. The reason they cannot believe you is because they can’t possibly get their mind around the possibility of this color that they have never seen or known existed. They can’t possibly imagine it; they may try to however all they will see is the colors that they already know. After they have decided that it is completely impossible, you show the person the color red. Suddenly, they have an understanding of the possibility of the existence of this color, and they believe. They can now also imagine this color (even if they never see it again.)
Now to our own knowledge, the Holy Trinity is completely impossible, however when we die, we will be with God, and he will show us the way it can be possible, and we will instantly understand and we will be able to imagine.
Some people believe that it is possible to travel through time by accelerating to a velocity greater than the speed of light. By going with the knowledge that anything is possible for God, we can say that if it is within Gods intention, then this will be certainly possible. Hypothetically, let’s assume that it is possible to travel back in time. For each partial measure of time, there will be an individual copy of the current existence, with individual parts for each possible variable. Basically, for each second that goes by, there will be the possibility to go back to a second beforehand therefore there would be a slot of time for each passing second that you can return to during time travel. (However, this can be rounded down to an infinite array of amounts that is less than one second.) Let’s assume that you have no particular part of time that you belong to, you are able to wonder between any moment of time that takes your fancy. This means that you exist; however, you don’t have any physical time of existence. This is a way that shows it is possible for God to exist, yet have neither beginning nor end.
Now imagine that you go back exactly ten minutes from now into the past, you then go to you past self, and say, “let us both go back in time together another five minutes”. You both do this and see your more distant self. Now you have three individual beings, yet one person.