Former Christians, can you explain something?

Question

Were you one of those Christians who could "feel" Jesus in their hearts? What was it like and how do you explain yourself now? It's one thing to feel the power of life but it's another to give it a face and personality.

Answer 1

Interesting question.
I never "felt" Jesus in my heart as in physically feeling that. I felt joy when I worshipped, though. I was a die-hard believer for 20 years, too. I loved Jesus, and was totally sold out for him in a big way.. even sang in a gospel group. Jesus was my life and I tried like crazy to believe, even after I began finding no evidence that he ever existed... but, I finally had to come to that realization.
At first, it felt like being kicked in the gut.. how could I have just assumed this stuff all my life? etc..

I then came to the understanding that it doesn't matter who I worship.. my path is right for me.. "God" is much bigger than that bible and she accepts us whether we worship or not.. and that's when I actually felt free and at peace. It was amazing..

Answer 2

You know... there's alot of things you can... "feel". That doesn't make them real. I can "feel" the presence of ghosts. Yet I don't have the proof to say they're real and I don't expect you to believe me either.

The human mind is an amazing thing. It can create for us what we most desperately desire in our hearts, even if its only imaginary.

In 2004, I was hit by a car when crossing the street. They tell me that I was awake through pretty much all of it but I'm missing a whole week from my memory. It was probably caused by the pain. I also nearly died and yet, I didn't see any evidence of any god or devil at all.

I also very clearly remember my dead mother holding my hand in the emergency room. And I remember thinking "I want my mommy". The only two things I remember at all from that week.

Does that mean that my mother was actually there? No, it means I was in so much pain, consumed by so much fear, that my mind was playing tricks on me. She'd been dead a year and a half.

The mind is very powerful and it can decieve you, especially when you're going through alot of trauma.

Answer 3

When it comes to "spiritual experience," people from diverse religious backgrounds report precisely similar phenomena. It seems most reasonable to assume that they're having the same type of experience, and that the differences are essentially only differences of expression; rather than imagining that one particular religion has it "right" and all others are wrong.

Nothing is more loathsome than the dogmatic narrow-mindedness and bigotry of the orthodox.

I won't bother to deny the reality of anybody's personal experience; I'll only argue with the assertion that the symbols in which that experience was revealed are or should be universal.

Answer 4

I still feel and talk to Jesus now, but I no longer consider myself a Christian. I do not follow the Bible and do not feel it represents Jesus' teachings or God in a truthful manner. The fact that I do not accept the Bible as God's Word is what makes me not a Christian.

We all have that power of life within us, it is inside everyone of us to tap into. Jesus just showed how to do it in one way. Each can find their own way to reach their divine potential.

Answer 5

I was a very devout Christian, and I could feel the power of God in my heart. I could feel the love of and for Jesus in my heart and mind and everything. I still feel the love of God, and I still and always will have deep love for Christ.

Rick T said, "Feelings come and go. Christianity is more than that." I couldn't agree more. Feelings are fickle. Fidelity to God shouldn't depend upon feelings, because quite frankly, sometimes we feel downright crappy, even hopeless. That's when we NEED GOD THE MOST. When I'm in a foul mood, sometimes I don't want to cleave to God, sometimes I wanna go my own way and just be upset. However, that's when I most need Him. Even though my own judgement may say I need Thing A, in reality, I need God. God knows best.

Btw, being a Baha'i never means one has to give up loving Jesus. It means we have the blessing of learning about Muhammad, El Bab, and Baha'u'llah as well (pbu them all). And when you learn about someone, that's when you can develop love for them. Yes, I have deep love for Jesus, but I also have a deep love for Muhammad, El Bab, and Baha'u'llah, pbu them all.

Answer 6

My dear mortals, feelings arise from the heart indeed, but the soul is beyond all feelings and perceptions. Once you know what all the things you can feel, you can rest assured that the soul is not that. This is the sacred training. To discover the soul through the means by which you discover what the soul is not.

Look around you at the fleeting world. Corruptible, impermanent, suffering, and realize for yourself that the soul is beyond all suffering, it is bliss.

Answer 7

We cannot rely our faith in the sensations that we feel Jesus in our hearts, we feel Jesus in our hearts when we see the forest the mighty trees, the cold morning breeze that blew in our face, when we heard our child's name graduating from preschool, that's the gift of God to feel Christ not as a sensations of trembling and weeping trances induced by rituals, if we see this kind of phenomenon its likely to be a fake.

Answer 8

No.
Never felt the Jesus-thing you mention.
I was never one of those people.
I did, however, feel God in my heart and I still do, today.
I feel God in everything I do, see and hear.
That is why I converted to Judaism.
One cannot put a "face" on God - God is too vast to pin down in human terms.

Answer 9

I could feel something, but now that I think about it...I think I convinced myself I was supposed to feel something so I did. At the time, I believed it was real. But even as I felt that, I had doubts in my mind and heart.

Answer 10

Kind of like watching one of those feel good movies that makes you all happy inside. Singing along with your favorite new song. Something like that. You just have to be able to step back and ask yourself, "Is this real?"