If your God is sooo powerful and sooo full of grace then WHY HATH HE FORSAKEN ME? (See details)?

Question

An all-powerful, all-knowing God would know beforehand who gets into heaven and who doesn't. So why try and accept him to get saved? He already knows whether he's going to save me or not regardless of what I do. Free will? I daresay not. If your God exists then it is predestined that I should be an atheist. Thereby, he has already condemned me to this supposed 'lake of fire'. Why preach to me to accept him into my heart then?

RIF - "Among (my) kind"?! How Christ-like of you!

Patrone - If he already knows that he's not going to let me into his precious heaven then why should I accept him? Do you not see the incredible fallacy there? It won't matter whether or not I accept, whether he's letting me into heaven or not has already been chosen.

I choose to be a good person because I have a sense of morality I didn't need to read about in a prejudiced, murderous and ancient novel. It's called "humaneness".

Daniel R. - If I take you up on that challenge I'll most definitely see a holy spirit because after reading the darn thing once I decided I would kill myself if I ever had to again. My method? A lot of really good acid. I'll be hallucinating spirits everywhere.

So does this mean pedophiles and rapists who accept God will get into heaven just for believing? No thanks. I don't want to be there.

Answer 1

This god, as depicted in the literature, doesn't seem to have a clue what's going on. "Adam, where are you? Did you eat the fruit? Why, oh why, did I make all these horrible people, now I regret it and must drown them with a big flood."

Maybe George Bush is God.

Seriously, though, you're right. If free will doesn't exist (and according to deterministic theory, it doesn't), then the concept of an all-knowing god cannot be reconciled with the Christian message.

Answer 2

Dear friend,
the God that you will ultimately discover may be far different from what we generally conceive to be. What you read in the Scriptures is mainly only anecdotal and too many people - the ones who understand it the least generally - use it as a bashing stick for those who do not agree with them. God is far too radical in every respect and therefore his judgement on us is equally radical and unpredictable. As far as your understanding now about your destiny and judgement is always a transitional thing and you should expect to move on in due course. Stop focussing on those people who clain to be God's reprsentatives; much of what they say is just hot wind. If you want to delve into spirituality avoid those who are too fundamentalist and try to keep an open mind. I believe that there is a God and that there is an authentic spirituality - and that is good news.

Peace

Answer 3

When you accept God into your life, it means changing yourself to be a better person. It means giving up on smoking, drinking and all the other vices which can harm you health-wise. When you accept God into your life, your body becomes God's temple and if the temple is vile and unkempt, the Holy Spirit will not stay. Accepting God does not mean outright redemption of your soul if you are "rotten to the bones", if you continue doing evil. And God has not judged you or pre-judged you. This is the very reason why we are given many opportunities to repent and turn away from sin and many times we are forgiven because God loves all of us and wants all of us to be saved. Now, if you feel that God has forsaken you, let me ask you this: Why do you think God has forsaken you?

Answer 4

God does know beforehand who will get saved, but we don't know. Just because you're an athiest now doesn't mean that you will be one in the future. I've heard testimony after tesimony of people who professed to be athiest getting saved. These people were pretty well steadfast in what they believed. Unless He's already dealt with your heart about salvation & you pushed Him away, there's no reason why you still can't get saved. How do you know that you were predestined to be an athiest? Also, if anything, God doesn't forsake anyone. It's people who forsake Him.

Answer 5

And those of us who left the church were never really truly Christians, apparently. I gave that 30 good years. If that wasn't enough, I'll go to hell knowing that I did the best that I could.

No one, not even an omniscient omnipotent supreme being, can ask for more than that. If someone does, we call that an abusive relationship.

Answer 6

Nope you are wrong. You just made a concious decision not to believe or follow Him. Also if God has forsaken you, its because you have forsaken Him.

He gave you free will so YOU would have to make that decision. You are making that decision, not Him.

As for the rest, if you decide not to believe, its YOUR CHOICE, and you will have to live with that choice when you finally face God on the great day of Judgment.

And by the way.....The only thing that is pre destined is your life, if you decide not to follow Christ. There is no doubt about where you will end up. If you would read the bible, even a little bit, and have just a little faith, you would see what I and millions of other Christians see.

As men and women, all of us are predestined for hell. The thing that makes us different, is that we accepted Christ into our lives as our personal Lord and Savior. Now, we are going to heaven, because of our choice to follow Christ. This decision changed what we WERE destined for to where we are now destined for, Heaven. All because of our decision to follow Christ.

I hope you understand now, because your statements were just a little bit off from the truth....If you dont believe me....then take this challenge.

Read the bible every day for 3 months. If in that time you do not believe or have not had a visit from the Holy Spirit, then you can do as you please, and believe what you will, because you will not be convinced by anthing other than a genuine visit from the Holy Spirit. But when you read, read earnestly not just scanning and then calling it untrue.

God Bless You.

Answer 7

You, not God has said No. But at some point you might change your mind. A protestant missionary told the story of approaching a Vietnamese family on the street with his translation dictionary in hand. He asked using his translation for the family to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior. He used the word 'Duc' for savior. The family huddled and talked in Vietnamese. The husband finally asked, "You want us to accept Jesus Christ as our personal 'Duck?'" So much for what we can do for other people's conversion.

Answer 8

Your are completely correct, but you must think of this aspect of the situation. God knows who is going to Hell and who is going to Heaven. However this is completely irrelevant and this is why. HUMANS do not know who is going to Heaven and who is going to Hell. It is up to us, as God has told us, to make sure that we don't. God knows the names of the people that are going to Hell becasue they are the ones that make no effort here on earth to believe in him. There have been people in history that have rejected God until the day they die and they obviously went to Hell. The problem isn't that God knew that, the problem is that the people ignored that fact. In an alternate version of history God could have known that those people were going to Heaven instead of, in this history, knowing that they were destined somewhere else. So the question you need to ask yourself is, "Does God know that I am going to Heaven or Hell?" You should be able to answer that for yourself.

God bless.

Answer 9

Are you already dead? Have you taken your last breath? You don't even know the end of your own life nor do you have total control of what happens next. Things in life affect our decisions and who knows what unexpected twist could cause you to turn to God, it's happened before with atheists. You were destined to be a child of God through faith in Christ. But your decision could take you to another destination. You have a choice. Choose Christ.

Answer 10

Again. Read my answer to your last question. Assumptions abound among your kind. And who's trying to get "you" to accept Him? God is sooo powerful and sooo full of grace that He doesn't forsake those who were never His to begin with. You chose that for yourself, obviously. He merely confirms your reservation. Smoking or non-smoking?