Hi Guys
My name is Jeremy I don't normally make posts but I am becoming distant from the church and need the power of the holy spirit this forum is my only connection to the church and giving it a chance to benefit me and to see my need for it
I have a challenge for God
It comes to my mind that perhaps I need to take the sacraments to stop sinning to get the power of the Holy Spirit (the assumption being He is not active just because I am baptised or because I have asked for His help)
I used to take it a lot but I feel tired of performing that ritual often and seeming like a blind sheep and a liar making assumptions I don't want to credit the sacraments for Gods grace in my life unless it is well evidenced
I will say I had felt after taking Holy Comnunion my face shined but that could be in my head but where does that leave all who love God and their neighbor outside the church .. To eternal damnation ?
Now that is offensive so I can not believe that God would insist I need to take the holy communion to be saved
I did feel when I took the holy communion I had grace but I don't want to take it for the above reasons and because being too religious and exclusive and scary only harms myself and others perhaps or maybe not ... I do not want to be quick to judge others and say the Holy Spirit and salvation can not happen outside the church
Even though the Church may not be righteous in all that they judge there is a possibility for the sacraments to have value ...
So........ My challenge to God is as I take the holy communion I want Him to give me no desire to masturbate for 1 or 2 months even if I try to and afterwards I will continue taking the Holy Communion after 2 months it becomes necessary that I have to make some effort also
.. For God to bring me back to the church
Can God work mightily in His Church as in the time of the apostles ? He knows I am not testing Him for a sign there is a story in the desert fathers where the monks prayed for an unbeliever in the holy communion as Christs body and he saw it those well read in the church fathers will know what I am talking about
I just feel when I went to church so often I did not always hear a life changing sermon or have any ability or understanding to reach the lost and feeling saved but just doing rituals because u relied on them alone too much
But I feel the real reason I lust is boredom and despair about my abilities but if I had the holy spirit active perhaps I would not be bored
Comments
Instead, speak those words and fight:
"Rejoice not against me, O my enemy: when I fall, I shall arise" Micah 7:8
May God bless you and strengthen you.
God also sent manna from heaven in the Old Testament. When we have weakness God provides "but blessed are those who believe without seeing"
[quote author=livingwaters777 link=topic=13868.msg161114#msg161114 date=1352727737]
I have a challenge for God
Perhaps, you don't realize you are testing God? It is often possible for any of us to be zealous and want answers from God and dictate the way He must answer me. What I wouldn't realize at that time, is that I would be testing God.
Communion is truly precious and it definitely gives you strength. However, it is my personal opinion, that we should not go to church IF God does what I expect from Him. I go to church, because I want to be constantly united with Him. I unite myself with communion. I unite myself with Him through all my brothers and sisters in the church for they are the body of Christ. What body am I part of if I am not united with the rest of the members of the body I would like to belong to? I pray that God gives me the grace to take communion every week because the moment His body touches our lips we are filled with His grace. But unfortunely my weakness prevents me from dwelling in that grace too long, not even a week.. We then, should continuously be strengthened in communion, not yearly, not just monthly, but as regularly as possible so that I may strengthen myself more and more in an uphill manner. Otherwise, I would take communion, feel strengthened, but in my weakness lose the whole grace and wonder why I haven't progressed..
May God give us all the strength to persevere and struggle towards Him.
however you should go to confession if you have not taken Holy Communion for a while, because God instituted the church to administer the sacrements so that our spiritual health can be taken care off.
you don't treat a broken leg with a bandage from the pharmacy without seeing a doctor, and so you should not treat your spiritual illness yourself without seeing a priest.
may God guide you.
The desire will always be there, although you can argue that it will eventually go away...
but overnight, it won't. What God can do for you, however, is give you the strength to override this desire. and i think this latter form of victory is the most rewarding.
Boredom is laziness Livingwaters777. When we are lazy we lose discipline. It seems to me reading through what you have said is that when you take communion you still have this boredom when you do it. It might be better if you put more thought into the disciplines you need to overcome your problems. Laziness expects God to solve the problem when you should be doing it together.
Actually when I used to take holy communion I did not sin often but I still did sometimes but that is because God does not tempt us beyond what we can bear but temptation produces patience and virtue if overcome but now I am seeking to be a babe in the church again where no temptation will happen
I did not sin often but I do not know if it is a placebo effect or because I did not want my efforts to go to waste I was serious about repenting that is why I went to church
I just feel God was delivering me from sin because He wanted to show anyone who is asking for deliverance often will be set free and because He wanted me to show these people who know I am a sinner that we have a Saviour and not to judge those who are sick and poor and sinners who are wanting deliverance
but people also take the holy communion to grow in the knowledge of how to reach the lost which I did not find so I stopped taking it
You are asking for power without doing anything of strength for yourself. When you have repented, you recieved the remission of that sin. You can witness to God by the remission of the sin, but beyond that, you might be thinking too much about it. The remission of the sin will show your love for God. Please try not to think about what others are thinking. It is sin that keeps us a prisioner, so the remission is your deliverance.
I have a challenge for God
The challenge is not for God, the challange is for you; but of course God will help you and guide you to the tools you need to overcome, if you ask Him for help earnestly and in humility.
Try reading a Spiritual book. I was guided to buy a book on the Miracles of the ArchAngel St. Michael and already the readings have helped me with my human frailties and problems.
[center]God be with you in your strife! When we are weakest, He is strongest! Fight the good fight![/center]
You are wise to seek counsel from friends on this matter, I have many things to say which I hope will be of benefit to you.
The best way to know if what you experienced is truly from God is to make it a point of discussion with your father of confession, please keep this in mind as you read my post. None of us can discern this for you; only your father of confession can help you work this out. I have assumed for the purposes of this post that it is true because more often than not it is human nature to gravitate towards doubt. Only your father of confession can give you peace of mind on this matter.
The disputation between the Pharisees and Christ in John chapter 6 (check it out) is quite related to your struggle. In it Israel is seeking a messianic sign so Christ told them about the Eucharist. The Jews wanted an earthly Messiah and were following Him because he physically fed the people beforehand. He gave them the Eucharist as a 'sign' causing them to stumble. They didn’t understand what offering His flesh as spiritual food for everlasting life meant. They never imagined that Christ would come bearing mystical, spiritual gifts. This chapter highlights the Eucharist as one of the most important messianic accomplishments. In the same way that miracles heal our bodies, the Eucharist heals our souls and gives us life. If we walk away from the Eucharist because of disbelief like the Jews did we also turn our backs on the only source of life we will ever have.
I sense you're going a little further than the Jews with your thoughts on the Eucharist. Gideon asked what he did because God had called him to be a judge and lead Israel into war. The calling (if it was false) put his life and the lives of others on the line. Gideon needed to know that this was God speaking to him and He was going to protect him. You seem to already have had an experience and you're going back and forth about whether or not it was actually from God. Gideon had good reason to ask the question he did because he had not experienced God (in this way) before and didn't know His power from experience. He needed the sign so he could lead an army into battle with confidence. In receiving these external signs Gideon was willing to obediently put his life on the line. You've had a greater inward sign (by God subduing your inward passions) with no immediate calling as far as I can tell to justify seeking a further sign. The signs Gideon had were momentary and occurred twice in 2 days and you're asking God to provide a continuous sign for 2 months.
Considering all this do you think its fair to compare what you're asking for with what Gideon asked for?
God knows better than we do that the only way we can really have faith in Him is through experience. This is why He personally introduced Himself to all 3 patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob). Each of them needed a personal experience of His guiding hand to know they can trust Him. It wasn't enough for Isaac to simply be the son of Abraham or for Jacob to be the son of Isaac. We don't need to make ultimatums to further our growth because God understands when we need something to be able to trust Him and He factors this into His dealings with us. On each occasion God initiated the experiences the patriarchs had of Him and provided them encouragement when they needed it.
Like any relationship we have to meet God on mutual terms. Suppose I meet I young lady and I want to pursue a relationship but I feel insecure. I decide out of insecurity to ask her to stay away from other suitors for 2 months. It is likely that she would decide against me as a suitor there and then. Its right to test the waters in terms of trust from the outset but asking too much too soon strains a relationship before it has any depth. The burden always lies with God to reinforce and strengthen and God understands this. It is our duty to trust Him because we know that He will give us ample affirmations of His presence when we really need them.
The other really important thing is God really dislikes faithlessness. The reason for this is that our faithlessness has no real basis. God is not like a thug on a street corner offering to sell us some goods we suspect he might have pinched. Eve's error in the garden was that she believed a snake rather than God. It is logical that when God speaks to us He does so with all authority and integrity simply because this is His nature. We ought simply trust Him because He is God so his kindness, fairness, wisdom or knowledge shouldn't be in question. Our doubts in this sense are unfounded but God is very kind and doesn't deal with us harshly, He wants to affirm this so that we can leave our doubts behind. If we choose to remain doubtful, we put ourselves in peril because we prefer disbelief.
One of the most problematic ways in which we do this is that we pretend that it wasn't God speaking at all. For example, to the Pharisees, the miracle-working saviour was someone who performed miracles with the power of Beelzebub. The reason we twist the working of God is because the truth is hard to accept, it means for us a wholesale change of how we live our lives. It is terrifying to accept that our lives are not our own and that we belong to God. It is also terrifying to know that we will eventually have to give an account to Him for all that we have done. It is for this reason that C.S.Lewis remained an atheist for so long but he accepted that he could no longer continue the lie and he had to admit eventually that God was God.
It may seem odd that I'm comparing the conversion of an atheist to the experience of a person who is already Christian. The simplest way to justify this is to say that man has had a fear of God since the fall in the Garden of Eden when our primordial parents first experienced fear. We always speak about God's search for man like He called out to us in the Garden to find out where man is hiding. C.S. Lewis says that man's search for God is a bit like a mouse's search for the cat. He only really wants to know where the cat is so he can run and hide. Being an atheist is simply the deepest, darkest corner a mouse can find to hide from the cat.
The Pharisees who mistook the source of Christ's power were probably certain in their own minds of the nobility of their conviction. It is only when the light of God comes that their doubt and their evil intentions are revealed as what they really are. Our minds often work consciously and subconsciously to resist accepting the truth. If you doubt a visitation of grace and choosing to mistake it for a placebo would be putting yourself onto shaky ground. Choosing this line of thinking may make us feel better, at least for now, but we need to give up our running at some point.
I'm also guessing from this thread title 'forgive my mocking and this offense' that you know deep down what you're asking is wrong but you've come on here to see if it can be defended and justified. I cannot aid you in such thoughts they will ultimately sabotage the goal you're seeking. If you are simply quoting Gideon then I suggest that you emulate his humility and understanding that he didn't want to offend God by asking such a request and was willing to accept if God didn’t want to do it.
All of this talk must seem quite far from your original concern so how is chastity available to us?
You must know deep down that the only way to have sexual purity is to acquire it in faith from Christ. What happened to you is more that what happened to Gideon. Christ emboldened Gideon with a miraculous example but Christ subdued your sinful nature. The gift he has granted you is greater than the gift he gave Gideon. Having nothing greater to give to us, God gives us Himself, His broken body and shed blood to heal our wounds.
Also know that what has been given to you is a true and tangible sign. The communion was called by C.S.Lewis big medicine and powerful magic because it does something to heal and transform us but we don't know what. It is for this reason that he also said the commandment is 'take, eat' and not 'take, understand'. If has a tangible sign from the Eucharist, this is very special, its not something everyone is given. Out of my own personal experience I have never had something like this happen. Like C.S.Lewis said, I take it on the basis of faith that such transformation occurs.
God gives to each one according to what they need and I guess God needed to demonstrate to you His power to transform your nature through the Eucharist rather than just telling you. You should cherish and remember this experience because God won't give these kinds of things to you all the time.
One of the sad things that happen to all of us is that we come to Church and it seems like such a lukewarm activity. A lot of this has to do with the condition of our hearts. St Mary in the Nativity narrative as recorded by Luke is mentioned as always keeping 'things in her heart'. What this meant was that she recognised every work of God was important so she was attentive to every experience God sent her. It is only in a fertile heart like this that God can perform such great works. If our heart is like stone we can come to the greatest sermon and be unmoved. Sometimes Church can be a habit that it just seems to be the same thing repeating over and over again.
All of Church life has been organised into cycles (daily prayer cycle, weekly worship cycle, annual feasts and fasts) all of this is because the message and life of salvation given to us is deep and the more time we spend going through the cycles the deeper their mysteries penetrate into us. Christ brings us newness of life through this continual cycle of our meeting Him in the Eucharist. For this reason every liturgy can be a completely new experience, it is not the liturgy which is old and stagnant, it is us when we stay in our sins.
When we're called to preach salvation we're told not to tell people about the 'Church'. If we're preaching the good news of the salvation of Christ then in a sense we're also proclaiming communion and the sacramental life. We might read the Bible all day and night but this pales in comparison to having a physical/tangible meeting with God in the Eucharist. Its not a matter of pride to say this simply because its not us doing it, Christ is. In the Church one of the most sobering prayers is the one said by the priest in the liturgy before we pray the 'Our Father' where we ask for the boldness and confidence necessary to say it. This prayer acknowledges that we can't even call God Father unless it is granted to us.
It is for this reason that the Orthodox must be the most humble people of all. Our privilege is bestowed on us as a gift. It’s a bit like when a woman takes credit for her beauty. In reality beauty is the product of her genetics not something that we accomplish so its hard to take credit for (unless you happen to be God). An attractive person has more reason to be humble than anyone else because they have received something without working for it.
The Church isn't a high-minded man's fort where he can go to look down on others; it is a hospital extending its arms out to the whole world to receive them gladly with open arms. One of my fathers used to say that preaching is little more than one beggar telling another beggar where they can go to find bread. I don't really know what it means for those outside the Church but what I do know is that we should do what we can to compel others to come inside too. The best way to do this is to take the blessings of the sacraments and using this life saving power to reach out to others.
It is also impossible to experience newness and sanctification in this life outside of the sacraments; if you wish to overcome a habit such as masturbation then you are setting yourself up for a fall without them. Remember, if the communion is the body of Christ the only reason we have it is because He gives it to us. Its not a proof of our greatness, its a proof of our spiritual illness and need for a cure. Only a sick man takes medicine, a person who is well has no need for medication.
Please pray for me,
LiD