I have a confession to make

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Stuart

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Believing in the ressurection is the easiest thing ever.
is it? I know i shouldn't question, maybe my faith is not as strong as i thought.

If you don't believe in the Resurrection, then I'd stop taking communion immediately.

1 Corinthians 11:29-30 NLT - "For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God's judgment upon yourself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died."
i will ask my pastor if i have been at fault when taking communion, i havent questioned his resurrection before not until now, maybe i am not convinced i will see heaven or be with god one day, i read only a few get into heaven. Idk if i will be one of the few :( i dont feel like i have led a Life worthy of his house.

I can provide both types of evidence if you so desire.
God will provide me with answers when he see'ss fit, i am a bit of a slow learner though, i am like a snail and i worry i wont ever be 100% faithful in this life or be able to read the bible in its entirety (i am not a very good reader) :( it is also very hard for me to digest. my soul must be a little hardened like clay needing siftened to be shaped accordingly, I am trying to belive i am probably one of the worst disciples of his,, not quite Judas though :(
 

friend of

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is it? I know i shouldn't question, maybe my faith is not as strong as i thought.

It's simple really. Do you believe Jesus is God incarnate? If so, then you simply have to believe that He is omnipotent (can do all things) and there you have it.
 
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Stuart

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It's simple really. Do you believe Jesus is God incarnate? If so, then you simply have to believe that He is omnipotent (can do all things) and there you have it.
Its strange bc i believe jesus broght back Lazarus but atm it feels like God could not do that for his only son :( i havent read enough about it so i need to learn but it is very slow process for me and it has taken a long time for me to get to the stage that i am at just now.
 

friend of

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Its strange bc i believe jesus broght back Lazarus but atm it feels like God could not do that for his only son :( i havent read enough about it so i need to learn but it is very slow process for me and it has taken a long time for me to get to the stage that i am at just now.

John 10:18
 

soul man

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I confess that i am not totally convinced that Jesus was resurrected, i would like to believe that but i seem to not have a strong enough faith as to believe that it could happen, i question its validity but i realise that he was a great man and i still believe he was the son of God, I believe most of the Word but the Resurrection is hard to digest for me.

If you believe the word, why is believing in the resurrection so hard to believe in. You have a prophecy, a virgin birth, a death, burial. That is alot to believe in if you will. Why "resurrection" so hard to believe in? Jcurious
 
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JohnDB

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Oh...so you are looking for eternal death instead of life...

Okay....thought you were going to admit to being one of the lizard people running the world.
 

Stuart

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If you believe the word, why is believing in the resurrection so hard to believe in. You have a prophecy, a virgin birth, a death, burial. That is alot to believe in if you will. Why "resurrection" so hard to believe in? Jcurious
thats a good question and idk, i cant answer that just now, i'll have to pray about it some how and read more, right now i am so busy it is hard to find time to reaad even with my bible at my side.
 
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kcnalp

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I confess that i am not totally convinced that Jesus was resurrected, i would like to believe that but i seem to not have a strong enough faith as to believe that it could happen, i question its validity but i realise that he was a great man and i still believe he was the son of God, I believe most of the Word but the Resurrection is hard to digest for me.
Romans 14:9 (NKJV)
9 For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
 

kcnalp

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His spirit lives in us all if only more would recognise that
If you can't believe this then how can you believe any of the Book of miracles called the Bible?

Romans 14:9 (NKJV)
9 For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living.
 

soul man

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thats a good question and idk, i cant answer that just now, i'll have to pray about it some how and read more, right now i am so busy it is hard to find time to reaad even with my bible at my side.

Ok thanks you are honest about it.
 

Berserk

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Stuart
If you don't want new evidence for the resurrection that you haven't yet considered, why did you create this thread in the first place? How can we be helpful? I'm unfortunately coming to the conviction that you are just another insincere troll.
 
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soul man

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I see you are new kid, you can't believe in a virgin birth and not believe a resurrection. I knew it smelled fishie haha Stuart get a job you have to much time on your hands. I thought the newbie's had that on their Avatar? I won't talk to a newbie until the gang has dissected them lol Stuwart your in trouble their on to you.
 
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keithr

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I confess that i am not totally convinced that Jesus was resurrected, i would like to believe that but i seem to not have a strong enough faith as to believe that it could happen, i question its validity but i realise that he was a great man and i still believe he was the son of God, I believe most of the Word but the Resurrection is hard to digest for me.

There are a lot of things that can be hard to believe, because we don't have the knowledge to understand how it could be done. But we should believe God, and God's word to us which is the Bible, and trust that He is not lying to us or making things up! Faith is belief in God's word, even if we can't understand how God does the things that He does.

"Without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to him, for he who comes to God must believe that he exists, and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him." (Heb 11:6).

As the apostle Paul said, "By faith, we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not been made out of things which are visible" (Heb 11:3). So he's saying that we realise (by our faith in God) that the whole universe was created by God, and that it is made up from invisible things, e.g. atoms and energy and light. When we learn that the electrons orbiting around an atom can only orbit in fixed orbits, or energy levels, we may wonder why that is, and why it operates in a digital manner rather than analogue. Why do they obey those laws? If they didn't then the universe would be completely different, but what makes the electrons behave in that manner? And how did the various parts of atoms come into existence? There is so much we don't understand about it, yet we clearly realise that the universe exists, and there had to be a creator.

Likewise we don't understand how a resurrection can take place, as it implies that apart from our physical bodies there must be something else that is who we are, that is not physical. Otherwise if our body is completely destroyed, and returns to dust, if God created another body, even if it was identical to ours and He implanted our memories and personality into the brain, it still wouldn't be us - it would be a clone. So we reason there is perhaps a spiritual part to us that continues to exist when we die, in an unconscious state, which God can clothe with a body and restore to consciousness. The trouble then is that we have no understanding at all of what a spirit being is. Scientists suggest that spirit beings, such as God, angels and demons, exist in extra dimensions which we don't have access to, and therefore we can't have any understanding of. We just have to accept that there are some things that we cannot understand while we are human. As Paul again puts it (1 Cor 13:9-12):

"For we know in part, ... but when that which is complete has come, [i.e. after he has been resurrected as an immortal spirit being] then that which is partial will be done away with. ... Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known."

So one day, after we have been resurrected, we may then learn and understand how God can resurrect a dead person and restore them to life. But we can believe now that God is amazing and when He says, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isa 55:9), He is not exaggerating!

So in the meantime don't worry and stress about it, for the important thing is that God has called you and that you have some faith, and realise that the faith you have is from God who is working in you - "for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God" (Eph 2:8).

I think when we become a Christian most if not all start out having faith and belief in God's word, yet we still have some doubts. I think that it's difficult to have 100% faith unless we have a personal experience that proves to us the existence of God. I used to have 99.9% belief in the Bible, but there was still that tiny nagging doubt that it could all be a fabrication by men (highly unlikely, but possible). So I used to pray that God would increase my faith. Eventually He did increase my faith to 100%, although perhaps not in the way I expected! I developed a back problem (I had on a couple or so occasions had a similar problem, which got better after about a week, but on this occasion it didn't get better and lasted for 4 months). Eventually I heard that an evangelist (Rheinhard Bonnke) was visiting my home town so I went along to the meeting. At the end of the meeting Rheinhard said that it was too crowded for him to call people up on stage for him to pray for, so he said if anyone would like a healing from God they should raise their hand. So I raised my hand. He then prayed a very short and simple prayer, something like, "Father please heal those people who have raised their hands, in Jesus' name please heal them now." After about a second or so I felt a tingling feeling start at the top of my head and fill downwards, filling my torso but not going down my arms or legs (later I realised that the sensation filling my brain and spine made logical sense). It felt like it was something coming down from directly above me and entering into me. It was a wonderfully pleasant tingling type of sensation - very enjoyable! It lasted for perhaps 10 to 15 seconds and then gently faded away. The meeting then ended and we left, and outside opposite the building were some steep steps. I went up the steps two or three steps at a time to test my back, and just as I thought, my back had been healed! :)

Like a resurrection, I have no idea how God healed my back, but I know that He did heal it, and it was proof to me of God's existence. The previous night He also spoke to me, interrupting a nonsensical dream. It was similar to if you recorded over some music on a tape recorder and played it back. There was a dream, then a short silence followed by the three words "nine one nine", then another brief silence followed by the nonsensical dream continuing as if it had been been uninterrupted. It startled me so that I woke up. I decided I must look up page 919 in my Bible the next day. I kept forgetting while I was at home and had access to my Bible, but remembered 3 days later! I only had one Bible at that time, a paperback NIV which was formatted like a modern book (not in two columns). When I looked at page 919 it was a right-hand page and starting at the top was the start of a new chapter. It was Isaiah 58, and as it was a NIV it had a heading at the start of the chapter to give a brief summary of what it was about. Now the evening before the words were spoken to me while I was dreaming, we had a Bible study in my home, just me, my younger brother and his fiance, and the assistant pastor at the church that I eventually started attending. At the end I asked the pastor if he could explain fasting to me, because I was struggling to understand the logic of it. I had been trying to understand it for ages but nobody could come up with an explanation that made any sense to me. Likewise this pastor's explanation didn't make sense to me. But the heading at the top of page 919 in my Bible said, "True fasting". I then realised that the "nine one nine" was God answering my question about fasting!

So in the same day God had helped me understand something mentioned in the Bible and then healed me of a back problem. I don't understand how He healed my back, nor how He was able to speak words into my thoughts, but He did. And I now fully believe and trust that God can also resurrect people, as He has promised in His word to us.

So I encourage you to believe all the Bible, and if you do you will believe that Jesus was resurrected to life again by God. A few decades after Jesus was resurrected he sent an angel to the apostle John to give him a vision, which John wrote down and it became the book of Revelation. In it he wrote that Jesus said, "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore" (Rev 1:18), and "And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive" (Rev 2:8).
 
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farouk

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"...if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Romans 10.9-10)
 
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Stuart

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"...if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
I always believed in the resurrection, i always believed that he came back, now i realise i should not question the means in which it happened.

For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Romans 10.9-10)
Thankyou farouk, you are a good man :)
 

2nd Timothy Group

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It is God who grants the gift of being able to believe. Belief in the Lord isn't something we choose . . . the Ability to believe is a gift.

Philippians 1:29 NKJV - "For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake . . ."

If you believe; if you have the Faith of Abraham (and only THAT Faith), then you are of the Elect. It means that you are from Above and not from Below. This gift Faith is what the Promises and Blessings of Abraham are based upon . . . to believe is what it means to have received a new Heart and Spirit. It is through the reception of these Promises and Blessings that puts us into a right relationship with God.

Ezekiel 11:19-20 NKJV - "Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, 20 "that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God."
 

soul man

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That is very Rude Berserk, i take great offense at your insinuations, I've had a good response up until now.

So you still haven't really said how you can believe a little virgin girl got impregnated by a ghost, and not believe a Resurrection. People come back from the dead all the time so what seems to be the deal. Can you give a run down on that,? The beginning of the story seems harder to believe than the end of the story imo for skeptics.
 

keithr

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Philippians 1:29 NKJV - "For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake . . ."
Well quoted. :)

Ezekiel 11:19-20 NKJV - "Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, 20 "that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God."
However, I think this quote is less relevant, because it is referring to God bringing the Israelites back to Israel in the latter days, and so it applies only to Jews in Israel. A bit of context [WEB]:

17) “Therefore say, ‘Thus says the Lord Yahweh: “I will gather you from the peoples, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel.”
18) “‘They will come there, and they will take away all its detestable things and all its abominations from there.
19) I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you [them]. I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them a heart of flesh;
20) that they may walk in my statutes, and keep my ordinances, and do them. They will be my people, and I will be their God.