Is it possible to get my faith back?

[PossibleThrowawayAccount]

That is the Fear of God that accompanies unrepentant sin in His presence.

For me these feelings don't come from unrepented sins, they come from the poor hand God has dealt me. Even if I were repented from my sins I would still feel like he hates me.

 

[Sabertooth]

Even if I were repented from my sins I would still feel like he hates me.

“Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?
If you do well, will you not be accepted?
And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door.
And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” Genesis 4:6-7 NKJV

 

[PossibleThrowawayAccount]

“Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?
If you do well, will you not be accepted?
And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door.
And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” Genesis 4:6-7 NKJV

For what it is worth I used to be a very devout Christian and did do good but even with all that my life still got worse.

 

[Sabertooth]

...and did do good...

"Doing good" in this context means repenting.

You said,

As horrible as it sounds, I believe that God genuinely hates me and will likely send me to Hell no matter what I do.

Even if I were repented from my sins I would still feel like he hates me.

And

If you do well, will you not be accepted...?

Who are you going to believe more, yourself or God?

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths." Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV

 

[PossibleThrowawayAccount]

Something must have gone wrong somewhere if I had deep faith before a bunch of events stifled it.

 

[Sabertooth]

Something must have gone wrong somewhere if I had deep faith before a bunch of events stifled it.

Ya think...?

 

[PossibleThrowawayAccount]

Ya think...?

You don't have to get mean about it.

 

[Scott Downey]

In an attempt to steer this conversation back on topic, it doesn't matter if being gay is a sin. As horrible as it sounds, I believe that God genuinely hates me and will likely send me to Hell no matter what I do. I can't even begin to think that God loves me and it wouldn't matter how holy I am or how I live my life. It feels like he wants to destroy me and that he does not want any kind of relationship with me.

In reality some of what you said is fake news.
God commands all mankind to repent and believe, if God did not care about you at all he would not have said that.
Read this
Acts 17
24 God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.

30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent,
31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”

Yes it does not matter how holy you live your life to get into God's favor, that is not faith but works. And God justifies those who have faith. God is the one who changes us so that we live a sanctified life, not us.

Romans 4
What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.

5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, 6 just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works:

7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
And whose sins are covered;
8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”

 

[Sabertooth]

You don't have to get mean about it.

I wasn't going for mean.
In this thread, you have lamented your loss of faith.
And God has met you here. If you want your faith to resume growing, you will have to turn away from your own ways in favor of His.

“No one can serve two masters;

for either he will hate the one and love the other,
or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other."​

 

[PossibleThrowawayAccount]

I wasn't going for mean.

Sorry, it felt otherwise.

And God has met you here. If you want your faith to resume growing, you will have to turn away from your own ways in favor of His.

It isn't so much my ways as much I have a hard time feeling like God actually loves me. Yes, I know what the Bible says about the issue but God has never actually seemed to meet me half way personally.

 

[dhh712]

That is a fair point but odds are even the best of Christians can die being unrepented of some kind of sin.

If it is a conscious sin, and homosexuality is a sin as it is clearly revealed in God's word (and that is not homophobia--I was once transgender, a gay transgender so I don't see how it is possible for me to be homophobic), it must be repented of. There is the modern idea that homosexuality is not a sin in God's word--this is twisting Scripture to make it say something which God has not said. There is no outward harm done unto others in homosexuality unlike murder or adultery but it is still against God's commandment (in first Corinthians, the sin committed there was also one of sexual immorality; the offender was excommunicated from the church until he repented).

I hope our Heavenly Father will reveal to you the error of your ways and lead you to repent of this lifestyle. There are many, many Christians who were once homosexual and have repented of this sin and no longer lead this lifestyle (yes, it may not be a choice to have this attraction but it is a choice to engage in it). There is nothing I nor anyone else can say that will cause this change in you; only God can make you see that this is a transgression against his commandment and therefore will cause your relationship with him to suffer.

In an attempt to steer this conversation back on topic, it doesn't matter if being gay is a sin. As horrible as it sounds, I believe that God genuinely hates me and will likely send me to Hell no matter what I do. I can't even begin to think that God loves me and it wouldn't matter how holy I am or how I live my life. It feels like he wants to destroy me and that he does not want any kind of relationship with me.

You already know that is not true because Jesus said that whoever comes to Him He will in nowise cast out. Life is very short. Would you really exchange what momentary pleasure you can find in this life (which as you already know isn't that much) for the promise of eternal joy with God? Even if you feel nothing but misery in this life, it is well worth it for eternal happiness afterwards.

And you're right--God doesn't love you because you are or were a certain way; that is not how it is or was with any of us. He loved us first, when we were enemies to him and couldn't do anything else but hate him. It is response to his love that we amend our lives. As Jesus said, "If you love me, obey my commandments". He didn't mean that he would love us if we obey his commandments, but out of this love for him grows our obedience to his word. We should find joy in serving Him.

It appears that you are suffering in your walk with the Lord because you are not utilizing the means of grace. If you do not fill your mind with God it will quickly be filled with something else. Some non-believers accuse believers of being "brain-washed"; I always reply that I would rather be brain-washed by God than by the world. Those are the only options there are.

Whatever reasons you have to not go to church, read the Bible and pray the most important thing in your life right now, like literally a matter of life and death because that really is what is going on, is for you to find a way to change that. Any actual Bible believing, Christ-centered church would not shun you because you're gay. They would most definitely welcome you. I would start there and whether or not you want to read the Bible I would force yourself to. Praying is really, really difficult even for many if not most believers; if anything, say the Lord's prayer daily for a start.

I hope you will take our advice seriously into consideration. As I said, this life will be over before you know it (even if you live for several more decades, the end will seem like just a few years, if even that, have passed) and then you will stand before God. The most important thing anyone can do in their life is to make sure that they are in Christ at the time of their death.

 

[PossibleThrowawayAccount]

I am going to say one more time that I am not going to change myself to be straight, not that I could. My orientation doesn't need to keep being brought up. No matter what anyone says I am going to maintain that being in a relationship would make me closer to God and could lead to our tattered relationship to being healed, if it can be.

Being gay has nothing to do with my broken relationship with God which was destroyed by two things:

1. God makes bad things happen to me
2. God treats my enemies like kings.

this is a transgression against his commandment and therefore will cause your relationship with him to suffer.

My relationship with God already suffered as much as it is going to and not because of any alleged "sin". Like I said, God doesn't want a relationship with me. I am sure he hates me and he will probably send me to Hell regardless of what I do or don't do.

 

[dhh712]

My relationship with God already suffered as much as it is going to and not because of any alleged "sin". Like I said, God doesn't want a relationship with me. I am sure he hates me and he will probably send me to Hell regardless of what I do or don't do.

You can believe that, but it's not in God's word. God has never promised us any temporal blessings in this life, rather he has promised that we will suffer in this life. The only reason you feel that God hates you is because of the events in your life. That is you going off of what you see and feel and not trusting in God's word. When my husband passed away unexpectedly after only a couple years of marriage, should I not come to the conclusion--were I to base that off of what happened to me and how I feel--that God hated me and did not want me to be happy? That would be an easy conclusion to come to; however God says in his word, "All things work to good for those who love the Lord and who are called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). Therefore, for me to think that God hates me and wants my life to be ruined is to trust in my feelings more than trusting in God's word.

As I said before, it is impossible for God to send you to Hell unless that is the choice that you yourself make. He calls you to come to Him and if you turn to Him he will not drive you away. Turning to Him means to develop a relationship with Him and abide in Him; you really can't do that without acting. To remain idle and wish God would reveal more of Himself to you without taking any action is futile. Like I mentioned before, going to a Bible-believing, Christ-centered church and reading his word and praying should be things you are endeavoring to do as though your life depended on it because in actuality, it does.

 

[ShineTheLight]

PossibleThrowawayAccount, are you born again? Do you have the Holy Spirit? This determines if you truly have God and the son Jesus Christ.

 

[Lambano]

All right, who saw some of these plot turns coming?

Something must have gone wrong somewhere if I had deep faith before a bunch of events stifled it.

I don't know, man.

I never did like the book of Job. My "read the Bible from cover to cover" program came to a screeching halt when it hit Job. But this passage jumps out at me:

9 Then Satan answered the Lord, “Does Job fear God for nothing? 10 Have You not made a fence around him and his house and all that he has, on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. 11 But reach out with Your hand now and touch all that he has; he will certainly curse You to Your face.” (Job 1:9-11)

It's easy for me to trust God when I'm in reasonably good health, I've got a roof over my head, more than enough food in the fridge, a loving wife, and plenty of toys to play with. I'm kinda scared God might ask haSatan, "Have you considered my servant Lambano?" I might find out how shallow my faith really is.

Adversity reveals how deep (or how shallow) our trust in God really is.

I did find it interesting that in the end, seeing God was sufficient for Job.

I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;
But now my eye sees You (Job 42:5)

You didn't ask for prayer, but I said one for you anyway.

 

[Pearl]

For what it is worth I used to be a very devout Christian and did do good but even with all that my life still got worse.

Unless you are really born again you can be as devout as the pope but it means nothing without the rebirth. Perhaps you are just in a temporary 'wilderness' and you need the guidance of the Holy Spirit to get out of it. But to keep on saying and thinking that God hates you will get you nowhere. You should repent of that and stop believing those lies of the devil. Instead you should believe what the bible tells you.

WHO THE BIBLE SAYS I AM IN CHRIST JESUS

I am complete in Him Who is the Head of all principality and power (Colossians 2:10).
I am alive with Christ (Ephesians 2:5).
I am free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).
I am far from oppression, and fear does not come near me (Isaiah 54:14).
I am born of God, and the evil one does not touch me (1 John 5:18).
I am holy and without blame before Him in love (Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:16).
I have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16; Philippians 2:5).
I have the peace of God that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7).
I have the Greater One living in me; greater is He Who is in me than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).
I have received the gift of righteousness and reign as a king in life by Jesus Christ (Romans 5:17).
I have received the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus, the eyes of my understanding being enlightened (Ephesians 1:17,18).
I have received the power of the Holy Spirit to lay hands on the sick and see them recover, to cast out demons, to speak with new tongues. I have power over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means harm me(Mark 16:17,18; Luke 10:17,19).
I have put off the old man and have put on the new man, which is renewed in the knowledge after the image of Him Who created me (Colossians 3:9,10).
I have given, and it is given to me; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, men give into my bosom (Luke 6:38).
I have no lack for my God supplies all of my need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19).
I can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one with my shield of faith (Ephesians 6:16).
I can do all things through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:13).
I show forth the praises of God Who has called me out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).
I am God’s child—for I am born again of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, which lives and abides forever (1 Peter 1:23).
I am God’s workmanship, created in Christ unto good works (Ephesians 2:10).
I am a new creature in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).
I am a spirit being—alive to God (Romans 6:11;1 Thessalonians 5:23).
I am a believer, and the light of the Gospel shines in my mind (2 Corinthians 4:4).
I am a doer of the Word and blessed in my actions (James 1:22, 25).I am a joint-heir with Christ (Romans 8:17).
I am more than a conqueror through Him Who loves me (Romans 8:37).
I am an overcomer by the blood of the Lamb and the word of my testimony (Revelation 12:11).
I am a partaker of His divine nature (2 Peter 1:3,4).
I am an ambassador for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20).
I am part of a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a purchased people (1 Peter 2:9).
I am the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21).
I am the temple of the Holy Spirit; I am not my own (1 Corinthians 6:19).
I am the head and not the tail; I am above only and not beneath (Deuteronomy 28:13).
I am the light of the world (Matthew 5:14).
I am His elect, full of mercy, kindness, humility, and longsuffering (Romans 8:33; Colossians 3:12).
I am forgiven of all my sins and washed in the Blood (Ephesians 1:7).
I am delivered from the power of darkness and translated into God’s kingdom (Colossians 1:13).
I am redeemed from the curse of sin, sickness, and poverty (Deuteronomy 28:15-68; Galatians 3:13).
I am firmly rooted, built up, established in my faith and overflowing with gratitude (Colossians 2:7).
I am called of God to be the voice of His praise (Psalm 66:8; 2 Timothy 1:9).I am healed by the stripes of Jesus (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24).
I am raised up with Christ and seated in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:6; Colossians 2:12;).
I am greatly loved by God (Romans 1:7; Ephesians 2:4; Colossians 3:12; 1 Thessalonians 1:4).
I am strengthened with all might according to His glorious power (Colossians 1:11).
I am submitted to God, and the devil flees from me because I resist him in the Name of Jesus (James 4:7).
I press on toward the goal to win the prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward (Philippians 3:14).
For God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, love, and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7).
It is not I who live, but Christ lives in me (Galatians 2:20).

 

[PossibleThrowawayAccount]

I spent the day thinking about it and I am probably just going to do what I mentioned before and just abandon religion until/unless my life gets better. I can't be thankful to god or think he loves me (even if the Bible says otherwise!) when my life is so terrible. Maybe I will keep my account to let you all know if it ever gets better, I don't know...

 

[Pearl]

I spent the day thinking about it and I am probably just going to do what I mentioned before and just abandon religion until/unless my life gets better. I can't be thankful to god or think he loves me (even if the Bible says otherwise!) when my life is so terrible. Maybe I will keep my account to let you all know if it ever gets better, I don't know...

Are you going to abandon religion - well that's okay. But if you turn your back on Jesus that is wrong.
Have you ever asked Jesus into your life? Have you ever given your life to him? If not then you have never been a Christian. So, think carefully about it all. It sounds to me from what you have said previously that you have never been born again. And until you are you will never have that peace that transcend understanding.
Trying to live upto God's standard without the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit is pointless and impossible so no wonder you are in a mess.
Give it all up and seek to know Jesus - He will make all the difference to your life. Trust in Jesus the Christ, our God who died for us and rose again so we could also experience eternal life. But only if you come to Him.

 

[Lambano]

Maybe I will keep my account to let you all know if it ever gets better, I don't know...

Please do, because I actually do care.

In the meantime, the next step is yours. You own it. We'll see what step God will take after that.

 

[dhh712]

But if you turn your back on Jesus that is wrong.

Because Jesus is the only hope there is in this life. Even if your life does get better, ThrowAway, I hope you realize how quickly it goes by. Do you realize that before you know it, you will be standing before God? This life is meaningless without trusting in Jesus. I'm not sure how you got the idea that God gives us a good life here (but I hear there's a lot of that health and wealth gospel out there). That's not the God you'll be standing before but a figment of someone's imagination.

I really hope you will turn to Jesus before it's too late. All of us on here hope that. We hope that you will be with us at the feast of the lamb, where there will be no more sadness or pain or dying and where God himself will wipe away every tear; and all this momentary suffering that we experienced here will be far surpassed by the eternal bliss that awaits us when this brief life is over.