Atheism, Secularism, Religiosity vs. a Spiritual Attitude: A challenge

[Felix Florimon]

Atheism, Secularism, Religiosity vs. a Spiritual Attitude: A challenge to the SDA Church

Atheism is a world view where God is not necessary but something created out of human imagination in order to understand why things came into existence. Atheism is a very strong impediment for the advance of Jesus’ teachings because those beliefs are considered as false beliefs by atheistic minds.

Secularism is a line of thinking where the here and now plus proven human experience shapes our thinking and human behavior. All atheists need to take a secular approach to the world; however, a secularist does not need to be an atheist. A secularist only feels that God has nothing to do, cannot or should not be approached regarding our daily physical needs and our human to human interactions. However, even in the Seventh Adventist Church we may take a “secular” approach to many of Satan’s actions. For instance, we pray and talk regarding how to avoid getting the “mark of the beast” regarding Sunday’s laws but we keep our mouths shut and don’t even pray that Satan stops using fictitious “civil rights” as an impediment to teach Jesus’ gospel here in this nation and throughout the world.

Religiosity: A very strong devotion to religion or set of beliefs, set of rules derived from one’s best understanding regarding the nature and origin of the world we live in. When we become too religious, we become an impediment to the advance of Jesus’ message to the world because we may try to use our own subjectivity of our religious views as the standard through how we measure the validity of the subjectivity of other people.

A spiritual attitude: Shows concern about how much a better world we could accomplish through God’s help and how bad things occur when our thinking and actions become separated or divorced from God’s help.

I feel that the Seventh Day Adventist Church and all those who believe in the Second Coming of Jesus are becoming very poor teachers of Jesus message to rest of the entire world because we have a tendency to take either a very religious or a very secular attitude to our doctrines regarding what is going to happen toward the end of the world but don’t pray enough for God’s intervention so the impediments created by Satan against preaching God’s word could fall down. We just preach when we find an audience willing to hear. However, we don’t feel any inclination to be more aware of the impediments against the advance of Jesus’ gospel and to fast and pray so those impediments could be taken down by God.

It is good to pray for own physical health, the health of those we love and for own family relationships because God’s name is glorified when those prayers are answered by Him. However, we need to understand that we are part of a 2,000 years old movement that began when Jesus said: “…All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20.

I feel that the greatest threat against the fulfillment of Matthew 28:18-20 is based on events that have taken place in the USA during the last 50 years. Jesus said that “all authority in heaven and earth has been given” to Him. Satan is fighting against what Jesus said by trying to take our own awareness and the whole earth away from the reality of Jesus in our lives and prayers regarding on how should interact with the outside world. This is why I am requesting prayers first for ourselves so that our eyes could be opened and see what is really happening in the outside world and when God opens our own eyes and minds then we will be enabled to pray for the rest of the world.

http://clubadventist.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/524480.html#Post524480

FF

[olger]

Roy Gane told me in 2008 that our colleges are churning out atheists by the score.

?????????????

[Gibs]

F F,

Yes all is put in Jesus Christ's hands.

ALL, Please read these few verses and think them out, they are extremely revealing,

1Co 15:24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.

1Co 15:25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.

1Co 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

1Co 15:27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.

1Co 15:28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

Surface reading never gets to the deeper things He has for us.

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[Neil D]

Roy Gane told me in 2008 that our colleges are churning out atheists by the score.

?????????????

such verbal sentiments are enough to show disloyalty to the educational institution he is with, along with disloyalty to the church, betrayal of trust that the church has given to Roy Gane....Since I went to school and know him from college days, and since I an familiar with the educational SDA institutions and thier philosophys, I find this remark somewhat slanderous of Roy. Unless Roy has been infected with some bitter experience from the Institution, I doubt these words...or that he even uttered them....

Would you like to revise/revisit the time he expressed concern over our graduated students and tell us EXACTLY what he said and the context in which he said something?

[Felix Florimon]

Gibs,

We should keep in mind five things:

1) Jesus

2) Prayer

3) How Jesus used prayer in such a way as to have the Father interacting with people’s needs and concerns in a timely way and on “real time.” Since by nature our human mind is trained to think in a secular way, this means by our own repetitive human experience also shared by many others, those interactions of the Father in “real time” were considered “miracles” like the resurrection of Lazarus, feeding 5,000 men without counting women and children, etc.

4) How Jesus used prayer in John 17:20-21: “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” Jesus even prayed for people who had not accepted the gospel, many of them were not even born. Jesus even prayed “that the world may believe that” He was sent by the Father. Jesus prayed for people that were not yet having any interaction with Him or with His disciples. He also prayed for giving the world the ability to believe in Him.

5) How very limited use we have of prayer. When I go church, I see my faithful brothers and sisters just thanking how God was able to spare them from illness or from a very difficult situation through their prayers and through the help of the prayers of others who were requested to pray for them. Regretfully, the Devil is taking great advantage because we just feel happy with our very limited success in praying to God in Jesus’ name but we are not praying like Jesus did when He prayed: “that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

According to the Apostle Paul, God sees our bodies as a temple of the Holy Spirit, in secular terms we could say that our bodies are seen as God's embassy on this world and we should be ambassadors of God to the world. This means that besides learning how to get our desires, thinking and actions in tune with God’s government, we should also pray that God begins to take down all those impediments preventing a positive answer to Jesus’ prayer in John 17:21 that the world could truly believe that Jesus was sent by God the Father.

FF

[Gibs]

F F, All so very true,

Jesus said many times that He was sent,

Joh 6:57 As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

I especially like this verse, it reveals so much of the relationship HE has made it possible for all of us to have.

Joh 17:21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

Another verse that is revealing and there is more than just this one showing with certainity that He was God with us,

2Co 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

Another favorite comes to mind,

Ac 20:28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

And Paul's statement that runs with the Words of Jesus, Joh 17:21 above,

Col 1:27 To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

We are truly blessed!

1Jo 4:4 ¶ Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

[olger]

11-21-2008.

Not bitter - just concerned as all of us should be.

Feel free to email me at wriapplications.com