Christian Self-image
You also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:11)
For … when we slip into an old-man way of living, we are living contrary to our true selves; we are denying our true self-image. Paul does not say in Romans 6:11, “Consider yourselves to be mostly alive to God and mostly dead to sin.”
What he says is, “Consider yourselves dead to sin and live to God.” This, then, must be our Christian self-image.
We must consider ourselves to be new persons in Christ, who have once and for all turned our backs upon the old self, and who therefore refuse to be identified with it any longer.
(Anthony Hoekema, The Christian Looks at Himself, 55)
May 23, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Common-sense dictates you should believe in god because you have nothing to lose if you do and everything if you don’t, according to Christian teaching.
This requires the introduction of faith into one’s psyche. With the absence of fact or evidence we are in fact going against our basic instincts.
The cave man walks into an unexplored cave with a lighted torch because it’s a fact bears sleep in caves, his missing relatives are evidence of the same. He has learnt that the fire keeps him safe, this is who we are, and how we have prospered as a race.
There is no evidence that anybody’s God has helped us to be where we are today, on the contrary.
In contradiction to the safest bet, believing in God, I would like to point out that believing in a greater good we have to accept that a greater evil also exists. I don’t want to be afraid of the dark, why should I be, unlike the caveman I know why the dark happens, the earth’s not flat, I’ve seen the photos!
Many of those that don’t believe know that what we have is all we have and we should just make the best of it. When a person straps a bomb to him or herself that person believes they are going to a better place.
If we take away religion we have one less reason to kill each other, if there were a God I’m sure he would wish to remain anonymous knowing what a bunch of fools we can be. Or perhaps he’s still crying over the enormous blunder he made in telling some of us he exists and that’s the reason for rain!
Just try to be the best person you can be, don’t expect reward. We have that capacity, WHAT WE DON’T HAVE IS ACCESS TO ACCURATE INFORMATION TO DO ANYTHING ELSE.
Thank you