I just had a thought that I have had a few times before but kept forgetting……When we have elderly parents, with alzheimers especially or dementia, there are times when if we told them the truth about certain things that they may ask us, it could cause them very detrimental discomfort or trauma, so we lie……..now if we were to follow the Bible black and white without exceptions, then we would be in sin and choosing to sin………..so would I be wrong before God for doing this so not to cause serious trauma to another human being or would it be an exception??????? God forgives you every time you say sorry, so when I do this every visit for the next 10yrs, Im choosing to lie, so will I be doomed to hell if I dont say sorry or get a chance to before I die or does God look at the heart of the matter????? Im sure anyone can see where I am going with this but its a legitimate question and I do believe one which falls into a grey area……so if that be the case then manyyyyyyyyyyyy people are guilty of this, so will mannnnnyyyyyy people be on the firey slide to the pit?????????? Any thoughts????????

(personally I dont think so)

Well, obviously, if you are already saved then you won’t go to Hell – it’s not like you need to repent the second before you die or else, sorry, it’s Eternal Damnation for you. 😀 The way I see it, if you’re saved you have a one way ticket to Heaven regardless of what you do, if you don’t it’s a one way ticket to Hell (whether or not you can lose your salvation is a different argument).

I think repenting is something we do only to re-establish our connection and devotion to God. I heard something once, years ago (so the specifics may be wrong), about the etymology of the word ‘repent’ – apparently it has something to do with ‘re‘ meaning ‘again’ and ‘pent‘ meaning ‘point’ (or something similar, at least). Therefore, if we repent to God, we are, literally, ‘turning back to God’ or ‘facing the point again’*.

Anyway, that’s just a side note.

Regarding the lying issue, as someone who – after countless ‘sex ed’ classes – is beginning to think that the stork thing was all just an elaborate prank, I believe there is a certain amount of leeway with cases like this. If I don’t exactly agree with out-and-out lies, I do think that it is not wise to be completely honest – omitting some of the truth, twisting it to make it seem a little better, or evading the question altogether are probably reasonable courses of action.

* Obviously, these are bad examples – it’s been too long and I can’t remember the exact phrases used.

I was wondering for the last while, what is it that stops us from feeling close to God or Jesus once we do accept our orientation? I know the many answers that have come through such as fear, rejection or hurt but what are they? Is it the church or God that we are angry with or fear? Is it the church and people that we are angry with or fear? Were we confident of Gods unconditional love for us not based on works or personality before we came out or took on our orientation? I believe this could be an interesting subject and one that could help bring possible paths to healing.

For me I grew up hearing that you could not be gay and Christian. Even though I read hundreds of books saying that it was ok to be gay and Christian I just couldn’t reconcile the two. Thus I had to reject one. When I came out it was Christianity. It wasn’t a sudden rejection of Christianity, or even necessarily a conscious one. It was a gradual one. I stopped reading my Bible. Originally I was going to MCC Melbourne but after a while I stopped going there. The only thing that really held me on was music. I loved listening to Hillsong music. I play the piano so I still played Hillsong music on my piano and worshipping that way. Eventually I stopped that as well.

As I have stated on this website before I am now agnostic. I would love to get a relationship back with God but my upbringing I think has just destroyed any chance of worshipping God as an openly gay man. I miss the worship, the social aspect of belonging to a church and my prayer life. There is a verse in the Bible that says that if any man has tasted of the kingdom of heaven and turns his back it is impossible to renew him to repentance. I fear this may be me. 😥

Its amazing what people will do in ignorance and its sad because it can deeply affect people for a long time. Over a different church is a bit silly to boot anyone, always amazes me 🙄 .

I dont believe anyone is beyond a possible reconnection, with the stories I have heard of people I know and what they have done, like full on satanic things, they could still reconnect, I think we have to forgive ourselves or come to a personal resolution and take a chance, step out and just do it, just start worshipping even if we fall to a heap on the floor in tears, no on can ever put God off, its us that usually puts us off but it takes time, one day we just come to a place where we just give in and say ok God Im here, no church no other person just me and you, lets talk……….its amazing what he does at a time like that.

The scripture you mentioned Mark I think just is saying that because we know how good it can be and once we kindve move away a little its hard because we self condemn, feel we dont deserve a second chance but truth is God is a God who always is ready to receive us back to where we left off as we are, I mean look at the prodigal.

Then again I know some people have very deep psychological scars to the point where they get anxiety attacks at the thought of even mentioning Gods name so its a hard basket sometimes. I have always found worship one of the most non threatening roads back to God, just singing or listening to music. I once had a sort of breakdown where I couldnt even look at my bible but after a while I was ok again (many years ago)

(I am not in any way siginifying a push on anyone to do what they are not comfortable with by anything I just wrote )

Heres another thought, I post here on F2B and people may get a hint to my beliefs or personality type but its just my writing not me in my presence, when you meet me you will get more of a full picture of me and who I am and where I am coming from. When I was talking to my g/f 😀 online before we met, we had an idea in our head about each other but the real test would be how we would be in each others presence. Of course we worked out but there were some I met and even though we got on famously online, in person they came across a little different and I understood them better and misconceptions were easily clarified and also I realised there was no way we could fit as a couple.

Now who is to say it isnt that way with the authors of the Bible. I’d say it would be pretty close. We may have an idea what these people were like but in meeting them it could be quite different and we could get a whole new meaning to things they wrote. Im not saying this to take away from the Bible but to add another dimension of understanding, I mean no matter what we hear whether from God or someone else a part of our nature will also creep into the recording of it. Just look at the gospels.

Its like until I sensed Gods presence, just reading about it had meaning but nothing like when I experienced it, I understood love and Him a little better and a feel for his character for myself, without someone elses interpretation and found there was no words that could fully interpret it anyhow without putting a part of myself into it.