The following is a letter my pastor received followed by his response.
"I don't usually write pastors of other churches for advise, but after
hearing some of your radio broadcasts, I feel like you may be able to
help. My husband and I have been married for over 25 years. God has
blessed us with a great marriage and 3 wonderful kids. My husband has
always believed he is a Christian but even a few weeks before we married
he shared his doubts about God. Over the past 25 years he has become
more clear in some areas and less clear in others. He cannot seem to
reconcile the God of the OT with the God of the NT. In the OT he sees a
God that is willing to kill entire countries at will and even commands
it to be so. He sees the God of the new testament as loving but I don't
think he has ever been able to get beyond a head knowledge of His love
for him personally and truly believe he is loved by God. He hears
people at church speak of "feeling" God's presence and has never had
that experience. It continues to be all head knowledge and that really
bothers him He doesn't understand the idea of "relationship" with God
when it all head knowledge and he can't feel or hear him in any way. He
has gotten to the point that he even doubts that he is Christian. We
have begged and pleaded with God to help him be certain, but to no
avail. He is constantly in the word and praying. He has sought
counsel, but really not found any answers. It doesn't help that we go
to a church that believes God did not not choose everyone, but only
some. We love our church, but that adds to the idea that God is mean
and vengeful. I don't believe in predestination the way my church
believes and they don't preach that from the pulpit, but it is the lens
through which my pastor reads the bible.
Since you have a such a great knowledge of the old testament, is there
anyway you would be able to help him see that God is love! My husband
is hungry for God to show up, but He has been quiet for a long time. I
see God at work and he has done a wonderful work in our kids, but my
husband's struggles are getting deeper and even causing some
depression. He seems weighed down by the world.
I would love any insight that you might have. I am sure you get a lot
of letters and your time is valuable, but as a sister in Christ, I would
be so grateful.
// Reply ***************************************
Thank you for writing. I really do appreciate it. I understand your
hesitation in writing about this, but please believe me when I tell you
that what you have said is not unusual at all. I do get a lot of
letters, and most of them sound just like the one you wrote. I am
presently broadcasting out of Denver, Colorado Springs, Los Angeles, San
Diego and now Dallas/Ft. Worth. Hundreds of thousands of people are
listening to the programs I have been able to produce through Living God
Ministries, and I have a reasonable estimate from past data that
approximately 156,000 people this year will experience significant life
change as a result of the programs that have already been produced.
Those changes are directly related to what you described.
I just started broadcasting in your area, but I know how to read the
internet traffic patterns to be able to say with confidence that you are
not alone. There are so many people who live in secrecy in your part of
the country, struggling with the issues you described and don't know
what to do. They are listening to me, and beginning to grow in their
faith, but they don't want to tell anyone yet. The implications of what
I have been broadcasting are substantial.
The first thing I am going to ask you to do is give me a chance. What I
mean by that is to seriously spend time in the radio archive I have
produced. This is going to take some time to work through, but I have
had so many people who have been through this that I can say with
confidence that what you would like to see happen will.
To be a little more direct, the people who are using the words,
"feeling" and "relationship" might be using those words to hide the fact
that they don't have any, "feelings" or "relationship" either. They can
be very intimidating, and make you feel really inadequate, but they
might very well be trying to elevate themselves by making you feel
small. This is not always the case of course, but it happens enough
that I thought it would be appropriate to mention it.
To reconcile some of the concerns between the God of the OT with the God
of the NT is going to take some time. I of course do not distinguish
between the God of the OT or the NT, but I do distinguish between the
two different covenants, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. The
answer to his concern is going to come from a better perspective of the
big picture. There are two areas to start in. The first area is the
subject of the Gospel. He needs to improve his understanding of the
problem between God and Humanity, and the solution God provided. The
second area is to understand the purposes and reasons for each
covenants. Once he gets a a solid understanding of these two areas,
something like the programs I did on suffering would be like a
defibrillator that will jump start him. So, the following from the
second section of the radio archive would be a suggested list to start with:
Everlasting Covenant
Everlasting Passover
The Gospel
How Will the Grace of God Guide Us
The Image of God
The Lamp of God
Suffering
If he makes it through these programs, the next step would be to take a
break and go through some of the programs in the first section of the
archive. Just pick some topics that seem unusual. Stay away from the
verse by verse studies in the third section of the archive for now.
After a break spending some time in the first section, he is going to
need to go through the series of programs on Forgiveness at the
beginning of the second section. Then get back with me.
A direct link to the archive page is the following:
http://www.newcovenantinstitute.net/living_god_ministries/radio_archive/index.htm"
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