Matt 6:21. you can;t explain that

[Evil Otter]

Are you happy/fulfilled/satisfied/at peace? How?

Why do I ask? I used to be devout mormon. went on a mission and the whole nine yards, but during my mission I was miserable. I didn;t mind Argie-land. Argentines are actually great people but the mission and the missionary "companions" sucked. I hated it and came to the conclusion that either god didnt give a shit about me or didn;t exist. Either way no reason to keep on serving such a being.
Fast-forward two years later I'm a 24 yr old recent college grad that fancies himself a deist/pantheist (after having a falling out/getting fed up with the know-it-all atheist), meets a girl that's a nondenominational christian. She's the happiest person I've ever known and she attributes this to Jesus. But here understanding of Jesus is quite different then mine. At any rate I start reading the bible again and this is what I find:
"For where your treasure is, there your heart is also." (Matthew 6:21 in KJV). This is after her telling me that Jesus "wants my heart" not two years in a foreign country or ten percent of my pay check, etc.

What I lnog for most though is conpanionship. what's so rong about that/ If Jesus gave a damn where was he during fmy mish? why should i want him more than a companion? and even then how would I even do that?

p.s. i'm drunk so fuck typos hooray fr honey jack

 

[Snoopy22]

Mormonism and Christianity may look similar they but are quite different, and where was Jesus during the Roman persecution of Christians? Believe in God because you believe in God, not for companionship (you risk damage to another's life), especially if you lead someone to believe you have faith when you do not in an effort to keep them around you. The Sermon on the Mount talks a lot about what we could and should be as individuals (among other things), a being capable of living on two planes, a finite physical and also an infinite spiritual (my view).

Of course, boozing it up and posting on a typology site will most likely not impress most Christian girls, unless she’s into fix up projects. Then you’re the one in trouble .

 

[ceecee]

Are you happy/fulfilled/satisfied/at peace? How?

Yes. Probably because I don't feel religion and happiness are correlated. I make my own happiness, surround myself with people who make me happy and have a satisfying relationship because of that.

 

[Lark]

First of all I'll tell you that, in my experience, deep thinking when you've been drinking and are intoxicated leads to unsound and unsatisfactory conclusions, you should give consideration to all these things again when you're sober.

Also, there's a lot of what's in your post that corresponds to psychological/temporal needs, happiness, companionship, relating, find solutions to those things and then approach the spiritual questions after that.

Random passages from the bible will not help you with that, at the very least confirmation bias is going to be operative, this is something I've never understood about the so called "bible christians" and protestantism's solo scriptural traditions they are wide open to problems, greater problems than were ever associated with the "authority and tradition" they arose in contra-distinction to.

I'll be very clear with you here though, concluding that God doesnt exist or doesnt give a shit about you because of your experiences doing missionary work makes about as much sense as supposing that your father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, 2nd cousins dont exist or give a shit about you. I've gone back and forth musing about whether or not God is concerned about the minutia of my day, sometimes it seems so, sometimes it doesnt seem so but deciding questions about God's existence on that basis would be a bit much, you wouldnt reach decisions about cosmology, physics, chemistry or any of the other disciplines which have identified forces extranuous to man and governing his existence on that basis.

When you consider that at the time of Capurnicous or Gaileo the Church worried about how man would handle not being the centre of the universe they neednt have worried because most people are still thinking like that despite the evidence, as if man, and in particular themselves, are the centre of things.

 

[Lark]

Yes. Probably because I don't feel religion and happiness are correlated. I make my own happiness, surround myself with people who make me happy and have a satisfying relationship because of that.

Happiness can be over rated, practically most people live as though this is the case, or at the very least they forfeit immediate and greater surity of happiness for future and hypothecated happiness, consider pregnancy for one instance of this.

In my own experience, although I'd not say anyone needs to accept it should be the same for them, religion is necessary but not sufficient for happiness in the here and now.

 

[Lark]

Yes. Probably because I don't feel religion and happiness are correlated. I make my own happiness, surround myself with people who make me happy and have a satisfying relationship because of that.

Happiness can be over rated, practically most people live as though this is the case, or at the very least they forfeit immediate and greater surity of happiness for future and hypothecated happiness, consider pregnancy for one instance of this.

In my own experience, although I'd not say anyone needs to accept it should be the same for them, religion is necessary but not sufficient for happiness in the here and now.

 

[citizen cane]

 

[ndovjtjcaqidthi]

OP is sleeping. Sweet dreams OP.

Don't drink and post people.

 

[swordpath]

THE BIBLE IS AWESOME.

 

[Totenkindly]

At any rate I start reading the bible again and this is what I find:
"For where your treasure is, there your heart is also." (Matthew 6:21 in KJV). This is after her telling me that Jesus "wants my heart" not two years in a foreign country or ten percent of my pay check, etc.

Well, based on the translation, what this says to me is that, whatever you value (whatever you consider your "treasure", that is where your attention and love and focus goes. And Jesus is saying that in context of "treasuring heaven." IOW, it's a discussion of commitment and focus, not getting something you want or being happy per se. The main benefit of treasuring heaven, according to this passage, is that it cannot be taken or destroyed.

I have no clue what your female friend thinks this verse means or how it impacts her choices or what she has said to you.

What I lnog for most though is conpanionship. what's so rong about that/ If Jesus gave a damn where was he during fmy mish? why should i want him more than a companion? and even then how would I even do that?

I know i'm reading between the lines here; but chances are, if you're dealing a non-denom Christian, she is prioritizing Jesus, so if she thinks you're a distraction to doing what she thinks Jesus wants or you force her to make choices between you and her faith, she's not going to pick you. And her comment is saying that Jesus wants you to be in a relationship with him, versus just off 'doing good things' somewhere. There's a story about Jesus getting together at the home of Mary and Martha, and Martha works in the kitchen while Jesus is talking while Mary sits at his feet; Martha has a kind of ESFJ approach and gets kind of mad that she's doing all the work while Mary is just hanging out with Jesus, but Jesus tells Martha that Mary's doing the right thing in spending time with him rather than just working (which people can do all the time, but he won't always be around). That story fits kind of with what she is saying.

As far as "happiness" goes, there is happiness that she might have because of who she is that you can't share because your happiness comes from elsewhere -- she can be happy with having faith and believing everything will work out and having this "relationship" with God, but it might be something you might not feel happy living with in your own life, you find happiness in other ways. There's also happiness that people experience that they attribute to God, that might not come from a divine being at all but simply comes from being matured and centered.

Having a relationship with Jesus to me is kind of all internalized. You talk to Jesus like he's a person. You care about Jesus like a person. You try to do what you think Jesus would do as if he were right there. But the thing is, and I know you already see it, is that you can't be sure that Jesus is there or whether you're just talking to yourself. People either choose to believe that they are relating to someone or they decide they are not, but essentially it all happens inside of you. Some people don't feel alone, with that kind of relationship; they feel that it's real.

 

[ndovjtjcaqidthi]

The Bible is trash.

 

[netzealot]

What I lnog for most though is conpanionship. what's so rong about that/ If Jesus gave a damn where was he during fmy mish? why should i want him more than a companion? and even then how would I even do that?

What you see in your friend is joy, not happiness. Real joy does not go away through hardship, pain, and suffering, unlike happiness, which many people try to obtain through having what they want and favorable conditions. Joy is one of the "fruits of the Spirit". Think how a tree grows from a seed and eventually has fruit. The seed is God's spirit living in people, and the fruit is qualities of God's character, like joy. There is also peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22)

The reason you crave companionship is because God created people for relationship with Himself. However, humanity broke that relationship in the Garden of Eden. The mission of Jesus was to bring us back into relationship with God, and He did this by coming to earth in human flesh, payed the price of sin by dying in our place, then rising from death having cancelled the penalty for all believers. Jesus is God, and since He came to us and died in our place (death could not be avoided since it is a fair penalty) we are now able to have relationship with God once again since Jesus stands in our place for all eternity.

Consider the story of Jesus... God, adding to His divinity, flesh, and being born of a virgin in a stable along with cows and sheep and such. He lived a very ordinary life as, essentially, a blue collar worker. After a few years of teaching, He allowed himself to be put to death because the religious leaders did not believe who He was, and by allowing this, God forgives anyone who believes. If you consider any man-made religion and compare it to the Gospel, it's pretty obvious that religions are made by people, what we thinks God is (which often something that we are able to become too--the serpents lie). The truth about what God is like is shown perfectly in Jesus, and even when He walked the earth many who knew who He was thought He should act differently (for instance, saving them from the Roman occupation rather than saving their eternal souls). Ultimately, "truth is stranger than fiction"... no person would have thought God would save humanity the way He did.

God wants a relationship with you. I think what you are feeling and what you notice about your friend shows that He is trying to get your attention. What He offers is a gift--it cannot be earned, only received. See the evidence visible in the life of your friend... if that is something you want, I suggest you ask her how you can have it too.

 

[Lark]

The Bible is trash.

Stay classy swordpath

 

[swordpath]

Stay classy swordpath

Hah.

I didn't mean it.

 

[Honor]

First of all I'll tell you that, in my experience, deep thinking when you've been drinking and are intoxicated leads to unsound and unsatisfactory conclusions, you should give consideration to all these things again when you're sober.

Also, there's a lot of what's in your post that corresponds to psychological/temporal needs, happiness, companionship, relating, find solutions to those things and then approach the spiritual questions after that.

Random passages from the bible will not help you with that, at the very least confirmation bias is going to be operative, this is something I've never understood about the so called "bible christians" and protestantism's solo scriptural traditions they are wide open to problems, greater problems than were ever associated with the "authority and tradition" they arose in contra-distinction to.

I'll be very clear with you here though, concluding that God doesnt exist or doesnt give a shit about you because of your experiences doing missionary work makes about as much sense as supposing that your father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, 2nd cousins dont exist or give a shit about you. I've gone back and forth musing about whether or not God is concerned about the minutia of my day, sometimes it seems so, sometimes it doesnt seem so but deciding questions about God's existence on that basis would be a bit much, you wouldnt reach decisions about cosmology, physics, chemistry or any of the other disciplines which have identified forces extranuous to man and governing his existence on that basis.

When you consider that at the time of Capurnicous or Gaileo the Church worried about how man would handle not being the centre of the universe they neednt have worried because most people are still thinking like that despite the evidence, as if man, and in particular themselves, are the centre of things.

I'm not a Christian, but I'm going to go with Lark on this one. To decide that God doesn't care about you because of your experience on your mission trip is essentially saying "if I have an experience in which my needs are not met, it means God doesn't exist because God would always want my needs met." I don't know of anyone who has always had good experiences on Earth, so if you believe that, then I guess it follows that you don't believe in God.

I think one of the major goals of all major religions is trying to explain to people why they can't get what they want even when it seems they ought to. It's an age old question and one that doesn't really have an answer (at least one that will make people happy and feel like life is meaningful) unless you ponder the supernatural. So, it seems like you're missing the point. I say re-visit your conclusions about your mission trip and look into how different religions explain suffering.

 

[Totenkindly]

What you see in your friend is joy, not happiness.

Let's be honest: You don't even know his friend.

Yet people feel comfortable describing what she must be like, from so very little information, based on their own personal beliefs about faith.

THE BIBLE IS AWESOME.

This edit made me laugh.

 

[netzealot]

Let's be honest: You don't even know his friend.

Yet people feel comfortable describing what she must be like, from so very little information, based on their own personal beliefs about faith.

The OP can decide whether what I said resounds with his experience.

 

[Dufflepud]

Honestly, my take on it is this - belief is not a choice. Worshipping, praying, following the tenants of a religion, etc. are choices, but actually BELIEVING something is entirely involuntary. I, personally, could never believe in a god unless one were irrefutably (given the knowledge we posses at the time) proven to exist. I'd love to go into the details of my beliefs as an atheist (although, I'd like to believe, rather unlike the type that you're "fed up with"), but my point is simply that you shouldn't convert to this girl's religion simply to be with her - only do so if you are capable of actually believing in it. I would ask her if she is willing to persue a relationship with someone who won't convert.

Regardless of what you believe, and at the risk of sounding somewhat cheesy, I hope that you find happiness.

 

[Evil Otter]

What you see in your friend is joy, not happiness. Real joy does not go away through hardship, pain, and suffering, unlike happiness, which many people try to obtain through having what they want and favorable conditions. Joy is one of the "fruits of the Spirit". Think how a tree grows from a seed and eventually has fruit. The seed is God's spirit living in people, and the fruit is qualities of God's character, like joy. There is also peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22)

The reason you crave companionship is because God created people for relationship with Himself. However, humanity broke that relationship in the Garden of Eden. The mission of Jesus was to bring us back into relationship with God, and He did this by coming to earth in human flesh, payed the price of sin by dying in our place, then rising from death having cancelled the penalty for all believers. Jesus is God, and since He came to us and died in our place (death could not be avoided since it is a fair penalty) we are now able to have relationship with God once again since Jesus stands in our place for all eternity.

Consider the story of Jesus... God, adding to His divinity, flesh, and being born of a virgin in a stable along with cows and sheep and such. He lived a very ordinary life as, essentially, a blue collar worker. After a few years of teaching, He allowed himself to be put to death because the religious leaders did not believe who He was, and by allowing this, God forgives anyone who believes. If you consider any man-made religion and compare it to the Gospel, it's pretty obvious that religions are made by people, what we thinks God is (which often something that we are able to become too--the serpents lie). The truth about what God is like is shown perfectly in Jesus, and even when He walked the earth many who knew who He was thought He should act differently (for instance, saving them from the Roman occupation rather than saving their eternal souls). Ultimately, "truth is stranger than fiction"... no person would have thought God would save humanity the way He did.

God wants a relationship with you. I think what you are feeling and what you notice about your friend shows that He is trying to get your attention. What He offers is a gift--it cannot be earned, only received. See the evidence visible in the life of your friend... if that is something you want, I suggest you ask her how you can have it too.

Thank you for this, and yes what you've said does resonate with me. I actually already had another chat with her and, after receiving a figurative slap in the face when I realized how selfish my thinking had been, I decided to follow the advice of Viktor Frankl, "happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself... I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge."

Right now it's telling me to give God another chance in my life (nay-sayers aside, it's not their life). So that's what I'm doing but from an entirely different perspective than I did as a Mormon. I don't know if it was just me or the religion (probably just me) but back then I still had a very "I do stuff for God and God does stuff for me" mentality (then again, it is a very legalistic religion, so maybe it was the churches teachings). Now I'm trying to drive it into my head that it's not about me, rather "let go, and let God." Instead of getting pissed off when something doesn't go my way I'm trying to take a step back, realize that I did what I could (or didn't as the case may be), that I'm upset because I'm a selfish being, and then let it go because it's not about me.

 

[Forever]

I'm not a Christian, but I'm going to go with Lark on this one. To decide that God doesn't care about you because of your experience on your mission trip is essentially saying "if I have an experience in which my needs are not met, it means God doesn't exist because God would always want my needs met." I don't know of anyone who has always had good experiences on Earth, so if you believe that, then I guess it follows that you don't believe in God.

I think one of the major goals of all major religions is trying to explain to people why they can't get what they want even when it seems they ought to. It's an age old question and one that doesn't really have an answer (at least one that will make people happy and feel like life is meaningful) unless you ponder the supernatural. So, it seems like you're missing the point. I say re-visit your conclusions about your mission trip and look into how different religions explain suffering.

I like what you said Honor. I am a Mormon/LDS. I am having a hard time on my mission, but I don't blame God for my trials. It's not like the option of not going home isn't there or anything. The Mormon faith really emphasizes that you grow with trials, it's all perspective. Now I don't want to make you go back to the church or anything, but that's the way I see it. I have had some really crappy companions too. Although some of them, now that I think back, they just really had different views on things, some of them I really wish that I could change, and totally not saying I have the same trials as you did either, so I hope you're content in the way life is going now if the whole Mormon thing ain't working for you. It's really tough being in it as an INFJ. Really, but I do know that feeling when God is looking out for me.