#mormonism #believe #faith Can a Christian believe and not follow Christ? Dave explains how to know and love Christ more and to be assured of being saved by him.
It's always a pleasure to see you Dave and watch your videos. I've been a subscriber since 2017 and I wondered what happened to Lee Baker? Is he a christian or an atheist out of the church now?
Hey Dave I found your videos. I myself have practiced meditation for years now and love insights I received. I am a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I find your videos useful but cannot understand why you ever left the church. With years of meditation and going to every single Christian church around, and before this being an atheist. I have never found anything that gives me confirmation of fire in my belly the same as the LDS church. I love Buddhism, Various sects of Christianity, but nothing even comes close to the spiritual confirmation I received in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Most of this I entered as a reply down below but I just wanted to post it here for anyone else struggling with leaving the LDS Church. I'll say this, leaving the church was one of the most heart rending experiences. My wife started digging into the church, CES letter and some of Joseph Smith's prophecies and basically dragged me out. I didn't want to leave but I can't go back. To be honest we basically took a year off and then she dragged me and the kids out to look for a new church. With the intention that we would go look and we wouldn't stop looking until we found one that was right for our family. We were blessed to find a home in the first one we went to. Now I really understand what you're saying about the Trinity. On the face, it seems like more fuzzy logic. You've just jettisoned open contradictions and fuzzy logic and twisting your mind into a pretzel to believe something that just doesn't make sense. Been there. Done that. Got the tee-shirt. And for someone raised LDS the Trinity is on its face just another mind pretzel we've got to believe in and take on faith, this when it doesn't make sense on its face and right after faith has been broken or so bent and battered the difference seems minute and indistinguishable. I mean Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there's three but on one level they're one. But now they're aren't exactly three but really there is! And its not one in purpose like you've been taught LDS! Or what have you. To be honest I had to ask myself two questions. Was every experience I had with the holy spirit and jesus just a figment of my imagination, a self-delusion, or was there actually something there. If there was something there, then having left the church, was I just going to give up or was I going to keep looking. At the same time, the Trinity as explained by Protestants really doesn't resonate with someone raised LDS. Its another mind pretzel, another box you have to force yourself into, in order to 'believe'. Or at least that's how it seems on the face and even after some more than just surface level digging. In the end. For me. It was two things that let me move forward. One, is I gave myself permission to believe the way I currently was, even being wrong, up until god could show me the way. Two, I had to at least be able to look at the non-LDS christian understanding of god as Trinity/Triune etc and see a door that I could see a rational person fit through without needing to turn into a mental-pretzel person again and maybe someday that could hypothetically be me. This took some searching. I'm attaching below the best explanation on the non-LDS christian view on the Trinity I've found to date. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fL2q_Mg-D58.html
As a former LDS christian I'm also going to share a non-inclusive list, just off the top of my head, of some of the most frustrating things trying to reconcile joining a non-LDS christian denomination. The insistence, mainly online, that God as I'd understood him most of my life was so very different from God as they understand him via the bible, the real god as it were, that I've basically been worshiping another god entirely. I assure you at no point have I ever felt I was worshiping the spagetti monster dressed up as god, nor was I worshiping satan in disguise. To my mind, If God was an indestructible unchanging Statue that anyone can gaze upon, then all I've done, by leaving the LDS faith, is pulled off the cloak and funny hat that had been put on him and then taken a hammer and knocked off all the plaster, paint and other non-pure parts of that had been added over top the statue that weren't necessary or weren't really him, revealing that underneath all the dross, the paint, all the unneeded, unnecessary or outright misleading things I'd thought I'd known before was the same true god I'd always been looking towards my whole life. I mean I've literally been following Christ all my life that I can remember, searching after him, knowing him to my best understanding. But oh no no, that wasn't the real jesus. See you had all of the true teaching but because you had some wrong teachings you never really had him, you had someone else. Say what? Now that doesn't mean that I don't need to listen to Jesus, humble myself and make myself like a child again as I'm relearning everything. I have to be open to discovering what parts of what I knew that was right and what I knew that were outright wrong or misleading. But ya-know Christ is there for everyone. And on the one hand you listen to music or people in person saying let me tell you about my jesus, or let me tell you about our god. And then in the next breath say that you don't have the real jesus and you're worshiping another god. Another way non-LDS Christians can be frustrating. Is how they want to embrace Paul with open arms, specifically his saved by faith alone passages. While basically putting James in a carefully constrained box. As a former LDS member James speaks to me. He makes a lot of sense. I get the need to reconcile the two, but one book I read on faith, back when I was exploring the differences in the afterlife, and at the same time struggling the worst to reconcile James and Paul, did a great job of explaining the non-LDS Christian view of things and then when I eagerly got to the part about reconciling Paul and James what did I see? It basically boiled down to, this can be too confusing at times to fully illustrate so its best to avoid it if possible. Well gee-thanks. And just as quick as they are to side unreservedly with Paul and carefully box James out of certain areas. So they are with quoting Paul when it comes to apostasy issues, adding or removing from the bible etc. I'm not intending to gloss over paul. There are carefully thought out positions and what not that do appear on the face to apply to the LDS faith. But just as they are quick to embrace paul and box up james. So are they to eagerly embrace Paul on false teachers and while seemingly forgetting to apply Jesus himself. Such as in: “Now John answered Him, saying, “Teacher, we saw someone who does not follow us casting out demons in Your name, and we forbade him because he does not follow us.” But Jesus said, “Do not forbid him, for no one who works a miracle in My name can soon afterward speak evil of Me. For he who is not against us is on our side. For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” Mark 9:38-41 NKJV I'm going to take a break for now. As I think I might be losing the point.
I worry that it's difficult to get past the 1st level without becoming a monk and dedicating every waking moment to prayer. Most of us living normal daily lives find it too easy to become distracted.
You absolutely have to be a follower to be saved: "If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
Wrong, if a believer does not abide in Him (His Word) that believer will NOT know the Truth nor be free, although that believer has the gift of eternal life. His Word is where our victory and peace comes from.
@@3BadBostons I beg to differ. If you believe but do not abide in Him, you are like a branch which bears no fruit. You should know what happens to those branches!
@@MGBetts1 I do know what happens to these, it is not eternal separation from God, it is loss of fellowship and blessings, imagine life without God, would be a fire
Commanded to be perfect ? In the greek translation I believe they use the word complete. To me that word to me tells me about a merciful God. He allows us time to complete the process of repentance which is designed to help us in the right direction. Repentance ? Acknowledge that you have sinned. Make restitution. Ask forgiveness from the one(s) hurt in any way. Then ask God for His forgiveness. In anything where we obey God , it causes us to feel good; to feel peace. He lets us feel His love. This is the process that leads us to love Him and know Him until we are found worthy to enter into the prescence of Christ. He will then teach us and instruct us personally until we are free from all sin and then take us to God the Father. This is the full meaning of knowing them, and obtaining eternal life. Jn 17:3 : And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. ( Jn 14:6, I am the way,the truth,and the life, no man cometh unto Father , but by me.)
I would that you or anyone else would have to follow God and also be reborn by a Pastor or Priest. After that people who are reborn and following Christ get the Holy Spirit and Christ lives inside of a reborn person's heart.
Question to you Dave. In Church on Sunday we had a family living in Bulgaria and said that people there are mainly in the religion of Orthodoxy. The person went on to say that don't use the King James Version of the Holy Bible and have different practices of how to follow Christ.
Why would the KJV be used by non-English speakers? The Orthodox Church uses the Septuagint (LXX) for the OT, and Septuagint translations for those who cannot speak Greek. The KJV uses the Masoretic Text which is much younger than the Septuagint and less accurate, and even its oldest version is missing a few books of the Orthodox Biblical Canon, and missing a Psalm. Plus the Psalm numbering for us is LXX. The Orthodox Study Bible for English speakers has an NKJV NT and St. Athanasius Academy Septuagint translation OT. Typically the NT versions used in the English speaking Orthodox churches are KJV, NKJV, EOB, and RSV-Extended for the NT and a Septuagint translation for the OT.
Washington State becoming the first state to legalize human composing your thoughts on this please it happened in 2019 and the state of Oregon is now signing up for this also from everything I could find
A thought. Straight up get alone, and ask God to explain himself as if you were a 10 yr. Old. Then get 1599 Geneva Bible that puritans used, that revolutionary war soldiers used, and 100 %guaranteed God will do it. Listen from your heart to his, it will be wonderful. A tip. Take analytical thinking away, replace it with heart love thinking. God is love. Read psalm 23 "the Lord's loving heart is my shepher etc. Every place bible reads lord, Jesus, God, put the words "loving heart" or "compassionate heart" and see what you think. Fun experiment.
I'm an ex-mormon. I'm trying to figure out stuff. I'll never go back to mormonism. The trinity doesn't make sense to me. The God of the old testament is not a God I want to worship. I'm trying to figure out the Jesus part of things. I don't know if he's historically real. If he is, I hope he was a good guy. I'm rereading the 4 gospels and life of Jesus and trying to figure it out. I don't believe in the resurrection though. I hope for an afterlife where my spouse and I can be together. But I don't know. I just don't know anymore. I'm open to advice though. Which bible is the one you'd recommend? The King James version is what I'm use to but it has that Shakespeare style of text. It's just hard to read, ya know? What makes one church better than another? How will I know I can trust the church leadership? I'm currently listening to the Secular Buddhism podcast and I'm enjoying the principles I'm learning. They're good on a mental health standpoint. I miss the mormon church ward family community I left but when my faith unraveled, I no longer felt I belonged. I haven't gone church hopping in my town yet but I'm considering it. Any advice? Thanks.
New King James Version modernizes much of the archaic shakespherian prose. I'll say this, leaving the church was one of the most heart rending experiences. My wife started digging into the church, CES letter and some of Joseph Smith's prophecies and basically dragged me out. I didn't want to leave but I can't go back. To be honest we basically took a year off and then she dragged me and the kids out to look for a new church. With the intention that we would go look and we wouldn't stop looking until we found one that was right for our family. We were blessed to find a home in the first one we went to. Now I really understand what you're saying about the Trinity. On the face, it seems like more fuzzy logic. You've just jettisoned open contradictions and fuzzy logic and twisting your mind into a pretzel to believe something that just doesn't make sense. Been there. Done that. Got the tee-shirt. And for someone raised LDS the Trinity is on its face just another mind pretzel we've got to believe in and take on faith, this when it doesn't make sense on its face and right after faith has been broken or so bent and battered the difference seems minute and indistinguishable. I mean Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there's three but on one level they're one. But now they're aren't exactly three but really there is! And its not one in purpose like you've been taught LDS! Or what have you. To be honest I had to ask myself two questions. Was every experience I had with the holy spirit and jesus just a figment of my imagination, a self-delusion, or was there actually something there. If there was something there, then having left the church, was I just going to give up or was I going to keep looking. At the same time, the Trinity as explained by Protestants really doesn't resonate with someone raised LDS. Its another mind pretzel, another box you have to force yourself into, in order to 'believe'. Or at least that's how it seems on the face and even after some more than just surface level digging. In the end. For me. It was two things that let me move forward. One, is I gave myself permission to believe the way I currently was, even being wrong, up until god could show me the way. Two, I had to at least be able to look at the non-LDS christian understanding of god as Trinity/Triune etc and see a door that I could see a rational person fit through without needing to turn into a mental-pretzel person again and maybe someday that could hypothetically be me. This took some searching. I'm attaching below the best explanation on the non-LDS christian view on the Trinity I've found todate. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fL2q_Mg-D58.html
