@Ghost-of-a-Duke
I said the Lord convicted me and this caused me to take some action. An atheist then asks me -
How did He do that?
If you want this kind of experience -which is every bit as available to you as it is to me or anyone, first tell the Lord that you love Him.
Start by dropping you "God does not exist" lie and tell Jesus that you love Him as your Lord.
"Lord Jesus. I have many problems with Christianity and all that stuff. But Lord, I love You. Lord Jesus I love You as my Savior."
And then you should stay with the love of Jesus as the best love, the topmost love, the "first love" of your life.
What is money compared to Jesus?
What is fame compared to Jesus?
What is even the whole world compared with Jesus?
What are atheist friends compared to Jesus Who died for me?
Don't listen to the accusation that to love the Lord Jesus by speaking this is wrong. It is the place to START. You want to know how to get God's leading and speaking? He has been trying to get through to you that He loves you and that He came to die for you to save you from your sins.
You can come with a weak heart and many intellectual problems and still say -
'Lord Jesus, Lord, I love you. I want Your speaking. I want Your leading. I want Your guidance. I know you will not drown me with obligations. I know you are as a tender loving mother. Yet you are holy and absolutely righteous even in Your gentleness. Lord Jesus, I love You."
Soon there will be no problem for you to learn His voice and guidance with practice Ghost.
Advice for the ones who say - "But I don't love God. But I cannot say I love Jesus because I simply don't."
Understood. Completely understood. We've been there too.
My suggestion is that if you cannot tell the Lord Jesus that you love Him that you begin to tell Him that HE LOVES YOU. Like this.
"Lord Jesus, I just don't love You. Lord there are plenty of things I love more than God. But Lord, I read about you in Luke, in Matthew, in John and Mark. Lord You loved me. Lord Jesus I see that You loved me. Lord thankyou that You love ME."
Jesus is an unusual and yet true living Person. And if you begin to acknowledge that He loved YOU, soon you will be saying "And Lord, I love You back. Even if a little, Lord Jesus I love You too."
Remember now how many times I have written this.
"the last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45).
Yes, it is unusual.
Yes it is even supernatural.
But it is true. It is true truth.
Christ in resurrection is somewhere at the highest peak of the universe. He is at the right hand of God in the third heavens. But He also "became a life giving Spirit".
Jesus Christ became in a form in which He can impart His own life INTO your life.
He is in resurrection "a life giving Spirit".
God stands behind this personality. God infuses this NAME of this living Person with all pervading reality. Jesus is available. Jesus became the "life giving Spirit". Jesus can live an interwoven and mingled life WITH you.
"He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. 6:17)
@sonship saidThe question still stands. 'How' did He convict you and how do you differentiate between your own thoughts/guilty conscience, and divine instruction?
@Ghost-of-a-Duke
I said the Lord convicted me and this caused me to take some action. An atheist then asks me -
How did He do that?
If you want this kind of experience -which is every bit as available to you as it is to me or anyone, first tell the Lord that you love Him.
Start by dropping you "God does not exist" lie and tell Jesus that you love ...[text shortened]... "[/b]
Soon there will be no problem for you to learn His voice and guidance with practice Ghost.
And I don't love Jesus as my lord. The only 'lie' would be if I pretended I did.
@sonship saidIf God does not exist, then my answer is 'everything.'
What is money compared to Jesus?
What is fame compared to Jesus?
What is even the whole world compared with Jesus?
What are atheist friends compared to Jesus Who died for me?
@sonship saidWith practice sonship you can learn to understand that any thoughts or words in your own head are entirely your own.
Soon there will be no problem for you to learn His voice and guidance with practice Ghost.
@Ghost-of-a-Duke
You don't even have time after 368 days and turn around and say "Thankyou God."
You cannot think of one thing for which you could conceivably be grateful to God?
NOTHING.
How do you do that ???
You ask me how I can get the Lord leading.
And I likewise ask you how you can be so totally ungrateful to God.
Mutual perplexity here.
@sonship saidI do not believe God or gods exist. Please explain how I can be ungrateful to nonexistent deities?
@Ghost-of-a-Duke
You don't even have time after 368 days and turn around and say "Thankyou God."
You cannot think of one thing for which you could conceivably be grateful to God?
NOTHING.
How do you do that ???
You ask me how I can get the Lord leading.
And I likewise ask you how you can be so totally ungrateful to God.
Mutual perplexity here.
And where does the 368 come from?!
@ghost-of-a-duke saidThats one year according to Witness Lee.
And where does the 368 come from?!
@sonship saidNothing matters but the keeping of the commandments.
@Rajk999
That is a good passage also.
But the letter to the church in Ephesus in Revelation shows that it is possible to leave the first and best love for the Lord Himself, even though the Christian has zeal, and discernment and others things.
[b]"I know your works and your labor and your endurance and that you cannot bear evil men; and you have tried those who ca ...[text shortened]... edication in a religious way. But they had left their first love for the Person of the Lord Himself.
God is not fooled with your shallow words. Christ is not a prostitute that you can fool with empty words of love and affection, or material things. Those who keep the commandments, [chief of which is brotherly love] will reap the reward of eternal life in the Kingdom of God.
Anything else is dead faith.
@sonship saidThe Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.
Oops. 365 days a year.
Thankyou Lord for those extra 3 I added by mistake.
@rbhill saidThat is right when we set out mind on the regenerated spirit and walk according to this. Christ lives out His life from within us in a mingled way, fulfilling the just requirement of the law.
@sonship
In Christ you fulfill the law.
"That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit." (Rom. 8:4)
The law is kept not through our outward endeavor or in the strength of our natural man. But because Christ as the Spirit has been joined to the human spirit. From within He can train the Christ lover to follow Him. His life and nature cannot but be well-pleasing to God. In fact the mind set on the fallen nature, whether on its good part or bad part, is a mind at enmity with God.
"For the mind set on the flesh is death, . . . Because the mind set on the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God." (6a,7)
The key is the Holy Spirit within our human spirit. Of course Paul pioneered into the realm that Jesus spoke of as being possible after His resurrection.
"Yet a little while and the world beholds me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you also shall live.
In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you." (John 14:19,20)
What tremendous agreement between Christ and His apostle Paul.