Bettina wrote:I didn't mean to offend anyone
Heh. Don't worry about offending anyone. Just also don't be offended when we "true believers" try to respond.
Bettina wrote:The pedo priest who truly believes in god, and knows him to be true, yet has sinned for 40 years, can still do gods work while continuing to ask god for help with his sickness. In his final hours, he can still confess his sins and ask for repentance and have a good chance for redemption as long as he believes Jesus is the son of god.
Yes, I DO believe that even someone as EVIL and reprehensible as a priest who has sexually abused children can turn back to God and repent and be forgiven. But this means a WHOLE lot more than just mouthing the words "I believe in Christ", even if you REALLY believe it.
To reiterate what others have been saying:
Jas 2:19-20 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
It's not a surface thing, it has to be true repentance. And a true acceptance of Christ into their life in a way that will change, reform and renew that life. Nothing short of that will do.
I think you are trying to view heaven as a "reward", I know it's often been preached that way, but its an incomplete picture. It leads to confusion, such as you are stating above. Here you have lived a fairly decent life, and yet this lousy pedophile whom most of humanity (including myself) would have no problem burning alive, HE gets the prize? But its not the kind of prize you can earn. Heaven is wherever Christ is.
You could, after a fashion, say that getting to spend time with your own father is a reward for having been good. But that would be a VERY incomplete picture. The only reason it IS a reward at all is because you have a relationship with your father and you LIKE to spend time with him. If you didn't, it would be a punishment.
God isn't some evil miser up in heaven with a big score board putting down marks and hoping he can keep people out of heaven. God is begging ANYONE who will, to come to Him, and get to know Him, so that BEING with Him for an eternity would actually be a reward. You can't earn your way into heaven, no amount of good work, by itself, will make heaven a reward. The Pharasies followed all the "rules", but the certainly didn't want to spend time with Christ. And God will not FORCE anyone to spend eternity with Him who does not want to.
As C. S. Lewis said:
"There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done' and those to whom God says, 'Thy will be done.'" At the final Judgment, there are those who rush to Christ with open arms, because they WANT to be with him, and it wouldn't matter if Christ were in a pit of eternal fire and brimstone, as long as He were there, it would be heaven. But on the other hand, there are those who couldn't stand to be with Christ. It wouldn't matter to them if he lived in a perfect, green, beautiful place, as long as they had to be with Him, it would be Hell. And God won't force them to be in his presence if they don't want to be. They want NOTHING to do with God. And in the end, God complies and says "Thy will be done" to these people. He withdraws his presence from them entirely, and since His power maintained their very existence, that withdrawal result in their annihilation.
So you see, it's not about rewarding the good people and punishing the bad. It's about everyone getting what they want, and some people do NOT want to be with Christ.
Bettina wrote:I believe Jesus was similar to Billy Graham, a good guy that wanted to build a church but instead was crucified and buried.
Someone crucified Billy Graham! Oh My!
Sorry, couldn't resist injecting one small note of humor into this very serious discussion!
Seems to me you just repeated the same ridiculous statement you had made before about the pedophile priests. If you want to be serious about it, then I invite you to challenge your current perceptions about what you believe your church is and what it is telling you. It sounds to me like you are mistaken about many things. That's not a bad thing in itself; we all have room to learn and grow. But don't expect me to take you seriously if you are not willing to try to develop an adult level of spirituality.
