Why do you worship?

If there were a god.
1. Why should I worship it?
2. Why would it be bothered?

Originally posted by wolfgang59
If there were a god.
1. Why should I worship it?
2. Why would it be bothered?

If you are married why should you love your wife? Why be bothered ?

The post that was quoted here has been removed

I am sure that you are not holding up marriages which have grown cold in mutual love as marriages to emulate.

Are those couples we all should seek to be like? Or should we seek to be couples who DO love one another ?

I think we should seek what would be most normal - lasting and faithful love.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
If there were a god.
1. Why should I worship it?
2. Why would it be bothered?

Nobody can like or love or "worship" another person until first coming to know them... within the human or spiritual realm. Original Post Questions becomes moot points if the option of knowing someone is summarily declined.

“You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words “compelle intrare,” compel them to come in, have been so abused be wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.” - C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

"In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don't." – Blaise Pascal

Originally posted by wolfgang59
If there were a god.
1. Why should I worship it?
2. Why would it be bothered?

I don't worship anyone nor anything. Why should I? I don't need to.

Originally posted by sonship
If you are married why should you love your wife? Why be bothered ?

A wife is an equal, one of my kind. A god is not.

I do not care if a bunch of ants worship me. Similarly, I don't see what's in it for a god, worrying so much about us worshiping him/her. Wouldn't it have a more interesting day hanging out with other god-like beings?

Originally posted by sonship
If you are married why should you love your wife? Why be bothered ?

If you cant answer the question just say so.

If you want to ask irrelevant questions start a new thread.

Lesson over.

Originally posted by wolfgang59
If there were a god.
1. Why should I worship it?
2. Why would it be bothered?

faith should not necessarily mean worship .

why not consider god as a caring observer?

Originally posted by sonship
If you are married why should you love your wife? Why be bothered ?

There is no 'should' involved. Either you love your wife or your don't. You never love your wife because you 'should'- that is not love.

One might say that you shouldn't get married if you don't love someone, but many people do seem to get married without love and who are we to tell them they are wrong?

Originally posted by twhitehead
There is no 'should' involved. Either you love your wife or your don't. You never love your wife because you 'should'- that is not love.

One might say that you shouldn't get married if you don't love someone, but many people do seem to get married without love and who are we to tell them they are wrong?

Originally posted by twhitehead
There is no 'should' involved. Either you love your wife or your don't. You never love your wife because you 'should'- that is not love.

Post of The Month (so far): Few have succeeded in describing uncoerced human volition with such unencumbered clarity.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

I would prefer to be in a marriage in which I could be loved and love with my whole heart. To be realistic, however, I know that both men and women often have to settle for other kinds of relationships.

If that is the kind of marriage you prefer than you really should consider giving your life over to the Lord Jesus. Because being forgiven yourself, you will be empowered to forgive. And it is usually unforgiveness which causes affection to dry up.

I have been married over 36 years to one very good Christian sister. But there are absolutely three parties in our marriage. She, and I, and the wonderful Lord Jesus are the three parties.

Just lest to ourselves we would be incompatible. But that wonderful Third Presence of the God in Christ in each of us builds us together - beyond the Eros, even beyond the Phileo into the divine Agape.

In Christ we have all three in a healthy way.

Now I will try to relate again back to the thread matter, if possible, because I digress.

In many, if not most, modern Western societies, isn't it *not* normal for a person to be married and stay loving and faithful to only one other person in one's lifetime?

That's cultural stuff. What is average is not normal.
I don't know about you but I would seek to emulate what is normal and not what is average.

I would seek the quality to want to be like rather than the quantity of the popular trends of degenerating relationships.

I would say one of the things which helped our early marriage was the encouragement of couples who had longer experience. When we hit bumps, those who had navigated their way through difficulties were of value to help us navigate through. So "community" I think is helpful. The older can help the younger.

These were couples in my congregation of fellowship. And we found that we also fulfilled that function to couples younger than us. Loosing community can make it difficult newly weds.

There's an analogy between marriage and religious worship.
Many couples stay together even when there's no longer love.
Many people keep going through their accustomed rituals of worship
(like attending church) even when they have begun to lose their faith,
sometimes even when they have lost all their faith

Yes Duchess. That's another hefty sad example of what we DON'T want to follow. I think you have a ample supply of negative examples to bring forth.

You see, when I embarked upon my spiritual life, I did not ask God to supply me with plenty of discouraging, sad, pitiful examples to hurt my faith. I therefore did not look around to see how many such people I could find.

Rather I asked God to send my way people who would encourage my faith. He was faithful in that request. So though I have seen in passing lots of things as you mention, I look for reasons to be encouraged.

With Christ every day is a new beginning. The past is under His precious blood. The future is unknown. I have God today to enjoy. I have this days measure of grace to experience.

Yes, the believers go through seasons - Springtime, Summer, winter, Fall, and Spring again. Sure, there are cycles. A key is to keep moving forward to enjoy God and not be stuck. And certainly not to remain stuck in the past, is the Christian's task.

God is a living Person. Divine Life is a living Person. And to simply love Him is the way to go on. And when our love is cold it can be warmed up by considering how His love for us is unfailing.

His love is like the sun behind the clouds. It never waxes cold or dim. It is only temporarily obscured by the clouds of our circumstances. We learn that whether a clear sky or a cloudy or rainy sky the sun blazes still.

So these seasons actually help us to grow and sink our roots deeper and deeper into Christ.

The post that was quoted here has been removed

One objection that I have to your (Sonship) posts is that you seem to ignore or dismiss all evidence that does not conform to your positions. You (Sonship) seem to act as though 'giving your life over to the Lord Jesus' should be sufficient in itself to insure happiness in marriage.
I have enough experience of this world to know that's untrue.

It is not that I dismiss instances of believers having problems at all.
Maybe I have seen just as many or more problems among Christians as you have.

You should not jump to a conclusion of naivete on my part. I do not consider the Christian public as some kind of utopian Disneyland. The letters to the Christians in the New Testament are fraught with problematic situations, obviously.

What I emphasize is not simply becoming a believer but being an overcoming believer as opposed to a defeated one.

And I might add that there are many "devout" religious folks who may not be experiencing the grace in Christ's indwelling presence. It is a free country here in the US and the number of pew attending devout people is not always the number enjoying God's grace inwardly.

But you can always expect me to speak of overcoming and being victorious in Christ as examples to look.

Proverbs 24:16 tells us of persistent going on - "For a righteous man falls seven times and rises up again ..."

Where I come from Christians are taught that when we fall we should not lie there for the rest of our lives licking our wounds in self pity. We should rise up seven times and get back in the race. Christ KNEW what we were before He saved us. Our failings are only surprises to us. We must get up seven times and get back into the race to enjoy victory in Christ.

If you want to look around for lots of signs to be cynical, you can.

You spoke before of your training in writing good English prose. You didn't throw in the towel because you saw so many other people writing in a mediocre way. You loved your craft and kept at it. Right?

Many of us Christians have the same attitude. We don't quite because there are lots of discouraging examples among devout believers. We don't shoot our wounded. We help them to get back in the race. We still love the victorious Lord Jesus.