From: Petch@gvg47.gvg.tek.com (Chuck Petch)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Efficacy of Prayer
Date: 10 Nov 92 15:22:58 GMT
Followup-To: talk.religion.misc
Organization: Grass Valley Group
NNTP-Posting-Host: oboe.gvg.tek.com

On October 29th, Mathew@mantis.co.uk writes: "The Christian is the one who
has no motive to prevent war, to end famine, to do something worthwhile
because he believes that he and all the other true believers will be taken
to heaven when their shitty lives come to an end. All he cares about is
proselytizing and doing superficial good deeds."

Logically, Mathew, everything you say is true. A Christian has a great
future ahead of him in eternity, so why care about others in the present?
And I'll grant you, there are many so-called Christians who adopt the name
of Christ but don't show any evidence that they are trying to live
according to Christ's principles. 

But the true experience of Christianity goes far beyond your simple logic.
The fact is that through 2000 years of church history, Christians have died
by the thousands (and are persecuted even now by people with views like
your own) to share with others the precious gift that God has given
them--the secret to joy and love even in the midst of difficulty and death,
and, yes, the hope of eternal life with God.

Let me tell you a brief story about one Christian man I know personally. He
went on a brief mission to the Phillipines a few years ago, taking medicine
and the gospel to the poor and sick there. He found thousands of families
living in squalor in the local dump, where they could scrounge food, and he
ministered to them the best he could. While he was there, he was so
overwhelmed with love and compassion for these people that he chose to stay
with them. He lived for several years on the outskirts of the dump, giving
out food and medicine, telling the people about a God who loves them, and
travelling back to the U.S. periodically to get more medicine and to look
for support from churches so that he could continue to minister. This man
gave something like 7 or 8 years of his life to help others, and even now
(he's back in the states) all he talks about is how much he wants to go
back. Many others like him have gone on missions where they knew they were
likely to be killed by hostile natives, and they were, but they went anyway
because they wanted to share what God had given them.

Now Mathew, what do you suppose could cause a man to have such a heart of
compassion for others when his own earthly comfort and eternal salvation
were already assured? The truth of the Christian experience is that when
God really gets a hold of you, he begins to change your heart and teach you
to love others in the same way that he loves you. You don't become perfect,
you still do and say unkind things at times like everyone else does, and
not everyone is called to be a missionary (someone has to earn a living to
provide support for missionaries), but God begins to change you and give
you a new kind of joy and love that cannot be described or understood
logically. This may go against your desire to understand rationally, but it
is an experience that cannot be denied because it has happened to so many
millions since Christ's time.

So to summarize, Mathew, man makes a mess of things with his wars, hatreds,
violence, greed, and so on. But God gives us a way of walking through all
that, and helping others walk through it, with Him at our side that far
surpasses going it alone. Believe me, I know it both ways because I didn't
become a Christian until I was 31, and there is just no comparison between
the life I had without God and the life I now have with him. 

This life is just a short preparation for what is to come. The Bible says
we are like the grass which is alive and green one day and withered and
dead the next. Instead of pointing a finger at the false Christians and all
the awful things they do in the name of Christ, why not look at the many
true Christians who really live their faith and share it with others,
sometimes at great cost to themselves? Then go and do likewise yourself,
while there is still time. Believe me, you won't regret it.

Best Regards,
Chuck Petch
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc