Re: Lost Faith

Hello Mary,
I am a 51 year old male and I've loved God dearly all of my life. The most important thing you have to do (at least for the sake of discussion) is separate your love for God from any and all "faith" that you've ever been taught. Actually, the word "FAITH" is often misused, ambiguous and never really is used correctly to refer only to 'TRUST' IN Him. The word "faith" is used in different contexts (and loosely, sloppily) to refer to different religions and doctrines, but the word's real meaning is not exclusive to spirituality. A person can have faith in someone else to be trustworthy and dependable (such as a hero) or loving, gentle, understanding, forgiving and protective. Some people can only be trusted to be the criminal or schemer that they really are, but as long as a person can be trusted to be what and who they are, you can have faith that they are either the kind of person you DON'T want to know or the kind of person you DO want to know. Do you trust (have faith IN) God to be what and who He is? God is LOVE. He is the owner of the human race and the owner of all creation, He is the ORIGIN (where everything good comes from), He is the Creator and Sustainer (gives us our daily bread), The God of all PURE goodness. You must covet your love for Him and don't let any doctrine or teaching make you question your love. He is a jealous God and you must let His spirit yearn jealously in you (James 4:5) with a DIVINE jealousy (2 Corinthians 11:2).

The world (including Christianity) can only understand God according to 'EARTHLY' ways (human terms). No words can express GOD properly, no book (not even the bible) can contain GOD. God cannot be measured, weighed, copied, formulated or duplicated in a factory or lab or anywhere. No formulas, diagrams, blueprints, schematics, dictionaries or encyclopedias could ever express God. The idea of being madly in love with the Creator is very alien to society because the empirical (weighing and measurements) study of God is more intellectually appealing to human beings so that the ego can be nurtured and humility avoided.

There are many mentions in scripture of "the MYSTERIES of God". Probably the most serious reason for not fully understanding what can be understood about God (even among very spiritual Christians) is the common teaching that there are TYPES of love (agape, philos, eros and storge). Those are types of love RELATIONSHIPS, not types of love. Love is simply an ATTITUDE (singular) of mind and heart. This is so very important to understand because "God is LOVE". 1 Corinthians 2:10 says that there are "DEPTHS of God" and Hebrews 6:1 says that "...we must leave the ELEMENTARY doctrine of Christ and MOVE ON TO MATURITY". Hebrews 5:14 says that we should no longer be fed with the milk of the word, but solid food, and that is only possible by realizing that we should not simply be avoiding SIN, but learning to DISTINGUISH good from evil because evil causes people to suffer and that we should learn to have compassion and respect for people (love). So, you see, if you have not been impressed by all the partisan and bureaucratic classification of sin and the empirical studies of God, REJOICE, you have the heart that God wants you to have.

If you don't understand why this is happening to you (I don't think Job understood either, but He kept on loving God, I think the story of Job serves only one purpose,...STEADFASTNESS, Thank you Jesus). I'll pray for you and your brother. Trust The Lord and REST in Him.

God bless you.