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Replying to post 29 by 2timothy316]
You are putting words in people's mouths. What do you know of me? Nothing! Just because you couldn't endure doesn't mean no one else can.
Going back through the posts written, you did indeed say you tried to follow Jesus 'as closely as possible'. You even repeat in the sentence after this. So want to explain again how this is me putting words in people's mouths?
All true Christians I know of strive to follow Jesus footsteps as closely as possible. Yet since we are imperfect and this world is not setup to help follow Jesus' footsteps, no one can do it perfectly.
So what is stopping you from being nailed to a piece of wood? What is stopping you from conjuring up fishes and loaves? What is stopping you from entering churches, not necessarily those belonging to Jehovah's Witnesses, and throwing out merchants of any stripe?
As a child? How about as an adult? Matt. 24:13 - “He who endures to the end will be saved.�
Moving the goalposts. You made a claim about emulating Jesus leads to happiness and security. You previously had not talked about this 'saved' business (whatever exactly that is).
The ones I have seen, including myself, have endured trials and came on the other side better than when the trial began.
Please do not intimate that I have not endured trials. I had to endure much, and trying to follow Jesus actually made things worse, instead of better.
Like many others perhaps a life style was forced on you as a child.
Like what?
How are you even sure without enduring, that the life style given to you was the correct one?
I did endure. What I used to endure helped in my situation where trying to emulate Jesus would not have.
Either way, you stopped enduring and without endurance
To quote a certain someone
What do you know of me? Nothing!
There is only one way.
How do you know that? Have you examined the lives of each and every human? How do you know that this "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life" line (which can mean anything and everything, it doesn't actually detail any specific actions one is to take) actually is the ONLY way to get through life's challenges?
It may help some people, it may have helped you...but everyone? The ONLY way?
Satan and wicked people rule for now.
Why look for a 'Satan' when the wicked people are there plain to see? I don't need to invent supernatural demons to explain away a lust for power in (some) humans.
They are the cause for any suffering.
So if a kindly old grandma slips on the ice one winter's morning and cracks her skull open on the pavement...the devil did that? Wicked people in power are responsible for that?
However, these times will come to an end.
People have been promising that suffering will come to an end for as long as there have been people who have suffered. It might have escaped your attention...but suffering people still exist. When the umpteenth person claims that their holy book says that any day now the rapture will come and that this time, THIS person has got it right...I kind of stopped paying attention to it.
If you have stopped enduring then I have nothing else for you.
Who ever said I had stopped enduring? Might it be that because I said I no longer applied the methods you prefer, you took that to mean I had given up?
Once received then what? James tells us...
“Become doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves with false reasoning.�—JAMES 1:22.
Again...presuming I did nothing. If you had met my childhood self, describing me as perhaps being more devout than anyone on this site would have been a fair assessment.