Okay, by that I mean 100% practicing, love it 24/7/365 period. If you are there when a person is borne again, what chapters and verses do you recommend they read to get started, what do you recommend when they come a little further and why do you recommend them? What about them made such an impression that you would recommend them? Thanks.
Would it surprise you if I told you I don’t attend services? So I don’t technically fit your criteria. I don’t know if I am born again because I don’t know if I was born to begin with. But at some point in time I became aware. Of course it took 10 years of looking for it. Of which the first three years or so I didn’t even know I was looking.
There's not one thing I can point to. The biggest problem people have reading the Bible is putting it in the proper context. The Bible is effectively a how to book. How to live life and how not to live life. With that said, the Law of Nature is written into the hearts of men. If we never had the Bible the Law of Nature would still be written into the hearts of men. If we never had the Bible we would still have right and wrong. Genesis tells us that man knows right from wrong and that when man violates it rather than abandoning the concept of good and evil man rationalizes he didn’t violate it. This makes us different than animals.
In it's simplest form the Bible tells us that God created existence, man is a product of that creation, that everything that was created is good and that man should go forth and be fruitful. That we are to do as he has done which is to create. We are happiest when we are using our talents to create. There is no better way to show one's appreciation for what he was given than by using it. This is what worshipping used to mean.
The OT is an account of a people who cycled between remembering God and forgetting God. When man becomes satisfied he becomes proud and forgets God's ways. Then he fails and suffers, but from that suffering he remembers God's ways and he rises again only to begin the process all over again. So through the accounts in the Bible we are taught that failed behaviors naturally lead to failure and successful behaviors naturally lead to success.
But the Bible also tells us that man is a rebel. That man is at war with God. People forget that part. Man is at war with God because man worships created things instead of the creator.
Man has a choice in worshipping created things or the creator. Created things are effectively false gods. Man is free to pursue fame, fortune and power, but none of these things will satisfy him because he was made for more. Man is only truly happy when he worships the creator.
The original meaning and practice of the word worship has been lost through 6000 years of time. Worship is nothing more or nothing less than giving praise and thanks. We give praise and thanks by what we do, not by what we say. We show our praise and thanks in how we live our daily lives; how we conduct ourselves in every endeavor and transaction; how we do the little things; how everything we do is done like it is a sacred act in appreciation of all that has been given to us. Giving praise and thanks to the creator using words instead of actions is called giving God lip service. It's not worshipping God. If all one does to honor God is participate in religious practices but in his daily life he is showing God he doesn't really appreciate all that has been given to him, then he is not worshipping God. He is paying lip service to God.
The Bible is not a letter of the law document. It is a spirit of the law document. Man turned it into a letter of the law document. The law of nature can not be codified into laws because it would require an infinite set of laws because the Law of Right and Wrong is infinite in nature. But if we were to codify the Law of Nature, we would only need one law; do unto others as you would have them do to you.
