The here today, gone tomorrow thread. (And it doesn't really matter if you pray)

85ragtop said:

I must be very unpopular here as I pastor a church.

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son of a gun, so is my cousin and his wife. they both got their divinity degrees from the same school.

i figure i will live forever though, god doesnt want me and the devil is afraid i will take over.

I belive in Cheeses. Belief is personal, and not to be forced on a person. It is what it is. My son is sceptic, I love talking with my son. But beloved books tell me to stone him if he's a rebel, so some moderation is required.

I listen and lean a lot from my son.

When I'm old, my son might decide on my rest home options. So I learn to love people with different views, starting within my family. Standard responses, don't show much thought, especially is someone dies and you get the standard barrage. I love my religion, but I am what I am not because of family creed or organised religion, although I respect all cultuarl pursuits An open mind is important, and I'm happy to condsider non aligned views that all religion is just the mind over matter, and serindipty thing.

My chief love is hardened military men, the cutting edge of keeping society safe. I cared for them for 11 years in resthomes, and my Dad who never forced anything on me in my life except respect and to accompany him to visit old diggers in the hospital with strokes and old age related problems. I like the Cornelius thing.... where a Roman under authority to do whatever his comander in cheif asks him to do, spends time out to seek prayer or a well wish for his sick servant. Fait is about asking, and never being afriad to leave stones unturned.

Just like building a neat car.

Its hard to pray when your knees are titanium.


I like individual choice, trust, and being honest if you don't exactly believe it. The true greatness of the south are the people who have granfarther like Leon Followill, and sing and play like the Kings of Leon. I love Frank Zappa, and his diserations on religion. There is a swing between multiple views I cherish as a human being.


That's why I love your posts CMA.


Secular USA has the right idea. Fredom to choose. People have to be honest about how it is for them in there environment.

I got a feeling Mike might be thinking of me a little with my wonderful 2018 I'm having.

That's ok Mike, you heathen piece of crap.

It's so funny with the reactions posted here.

I think Joe really got it ticking when he mentioned he's a pastor as well and chose to share the gospel to me and assumedly (is that a real word?) my brother in his last moments alive.

Joe wasn't doing that to be pushy to me, it was out of love. He knew my heart was breaking over losing my big brother, and while it may have seemed brash, I understood where his heart was. Thank you Joe @jrichker

My beliefs come into constant conflict with my actions, if it didn't, I would be perfect. So if what I do doesn't seem Godly enough to people here, it's because you're right, I'm not.

I'm not attending a church regularly right now either, does this make me a non-believer? Not really, I would like to find a church that I could be comfortable with. Truely the worst mental betrayals have come from within church's. They're filled with bad people just like me.

I'm not one that thinks I should avoid church, I just normally hate people.

So, Mike, as a relative to the next guy in the pew, I'm a bad Christian. So the hell what? People were trying to comfort me during some hard times and you were trying to not throw up at the same time.

I know you well enough Mike. Face to face you're actually a very sweet person, you would be kind to me if I lived next to you. Unfortunately I live in Oklahoma so it's hard to express what you feel when the "Church People" come knocking. Why discomfort? If you really believe it's tripe then you should be able to look past it and see a friend that you've met was hurting. Why should there be vitriol and a whole separate thread to talk about how offensive what some were doing to offer me comfort offended you?

What matters more to you? A friend that was going through a really hard time and had to depend on a forum for comfort (is that sad or what?), or did comments meant to help me make you feel like others had overstepped?

If the latter is it, I'm even more sad than ever. I like you and your wife a lot, even though we haven't seen each other in almost a couple years. I really like the guys here as well.

I don't want your pity. It was just nice having a group of friends that were interested in the same hobby I had. I guess I saw this group as more than just faceless voices from some other elsewhere. You know what I mean, once i shut off the ipad, it's Stang-who?

Maybe it's me making you guys more than just than another group of schmucks that I don't give a flip about.

You, Mike, are the one that constantly demands attention through supposed thought out replies to your work on the monster. A 'like' is an insult to you almost. You want us to understand your reasoning for what you're doing.

Then you tell us your stories of your life (which I find greatly interesting). What for? Why try to get us to attach to you and your abilities to tell a story? What's the point if we aren't your friends? A friend would take the time to realize your stories are a part of you that you're sharing. Honestly though, what the hell do your stories tell us about your current build? Really nothing at all.

It just tells me you're human, you have a father you loved and wished you had a memento from his garage just so there is that closeness that is gone since he passed. So the hell what? Right?

In the end Mike, you took offense from something that wasn't even directed your way because someone mentioned God.

Grow up Mike. I was the one hurting and still do. They were being kind in the way they thought best and I took it that way and was grateful to have someone who cares.

I do understand you Mike, and I really do like you and enjoy your company. Sometimes you should let sht slide by though, you end up hurting the very people you feel for. They weren't trying to comfort you.

@CarMichael Angelo
@85ragtop

When I was 32 years old, I came to realize that I was human and make mistakes and do things that the Bible says are sinful. That’s a part of being human. Then the realization that I could be better a better person than I was dawned on me. I took an honest look at my life and there were some aspects of it that I knew were wrong. The problem was that I knew that just like losing weight and keeping New Year’s resolutions, the changes that I would attempt to make would be temporary and superficial. Deep inside me I knew that God was real and this life doesn’t end with a last breath and a funeral; it goes on in some form beyond that.

What was happening was that God, in His own loving way, was calling me to Him. I had no clue of what to do next. It ended up that my wife got and invitation to go to church and asked me to go with her. I did, and for several Sundays I heard different variations of the same set of ideas:
God was perfect and I wasn’t; it was very apparent to me that was a true statement.
God loved me and desired to have a real personal relationship with me, like a father who loved his child.
God was also just and holy and my sins made God turn His face way from me because he does not accommodate or welcome sin in His presence.
I learned that there was nothing that I could do in my own strength to pay for my sins and make it right with God. I became aware of a word with a new meaning: grace It is God’s unmerited favor which is neither earned or deserved.
What was it that I could do to have right standing with God? I couldn’t work or pay my way into His loving presence and the heaven where He lives. I was lost and without the resources that were needed.

Then I learned that God had made a way that all of my sins and failures could be paid for and forgiven. He sent His Son Jesus to come to earth and live the perfect, sinless life that I wasn’t able to live. It just wasn’t possible because it wasn’t in me; sin was part of my human nature. Therefore, Jesus who lived a perfect, sinless life died on Calvary’s cross for my sins. That wasn’t the end of the story; He rose from the dead, left the grave behind and ascended to Heaven.

Jesus paid the price for my sins, but how do I ask God to apply what Jesus did to pay for sin to my sins? There were three things I needed to do: first to stop sinning so that I could confess that I was a sinner and I needed the blood that Jesus shed to pay for my sins. Secondly, I needed to believe that Jesus was my master, my ruler, and God the Father raised Jesus from the dead. The third thing was to believe in Jesus and to confess my faith in Jesus and pray to Him for forgiveness of my sins. When I did this, God forgave me and I became one of His Born-Again children, and He welcomed me into His family. That was about 40 years ago and He has never let me down, and I don’t believe that He ever will. There have been some difficult times, but God has always come through with the right answer at the appropriate time.

What is Jesus doing in heaven now? He intercedes for us when we fail and sin. When the devil accuses us before God, Jesus can say that my sins and the sins of every other Born-Again child of God are covered by the blood He shed on Calvary’s cross. On occasion, I still sin, but it is not my part of my lifestyle to live like a sinner without God. God is faithful and just to forgive me when I repent of my sins and confess them to Him.

Some of you will say that Christians are some of the meanest and nastiest people you have ever met. It is true of some Christians, and the reason is they have forgotten just how horrible they before they came to saving faith in Jesus. Many of them still fail to recall the sins that they committed after they were Born-Again and didn’t repent of those sins. That makes for a life that poisons everything that they come in contact with. Some of them are bitter and unforgiving of others, forgetting that just as God forgave them, they are to forgive others.

There are those of you that think that there are other ways that you can have a good relationship with God without Jesus as your savior and intercessor. That isn’t how it works; your sins are still a barrier between you and God. Jesus said that “I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me” (John 14:6)

Some of you who are Born-Again Christians think that you don’t need to go to church to be a Christian. While it is true that church attendance doesn’t get you Born-Again or keep you as a Born-Again Christian, it is important. First of all, God said that we are “not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” (Heb 10:25). Secondly, you get opportunity to learn about God and His word, the Bible, to grow in grace and knowledge of Jesus, to serve God and your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Now there are some here would object to attempts to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Christians are accused of trying to cram it down the throats of other people or beating them over the head with the Bible. I share my faith in Jesus because God said that was what He expects of all Christians, and because I know what a terrible fate awaits those who die without being Born-Again.
Personally, that bothers me and I feel sorry for those who are without Jesus and aren’t interested in what God has made possible for them to have. Hell is real and it is eternal; everyone is going to live forever either in heaven or in hell. If you got to live in hell, is was because you rejected God’s free gift of salvation that comes when you put your faith in Jesus for who He is and what He has done for you.

It is evident that there are a lot of people who claim to be Christian but don’t live the faith like the Bible tells us to do. When you see someone who claims to be a Christian but lives like the world and the devil, it is one of two things. Either they are playing church and really aren’t Born-Again Christians. Or they are baby Christians who never got past being saved and Born-Again: they have their fire insurance and aren’t really interested in anything else. They will not go to hell when they die, but because of their lack of faith, commitment and obedience, they will spend all eternity doing some menial job like vinedressers or plowmen. There won’t be any positions of rank or honor for someone who doesn’t live their earthly life for God. Laziness here on earth means lack of glory and honor for them in heaven.

Finally, an answer for why bad things happen to good people. Some people may appear good to us on the outside, but God sees the hearts of everyone. They may not really be good at all; there may be terrible sins that you don’t see any evidence of on the outside. Every person who is not a Born-Again Christian is a child of the devil, and he can do whatever he wants with them. God loves and protects His Born-Again children and when something bad happens to them, God allowed it. The purpose of this “allowance” is to make them more like Jesus, who suffered at the hands of His fellow countryman and finally suffered and died on the cross for my sins and yours.

Well, I wondered what I was going to do for an Easter sermon, and this is it.

If any of you have any questions or comments, I will be glad to answer them. My ministry email is below if you want a private answer and not an open public discussion here on Stangnet.

May you and your loved ones have a blessed Easter and rejoice in all that Jesus has done for you.

Joseph Richker, Minister of the Gospel
Greater Vision Christian Fellowship Ministries
217 Smithfield Rd
Dublin, GA 31021

There you go Joe, now you offended Mike on a thread he started.

Davedacarpainter said:

There you go Joe, now you offended Mike on a thread he started.

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For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. ( Romans 1:16)

This may be the very thing that God uses to call Mike to repentance; when you plan a seed in the ground, sometimes what spouts up is a surprise.

I still like Cheeses






And Mike.

And Mikes life stories.

Permission to Smoke Cheeses?