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Tag: Seek and Ye Shall Find

“Finding” Jesus

Bruce Gerencser 6 Comments
you-shall-find-what-you-seek-

Jesus will never be too far from you. Seek the Lord with all your heart and you will find Him. He will direct you in all your ways so that you may depend upon Him.

— Spaniard VIII

Jesus is waiting for you.

Jesus wants to direct you in all your ways.

Jesus wants you to depend on him.

However, Jesus is powerless.

You must seek Jesus for him to be found.

I didn’t know Jesus was lost.

Those who seek Jesus, find him.

And if you seek Jesus and do not find him?

It’s your fault.

It’s never Jesus’ fault.

Why doesn’t Jesus, the all-knowing, all-powerful, always-present God of the universe hide where everyone can find him?

Why is Jesus more like a voyeur or peeping tom, lurking in the shadows, hoping to avoid detection?

I sought Jesus and found him, only to learn that he was a myth, the product of religious indoctrination.

Bruce, you need to seek the “right” Jesus.

How do I find the “right” Jesus?

You need to seek him.

And so the Evangelical circular reasoning continues.

The Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true.

If you seek Jesus, you will find him, the Good Book says.

Yet, millions and millions of people have sought him and come up empty.

Why is that?

If finding Jesus is the singular, most important thing a person can do, why does he make it impossible for people to find him?

Yes, impossible.

The Bible says that sinners are spiritually dead and cannot understand truth.

The “natural man understands not the things of God, and neither can he,” yet Spaniard VIII says we must seek Jesus.

How can a man who has no understanding find anything, let alone Jesus?

The Calvinist says that only the elect, those chosen by God from before the foundation of the world, can seek Jesus and find him. All others need not apply.

Maybe we are apostates or reprobates, people who have crossed the line of no return. We can’t seek Jesus, even if we want to.

So many contradictory statements in the Bible, yet Spaniard VIII has found the “right” Jesus, the “right way that leads to salvation and life eternal.

Are you seeking Jesus?

Have you found him?

I have! I have! I have!

Jesus is dead. His body lies buried in an unmarked grave somewhere on a hillside near Jerusalem.

All this seeking for a dead man?

I choose the living, not the dead.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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The Biggest Lies in the Bible: Ask and It Shall be Given to You and Seek and Ye Shall Find

Bruce Gerencser 15 Comments

god is a liar

There are lots of lies in the Bible; promises made by God that he does not keep. The two biggest lies in the Bible are found in Matthew 7:7-11:

Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

According to the Bible, God, the Heavenly Father, gives good things to those who ask him to do so. Ask, and it shall be given to you. Have a need in your life? Seek God and your need will be answered. Find yourself standing at a proverbial closed door? Knock on the door and God will open it for you. No qualifiers here. Ask and God will give, and seek and you will find. Yet, honest Evangelicals will tell you that they have asked God for this or that and nothing happened. Honest Evangelicals will testify of seeking and not finding; of endlessly pounding on Heaven’s door without anyone answering their knock. Of course, it is not God’s fault for his stinginess. It’s not God’s fault he can never be found. Oh no, the blame is always on the Christian. “You need to have more faith!” “You need to pray harder and longer!” “There’s sin in your life that is keeping God from blessing you!” The excuses and justifications are endless. God is a divine vending machine standing ready to dispense answered prayers and blessings. Yet, when Christians pull on handle or push the appropriate button, nothing happens. The vending machine eats their money and dispenses nothing in return.

Sunday after Sunday preachers tell congregants that their lives would be shit without Jesus. Such statements are taken as facts without ever being questioned. Perhaps it is time for followers of Jesus to put their God to the test. Stop asking, stop seeking, and stop knocking. Stop dialing God’s hot line and asking for help. Just stop all the incantations and exercises of faith and see what happens. I’m confident that Christians will find out that there is no material difference between asking/seeking/knocking and not doing so. God is silent either way. The cupboards are empty either way. Pray or don’t pray, it matters not. Why is this? Most Christians will put the blame squarely on self, but I would like to suggest that perhaps there’s another answer; that perhaps the real answer is that God doesn’t come through because he can’t — he’s dead.

I was a fervent seeker of God for almost thirty-five years. I prayed thousands and thousands of prayers: long prayers, short prayers, prayers filled with pathos, and prayers filled with faith. I believed I served a great God, the creator of the universe, a God who held my life and life of everyone else in the palm of his hand. For most of my Christian life, I was convinced that God was answering my prayers. I never doubted that he was fulfilling that which he promised me. Such is life in the Evangelical bubble.

However, once I began doubting what the Bible said was true, everything changed. I carefully examined all the prayers I had prayed over the years, all the requests I made before the throne of Heaven. I pondered all the dying people I prayed for. Every one of them died. I thought about all the sick people I prayed for, wondering, did God heal them or did doctors, medicines, and natural processes do their job? As I combed through my prayer catalog, I came to a startling conclusion: virtually every “answered” prayer could be attributed to natural causes — no supernatural intervention needed. Sure, there were a couple of circumstances that “seemed” supernatural in origin, but is that all I get from God after thirty-five years of devotion and self-denial? Sorry, but luck is a better explanation than God. One of the surest proofs of God’s non-existence is the lack of answered prayer. God made promises and didn’t keep them. God couldn’t keep them, of course, because he was a human construct. There is no deity sitting in Heaven waiting to answer your prayers. Pray, don’t pray, it matters not. Silence is sure to follow. We’re on own, folks.

About Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.

Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.

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