What I Believe

I am a Christian. I believe the Bible to be the inspired, infallible, authoritative Word of God. My beliefs are, I guess, classified as Conservative Christian/Protestant beliefs and they are deeply ingrained. I am also a Spirit-filled Chrisitan; therefore, I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, Savior, and Baptizer in the Holy Spirit. I believe that both natural and supernatural spiritual gifts are available to Christians today who believe in them and sincerely seek them. (Actually, I didn't really TRY or decide to believe in or become a spirit-filled Christian. I experienced it first...I actually had doubts about that sort of thing prior to my experience. My beliefs changed after my experience.) So yeah, I'm one of "those people." HOWEVER...please read the follower disclaimer: I am not, nor do I ever, ever claim to be or intentionally try to come across as Holier-Than-Thou. The reason I am mentioning my beliefs is because they make up a large part of my fundamental being. They are forever embedded in my psyche and they usually cause me a lot of problems because I spend a large amount of my time either (a) arguing with them internally in my mind trying to rationalize them away, and/or (b) causing myself all kinds of anguish by living completely opposed to them. So yeah, I'm one of "those people," too. I accept some of the responsibility for Christians being laughing stock in today's society and also for being notoriously known as hypocrites. So, shoot me. But, I absolutely cannot change what I believe because I know that I know that I KNOW that what I believe is the Truth. I also can't change what I believe because I love me some Jesus! Plain and simple. I've always been fascinated with Jesus despite the fact that I have probably overtly indicated otherwise most of my life. I wish I could say differently. It's kind of like when you love your mom but you're constantly doing things that disappoint her and things that she raised you contrary to doing. That's kind of how my relationship is with Jesus. We'll be tight for a while, and then I end up selling out somehow. But I've come to realize a couple of things over the years: Jesus knows I love Him, He loves me unconditionally, and He primarily wants me to have my act together because He knows what's best for me...so it would really be in my own best interest to just live how I know He would like for me to live. Nevertheless, I usually always end up in some sort of self-will...whether that's full-fledged "backsliding" or just doing some things my way instead of His. But anyway, I just wanted to kind of vent about what I believe because some of my posts will be laced with references to them; so, I wanted to lay some groundwork so to speak. Also, you will see QUITE OFTEN how I live contrary to and struggle with those beliefs. As I mentioned before, I am not a saint. I am a wretched sinner who loves Jesus and depends on His grace, forgiveness, and mercy to keep me from utter ruin. But aside from whether or not I'm a saint or a sinner, I'm a human...just a regular ol' person trying to sort through all this stuff. Hopefully that makes sense.