Re:

This next post needs a bit of a back story, but not much of one. My wife and I are moving to a new town. While looking for apartments I contacted a guy with a two bedroom apartment for rent, who also had his own realty company. I will call him Doug. Doug offered to let us see the apartment for rent over the weekend while he was away. He left the key in a mailbox and we were able to look at it without anyone around making it awkward. We eventually found a place we liked more and on Monday I emailed him to tell him so. I thanked him for letting us see the apartment, and told him we found a place that suited us better.

The following day he replied, telling us to call him if we were ever looking to buy a house. Another email came later, sort of as an afterthought. He invited us to a "bible teaching church" if we were interested. It was a little out of nowhere and I wasn't really interested, but I thought it was a really nice offer. I emailed him this exact message:

"Thanks Doug,
I'm a non-believer but I really appreciate the offer.
Aaron"

I debated emailing him at all, but it was awfully nice of him, and I figured, I didn't want to just leave the invitation hanging out there. It would be rude. I honestly didn't expect him to write back, we had both ended our emails cordially, and I thought, you know, maybe we will use him when we start looking for a house. I just checked my email to find this message that I have copied word for word. The only change I made was to his name.

"No problem. I will pray that the God of all ages will work on your heart. I will pray more that your heart would be receptive to the "grace" of God!
Religion is a waste of breath & worse than the darkest sin! -Doug
True christianity is a relationship w Christ.
Salvation is a gift to sinners paid for by christ & received by childlike faith. Religion makes salvation, heaven, nirvana, a higher state, reincarnation etc...; a reward for the "good".
An honest man knows there are none good.
Rom 5:23 n 6:23
All have sinned & most don't even live up too their own rules (appart from Gods).
Eph 2:8-9 tells how one is saved.
John 3:16 tells about being born again.
John 3:18 tells what condemns those who believe not. (this may surprise u/it did me)!
1john 5:9-13 tells us that one can "know" that they "have" "eternal life"! Not a pie in sky: hope so, think so, maybe some day I will get salvation kind of thing (like my mainstream religious teaching taught me).

In timothy it is said that God wills\wishes that all would come to salvation. But, he knows that although provision has been made; that all will not believe.
In fact Jesus himself (a man who knows heart wrenching rejection by his own creation & even the jews for whom he initially came) said that "the road is broad that leads to hell & many on it & narrow the way to heaven & few that find it"!
He did not make it hard! We do w/our pride & so- called "higher ways of thinking". Paul said in Col 2:8 "beware lest any man spoil you thru philosophy & van deciet, after the tradition of men , after the rudiments of the world, & not after. Christ'.

In romans 1:16 paul calls the "gospel" "the power of god unto salvation".
Never is anything else called the power of God unto salvation anywhere!
So you may want pauls defination of "the gospel". Probably the least understood & misused word in christen-"dumb"(italics mine"
1corinthians 15:1-5
Along w/eph 2:8-9 & john 3:16-18. These may be the best read verses for understanding God's offer to us men! Read them & see what they say. You will see they really need no interpretation/They say what they mean & mean what they say.

You are an eternal being created for an eternal relationship with God who loves you beyond all measure. You will not cease existence ever! You will either enter into a relationship w him here on earth by your own choosing & then live w him for eternal ages, or you will (by your own choosing) live separated from him here on earth (& then for all eternity in a place he designed for satan & his fallen angels). You by your in-action in the face of: your conscience, creation, Christ, the scriptures (as well as the testimony of those that are redeemed like me); you will choose to go to hell or eternal separation in a place where God is not.

I am not better than you! I am just one begar telling another where the food can be found!

Happy to answer any questions you may have.
Hope to meet you someday Aaron.
Most sincerely;
Doug
Ps. I deserve hell! I wsa lost till someone told me of the gospel of grace!
But for the "grace" of God I would be destined for it.
Grace: God's Riches At Christ's Expence!

Maybe im a religious nut and have a few screws loose? Maybe what I say is true? U decide. Your destiny may hinge on it!"

I tried thinking of a way to end this post, wrapping it up in some way, but I honestly can't. Religion is a subject that is far too serious for this blog, and I hope this message can make people smile as much as it did me. This was just one of those incredible experiences of human interaction I get to have once in awhile. You can decide if it's funny or not. Your destiny doesn't hinge on it.