chris (friend)

eh.. sorry i din answer ur earlier questions.. maybe i didnt see them or they din get through to cbox...

anyway one of the greatest misconceptions about Christianity is that it's a religion.. but it's actually a relationship.. you may think i'm crazy but i can tell you with a straight face that i actually have a relationship with Jesus.. He speaks to me just as certainly as i speak with Him... of course relationships take time to cultivate and sadly, many Christians out there do take Christianity as a religion, a system of dos and don'ts.. it's not about a system of laws for people to follow that becomes just an end in itself.. if we think of God that way, then we'll miss out on the point.. it's all about relationship... the very goal and purpose of it all is simply to know Jesus...

now when we take a look at everything from that viewpoint, we'll be able to look at the "loopholes" and find no contradiction.. from the perspective of a relationship with Jesus, what may look like loopholes on the surface are actually a revelation of who God is.. (i cant really talk much about all this cos i dun really know what specific "loopholes" you're referring to).. but let's look at it this way.. the human mind is soooo complex.. a human person, his makeup and personality is so complex as it is already, don't u agree.. den let's look at God.. if created humanity already is complex enough, what more its Creator? God is indescribable, unfathomable, unsearchable.. and so here He comes and reveals Himself through the Bible.. every line of every page says something about Him.. and people in their limited human minds try to understand it and we find many "loopholes"... but they're all just a complex multi-faceted revelation of Him...

And so if we do have a relationship with God, He shows us who He is.. He explains to us what is inexpliable and He takes us beyond where our own limited human minds would take us.. when i experience God, He just keeps on showing me how inadequate is my understanding of Him and life on this earth would not be enough to know Him fully.. And when He shows us what this whole Christianity really means, we find that seeming contradictions actually complement each other cos they always point us to Him.. i'm naturally a very inquisitive person and i have come across seeming contradictions that i wasnt able to understand at first.. but when i turn to Him and allow Him to show me, He changes my perspective and my understanding and let's me see how in the end, there's no contradiction.. i don't claim to have all the answers but He does! and if we ask Him to explain these "loopholes" from His perspective, we find that they're not loopholes at all...

This whole Christianity thing is not an intellectual excercise and if we keep on approaching it in that manner, we'll miss out on what is actually important; that relationship that He wants to have with us.. but when we approach everything else on the basis of that relationship, He makes everything clear.. He wants us to ask Him questions, to walk with Him and to trust Him though along the way we may encounter things we do not understand.. If we wait for Him to explain everything to us before we start walking with Him, it's gonna take more than a lifetime cos He's beyond everything we can naturally grasp... den we'll miss out the point which is to actually experience Him and enjoy Him as He enjoys us... I personally believe that the highest goal of what man can achieve is to know Him... yes, on our own it is impossible but that is why we need Him and He takes us beyond ourselves in this journey called life...