Response to Comment

This post is in response to yesterday's comment on the blog post "He Didn't Do It For Nothing."

When I left high school and went off to college I had not been attending church for awhile.  I still claimed the Christian faith and did not see church as a bad thing, but whether confessed or not, I saw it as an unnecessary thing.  I was not reading the Bible either.  I was doing exactly what most of my peers were doing.  I was trying to find success, trying to find happiness, and trying to do good for myself.

During this time, I started struggling with my faith, without even realizing it was a struggle.  I thought I understood my God.  He was loving.  I was always able to accept that.  So then I started reasoning- If God is a loving God, how could He condemn anyone to Hell?  Well, certainly He must not was my resolution.  And if there was no Hell, no need for a Devil then either.  I was on a slippery slope to determining that there must not be a problem of sin, but never seemed to go there.  Maybe it's because that always seemed to be prevalent and obvious in my own life- my selfish greeds and lusts and laziness.  Yet, I hung on to the belief in the saving grace of Jesus Christ.  I don't know what I thought He was saving me from at that point because there was no Hell in my mind.  I suppose I thought He was saving me from myself, showing me a better way to live life by serving others.  But I wasn't even doing that.  I was just looking to serve myself- be comfortable with myself, my beliefs, my happiness.

Slowly, my reason became my God.  Whatever I could not reason with my finite mind, was tossed out as irrelevant or unnecessary to be understood.  No Hell, no devil, no false gods, no wrong beliefs.  I started developing a theology based solely on my reason.  When I did read the Bible on rare occasions, I came across other "issues" that didn't meld well with my reason.  Noah's Ark seemed laughable to me.  All of those animals were not fitting on one boat.  Clearly this did not happen.  And then there was the problem of the story of Creation versus Evolution.  Creation could not have taken place in 6 days when science tells us it was millions of years of evolution.  And so the Bible became this odd source of wisdom for me where I would pick and choose what made sense and what didn't.  If something made sense, I accepted it as truth.  If it didn't make sense, then clearly it was untrue.

The Bible told me God was a loving God.  I believed that.  The Bible said Jesus healed the sick, the lame, the blind, and raised Lazarus from the dead.  I believed that too.  And as I said, I continued to believe in Jesus as a savior of some sort.  At one point, I started reasoning that maybe death was not the end of life here on Earth.  I wanted to hold on to this belief that Jesus was going to get me into Heaven, but in doing so, I knew that it caused some problems of exclusion for all of those people who didn't believe.  I had to reason a way for them to get into Heaven so I decided that when we died, if we hadn't found our way to Jesus yet, we would be reincarnated and given another opportunity.  This fit well for my belief that there was no Hell and no God willing to condemn anyone.  So I guess, though my thought process never specifically lead me there, I would have to believe that Adolf Hitler was wandering around in someone else's body looking for Jesus.

My theology started to fall apart on me when I had trouble reasoning something.  I would look to the Bible for wisdom, but I had rejected half of the philosophies it held.  I realized this made it an unreliable source.  My theology had been built on the idea of a loving God.  This "fact" that I wanted to accept was in the Bible.  My foundation was crumbling.  Was God a loving god and did He even exist?  I didn't feel like I could go to the Bible anymore for answers, so I went to God.  I prayed for God to reveal Himself to me.  I prayed that He would help me with my belief in Him and my unbelief in Him.

For the first time ever, I read the Bible straight through.  It was amazing.  I think the turning point for me was when I read the story of Noah's ark.  What I had skimmed over every other time I had read it was the measurements that God instructs Noah with for building.  Every other time this had seemed unnecessary and boring, but now I realized those measurements were there for me and my doubting mind.  Studies have been done to prove that it was very possible for all of the animals to fit on the boat.  What this spoke to me was that I had been ignoring the signs that God was giving me to come to a solid belief in Him.  I wasn't going to God for explanation on my doubts; I was depending on my own intelligence which has been proven to falter.

Have you read the Bible cover to cover?  If not, take that journey.

So often we want to reason our way to faith in God, but that is not faith at all.  Faith is trust in the unknown.  What I encourage those lacking in faith to do, is to stop reasoning and step out in faith with a prayer to a God- a God that you are not even certain is there and ask Him to reveal Himself.  Be honest in your unbelief.  Then ask Him to help you with it.

You asked, "Can you believe in your God without having to believe anything else is 'false?'  Is that possible?"  My answer is no.  Because the God that I have come to know through my faith says that there is one way to Him.  I accept the whole Bible as truth.  I can't cover every reason why in this one blog entry, but there are many reasons.  This blog is the story of my faith.

Your example about the book and the many interpretations that can be derived from the same material being read, leaves something out.  I think that those interpretations can be wrong.  Let's not forget that there was an author with an intent in mind when the book was written.  As an author, if someone drew a conclusion from one of my writings that I did not intend, it does not make that person's interpretation true.  I understand that good and captivating creative writings leave open opportunities for the reader's interpretation.  I do not believe the Bible was written with that intent.  I believe that it was God-breathed, His very word, handed down to man.  I believe that He knows that in it the words of life are contained.  I believe that He gave it to us to lead us to Him.

So what of those that don't believe?  Yes, I do believe that they need Jesus to be saved.  It makes my heart ache.  You asked, "Once we've identified who is wrong, what do we do with them?  My guess is, we start by telling them they are wrong."  It is not a popular belief, but yes, it is mine.  But we tell them in a loving manner and out of love.  It is offensive to hear we are wrong, but don't we need to hear it when we are?  In the world of law, we have a duty to protect each other from harm.  This is why we have lawsuits of negligence because someone did not properly inform another of possible harm.  Are you willing to accept any religion as "true" for that person- even ones that are cultish and regarded as crazy by the general public?  If you have to draw the line somewhere, where is that line?  Are you willing to accept that a belief that there is no God will lead that person to the same place of a person that believes in a God?  If you believe that there is a God at all, no matter how undefinable, wouldn't it be right to help the atheist at least come to belief in that God?  If there is a God, what should He do with those that don't believe in Him?  Force them to believe?  Give them no opportunity for doubt by revealing Himself?

If there is a God, what would you expect of Him?  Some guidance on who He is?  Would you expect love from Him?  Or is your creation the only thing you gained from Him?  If He exists, what would you have Him do with the people in this world that turn their back on Him?  What would you have Him do with those that are evil?  What would you have Him do with the ones that just don't care about anything but themselves or the ones that aren't trying to be a better person but just trying to enjoy life?

This is what I believe- I believe that God created us out of love and He desired us to love Him.  In order for it to be real love, a decision of our own, He had to give us the option to not love Him.  I believe He is deeply saddened when we don't love Him because He knows the gifts He has to offer us if we would love Him.  I believe that He demonstrated this opportunity of choice to love by placing the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden.  I believe that Adam and Eve chose not to follow God by eating from this tree.  I believe that God still loved them and all of those who fall away from Him.  I believe that I fall away from Him everyday.  I believe that I make decisions that He does not desire for me and that lead to sin and separation from Him.  I believe that I am separated from my God because He is a holy and just God and He can not look at my sin without addressing it.  I believe that the wages of sin is death which is an eternal separation from God.  Yet, I believe that He desires to have me return to a relationship with Him like He had with Adam and Eve in the garden where He walked with them.  I believe He wants me to discover His great love for me and to help others discover it too because it is a sad thing to miss out on it.  I believe that the answer to my sin was in the gift of Jesus Christ who died on the cross as payment for my sin and yours and that if we do not accept His payment for our sins, then we have to pay for it ourself.

Why else would I write this blog?  If I believe that there are other ways to Heaven, who am I writing for?  Why would I care for the Jew, for my brother, for the Christian falling away from faith, for the atheist, for the undecided, for the Muslim?  I write because I care, because I love, because I have this awesome peace in my heart that I want you to have too.  I write because I can not deny what my faith has called me to do, to lead the lost to their Savior.