“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
MATTHEW 11:28, NASB
The Great Physician has healed our souls and can give rest to our spirit. Should we not invite others to worship him and discover this healing and rest?
There is a running theory that atheists and even many Christians believe that God does not prove His existence.
Take as a prime example the god of Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”:
“I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I an nothing.”
“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don’t. QED.”
“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.
(emphasis added)
This is a fun exercise, but a) I defined faith in the last video, discrediting the second point of faith made here, and b) ABSOLUTELY NOWHERE does God say He would not offer proof.
In fact, Psalm 19:1 exclaims “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.”
In Romans 1:18-20, Paul says:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
No, God has offered proof and calls for humanity to pay attention.
Basically, it is in the complexity and obvious orderedness of Creation, including the human body and mind.
The ultimate proof, though, may begin to sound like an overused cliche that I have used time and again: Jesus of Nazareth was God incarnate, who came as a man to talk with humanity, lived a perfect life, claimed the Hebrew Scriptures were about Him, predicted His death and resurrection claiming they would validate His message and that He is God, and then did it! (See 1 Corinthians 15)
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
JOHN 3:16, NASB
God is so much about relationship with us that He did what no other deity has offered: He became human, and then He died for our rebellion.
It sounds foolish to the world, that God He did this and rose from the dead, but believing this is what saves.
and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
2 CHRONICLES 7:14, NASB
God desires to save us and have relationship with us.
He made a way through Christ. Turn from your sin, and seek His face.
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
2 CORINTHIANS 4:7-9, NASB
God has chosen to dwell in us by the Holy Spirit. The world hates God, but we know He ultimately wins. Do not fear the world.
But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
MATTHEW 6:6, NASB
We must spend time alone with God. Prayer is not a last resort, it is our direct line to our Creator and Lord.
I did not do the silly high five at the end of this video! Am I a horrible person? (Theologically speaking, technically yes … apart from Christ …)
But it is addressing that tantalizing question: What is faith?
Give Me 5: What Is Faith?
Many people do not really understand faith.
In a recent book, “A Manual for Creating Atheists”, philosopher Peter Boghossian defined faith as belief without evidence, pretending to know things you don’t really know.
But is this right?
In a word: no.
How does the Bible explain faith?
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1, ESV
Another way of explaining faith is putting your beliefs into action. If you believe something to be true, prove it! Prove you are faithful to those beliefs by acting on them.
The most used example of what faith is is a chair. You can say you believe a chair will hold you up, but faith is proving it by sitting on the chair. Typically, you are acting on evidence. (In this case, you have been told chairs are for sitting on, and you may have seen other people sit in chairs.)
As Christians, we do not have a blind faith. The Bible is our evidence for God and Jesus.
The Bible has several prophecies about the coming Messiah who would take away our sins, and Jesus claimed He was the fulfillment of those prophecies. He made many claims to His deity, as well, and He said that He would prove it all by dying and rising again.
The Apostles and early disciples did not just write about things they heard. They claimed to have heard these things and seen the crucified and risen Jesus with their own eyes.
And the Bible is the most reliable ancient set of documents we have from antiquity, by far. Few experts contest this. (Maybe the actual events, but not that at least the New Testament is reliably from people from the First Century.)
Who lives with and uses faith?
Everyone.
It is not only Christians and the overtly religious. My evidence for this?
How about evolutionary theory: How is it claimed life began? Several chemicals somehow combined in the right amounts at the right time to create the building blocks for RNA and DNA, creating the first living cells.
How do we know it happened this way?
We don’t. No one was there to see it, and no one as recreated it in the lab to test this hypothesis. People simply believe it is true.
This is more like blind faith than Christianity!
As said before, everyone lives by some form of faith in someone or something throughout their days and lives. Faith is putting beliefs into action.
What do you think? Am I way too far off the mark? (I think most others are.)
How about we talk about, either in the comments (on this blog post or on the YouTube channel) or through the e-mail: Together@asimplemanofgod.com, or even at the Facebook page: a simple man of God.
[Love] does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
1 CORINTHIANS 13:6, NASB
We can not be so friendly with the world as to accept everything they do, nor do we celebrate when anyone suffers, but we we share the truth of Christ and rejoice all the more when a lost soul receives it.
Do we truly love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths? Maybe I can help with the mind part, at least! This is Daniel M. Klem, apparent poet, reluctant yet passionate Disciple (Peter?), and foolish man attempting to understand theology!