Posts Tagged ‘ Faith ’
Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
John 3:18, ESV
Denying Christ leaves you under God’s wrath. Only through faith in Christ, the Son of the living God who took on the Father’s wrath in our place, are we freed from that condemnation.
Now and always.
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18, ESV
Life can be hard, disheartening, oppressive, scary, depressing, and all-around cruddy.
God is closest during these times. Take hold of His hand.
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.
Ephesians 6:10, ESV
The Lord is our strength. Trust in Him, not your own abilities.
looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Hebrews 12:2, ESV
What is faith? Jesus is the source. Without the cross and resurrection, we have no basis for faith.
Christ’s faithfulness gives us faith.
It is time to look at that super-non-controversial word “religion”!
Some claim religion is for unthinking idiots or contrary to a relationship with God.
Some Christians claim “It’s not a religion, it’s a relationship.”
Atheists and other irreligious folks claim that religion is an opioid for the masses (Marx) or for those who don’t like to think.
Many scholars agree that our word for religion comes from the Latin:
religare: to bind, to connect
And therefore …
religio: obligation, bond, reverence
We therefore can understand religion as binding oneself to a set of obligations. Is this helpful?
Both Merriam-Webster and Oxford dictionaries have several definitions (look them up!), but I will focus on just a few:
Merriam-Webster uses:
With some definitions of religious being:
Oxford defines religion with:
Personally, I would also clarify with a religion being:
This all should quell the religious fervor with which Christians deny that Christianity is a religion. We still set boundaries for any relationship which we faithfully follow, so this particular relationship is a religion. (But I get their meaning, so I will not harp too much on them for it … unless it gets in the way of or directly refutes firm doctrine.)
Conversely, this all implies that even atheism is a religion. Why?
The argument some atheists offer, that it is a lack of belief, is, frankly, stupid. It is a belief. It is incredibly difficult to prove scientifically that something supernatural (Beyond the natural) exists, so a lack of evidence in something beyond our understanding of space-time can only lead to one believing something … without evidence.
And before anyone argues atheism is not a blind faith, how did the universe or life on Earth begin? No experiment or evidence has yet to reveal these from a naturalistic origin. To claim we know how either of these began (apart from God) is being intellectually dishonest and anti-science. You must believe on faith that we may someday find these answers, even with little to no evidence supporting any of the myriad of claims for each beginning.
How is atheism (and along with it evolution and the climate change movement) not a religious belief, especially with the cultish celebrity-worship, demand for strict adherence to the teachings, and excommunication of people who disagree (or raise challenging questions, even from a sincere perspective)?
No matter the religion, Christian Scripture tells us what our religion should look like:
Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
James 1:27
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8
Matthew 23: Basically, Jesus tells us that hypocrisy is setting rules and demands on others while not holding yourself to them. Do not make it more difficult for people to follow, make yourself look good, and take care of your own needs, yet neglect mercy, justice, and true faithfulness without really changing yourself.
Religion is not relationship denying nor for unthinking idiots.
Wise people have religion, for it sets the boundaries to live by to protect relationships and truth. To remove those rules and guidelines is to allow for any “truth”, and this leads to cultish behavior and/or anarchy. Just look at the state of the Western Church and pop-atheism and the global climate change scare.
Madness.
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?
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.)
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.
Yep. I missed last week. We had family in town, and I never had a long enough, quiet enough stretch of time by myself to record a video. Here is a new one, though! Here is the new Give Me 5:
Out of the Reformation of the 1500’s came what we call “The Five Solas or Solae”, but what do they mean?
The Reformation started as a call to return to a simple faith not dogged down by man-made or superfluous rules and dogmas. (This is not the time for a debate about Catholic versus Protestant and denominational separation.)
It does lead to our first sola: Sola Scriptura – Scripture alone. Basically, this means that all of our traditions and understanding about God, Jesus, and humanity should be based on what the Bible says. There is value in traditions, the various councils, and books/teachings, but they must conform with what Scripture – as a whole – teaches.
This includes the matter of salvation, covered in the next solar: Sola Gratia, Sola Fide, Solus Christus, Soli Deo Gloria – By grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.
This was summarized by Paul in Ephesians chapter two, when he said,
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
(vv. 4-9, ESV)
We still need to confess our sins – primarily to God, but also to each other (James 5:16).
We still do works – but as an act of obedience and love for the One who saves us (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).
But it is only by grace through faith in the work Christ to the the glory of the Father as revealed in Scripture that we are saved.
Now, this is only a brief overview. We can continue to discuss this in the comments or through e-mail at Together@asimplemanofgod.com, or even on our Facebook page, a simple man of God. I am sure more videos and articles will be made discussing these.
People ask if the the Bible is reliable, that it can be trusted as authentic and historical. (See the video on YouTube by clicking this sentence.)
There are a few items that prove the historicity and reliability of the Bible.
To begin with, in the last 20 years alone, several archaeological discoveries have been made confirming the existence of Kings David and Solomon, as well as much of ancient Israel from Biblical times, including NT times.
One of the greatest discoveries was the Dead Sea Scrolls, collections of biblical manuscripts dating from before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and even before the time of Christ. These scrolls contained much of the Hebrew Bible, confirming that existed it before Jesus’ time. This is important, because it means the prophecies of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection existed prior.
What about the New Testament?
First, if we want to discuss numbers of manuscripts, as a whole there are about 24,000 of the New Testament, and the four Gospels alone have nearly 6,000 copies from early on, possibly as early as late first century or early second century. This is within 100 years of Jesus’ and the Apostles’ lives. Even further, we know the majority of the gospels were written before 70 due to Paul – who was killed by 64 – quoted Luke 10:7 in 1 Timothy 5:18. By contrast, the next closest ancient document is Homer’s “The Iliad” with 643 manuscripts from over 500 years after Homer lived.
This should be enough to convince anyone, but just in case, the ultimate proof is that Jesus corroborated much of the OT and said His testimony is true. His proof was that He predicted His own death and resurrection (See Luke 20-22), adding validity to His claims by being crucified and rising again.
Therefore, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, “For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” (vv. 16-20)
In other words, the resurrection proves the Bible is true (by backing up Jesus’ claims). (See also the series beginning with this post.)
Wanna debate, challenge, or question what was said here? Leave a comment below or send us an e-mail at Together@asimplemanofgod.com.
And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
Hebrews 11:6, ESV
Jesus is the only way to God, and it is only by putting your faith in Him that you find that way. Apart from faith in Christ, you are wandering like a blind man and far from God.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13, ESV
Hope springs from faith.
Faith springs from love.
Love springs from dedication and choice.
Choose love. Always.
a simple man of God 