Posts Tagged ‘faith’

The Nature of Faith

Posted: 02/19/2020 in Defending the Faith, Justified Faith
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You don’t have to look very hard in the New Testament to find the word ‘faith’—it’s literally everywhere.  In fact, we are assured in Hebrews 11:6 that, without it, it is impossible to please God, which means that it is obviously very important.  However, it has been my experience that Christians often fail to understand the true nature of the faith that God requires of us.  Consider the following two scenarios:

Scenario 1:  A young boy wakes up on a cold winter morning in a small South Dakota town.  Excitedly, he pulls back the curtains of his bedroom window to reveal a winter wonderland outside, with the first snowfall of the year having blanketed everything in sight.  He throws on his boots, trousers, coat, and scarf and then grabs his bobsled as he makes his way to the freshly frozen lake out behind his house.  He approaches the lake at a full sprint and, without a second thought, throws his sled down onto the ice and jumps, outstretched, on top of it with a squeal of delight.

Scenario 2:  The same young boy awakes on the same snowy morning.  He dons his winter wear, and grabs his sled.  As he approaches the freshly frozen lake behind his house, he notices the tire tracks from his dad’s 2.5 ton pickup truck stretching from the driveway of their home all the way out across the frozen lake to the other side, where his father is gathering a load of fresh firewood for their home.  With confidence, he gleefully runs out onto the ice and begins his fun-filled day of bobsledding.

Now, in both scenarios, the boy had faith in the ice on the lake and its ability to hold him and his sled.  The difference is, the faith exercised in the first scenario was an unjustified or blind faith, as there was no rational reason for the boy to trust that the ice could hold him.  Sure, he believed that it would, but there was no real justification for his belief. However, in the second scenario, the boy was exercising justifiable faith.  That is, he had a very good reason for believing that the ice would hold him and for subsequently acting upon that belief by stepping out onto it.  The tracks, indicating that his father’s much larger and heavier vehicle had successfully been supported by the ice, gave him a logical justification for his assumption that it would also hold him.  That is the same type of faith that God calls us to exercise with regards to trusting Him and His Word.  Consider Romans 1:18-20:

18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

According to these verses, God has clearly revealed Himself to all mankind such that we are without excuse for denying Him. That is, the ‘tracks’ He has left for us via both His natural and special revelation, not only justify our faith in Him, they demand it.  As such, Christianity is not a blind leap into the dark unknown, but rather, it is a confident step onto a sure foundation of Truth that has been established and revealed by God in such a way that we can know with certainty who He is and that His Word is true.  This is why the Apostle Paul could confidently declare in 2 Timothy 2:12—

 ……nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

The foundation of God is indeed a sure one. It is not shameful to trust in Him—it is shameful not to. May God help us to trust Him more and to build up ourselves on our most holy faith!

The Maranatha Manuscripts

Posted: 02/18/2017 in Absolute Truth, atheism, bias, Biblical Creation, Christian Doctrine, Creation vs. Evolution, Defending the Faith, Divine Revelation, evolution, folly of atheism, irrefutable truth, Natural Revelation
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(A series of scripted correspondences from a ‘Heavenly helper’ to a Christian Soldier)

[Letter 4]:

Greetings Soldier,

I appreciate very much your enthusiastic questions! I see a hunger for truth and understanding in you that the Father finds most pleasing. It is His great delight to ‘pull back the veil’ and reward those who seek truth with the answers that they desire as they ask, seek, and knock with confidence in Christ. It is my great pleasure to be the means by which this treasure is conveyed to you, as the only thing more joyful than receiving knowledge is imparting it to those who sincerely desire it. Indeed, the acceptance and appreciation of truth by those who gladly receive it is its own reward to those from whom it is imparted. With that in mind, let’s attend to that very thing.

First, you asked specifically for ways to convey to unbelievers how Creation itself demonstrates the existence of God. One very simple, yet powerful, way to convey this truth is to simply point out the obvious—that just as paintings don’t paint themselves and buildings don’t build themselves, creation cannot have ‘created’ itself. To assert that it has done so (and without having observed it or anything else ever having done so) is to abandon a stance of rationality and good sense in exchange for blind faith and wishful thinking. After all, who but a fool would attempt to argue that natural laws (such as thermodynamics, gravity, physics, etc.) can exist without a Lawgiver? No doubt, you have already noticed that many times, when in the midst of discussing these issues with unbelievers, they will often appeal to what they have read in science books or atheistic literature in order to try to support their faith in evolution—-in other words, they ultimately are asking you to join them in exercising blind faith in something they have only read about in a book—-how ironic indeed!!  Here to serve,

Your Heavenly ‘Angent’

 

The Heart of the Matter

Posted: 05/15/2015 in Absolute Truth, atheism, Biblical inerrancy, Christian Doctrine, Creation vs. Evolution, Defending the Faith, Defense of Doctrine, Divine Revelation, evolution, folly of atheism, Jesus Christ, Justified Faith, Moral absolutes, presuppositions, secular humanism, worldviews
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Some time ago I was engaged in a very lively debate, regarding the validity of the Christian worldview vs. non-Christian worldviews, over at Debate.org. Believe it or not, a very simple challenge, put forth to those who hold to worldviews which deny the God of the Bible, turned into a discussion thread of over 800 comments (well above the norm)! I have included the link to the discussion for anyone who is interested in seeing how non-Christians fared when asked to account for the most basic, fundamental concepts (i.e. logic, truth, knowledge, the foundation of the scientific method, etc.), required for making sense of the world around us, in their worldview. Warning: it ain’t pretty!

http://www.debate.org/forums/Religion/topic/55783/

NOTE: What you’ll notice in these types of discussions is that those who deny God and the truth of the Bible will always ultimately be reduced to ‘vain and foolish’ reasoning, just like Scripture states (Romans 1:18-22, I Corinthians 1:19-20). In particular, notice how the unbelievers’ positions are always shown to be based upon nothing more than blind-faith and mere opinion, having no logical foundation whatsoever upon which to rest. As I always enjoy pointing out, that is the very definition of an irrational (and, therefore, untrue) position. The more familiar Christians become with these arguments, the easier it is to then (hopefully gently) expose the errors in the unbeliever’s reasoning and to pull down the ‘intellectual strongholds’ that prevent them from considering and, subsequently, receiving the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Remember, no one will receive with their heart what their mind rejects as false, making the mandate of 2 Corinthians 10:5 especially relevant to us today:

Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

I welcome your thoughts.