Tag Archives: faith

Walking in faith

Col 1:21-23

This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.
But you must continue to believe this truth and stand firmly in it. Don’t drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed as God’s servant to proclaim it.

  1. We were separated from God by our evil thoughts and actions.
  2. He, God, has reconciled you to Himself through Christ’s death.
  3. You have been brought into His presence
  4. You are holy and blameless before God- totally faultless
  5. But. This is important.
  • Continue to believe this
  • Stand firm in this belief (faith)
  • Don’t drift from assurance

This is the key to walking out this faith in Christ. It is reliant on our believing we are God’s, standing firm in it even in those times we don’t feel like it.

Grace and peace

Zacharias Faithful Servant, with Doubts

Leave a reply

Luke 1:5 introduces Zacharias, an aging priest. He has served God as a priest all of his adult life. The passage goes on to explain that he and his wife are blameless before God. In other words they were both faithful servants of God, living life in obedience to God, keeping His law faithfully. We learn from the passage that Zacharias and his wife had never had children, and clearly they had passed the years in which they could have children. They were both old! We also learn in the passage that they had prayed for their whole life to be blessed with a child, but that had never happened, and now was not possible. Still Zacharias served God in the Temple. I can imagine that just like us Zacharias was going through the hum-drum daily grind of life, doing the daily routines, almost subconsciously, automatically going through the days. He was not ready for what God was going to bring loudly into his life.

It would seem that the priests took turns to perform the various temple rituals. It was now Zacharias’ turn to burn incense before God in the Temple. From the passage we can see that typically the priest would go into the temple burn the incense at the altar of incense, then come out to deliver a message to the attendees of the temple service. He would not dwell in he temple, that part of the ritual is short, only long enough to set up and get the incense burning.

Zacharias’ life would now be turned upside-down! In the process of doing his duties an angel of God suddenly stands to the right hand side of the altar of incense. Finding himself in fear, the angel announces to Zacharias that his prayers for a child would be answered. Not only would Zacharias be blessed with a son, but he will be a great servant of God. Wow, his lifelong prayer is going to be answered! but his reaction was not so. I and my wife are too old he said to the angel.

This is where I find myself often, and I don’t think I’m alone. I know what God says He will do. I know what God expects of me. But I get in the daily grind. The hum-drum of life, and I think, God will not do those things that He says He’ll do. I doubt! Our lives as believers, followers of Christ are not that different from the life of Zacharias. We know what we are supposed to do as believers, we do our best to walk in integrity, in the will of God, but doubt creeps in, that is at least how it goes in my life, in my walk with God. Pay attention, God will bring things, circumstances, people into our lives to bring us back on track. For Zacharias it was a bit drastic. He was made to not be able to speak until the baby was born. It was a statement not only to Zacharias that God had done a thing in his life, but this sudden inability to speak was meant to alert the temple goers that day that God was about to do something. After all to fulfill his duties that day Zacharias needed to deliver a speech to those temple goers. The passage tells us that he tried to speak to the people, I suppose if you think about it, once again doubting what the angel had told him. He tried to speak! The passage tells us that all the people in attendance knew that God had communicated with Zacharias through a vision. God had communicated that something was about to happen through a man that could not speak.

God’s will is not dependent on us, His believers, His followers. Even though Zacharias doubted what the angel had said to him, God did that miracle, Zacharais and his wife would have a son. Thank God that he is not dependent on us, or on our perfect execution of His will. If God’s will depended on our carrying it out, it would fail. We would fail. God cannot fail! His will is going to happen, and there is no way to stop it. God does His work in spite of us, and still involves us in that work. Oh how great He is, how gracious He is. To Him be all gory, honor, and power!

Pay attention to God’s working in life. He is active in our lives, I think we need to make an effort to be aware of His working in us. Look for it. Trust Him, as He guides us. When doubt creeps in look for his working to strengthen us.

Evolution Vs. The Bible

Leave a reply

We are being taught today that the universe and all that is in it happened by accident, and, that from that accident all life as we know it evolved. Those who hold to evolution also claim the Bible to be a fairy tale, a superstition advanced by a select group to deceive an manipulate the general population. We are being taught that science proves that evolution has occurred and therefore there is no God.

Is this all true?

Scientific Method

In order to understand what is going on in the world or universe around us there needs to be a method to gain that knowledge. With no method we can draw any kind of conclusion based on any reason which doesn’t have to be based in fact.

Wikipedia defines the scientific method this way. “The scientific method is a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.[2] To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry is commonly based on empirical or measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.” click here for the full article.

Let’s make a simple definition for our purposes here. Science is a study of the world around us based on observable, measure-able evidence.

Evolution

For the purpose of this discussion I am more interested in the Evolutionary history of life, because this is where the scientific community most takes aim at the christian church.

Evolutionary History is defined in  Wikipedia as: “The evolutionary history of life on Earth traces the processes by which living and fossil organisms have evolved since life appeared on the planet, until the present day.” Complete article here.

For evolution to occur many years are required, and many accidents that cause change(evolution) to take place. The latest idea out there it seems is that several billion years ago stars exploded expelling stardust across the universe in which itself contained the basic elements for life. These elements then over billions of years established life in the universe as we know it, and possibly in other places unknown to us.

There are problems with any of this from the prospective of scientific method. First of all none of this is observable. There is also no way to measure either the explosion of the star or stars that “exploded” or the time needed for life to establish itself, or the accident needed to make the environment necessary to generate, then incubate life into existence. One quick thought on heat and life, don’t we use heat to destroy living organisms (sterilization)? Arn’t starts, by their very nature, Heat? In fact much greater heat that we would use for sterilization. We must then simply accept that this great accident actually happened. We must accept that out of the heat of a furnace protazoa emerged. We must accept that inspite of what we know of the destruction that occurs in an explosion, for the purpose of evolution, life emerged. Where did the stars that exploded come from? Did they evolve? According to evolutionists we must have “faith” in the scientific establishment, simply because they are smarter than us.

Radiometric dating is relied on for the establishment of the age of the earth and everything in it when it comes to evolution. The interesting thing with these methods is the sheer number of assumptions made in the theories used for these methods. The assumptions and exceptions by far out weigh the known facts when considering radiometric dating. After all we have at best a few thousand years of verifiable, datable, objects to test. Even when testing these verifiable objects multiple tests must be run to achieve the correct outcome. Who determines the correct outcome? There are papers on top of papers written concerning the fragility of these tests, and the ease of which the accuracy of these tests can be affected. So if we know the accuracy of a test done on an object of which we have a good idea of the age can be off, how can we be sure of the accuracy of a test done on an object that is unknown in origin? One must assume at that point that the tester must assume the basic age of an object then test to get the correct results. Bad science! Un measure-able. Un verifiable.

The fact of the matter is, you have to have great FAITH in the theory of evolution. Faith is the basis of religion. And so, I put to you that evolution is as much a faith based religion as any other faith based religion out there. It just so happens that many, not all, but many scientists are of the Evolutionist faith!

Defense of Evolution

In the history of mankind, religion has been used to force compliance of peoples all over this world. Most times the motive to force compliance of peoples is power/wealth. The religion of evolution is no different. The power struggle today is very evident. The pressures on our society are very evident. We are seeing evolution being taught in our schools as fact, not theory. In fact it’s interesting that Evolution is still described in articles as “The Theory of Evolution” but presented as if it is established as absolute truth. Dangerous!

Ridicule is heaped on any who dare express any other idea. Or even challenge simply the time evolution requires. Yet evolutionist wax eloquent on the idea of tolerance. Try to offer a differing view to any of them, and observe the “tolerance.” This is the same tactic used by many religions to force the community into compliance.

Conclusion

We have allowed this religion of Evolutionism to take our society, but there will be no taking it back. It’s up to you to decide for yourself if the religion of Evolution is for you, or not.

You must engage your mind. In the end you are responsible for your beliefs. Blind faith in anyone, or anything is a crap shoot at best. Information, knowledge is there for you to discover, don’t let others define you as a person. Don’t allow yourself to be carried away in a lie.

Your beliefs define you as a person!

Life As A New Christian

Leave a reply

So what does it look like to live a “christian” life. One thing that you can expect is that everyone christian and non christian alike will be more than willing to point out how a christian should and shouldn’t live.

Likely Advice From Christians

You will likely directed to go to church and to read your bible. These are two really good pieces of advice. It is always positive to interact with other christians to learn from one another, to discuss what is being learned, and how God is working in our lives. Encouragement from other believers in hard times and good time cause growth and strength in our lives of faith. As far as reading the bible, God has very successfully protected the bible through the history of the world. It is both the most loved and hated book of all time. It is the most published book of all times. It is translated into more languages than any other book. He has protected it for you and I, that we can know him through studying it’s pages.

Pray, talk with God. He has given us direct access to Himself. Jesus teaches that we can speak with Him directly Just as Jesus can. Tell Him of your struggles. Thank Him for the blessing that He brings into your life. Ask Him to meet your needs.

There will be other advice that will come from well meaning christians but not really rooted in the truths passed on to us through the word of God. Dos and don’ts that are considered to be the way of the “good” Christian life, but can be a trap pulling us away from God. Beware of religious activity, the High Priests of Jesus’ day were highly moral men, following God’s law to the letter, but missing the spirit of God when He walked among them. The same danger exists for the God fearing person today, be spirit led! Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that the day will come that we worship God in Spirit… That day is now!

Likely Advice From Non-Christians

Believe it or not there will be many unbelievers who will be more than willing to lead you in the way that a christian should go. I found it very interesting as a new believer how many people that would not be caught dead in a church would very readily tell me that “hey christians can’t do that,” or, “a good christian person would always do…”

Unbelievers will be the most ready to offer opinions of where you can go, what you can do, and how you can act. Live in faith, in the Spirit. Listening to God as you read His word.

Important for the Christian

First the christian life is a living relationship with God himself. He said in the word of God that He will send the Holy Spirit to guide us and lead us in all truth. I believe that He will make Himself known to us and guide our lives in the way that He wants us to live. I find that in our intellectual age, we tend to fear the spiritual world but to be a christian is to live in the spiritual world. The bible teaches us that the spirit of God indwells (Jn 16:13) believers, which means that we can be lead by the Spirit at all times. That makes the christian life a spiritual life. We can live in faith knowing that God will lead us, guiding our lives to be pleasing to Him.

There is no set of rules to live by to be pleasing to God. Jesus when asked which of the commandments was the greatest replied, “The greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, and the second is like unto it, love your neighbor as yourself.” These two thoughts sum up the way that God would have us to live. (Romans 1:17) There are well meaning people who will give you a set of standards to live by as a christian. Please know that the bible teaches that just as we are saved completely by faith so we can live only completely by faith. There is no recipe to live by but faith in God. The trick is to do what you do by faith and let God teach you and lead you. There will be people that God may put into your life to lead you along the way, but make sure that what they are telling you matches your understanding of the word of God. Faith is the beginning of our spiritual lives, and faith will take us trough to the end of this life.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ

Leave a reply

So what is the gospel of Jesus Christ? The simple meaning of “gospel” is good news. So the gospel of Jesus Christ can be called the good news of Jesus Christ. So what is this good news? The good news or the gospel is that because we as mankind is not good enough to be acceptable to God and only deserving of His punishment, Jesus made a way for us to be adopted as sons and daughters of God, not just accepted, but adopted!

Unacceptable

We, mankind are all unacceptable to god because we are imperfect. The moral law that God gave us simply proves our imperfection. when we compare ourselves against the law of God, or the ten commandments we see quickly that we fail on multiple or all points of the law. For myself I don’t make it past the very first commandment, Love the Lord your God with all your heart. My heart and mind are constantly drawn to other things or people casting God aside, failing to keep his law, condemned as guilty. I fail on all points of the law if it is interpreted in the fashion that Jesus says it should be applied. For He said in the sermon on the mount that to even think contrary to the law is to break or violate the law, thus failing to keep it. It is logical to conclude then that no person except God is capable of keeping the law.  we are all Unacceptable and therefore condemned as sinners. Deserving only the judgement of God.

Judgement

So we are all judged guilty. We are all rebelling against God and this is proved by the law given us by Him. We all also know this to be true instinctively. That is why we feel guilt when we do or think anything that is immoral, or sin.

God’s judgement for those who have sinned is death, and separation from Him for eternity. Hell is the place for which we are bound. We judge ourselves, we know our own guilt. There is no defense.

Substitution

From the beginning God has allowed for a substitute to die for the sins of another. For Adam and Eve He, God sacrificed lambs and as a symbol covered them with the skins of the animals. The animals bore the sin of Adam and Eve, the blood of the lambs was shed in substitution for the blood of Adan and Eve.

In the same way God has provided a substitutionary sacrifice in Jesus for all the world. He was judged guilty for our sin, and died as our substitute so that we can live, both now and forever with God.

One Requirement

There is only one requirement left to have the substitutionary death of Christ applied to anyone! Believe.

Yes that is the good news of Jesus Christ. Believe that He is the son of God who died as your substitute to with His blood purchase your forgiveness for all the sin you have done and will do.

Jn 3:16 Perhaps the most known scripture verse there is. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. That is the only requirement that God has for total forgiveness.

He doesn’t require that we change our lives to be saved from death. He doesn’t require us to give up any vises, bad habits to be saved. There is no ceremony to be done, no isles to walk, no service to do. Simply believe!

He will change our lives as we live believing Him, live by faith.

Belief in God

Leave a reply

Belief in God

What is meant by the phrase believe in God? What is belief at all? We live in a time when we find it hard to “believe” what anyone has to say and this affects the entirety of our lives. What about Abraham, it is said about him in Genesis 15:6that he (Abraham) believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. What does this mean?

belief: a feeling of being sure that someone or something exists or that something is true

So let’s put this definition to work with God. Belief in God is a feeling of being sure that God exists, and that God is true. This characterised the life of Abraham. God told him to leave his country to go to a place that He(God) would show him once he arrived. Abraham did that, he picked up his entire family along with all his possessions and left. God told Abraham that he would have so many descendants that they would number like the grains of sand. Being Old, Abraham still believed God. Sure he made errors, really Abraham and Sarah tried to “help” God out, mistakes were made, and Abraham still believed God. Sure there were times of doubt, but he believed God. It’s hard for us to accept that God will do what He says He’ll do, but we can believe Him.

We have a term “system of belief” which refers to the core beliefs a person holds concerning life and all there is. Each of us has a system of belief, there is no exception to this truth. Some would try to remove themselves from having a system of belief because at it’s core this screams religion. The Atheist too has a system of belief, he/she believes there is no god, no divine influence on life as we know it. Therefore he/she tries to live life as if there is no God, no right or wrong, no definite truths. After all there is no God to which we are accountable. This kind of thinking is in direct contrast to the christian way of thought.

Each person holds his/her system of tightly, and we jealously guard against all those around us who would challenge this system. We all feel uncomfortable when our system is challenged, but it will be challenged. This is when our “belief” holds our world perspective together. We also have the tendency to be sure that our system is the only correct, logical system and we defend it as such. We tend to gather with people who share our beliefs and we strengthen each others beliefs, whatever they are. Christians call this fellowship or church.

My Belief in Jesus

I believe that Jesus Christ is God’s son, sent to die a sacrificial death to pay the debt of sin we all hold John 3:16. Jesus being God himself was able to die as our substitute because he was perfect and suitable to make payment for my great sin debt. God alone, Jesus Christ alone, was sufficiently good to pay the debt, anyone else, anything else is dirty before God (mares by sin) and therefore unacceptable as payment (sacrifice). I believe that simple faith in this sacrificial death is sufficient to make me acceptable to God, and able to approach Him as an adopted son, seen by him as perfect based on the payment that Christ has made on my part through his death. I believe that He desires all mankind to believe Him, believe Christ, because that is Gods way for us to be made pure (sinless) before God. I believe that those who believe Him will in-fact spend the rest of eternity with Him after death takes us from this world.

Proofs for my beliefs

So what is it that makes me sure of my beliefs? Lets look at a few of the simple truths that make me absolutely sure of my system of belief.

I know with out a doubt that I sin Romans 3:23. I know for a fact that when I do sin I feel shame even if no one sees me sin.

I am always impressed that each time I write the date, or take notice of the date, that I am in fact taking notice to and agreeing with the fact that Jesus Died a bad death just over 2015 years ago, that is what A.D. means, (After Death).

God’s spirit is ready to comfort me at all times John 14:26. This comfort comes most easily in extremely intense, impossible times. The comfort of God for example in the face of imminent death is not explainable except for Gods power in our lives. There are men women and children all over this world, but especially in the middle east at this time who, in the face of horrific death lay down their lives refusing to deny the existence of Jesus Christ. (This is not my situation) I live in a place where beliefs are challenged in other ways that are less extreme, but also true and I’m afraid more damaging.

Life for us is too plastic, we don’t face starvation, stoning, beheading. In fact we don’t even see death of our loved ones in the realty that is death! Everything is made pretty, hardships are removed from us in a way that insulates us from them. We complain about the difficulties we face, the lack of things usually, while in other parts of our country and world people face the growling of their children’s bellies, or the treat of death for following Jesus. I wanted once to take a photo of a person I know, and through the translator he said “don’t take a photo of me being so hungry.” He didn’t want the memory of him being hungry to be remembered. In that part of the world they rely on God each day to give them the things they need. I will tell you that when they have food they are grateful because they understand that it comes from the hand of God!

Where are the Atheists

I have never met an Atheist in places where life is a battle. I have only met atheists in 1st world countries where everything is easy to come by. The ironic thing is these are the countries that have benefited from a long history of Christian influence, and the prosperity that results from that influence. The communists have tried to rid their countries of faith, to make their countries atheist, but in every instance they have failed. I know one gentleman who spent his whole life up to one event convinced that he was atheist, trying to convince others that there was no God. One day he found himself floating in the Gulf Stream between the USA and the Bahamas after his boat went down under him, leaving him alone, drifting and afraid. It wasn’t long until his cry went out to the God who he had spent his life trying to deny. Great adversity strips away the arrogance that allows us to think we can deny God. Being alone in immanent danger has a sobering effect. That gentleman has walked with God ever since that event, because he found God when all his comforts were taken from him. He knows without a doubt that God is real, and that God cares for us.

Abraham’s Belief

Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. He simply had confidence that God would do exactly what He said He’d do. Abraham was so sure that God would do the things He said He’d do that Abraham acted on whatever God told him. Our actions come out of our system of belief, therefore our actions are a manifestation of that system of belief. Do you believe God? Do you believe Him enough to act on those beliefs?

True faith is not a complicated thing. It is not a hard thing to accomplish or attain to. It is the simple belief that God is God and He will do exactly what He says He will do!

A really interesting problem, for those who deny God is He is still there, and He is still God. The Bible teaches that one day every knee will bow to Him recognising Him as God. To not believe Him in this life will leave a person in a real pickle, there will be no do-overs.

Abraham

Leave a reply

God introduces us to Abram in the final verses of the 11th chapter to Genesis. No great pomp or circumstance just an introduction, who he is, who his family is, and where they were.

The first verse of chapter 12 finds God telling Abraham to leave his country and family and go, to a place that was not defined, but God would show him when he gets there. Not exactly circumstances that would excite the majority of us, but Abram does what God had asked him to do. God also told Abram that He(God) was going to make Abram a great nation that would be a blessing to the whole world. Through the lineage of Abram the whole earth would be blessed, but there were again no specifics given to Abram. He and Sarai, his wife were without children, but Abram was not bothered by these details. I would like to say that this is faith, faith in a God that Abram knew would do exactly what He said He would do. Lots of us believe that there is a God, but not so many of us are willing to act on that belief. We want a plan from beginning to end, with quantifiable goals along the way so that we can be sure the plan is working. That is not the way that God wants to interact with us. Faith is only real when we are able to act on a belief regardless of possible outcomes. Abram had no idea of where he is going, or how he will be perceived by others.

Abram and his household continued on until God appeared to Abram again, letting him know where to stop.

There is a saying “put your money where your mouth is.” That can be put as, you have faith, act on it! When we know what it is that God want’s of us we must act on that knowledge. to not act is to not really believe.

Abram was not a perfect man, but he was a man that believed strongly enough on God to do what he knew God wanted of him. We will take a look into his life to see his errors and then his faith. Each error is a moment that faith failed, failure of faith causes our focus to go to something other than God, some problem we have that at that moment obscures our faith. We will see that these errors are overlooked by God, and Abram picks up where he left off, believing God.