Friday 1 January 2010

Your Challenge

I want to challenge you to find the reason why you believe. It will be a miserable journey but well worth it. Some people may say they believe because, "It makes me happy," or "That's what my parents taught me."

Faith is not a blind leap in the dark. It is not knowing something is true because the evidence leads to it. Faith represents a type of evidence. It is the evidence of the unseen. We have faith because we have good cause to trust God's Word. In light of this, R.C. Sproul said,
"That trust may be provisional until I find that it is not based in substance or evidence. But in the meantime, to trust what we do not see is not necessarily a matter of being irrational. Without reason, the content of biblical faith would be unintelligible and meaningless. So we say that biblical faith is not the same as reason, but that faith is rational and reasonable. The first assertion that faith is rational means that faith is intelligible. It is not absurd or illogical. If biblical revelation were absurd and irrational, it would be utterly unintelligible and meaningless."

By faith we understand the world was formed by the Word of God. None of us were eyewitnesses of the creation. Yet we trust that the universe has come into being by the act of God’s divine work of creation because we have come on reasonable grounds to believe that God’s Word is trustworthy. We can trust God’s Word even for those things that we cannot see because we are convinced that God’s Word is trustworthy and that conviction is a reasonable conviction. John Calvin also argued the point that true faith is not believing against evidence. Rather, true faith involves trusting in the evidence that God has amply provided in and through His Word. That faith is not without what Calvin called evidences; rather, it is a faith that surrenders to or consents to the evidences.

I want you to dig deeper into the New Testament documents and find the facts for yourself. You don't need to have a philosophy major. There are many reliable resources online and at your local Christian book store. Get informed and be prepared to share your faith! Christian apologetics is an important tool for convincing others of your faith. It's also strengthens your confidence. 1 Peter 3:15 says, "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have."


Reference: Ligonier.org

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