May 16, 2023
Many years ago, my first creative writing assignment was to tell why I believed in God. I was 18, away from home for the first time in my life for more than a week. I had gone away to college with all sorts of dreams and ambitions. And I really wasn’t sure why I believed in God. I had been raised in the Church of the Nazarene. I knew why I belonged to that church but I didn’t really know why I believed in God. Kinda weird, huh?
Now we all have our own idea of what He looks like but then we are thinking in our own human terms. Our concept of what God looks like is colored by artists and pictures of what others think God looks likes. God told Moses that to see His face would kill him. So, God only showed him His back. But there will come a day when we shall see Him face to face. But only if we have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. To accept that redemption is our choice.
So, when you think about it, God is kind of hard to wrap your mind around. God has always existed. He has always existed outside of time. No beginning and no end. He always was. He always is. And He always will be. The Bible says, “In the beginning, God . . .” That kind of tells me that God was around before the beginning too. God is the Cornerstone of all creation. He’s not a power, He is the source of all things.
So, get this. Outside of time, there was nothing anywhere, except God. There was no time, no planets, stars, galaxies or universe, for that matter. Just God. Science has tried to come up with some sort of explanations of how our universe was formed. The Big Bang, among other theories. I can’t tell you how God created everything, but I can tell you He created everything out of nothing with just His word. There were no raw materials, no cosmic dust, no dark matter, no helium, hydrogen or any other element that we know of. Just God’s word. The Big Bang might be the closest science ever comes to understanding what happened but now even science is questioning whether the Big Bang is right or not. First, there was nothing but God. God said, “Let it be.” Then, Boom! There it is!
If the universe had happened by random chance, then there is no logical reason that it should operate in the orderly fashion that it does. But the laws of physics, gravity, energy and many other physical laws work because they were designed to do so by a logical, orderly God. Isaac Science has learned that physics, biology, geography, plant life and animal life all follow certain laws and processes. These laws and processes do not change. There are so many mysteries that we have discovered about our universe but we can’t explain them. We try but we’re only guessing.
There can be no other explanation for it. From nothing, there is something. God just said it and it was. That just blows my mind. So let me try to tell you why it makes sense to me to believe in God. Man has always had a need to believe in something, or someone more than ourselves. Whether it be God, Himself, or an idol that man attributes God-like qualities to. Man needed explanations of why things, good or bad, happened. It’s just the way we were created. We were created to be companions to God but sin broke that companionship in the Garden of Eden and man was separated from a Holy God, and as man populated the earth, most drifted from the worship of God to that of inanimate, powerless wood and stone gods in an attempt to believe in something that was more than themselves.
Man cannot comprehend God. It is just not possible. We cannot explain how something came from nothing just by a word. We cannot explain why the planets hang in the sky without any means of support. We cannot explain the infinite details of the human body and how it somehow all works together in a way that we cannot recreate. We cannot imagine a place without time. We cannot create life out of amino acids and electricity. We can try it a millions times and it just won’t happen. Recently, scientists were able to capture the spark of conception on film. The moment that egg and sperm connect, there is a literal spark, the creation of the human body and soul. See the bottom left image? Nothing mankind can do can ever do will duplicate that spark outside of actual conception. Man cannot duplicate what God can do with just a word.
To explain God in our human terms, limits God to our “box”. God is so outside the box, that we cannot make sense of it. He just is and everything in this universe works according to God’s plan. When we try to explain God, we can only use the terms and definitions that have been created by man over centuries of civilization. We can only explain God in terms of our world. We can only think of God in limited terms. God is limitless and beyond our definitions and explanations. He is not tied to time, to space or matter. He is way more that we can even begin to define.
Man’s search for something more than himself has different answers for different people. Some have figured out the question and the answer. Others don’t feel the need for an answer. Still more, have a question and prefer fiction to fact as the answer. But all are searching for that something or someone that is more than themselves. We are hard-wired to do that. Man tries to create philosophies, religions, cults and all sorts of other ‘isms’ to explain our search but over time all of these will fade as men die and new philosophies come along. Christianity is the only religion on earth that is based on the life and death of one person. Jesus Christ, who was a man with the blood and nature of God within Him. Take Jesus away and there is nothing left.
The fact is, God is a real person. He knows each one of us from the spark of our conception to the death of the very last cell of our bodies. God created us. He loves us. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to us, when we were lost in sin to redeem us. God IS in the past. God IS in the future. God IS in the future. Note that all those verbs are present tense. God IS. God sent Jesus to defeat death for us. That death gave us the opportunity to be forgiven of our sins and to be made righteous for Jesus’ sake. God is a gentleman. He will not impose Himself upon us. He romances us to draw us to Him. The Bible is His love letter to us.
Here are some attributes of God.
God is not quiet – He announced Himself when He created the universe. And again, when He sent His Son, Jesus, to earth. Jesus was fully man and fully God. Jesus said He was the Son of God and proved it. He died and rose again. Hundreds of people saw Him after His death on the cross. He still speaks to us today.
God is Trustworthy – He never lies and never fails to fulfill His promises. Back in the beginning, God told Adam and Eve that one would come to crush the serpent’s head. The promise that sin would be defeated. He did that when Jesus died on the cross and rose again.
God is Merciful – God could have let man just die in sin. But He loved His creation so much that He planned a way to pay the penalty for sin, death. He chose to take that penalty on Himself, as Jesus Christ.
God is Supernatural – As I said before, He created everything by His word. Time, space, planets, animals, plants and humans. He is outside of time. He is not limited to a specific number of years of life. He will always be.
God is all Wisdom – He designed everything perfectly. Every tree, animal, bug and human function as He created them. Sin altered the DNA of all life and brought death. When Christ returns and Satan is permanently defeated, this world will be restored to the way it was originally created to be.
God is Eternal – He has no beginning and no end. He stands outside of time, watching over us. Sending us His Spirit when we accept the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins.
God is Everywhere – God is not limited to a human body as we are. He is everywhere. His Spirit comes to live in His people when they are saved. He is with us always. Everyone, all at the same time.
God is Almighty – The universe is proof of that. His spoken word brought it all into existence. He can do anything and everything. There is no weakness in Him.
God is Invincible – Satan could not defeat Him. Satan wanted to be God but lost the war. Jesus defeated Satan on the cross. God cannot be destroyed or defeated.
God is Sovereign – He controls everything and everything He allows to happen is for our best whether we can see it immediately or not. He sees the big picture. Sometimes it seems that all is lost but God is still working all things together for His children to prosper.
God is Holy – there is no evil in Him. He thoughts for us are pure and for our good.
God has perfect purpose – His plans for us are to prosper us. To give us hope and guidance. He does not want any of us to suffer.
God is Faithful – He has never failed to fulfill a promise. He will always be there for us. There are more that 300 prophecies about Jesus in the Old Testament. God the Son, Jesus, fulfilled each and every one of them.
God is Love – love can be the only driving force for God to have sent Jesus to die in our place. Love laid down the life of an innocent man, with the blood of God in His veins for the forgiveness of your sins and mine. Love showed mercy when justice was demanded. Grace was given to mankind at the cross. All we have to do is accept that love and claim the blood of Christ for the forgiveness of our sin.
Yes, there are times that we cannot see our way through the worst that comes on us. Yes, we may not see how God is working all things for our good. Yes, His answer is sometimes not the answer we want to hear. And yes, sometimes He is silent, but He is always there. Just know that He will always do what is best for us. Don’t you do what is best for your children?
Belief in God takes faith. Faith is truly simple. When you sit in a chair, do you think about whether it will hold you? No, you don’t think about it and sit. That is like faith in God. You believe that God is there and that He loves you. It’s like breathing. It becomes automatic the more you practice your faith. You take a step on faith, KNOWING that God will be there. Simple, childlike faith. When a child’s dad throws him in the air, that child knows dad will catch him. No question. That’s faith.
There is no sensible alternative to believing and trusting in God. Man will fail us. We will fail ourselves. Should we trust in someone who has the same failings that we do? Trust in a man that is sinful, corrupt, unreliable and who makes that same bad choices we do? Trust in a rock or a tree that cannot hear or speak? Or do we trust in a God that is faithful, true to His word, gracious and merciful, all-powerful, all-knowing, wise and nothing but our good in His plans for us? How do we trust God? We get to know Him, personally. We read His word and talk with Him. He will respond to you. Accept that Jesus is the Son of God, who died to take away our sins and fit us for life in heaven for eternity. No changing our ways, no getting sober, no cleaning up. No special words, no special handshake, no mysterious ceremonies. Just as you are, warts and all. He is reaching out to you.
Let me put it this way. I would rather stand for God and be judged by the world than stand with the world and be judged by God.
What about you? Will you believe?
