VIRB

Recently a friend of mine created a note on facebook about Jesse Ventura's statement that religion is a "crutch for the weakminded." His note got a total of 191 comments and much of them were from an atheist girl that was raised Christian but decided that it wasn't something for her anymore. When discussing the matter of faith, she said to me: "You blindly beleive in something for no reason just cause it sounds and feels better than being truthfull to yourself. The truth isnt always what you WANT it to be... Ever heard the saying "the cold hard truth" ? "

I've never been a good debater, and sometimes I find it hard to explain why I believe what I believe to be "truth," but I am going to try to here in this post.

To me, faith is putting your trust in somone or something, without having "proof" or any guarentee that things will work how you expect them to. Humans put faith in a lot of things without really even thinking about it. Many people have faith that the sun will rise in the morning, knowing that there is a possibility that it won't. Nobody knows for sure that it will. Other people put their faith in a bank to keep their money safe or in trusting that Shoppach would perform a three-run walk-off homer to give Cleveland Indians a win over the Oakland A's. What do you put your faith in? I'm sure there are many things throughout the day that require some faith from us, such as putting faith in our current mode of transportation and that it won't fail on us.

God requires our faith. As much as we want it, God's not going to reveal His whole plan and purpose to us, it's robably too great for us to grasp anyhow. In Ephesians chapter 3, Paul writes:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-- that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

My college pastor Ted spoke about 'faith' at our Wednesday night college service and he told us that "without faith, it is impossible to please God." I find this statement to be so true. God expects us to put our trust in Him even when we don't know all the answers and the outcome. Ted used marriage as a metaphor to our relationship with Christ. He said that when we get married we don't know every little thing about our partner, but we trust them enough to say "I do." God gives us enough to know that we can put our trust in him.

So why should we put our faith in Christ? Thousands of prophesies have been fulfilled, which makes it a bit easier to think that this stuff the Bible tells us is legit. Think of the faith of Abraham in Genesis. If anyone had faith in God, he did. He was even so willing to go as far as sacrificing his only son to bring glory to God. Could you imagine having this kind of faith?

In Luke 14: 26 Jesus says, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate is own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."

Now I don't believe Jesus is telling us that we should hate our parents, because his two greatest commandments are that we should love God and love one another, but I think what he is doing is trying to let us understand the reality of the cost of discipleship. We can't put our faith in ourselves and our decisions rather than his and truly understand the life he has called us to.

Now the following quote is from a girl that commented on my friend's note that I wrote about in the beginning of this post.

"Would an intelligent god really leave us in a sick game of faith without proof? Then threaten us with eternal damnation? Just by the definition of faith how could we be held accountable if we made the wrong decision? Man sounds like a sick egotistical god to play that game!

Yeah I could keep going but at this point I will digress and leave the burden of proof on you. Religion hides in the dark and unanswered. Science on the other hand is provable and rewritable (note I did not say infallible). Give me one iota of logical evidence for religion! (also note "Why else are we here" is not evidence. It is a question) But i guess if you could do that it wouldn't be called faith."

And you know what, I think an intelligent god would expect us to have faith in Him. We expect our friends to believe what we tell them, and that it is true simply because we care about them and want the best for them. Sometimes that's all you have, is someone's word alone and you have to trust that they are telling you the truth. It's not easy. Trusting in God through the hard times and the good times takes having faith. If Abraham didn't rely on have such strong faith in God, I'm sure God would have found another person that was willing for His plan, but God knew that he could count on Abraham.

Can God rely on you to finish his work? Will you let him down, or are you willing to step out in faith into the unknown?

I leave you with this... Romans 4: 19, Paul is writing about Abraham... "He did not weaken in faithwhen he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was about a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah's womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promises of God, but he grew strong in His faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised."

Be encouraged by Abraham's willingness. God can use anyone, and will equip them with the means with which to carry out his vision. You are a beautiful child of God and your life was made for so much more than the treasures found here on earth.