The skeptic swore, “There is no God! No God! I can do anything I want! I’m more animal than human; so-called human intelligence escapes me. The believer replied, “Every promise of God proves true; he protects everyone who runs to him for help. So don’t second-guess him; he might take you to task and show up your lies.” (Proverbs 30:1-2, 5-6)
The only reason we don't fully accept truth is because we have believed a lie. Deceived people are often the most skeptical! The skeptic treads on pretty thin ice because he claims there is no God - mostly because no one can understand or comprehend God with his mind alone. It is our spirit that comprehends the Spirit of God. Our spirit is the "communion" point for each of us to enter into deep, inter-dependent relationship with God. If we depend on our minds, rational thought, or reasoning ability to get us to the point of trusting what God says as true and worth believing, we will fall very, very short of the depth of relationship God wants for us. In fact, we may spend a little more time playing the part of the skeptic than we may want!
The believer relates to God out of faith. Faith is described as the evidence of things not seen - but I could go one further and say it is the acceptance of what is not easily comprehended by our finite minds - those things which are also not easily understood. There are things about God which I will not be able to say I fully understand. Take the Trinity - being able to comprehend how God is one, but there are three - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - all as one - this escapes my ability to reason and comprehend in the natural mind. I don't need to have this all figured out because I can see evidence of God all around me in what he has created, feel the presence of God within me because his Spirit is communing with mine, and experience the evidence of his Son's actions on my behalf as I stand before God forgiven and clean.
I don't "get" how God could pursue me when I am so unlovable in my state of sin, totally bent on pleasing whatever need I find the most appealing to me at the moment - but I know he does! This is a mystery to me - as it may be to you - because we are so much "performance" driven individuals. In other words, we give love to another based on the performance we see or experience within relationship with them. It is a reciprocal thing - you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. If someone disappoints enough times, we might pull away and no longer pursue that relationship. This has not proven to be how God works though. Although this is a foreign concept to my natural mind, I can accept it based on what I have come to see and know about God in both my own experience and that which I have observed in others.
This is what you might refer to as the development of faith. We experience certain truths which may have been foreign to us before, and we step into new avenues of discovery within the truths God wants for us to understand and fully comprehend. The skeptic cannot come to this place of understanding because it is not something we are able to "come into" by any natural means - you cannot study yourself into faith. God helps us experience faith through our circumstances. Then we actually begin to take steps toward deeper faith as a result of what we are experiencing. Faith isn't totally based on experience, but it is developed within our experiences - within those life circumstances where we step out of our comfort zone, trusting in what God has promised, and seeing the manifestation of his promise within our circumstances.
The skeptic cannot get beyond the logic he insists must exist in each thing he embraces. I don't understand the logic behind the world markets - the ups and downs in the value of the dollar, gold, futures, and other investment opportunities. What I do understand is that somehow all these ups and downs influence the way people invest their monies, countries engage in trade, and stock traders make a living! I know this exists, but I don't have to fully understand it to experience the outcome of these ups and downs! I may even think some of the things done in the realm of world market trading is a little illogical! It doesn't stop me from investing in my retirement or placing money into a CD!
So, if we have been hung up on believing something God says to us, we might just be "hung up" because we are trying too hard to make it "compute" within our minds and we just need to let it sink into our hearts instead! Just sayin!
The only reason we don't fully accept truth is because we have believed a lie. Deceived people are often the most skeptical! The skeptic treads on pretty thin ice because he claims there is no God - mostly because no one can understand or comprehend God with his mind alone. It is our spirit that comprehends the Spirit of God. Our spirit is the "communion" point for each of us to enter into deep, inter-dependent relationship with God. If we depend on our minds, rational thought, or reasoning ability to get us to the point of trusting what God says as true and worth believing, we will fall very, very short of the depth of relationship God wants for us. In fact, we may spend a little more time playing the part of the skeptic than we may want!
The believer relates to God out of faith. Faith is described as the evidence of things not seen - but I could go one further and say it is the acceptance of what is not easily comprehended by our finite minds - those things which are also not easily understood. There are things about God which I will not be able to say I fully understand. Take the Trinity - being able to comprehend how God is one, but there are three - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - all as one - this escapes my ability to reason and comprehend in the natural mind. I don't need to have this all figured out because I can see evidence of God all around me in what he has created, feel the presence of God within me because his Spirit is communing with mine, and experience the evidence of his Son's actions on my behalf as I stand before God forgiven and clean.
I don't "get" how God could pursue me when I am so unlovable in my state of sin, totally bent on pleasing whatever need I find the most appealing to me at the moment - but I know he does! This is a mystery to me - as it may be to you - because we are so much "performance" driven individuals. In other words, we give love to another based on the performance we see or experience within relationship with them. It is a reciprocal thing - you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. If someone disappoints enough times, we might pull away and no longer pursue that relationship. This has not proven to be how God works though. Although this is a foreign concept to my natural mind, I can accept it based on what I have come to see and know about God in both my own experience and that which I have observed in others.
This is what you might refer to as the development of faith. We experience certain truths which may have been foreign to us before, and we step into new avenues of discovery within the truths God wants for us to understand and fully comprehend. The skeptic cannot come to this place of understanding because it is not something we are able to "come into" by any natural means - you cannot study yourself into faith. God helps us experience faith through our circumstances. Then we actually begin to take steps toward deeper faith as a result of what we are experiencing. Faith isn't totally based on experience, but it is developed within our experiences - within those life circumstances where we step out of our comfort zone, trusting in what God has promised, and seeing the manifestation of his promise within our circumstances.
The skeptic cannot get beyond the logic he insists must exist in each thing he embraces. I don't understand the logic behind the world markets - the ups and downs in the value of the dollar, gold, futures, and other investment opportunities. What I do understand is that somehow all these ups and downs influence the way people invest their monies, countries engage in trade, and stock traders make a living! I know this exists, but I don't have to fully understand it to experience the outcome of these ups and downs! I may even think some of the things done in the realm of world market trading is a little illogical! It doesn't stop me from investing in my retirement or placing money into a CD!
So, if we have been hung up on believing something God says to us, we might just be "hung up" because we are trying too hard to make it "compute" within our minds and we just need to let it sink into our hearts instead! Just sayin!
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