Faith In Jesus

When we hear the phrase "faith in Jesus," what does that mean?

It means that when his teaching is difficult, we will do it.

It means that when we don't want to do what he teaches, we will do it.

It means that when it is countercultural, we will still do it.

It means that when it will make us unpopular, we will do it.

It means that when it requires sacrifice, we will do it.

Faith is all about trusting in something.

The first Saturday in May is always Free Comic Book Day. How are you all enjoying your free comics?

What? You're saying you didn't go and get your free comics?

That's the thing. Free doesn't mean forced. There were free comics given away on Saturday, May 4th, at comic shops around the nation. Yet if you didn't go get them, you don't have them.

Grace is free. Faith is free. You just have to take it. You just have to express it.

However, when we talk about faith and grace being free, we can ignore the fact that when you take the free grace and acknowledge faith in Jesus, your life will change.

This was tough for the Christians in Rome to understand when Paul wrote them his letter. A lot of them were Jews. And they had placed their faith in the Old Testament law. Paul was saying, "Place your faith in Jesus." The Gentiles also wrongly placed their faith. Instead of the law, they placed it in freedom, and Paul was saying, "Place your faith in Jesus."

This is also tough for us. Our world, even the Christian culture, tells us to place our faith in so many things that are not Jesus.

If you believe that there is nothing greater in life than being high or enjoying pleasure, then you will spend your life chasing the next high or temporary pleasure. If you believe that there is nothing greater in life than spending time with your biological family, then you will spend time investing in your biological family. If you believe there is nothing more important than sports, then you will spend your time training yourself or training your child.

However, if you believe there is nothing more important than following Jesus, then you will spend your life looking for ways to serve Him. If you believe that there is nothing greater in life than being part of the family of God, then you will align your biological family time with family of God time. If you believe there is nothing more important than spiritually training yourself, then you will invest your life in loving others, studying together, and praying.

What you believe in matters. Your true beliefs influence every action of your life.

When we have a problem serving God, setting aside time for God's family, loving others, studying together, and praying, it doesn't mean that we don't have time for those things. We always find time for the things we really believe in. It doesn't mean that those things are impossible in our life. We always make possible the things that we really want. It means that we have a belief in Jesus problem. We have either created a fictional, pseudo-Jesus that doesn't make those radical calls on our life, or we have just justified away the radical call of Jesus on our life.

So Jesus is saying, you can spend your time having faith in Him and live the life you were created to live. Or you can have faith in one of the many idols of this world. The choice is yours. Faith in something temporary that will not get you where you are supposed to go. Or faith in something beyond our greatest imagining.

You do have faith in something. The question is whether that faith is in the right thing and will get you living the life you were made to life. The good news is that life with Jesus is like a free gift. You just have to take it. It would be like a motorcycle giveaway. Even if you won, you would still have to put the key in and take it home.

The big point that faith heads toward:  Jesus' sacrifice covers our sins - if we have faith - to empower us to live like He lived, as a sacrifice for others. Faith is the key that unleashes God's work in our lives and in the lives around us. We have faith, and we bring that faith forward. From just something written about in a letter from Paul to the Christians in Rome nearly 2000 years ago to real life in your houses, in your churches, and in your community.

Faith on Fire

The other day I was grilling. It made me think of belief and action. Our thoughts are like the charcoal. Our passion is like the fire. When you combine them together, you get true belief. Passion springs from the thoughts and transforms the world around them into something useful.

Too often, we just have cool ideas. Things we think we believe but we really don’t. We can tell when we truly believe something because the idea in our head starts changing the way we live.

We can see this in simple things. We actually believe water is good for us, so we drink it. You believe that the chair you are sitting in will hold you, so you sit there without worrying that you will crash to the ground. You believe reading this article is worthwhile or you wouldn’t be doing it (or maybe you are just wasting some time – thanks for taking time to read it either way). You believe lots of things, and those beliefs influence the way you live.

You also probably have a lot of things in your head that are just cool ideas. Those are thoughts that you might even think you believe, but if they aren’t changing the way you live, then you don’t really believe.

So when I’m talking about belief today, I’m not talking about intellectual propositions, thoughts we have, or the cool ideas in our head. I’m talking about true, genuine belief that fills us with such a passion that it influences the very way we interact with the world and one another.

The thing with beliefs is that everyone is trying to get us to believe what they believe. Sometimes the most adamant belief is that you shouldn’t influence others to believe what you believe. I find it ironic that some try to force us to believe that we shouldn’t try to influence others to believe what we believe.

The harrowing truth is that if we believe in the wrong things, those wrong beliefs will mess up our lives.

So we must be careful when we go to get what we believe. We should be vigilant and aware of the people and influences around us that are trying to get us to believe the wrong things. We need to develop a good routine to get what we believe. As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”

Thomas, who gets the rap of being a doubter, gives us a good example on how to handle our doubts.

“Now Thomas, one of the Twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord.” But he said to them, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” John 20:24-29 (ESV).

I think Thomas should have his name changed from Doubting Thomas to Verifying Thomas. Instead of letting his doubt creep in and destroy his beliefs, he went straight to the source and verified them. If you have questions on what you should believe, you should follow Thomas’ example and go to Jesus with your doubts. Being a follower of Jesus doesn’t mean that you won’t have doubts; it means that you will head to him with your doubts and allow him to give you the answers.  

If we believe that Jesus rose from the dead, it will change us. It did for Thomas. Tradition has it that he died a martyr. Thomas the Apostle was killed by a spear in Mylapore, Madras, India in AD 72.

Is your belief changing you? Do you really believe?

I'm Going To Let My Kids Decide

I have decided. I’m going to let my kids decide whether they want religion in their lives. My children's choice of religion is like all of the other unimportant things I will let them decide on their own. They can decide their favorite sports team, their favorite foods, their favorite music, their favorite television shows, their favorite websites, and, now, their favorite religion or lack thereof. Maybe I’ll even let them decide how much video game time they can have, what foods they will eat, and what their bedtime will be. 

Now, when it comes to important things like whether they are going to learn math, English and reading, be respectful to others, develop a good work ethic, chew with their mouth closed, etc., I am going to guide them. But on little things like their religion, that is up to them to decide whether they want to follow Jesus or not without any encouragement or influence from me. I don't want to cram religion down their throats.

In all seriousness, there is a huge difference between listening to our children, validating their concerns, and including them on decisions compared to letting them run things while pretending they are old enough to make the important decisions in life. 

There will come a day when they will make all of their own decisions. Until then, we must realize that God has placed our children in our care for a reason. For starters, having children shows us the great love that God has for us combined with his grace and patience. A grace and patience that we also have to reflect to our children if we want them to grow up with the skills ready to achieve their dreams in the world. Dreams, mind you, that we nurture and develop in them when we help them come up with a worldview that will guide them toward what we believe is the best life to live.

Some day, when they have the wisdom and strength to live on their own, they will know the purpose of living if we have taught them what that is. We must realize that if we don’t teach them the purpose of living, someone else gladly will. The television shows they watch will. The video games they play will. Their friends will. The music will. Other adults will. Everyone else will gladly do the task we are tempted to neglect. Society will gladly take the opportunity of shaping our children's thinking if we choose to opt out of it.

Now we might say that it is better for them to learn on their own. But we don’t really hold to that view when it comes to things that we truly believe are important. We want them to have the skills and work ethic to succeed in life. And religion helps us define what godly success looks like. In the important things, we are quick to encourage and steer them in the right direction.

Wouldn’t it be irresponsible of us to just let them develop their worldview on their own? I guess I am a product of the faith I believe in. In the Bible, we have a God who cares about humanity so much that we see him interact with humanity to help us live the best life possible. He went so far as to even become a human himself to show us how to live. 

Paul wrote, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:5-8 ESV).

It’s this worldview that God has given to me that I want to pass down to my children. Being a servant to others and self-sacrifice are not traits that the world encourages, but it is at the core of the message of who Jesus is. It should be at the core of who we - people who claim to follow Jesus - are.

If you believe in God and that the life he wants us to live is the best life for us to live, why would you not want to pass that down to your children?

Do we really believe?

Is Atheism A Religion?

It is a typical rebuttal from atheists that atheism is not a religion. When the subject is further discussed, it will often devolve into leprachauns, goblins, unicorns and the like. For an example see the answer to this question: Are atheists in the exact same religion as Jews and Christians?

Dictionary.com describes religion as:

1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. 

2. a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion. 

3. the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs and practices: a world council of religions. 

4. the life or state of a monk, nun, etc.: to enter religion. 

5. the practice of religious beliefs; ritual observance of faith.

Under definition #2 and somewhat in #1 and #5, atheism would qualify as a religion.

At this point, I want to move into my view of what a religion is and how atheism stacks up with those views. Feel free to comment below if you think that I have missed a key element that defines religion in general.

A religion is something where people have shared beliefs. An anti-belief that is held as a belief is still a belief no matter how much one wants to pretend that an anti-belief is not a belief. Shared beliefs among atheists are that there are no gods, science can explain everything eventually, and reason is king. Please correct me if I am wrong and have misrepresented atheism.

A religion has shared prophets. Jesus, for lack of a better term for this discussion, and Paul are shared prophets of the Christian religion. Modern-day prophets could be John Piper, Rob Bell, or Pat Robertson. Each would give you a whole different approach to the Christian faith. Moses is a prophet for the Jews. Mohammad is a prophet for Islam. Joseph Smith is a prophet for Mormonism. In atheism, we have Bertrand Russell and Richard Dawkins. Like in all religions, atheism can then produce a variety of world views. As both Ayn Rand and Karl Marx claimed to be atheists yet their approaches if adhered to would create two divergent worlds. 

Having shared ethics is not essential to being a religion. If ethics were necessary to be a religion, then that would eliminate Christianity. Once you zoom in and have a closer look at all the diverse expressions of Christianity (Reformed, Baptist, Methodist, etc.), you would see shared ethics, but Christianity is still a religion without the shared ethics that comes only from zooming in on particular subsets of the Christian religion.

Religions typically proselytize. Richard Dawkins spends nearly a half hour in Richard Dawkins On Militant Atheism encouraging atheists to be more evangelistic about their lack of belief. Atheists do this more aggressively than any group except Christianity in my experience. It is understandable for a person who believes their view is the best for humanity to then share that view with the rest humanity. Actually, I would not respect the person who did otherwise.

A bad religion demonizes those that don't agree with them. Unfortunately, many atheists also frequently fall into this category. They label believers in gods or God as idiots and unintelligent, frequently mocking them. You can see this in I Hate Religion, And Jesus Too, a rebuttal to the recent internet phenom poem Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus.

Obviously, "religion" has a negative connotation in atheist circles. But if we don't categorize atheism as a "religion", what should we categorize it as? A world view? A belief system? An anti-belief system? It gets difficult because atheism is usually contrasted with Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or Buddhism. They all compete in the same societal space for the mind of humanity. What is the broad category that includes all of these competing ideas for the mind?

By saying atheism is not a religion, I think atheism runs into the arrogance that I see Christianity run into when they try to claim that Christianity is not a religion. "It's not a religion because it's right" is the arrogant mentality that some Christians have. Others proclaim, "It's a relationship, not a religion." "Religions are [this] and [that], but we are not [this] and [that]."

Back to the leprechauns.  If 60% of the population believed in leprechauns, lived their life according to the teachings of the imaginary leprechauns as explained by their prophets, and the other 40% didn't, I would think we would have two different religions. More than likely, the other 40% might fragment into other groups, and we would have more than just two religions. The goblin followers, the followers of no one but the thoughts of man, and the followers of the moon. What is the overarching category to contain all 100% of human beliefs, even if they are crazy? Is not "religion" a good word for this?

Then again, maybe not. The big question is what broad category contains all of those competing ways of thinking about God or not about god. For most, "religion" is the word used. It's only derogatory to atheists because they don't like religion. But don't feel bad, my atheist friends. You are not alone. Christians who don't want to be called a religion feel the same way.

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A few useful links (all from an atheistic perspective) that I found in the follow-up discussions to this post:

Different Types of Atheism by Martin Willett
Belief Vs Disbelief by Austin Cline
Philosophy Vs Religion by Susan Quilty

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You might also be interested in a few other posts.
A Response to Claims of Atheistic Persecution
Tax The Churches

Crises of Belief

Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."  That's a tough teaching.  Most of us who have a heart for people who do not know Jesus wish that this was not the case, but no amount of wishing changes the truth laid out by Jesus.  He claimed to be the only way to God.  

But believing is hard at times.  I have found it more difficult to believe at certain times in my life.  When my grandmother died, when I became disillusioned with the way the church operates, and when we lost our twins were all critical points that greatly challenged my faith.  The first one led to me straying in a spiritual wilderness during my high school years.  The second kicked off my greatest adult crisis in the faith.  One in which I nearly stopped following Jesus.  And the third caused me to doubt whether God really does take care of those who follow Him.  

And I am not alone in struggling with my faith at times.  We all find it difficult to believe at critical points in our life.  As we mature in the faith, the challenge to our faith that different crises cause are different.  No longer are we tempted to discard the faith, but we will use our supreme spiritual intellect and morph the faith just a little to appease our sensibilities.  We stray from the teachings of Scripture and start to construct a God that is palatable.  In doing so, we lose the faith one small step at a time.

Ask a rancher how a cow gets lost, and chances are he will reply, “Well, the cow starts nibbling on a tuft of green grass, and when it finishes, it looks ahead to the next tuft of green grass, and when it finishes, it looks ahead to the next tuft of green grass and starts nibbling on that one, and then it nibbles on a tuft of grass right next to a hole in the fence. It then sees another tuft of green grass on the other side of the fence, so it nibbles on that one and then goes on to the next tuft. The next thing you know, the cow has nibbled itself into being lost.”

Those who claim to follow Jesus must hold tightly to what we claim to believe because it is easy to stray away.  Like the cow just nibbling on the next tuft of green grass, we don't even realize we are wandering.

I read through the book of Hebrews and noted all that the author of Hebrews wrote that we are to believe if we claim to be followers of Jesus.

We should believe:

• God exists
• God rewards those who seek him.
• Jesus died to make us right with God.
• Jesus now rules at the right hand of God.
• Jesus knows how we should live.

And these beliefs are not just some intellectual pie in the sky thoughts.  These beliefs, when truly believed, shape how we live.

Our belief in the these teachings

• allow us to enter into the presence of God.
• give us the confidence to keep the faith.
• enable us to encourage one another on toward love and good deeds.
• empower us with the boldness to live in the spiritual reality even when our physical reality tells us otherwise. 

In the movie Henry Poole Is Here there is a scene where Henry Poole, played by Luke Wilson, is faced with a woman who believes.  Henry Poole is given a fatal diagnosis and sentimentally moves back to the neighborhood where he grew up.  But the neighborhood interrupts his peaceful demise.  A picture of Jesus starts appearing on his outside wall.  Henry thinks it is just a mark made form water, but his neighbor, Esperanza, believes it is miraculous.  But then his six-year-old child, who has not talked since her father left the house over a year ago, touches the picture on the wall and starts talking.  This scene picks up after that miracle. 

For those who didn't watch the scene above, here is how it goes.

Henry asks, "Why is it so important to you that something like that could happen?...I'll tell you.  Because if you can convince me, then suddenly your beliefs become more real.  Right?...So until you get me to swallow your world and believe what you believe, you'll never have the kind of faith that you want to have.  You'll always have a little bit of doubt.  You'll never know if you're quite right.  You'll always be kind of wondering if it is real.  You'll always be sitting over there waiting for that man to come waltzing back in from the dead.  And that's sad.  That's really sad."

Esperanza replies, "I'm just trying to help."

If we believe in Jesus, we will be accused of many of the things that Henry Poole accused Esperanza of.  This is painful because, like Esperanza, we know that our beliefs will help people.  We don't share what we believe out of ulterior motives.  We share what we believe because we  truly believe that people will be helped if they believe the same things.

Don't make the mistake of confusing "believe" with "pretend."  If you have ever been to Disney, you would have also been inundated with their slogan, "believe."  I was confused with what they really wanted me to believe in.  Was I to believe hat Jack Sparrow is real?  Was I to believe that my toys really do walk around my room, play, and have dangerous crises when I am not there?  Am I to believe that I can be some special princess by buying a costume and wearing it around my house? (I bet you would like to see that.)  It's fun to pretend those things (well, except for me in the costume).  I have no problem with pretending, but belief is much more than pretending.  Pretending is just fun; believing is the foundational core of who we are. 

So if  you're reading this and struggling with the faith, I challenge you to believe that God exists, God rewards those who seek him, Jesus died to make us right with God, Jesus now rules at the right hand of God, Jesus knows how we should live.  He is faithful and just, and will honor your perseverance through the tough times.  It might seem strange at times, but believing those foundational thoughts will lead you to living a more fulfilling life.

"Without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him" [Hebrews 11:6 (ESV)].

True Religion, Atheism, and the Quest for Truth

I recently read an article from Tara Stiles entitled What Would God Do For You? The article turns into an atheistic rant against Christianity. This is my response.

We can sit around and focus on all of the bad actions that religious people have done through the years as a means of discrediting religion. Likewise, we can sit around and focus on all of the bad actions that atheists have done in the twentieth century as a means of discrediting atheism. To discredit either argument based upon bad actions is intellectual disingenuousness at best.

In an article like Tara Stiles', the bad actions of "religious" people in the past are brought up as a way to trick the audience into not liking God. Nobody in their right mind would like a God that encouraged bad religious people to do bad religious actions. Religious people oftentimes take the same approach to atheism. Both belief systems have enough battle scars for those who want to discredit an idea based on battle scars to easily scoff at the other side. What this approach ignores is that every belief will be morphed and manipulated because of power hungry people, but that does not mean we should not believe anything. Should we just go around being apathetic and not believe? (And I believe atheism is believing - agnostics do not believe.)

What gives the ideas value are the good actions that people do as a result of believing them. There are many good things that Christians have done. Habitat for Humanity, American Red Cross, Salvation Army, many medical clinics, most of our hospitals, and the list can go on. Don't throw the baby out with the pooped in bath water.

Many Christians have done many stupid things, but that does not mean the gospel of Jesus is not true. There are many Christians who sincerely believe in Jesus and are trying to bring about his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. They don't follow to use Jesus as a tool for eternal life or to make themselves feel superior to the "nonbelievers" but live their lives, like Jesus did, as an example of how we are supposed to live by serving one another.