Unbelief. Questioning God

 Most Europeans today want to question everything that has to do with God.
It started with the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Gen 3:1 NIV

For Martin Luther and the pioneers of the Reformation, the Bible was the Word of God, the foundation of our faith. But then came the Enlightenment, German humanism, and humanistic theology.

German culture was to have a new foundation:
“Did God really say?”

This way of thinking did not begin in Germany, but with philosophers in Italy and France, but German poets and thinkers enthusiastically adopted this view and developed it further.

Then this questioning of everything became the foundation of modern culture, and now we are in the next phase of the aberration, post-modernity. In the post-modern view, there is no longer any absolute truth. You have your truth and I have mine.

Only the findings of natural science are supposed to be absolute truth, but this is not the case.

About twenty years ago, scientists claimed that no new neurons grow in our brains. Now we know that our brains can repair themselves with intensive care. 

We have been misled by humanists, but Christian theology has sometimes not helped either.

There is a widespread theological theory that God determines everything, so we have no free will. God has predetermined who will believe and who will not, who will be saved and who will burn in hell.

Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand. Isa 64:8 NIV

It is true that God shapes our lives. He is the Creator and we are the creatures.

But let us not forget what God says in the book of Jeremiah.

God can treat us as He pleases, for He is the Creator, but He is also just. 

If we trust and obey Him, He will shape us with blessings. If we are stubborn and resist Him, then disaster will befall us.

Then the word of the LORD came to me. 
He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. 

If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, 
and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. 

And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, 
and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it. 

“Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the LORD says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’ Jer 18:5–11 NIV
 
God can treat us as He pleases, for He is the Creator, but He is also just. 

If we trust and obey Him, He will bless us. If we are stubborn and resist Him, then disaster will befall us.

The biblical parable of the potter and the clay teaches the sovereignty of God but also that God gives us free will to submit to him or turn away. It is up to you and me.

God's Frustration

 God's frustration.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Lk 13:34 NIV

Jesus loved everyone, even the stubborn Pharisees and priests who persecuted him.

… God our Saviour, 
who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 1 Ti 2:3–4 NIV

God wants to save everyone, but many do not want to trust God. 

That is God's frustration.

God sacrificed his best to save everyone.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Jn 3:16–17 NIV

God has plans and purposes that will inevitably come to pass.

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 

I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 

‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Rev 21:1–4 NIV

But God also has intentions and desires that can be frustrated.

He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. Jn 1:11 NLT

When Jesus visited his hometown, the people did not want to respect him as the Messiah.

Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offence at him. 

Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” 

He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. Mk 6:3–5 NIV

Notice the words, “He could not.” There are things that God can not do unless we let him. God chooses to limit his actions according to our free choices.

God is love. When you love deeply and strongly and those you love, reject you, you feel deep pain. God also feels this pain.

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 Jn 4:8 NIV

If you do not experience God's blessing, please do not blame God. 

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. Jn 10:10 NKJV

He wants to forgive you, bless you, heal you, and give you a new life. 

It's up to you. 

You can pray this way and receive God's amazing answer, but you must really mean what you pray.
“Jesus, if you exist, come into my life and forgive all my sins.”

Jesus is not a fairy tale.

‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ Jer 33:3 NKJV

God Created you for a Purpose

 God is our creator. We are all different because God did not make any two people the same. God made one person to be a musician and another person to be a mechanic. 

Frederick Handel wrote the Messiah, perhaps the most wonderful Christian music of all time, but if he had tried to be a preacher, he would probably have been a terrible failure.

I know a man who was a devoted Muslim fundamentalist until he became a Christian. He became an amazing personal evangelist for Jesus. Then people in his Church told him he should become a pastor, but he answered emphatically: “That is not my calling.”

He was a biologist. God called him to go back to university and study for a doctorate in biology. Every Muslim at that university heard the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Sadly, there are people who were created by God for one purpose but they go a different way. They may be Christians and they may go to heaven when they die, but they never fulfilled their potential.

A Christian pastor was discussing a difficult problem with the elders of his church. He was frustrated because he could not find a solution. Then he seemed to blow a fuse and resigned on the spot.
“I never wanted to be a pastor but it was what my mother wanted me to do!”

Did you choose your path in life or did others choose it for you? Most importantly of all, did God create you for what you do?

God told the prophet Jeremiah to visit a potter’s workshop. God showed the potter struggling to make a piece of pottery for a specific purpose, but the clay had a flaw, so the potter started again, trying to form the clay into the shape he wanted.

But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him. Jer 18:4 NIV

If you have spoiled your life, God is not finished with you. You may have committed serious sins or you may have simply chosen a path in life that God did not create you for.

If you are too old to do what God wanted you to so when you were young, God can still create a new you with a new calling to follow, a calling that fits your unique God given nature.

Some Christians misunderstand the parable of the potter. They think everything is determined by God, and we are simply clay in the hands of the Creator.

But in the story of the potter, God speaks to Israel, pleading with the Jews to submit to His will for them. God appeals to them to use the free will He has given them.

Then the word of the LORD came to me.
He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel. Jer 18:5–6 NIV

“Now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, ‘This is what the LORD says: Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions.’ Jer 18:11 NIV

God is also speaking to you and me through this story. He has given you and me a free will to choose His purpose or to go the wrong way.

Condemned Man Refuses Pardon

 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Heb 4:15 NIV

We have a wonderful high priest. He continually cares for you. He never stops thinking about you.

All his thoughts about you are loving and kind.

You can't stop God from loving you.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Rom 5:8 NIV
 
For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then, in exchange, he poured God's goodness into us! 2 Corinthians 5:21 (TLB)

God wants to grant you a complete pardon and give you a whole new life.

God's love is unconditional. He loves you as you are and he loves you because he loves you.

But God grants his pardon with one condition. You cannot earn God's forgiveness, but you must accept his mercy.

In 1830, a criminal in the USA was sentenced to death, but the president wanted to pardon him.

The man, however, refused the presidential pardon and he had to die.
That was his God-given freedom of will.

You and I also have this freedom of will. We can gratefully accept or reject God's grace.

Jesus sees all your offences and failures, but he also sees your despair and feels your suffering.

His heart beats for you.

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. Rev 3:20 NIV

A woman in Iran was watching a banned Christian television program. She heard the preacher quoting this invitation from Jesus. Then she heard a knock. She went to the front door and she saw Jesus. She invited him in and she immediately believed in Jesus.

Do you want to invite Jesus in too?

God will not reject you. It's up to you.

Love is a Choice

 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. Jn 3:16 NIV

God sent His only Son into this world to rescue us from our self-destruction. God’s original purpose for us all, is that we know him as our creator, who loves us and cares for every aspect of our lives.

Why didn't God just make us perfectly good and leave it at that?

Then none of us would turn bad. None of us would kill or steal. We would never mess up our lives with useless addictions.

In fact, God did make the first man and woman perfect and good.

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Ge 1:27 NIV

God is perfectly kind, loving and good. So the first man and woman were created fully formed with the same character as their loving creator: kind, loving and good.

Even today, we can see imperfect manifestations of God’s goodness in many people.

We see faithful couples, loving mothers, skilful doctors who care for their patients, judges who do their best to be fair. Not all politicians and rulers are corrupt.

So why did people go wrong?

God created men and women with his own nature.

One essential aspect of God’s nature is his freedom to make decisions. God did not have to create anything or anybody. He freely chose to create everything, and everybody, including you and me.

If we are created in the image of God, we must also have this essential attribute of God, the ability to make decisions, to marry or stay single, to love or hate, to obey or disobey.

When God created the first man and woman, he put them in a garden full of fruit trees. They could choose to eat any fruit except one, the fruit of the forbidden tree. They had to make a choice, whether to trust and obey God or to disobey.

True love is always a choice. A newborn baby feels the love of its mother and returns that love, but as boys and girls grow up, they must choose to love their parents, or they can rebel and make bad choices. 

We must also choose to forgive our parents, which can be a serious problem.

God did not make us as perfect computers, infallibly programmed to do what we were programmed to do. God made you and me to be unique individuals who mature by making good choices.

When we love as God wants us to love, it is always a choice.

What will you choose today?

We have all inherited a degree of corruption from our parents, and we have all been exposed to bad influences by the world we live in. 

We don’t live in a perfect relationship with God because the first man and woman ate the forbidden fruit and passed on a corrupted nature to all generations.

But God knows all things. He saw that we would misuse our free will. Free will involves rewards for good choices and bad consequences for bad choices. By distancing ourselves from the only source of love and goodness, we are all doomed to die and continue in the next life without any hope or goodness.

God is the God of justice. He did not want to punish us. He sent His own eternal son into this world to pay the penalty for our sin. If we turn to Jesus, we will be forgiven and given a new life, life in the image of our creator.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.  Jn 3:16 NIV

Loving and trusting are choices. Believing in Jesus is a choice. How will you choose today?

Prayer and Free Will

 God gave Adam and Eve the power to make the most amazingly powerful decision of all, to choose to obey God or disobey!! 

Humans were empowered to make real decisions, otherwise they would not reflect the image of the supreme decision maker, God.

And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree of the garden,
but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die.” Ge 2:16–17 CSB

God gave Adam and Eve the ability to sin, to resist His own will. This is what sin is.

This is the reality of free will. God has never removed this free will, to obey or resist His will. Why do born again Christians still sin, if they have been given a new heart and a new nature? Because we still have a free will which God has sovereignly determined that we should have.

If humans do not have a free will to obey or resist the will of God, if all our actions are determined by God, then we would have to agree with Calvin, who said “God not only foresaw that Adam would fall, but also ordained that he should.” (Calvin’s Inst., b. 3, c. 23, sec. 7.) 

.... “he fell not only by the permission, but also by the appointment, of God.” (Calvin Responsio ad Calumnias Nebulonis
cujusdam ad Articulum primum.) “He sinned because God so ordained,
because the Lord saw good.” (Calvin’s Inst., b. 3, c. 24, sec. 8.)

Does that mean every person has complete freedom to recognise the choice he or she is confronted with? Sadly not.

But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 2 Co 4:3–4 CSB

• It is very difficult to believe if you are brought up to believe there is no God in a Communist country.

• It can be very difficult to believe if you are taught from infancy that Christians are bad people who believe in three gods.

• It can be difficult to believe in the goodness of God if you are brought up in a brutal, abusive family where you are led to believe in Jesus as a severe judge who hates you when you sin.

This is where we see the necessity of the mighty grace of God to open blind spiritual eyes.

How can we as believers penetrate this darkness?

There are many people who cannot believe only through hearing a message. They need a personal experience or direct encounter with God.

Millions of people are converted from other religions in our time through healing miracles and dreams and visions, in which Jesus personally reveals Himself.

This is the result of millions of Christians who pray for the conversion of atheists and believers in other religions. God commands us to pray and believe in His willingness to answer with great supernatural power.

God loves you. You can choose to respond.

 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die. Jn 12:32–33 NIV

Jesus was not compelled to die on the cross. Although he was arrested, he could have escaped. However, he chose to sacrifice his life willingly to bear God's judgement for us.

Jesus was not coerced; he acted out of love.  Jesus does not want to force you and me to accept his love and forgiveness. Instead, he desires to win us over through love.

Unlike conscripts in armies who do not obey voluntarily, Jesus does not want any involuntary slaves. He loves you and wants to win your love. True love is always voluntary.

God's love is always active.

So he told them, “My Father is working until now, and I too am working.” Jn 5:17 NET

Are you feeling discouraged or stuck? Where is God?

God is at work in your life even when you feel frustrated. If you ask where God is, it's a sign that God is whispering to your soul. Where does the thought of God come from? From God himself.

Remember that there is a good God who wants to help you, so please don't give up.

IS SALVATION CONDITIONAL?

Christian history is full of extreme overreactions. 
Medieval Catholics lived in fear of judgement from day to day based on their variable moral and spiritual performance. 

Then came Martin Luther and declared that salvation is a free gift from God which we cannot earn. This is true.

• We access the grace and favour of God by trusting once and for all in the finished work of Jesus who paid for all our sin on the cross, once and for all time. This is also true.

But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for 

• "the just shall live by faith." Galatians 3:11 (NKJV) 

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; 

• it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Ephesians 2:8-9 (NKJV) 

But then Luther and Calvin really overreacted and adopted an extreme opposite teaching to Catholicism.

• They said a believer once saved can never be lost.

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 

And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?" John 11:25-26 (NKJV) 

Yes of course all true Christians believe this. 

Eternal life is the free gift of God and eternal life means what it says.

Luther and Calvin rightly taught that we cannot earn salvation and they were right. 

• But that does not mean salvation is unconditional.

Salvation is conditional on our decision to trust in the love of God who gave His only Son to die for our sins.

• Right through the Bible, God gave free choice to men and women, to choose for Him or against Him, to trust or mistrust, to obey or disobey. 

But the LORD God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 

• If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.” Genesis 2:16-17 (NLT) 

God created Adam in His own perfect likeness, with the moral character of God Himself and the free gift of eternal life but for Adam, eternal life was conditional. 

• Adam could keep or lose eternal life depending on his decision to continue trusting God. 

It is the same for us today.

Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him." Hebrews 10:38 (NKJV) 

Of course we may grieve God and still be His children. This was the true revelation of the Reformation.

• But if we keep on presuming on the mercy of God without a serious attitude of repentance, we cannot take our home in heaven for granted.

Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. Hebrews 12:14 (NIV)  

The Bible cannot be telling unsaved people to make an effort to be holy. That makes no sense at all. 

• The writer of Hebrews is telling born again believers they must be serious about living a holy life after they are saved, or else they will not stay saved.

So often we can become like the church in Laodicea and there is no automatic ticket to heaven for lukewarm Christians.

I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 

• So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Revelation 3:15-16 (NKJV)

Jesus cannot vomit you out of His mouth if you are not IN CHRIST to begin with.

• This is not talking about nominal believers who have never said the “Sinners’ Prayer.” 

KNOWING GOD.

But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him."

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 (NKJV)
God is searching your heart. Does that mean He is looking for the dark secrets, the hidden weaknesses, the shameful thoughts that sometimes trouble you? No, He knows all about those things and He loves you anyway. God condemned His own Son to die on the cross. He died in your place to pay for all the shameful things in your life. Now He sees you as His dear child, as one who He gave His dear Son for.
If you invited Jesus to come into your life, He came. God is actively involved and lovingly at work in your thoughts, in your feelings and in every part of your being.
All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. John 6:37 (NKJV)
But He will not interfere with your free will. He will not force you to think the way He wants you to. He longs for you to come into harmony with His love and truth. If you have opened your life to Jesus to become His follower, that means God has become your partner in life but not your equal partner, because God is God and He is your Lord and Master. God will direct your life but He is not interested in passive obedient slaves or puppets. What Jesus said to His chosen apostles is what He longs to be able to say to each one of us.
You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. John 15:14-15 (NKJV)
The obedience He is looking for is the active partnership of men and women who want to please God and be led and directed by Him. The Spirit of God is searching your heart in love. He has  also opened His heart to you. He is inviting you to search His heart and know His love and understand His ways for yourself.
God is sad when we passively depend on preachers to tell us what to think about Him. I love good preaching but that must never be my main connection to God. In the Old Testament, God gave prophets and priests to stand between God and the people. Now each one of us is invited to enter into deep personal communication with Him.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. Revelation 3:20 (NKJV)
If you have never placed your life in the hands of Jesus who loved you and died for you, now is the time. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Jesus died to forgive your sins but you must receive Him to benefit from His forgiveness.