What Do You Believe? (Part 2)

“Yet it isn’t I who will accuse you before the Father. Moses will accuse you! Yes, Moses, in whom you put your hopes. If you really believed Moses, you would believe Me, because he wrote about Me. But since you don’t believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?” (John 5:45-47 NLT)

In yesterday’s post I was waxing eloquently on how wonderful my wife is as a means of helping us see the parallels between loving people and loving God; knowing that people are “real” and that God is also verifiably “real.” Yes, of course, God is invisible except to the eye of faith, which, by the way, every person has and uses.

But that’s how and why I love Jesus. He’s allowed me to “see” Him with my eye of faith, hear Him with the “ears” of my heart, embrace Him with every fiber of my being. I experience His love for me and am given confidence that He receives my love for Him, not in physical ways, but in spiritual ways. At our core, we’re spiritual beings in a physical body, not simply physical beings with a spirit.

One day the shackles of this physical existence will fall away, and we’ll finally be liberated to be who we were always meant to be. We’ll see as we’re now seen and will understand as now, we have no capacity to understand, except by faith. So, the issue for all of us, theists and non-theists, is to ask the question, not just “what,” but “Whom” will we believe?

Everybody believes something, but the consequences of that belief can be tragic. But, as I see it, I don’t love and serve the God of the Bible for fear of eternal torment, I love and serve Him for many of the same reasons I love my wife.

The Lord’s presence is more real to me than the warmth of the rising sun or the air I feel on my face on a windy day. As C. Austin Miles put it in his hymn: “He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me I am His own; And the joy we share as we tarry there None other has ever known.” My walk with Jesus, and yours, isn’t about theology, intellect, or even emotion, it’s a relationship as real as any physical relationship. It’s two people who love, communicate, share ideas, laugh, cry, and celebrate together.

He’s not filling some religious “void” I/we have; He’s giving us a life we never dreamed we could ever experience that survives the traumas and trials of human existence and leads to an eternal life that will never end. For those who believe this life is all there is, you are among all people most to be pitied. And, yes, of course, you want “proof.” But here’s the Truth: the burden of proof isn’t on me to prove there is a God, the burden of proof is on you to prove there isn’t.

Honestly, it takes a lot more faith NOT to believe in God than it does to believe. For more than 60 years I’ve sought to live my life in accordance with the Bible, God’s Word, and the longer I walk with Jesus and the more hours I invest in His Word, the more certain I am that He is exactly who He claimed to be and every word He ever spoke, and continues to speak, is true, and will guide us to an eternity with Him in which everything will become crystal clear. But, unfortunately, for some, it will be eternally too late.

Please don’t let that be you.

Food for thought.

Blessings, Ed 😊