Why I Believe in God

I got a text the other night from a friend asking why I believed in God. This sent me into 24+ hours of thinking why I do actually have faith. What I came up with is below. 

I am not an apologist, and sometimes not good with explaining things that are really personal to me. Ask me about the different theories of atonement and I could go for hours. But ask me about my faith and I get tongue-tied. So here it is, in all its inadequate glory. But maybe it will help someone or point them towards others who are much better at explaining these arguments than me (William Lane Craig and Ravi Zacharias are good people to start with).

So here we are. Feel free to add your own insights to this in comment form below.

Why do I believe in God?

1. One of the biggest things I hear from non-believers is 'if there is a God why is there so much evil in the world?' The thing is, how would we know what was evil if there wasn't a higher understanding of the good that should be? In other words, if this is all there is, why should it be any different? Evil and suffering, if morality is invented by humanity, is just part of everyday life. We wouldn't be shocked by it, argue against it, or think that people should act better. But the fact that we DO get shocked, argue, and think people should act better is because there is a higher moral standard that is above our own. It is one that says some things are inherently right and other are inherently wrong and that there SHOULD be something better than this.

If humanity is the one who creates objective morals then morality is relative depending on who you are talking to, the culture they are in, the time in history that they are born etc. So when people say that morality is relative then when a Hitler kills millions Jews and says it is right in his eyes, we should be ok with that because his morality is just as 'right' as anyone elses. Yet we don't say that. We say that he is wrong. This to me points to a higher objective morality, ie God.

2. Everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist therefore there is a cause (the cosmological argument). That cause would be a god.

3. Humanity is hardwired to worship something. If it isn't a god then it is mon

ey, ourselves, science etc. This to me points to the fact that we are made to point to something and worship it as the foundation of our lives.

WHY I BELIEVE JESUS IS THAT GOD.

1. Historically speaking, the gospels have far more evidence for them being historically acurate than any other manuscript ever. We don't argue the existence of Alexander the Great, yet there is more evidence (within and outside of the biblical cannon) for Jesus than any other major ancient figure. So he did exist. And not only did he exist but he claimed something that no one else has ever claimed, to actually BE the same as the monotheistic God of the Jews.

2. The radical change from devout Jews who believed in a monotheistic God to including Jesus AS that God is astounding and calls for a serious consideration of the claims that Jesus was actually who they say he is. The eye witness accounts to miracles etc (all written within one lifetime of Jesus) would show that there is something at work here that needs to be considered.

3. The 'stickability' of Christianity throughout the ages, despite persecution and politics, would testify to the truth that people found in it. Even today the accounts of personal experiences with Jesus are vast and varied but at the same time hold similar elements of facts about forgiveness, peace, and hope. This is true in the majority world (also known as the Third World) as in the West where the church seems to be dying.

4. My own story of healing and deliverance cannot be scientifically explained, even though my doctors tried. I have seen my life changed at the power of his name, I have experience the hope and freedom that comes with believing in Jesus (and you have told me of times past where you have to). It is particularly poignant to point out that when I was healed I was anti-God, anti-Jesus, angry, and not wanting anything to do with him. This wasn't my own mind making things up. I cannot deny what I have been through, what I have seen in my own life and in others. This lead me to Christ, all the other arguments cemented my faith for me.

Manipulating the Spirit

I posted the other day this article on a social networking site about Benny Hinn, the infamous televangelist. Apart from his extremely suspect theology (seriously, research him one day) he is also widely known for his healing conferences and for people being 'slain in the spirit' (which basically means falling over under the overwhelming presence of the spirit) when they are around him.

When I posted this article I got a very interesting response. Someone said to me that we shouldn't, as Christians, be putting down other Christians if their ministry is working and healing people.

Well, I tell you, this set off some MAJOR warning bells in my head for several reasons.

1) Do Not Judge.

It is a common thing in this postmodern (pomo) Western world that we live in that we are told that all people's views are of equal value and we should never judge anyone. As there are phrases like 'Do not judge, lest you be judged' in the Bible, the church has adopted this policy hook, line and sinker. But the church as a people that claim the truth are, by their very nature, laying down a line that claims that on one side is the truth and on the other is not. Throughout the history of the church that line has had to be argued, researched, and reclaimed as new beliefs and practices came to the fore and challenged the way the church worked. Sometimes these challenges changed the church (for example when the Protestant church formed out of the Catholic church in the Reformation). At other times the challenges have been rejected by the church as anti-gospel and labelled a heresy.

IT IS OUR JOB TO JUDGE TRUTH CLAIMS.

It is our job as people of the Truth that we judge other claims to truth. It is essential that we are analysing and holding to account the people who claim Jesus name as their motivating factor for their ministry. It is vital for the faith that we discuss what we see happening in other churches, that we research it, and that we weigh it up against Scripture.

If we don't do this, if we fail to hold each other to account, to judge ministries by Scriptural truth, then the Truth of the Gospel gets distorted, cults form, and we have no backing to say that Mormonism, to take one example, is not Christian.

I am not going to go into the theology of Benny Hinn here, but if you hear people you know saying that such and such a preacher is dodgy, then do your homework, engage in debate, and don't shy away from saying "But what they say here is totally against the Bible..." when you know that the Truth is being distorted.

2) When 'the spirit' is not The Spirit.

Benny Hinn, as I said before, is widely known as a faith healer and a man who works in the ecstasy of the Spirit. What this means is that at his meetings there will always be prayer times where people fall over, convulse, and in other ways appear to be under the control of some other power. I knew a young woman who was healed at a Benny Hinn conference. She was my flatmate for a year and was healed 2 years before I meet her from a brain tumour. Unfortunately in the year I knew her the cancer came back and she died at the age of 22. I know her story was genuine. I also know that she was a Bible believing Christian. I don't doubt her faith or that God healed her.

But here is the crucial difference. God healed her. Benny didn't. As someone who has also experienced a dramatic healing, I can testify that God can, and will, work even in experiences where people weren't praying for healing (as in mine). If God is gonna heal, it is gonna happen.

But back to the point.

The Bible says in Matt 7:21-23:

 21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

Jesus doesn't say that they won't be able to do miracles, these people who didn't know him. Moses in Egypt faced sorcerers who could do many of the things that God told him to do. When Jesus talks about the end days (also in Matthew) he says that many false teahers will come in his name performing signs and wonders and yet will not be from him. 

What we can see here is that there are people who will be able to do stuff like healings and deliverance ministry in the name of Jesus and yet still not be ok in their ministry.

So how do we know the difference between them? How can we spot the preachers who do miracles for God and those that do them for themselves?

That brings me to my next point.

3) Misunderstanding the Spirit.

Something I notice about Christians in NZ is that a lot of us have no understanding of who the Spirit is. We don't think of the Spirit as a person on equal footing with Jesus and the Father. We don't really talk about the Spirit well, making it sound like it is something we 'plug' into when we pray for the 'Jesus hit'. And it is this misunderstanding of the role of the Spirit that I believe has lead us to be afraid of speaking out when someone is manipulating it because we don't know when that is happening. (Let me just qualify that I don't think someone can actually manipulate the Holy Spirit, but rather they manipulate our understanding of it.)

The Holy Spirit is as much God as Jesus and the Father are. It is not some strange force that floats around us and we have to say the right words or go to the right church to 'feel' it as it moves among us. It isn't manifested through the right words or the right musical chord or anything else. 

Rather, it is the Spirit of the living Christ that dwells within us! It is what gives us faith, and peace, in our walk with Christ. It is what connects us with the risen Christ and makes us holy in the eyes of the Father. We don't 'recharge' on the Spirit, we live in it. Being in Christ and Christ in us is all about the Spirit and it's work within us. Sometimes this can be shown through moments of ecstasy and prophecy and healings and the like. But it isn't hovering waiting for us to plug in before those things happen, it is with us all the time and sometimes decides to move through us in strange and mysterious ways.

I am tired at the misunderstanding of the Spirit being used by churches and preachers to convince people that what is being done is from God and not humans. 

We can know whether or not it is the Spirit moving by the fruit that is produced by the people 'working' in it. Is that person, like Mother Theresa, self-sacrificial, loving of all people, have a heart for the broken, giving all they have, recognised for their love? Are they humble and always pointing to God rather than to themselves? Or is that person, like Benny Hinn, preaching that God will give you all you want, money, possessions, etc? Are they living in a humble manner or are they taking the glory?

We can know the difference between people who are working for God and those who are working for themselves. We can tell in the way the preach, and whether it stacks up with what it Bible actually says. Miracles may still happen, but Jesus told us to watch out, to be smart, and to know our Bibles well enough (with the help of those who have gone before and our communities) so we can recognise and speak out against this stuff.

Don't be suckers, be on guard.