My father once told me that there were two topics to avoid when talking with relatives and co-workers. They were politics and religion. Ironically, politics was his favorite conversation but he strictly observed his rule about religion. Many people are like him, aren’t they- concerned with what men are doing and caring less about God? They go through life as though real power to make things better resides with human leaders. Granted, there is a population who doesn’t acknowledge a supreme being, but this essay is for the rest of us who want to know if they truly believe in a God or are they fooling themselves with wishful thinking.
Doubt is evidence of an open mind, meaning that a person with doubts is brave enough to think the unthinkable. And when they do, the great question invariably asked is, “Do I really believe what I have been taught or am I taking the path of least resistance?” Whether Christian or Muslim, Mormon or Jew, Hindi or another, this same question affects us all because we usually accept the religion of our parents or culture. So does our belief depend more on the social situation we were born into than our own thoughts? How can we discern if we have the true faith because they all can’t be correct?
There is an answer, but one that requires more work than the average individual is willing to invest. No matter your upbringing, the answer is that you must investigate the claims of your religion. If your study adds strength to your conviction, then your religion is where God has left you. However, if you are dissatisfied, you must investigate other beliefs. You must do this work yourself and resist the temptation to substitute the teaching of others. Those who explain their religion are seeking to convince you by avoiding the weaknesses in it. If you don’t ferret out those weaknesses, you could succumb to exchanging one false religion for another equally false.
Early in my life, I asked the great question and spent my teenage years investigating the truth claims of my parents. It was a task forced upon me because each of them espoused a different theology. They both claimed the Christian label, but one believed that you could lose your salvation by habitual sin and the other one didn’t. As a consequence, I had to seek an answer for myself.
It was unnecessary to extend my study beyond the confines of the Bible, the Christian holy book, because I discovered the answer that I needed there. One of my parents was right and the other was wrong. I realized that Christianity was different from all other religions in one central fact. My relationship with God, once established, didn’t depend on anything that I would or could do. As Jesus explained in John 6:28-29, when Jews asked him what they could do for God, he said the work they could do was to believe his message. And that was all he said. It is from belief in his message, the gospel, that a saving relationship with God is established and beyond that, it is maintained by God unilaterally. In other words, we are powerless to break the relationship so it no longer meets the definition of any organized religion. It is a personal relationship, not corporate, and the beliefs of any organization are inconsequential to it. This is what Paul meant in Romans 8:38-39 when he wrote that neither life nor death nor any created thing could separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus.
In contrast, world religions share a commonality in that they require continued obedience to their creed. Failure to obey leads to threatened dis-fellowship and in some cases, physical death. Living in such a belief system, everybody must hide things they have done from each other and there is no confidence that their future with God is secure. That doesn’t sound like good news. It is more like a psychological burden.
As I studied Christianity more, I discovered internal evidence for the validity of the Bible. For example, the oldest book in the Bible, Job (c. 1520 B.C.), said the earth hung on nothing (26:7). That was written three thousand years before astronomy concluded the same thing. Likewise, the Law of Moses gave instruction to Jewish kings centuries before the Jews had a king (Deuteronomy 17). And the wisdom found in the Bible! One part of the Law of Moses that would revolutionize our legal system is found in Deuteronomy 19:16-20. If a person gave false testimony in court, he would receive the punishment intended for the accused, whether the accused was guilty or not! Another example is the establishment of sanctuary cities to protect people who caused accidental death from being murdered by relatives of the deceased (Deuteronomy 19:5-10).
But the most convincing evidence for the validity of the Bible is external to it. Archaeological discoveries in the last hundred years confirm the existence of Biblical people and places that were thought by critics to be imaginary before 1900. Places like Nineveh and the Red Sea crossing have been discovered. Names of people like the Hittites, King David, and Pontius Pilate have been found carved in stone. The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947, established accurate textual transmission of the Old Testament from 100 B.C. to 900 A.D., quashing critics of the King James translation, that it was based on a tenth century copy with errors. The works of Josephus (A.D. 93), Pliny’s letter to Emperor Trajan (A.D. 100), and the works of Tacitus (A.D. 115) confirm events surrounding the life of Jesus that are recorded in the Bible.
So, I haven’t looked beyond Christianity for a true religion. It is a joy to understand that my relationship with God through Jesus can’t be damaged by my mistakes. In fact, the feeling of joy is an abstract proof of genuine faith. I know that self-deception doesn’t explain my euphoria because of other unnatural changes in me. It isn’t natural for me to care about other people more than myself, but I do. I write essays like this one for their benefit, not mine. And I pray for others and see unlikely events in response to prayer. Granted, these are proofs internal to me but as I said earlier, this essay is for those who believe in a God, but doubt. They should recall internal evidence like mine and be satisfied that their faith is real. If they don’t, physical evidence akin to what I have mentioned above should be sought. It is there to establish a relationship with God through Jesus.
