Why?

Question “Why do people believe in God?”

This very important question has several answers.

1.       1         Perhaps we have been well taught that God exists and that we should listen to His word –the Bible. That’s good instruction and for many that is enough.

2.    2   It is good to look at the evidence. As I consider human beings, I am  impressed with their ability to do things creatively, but more to observe human ability to love and hate, to calculate and make judgements, to intelligently interact with others and to control other creatures.  And yet humans seem to have an instinct to look up to someone greater than themselves and so often pray. This is one great evidence that God has been busy making mankind in His own image.

Also we can see the design, power, wisdom, intelligence of a supreme being in the world around us. I love to look into the face of a flower and wonder at it’s symmetry, colour, scent, reproductive ability and devices, particular shape, all put together using dirty dirt! Scientists rightly tell us that so  much of this is controlled by the DNA code, but who wrote the code? Someone with a distinct taste for variety and beauty. I could go on..... I encourage you to open your eyes to the evidence of power and intelligence.

3.  3   Beyond the natural world is the wonder of revelation. God has spoken as recorded in the Bible. Considering that the Bible was written by many over many years, it  is a history of God interrupting in the affairs of earth.  These occasions were where He spoke His mind, gave His directions and called humanity to Himself. The wonder of the book is its variety and honesty along with it’s unity in it’s focus on the promised Messiah. The arrival of the Lord Jesus Christ gave a new dimension to God being revealed. So much so that His claim to be the Son of God as the final revealer of God the Father, brings to us the challenge – do we believe He was a deceiver, or do we accept Him as the Son of the true and living God?

4.  4   Another pointer to the reality of God, is experience. Perhaps it is last on the list, yet it is real. So very many people have prayed and God has answered. Others have experienced a dramatic change of life from sinfulness to godliness by believing in the Lord Jesus. Many can tell of the nearness of the Lord in daily living. Some have had dreams which vividly present Jesus as the only Saviour.

5.  5   It is quite useful to study history and watch the development of human cleverness, but also the wanderings of human morality. We think we are smart with modern technology, but has it solved the problem of hate, war, greed, violence etc? Rather I see the degeneration of the human condition with God interrupting as He sees appropriate. In my younger years we thought communism would conquer the world, but God interrupted. Who would have thought that the tiny nation of Israel would have survived the onslaught of enemies? God knows what He is doing and the Bible again shines like a lighthouse describing where the world is going.

6.     6    I find it intriguing that so much effort and expense is being made to either deny God, or distract from God. I perceive there is some sinister force at work and this again points to the reality of God along with the responsibility to know God.

Paul put it so well

....evidence....... “that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward Him and find Him. Yet He is actually not far from each one of us.”  - Acts 17.27

The Bible has a very searching warning. When the Lord Jesus appears again “He will inflict vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” – 2 Thessalonians 1:8. To some that may seem rather harsh. What it does mean is that ‘not knowing God’ is a choice, not a circumstance. Likewise refusing to obey the gospel’ is a choice for those who have heard it.

So why believe in God – all the evidence points in one direction – “He is, and He rewards those who seek Him”  -  Hebrews 11.6

J. McKee