Understanding and Overcoming My Unbelief

If the gospel offers such amazing hope and it is true, then why do not more people believe? The title of a book that I have in my bookshelf says it plainly: "If there is a God, why are there atheists?" If a hundred different people were asked, we might get 100 different answers. I believe that once you peel away all the layers, you will find a common denominator: shame.

I remember as a young adult before I came to believe, how uncomfortable I was around anyone who spoke about the Christian faith. It was something I couldn't explain. In fact it was a mystery to me. All that I know is that I became embarrassed and wanted to stay as far away as possible. In retrospect, I realize it was a subconscious shame that I unknowingly had buried.

I've seen and heard this over and over. Some people describe it as feeling like they are being judged. Others just describe being uncomfortable about discussing religion. Still others strongly object to religious talk as it is a personal matter. The short of it is that people are just uncomfortable around the Christian faith. Where does this come from? Here is what Jesus taught:

"This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed."
- Jesus quoted in John 3:19-20

I know this sounds a harsh, but I hope I can clarify it. God, in his holy character, is the essense and source of all that is good: love, mercy, grace, kindness, compassionate. More than that, His love has been directed toward mankind. From the book of Psalms, it says:

The LORD is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love. The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made. -Psalm 145:8-9

Here is the basis for our shame and what the Bible calls evil. God has created us with an innate knowledge of his goodness and love. Yet we have no natural appreciation nor affection for God. We have ignored him and live for ourselves. Our shame comes out when our lack of love for God is exposed. That is why we are uncomfortable around others who do seem to love Him.

In the story of Adam and Eve, when they acted evil toward God, they responded to their shame by hiding from God and trying to figuratively cover it with fig leaves. Likewise, the are various ways people try to cover or hide their shame. One way could be to use labels: "Oh, you are a religious person. I'm just not a religious person." Another way is to take up a position of unbelief. If I can rationalize God away, then my shame is not real and I can ignore it. Some people make a life effort out of dissecting the Bible to provide excuses to reject it veracity. Others respond in anger and lash out toward those who believe actively trying to descredit, villify or even persecute those who love Jesus.

I have been guilty of most of these! So, how does a person move from shame and unbelief to faith and acceptance? The answer is the gospel message that our sin is taken away, removed and forgiven in Christ. All of us have guilt and shame. But God wants to clothe us in His righteousness, not ours. You can love him because he first loved you! He has promised to give His Holy Spirit to you and I-- The Spirit of God, who will dwell in all who believe and teach us to love God. The Spirit is the one who opens our eyes to God's love in Christ:

Romans 5:5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

He promises to give His Holy Spirit to whoever will ask him:

Jesus said, "...If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (Luke 11:13)

This is the Christian experience of what we call being born again or what theologians call "regeneration". It is that life changing event when the love of God becomes a reality in the soul, and the weight of guilt gives way to a joyful sense of forgiveness and cleansing. The heart is turned away from shame toward love for the Lord. This was my experience and the many other whom "God is reconciling to himself in Christ, not counting their sins against them".

This is the promise of old that God gave that if we seek him, we will find him. So, if you are reading this and you know that your are uncomfortable and ashamed with the Christian faith, heed God's promise that you will find him if you seek him. You will receive His Spirit if you ask and you will enter into that glorious freedom of the children of God!

Blessings,

John

The One Thing

If Christianity could be summarized in one message, what would it be? If you were not too familiar with the Christian faith, it would be the one answer to the question of what this faith essentially is. Can it be really be whittled down into such a simple form? The original apostles of Christ believed it could. They believed there was one central message. This one message was called by different names, but the most prominent was the gospel.

The gospel message, which means good news, was considered to be divinely given by God, foretold by the prophets of old, announced and fulfilled by Christ, and brought to the world as the mission of his followers. To the early church, it was the message of life, the message of truth, the message of the cross, the message of grace and the message of hope. It was the message that was life-transforming and that came with the power of God's Spirit. Listen to how the apostle Paul spoke of it:

"I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace."
-Act 20:24

The message of the gospel was so sacred, valuable and precious that Paul counted his life as meaningless unless it could be dedicated to sharing this good news. Take note that it is called the good news. The power of the message is just that...it is good. That good message has changed me. My life was forever changed when I grasped it. Like Paul, I have a desire to see others understand that message. I just wish my convictions were a 10th as strong as his!

I know there are many who are opposed, indifferent or turned off to the Christian faith. I believe such individuals probably don't understand or grasp that at its core, it is offering something good--very, very good! If you are such a person, then you are the reason I want to explain the gospel. I want you to find what I have.

The message of the gospel is proclaimed in different ways throughout the Bible. For me, I think the following passage expresses it very succinctly:

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."
-2 Corinthians 5:17-21

There is a lot packed into this passage. In brief, the gospel is the message of reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ. This means that Christ is the path through which a person receives the gift of the fullness of God's love, favor and acceptance. The meaning of reconciliation is that God no longer counts ones sins against him. He looks upon the reconciled one as a dear beloved child rather than a condemned, guilty sinner. And the soul looks upon God as a loving, heavenly Father rather than an angry judge. This is what it is talking about when it says that if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

What happened to our guilt then? The gospel is not saying that we did something so great so as to make up for our guilt. It is saying that Christ took our guilt upon himself and when he was crucified, God counted that as the punishment of our sins and shortcommings, past, present and future. That took away our guilt, leaving us innoncent and righteous.

When the gospel says that we have become righteous, it is not saying that we have become such great people that God can not help but overlook any present sins and shortcommings. It is saying that God has counted us as righteous because we are associated with His Son, Jesus by faith. God chooses to see us as if we really were pure and blameless, even though we are not really. The new creation is the person God sees through Christ. The old creation is who we really are but whom God no longer sees us as. That is why it is called the gospel of grace!