FatherSpiritSon.com
"Intelligence and Faith Not Mutually Exclusive"
There is a common misconception present in today's world that involves a fairly widespread, fundamental misunderstanding of the Christian faith. Many non-believers tend to perceive us as being ignorant and falsely optimistic; some sincerely even think we are clinging to religion in order to satisfy our weakness or unwillingness to admit that life begins and ends here on earth. According to them this life is it and nothing comes after. This does not apply to all non-believers of course, and is quite a broad generalization to say the least, but it does hold in many situations.
With all due respect, I think that many of these sorts of perceptions stem from the fact that non-believers are essentially missing the main point, and may be struggling to accept the word of God as being true because of their own spiritual blindness and sinful nature. Instead of opening their hearts completely to Jesus Christ, and experiencing a personal relationship with Him for themselves, they attempt to fight and attack all that Christians hold dear. Typically exercising all sorts of faulty, one-sided reasoning and highly focusing their effort on contradicting the truth in an intellect based battlefield. They do this without recognition of the moral laws that God expects us to live by and has clearly laid out in His word. With seared consciences and a lack of understanding of God's true character we should not be surprised when they do not willingly listen to what to us is God's clear message and purpose for them. As long as we remain on that intellectual battlefield, we are not honestly tapping into the full, transformative power found in the gospel of Jesus when it is carefully studied and prayerfully applied to a heart that genuinely yearns for the light. By this, I mean a true seeker of good who does not yet fully understand God, will be blessed by God with more and more opportunities to get to know Him and His word. It is clear to me that although some of us may accept Jesus Christ as Savior early in our lives with many questions still lingering in the back of our minds, and eventually receive the clarity we diligently seek in one form or another - the same idea can be applied to a non-believer who eventually makes a decision to accept Jesus. If he really seeks God, He will continually receive opportunities to draw closer to making the most important decision of his/her life.
Many may even undermine the fact that many believers also seek to use reason and logic in their day to day lives. The purpose of this article is to shed some light on this issue and share with you my insight, along with additional information that I have come across to address these ideas with a focus on clarification and deeper understanding of God's intentions for us as children of God. By doing so I hope you will see that not only does God call us to be faithful, humble servants - He intends for us to exercise our intelligence in order to better fathom the depth of His word and enjoy our furthered understanding of His character as we mature in faithful obedience to His will.
With all that said, the purpose of this article is not to take jabs at non-believers/Christians, and put myself on some sort of self-righteous pedestal. I realize that I am a sinner just as we all are, and I am not better or worse than any non-believer in the sense of being morally good or bad. The key and only vital difference that comes to my mind is my willingness to accept Jesus Christ as Savior. Aside from that I may also add that I recognize my sins are wrong and try my best to rectify my situation whenever possible. Jesus Christ is the one who paid the price for my sins with His blood on a cross roughly 2,000 years ago. The only claim I can make that differentiates me from any other sinner, and does not alienate me from God, is exactly that. I believe in His Son Jesus Christ, and I know the power of giving Him control of every aspect of our lives is something that we should all aspire to do. Once we can do that, we open up the door to God using us for His purposes, and there is no greater potential for true satisfaction and sense of purpose than that. This, however, does not come easy by any means as we will come to see at a latter portion of this article.
Part of the reason why many of us, as Christians, fail to get at the core of issues with non-believers is we keep fighting back on this intellect based battlefield thinking that we may gain ground in some way if we disprove their points or try to reason with them in such a manner. It is clear though, that without the planting of seeds based on a potential relationship with Jesus Christ in that individuals life, there are many issues in the Christian life that words may not satisfactorily convey. The non-Christian will not understand the dynamics of these ideas entirely, simply because the Holy Spirit is not yet influencing their understanding of it in many cases. For example, we can explain to a non-believer the unparalleled joy we may have felt when we helped a poor homeless man with a couple of dollars for food, and share with them the idea that we are essentially doing it out of the love inside of us embedded by the Holy Spirit to help those that really need it. To a degree they will understand everything we are saying, they may even come to grips with the fact that we truly do not expect anything in return, but no matter what (unless they experience it for themselves as a follower of Jesus Christ executing His divine will) they will not get to understand the full extent of serving God selflessly along these lines.
As Christians we are called to die to ourselves and attempt to disown our selfish desires. God knows the desires of our hearts better than we do, but He also knows what is best for us, and we need to recognize that He has the utmost intentions for the lives of those willing to serve Him and put Him first. Time and time again I have told you in prior articles that this does not mean we are going to have an easy time doing this, and it doesn't mean that we will not stumble in one area or another on a day to day basis. What it means is that we have a compass, or a GPS to get there. As a matter of a fact, we have the ultimate GPS - God. Not only will he guide us and help us find our way once we confess our sin, request His forgiveness, and accept Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross for our sin as full atonement for our past offenses and transgressions - He may even bless us with some of the desires of our hearts along the way that are in line with His plans for us.
One point I need to make is that selfish wants should not be the motivation for seeking a relationship with Jesus. We should not choose to accept Jesus on the basis of what He can and will do for us on a superficial level. What I mean by this is we are not choosing Him to be happier, more fulfilled, more satisfied, or in better financial shape from a self-centered standpoint. Treating Jesus Christ as a Santa Claus kind of false god or genie who will grant us all our wishes is completely missing the mark. People who seek to understand God from such a perspective are bound to be disappointed within their first few inconveniences after "trying the Christian thing." Inevitably they will become false converts and unfortunately stray away again. The truth is God knows our innermost motives, and He understands better than any other being when we are seeking Jesus Christ because we know we are absolutely incapable of righteousness without His provision. More specifically, without His sacrifice on the cross we would be doomed, and if we are not ready to confess that we fall short in this manner we are not ready to accept Him with a sincere heart. This does not mean that those who truly accept Him will completely cease to continue to stumble in sin sometimes, but when we do we try to fall forward rather than backward. What I mean by that is instead of continuing to justify our sin and live every day of our lives in a haphazard manner without careful consideration of the ramifications of such behavior will be - we instead attempt to break this vicious cycle with the help of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit inside of us because we know the dire consequences of living this way. We ask Him to give us the strength and faith to resist, and the transformation of our hearts and minds in order to better understand God's character and rely on Him to satisfy us rather than relying on the insatiable appetite for lusts of the world to "satisfy" us. We know that people who succumb to these kinds of worldly desires feel that Christians are wasting their lives, but I think Erwin Lutzer said it best in one of his sermons hat I heard on the radio today, please allow me to paraphrase since I do not remember his exact words. He basically assured us that not only are those that serve Jesus Christ not wasting their lives, but in all actuality we are making certain that our decisions and actions have eternal meaning not just fleeting, earthly impact. I couldn't agree more.
Now I know what some of you may be caught up in thinking. "Aha, so you're saying that we should not seek God in order to satisfy our desires, but at the same time saying that we should rely on Him to satisfy our needs instead of relying on the lusts of the world (ie: lust of flesh, lust for material wealth, etc..) to "satisfy" us. Isn't this contradicting in itself Victor?" At first glance this may seem a bit confusing and somewhat intricate wording - especially to someone that has none or little experience with God's true character in their personal lives. In order to unpack this, we first must understand that although God does not want us to be given uncontrollably to earthly desires, he does intend for us to experience pleasure. As a matter of fact God invented pleasure - including sex (intended for the purpose of greater intimacy between one man and one woman within the confines of marriage.) As Christians we understand that there is a clear difference between these two kinds of pleasure and a lot of us understand that the Devil has attempted to spread the following lie: "God simply wants to deprive you of pleasure and fun, you may be your own god and experience all the pleasure and fun you want without restraint." The sad part is, this statement or idea, is full of deception and couldn't be further from the truth. God knows how we feel better than anyone else when we are in the process of experiencing pleasure or pain, happiness or sadness, a tendency to obey Him or rebel against Him. The list goes on and on, but my main point boils down to this in regards to pleasure (as applied to sex in this explanation): If we restrain ourselves with God's laws in mind in obedience - and refrain from having premarital sex we may experience true intimacy and pleasure (at least when it comes to sex) within a marriage relationship the way it was meant to be enjoyed by our Creator without feelings of guilt, shame, or despair (to name just a few) associated with premarital, sexual relations that have been tarnished by the Devil to look equally or more-so attractive. We may momentarily feel temporary bits of "pleasure" or some twisted sort of "happiness" in the midst of sin or rebellion against God, but this separation from God actually brings long term consequences and will eventually fill us with regret and are on the whole a bitter pill to swallow later on - when we realize the truth of the matter. This will hopefully hit us sooner rather than later so we still have a chance to allow God to save us from perdition, instead of allowing us to live in sin without embracing the fact that we will pay a dear price one day for this lifestyle.
With all this said, I ask you all to answer the following question: Do you want to come to the end of your life full of regret wishing you had lived the life that God intended for you, or will you make a decision for Jesus Christ immediately, live a praiseworthy life with all your might and the help of the Almighty, and come to the end of it with full knowledge that you did everything you could to further His kingdom? The reality is that the sooner we start living with eternity in mind, the more of an impact we can make on furthering God's kingdom and being a part of His plans. This will occur most strongly when we have fully died to ourselves in the sense of our own selfishness, and fully immerse ourselves in the divine calling God has planted in our hearts. Like Paul said in Philippians 3:12, I claim the same as a follower of Jesus. Please allow me to paraphrase: I do not claim to have already obtained all of this, nor have I been completely perfected or claim to be perfect myself, but what I do claim is a thirst to press forward and take hold of God's plan for me. This is exactly how I feel myself.
Paul is not telling us in this verse that we should ever claim perfection while we are here on this earth, but what we can claim, and rest assured in the fact, is that our God is perfect and does not make any mistakes. Certainly we are all fallible and fall short of His glory, but He knows all that and takes it into account when he calls us to follow Him. Our responsibility is to seek Him and give our best shot to the mission at hand based on our gifts, talents, and His supernatural lead. Beyond that, God will take care of every other factor, as long as we attempt to be consistently faithful and loving there is no need whatsoever to worry about past, present, or future. Things will ultimately be taken care of.
With that said, I would like to close this article with a prayer for believers and non-believers:
Dear God,
Thank you for being there for us, and loving us unconditionally regardless of our life station. Please bless those that do not believe in you, but who sincerely seek to further their understanding of your purposes, with the humility and faith necessary to carefully and intelligently examine the evidence that clearly supports the truth and validity of Your word. I know that in Your mercy you will help them to further learn about your ways and hopefully one day in the very near term make a choice for Jesus Christ to be their personal Lord and Savior too. For all the believers that have taken time to read through this article, I pray that you restore to them the joy of their salvation and bless them in order for them to continue to live according to Your plans. Thank you for your timeless word, your gift of salvation, and continual guidance and presence through the Holy Spirit. I pray all these things in Jesus Christ precious name, Amen!
Thank you all once again for taking time to read this article, and I pray that you will prayerfully consider the following three resources as non-believers trying to better understand God, and also believers who still have some questions that need answering or general inspiration. God bless you all on your personal journeys, I want to assure you that God works in mysterious ways and it is not a coincidence that you stumbled across this article today! Take care all, and feel free to send questions, feedback, or general responses/inquiries to [email protected] at your convenience. Jim and I take our e-mails seriously and will likely respond to you very soon. Take care!
Victor Nunez ( www.FatherSpiritSon.com )
Outside Resources:
http://www.wayofthemaster.com/ (Great resource to better understand how one should go about sharing their faith, and hopefully equip you to do so in an unashamed, effective manner when you are ready to share the word with others. Also good if you have lingering, fundamental questions from a non-believers point of view as well.)
www.godandscience.org (One of my all time favorite resources for non-believers to get foundational questions straightened out; and believers to solidify understanding and sharpen apologetics.)
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http://www.bibleone.net/print_tbs73.html (Drew some inspiration to get started with the thought process of this article here; definitely a good place to better capture intellect vs faith issues.)