Christmas is a time of believing. Have you given much thought to exactly what you believe? Have you made the leap of faith to believe in God and in Jesus as the Savior of the world?
As believers, we have two things that enable our belief: our personal experiences with God and the experiences of others with God. Taking these experiences together with our ability to reason, we have made the leap of faith.
Even atheists have chosen to believe in something. But they also may have doubts in their beliefs. I have heard the story of an atheist who used to lie awake at night sometimes worrying that there might really be a God. When this same person became a Christian from time to time he would lie awake at night worrying that there might NOT be a God. In the end, faith is a decision to believe or not to believe. You look at the facts and your experiences and decide…one way or the other. An atheist decides NOT to believe. And we as Christians have decided TO believe. Taking a leap of faith to believe in someone that we cannot see.
Recently Steven Hawking wrote a book The Grand Design laying out the case that the universe COULD have begun without a creator…that an initial spark for the big bang was not necessary. He explains all the theories… and it’s fascinating and exciting to understand how things work. It’s like taking a piano apart and realizing that the hammers and wires ultimately make the music…but you still need someone to play. Scientists are to do this…scientists discover our world and explain things…I read Hawkings theories and I don’t believe less, I believe more that the order in this universe could only come from a greater power, and that these discoveries give us a glimpse of the creative mind of God.
There are many objections to belief and I suspect you have heard many of them. Where is God when evil happens? Does God care? Why don’t Christians act in love? This grace of God seems unfair. If fairness in faith is important then Christianity may not be for you…grace is not fair, if it were it wouldn’t be grace….grace is God’s unmerited, unearned favor…and its pretty clear that all of us come up short (some more than others) in loving God and others. I for one am thankful for Gods grace that is extended to me…even though I’m full of faults.
In this Christmas season, will we seek to be in love with God? To believe more deeply? John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, desired this for all us. A personal “love” relationship between God and you…made possible by understanding God through Christ and letting the Holy Spirit, God’s presence in the world, work in our lives and the lives of others. It’s amazing that in our times of crisis, when we have nowhere else to turn, that we can turn to our basic beliefs and when we don’t understand it all…can simply have confidence in the character of our God..that He loves us unconditionally.
Will you see God in the red bell ringers this season? The hands helping at events like LUM Jubliee Christmas? The mystery of the Christmas story? Ask who is this baby, what did He really say and do? Together, as we experience God and our belief grows, what a place of faith our community will be. Our faith will be contagious…just like the early followers as we are changed by a personal relationships with Jesus, the little baby…
There was a man named Jesus, who was a baby, grew up, and taught amazing things. He showed incredible compassion, did amazing things, and then was rejected by the religious leaders of the day. He was crucified and then was seen alive, resurrected, not by one or two but by hundreds and then he ascended into heaven right in front of their eyes….what do we do with this? Those that knew him, that shared their stories of being with him, had their lives changed. Will we let this same Jesus change us? BELIEVE!
