CHAPTER 4 – Abraham’s Faith

What if you hit somebody with your car?  You didn’t mean to, but you were fiddling with the radio dial at just the wrong moment when a kid ran out into the road, and you killed the child.

Would there ever be anything you could do to make up for that?  Even if you were able to give billions of dollars to children’s hospitals and invent new technologies that would prevent future automobile related deaths and build and run an orphanage and form a support network for parents who had lost their kids–would any of that (or anything else you could do) restore the life of that kid you hit?  Of course not.

It’s the same with sin.  Sin (all sin) causes spiritual death, which means you can’t do anything to save or restore your own soul.  That’s why you must be saved by God’s grace through your faith in him.  And, obviously it’s more than an acknowledgment that he is real.  It’s the same kind of faith that Abraham had, that caused him to do whatever God told him to do.

Call it faith or belief or repentance, the idea is you change your mind about your old life.  You choose to turn around and walk away from sin and walk in God’s ways.  That’s what real faith is about.  It’s not a feeling or a ceremony or a title.  It’s a decision to trust and obey everything God tells you–just like Abraham.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:45 — 22.8MB)

Do you know what you believe in?  Can you explain it?  If someone has serious and complex questions about your faith, can you put it in terms that anyone can understand?  Can you answer deep questions about the Bible?

1st Peter 3:15 says if someone asks about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it.  Are you always ready to do that?  Or do you not know what you really believe?  Do you know what the Bible teaches?

Did you know that rat poison is mostly good food?  It’s made of 99.5% wheat, fillers, sweeteners, solvent, flavor enhancers, and coloring.  And it’s only 00.005% poison.  So it doesn’t take much of a toxic substance to make something really bad for you.  If you claim to believe in Jesus, you ought to be 100% informed on who he is, what he teaches, and what he requires of his followers.

Always be ready to give an answer!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:37 — 15.4MB)

Are you up for a challenge?  How about putting your faith into action.  Actually the truth is, if your faith doesn’t result in action, you probably don’t have faith.  It’s true that faith is an internal thing–a commitment of your heart, but unless you have been nailed to a cross and lack the ability to move, true faith will always be revealed in action.  How’s that for a challenge?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:35 — 19.0MB)

I love how Jesus’ half-brother, James, described faith.  He basically said faith without works is dead faith.  A belief that doesn’t result in changed behavior is not really belief at all.  In fact your true belief is demonstrated by what you do.  That’s why it’s important to have an informed faith.  Faith in God is not a blind faith.  It’s an informed and grounded faith.  There is so much evidence for who Jesus is and what he did in history, that we can have a faith based on reality, and from there our faith helps us to do all the things that Jesus commanded us to do.

PS. I’m sorry about the sound quality on this one.  It’s pretty terrible.  You can hear it if you crank the volume, but it’s not recorded well at all.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:46 — 15.9MB)

What do you believe in?  Here’s a quick test that will tell you exactly what you believe in:

What do you spend your money on?

What do you spend the majority of your time doing?

What do you think about the most?

Those things reveal where you put your faith and trust.  Belief is not an abstract concept or a claim that you make.  True faith and real belief are demonstrated by how you live your life every single day.  Do your all your thoughts and actions honor God or do they focus on worldly & fleshly things?

PS. I’m sorry about the sound quality on this one.  It’s pretty terrible.  You can hear it if you crank the volume, but it’s not recorded well at all.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:17 — 21.2MB)

I think all the prophecy that pointed to Jesus coming is pretty cool.  I watch movies all the time where there’s some sort of prophecy to be fulfilled, and I remember back when Nostradamus was popular in the media, but the movies are just somebody’s imagination and the Nostradamus stuff is just so random that you really have to stretch to make it fit any real events.  But the prophesies about Jesus are real life!  And there are just so many things that match perfectly with his family line for generations and where he’d be born and how he would die and so much stuff.  So, of course, the natural conclusion is, if the prophecy about his first coming was proven, we can be pretty sure about the prophesy of his second coming.  And that means a lot of people are going to be in big trouble if they’re not ready.  And the Bible is pretty clear that you don’t survive the Judgment of Christ by the skin of your teeth.  It’s an all or nothing thing.

A lot of people do religion with a 51% attitude.  They figure as long as they do a little more good than bad, they’ll be ok.  Or they think that God grades on a curve.  So as long as their morality is slightly above average they’ll be fine.  But Jesus demands perfection.  And people who don’t accept that are in for some sad consequences when Jesus comes back.

Of course most people see religion as jumping through hoops and checking off lists, and they totally miss out on the purpose of living for God.  They miss out that God offers grace so that we can stop living in the past, so we can throw off all that old wicked baggage and start with a clean slate.  It’s like God changing your “F” to an “A” and giving us the Holy Spirit as a tutor to help us keep that “A.”  Plus when you realize how much more enjoyable it is to live a good life and to be motivated by love instead of all the bad junk, then you start living a pure life for the joy of it, and religion becomes a pleasurable opportunity.  You look forward to Christ’s return because you love obeying him, and you can’t wait to share the pleasure of his company.  If you miss that crucial point, religion does nothing but offer hoops to jump through and rules to keep track of, and you wind up being lost in your failures.

Religion without true love for God is a joke.  If you think you can please the Almighty God of Heaven with an impersonal 51% effort or a C+ attitude, I’ve got some really bad news for you.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:28 — 14.9MB)