I believe in God because it is natural for me to do so. It is oh-so-human to believe in God, almost as if we, as a race, were born to believe in God. You cannot separate human history from the history of religion. To separate my mind from faith in God would be a perversion of the way things should be. I would become divorced from the evolutionary history of the human race, and what it means to be human.
I believe in God is because I became a Christian first. The gospel message of Christ found a home in my heart, and confirmed itself within me. I became a believer in this beautiful moral code, first. This is truly the first step of faith.
The heart came first, and then my head simply followed. I found a way to justify belief in God because I was in love. It happens every day, that people put their trust in something bigger than themselves, whether a marriage or a cause. They begin to develop confidence in this greater thing. It always starts with a seed of faith.
I believe in God because I took a small leap of faith in order to get where I really wanted to be, where my heart already was. Jesus said that the Spirit would convict the world of sin. I felt that guilt that draw on me to repent.
I believe in God because of the presence of the Holy Spirit who teaches me, guides me, counsels me, and advocates on my behalf. He is very much a person within me. I am always aware of his good nature, unspoiled by the corruption of the flesh. He is pure, righteous, innocent and clean.
I believe in God because I am so much more than an ape. I am no mere animal. I can ponder the event horizon of a black hole, and think on its intricate mysteries. I can pray to God, appreciate the form and concept of God. I can approximate God’s size and depth. I am not animal, but like a little god myself. And so I believe in my Father, God himself.
I believe in God because the infinite universe allows the existence of a God. The illimitable amount of space allows God freedom to exist in this or any other possible universe. And if the universe is real, and in reality can allow a God, than a God is probable, given an endless amount of time and space and possibilities.
I believe in God because there are dozens upon dozens of arguments for God’s existence. However, there are no arguments for atheism, for God’s non-existence. On the other hand, there is a voluminous library of arguments for God and Christ that you could build a foundation of faith upon.
I believe in God because I can find God inside of me. He is not out there somewhere, beyond the stars, or in the seventh heaven, even, but inside of every one of us that are saved. I believe in God because I don’t have to go far to find Him. I just look within, and find his Kingdom and all its glory inside of my spirit.
Again, I believe in God because I can find the Kingdom of Heaven inside of me. I have always known goodness, spiritual righteousness, and what godly love looks like, even as a young boy. What I thought true religion should look like I later discovered that Christ taught exactly that. Our spirits confirm that God is real, and that God is good.
I believe in God because, though God is indescribable, and his awesome grandeur cannot be translated into a recognizable form, still, I understand what and who God is through an intuitive understanding. It is almost as if I was designed to understand God, to know Him, to talk to Him and mentally appreciate Him. I cannot draw him, but I get him. I cannot imagine his form but I feel Him.
I believe in God because of the proof of the spirit. If you cannot find your spirit within your body, then you cannot find yourself. You do not know yourself if you cannot find yourself. If you believe that you have a soul, or a spirit, then you believe in the spiritual realm.
All of that, to say–If the spirit exists, then the spiritual world exists.
I have no choice but to believe in God, really. I believed in myself once, my own ways, my own thoughts, and all of that. I believed in human ways, secular thought, creative philosophy, and so on. It led me to self, but it also led me to self-destruction. Without God, and His ways, I don’t even exist. Therefore, I have no choice but to believe in Him.
I believe in God because of the existence of reality. Existence itself is God-dependent. Existence cannot exist of its own will or purpose. Existence cannot have being without God’s Being flooding it, permeating it, so to say. Otherwise, existence would simply not be upheld. Existence would simply not be colorized and filled out.
I believe in God because of the miracle of the Bible. The Bible is perfect, holy, anointed and irreducibly complex. It could not have come about by natural means because there are no intermediate transitional forms of revelation to be studied. Its revelation about God appears suddenly and fully formed in the historical record.
The Bible. Either none of it is true or all of it is true. If one miracle is real, then all of the miracles happened. Therefore, only one miracle needs to be proven. All of the others are then accepted on faith. And the likelihood that all of the hundreds of interconnected miracle stories being fake are minuscule, if not completely improbable.
I believe in the devil because of the argument from death. Death exists. Beings should not die, being in league with time, which will never end. Therefore death was manufactured by someone or something, and the devil seems the likeliest answer. Therefore the devil exists, and he brought death to the world.
But the biggest reason I believe in God is because God believed in me, first. There is no other explanation for my existence, unless the universe itself is malicious and cruel. I could only have been created for redemption, to be saved. Otherwise, I am the best I will ever be, and others, too. And that is not a good sign for the world.
Without God, we are the devil.
Let us not believe that, friends.
Go to Part Two