Why I believe in God with my life.
PROLOGUE: WHO IS LIKE THE LORD? | CREATION & THE LOVE OF GOD
At 10, seeing the world around me – nature, people, society, all this complexity and beauty, it seemed to make sense that there was a cause, maybe a creator. But I wasn't seeking peace, I sought out truth. Though not me, God initiated this. I didn't want to be deceived nor did I want to deceive myself. I began reading the Bible and visiting the girls' fellowship at a local church. After several weeks of learning about God, I was in awe of who He is and what the Bible actually says. Faith is not blindly believing. Faith is not believing in spite of the facts. Rather, it is trusting something without appealing to a further authority. (This is upon the foundation, the truth that is the Bible, whose legitimacy we will dissect in Part 3! ).
Michelle Lim
In those first weeks, I recall that Luke 6:27-28 stood out to me: “But I say to you who hear, love
your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you."
I melted at these words. I had been growing up arrogant, resentful, short-tempered, hypocritical…control was elusive. This was only the initial point to the process though. To sum up: I believe in God through seeing the love of God, the reality of sin, the validity of the Bible, but in the end, because God initiated the call and saved me by His grace.
PART 1: THE REALITY OF SIN, AND THE GOSPEL
A common misconception for people (including some professing Christians) is that we must sin less than other individuals in order to win God’s favor. This misconception promotes the image of Christians as self-righteous or judgmental people who see everyone else’s sins but their own. Contrarily, God is opposed to the proud and gives grace to the humble, like in the parable of the pharisee and the publican - Luke 18:9-17. A genuine Christian is someone who was once dead in his sins and who, as a result, recognizes his need for the Savior. It doesn't mean simply following a set of rules and trying to be a good person. In this sense, it's not a religion. Rather, it's having a personal relationship with God – the God who is righteous and loving.
Other religions are based on works. Meaning, life depends on your efforts, your deeds, or simply – the good things you do. But we cannot save ourselves from ourselves! Now, you may or may not have heard people say that Christ Jesus “saves” or Christ is our “Savior”. So what does this even mean?? Well, if we look from the grandest of scales (from history like in the Holocaust, or recurrent issues like world hunger and human trafficking) to the smallest of scales (individual internal conflicts or familial disputes), especially our own personal motives, we can observe that there are some serious issues with humanity. And what do we need saving from? Sin. All of these issues derive from sin.
The word “sin” might carry some judgmental connotations for people. I hope we can clarify what it actually is. Sin literally means “missing the mark”. Imagine God as a loving father, and us as His children – sin is when we neglect, disregard, disobey, reject God. It is like the attitude of a child turning away from her father who has deeply cared for her.