A word to those still searching for God

For folk who may still be trying to sort out their views on God, I would make some suggestions.

See the big picture

Firstly, keep a proper perspective on the importance of respective issues. The Bible contains around 1,300 chapters. It would be silly to reject the central theme of it because you disagreed with the way some Christians interpret one of those chapters!

Focus on Jesus

Secondly, focus on Jesus. The central theme of the Bible, and hence Christianity, is that God has made himself known to us supremely by entering human history in the person of Jesus and taking upon himself our human nature. The Bible declares that he lived a perfect human life, that he died on the cross for our sins to reconcile us to God, that he rose from the dead, that he now reigns as Lord, and that he will one day return to judge the world.

This is not the only way he has revealed truths about himself. The Bible states very clearly that God speaks through nature. "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands" (Psalm 19:1). "God's eternal power and character cannot be seen. But from the beginning of creation, God has shown what these are like by all he has made. That's why those people don't have any excuse. They know about God, but they don't honour him or even thank him" (Romans 1:20,21).

However, God's revelation of himself through nature does not tell us all we need to know about him. It speaks of his power, but not of his love. It does not tell us whether he is personally interested in us, or how we can have an intimate relationship with him. But if Jesus is all that the Bible declares him to be, then God has revealed himself to us in a manner that does tell us all we need to know.

Keep an open mind

Thirdly, don't allow prejudices about Christianity, whatever their source, to prevent you from looking at evidence. Dr Paley said:

There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. The principle is contempt prior to examination.

A good scientist, if he is to arrive at truth, must examine evidence. The history of science is littered with examples of how the discovery of truth has been delayed because scientists, for one reason or another, refused to consider evidence. Jesus is a historical figure. We have very good evidence for trusting the accuracy of the records we have about him. If he was not the divine Son of God he claimed to be, he must be the most remarkable con man in history. If you are interested in exploring the evidence for these things further, you may like to read the first four articles on this site; THE BIBLE Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago? EYEWITNESS Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right? GOD - MAN Is Jesus really God? RESURRECTION Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

Experiment

Fourthly, be prepared to experiment. If a scientist develops a theory he must be prepared to put it to the test. This may involve a step of faith. In Christianity, as in science, faith comes before certainty. We have enough evidence to point us in a certain direction. As we put it to the test, the evidence increases (or otherwise). Faith is not contrary to evidence, but is prepared to trust beyond where the evidence can go. In fact, faith sometimes comes before any evidence at all. A good example from science is Enrico Fermi's postulation of the existence of what he called a "neutrino", a quantity of energy that had neither positive or negative charge and no mass. This caused a considerable scandal in the field of science because no one could capture it. Some considered the whole idea a fraud and thought it might even be intellectually dishonest to continue to discuss its role in atomic physics. However, though there was no experimental evidence for its existence, some scientists persisted "in faith", and eventually evidence was forthcoming.

"Proof" is something that comes later and it is interesting that "proof"" is a concept that scientists are much less likely to use today. Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias, in A Shattered Visage: The Real Face of Atheism, says:

God has put enough into the world to make faith in Him a most reasonable thing, and He has left enough out to make it impossible to live by sheer reason or observation alone.

A useful experiment could be something like this. Read through one of the gospel stories in a modern translation of the New Testament. As you do, tell God that whatever doubts you may have, you are open to any truth he may teach you and that you will follow wherever that truth leads. Ask yourself such questions as: Does this have the ring of truth about it? Could Jesus really have been invented by a group of enthusiasts? Was he really God? If not, who was he? What right did he have to make the personal claims on our lives that he obviously did? Is he worthy of my trust?

If you wish to take the experiment further with a step of real commitment, then you may wish to pray a prayer something like this:

God, whatever my doubts I am willing to trust you. If Jesus really came into this world to die for my sins, then I accept his forgiveness. I submit to him as the Lord of my life. I invite you to come into my life and to give me the assurance of your love. I ask you to mould me into what you want me to be and to fulfil whatever purpose you may have for me. Help me to grow in my understanding of your truth and to live worthy of your love.

Should you take this step of faith, then continue reading through the New Testament, asking God to reveal himself to you as you do. My expectation is that you will find that the experience of the Holy Spirit in your heart will join with the growing understanding of God in your head, to give you the certainty that you are on the right path. Dr Nelles Silverthorne, a Canadian paediatrician who committed his life to Jesus Christ at a Billy Graham Crusade, said:

To a man of science, it [conversion] is the most convincing experiment I've ever done.

Professor Simpson, who in 1891 was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians, said in his farewell address on July 28, 1905:

I do not know in what mood of pessimism I might have stood before you today had it not been that ere the dew of youth had dried from off me I made friends with the Sinless Son of Man, Who is the well-head of the stream that vitalises all advancing civilisation, and Who claims to be the First and the Last and the Living One: Who was dead and is alive evermore, and has the keys of Death and the Unseen. My experience compels me to own that claim.

He was, of course, speaking of his experience of Jesus, of whom such phrases are used in the New Testament. Having thus experienced the reality of this living God, you may well begin to view this wonderful universe that he has created in a new light. Astronomer Hugh Ross, in an article in Christianity Today, put it like this:

How awesome to consider that God caused the big bang and all its components, including exotic matter and over 10 billion trillion stars, for the sake of knowing and being known by us in an eternal love relationship. The thought both reduces me to a speck of dust and lifts me up to the heavens.

Finally, if you do reject the fact that God exists, and that he is personally interested in you and wants to enter into a personal relationship with you, check on your motives for such an opinion. Often the reason we reject something that may be true has more to do with matters of the heart than of the mind. The agnostic, Aldous Huxley, once wrote with considerable honesty:

I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning: consequently assumed it had none; and was able without any difficulties to find gratifying reasons for this assumption. Those who detect no meaning in the world generally do so because, for one reason or another, it suits their books that the world should be meaningless. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.