1  Why Trust This Guide?

Sasha was confused and fed up with it. Everywhere she turned, someone was offering her spiritual advice. Well-meaning, quaintly dressed young folks regularly turned up at her door with pamphlet offers. For her birthday, her friends gave her crystals with cards certifying their vortex energy. Her uncle kept offering to introduce her to his sufi, while her aunt held an open seat for her at her seances. The prosperity preachers on television had their own shtick, and the new mosque was now blaring calls to prayer five times a day across the neighborhood. The bookstore section on spirituality had doubled in size and quadrupled in chaos. And her professor was sitting cross-legged atop his desk, chanting with his eyes closed, whenever she dropped off her assignments. Sasha felt like she needed a lifeline, not a crystal, sufi, medium, pamphlet, siren, or shtick.

More

If you’ve never wondered whether life has more to it than meets the eye, then you’ve not really been living. Or at least you’ve not been looking around you or listening inside. The world is all at once too strange, wonderful, meaningful, and chaotic to be just some random collection of material. That material has too many patterns, rhythms, and designs to have nothing more to give it that exquisite structure. And that’s not even to consider our human biology and consciousness, able to draw not just meaning but also purpose and value out of the material universe. We are both an obvious part of what we observe but somehow in our consciousness also beyond material. We know more and are more than the material that we touch, smell, shape, and consume, even though we are a part of it. And our peculiarly non-material consciousness is what enables our attention, gives us our will, and makes us question the nature of that more that we know we are. 

Confusion

Our consciousness, including our will and attention, is also what drives us crazy, when we cannot articulate the more that we know that we are, the more on which our consciousness, will, and attention depend. If we were brutes, without this preposterous ability to contemplate the material around us of which we are a biological part, then we would not care. We would not confuse and frustrate ourselves over meaning, purpose, consciousness, attention, and intention. We would have neither mind nor capacity to wonder how the material we see and of which we are a part gives not just life and breath, neither of which we can in any appreciable degree replicate out of the material around us, but also consciousness, conscience, and intention. We would see nothing different between a cathedral and a cockroach, although of course cathedrals would not exist, our having no minds nor reason or capacity to create them. But here we are, wondering, questioning, searching for the invisible that so clearly guides, orders, and enlivens the visible.

…. Read more of Chapter 1 in paperback or digital.

2  What Is Faith? 

Derek admired his friends who had faith. They seemed to have a confidence about them that he wouldn’t mind sharing. Yet Derek wasn’t sure what, exactly, faith was. Oh, he knew all about religion or at least enough to feel that religion wasn’t exactly for him. He had a negative view of religious types, even though he couldn’t think of anyone he knew who fit that type. Derek only knew the popular mockery of the religious, without knowing anyone who fit that bill. But Derek was also uncomfortable with just waking up and believing something without any special justification for it, except to belong to some sort of religious cult. Yet he wasn’t sure that his friends of faith whom he admired did belong to religious cults. They seemed instead to have friends and acquaintances of all kinds, maybe even more friends and acquaintances of different types than those who did not have faith. 

Definition

Faith, in its broader definition, is confidence or trust in things we cannot directly perceive or have not yet occurred. We have faith that our spouse will be at home when we return. We have faith that our hard work will produce a reasonable return and that our employer will come through with our paycheck. We have faith in the banking system, entrusting it with our savings. We are faithful to our spouse and employer. We have faith that the military will protect us from foreign invasion and the police will protect us from domestic crime. We have faith that the sun will rise in the morning and set in the evening. We also have faith that our rest will restore us and that our heart will continue to beat. We place our faith in the medical profession and their regimens, and the legal system and its procedures. We exhibit faith everywhere, in dozens of ways.

Necessity

In that broader sense, faith is necessary to function with any degree of normalcy and efficacy in human society and the natural world. You cannot get out of bed in the morning without already having engaged in minute acts of faith. Why else rise at all, if you had no expectation of the reliability of things being as they were when you went to bed? Indeed, the greater your concerted effort toward a desired end, the greater your faith. If all you expect out of a day, no matter how hard you try, is bare survival in the midst of misery, then you’d do no more than necessary to survive. But if, instead, you believe you can paint a masterpiece for the ages or build a cathedral that will inspire millions across a thousand years, you will strain with every last fiber of your being to accomplish that unseen and difficult but possible end. You’ll have faith beyond your vision, even beyond your grasp. Faith is necessary both for bare survival and for anything greater than that. Your vision, reach, and effort will be in proportion to your faith.

…. Read more of Chapter 2 in paperback or digital.

3  Why Have Faith?

Bernard was lost. No, not geographically, but just about every other way he could imagine. He even felt as if he didn’t know up from down. He sure didn’t know right from wrong, good from evil, friends from enemies, or truth from lies. Bernard didn’t know whom to trust, help, avoid, or flee. He didn’t know what was good for him or bad for him. What was worse, Bernard didn’t even know if it mattered. He had no purpose in his life. At times, he didn’t know if he even existed or if was just imagining himself. He almost thought he was having a nervous breakdown or going crazy. Maybe he just needed to check himself into an institution, where he could just totally check out. But then, late one night when he was spiraling down yet again, he felt a presence that, without speaking, somehow told him everything was going to be alright and to just follow me.

Question

The question why have faith has some great answers to it. But like any question, you must ask it genuinely if the answers are going to make sense. People who already know what they’re about, including who they are, why they are, and where they’re going, don’t generally ask about faith. They lack or miss nothing, and so they look for nothing. They have the answers they need. If they ask who needs faith, they do so dismissively, knowing already that they don’t. They already see all that they believe they need. And so they cannot imagine the need to discern and rely on what they cannot see, in the way that faith trusts in the unseen. The unseen structures, patterns, powers, and principles that influence the world hold no interest for them because they trust in their own sight and strength for all that they believe they need. If that’s you, seeing and having all you need, then you’re not interested in an answer to the faith question.

Possibility

To appreciate the answer to the question why have faith, you must instead know that you need more than you can see, grasp, acquire, or accomplish. Faith generally doesn’t appeal until you reach your limit of grasping and controlling, and realize that much more exists for you beyond your reach if you would just have faith. To discern and rely on the unseen, you must first believe that its possibility exists. The man marooned on an uninhabited island won’t strike out across the ocean swells on his flotsam craft until starving or so desperate for company as to risk his life. He also needs confidence in the belief that rescue or a better island lies just beyond his sight. If you are sufficiently content without wondering what lies beyond that may be so purposeful and powerful as to order and govern your world, then go ahead and live the slug’s life. But if instead you sense your need for rescue from whatever despair, loss, curse, burden, corruption, or limitation you suffer, and you believe in the possibility that such a rescue just might exist, then you’re ready for answers to the question why have faith. 

…. Read more of Chapter 3 in paperback or digital.

4  Why Believe in God?

Wilson was fine with a little spirituality. He knew something was out there that he couldn’t directly see. He respected spiritual people and felt a little spiritual himself. He didn’t have any particular practices around his spirituality, but he regarded himself as open to spiritual things. The point where it all stopped for Wilson, though, was with God. He just couldn’t get his head around spiritual things as if they involved an entity or entities like divine beings. He was fine with forces and presences and other unseen influences on things. Wilson just couldn’t accept the idea that those things took shape in some way in a supreme being he could call God. But then Wilson met a young woman in whom he had a romantic interest. Seeing how intimately and continuously she related to God, Wilson for the first time thought that maybe there was more to God than just imagining things.

Intimacy

As the above illustration suggests, one reason to believe in God is the intimacy he can bring. It’s hard not to believe in someone who overcomes and engulfs you, or who embraces, uplifts, and inspires you, whether doing so continuously, regularly, occasionally, rarely, or even just once. When the impact is that immediate, consuming, heartening, and transforming, what is one to do but to believe in what one just experienced? Some might say that experiencing the intimacy of God is simply a physiological or mental state, induced by circumstance, drug, or delusion. But those who have such encounters do not receive and experience them as delirium or some other form of excited state. Indeed, they relate the opposite, that they were perfectly calm and in possession of their faculties when they first encountered the presence of the supreme divine entity. You will believe in God when you meet him. 

Conditions

Don’t think that believing in God takes some kind of moral purity or mental ecstasy. As the scriptures say, even demons believe in God and shudder. If the worst can believe in God, then we can, too. The encounters that the ancient scriptures and individuals today describe, realizing the presence, reality, and immediacy of God, do not depend on the observer’s holiness. You may draw nearer to God through confession, sanctification, and purity of heart. By all means, do so. But God also shows himself to desperate sinners. And good thing, because that’s most or all of us. God may reveal himself at our lowest and worst point. That God appears to the desperate and despairing tells us that God has no use for the proud or the proud have no use for God. The two may be the same thing. Humble yourself sufficiently, acknowledging the condition in which you are, and you just may encounter and believe in God.

…. Read more of Chapter 4 in paperback or digital.

5  Who Is God?

Wendy realized at the first service she attended with her fiancé at his church how differently the people there thought and spoke about God. Wendy had grown up with her family in a mainline denomination that had a highly formal liturgy. People there didn’t speak about God with any familiarity. If God was present at all in and around that church, in the hearts of its members, he was either very stern or a long way off. Wendy stopped going to church when she went to college and never took it up again when graduating from college and getting a job. Only when she got engaged did she agree to go with her fiancé to his church to check it out as a wedding site. And among the first things she noticed was how familiar everyone seemed with an intimate, very near, and deeply caring God.

Person

The question is indeed who is God, not what is God. God is first of all a being, the supreme living entity, and indeed the divine person of whom we are images. God not only says that we are his image or likeness, but he also took on our image and likeness, proving himself not only fully divine but also fully human, both at once. God is thus the divine person after whom he made us. We could be no farther in kind from God than that he was our own father or brother, fully human like us. Yet he is simultaneously so superior in divine nature to us to be not only the ideal human but the ideal itself. God is the highest to which all else submits and points, and from which all else draws its nature and life. If you had any doubt of humanity’s place and value in God’s creation, doubt no more, in the realization that we are likenesses of God whom he made to be like him. He describes us as his sons and daughters, with a standing above the very divine entities among whom he resides.

Faces

Witnesses who have experienced the presence of God, whether ancient scripture witnesses or other witnesses down through the ages, will share who God is. You may hear them give varying accounts. The variances address the visages, facets, or faces of God. You may encounter him differently than others, depending on the face he shows you, whether as Father, Son, or Spirit, with the courage of a lion, strength of an ox, sight of an eagle, or fellowship of a man. You may experience him as a righteous judge, desert guide, rescuing shepherd, kindly friend, or wise parent. Why, as the divine person, would God be any other way than multifaceted, presenting himself to each of us exactly as we need? God’s faces enable us to receive from him whatever gift, guidance, comfort, reassurance, admonition, or command that best fits his loving desire for us. To see God as any one way or limited number of ways is to deny him his divine personhood through which he reveals himself and through which he loves, directs, sustains, and commands. Don’t look for a single face of God of your own design, for he will always have something different and better to reveal to you of himself. God reveals himself to each of us in different stances or faces, depending on our own character, disposition, and circumstances. 

…. Read more of Chapter 5 in paperback or digital.

6  Who Is Jesus?

Michael hadn’t grown up in a religious household and didn’t think of himself as a Christian. He believed in a supreme creator God. Everything around and inside him told him that God existed. Michael also felt himself accountable to God. He tried to be good most of the time, while believing that the times he wasn’t so good didn’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things. At least, Michael felt that God would understand. Michael had heard about Jesus but never really thought much about him until Michael’s college roommate, a Christian, began sharing what Jesus meant to him. Their discussions stunned Michael, who began seeing how selfish and corrupt he actually was. Yet he also saw that he had a sure way out of it.

Record

We have a remarkably reliable record of the life of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Scholars who study ancient manuscripts find that the record of the life of Jesus is as reliable as, and in many cases more reliable than, the record of other ancient figures whose existence and significance we do not doubt. No fewer than four detailed accounts of the life of Jesus exist, each written by contemporaries of Jesus or within their lifetime. Those contemporaneous accounts are consistent in many details and in main outline, although they differ in perspectives and in some details, just as scholars would expect of multiple independent historical accounts. The accounts are not styled as or fitted to a mythic narrative but instead present themselves as factual accounts. Historians writing outside of the culture in which Jesus lived acknowledge his life, leaving no credible doubt of his existence as a historical figure. No historical figure has had more study and scrutiny than Jesus Christ. The compendium of writings describing his life, the history leading up to it, and the events occurring after it is by far the most-widely published, distributed, and read book in all of human history. Publishers have distributed around five billion Bibles and distribute as many as eighty million more each year. 

Life

Jesus was a Jewish itinerant teacher and preacher living in the early part of the First Century AD. We have marked human history around the life of Jesus since about the Sixth Century AD, when the Christian monk Dionysius standardized other conflicting Christian calendars. The designation AD stands for Anno Domini, which is Latin for the year of our Lord, while the corollary designation BC stands for Before Christ. The alternative and more-recent designations CE and BCE stand for Common (Current) Era and Before Common Era, referring to the same event of the birth of Jesus Christ. To his followers, Jesus was the fulfillment of the Hebrew Bible’s promised Messiah, through whom God would save not only his chosen people the Jews but also the rest of the world. At the behest of the Jewish religious leaders and crowd, the local Roman ruler of Jerusalem condemned and crucified Jesus, as Jesus predicted and permitted, and the Hebrew Bible foreshadowed. Three days later, the resurrected Jesus emerged from the tomb in which Roman soldiers had buried and secured his body. In the following days, Jesus met the disciples and women attending them, and hundreds of other witnesses, before returning to heaven, whereupon he sent God’s Spirit in the form of descending flames to indwell his followers.

…. Read more of Chapter 6 in paperback or digital.

7  Why Believe in Jesus?

Carla had attended her church’s youth group when young, so she knew about the life and teachings of Jesus. She also knew the high regard in which her youth group leaders held Jesus. Carla even considered herself a believer in Jesus, having joined other youths in giving her life to Christ. But she realized when she turned forty that she hadn’t in any demonstrable way followed through with her commitment to Christ. Indeed, she didn’t feel close to Christ in the way that she remembered some of her youth leaders, who would have been the age she was now, expressing their relationship with Christ. And Carla was realizing at the same time that she was missing him, even though she couldn’t point to any moment when she really left him. So, Carla vowed to renew her commitment to Christ, sensing that he was once again calling her and maybe, too, that he had something new and special to share with her.

Unity

For many, believing in God is one thing, while believing in Christ is another thing, even though Christians recognize God in Christ and Christ as God. And that may be the first and most significant answer to why believe in Jesus: Jesus and his Father God are one. As Christ himself answered the disciples when they asked to see his Father, you see the Father when you see his Son. You’re looking straight at God when you see Christ, the Son of God. Those of us who follow Christ see God when we see Christ. God made us in his image, and God then took on human image in the person of Jesus Christ. You need not and should not imagine God as a vapor or conceive of him as a shapeless force. God is instead an entity or being, and a being who, while still fully divine, has taken on human nature and form in the person of Jesus Christ. Believe in Christ because he is God.

Trinity

Until one recognizes the two persons of the godhead, both Father and Son, as one, or indeed all three persons of the godhead counting the Spirit as one, you may stumble at belief in God’s Son Jesus Christ. A critical thing to recognize is that God’s communal nature, three co-equal persons in one, isn’t an accident. Nor is it a convenient explanation to extend divinity to Jesus Christ. Nor is it, as it is too often characterized, an inconvenient theological construct and difficult problem better left alone. That God holds a relationship of communal love within himself explains the source of love, the nature of love, and why God is love. God communes within himself among his three co-equal persons, while also extending his loving self to us. You should believe in Jesus Christ as the divine Son, person, and expression of God the Father himself. To do so is not only to embrace God but also to join in his inherent communion of love. To commune means to dwell and share most deeply in love. When you acknowledge and embrace Jesus Christ as God’s Son, you dwell and share in God’s love.

…. Read more of Chapter 7 in paperback or digital.

8  Who Is the Holy Spirit?

Bart loved the gospel accounts of Jesus and found his teachings profound, so much that he joined a church and had the pastor baptize him. He respected the pastor’s sermons, following them closely week after week and then year after year. Bart learned a lot about God, his Son Jesus, salvation, and many other things. But the one thing that he never quite understood whenever the subject came up was the Holy Spirit. His pastor mentioned the Spirit infrequently and only in passing, as if Bart should know who or what the Spirit was. Yet Bart didn’t think he knew who or what the Spirit was. And he had an increasing sense that he needed to find out.

Description

Get a good sense of who the Spirit of God is. The Spirit is a co-equal person in the three-in-one godhead of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Like the Son Jesus Christ, the Spirit existed with the Father before creation, outside of time and space, in perfect communion. The three in one were God and are God. The Father, Son, and Spirit are coterminous, meaning having the same existence, and consubstantial, meaning having the same substance and essence. When one refers to the Spirit, one refers to God, much as one refers to God when speaking of the Father and of the Son. The Spirit of God is not a specter, wraith, apparition, or force. Don’t mistake the Spirit for a phantom or ghost. The Spirit is instead a person with whom and through whom one communes with God.

Role

The Spirit has a distinct role within the godhead, consistent with the name identifying him as spirit. The word spirit generally refers to the non-physical essence of a person including the person’s character, emotions, or soul. One may say, for instance, that a person has a sweet spirit, a mean spirit, or a spirit of joy. In the same way, the Holy Spirit reveals to us the person and character of the Son Jesus Christ. In so doing, the Spirit reveals all truth to us. Jesus himself said to the disciples at the Last Supper that if he did not leave them to return to heaven, the Spirit, to whom he referred as the Advocate or the Helper, would not come to them to glorify Jesus and reveal all truth. Jesus explained that the Spirit tells us what the Spirit receives from Jesus. The Spirit helps us to understand Christ’s commands and desires, and distinguish them from false instruction and deception. Followers of Christ test and confirm things as true and from Christ through the Spirit. Since Christ’s ascension and the descent of the Spirit that followed it, believers in Christ have experienced Christ’s presence through the Spirit. 

…. Read more of Chapter 8 in paperback or digital.

9  What Is the Bible?

William had never read the Bible, even though he grew up in a Christian family and considered himself Christian in commitments if not in practice. William figured that he couldn’t really call himself a true Christian because he didn’t go to church. He didn’t even know if his parents had baptized him when he was a baby or young child. Yet he was comfortable with the Christian stories he knew, believing that they were better than anything else in which he could believe. Yet then William began dating a young woman his age who seemed to know the Bible back and forth, cover to cover. She quoted it all the time and had even begun to gently tease William that he didn’t know what she was talking about. And so, William figured that he’d go ahead and read the Bible. But as soon as he began, he nearly stopped, stunned at its eccentricity, diversity, and detail. It wasn’t a simple book of children’s stories at all. It was instead a profoundly rich and complex spiritual history and theological text.

Scripture

The Bible is the Christian holy book, holding the texts that Christians regard as their religious scriptures or sacred writings. To call writings sacred is to acknowledge their divine inspiration or source. A sacred writing is not something the human mind alone would produce. Sacred writings instead reflect the character, desires, intentions, and designs of the divine entity of whom the writings give an account. The Bible is the Christian account of God in the three persons of the Father, Son Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit. One is a Christian when embracing the life, sacrifice, resurrection, and redemption of Jesus Christ, as the Bible’s lengthy account foreshadows, describes, and applies it. Christians generally believe in the Bible as holy scripture as a corollary to their belief in the life, work, and salvation of Jesus Christ, which is a sound approach given that the Bible reveals the full account of Jesus Christ.

Testaments

The Christian Bible has two testaments. A testament is typically a declaration of how one wants one’s affairs governed and property distributed at the end of life. The Bible’s testaments stand similarly for the desires of God in relationship to his people. Each testament marks a different arc and era in God’s relationship to his human images. The Old Testament contains Jewish sacred writings from creation to the beginning of the Jewish Second Temple period, just before the advent of Jesus Christ. The New Testament contains Christian sacred writings from the advent of Jesus Christ, through his crucifixion and resurrection, and into the early years of his Church, until about forty years following Christ’s ascension. The Old Testament is thus significantly longer than the New Testament, both in terms of their number of words and number of years each testament covers. The Old Testament primarily treats God’s relationship with his chosen people Israel, while the New Testament treats God’s relationship with all of humankind through the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Read the Old and New Testaments together to get the full picture of God’s plan for redeeming creation through Jesus Christ.

…. Read more of Chapter 9 in paperback or digital.

10  What About Church?

Norm and his wife had a complex relationship with churches. At least, that’s the way Norm thought about it. Sometimes, they visited here. Other times, they attended there. Often, they skipped church entirely. Over the long course of their marriage, they had been members of several churches, although in those cases they fell into membership more so than chose it. And after a few years, they’d move on. Norm tried not to see it as a problem. He figured maybe it was a good thing, getting to know different people and hearing different preaching. But at times, he missed feeling at home. And he wondered who would really care for his wife and him when they needed it, which might be soon. Norm also wondered whether a wrong view of church had contributed to their wandering.

Body

Thinking of a church as a membership organization or social or religious club is easy. Churches can in some ways look and even behave like other community organizations. They have members who gather at a regular place at regular times to conduct their affairs. Those affairs can include things in which other community organizations participate, like social times, volunteering in the community, caring for the young, caring for one another, maintaining the facility, and raising organization finances. Yet a church differs vastly from other community organizations in that the church is the body of Christ. Christ is the body’s head, and the church’s members each carry out their own function as the body. That the church is an organic extension of Christ signifies both the unity with which the church functions and the care Christ shows for it, as one would care for one’s own body. The church is not a physical building but instead the community of believers called out together in Christ. The New Testament Greek word ekklesia for church signifies an active and communal assembly or group of people called out together for a specific purpose. You do well to join and participate richly in the life of the church.

Formation

Jesus Christ formed and founded the church as his unique body of believers. While other religious organizations existed before Christ’s advent, such as the Jewish Sanhedrin that condemned Jesus, their leaders did not identify their organizations as churches or as the body of their deity. Christ began the church by gathering followers around him. Christ then taught them how to live together while caring for one another. He showed them how to select leading disciples from among them. And he commissioned them to make disciples of all nations, sending his Spirit to indwell them to do so. At one point in his ministry, when his disciple Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ, Jesus stated that on that rock of confession Christ would build his church. Peter indeed became a leader of the early church, particularly as to Jewish Christians and later as to the Catholic Church. The apostle Paul, by contrast, was an influential leader of the early church among Gentile, or non-Jewish, Christians. When Christians speak of the church, they may be referring either to the whole of all Christian churches, sometimes capitalized the Church, or to a local church. Appreciate that when you belong to a church, you are a part of Christ’s body.

…. Read more of Chapter 10 in paperback or digital.

11  What About Worship?

Millie found her passion in worship. She’d never been a worship leader. She didn’t have the musical talent or training, and didn’t particularly want to be up in front of people. Millie instead loved being among the people when they were all standing, singing, and raising hands. She watched sports fans stand and cheer on their teams, wondering how they got so involved. But Millie understood why worshipers could stand, sing, clap, and shout for their Lord Jesus Christ. Next to the devotion she wanted to show her Lord, Millie didn’t care what people thought. And so, Millie was there, at every service, giving her heart, mind, body, and voice to the Lord.

Devotion

Worship is central to the Christian experience of the Lord Jesus Christ. One worships that which one elevates to the highest status, for which one has the greatest desire. Worship involves utter devotion, not out of convenience or for gain but compelled by the object’s place, standing, value, and allure. Worship involves such extreme devotion to the object as to be nearly involuntary, at least at its margins. And extreme devotion is certainly due the highest of all, the Lord Jesus Christ. When one grasps Christ’s nature, his creative, protective, and salvific acts, and his grace and desire, one has little choice but to fall prostrate before him in submission and exultation. We each have an innate capacity to devote ourselves to objects, which we naturally arrange in a hierarchy of values, giving greater devotion to some objects than to others. Whatever one devotes oneself to fully, as one’s highest object, is what one worships. One can do no better than to worship Jesus Christ.

Participation

Worship involves participation. One doesn’t worship from afar, at least not for long and not effectively. Because worship is extreme devotion, worship necessarily involves the mind, body, soul, spirit, and emotions. Biblical depictions of worship have participants bowing low, taking off their sandals or outer clothing, falling on their knees, and laying flat on the ground. They have worshipers singing, dancing, and offering sacrifices. And they have worshipers shouting praise, raising hands, offering up prayers, and petitioning for relief. Worship moves the participant’s heart not only to loving devotion but also to reverent awe, dependent humility, and the relinquishing of alternative identities, devotions, and desires. Participation in worship thus draws one closer to its object, with ever deeper connection and greater involvement. If you wish to draw closer to Jesus Christ, fully devote your mind, body, and soul to him in worship.

…. Read more of Chapter 11 in paperback or digital.

12  What About Prayer?

Dorothy never felt more alive than when she was praying. It hadn’t begun that way. When Dorothy first became a Christian, prayer was awkward and forced for her. She tended to pray only on specific occasions calling for prayer, not spontaneously or frequently. And when she did pray, her prayers felt and sounded to her like they were stilted and strained, as she grasped for words. But gradually, over the years, Dorothy learned to pray from her heart to the heart of Christ, not from her head to a distant deity. Dorothy learned to trust that God already knew her prayers and just wanted more of her heart, devotion, attention, and intimacy. Dorothy then prayed more often, more genuinely, and more simply. Finally, prayer and communion with God through it was Dorothy’s default stance, as natural as breathing.

Disciplines

Christians sometimes speak of having disciplines, among which prayer is at or near the top. Worship, scripture study, fellowship among believers, service to the body of believers, and fasting are other Christian disciplines. A Christian discipline isn’t something that anyone makes another do. A Christian discipline is instead an individual commitment and practice that a believer may do to grow more Christ-like in character and closer to God. Some disciplines, like fellowship, are corporate practices, meaning practices of the body of believers. Other disciplines, like worship, scripture study, and service, are outward practices that believers may do together or alone. While believers may also pray corporately and outwardly, prayer is also an inward-facing discipline, one most likely to shape the believer’s heart, mind, and soul. 

Definition

To pray is to converse and commune with God. In prayer, one speaks to God and listens for God’s response, whether felt, heard, intuited, or spiritually discerned, as God may communicate. Prayer may take the typical form of the person speaking to God without much if any pause for listening. Yet prayer at least implies the willingness to listen to God as well as to speak to God, again not that God will necessarily answer audibly but that the formulation and expression of the prayer may guide one in discerning God’s desire. The Bible depicts figures, such as Israel’s deliverer Moses and king David’s son Solomon, both speaking to God and receiving God’s response in more-or-less conversational mode. Jesus also conversed with his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane the night of his betrayal and on other occasions. To conceive of prayer as a two-way communication is appropriate, even if not what one typically observes or expects of prayer, which tends instead to look like a one-way communication. Speak to God as often and as intimately as you wish. Also listen.

…. Read more of Chapter 12 in paperback or digital.

13  What About Giving?

Olivia and her husband had been regular givers at their church. At first, they only gave modest amounts, just to participate. With kids and a school loan and mortgage, and just one income, Olivia found it hard to do more than simply participate. Sometimes, they barely gave anything. Rarely did they give much more. Yet gradually, Olivia found that giving to their church had worked its way into their budget. They started giving a little more, and then a little more. Finally, after a few years of giving, Olivia and her husband began to tithe a regular portion of their income first, never mind what other expenses they had to pay. And to her surprise, for the first time in her life Olivia felt right about money, in control and with no guilt for how she spent or saved it.

Giving

Churches are voluntary organizations supported by the generosity and commitment of their members. Churches do not sell tickets for seating or charge membership fees. They have no cover charges for entering the sanctuary for a worship service, even a special standing-room-only Christmas Eve or Easter service. They sell no seat licenses and charge no subscriptions. You and your family may become members, attend services and classes every week or several times a week, and drink free coffee and maybe have free cookies or donuts, too, all without paying anything if you wish. The church will invite you, though, to participate in the ministry of giving. You may hear a gentle or clear solicitation during the service, giving you the opportunity to place money, a check, or a pledge card in a bowl, basket, or bag, or to give online. The church’s website may also invite online giving and sign ups for automatic account deductions, all with the twin aim of enabling members to give back to God while financing church operations. Churches depend on member giving for the ministries they support, and many members give generously, consistently, and even sacrificially, as Christ recognized when he lauded the poor widow who gave her last mite. 

Tithing

Christians differ in their view of the Old Testament injunction to tithe. To tithe is to give a regular portion and the first portion of one’s income to the church, with ten percent being the traditional percentage. Jesus Christ mentions the Old Testament practice of tithing but in the context of criticizing the Jewish religious leaders’ legalism. Many Christians do not regard themselves as bound by the Old Testament law and customs, including the practice of tithing. But Christians generally recognize an obligation of support, and privilege of generosity, in giving to their church. Many Christians and Christian leaders and denominations use tithing as a measure or aim for generosity. Ten percent of your household income may sound like a lot. Yet to have the commitment, devotion, and privilege to give ten percent may bring you far greater returns in the discipline, confidence, and trust you exercise. God even says in the Old Testament that he rewards tithing, whether for you those rewards may be financial, material, or in health, family, career, protection, reputation, advancement, or other ways. If you haven’t tithed, try it, and see how it changes your life and outlook. As Christ himself said, giving is better than receiving.

…. Read more of Chapter 13 in paperback or digital.

14  What About Good and Evil?

Sally had never encountered what she regarded as true evil. Oh, she had seen suffering, but most of it seemed circumstantial, even natural, as hard as it was. And some of it was plainly consequential, the result of the sufferer’s own actions. Sally could understand natural and consequential suffering. She knew the world isn’t perfect. It had its hazards. She also felt that hard consequences were often appropriate, ensuring that we learn. And she also recognized that when one person suffered deserved consequences, others nearby might suffer along with them, even when suffering was undeserved. Yet then, in the awful thing that she saw someone do to a close friend, Sally for the first time saw what she felt was true evil. And Sally realized that she had to find a new perspective on the world to account for it.

Problem

Good is seldom a problem. Peace, prosperity, kindness, and flourishing reassure one that creation is good. The generosity of a neighbor, trust of an employer, love of a righteous spouse, and joy of healthy children make believing in God easier. When times are good, God can easily seem good, and faith can abound. But the presence of evil can certainly challenge one’s faith. Suffer a little, and you may find your faith wavering. Suffer a lot, and you may find your faith challenged. Suffer due to deception, say from the betrayal of a friend or, worse, of a spouse, and you may begin to doubt just how good creation is. Face evil itself, in the malicious desire of a criminal to murder and destroy, and you may reflect deeply on the world’s essential problem. Many question the problem of evil. As good as the world may appear much of the time, evil seems always to lurk right around the corner. A sound faith gives you a good perspective on evil.

Good

The first thing that faith teaches is that God created the world as good, and not just mostly good but wholly good. God did not create evil, even a little bit of evil. Genesis 1 states plainly that everything that God made was good, including humankind. Those lacking in faith may wrongly blame God for creating evil. They rightly argue that a good God would not create evil. Yet God is not the author of evil. Anything that God creates is good, not evil. Attributing evil to God undermines everything about God that faith teaches, including who God is and what God does. To blame God for evil is to place oneself above God, judging God as if one had the standing, authority, and purity to do so. One may as well make oneself god as to attribute evil to God, or even to attribute to God the deception, disorder, weakness, and confusion that fosters, promotes, and permits evil. Faith instead teaches that God is good. Whatever you make of evil, start from the standpoint that God is good and does not create or perpetrate evil.

…. Read more of Chapter 14 in paperback or digital.

15 What About Heaven?

Gina had only vague ideas about heaven, based on little thought, until her mother passed. Her mother’s passing caused Gina to think about heaven a lot. She understood that Jesus Christ, in whom she believed, spoke about the kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven, and about eternal life. Gina also understood the scriptural claim that when a Christian was absent from the body, in the event of death, the Christian was present with the Lord. But Gina still felt as if she needed a clearer picture of heaven. Every day, Gina spent time wondering where her mother was, exactly, now that her mother, a lifelong Christian, had passed.

Cosmos

Faith gives us more than theological constructs and moral principles. It also gives us a sound way of looking at the world as we experience it, according to God’s design. The world obviously has higher and lower things, not just in the material sense but also in the sense of value, primacy, purity, principle, and power. We orient ourselves to the world vertically, up and down. The sun above lights, warms, and gives life and clarity to the earth. Likewise, the things of God, including first his love and then everything that issues from love, are upward, above, having highest purity, primacy, and power. Those things above suffuse, arrange, order, and give life and pattern to things below. The lowest things have none of that order, authority, or life. The sun does not reach the ocean depths or below the earth’s surface, where life gradually dwindles and then ceases. The dead fall to the earth, their remains scattering into the earth’s lifeless chaos. The living stand up from the earth, looking to heaven for life, meaning, and purpose. Keep your eyes fixed above.

Heaven

Faith characterizes these upper and lower realms, just described above in their cosmic outline, as heaven and hell, between which we dwell on earth. The Bible’s Hebrew and Greek words for heaven reflect that God resides there. God’s heavenly realm is not merely earth’s natural atmosphere or even the starlit night sky beyond but instead higher still. God’s realm is not in the material and astrophysical way we think of it but as the ancients understood it, as a distinct type of realm, as if in another dimension. Do not mock heaven’s biblical and phenomenological description as unscientific. The Bible is not using scientific material constructs. The Bible instead describes things in the way that we would experience them and should therefore think of them. The highest heaven is God’s kingdom, a kingdom because heaven is the place from which God rules all. To say that God’s throne is in heaven is to mark his priority, supremacy, and authority over all. 

…. Read more of Chapter 15 in paperback or digital.

16  What About Hell?

Alan didn’t like the ideas of hell, damnation, and the underworld. How could God condemn anyone to hell? Alan thought God was supposed to be good, even a savior. Why didn’t God just save everyone? Then the world could be truly good, all of it, with no place of eternal despair. Except, of course, the few individuals, or maybe the many, who were truly evil, beyond rescue and repair. Alan was fine with hell for them. He just didn’t understand why anyone had to confess anything to avoid hell. Why not just recognize that nearly everyone is basically good and leave it at that? But then, in the middle of yet another night of drinking and drugs when he could not sleep, Alan felt a presence telling him to look at his own life, what he was wasting, the harm his violence and theft had done, and the pain he had caused his mother and father. Yet the presence wasn’t condemning Alan. The warm figure showing Alan his deep and continual wrongs was instead inviting him. And for the first time, Alan had both a vision of hell and a sense of how he might find rescue from it.

Definition

Hell is the place from which God finally and permanently separates himself from those who do not desire him. Jesus refers to hell as an outer darkness, away from the light and love of God. Separation from God’s light, love, and affirmation must mean darkness and damnation. Hell is thus a punishing place not of peace and healing but of torment and suffering. Images associated with hell, used in both the Old Testament and New Testament, include a consuming fire, pit, grave, and prison. Hell is both permanent and severe. Hell is permanent because it is only for those who rejected God through the very end of their earthly life. The thief on the cross avoided hell and received paradise with his last-gasp embrace of Christ at the very end of his life. Hell is severe because final banishment from God leaves no hope for life. Reach for heaven, not hell. Embrace God’s saving Son Jesus Christ.

Destiny

The concept of hell is a significant impediment for many who would prefer a cosmos that had nothing but good in it, one that was all heaven and no hell. They ask questions like why does evil exist and why would God allow evil. And they blame God for evil or use the evidence of evil to conclude that God does not even exist. The horror of evil makes preferring a wholly good cosmos easy. Yet heaven, free of all evil, is exactly the choice that God offers us through his Son Jesus Christ. And the restoration of all the earth for good, in a marriage of heaven and earth, is the end that God promises. So God offers to fulfill the desire of anyone who wishes good and hates evil. Don’t hold it against God that you would prefer pure goodness. So does God, and God offers you exactly what you desire. Instead, embrace his Son Jesus Christ for offering heaven to you, at great expense for that matter.

…. Read more of Chapter 16 in paperback or digital.

17  What About Doubt?

Dan wanted to believe in God and embrace his Son Jesus Christ. He admired his friends and family members who had done so, for the confidence, good character, and positive outlook they exhibited. Dan wanted to join them in their confidence. He wanted to mature in his own good character. Yet every time Dan thought about the specifics of faith, doubt rushed in. It was as if the moment Dan had a faithful thought, an unfaithful voice declared its opposite. The voice of doubt grew so loud and insistent at times that Dan wondered about its source. He also wondered about its veracity and trustworthiness. Faith seemed so simple, sound, and direct, while doubt seemed so complex, unsound, and nefarious. Dan wanted to get over his doubt but just couldn’t seem to do so.

Definition

Doubt is, in a way, the opposite of faith. Faith is to take as assured, the good things for which one does not yet have evidence. Faith says that things will be better soon, if not today then tomorrow. Faith says that good remains possible even in the event and face of evil, indeed that good prevails over evil. Doubt takes the opposite approach. Doubt declares that the truths that seem sound, reasonable, and assured are instead unsound, unreasonable, and uncertain. To doubt is to disbelieve in the assurance of good and instead to expect not just the occurrence but also the prevailing of evil. Doubt says not to trust in good but to believe in confusion. Doubt says truth does not exist and that instead everything is subjective and uncertain. Doubt even questions whether the cosmos contains any meaning and life has any purpose. 

Author

While God is the author of life, the embodiment of love, and in Christ the incarnation of truth, the adversary, opposer, and deceiver whom we call Satan is the author, promoter, and beneficiary of doubt. Satan opposes everything that is good, instead seeking evil and destruction. One could say that doubt simply exists within the mind as a failure in proof or sound reason. Yet patterns, powers, and principalities of doubt also dwell outside of us, accumulating in their influence. The lies and deceptions of one become the lies and deceptions of many, distorting the culture, sowing doubt, and undermining reason. Deceiving memes spring up and spread like wildfire, taking on lives of their own, feeding on the collective mind until they have grown into monstrous demons. A small lie becomes a big lie, deceiving and confusing until no one trusts anything. Do not ignore the awful adversary who hides behind doubt as its author, fuel, and beneficiary. 

…. Read more of Chapter 17 in paperback or digital.

18  How Do I Obey God?

As much as she knew what she had to do, Gina bristled at the thought of going through with giving it up. She’d been doing it so long that it felt like a part of her. Every time she put it aside, Gina felt like she had cut off an arm or a leg. She knew that it was bad for her health, bad for her character, and bad for her reputation. Indeed, Gina knew that it was interfering with her relationship with God. She knew that it competed with God for her attention and devotion, and that God could not do more for her as he desired until she gave it up. Yet doing so just felt so hard, even though she knew it was right and necessary.

Obedience

Knowing what you should and must do is one thing. Doing it is another thing. Obedience is not a popular word in the world’s way. Disobedience is more like it. From birth, our nature is to rankle at instruction, bristle at direction, and bark or even bite at command. Yet accepting instruction, listening to direction, and obeying command can be critical for developing character, discipline, skill, and judgment. A household without respect, community without order, and government without authority just won’t function. If everyone goes their own way, rejecting instruction, against directions, and rebelling from authority, everyone pays in the confusion, chaos, and disorder. Obedience is a key ingredient to good character. Obedience is also a key ingredient to a functioning society, safe community, and secure nation.

Faithful

Obedience is both a mark of the faithful and a test for faithfulness. If one consistent action can do more to develop and prove faithfulness, that action may be obedience. If you wish to be more faithful, then obey. Christ’s beloved disciple John wrote in one of his letters that to love God is to keep his commandments. To love God is to obey him. We tend to equate love with strong sentiment. But the child who doesn’t obey the father isn’t loving the father, no matter what other sentiment the child shows. So instead, equate love with obedience. As Christ said, seek God’s kingdom first, to do his will. Don’t chase after your own food, clothing, and drink. Instead, obey. Christ said that God blesses those who hear his word and obey. Indeed, Christ said that whoever obeys his word will never die. In his last words before ascending to his Father, Christ said to teach others to obey everything he had commanded. Even the wind, waves, and evil spirits obeyed Christ. So should we. 

…. Read more of Chapter 18 in paperback or digital.

19  Why Should I Trust God?

Evie grew up in a Christian home with faithful parents. She spent plenty of time in church, especially with youth group activities. But when Evie married her high school sweetheart and they moved away together to a distant town, she lost connection with her faith community. And she didn’t quickly find comfortable new faith connections in her new hometown. The challenges of adult life, including housing, jobs, and finances, soon piled up, until Evie felt overwhelmed. She didn’t doubt God’s existence or question any of the doctrine she had learned as a youth. Yet for the first time in her life, Evie had to decide whether she could trust God. And in her challenging new season in life, Evie felt that she wasn’t so sure that she could.

Trust

For the faithful, trust is a big question to ask and answer. It’s one thing to doubt whether God exists. It’s another thing entirely to know that he exists but to question whether one can trust him in every situation. To trust is to have full confidence in an ample supply of whatever the situation calls for and whatever one needs. Trust, far underrated by most, is a precious commodity, valuable characteristic, and critical condition. We depend and rely on trust to survive. If one does not trust in at least some others, one is not likely to thrive, if even to long survive. If one does not trust in God, one must instead rely on one’s own limited and uncertain understanding. The faithful know the attributes of God. The question becomes whether we are willing to trust that God will express those attributes. The faithful trust God. 

Situational

Trust is largely situational. We entrust our health to our physician, trusting in the prompt diagnosis and effective treatment of any life-threatening condition. We entrust our finances to the bank, believing in their security against theft and availability in the event of need. We entrust our investments to the financial advisor, believing in their preservation and growth to provide for us in retirement. We entrust our children to the school, believing in the integrity of its teachers and program, and its ability to educate our children. We trust our spouse to earn an income or care for the home, and we trust our pastor to visit the sick, counsel the struggling, and preach the word of God. The world proceeds on trust, without which we are lost, helpless, and unmoored. Yet ultimately, we don’t trust in the baker or candlestick maker so much as we trust in God. 

…. Read more of Chapter 19 in paperback or digital.

20  What Is My Purpose?

Paul had forged through life without thinking much about it. He just went along with the routine, following the expectations of the culture and crowd. Yet along that route, somewhere in his thirties, Paul found that the path had splintered so badly in so many directions that it no longer really offered any way forward or any clear sense of direction. Maybe the culture had changed and the crowd had disintegrated. Or maybe expectations disappeared when one reached one’s thirties. Paul didn’t really know. All Paul knew was that he was directionless and rudderless. He had no idea what he was doing, what he was supposed to do, or if his life had any purpose. And Paul knew he’d better figure out his purpose quickly, or his life would be over and wasted.

Purpose

Having a sense of purpose in one’s life can be critical to maintaining one’s enthusiasm, effort, and direction. Surfing along with the crowd can be fine for a time. But sometimes the crowd heads in the wrong direction. And sometimes the crowd heads in a fine direction but not one cut out for you. When you find yourself doing things that everyone seems to do, and you discover that you’re doing them just because you see everyone else doing them, that may be the moment you first think about what you really should do. What you should do may not be what everyone else does or seems to be doing. Tradition, custom, and convention can be powerful and reliable guides. But they can also be powerfully misleading in any individual case. Crowds, customs, and traditions do not definitively determine one’s individual purpose in life, or we’d all be doing similar things despite our individual gifts, opportunities, responsibilities, experiences, resources, and other differences.

Calling

The faithful sometimes call their individual sense of purpose their calling. A calling is an end that beckons precisely because it is an end, suggesting that it has something of inherent value in it for you. A calling speaks to you in an alluring manner, as if you were made for one another. The faithful may speak specifically of God calling them to their purpose, such as a pastor acknowledging that God called him to the ministry. Pastors and priests receive their call from God. Yet the faithful may also acknowledge a call to other endeavors, whether crediting God for the call, crediting the endeavor itself for the call, or leaving the caller ambiguous. A physician, for instance, might claim a call to a healing profession, an architect or engineer a call to build things, and a mother of three children a call to pour her life into raising Christ-filled kids. A recreationalist might claim a calling to enjoy the great outdoors in whatever adventure, sport, or activity facilitated it. Artists, musicians, composers, herdsmen, astronauts, fathers, mothers, and others may sense their call as such, with callings as various as the opportunities that present themselves. 

…. Read more of Chapter 20 in paperback or digital.