They all live by faith. Even the atheist. It is an inescapable reality of life on planet earth.
We must all live by faith because none of us knows everything. If we were all-wise, as the Bible declares God to be, faith would be completely unnecessary. Faith refers to things we believe but don’t absolutely know to be true. Faith is inextricably woven into the fabric of our daily lives. In May 2000, my wife, daughter, and I boarded a Boeing 777 and flew for more than 12 hours twice (to and from Japan) in the belief that the plane would arrive safely at our respective destinations. In business, we enter into contracts with long-term financial commitments in the belief that we will be able to pay or be paid, depending on which side of the deal we are on. We buy advance tickets to concerts, plays, and sporting events in the belief that we’ll be fine and able to attend.
Faith is no longer an issue once I’ve entered the destination airport terminal; then i know. I don’t need faith when the contract is completed; then I know that I have given or received what was expected. Faith is no longer an issue once the concert or game is over; then I know whether or not I got my money’s worth.
We may be so sure of matters of faith, having accumulated such strong supporting evidence subjectively, that we would say we “know” such-and-such. I make. For example, I could be heard saying “I know there is a God”. However, when I make such a statement, I do not mean that this reality has such objectivity that it is indisputable, that no one can dispute my “knowledge”. No, as firm as it is, it is my belief. And honestly, I must say that the strength of my belief waxes and wanes and sometimes seems to disappear in the wake of deep disappointment.
Such mood swings affected the great Christian writer, CS Lewis. Listen to him: “Now that I’m a Christian, I have moods in which everything seems very unlikely: but when I was an atheist, I had moods in which Christianity seemed terribly likely.” He goes on to say, “This is why faith is such a necessary virtue: Unless you can teach your moods ‘where they are,’ you can never be a solid Christian or even a solid atheist.” (Mother Christianity)
Remember now: Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and even atheists are in the same “faith” boat with you and me. Sure, their faith is different, but it is faith nonetheless. The style and destiny of our ships are different, but they are nonetheless ships of faith. The Hindu cannot prove reincarnation any more than I can prove resurrection. An atheist cannot prove that God does not exist any more than I can prove that God exists. We each have our beliefs, and only when the ultimate consequences of our respective beliefs are ours will we truly know. A fraction of a second after my death, I will know if the dead know something or not. Also, I will know how accurate my beliefs were about life after death, good and evil, heaven and hell.
Let me briefly share what I know. I know that (in my sixties, with most of my life already gone) the time I will have lived on earth is not enough to satisfy something inside of me. The Bible says that God has “set eternity in the hearts of men” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). Within me there is a recognizable desire to live forever. However, this wish is qualified; I want to live forever in a perfect place. I really don’t want to live here forever!
Another thing I know is this: something is wrong with me; I must admit that I have moral defects. Forget your standards, the standards of society, the standards of my parents, the standards of the church, and even the standards of the Bible; I violate the standards within me, standards that are part of my heart. I know I should be better than I am. I also know that ordinary human games have not helped me: games like denying or minimizing this condition of my heart or the popular game of comparing myself to people who obviously seem to be much worse than me (Thank God for Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and others like them; putting them aside, most of us seem so good as to be downright acceptable!).
It is my belief that the Bible is the Creator’s revelation of His person and His will for mankind. What I do know is that within its pages I have found a constitution for living my life that resonates with much of what lies deep within my heart. Like most of you, I have been hurt by religious people, even true Christians. I have even been unfairly hurt by spiritual leaders who had been entrusted with the care of this little lamb. Like many others, I too have been perplexed and confused by the various doctrines within sects of Christianity. What I do know is that my 40 or so years of walking with the God of the Bible and people who accept Jesus as Lord and Savior have blessed my life in countless ways. Apart from my Christian faith, not only would I not have any of my closest friends, but I would also not have my best friend: my wife. Also, without my best friend, I wouldn’t have three of my four children and five of my seven grandchildren. These things I know!
I am certainly quite ignorant. They fill the libraries with things I don’t know. We are all forced to live with our ignorance, in which no matter how much we know, there is always much more that we don’t know. (There is no “know-it-all”; the term only refers to those obnoxious people who act as if they know everything.) Much of what I do not know, of course, others know. However, something I don’t know about, no human being really knows. So, I am forced to live by my beliefs. Since we only know the absolute validity of our beliefs after they have been tested, and since the testing of our beliefs can have profound consequences, with appropriate seriousness, I am constantly refining my belief system to be accurate. And, I trust Jesus as Lord, even in my ignorance.
The scientific man says “seeing is believing”; not only the Bible but our own experience teaches us that we will never see some things unless we first believe them. Electric light, for example, would never have been created unless Edison had first firmly believed that it could be done. I not only advocate but practice walking by faith, not by sight. To be perfectly honest, I prefer to walk by the view; but I have come to see that walking by faith is not wrong. In fact, you and I do it every day. It is as natural as breathing.
Walking by faith versus sight does not mean that we are irrational, that there is no sense in what we believe. Matters of faith are suprarational. The Bible provides many truths that cannot be known naturally, but are necessary for our life’s journey. Prophetic revelation offers us the necessary “stepping stones” to leave the firm shore of our genuine knowledge and successfully venture into the unknown without drowning in a sea of damning ignorance. In addition to informing us of things we naturally could not know, biblical revelation warns us (at no cost) of many things we can and often do learn by experience, but only at great cost. Faith, then, is that kind of belief that leads me to step on those “steps”, only seen with the eyes of the heart, only verified after having put all my weight on them. Those “steps”, although invisible to the natural eye, are substantive, not imaginative.
Scripture says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 KJV). The Greek word translated “substance” is a compound of two other Greek words meaning “a low place (support) [Strongs Exhaustive Concordance]. Bible-based faith is God’s provision of something substantial to stand on and a way to walk. By faith, we must choose to stand on that revelation and walk in it.
If you haven’t already, I hope you will embrace this life of faith and become more comfortable with it as “God’s way” for all mankind. By embracing I certainly mean more than just enduring the life of faith. And let us not be intimidated by the fact that we cannot absolutely prove the principles of our faith to those who would rather walk by their doubts than walk by our faith. I think it’s worth noting that most of us are a curious mixture of faith and doubt. To have faith is not to be free from doubts; rather it is choosing faith over doubt. Remember the father of the child who was tormented by an evil spirit (recorded in Mark chapter 9). The dear man asked Jesus to help him “if he could.” Jesus said, “All things are possible to him who believes.” Speaking honestly with Jesus, the man said, “I believe, help me overcome my unbelief!” There you see that mixture of belief and disbelief that I can at least relate to. We also see a man who chooses his faith over his doubt. This is, in part, what Scripture means when it refers to “the fight of faith.” (1 Timothy 6:12)
Finally, I encourage my fellow Christ-followers to engage in the spiritual, intellectual, and social disciplines necessary to continually refine their belief system. Please heed the godly advice of the apostle Paul to all who wish to diligently serve God with their lives: “Do your best to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.” . (2 Timothy 2:15 NIV). The exercise of such a study was not meant to operate in isolation, dear friend; it was meant to be done while vitally connected in relationships with others in the Body of Christ. Therefore, the biblical admonition to “do not forsake yourselves together” means much more than “do not miss church” (Hebrews 10:25). The text refers to a variety of social disciplines (developmental activities that involve relational interaction with other believers, such as Bible studies and spiritual discussions) that are offered in the Body of Christ to help us grow in faith and knowledge. I encourage you to accept them fully.