22 – When People Stop Believing

Galen

Jun 6

From the DayBreaks archive (Galen is on vacation):

Romans 1:21-25: For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore, God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator-who is forever praised. Amen."

G. K. Chesterton was said to have made this comment (not an exact quote) when discussing faith: "It has been said that when people stop believing in God that they believe in nothing. Alas, it is much worse than that. When men and women stop believing in God, they will believe anything."

We live in a world that will, and does, believe anything. Some believe that aliens built the pyramids. Others believe that we are gods unto ourselves. Others believe in Mother Earth but don't believe in Father God. Some have believed that spaceships were following comets and that beings from "out there" were coming to take them with them. And they believed that so strongly that they killed themselves so they would be ready to go.

Why is it that men and women don't want to believe in God? When God is out of the picture, what is there for them to hope for? They need something, so they manufacturer gods out of "created things" and hope that those gods will be able to give them what they long for – meaning, love, life, hope for the future and deliverance from what we experience in this life.

Sadly, it may not be an all or nothing situation. Our knowledge of God limits what we believe about Him. It is for that reason, if for no other, that we can never stop trying to learn more about Him. Our lack of knowledge of His nature can lead to false assumptions about what God wants from us.

PRAYER: Father, give us the eyes of faith to be steadfast in our belief and keep us from believing anything that doesn't come from you. In Jesus' name, Amen.

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