Honest Unbelief

If you do not identify as a Christian, have you ever thought about why you don’t? Perhaps you haven’t thought about it at all. Please let me help you with that.

Maybe you’re like the non-believer who responded on social media to the disconcerting things happening today. He said, “I’m coming out.  I’m officially Bible-curious.” That’s honest truth-seeking.  Only God knows what makes a seeker out of a skeptic or cynic.  A skeptic is unsure what is true; a cynic is not interested in what is true. You can be either or both.  You can also be changed.

You live by what you believe is true whether you realize it or not. Consider the following truth claims: People are basically good.  All paths lead to god. Nature is god. Science has all the answers. The cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be. Follow your heart. People wrote the Bible and their thoughts are no better than mine. Jesus is a mythical figure. Any of these would contribute to living by something other than the truth about Jesus Christ.

You may object, “If Christianity is true, why doesn’t everyone see and embrace it?” The answer lies at the heart of the Christian gospel. Humans are good at deceiving ourselves.  St. Augustine wrote, “Because man hates to be proved wrong, he will not allow himself to be convinced that he is deceiving himself.  So he hates the real truth for what he takes to his heart in its place.” You can find evidence for the real truth about God in history, science, logic, and changed lives.

Since “the heart is more deceitful than all else” (Jer. 17:9), the solution is what the Bible calls being “saved.” It says, “He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (Titus 3:5-7).

To be saved means that “you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Eph. 4:22-24). It means you have a new identity!

How do you embrace the grace, forgiveness, renewal, and eternity the gospel offers? Believe in a Person.  “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Do that, and your honest unbelief gives way to saving, life-changing faith.