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STRATEGIES FOR LIVING

STRATEGIES FOR LIVING

The Truth Debate

TWO CHOICES: GOD IS OR GOD IS NOT: YOUR CHOICE!

Two choices in life. That is all we have. On these two choices hinge everything else. Either there is a God … or there isn’t. And it is a matter of choice, a perspective on reality that impacts everything we think and do.

God, at least the God of the Bible, never attempts to prove Himself. He simply acts. But that’s the problem. When He acts He uses normal means, regular people, life circumstances to execute His will. You never know for sure. Was it God? Or was it circumstantial? That all depends on your perspective.

You say there is no God and live accordingly. Do as you please, live for today, develop your dreams, reduce the consequences. You go around only once, so enjoy life for all it is worth. Since there is no God, there is no tomorrow. This is your heaven; this is as good as it gets!

But hold on … there is more to this issue. If you will go to the Bible in search of tangible evidence you will soon discover a unique perspective. The Bible never attempts to prove God; it just takes Him for granted.

The New Testament book of Hebrews tells of men – Noah, Abraham, and Moses – who knew God on a personal level. God spoke to them, and used them, in ways we find unbelievable. And yet, the writer goes on to say they did not receive “what had been promised since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us they would be made perfect.”

Come again? Yes, you read it right. They did NOT receive that which had been promised, at least not in this life. They also had to live by faith, without provable, tangible, evidence that God was there. But they stayed the course, they kept the faith. They chose to believe.

And, they discovered that God did not play them for fools. He had the audacity to send His own Son to settle the issue for them and for people like you and me. He gave us Jesus, and Jesus is all the evidence anyone needs. Everything our finite minds can understand of God, you will see it in and through Jesus Christ.

Unless, of course, they don’t want to believe. In the words of Philosopher Thomas Nagel, “It isn’t that I don’t believe in God, and naturally hope that I’m right. It’s that I hope there is no God. I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that” (The Last Word, p. 130).

Life without God, however, is no cake-walk. Without the limitations God imposes, we self-destruct. “After desire has conceived,” the Bible says, “it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” Recent suicides by people who seemed to have it all tells me there is truth to that. Life without God is a dead-end street, a journey to nowhere.

I began life with two choices. To my good fortune, and with the encouragement of godly parents, I chose to believe in Jesus and the God He came to proclaim. In the words of the Apostle Paul, written just a short time before his execution by the Roman Emperor Nero, “I have fought the good fight. … I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord … will award to me on that day.” That is my dream as well … and I can hardly wait!

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FAITH OR DISBELIEF?

The year was 1949 and two young evangelists were about to launch a new crusade, this time in Los Angeles, CA. Neither could have imagined the revolutionary impact this crusade was to have on their faith and the church.

Charles Templeton, who had alternated preaching with his best friend, Billy Graham, was in the throes of a major, personal crisis. Some time before he had read an article in Life Magazine featuring a mother in drought-stricken Africa. She was carrying a dead baby in her arms. Lee Strobel, in his book, The Case for Faith (p. 14), writes, “‘Is it possible to believe,’ Templeton asked, ‘that there is a loving or caring Creator when all this woman needed was rain?'”

That point of view obviously influenced Templeton’s faith in the Bible and he made no secret of his feelings. As Graham recounts in his autobiography, Just As I Am, Templeton challenged him. “Billy,” he said, “you’re fifty years out of date. People no longer accept the Bible as being inspired the way you do. Your faith is too simple” (p. 138).

Billy Graham, who had enormous respect for his friend, could not dismiss Templeton’s argument out of hand. “If I was not exactly doubtful,” he recalls, “I was certainly disturbed.” Things finally came to a head for him during a quiet walk in the San Bernardino mountains. “Dropping to my knees there in the woods, I opened the Bible at random on a tree stump in front of me” and prayed, ‘Father, I am going to accept this as Thy Word — by faith! I’m going to allow faith to go beyond my intellectual questions and doubts, and I will believe this to be Your inspired Word'” (Ibid, p. 139).

Little did Billy Graham realize what a profound influence that simple prayer was to have on his personal life. Charles Templeton was soon to withdraw from the ministry, move to Canada, and become a writer and commentator.

For Billy Graham, however, the Los Angeles crusade launched his ministry. Thousands, some would say millions, of people would be influenced to discover a new relationship with the God Templeton had rejected. Amazingly, it all came down to a matter of personal choice.

Living by faith is no “cake walk.” It demands that we accept, yes, by faith, the truth that God has chosen to reveal. The evidence is there for anyone who is willing to study the record and judge it for what it says. In the last analysis, however, it is an act of faith. There is no other way.

The choice to believe is most generally a personal issue rather than an intellectual one. God, and the revelation He has given, demands that we accept His Lordship over our lives. That is a tough call for most people. We don’t want to live under God’s control.

It is a matter we each must settle in our own lives. The choice we make will inevitably impact the life we live and, whether we accept it or not, our eternal destiny. But do not fear; God is no man’s debtor. He never takes more than He gives in return. It is, indeed, a privilege to serve the Living God!

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FROM THE BILLY GRAHAM ARCHIVES