One form of faith or another runs through our culture. For secular Christmas and Easter celebrations, we have Santa and the Easter bunny. For football games, lucky socks. Or, if all else fails, you can have faith in yourself. Whether it’s through movies, books, or inspiring Internet posts, messages such as “Just have faith” or “Don’t stop believing” are easy to find. The world certainly isn’t low on faith, as long as it’s spiritually inclusive. About 62 percent* of American adults believe that simply having faith matters more than in whom or what that faith is placed. Such a belief assumes that there is no way to know about God.
The idea that having faith no matter where it’s placed often sneaks into Christian thinking too. Sadly, 42 percent of American adults who have a biblical** worldview also hold this belief. When worship seems bland and repetitive or reading the Bible becomes frustrating, it’s all too easy to think, “God feels unreachable. Maybe I’ll find him somewhere else, like in his creation.” While we can learn about God’s majesty and power through what we see in nature, the picture of who God is and what he thinks about us is incomplete if nature is the only place we go to learn about him. Without God’s revelation in the Bible, we fail to recognize our need for a Savior.
Making personal experiences the basis of faith also leads to a personal crisis. What happens if my custom-made faith isn’t strong enough? What happens when those warm feelings of awe toward creation disappear with my daily commute? As it turns out, even intangible things like the human spirit or the power of friendship quickly deflate after another scandal arises or my friend of several decades votes for a politician I dislike.
Among all of the inspiring movie quotes, autumn leaves, and other wonders in the world, none of these things will tell you exactly who Jesus is or what he has done for you. Only the Bible says, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)
In both Word and sacrament, God reveals his love for us and shows how the world falls short of what we truly need. This living and active Word is precious in a society that still stumbles around in the dark, looking for the kind of faith that doesn’t lead to disappointment.
The Psalmist writes,
“God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.” (Psalm 46:1-3)
Where can we go to know about God? Not to the quaking and falling mountains that people put their trust in, whose foundations crumble on our ever-changing planet. Not to a sea of ideas about God that exalts our personal and emotional experiences but actually sweeps us away from security, tosses us back and forth, and dashes us against the rocks. Instead, we know that we have a rock-solid faith because of what God has revealed about himself in Scripture.
For further learning:
Natural knowledge: What we can tell about God from our observations of nature and the physical world around us.
Revealed knowledge: What God tells us through his Word that we otherwise could not know on our own.
Recommended resources:
- I Know That I Know: The Certainty of Christian Faith
- Our Worth to Him: Devotions for Christian Worship
- Bible: God’s Inspired, Inerrant Word from the People’s Bible Teachings series
- The Word Speaks: 365 Devotions Based on the Sayings of Jesus
*Statistics taken from the Arizona Christian University (ACU) article “Top 10 Most Seductive Unbiblical Ideas Embraced by Americans.”
**ACU outlines the term “biblical” as believing in the inspired, inerrant Word of God; intentional rejection of sin; moral absolutes; and Jesus as a personal Savior from sin, among other essentials of the faith..
Written by Erika Sims, edited by Ray Schumacher