Take it by Faith Brother…

There’s a saying amongst religious folk that decries, “Take it by faith brother.” What it implies is that the things of God don’t really make any sense or follow any specific pattern of logic. Now, just consider that for a moment. Is it logical to you that God is perfect; His originally given Word was perfect; He has supreme and vast intelligence and knows everything there is to know, yet somehow couldn’t figure out the logic and reasoning that He invented? I submit to you today that God is the most logically logical Being that ever existed. Anytime there’s appear to be some illogic going on, the issue must exist within our understanding or lack of full consideration. God cannot and does not contradict Himself. He doesn’t say one thing and mean another thing. He cannot be all good, yet part evil. He cannot be the very essence of love and at the same time do things that are most unloving like making people sick or killing people prematurely to fulfill some higher purpose. He doesn’t offer assistance while insisting on making things difficult. He does not work in mysterious ways and that phrase does not even exist in the Bible. The primary reason for all of this confusion is because people do not understand that there is such a thing as evil and that evil functions independent of God. To say God is allowing evil is to not understand God. What God does allow is free will, both on the part of people and created spiritual beings. To have a choice implies at least two options. Most of what people say God does, He does not do at all. Yet if you are wholly unaware of the functioning of the devil, you may also draw the wrong conclusions. Remember, the greatest thing the devil ever did was to convince people that he did not exist. What we take by faith is the truth of God’s Word over and above what things appear to be because the things that appear to be are often generated  and manipulated by the same devil people think doesn’t exist. If God tells us to take something by faith it is always based on absolutely flawless logic and true reasoning. Take it by faith brother? Only if it is actually true.

How grand and egregious is the ego of man to think He can process and apply a better system of logic than God has. God who originated the concept. The Bible declares the foolishness of God is wiser than men. (As if He had some foolishness…) There is no illogic involved in anything God has ever done or ever said. It is impossible. The illogic that enters in comes from men highly influenced by the evil that remains hidden from them. If God were not logical in every case, the whole Bible would fall apart. He doesn’t say one thing here and another thing there. Most of the time apparent contradictions exist only in our understanding or in fairly rare cases mistranslations in the Bible. For example, does it appear logical that Jesus who never misstepped or did his own will would cry out at the cross, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” If Jesus really believed God had forsaken him, then he would have been believing a lie and sinned and would have terminated our future redemption in that moment. Jesus trusted God unto death, a feat most of us would never accomplish. He never doubted that God was with him. Even in his final hours he asked God if there was another way to accomplish the mission, yet ended with nevertheless let your will be done and not mine. Biblical research has revealed that what he actually said was, “For this reason was I spared or reserved.” It wasn’t a cry of defeat, it was a cry of victory. Yet the preachers declare that God was so disgusted with sin that He left His only begotten son on the cross to die alone, which would appear to be the very height of illogic. Even our limited human knowledge knows that doesn’t make any sense. Yet when it comes to the things of God, often unknowingly, we throw all logic out the window! We have to do better than that.

Honestly, the most likely culprit for adding in perpetual illogic is religion, not spirituality, religion. Religion has all sorts of things going that don’t make any sense at all, yet the answer is, “Take it by faith brother.” There are gigantic crosses adorning houses of worship that do not glorify God but rather glorify the instrument of Jesus’ death. He’s not still hanging there dead, he got up from the dead; a feat no other so-called spiritual leader ever did. Add to that fish shaped hats, innumerable candles, altars full of shiny things and strange rituals that defy logic. Then there are the rules for living that begin with, if you enjoy it, it must be wrong and end with most of what you do and think is wrong. If one must partake in sex it must be reserved for procreation only, yet God built in all the things that feel good. Sexual pleasure is demonized and attributed to evil. There is nothing remotely evil about sex as God intended it. “Marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled.” What makes sex evil is when it is misused and applied in the wrong context. Isn’t that logical? Why would God make something feel good then turn around and say, “You better not do it!” It’s not God saying that, it is religion. Religion always focuses on the exterior of man and tries to make man holy by behaving in a certain way. It’s as if man thinks if you clean the outside of the container, all that’s inside will be clean. So man comes up with a litany of rules for “good behavior” which choke the life out of people. “Don’t touch this,” or, “Don’t handle that!” All illogical and nonsensical. Some folks teach that you can’t eat certain foods as if something that enters in your mouth and goes out as waste can defile a man. Does that sound logical to you? How about if you drink alcohol? How many religions claim drinking alcohol is a sin, yet fail to notice that God actually invented wine. And why you ask? To make glad the heart of man. Jesus’s first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding, yet some preachers say it was actually grape juice. Have you ever been to a wedding and become upset because they ran out of grape juice? (smile) It was not only wine, it was good wine. Read your Bible. All the things God made for us are to be enjoyed. The trouble comes from excesses. You don’t need for me to tell you what happens if you drink too much wine! Been there. Hated that! The point is that we have to apply some logic with the things of God. God is not illogical. He does not come up with puzzles and conundrums for us to figure out. Instead He is masterfully logical and His expectation is that you and I apply the same logic.

What God cares most about is your heart. If He says not to do something it is because He knows it will hurt you. He doesn’t make up arbitrary rules for rules sake. In fact, He didn’t even want the Old Testament law of commandments. He already knew almost no one could live up to it. Yet, He needed a standard from which man could be redeemed. He needed a law that His son could, by the freedom of His will, live perfectly. In this we were redeemed. Yet even with that people say that Jesus was actually God who turned himself into a man to be tried and tested. He became, reportedly, part man and part God and the man part did the work. Logical? I think not. If Jesus was actually God hiding out as a human he could not have redeemed us. The Bible says Jesus was in all points tempted with sin, like we are, yet without sin. It also says God cannot be tempted with evil. So someone has a fews flies in their ointment if that makes any sense. Look, I’m not trying to belittle your religion. God forbid! What I’m trying to do is to appeal to your logic. You don’t take by faith things that make no sense whatsoever. Why would Jesus say, nevertheless let your will be done and not my will if he already had the same will as God? I could go on but I will spare you. Suffice it to say that abject illogic is a clue that something must not be right in your understanding. If you have to clutch and sputter and cough in order to defend what God says is true, there has to be some error in there. The system of logic God created is absolutely pure and breathtakingly perfect. It has to be if it is from God. This is why you can trust God to be and do exactly what He says He will be and do. He is not fickle nor capricious. He doesn’t have strange whims or suddenly depart from His nature for “mysterious” reasons. He is predictable, reliable and pure. He will never work against you or thwart your efforts for some erroneous lofty cause. Those things are all lies from the author of lies doing his best to remain undetected from you and me.

This life is far too short to spend it all caught up in religion and all of it’s trappings. This life is way too short to spend it in confusion about who God really is when He has made it so clear in His word. This life is incredibly too short to not know what you can know. The system God came up with is absolutely perfect in its logic and has no flaws in it. You can trust it more than the very ground you are standing on. Don’t try to take crazy things by faith absent any logic or sound reasoning. Take by faith what God says is true. Take by faith what God promises to do for you. Take by faith that God is good only and spend your days enjoying His goodness. That’s the only kind of faith I’m interested in.

Just some good thoughts…