You've Got the Q's, I've Got the A's

The following are some questions that many people wonder about God, but can't ever seem to get a straight answer for. Through hours of prayer, contemplation, reading the Bible, and writing, here are some of the straightest answers I can give. (If you have any more or you don't feel like I appropriately answered a question, let me know and I'll do my best to be a better light for you!) All of these answers are strictly based on scripture, and I would be more than happy to provide you with any of the citations that you need. Enjoy :)

Why does God allow people to sin?

When God created Adam and Eve, they were perfect in every single way; sin did not exist to them. He made them so that He could love them passionately, and He desired their love back. But see, God had to give them the choice to also not love Him, otherwise He would have just created some sort of robotic humans. This is to say, forcing someone to love you is not real love. I think this to be pretty obvious and self-explanatory. Ultimately, when Adam and Eve chose to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they chose to go against God's only rule that He had set for them. They loved their own interests over His interests for them. This was the "original sin". He allowed it because that was the only way real love could be established.

Why does Adam and Eve's sin have to affect me? I wouldn't have eaten the fruit like those idiots...

You know how you kind of look like your parents? You might have inherited the same nose, mouth, or eye color. Well, God sees that we look like our great-great-great-etc. grandparents, Adam and Eve. Although we might not have been in the Garden of Eden when they commited the original sin, we did inherit the stain placed on their heart. They were no longer perfect and pure. When God looks at our heart, He sees that same stain. It has been passed down from generation to generation, separating each and every person from God, exiling us from the perfect Eden we could have experienced. That's why our world is so screwed up. They did it, but we must reap the repercussions. In short, we are sinful by our own nature.

Why would God go through all the trouble of creating everything if it was just going to get corrupted by sin?

Trouble? What trouble? God spoke the universe into creation. By His words alone He created everything that has come into existence. That doesn't seem like a whole lot of trouble to me. I've had to put far more effort into writing this blog than He had to in creating the entire universe. Still though, there is the issue of our corrupting His creation with sin. In my opinion, I believe that God created us and gave us free will knowing that it was a chance worth taking, that we would rebel. To find those who would actually love Him by their own will, He must have deemed it a necessary course to allow those who rebel against Him without recognizing their need for Him to fall into judgement, and ultimately damnation. Furthermore, we were not meant for this world. We were made for a perfect world and this present world is far from it. Knowing this, God promises that those who believe in Him will soon be given perfect bodies and a perfect place in which to eternally live, always within His presence being able to praise and worship Him forever. Do I know what this looks like or how God plans on doing this? No. But I do know that in all of time God has never lied, so there is no reason for me to start believing that He will now!

How did God exist before time?

C.S. Lewis answered this question for me in his book Mere Christianity. This is my paraphrase: We live in the realm of time. It constantly moves forward as each passing second fades away into oblivion. I can no more re-do yesterday than a chimp can write Shakespeare's Hamlet; it just can't happen. With that being said, imagine my life were a part of a book (we'll call it the Doddyssey, hehe). I do things in chronological order because, of course, that's how life works. So, one day in the Doddyssey I study excrutiatingly hard for an exam, then the next day I ace the exam. To me, studying came first, then acing the exam came second. However, the amazing author who wrote the Doddyssey is not subject to this same A, then B, then C order. He could go to the first page or the last page in any order that he sees fit, all he has to do is turn the pages. The book is in front of him, and he already knows the storyline. He knows how it begins and how it ends. He created the world with his own mind. He loves his book and every character in it because he made it; it is his creation. All of this can be said of God and how He is not confined to our own little world. Although the analogy isn't perfect, it does allow for some insight into how God is so legitimately awesome.

What in the crap is the Holy Trinity (and how does it work)?

Simply put, the Holy Trinity is God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. All three are necessary for our salvation. God is necessary because He is our creator. Without His love, we cease to exist. Jesus is necessary because He is our intercessor. Without His perfect blood and resurrection, hope of eternal life ceases to exist. The Holy Spirit is necessary because He is our indweller. Without His presence in our life, salvation ceases to exist. That's why we must have all three. This is known as having a "triune" God. The Bible also explains that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all three the exact same thing, but are all completely different. Is that even possible? Here's the way I've found best to explain this conundrum: I am Brandon. To my mom, I am her son. To my brother, I am his brother. To my classmate, I am their friend. In all of these relationships, I never stop being Brandon though. I am the same person just seen in three different lights because of the types of relationships that are present within each. Much is the same with the Trinity. God is God, but when He came to the earth as Jesus, He never stopped being God. Jesus was simply God in the flesh. The same can be said with the Holy Spirit and His role in our lives as believers or future-believers. When the Holy Spirit, the supernatural conscience inside our hearts, minds, and souls, allows us to recognize sin and discern between God's will and our will, He never stops being God. Isn't that spectacular? Our God is so great.

Why did Jesus have to die?

The Bible makes it clear that the wage of sin is death. Obviously, a wage is something that is earned, so our sins have earned us death. This death goes far beyond the physical passing away that we will all go through. This death is a spiritual death, an eternal separation from God, resulting in all of the fire and brimstone that you've surely heard about before. With this being said, our lives are tainted with sin. God, being absolutely perfect, hates sin; it goes against His very character and perfect nature. So why would we expect that God would allow sinful beings into His presence in the perfect Heaven? As it turns out, He won't and never will. Well, wouldn't that mean that we are all destined for an eternity in hell if God hates our sins so much? If Jesus hadn't died, then yes. But God demonstrates His love for us in that Jesus, the Christ, died for us, taking our place, paying our wages. Before Jesus died on the cross, He had never once in His life sinned - never thought a bad thought, never was jealous of anyone, and had never lied. He had lived a perfect life, just as God had intended for us to do. This is to say, He had never felt what it was like for God to punish Him. However, when Jesus gave himself as a sacrifice on the wooden cross to take the place that we all deserve, He became sin. Galations 3:13 says, "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree." God went from seeing His perfect Son to the cursed sins and lives of every human being who had ever lived. God's judgement was full and nothing was held back when He punished Jesus for OUR sins. That is precisely why Jesus had to die. Only He was perfect enough to pay our wages in full.

Do I have to be baptized in water to be saved?

This is a common misconception. The whole point of immersion baptism is that it is a public outward profession of faith. It symbolizes the old body dying away, and the birth of a new paid-for life arising, overcoming death. To be saved, one must truly believe in their heart that Jesus is Lord and paid for their sins because they couldn't do it on their own, and they must confess that same truth with their mouth. Never does the Bible require baptism for salvation, except by the Holy Spirit. When one is baptized, they are saying to the world that Christ has changed them and given them a new, better life, which is a direct result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us.

What's the point of prayer if God knows my thoughts?

God is omniscient. He knows everything and nothing is hidden from Him. Fact. But God still wants us to pray even though He already knows what I'm going to say or think; why is that? When we pray to God, our minds our centered directly on Him. We are giving Him the fullness of our attention, much like you would when speaking directly to anyone else. What prayer allows us to do is keep our minds and hearts faced towards God, much like the sunflower in one of my previous blogs, "A Quick Botanical Lesson". The second we stop thinking about God and what He has ultimately done for us, we usually fall into sin. This leads me to believe that praying is more for the believer than it is for God. However, this is not to say that God does not infinitely love and appreciate our prayers and supplication or that He doesn't take into account our wants and desires when we pray about things. On the contrary, God wants us to pray. Look to Jesus as an example! Throughout Jesus' ministry, He was found praying...all the time! Furthermore, the Bible points out that God's mind cannot be changed, but that does not mean His course of direction can't be changed. A simpler way of looking at it is this: say I'm wanting to go to Chicago from here in good ol' Benton, Kentucky. Well, I can either walk, take a car, a motorcycle, a bus, a train, or an airplane, among a whole host of other ways. I can also take a ton of different routes or layovers, but my final destination never changes. I can get there in an infinite amount of ways, but my mind won't be changed about where I'm going. This is how I view God's plan, especially in relation to our prayers. Don't ever underestimate the power of prayer because you could be the person who changes God's direction from using a "car" to a "train"!

What is grace?

Grace is going above-and-beyond mercy. In a nutshell, mercy is to take away something that you deserve. Going back to the Doddyssey, if I hadn't studied super hard for my exam, had decided to just cheat because video games looked a whole lot more appealing at the time I could have studied, and was subsequently caught by my professor, then I should have gotten suspended or even expelled. Mercy would be present if my professor just gave me a zero as opposed to kicking me out of college. Grace, on the other hand, is taking away something that I do deserve and giving me something else, something better, that I don't deserve. Instead of just giving me a zero, my professor might extend grace by allowing me to take the exam again and not penalize me for my lack of effort and superior stupidity that I previously displayed. God's grace is somewhat analagous to this. Although the Bible clearly states that our sins deserve death (like eternal, spiritual death beyond the physical death we will all succumb to), God gave us a way out. He gave us Jesus, who died the death that we surely deserve. If we accept that we cannot pay for our own sins, and that Jesus is the only one who can (and did!), then we have experienced God's grace. God effectively gives us the chance to retake the exam. We're still not going to get all the questions right, but God is amazing enough to just give effort grades in our now grace-filled lives! I think that's a superb deal.

Can I get to Heaven by being a really really super awesome person?

No. Nope. Nu-uh. Not gonna happen. I don't mean to sound cynical, but that's just the way it is. To restate our current condition, we are ravaged and depraved by sin. Any offering or sacrifice that we try and give to God will get rejected worse than Dwight Howard blocking Ty Lawson's lay up attempt into the fifth row of fans. Reeeeejected! God cannot accept sin, so He will never accept us in our sinful condition. How we overcome this is through Jesus. He paid our wages so that we can be seen as perfect, sinless, and righteous. That is what makes our offerings acceptable to God. Take a look at one of my previous blogs, "I've Learned To Spell The Word Faith: J-O-Y." It really speaks on what kind of appropriate sacrifices God is looking for in us.

Why doesn't God just let everyone into Heaven?

Although God loves us more than we will ever deserve, He still expects us to love Him back. If we don't choose to love Him and accept Jesus as Lord, then our sins are infinitely worse than the most nasty ketchup stain you've ever had on a white cotton shirt, except this stain is on your heart. God cannot accept imperfections, not even one. This is precisely why God can't allow everyone into Heaven. But now, I'm about to blow your mind. Did you know that God gets glory from sending people to hell? (Brandon, what in the world are you saying?! Have you gone mad?!) It is true. Again, God is perfect, so His judgement is perfect. When God condems people to hell for their unrepented sins, He is perfectly fulfilling what they deserve. In this perfect judgement God receives glory because, in fact, it is perfect, just as He receives glory in the perfect salvation of a once depraved sinner. That's intense, isn't it? This is also another reason why God cannot allow everyone into Heaven.

The moral of the story is: God is indescribably wonderful. No amount of words can even begin to describe a single iota of His epicness. His love never fails, even when every person who has ever lived, besides His own Son, has turned their back on Him. Wow. God loves you. I don't see why you wouldn't want so badly to love Him back with every fiber of your being. Consider your heart. Is that stain of sin still present, or has it been washed clean? I pray that it has been cleansed beyond measure with the perfect blood of Jesus.

With love.