The other day I made the following comments on a YouTube video;
The Bible was written over a period of roughly 2,000 years by 40 different authors from three continents, who wrote in three different languages.
And one of its most remarkable qualities is the complete unity of the overall message despite having so many different authors writing over many centuries on hundreds of controversial subjects.
The unity of Scripture demonstrates its supernatural inspiration. Only the one true, holy God could provide us with such a flawless Bible that reveals such a matchless message: the Lord’s staggering love for His creation.
trajaen534 sent to me an email via Facebook wanting me to say in my own words what makes me believe those comments. trajaen534 holds that what I quoted; “has not been established as fact or most probably true scientifically, historically, or in any way, or there would be no debate.. you know of inconsistencies and errors in the Bible,” as he went on to say; “you know it isn't inerrant so why make such claims you can't back up?”
trajaen534 went on and asked: “Tell me in your own words why you think this is even remotely true let alone believable.* Have you read the Bible yourself? It's not all literally true is it..?”
Basically trajaen534 is asking me a very good question, “Why do I believe?”
Why would anyone believe something that’s not been clearly established? If the Bible was as trajaen534 states, has not been established as fact or most probably true scientifically, historically, or in any way, there would be no debate about someone not believing in what it says. If the Bible is as trajaen534 says, it would be foolish for anyone to believe anything the Bible has written in it.
However if one actually researches the facts about the Bible, one finds that it is very much established as confirmed scientifically, historically, archeologically, biologically, through astronomy, physics, and even has eyewitnesses for many of the events. And to date, no one has ever brought forth a contradiction in the Bible or an error in the original language manuscripts that if even the slightest research made on it, confirms that it is actually a contradiction or error. Also, the New Testament has stronger manuscript support than any other classical literature from Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Caesar and Tacitus.
I have read the Holy Bible. The Holy Bible is a world best seller and no other book has ever out sold it. It is the bloodiest book in all history with many of its writers death resulting from their work on it and forfeiting their lives for their believes in it. The Holy Bible is also the most precious book on earth giving to us in its New Testament the good news of Jesus Christ who with His blood, freely paid the price for your and my sins so that if only we place our faith in Him, that we will be saved from our sins for ever and ever. The Holy Bible tells us of God’s great love for us and of His wanting us to choose to love Him.
If you are interested, here’s a starting point for you to learn more about the Bible: http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1352&context=lts_fac_pubs http://thebibletrial.org/resources.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v3/n1/look-at-the-canon
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v6/n2/unity-bible
http://www.biblequery.org/bible.htm
and my website: http://findingtruthtoday.org/faq.htm
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v3/n1/look-at-the-canon
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v6/n2/unity-bible
http://www.biblequery.org/bible.htm
and my website: http://findingtruthtoday.org/faq.htm
What is it that I believe?
It wasn’t but within the last five years that I actually researched how well the Bible is supported and confirmed. Yet just because the Bible is a world best seller with no other book outselling it and is confirmed by eye witnesses, science, astronomy, biology, archeology, etc. and the fact that there are no contradictions or errors in it doesn’t make what is written in the Bible true. Nor does this make me believe what is written in it is true. It does however create a great foundation that helps me believe that what is written in the Bible is true.
I’m guessing trajaen534 is thinking that my belief is in the Bible. My belief is not in the Bible per se although I do believe without any doubt that what is written in the Bible is factual and true.
I believe in the promises that God has made to us that He told to us that are found in the Bible.
But the ultimate question to me by trajaen534 is; Why do I believe?
From the Old Testament Genesis the first book of the Bible including each and every book (66 books in all) through the New Testament Revelations the last book of the Bible, we see man’s repeated rebellion against his holy Creator. God made a perfect world, but mankind has continually rejected God’s authority and sought to decide truth for himself. Nevertheless throughout each of the 66 books of the Bible, God promised to extend His love, grace, and mercy to unworthy people (including you and me) who deserved to be cast into the lake of fire for all eternity. I fully have faith in God and trust God will fulfill all that is written in the Bible.
The most simplistic answer as to why I believe is that I believe because of the drastic change that transpired in my life after I made the choice to really accept Christ Jesus as full payment for my sins and allowed Him to direct my life instead of me directing my life. The personal relationship that I have with Christ Jesus radically changed the direction of my life 180 degrees from when I didn’t allow Him direct my life to currently where I am totally aware that I’m unable to live without Him.
Saying that I Accepted Jesus
I first accepted Jesus Christ as my savior when I was eleven years old however going into my mid adolescence I did not at all times act as a Christian which means that in reality, I did not act at all like a true Christian. I was a hypocrite in my thoughts and actions and it lasted from my mid adolescence to later into my adult life. Although I said that I had accepted Jesus Christ, I did not allow Him to lead me in my life choices thus I didn’t really accept Him at all as I continued to do what I wanted to do instead of what God wanted me to do. So really, I didn’t truly accept Christ Jesus as I did not allow Him into my life. (1 Timothy 4:1-12)
Even though I knew and understood what I was doing was wrong and against Jesus' teachings, I did it anyway just because I wanted to do it. I wanted to do it because I enjoyed doing what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it and how I wanted to do it. I wanted to do what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it how I wanted to do it and that’s what I did. I did not listen to anyone’s advice and I didn’t follow Christ Jesus’ teachings as I knew what it was I wanted to do. Anyone else’s direction especially Christ Jesus’ did not fit in with how I wanted to live. So I did what I wanted to do whether or not it hurt someone or not because I at that time did not care about anyone but me; I did not even care about God’s will for me. I just wanted to do and did whatever it was I wanted to do because I could do it and because I wanted to do it how I wanted to do it without thought of any future consequences. (Romans 1:18-21)
I Deluded the Truth
Although I did not plan to do so, along the way I know that I deluded the truth to many people around me hearing my words and seeing my actions because I was deluding the truth to myself. The delusion of truth I created around me caused turmoil in my thinking and the longer I let myself think what I was thinking was true even though it wasn’t, it was only true to the point which I could suppress my conscience thought because deep inside I knew that I was living in a self-made delusion yet I just didn’t want to admit to myself that I was; and so to the best of my ability, I did not admit it to myself. (Jeremiah 17:5)
I did not admit it to myself because I wanted to continue to believe that what I was doing was okay to do. I kept justifying what I was doing to myself. In all these things that I was doing I kept saying to myself that they were really okay because everyone else was doing it and that with everyone else doing it, it must be okay for me to do it too. My “everyone” included the worldly peers who were doing it, movies and TV showing and doing it and songs telling about it. The temptations were all there for me to choose to do and with many examples to follow, I made my choice and fell to those temptations. (1 Corinthians 10:13)
In reality however; I was continually lying to myself to suppress the truth. The more and longer I lied to myself the easier it got for me to lie to not only myself but to others as well. My initial lie to myself grew to include other lies which included me lying to other people verbally and/or in my actions. All along the way I also continued to tell myself and others that I was a Christian.
After all I would think to myself; I did grow up in a Christian home and called myself a Christian. Yet really I was not a Christian because I was not following Christ Jesus’ teachings and had not regretted nor had stopped any of my sinful ways. (Romans 1:18-32)
Living a Multiple Life of Lies
Dependent upon who it was I was with, I would totally act differently around them. When I was with my party friends, I’d be a partyer. When I was with my parents and certain family members, I’d act more devout. At work I would be somewhere in between. On my own I’d be scheming and trying to keep track of the various stories I’d told the people around me and predominantly selfishly thinking of only myself. It was very difficult at times when I was required to be around more than one group of people at a time because I was always putting on an act and I was never just me because I didn’t feel like anyone would like just me being me. In reality, I didn’t really know who I really was because I had let myself lie to myself so often and for so long. At times I had some feelings of guilt and during these times I’d get a slight awareness of who I should be and how I should act yet I would quickly suppress that notion of who I was because it didn’t fit with what I was telling myself I wanted to do. (Proverbs 12:5)
Underage drinking, experimental drug use, totally reckless driving, taking advantage of family and friends, theft, planning a murder (shortly after my father was murdered) and sexual addiction are among the most terrible things I did. All are against God’s will for anyone to do yet I did them without thinking of any consequences for myself or those around me. During this time I easily broke each of the “Ten Commandments” and did not think anything about breaking them either. After all, I said that I was a Christian and at certain times I acted as one. Yet just saying and acting as a Christian isn’t asking forgiveness and truly not planning sinful actions and following Christ Jesus’ teachings is it? (Psalm 7:14)
Arguing with God
One night when I was 18 years old after taking more than half a bottle of over the counter sleeping pills, I lay wide awake in bed all night not being able to close my eyes for more than a few seconds at a time. God told me that I was going to be an evangelist spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ to thousands of people and point them to the truth of His love for them. I started arguing with God. I told Him that there’s no way that I’m going to do that because if I did that, that I’d be a huge hypocrite. God told me again that I would be and evangelist pointing people to Him and again I told Him that I would not be. (Proverbs 17:19)
I knew of and actually ran around with a preacher who was in secrete living the same lies I was and I first hand saw his hypocrisy. We would compete for the same women, drink the same alcohol, and smoke the same pot. There was no way that I wanted to be that much of a hypocrite. I remember asking him about how could he preach in the pulpit and do what he was doing and not feel that it was wrong. He told me that it was easy because he didn’t preach against what he was doing. Yet in reality, he was doing the exact same think I was, not letting God lead his life and going against God’s teachings and living a life of lies. Thus this preacher’s hypocrisy was the same as mine. He was not asking forgiveness and not planning sinful actions and following Christ Jesus’ teachings yet he was supposedly teaching Christ Jesus’ instructions and saying that he was a Christian. (Psalm 59:12)
I Chose to Really Accept Christ Jesus
On and on I went living my life for myself and living a life of multiple lifestyles dependent upon where and who it was I was with and lying as needed to everyone about who I was until one day I came to my senses and realized that I had become someone I did not want to be. Not only did I realize that I had become someone I did not want to be, I realized that I had become someone who I did not want to be around. I had realized that I was not able to trust myself and this especially became clear to me when I caught myself planning to take someone’s life in revenge of my father’s murder. (John 14:1)
I was in my mid 30s when I admitted the truth to myself and to God that I was a liar. I confessed to God that I should not be acting as I was because I know the truth. I asked God for forgiveness and through the loving gift of His only begotten Son Jesus’ death on a cross and resurrection, God forgives me because I repented of and repent of the sins I commit (Romans 5:8 ). At that time I also started allowing God to lead me in life instead of just doing things on my own although I didn’t fully let God lead me as I didn’t place all of my trust in Him at first. (2 Samuel 22:31)
At first, I continued to take sexual advantage of women as before but unlike before when I could lie to myself about it and suppress any guilty feelings I had because my relationship with Christ Jesus would not let me suppress any guilt. In fact, the guilt I felt would increase even more intensely over time and to such an extent that I finally realized that what I was doing was wrong. It was wrong because in my actions were selfish and not healthy for neither me nor the women I was taking advantage of in a number of ways. It wasn’t healthy in that still today I deeply regret that I had not waited until I was married and I’m sure that the women I was with have the same regrets as to being with me and any other man other than their husband. Another way it isn’t healthy to have sexual relations outside of marriage is that of sexually transmitted diseases. The main way it is wrong is that it goes against the teachings of Christ Jesus. (1 John 2:16)
Humbling Myself
Very soon after I repented of my sins and accepted Christ Jesus as full payment for my sins, God led me to give apologies to many of those whom I hurt during my deceitful era which I humbled myself and apologized to them. Still to this day God brings to my attention people I need to apologize to by bringing them back into my life and reminding me of how I hurt them. (2 Corinthians 12:21) It’s hard for me to humble myself and apologize to someone I’ve done wrong. Yet God doesn’t bring these people back into my life and wag His finger in my face telling me how wrong I was to do whatever it was I did to them. God brings these people back into my life and reminds me of how I hurt them and He not only gives to me the courage and strength to apologize to them but the right opportunity to apologize to them. (Isaiah 12:2)
God has shown to me that I am not any more or less special than anyone else in this world. God loves me just as much as he loves you; no more and no less. From God showing to me His love for me by His changing the destructive life I was living, I learned how to humble myself and to put others ahead of myself. (Proverbs 11:2) As I’ve learned over the years from God how to humble myself, God has over these years gave to me hundreds of blessings including my wonderful wife and opportunities which if I had continued along the way I was prior to my acceptance of Christ Jesus as full payment for my sins would have never come along. (James 4:10)
A Positive Change in My Life
Right after I really accepted Christ Jesus as full payment for my sins and made the choice to let Him lead me in life, I started becoming me with everyone instead of putting on an act of whom I thought the people around me wanted me to be with them. God help me realize that no matter what goes on around me and with whomever it is I am with even if I am alone, I need to be consistent with my thoughts and actions and follow His teachings of loving Him and everyone. Loving everyone includes loving those people who cut you off while you are driving and for me those people who murdered my father when I was 28 years old just after Christmas. (Romans 12:19)
The more I let myself trust God in my life, the more I realized that the hatred I held against those people who murdered my father wasn’t hurting them, it was hurting me. By my actively thinking negatively about the people who murdered my father, I was giving these negative thoughts an opportunity to control me and thus my actions. By my giving these thoughts of hate a place in my thinking, I was still not fully letting God lead me. (Proverbs 10:12)
Yet now after I had really accepted Christ Jesus as my Savior, God would convict me of my thinking negatively about my father’s murderers making me feel guilty for wanting them dead. God would remind me that I am in fact no better than they are because I had planned their murder and would have done it if I had not finally been honest with myself and with God about the life of lies and multiple life that I was living. Each time I thought hate about anyone God would not let me do so without continually reminding me of how wretched I am and of how He loves these people just as much as He loves me. God reminds me that I should rightfully be against and hate what they did but not hate the people who did it. (James 4:7)
At that time instead of hating the people who murdered my father, I realized that they were living a life of lies like I had been. I realized too that God loves them just as much as He loves me and that He wants them to come to realize that they are living a life of lies and that God loves them. It was at this point in my life in my late 30s that instead of hating those people who murdered my father, I understood that they were lost as I had been and I forgave them for murdering my father and started to love them and pray for them to accept Christ Jesus as their Savior. (Matthew 6:14-15)
I read Richard Dawkins’ book, “The God Delusion”
One day not long after “The God Delusion” was published, I was in a book store and was strongly compelled to get it. So I bought it and I started reading it. As I read it, I realized that even though I had not done much study of the Bible, that what Richard Dawkins had written was way off from what the Bible actually had written in it. I also noticed that Richard Dawkins has a habit of stating something as fact when there is no evidence of it at all. As I continued to read “The God Delusion” I couldn’t help but realize that Richard Dawkins was attacking straw men he made up and was stating that this is was God and Christianity was all about. The more I read “The God Delusion” the more I was compelled to do something to correct all of the erroneous teachings about God and Christ Jesus that Richard Dawkins had written. (2 John 1:7; 2 Peter 2:3)
It was at this point in my mid-forties that I remembered and realized that what God had told me when I was 18 about me being an evangelist for Him was going to actually happen. God had not told me that sometime in the future I would be an evangelist for Him. God just told me when I was 18 that I would be an evangelist for Him. I knew now as I read “The God Delusion” that just as God had told me when I was 18 that I would not be a hypocrite being an evangelist for God because unlike when God first told me what I would be doing for Him, I now let Him lead me in life and I fully trust Him. (James 3:1)
So in 2008 at the age of 46 I started a web site, blog (http://FindingTruthToday.org) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/GospelToday) and in December 2010 a YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/FindingTruthToday) to evangelize God’s message of love and to point people to Him just as God had told me when I was 18 that I would do.
My evangelism of the Gospel of Christ Jesus thus started because of Richard Dawkins’ book, “The God Delusion” and reading “The God Delusion” also was when I started studying the Bible and evidence supporting it. The more I read the Bible and study it and learn more about it and am asked to answer questions about it, the more the Bible stands as solid evidence that it came from God to us so that we can learn of His great love for us. (Romans 5:8)
Why Do I Believe?
trajaen534, I believe God loves me because of the positive change He made in my life. I know from the universe and life that God exists and through the personal relationship I have with Him. I believe that God loves me because of the positive change God made in my life through my personal relationship with Christ Jesus which demonstrates to me that God cares about us so much that He only wants the best for us and He tells us in the Bible how to do this (Titus 2:5-15; ).
From the way God positively changed my life, I trust that God will fulfill the promise He made that His only begotten Son, Christ Jesus, through His living a sinless life as a fully human man and with His suffering on a cross and His bodily dying for my and your sins Christ Jesus fully paid the debt of death we (you and I) owe and through His physical resurrection from death, He created for you and me a means by which if we choose to believe in Him, opens up the narrow path’s gate for us to be in Heaven with God (1 Corinthians 15:4-14).
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