Why I Believe: Fellowship with Those Who Love God

I believe in God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in His son, Jesus Christ. This is the final post of a six part series about Why I Believe.
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My faith in God and Jesus Christ is strengthened by having fellowship with others who also know and love God. By fellowship I mean more than just having a friendly relationship, but also swapping stories about inner thoughts and private experiences.

When I am with others who love Christ and we let our guard down and start sharing about the details of our individual relationships with God, I discover that they know the same God that I know and that God tells them things that are comparable to what He tells me. I find this very reassuring, because it confirms that the internal communication that I hear is not just me talking to myself.

God has a unique relationship with each person and interacts with each of us differently, but He is the same God who has the same nature and personality. As I fellowship with other lovers of God and we swap stories, we each learn more about God. Their stories help me understand what God is doing in my life and my stories help them understand what God is doing in their lives.

Understanding the Bible is an ongoing adventure. Hearing about how God guides other believers' lives through the words in the Bible helps me understand both God and the Bible better. This hones my perspective and deepens my faith.

There are three pillars for knowing God: studying the Bible, talking and listening to God, and fellowshipping with others who also know and love God. These three reinforce and balance each other.

Why I Believe: Ongoing Relationship With God

I am a believer in God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in His son, Jesus Christ. This is the fifth of a six part series about Why I Believe.
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Forty-five years ago some people told me that I could have a relationship with Jesus Christ. I thought that was a weird idea, but deep down my soul hungered for it. They also shared with me a Bible verse, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6:33) In other words, if I would put God’s interests and goals first in my life, he would take care of my physical needs. So I decided to test this promise and made getting to know God and following His promptings the focus of my life. Since then my family and I have always had everything we needed, and at the same time, I have developed a close relationship with God and His son Jesus Christ.

For years God’s communication to me was through the words in the Bible, words of other followers of Christ, and gut feelings where I would have a vague, but strong sense of what God wanted me to do. Gradually I have learned to listen for and recognize direct communication from Him. 

When He talks to me, His utterances typically consist of very few non-audible words in my mind, but they are accompanied by very clear ideas that parallel and elaborate on the words. Sometimes these ideas are very complex. In His communication, His attitude and demeanor are very much like those of Jesus as revealed in the Bible.

I have learned that there are some topics that He is eager to talk about, which are very similar to what at Jesus tended to talk about in the Bible:

• God’s character
• My character
• What He is doing, and my part in it
• What the Bible says
• How I should treat others
• What or whom He wants me to pray for

Sometimes I wonder if God is really talking to me or whether I am just imagining it all. Then I think back and remember our many conversations, and the only way to explain them is that God has really been talking to me. Communications from God have a consistent high quality; they have a higher quality and a richer content than my own thoughts:

He knows me better than I know myself and loves me more than I love myself. When He confronts me about some of my poor choices, He does it in a way that I instantly know He is absolutely right. I know I was wrong, but I don't feel condemned.

He is smarter and wiser than I am, sometimes giving me complex plans or designs.

He cares about other people more than I do, showing me how He wants me to treat others. I was created in His image, and He expects me to live up to that high standard.

He frequently pushes me outside of my comfort zone to do things that either I don't want to do or I doubt are possible to do. When I do what He tells me to do, the outcomes are consistently good. There may be some discomfort and confusion in the short run, but the long term outcomes are good and sometimes amazing.

Of all the reasons I have for believing in God, my relationship with Him is the most important. He is my best friend. The reasons I related in previous posts got me started believing, but this ongoing relationship is the anchor of my faith.

Why I Believe: The Persistence of Israel

I am a believer in God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in His son, Jesus Christ. This is the fourth of a six part series about Why I Believe.
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In the middle of the second millennium BC, the nation of Israel was born. God made a covenant with the people and gave them the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. But they have not always lived in their land.

Twice they were driven from their home country, first by the Assyrians and Babylonians in the sixth and eighth centuries BC, and then by the Romans in the first century AD. Since then there have been concerted efforts to get rid of them: Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, Russian pogroms, and the German Holocaust, to name a few. Yet for nearly 1900 years, from AD 70 to 1948, the nation persisted without a home country. Even though they were scattered throughout the world, they maintained their religion, culture, language, alphabet, and ancient history books. Against all odds, they maintained their identity as a single people, a single nation, hoping to return to their homeland. That is miraculous. No other nation come close to this experience.

In the eighth century BC, the prophet Isaiah prophesied that God would bring back the scattered nation to their homeland from “the four corners of the earth.” During the 19th and 20th centuries, Jews returned to Israel from 77 different countries.

When Israel declared its independence in 1948, this tiny country was immediately invaded by armies from five neighboring countries, whose goal was to eradicate its people. They survived. Twice more they were attacked by an alliance of neighboring countries, and again they survived.

The Old Testament prophets declared that the land of Israel would become an arid wasteland, and then it would become fruitful again. When Mark Twain visited the land in the 1860’s, he reported that it was “desolate” and also “rocky and bare, repulsive and dreary.” Today it is extremely fruitful. Not only that, it is the most prosperous and stable country in the Middle East, defying all odds against it. This is a miracle.

Why I Believe: The Integrity of the Bible

I am a believer in God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in His son, Jesus Christ. This is the third of a six part series about Why I Believe.
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The Bible, my primary source of information about God, has integrity. It has integrity in all three senses of the word: it is honest, it is an integrated whole, and it is sound.

The Bible is honest and authentic. The people in the stories are realistic in that they have real personalities and real problems. Even though the stories are thousands of years old, I can relate to many of them, because human nature has not changed. When the writers relate stories about people and nations, they are honest and include the bad along with the good. They faithfully record both moral victories and moral failures. The writers continually point out bad behavior in their own societies, and challenge people to change.

The Bible is an integrated whole, even though it is a collection of 66 smaller books written by over 40 writers over a period of 1300 years. The writings consistently build on common themes like justice and mercy, authority and submission, wisdom and foolishness, love and compassion, faithfulness and rebellion, and many more. The writings also include mysterious themes like the anointed one, the son of man, the son of God, the sacrificial lamb, and the Day of the Lord. Multiple authors contribute to these themes, but leave them partially developed until the time of Jesus Christ, when they all come together. There are other themes that are introduced in the early chapters of the first book and brought to closure in the last chapters of the last book.

The Bible is historically sound. It contains a continuous story stretching over thousands of years about a relationship between God and human beings. Each writer builds on what earlier writers have written and their stories mesh well with other histories of the Mideast. Since the lands of the Bible are extremely rich in archaeological treasures, there are many findings that give support or credence to the historical and cultural backgrounds presented in the Bible.

The Bible is unique. I have found nothing comparable to it.

Why I Believe: Miracles of Answered Prayer

I am a believer in God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in His son, Jesus Christ. This is the second of a six part series about Why I Believe. 
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A friend of our family had been suffering from multiple sclerosis for a number of years and was slowly deteriorating. Many were praying for her. One Thursday my wife and I went to her home to visit her and saw that she was mostly bedridden because of the pain and the weakness caused by the disease. Three days later she came bounding into our Sunday school class full of energy and with no sign of the disease. She had been healed.

One of the reasons that I believe in God is because of miraculous healings like this that I have witnessed personally or heard about from reliable sources. The one thing the healings all had in common, was that they all followed prayers in the name of Jesus Christ, whether there had been many prayers or just a few. I have personally experienced sudden healing three times in my own life.

Twenty five years ago, I came down with a severe case of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Among its many symptoms were extremely low energy and post exertional malaise (PEM). If I exerted too much energy at a time, within a few hours the PEM would set in with extreme weakness and virus like symptoms, that could last anywhere from a day or two to months. Many people prayed for me. Three years into the disease, a crew of young people volunteered to help replace the siding on the second story of our house, a week long project. They were eager, but unskilled so I had to invest energy in doing prep work and managing them. At the end of the first day of doing a little prep work, I expected to suffer severe PEM for several days. But the next morning, there was no PEM. So, I worked a little harder that day. For the rest of the week my energy steadily increased until I was working as hard as anyone else. I had been healed.

It is true that there are far more cases where people were not healed after many impassioned prayers, and I can't explain that, but I choose to base my faith on things that I see God doing rather than on what He doesn’t do.

Why I Believe: The Existence of Life and Consciousness

I am a believer in God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and in His son, Jesus Christ. This is the first of a six part series about Why I Believe.
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Life on this planet is amazing. The earth is well-suited for supporting a planet wide system of ecosystems. The physical properties of the earth provide a stable environment for life to thrive, and the ecosystems help stabilize the physical environment. It is though they were designed for each other. Each ecosystem is an ongoing, complex interaction between living plants, animals, and microbes. Each living entity is birthed, thrives, reproduces, and is eventually recycled. It thrives by extracting readily available resources from its physical and biological environments, and when it is recycled, its components are broken down and made available as resources for other organisms.

Not only is each ecosystem is well suited to its environment, but is also adaptable, adjusting its mix of organisms to adapt to changes in its local environment. Hundreds, or even thousands of species happily coexist in the same area, many in helpful symbiotic relationship with other species. It appears to be a well-designed system.

The ecosystems contain myriads of multicellular organisms—plants, animals, and other creatures. These creatures have amazing diversity and complexity, and are adapted to a wide variety of environments, from the tundra to the tropics and everywhere in between. They can be found at the tops of mountains and at the tops of rain forests, and also at the bottom of ocean trenches around volcanic vents. They range in size from tiny mites who spend their entire lives on someone’s skin, to giant sperm whales that daily travel between the ocean surface to breathe and the bottom of the ocean to eat.

Each multicellular organism is exquisitely designed, but each is composed of basically the same thing—cells. Each cell is a complete organism in its own right—it is birthed (through mitosis), extracts resources from its environment, thrives, reproduces, and is eventually recycled. Each cell knows its function in the body, and assumes the form necessary to perform that function. The form can be a skin cell, a muscle cell, a nerve cell, a root cell, a leaf cell, or one of hundreds of other forms. Each cell, in a healthy body, lives in a harmonious and non-competitive relationship with the other cells in the body, putting the needs of the body above its own needs. Even though an animal’s body may be composed of trillions of individual cells, it behaves as a single individual. That’s utterly amazing.

So, how is it possible that each cell knows what form to take and perform its function in the body, so that the body as a whole can function as a single organism? And at the same time, how is it possible that each body knows how to function successfully within its own unique niche in its ecosystem? It is because each cell in the body (except for red blood cells) contains a digital processing system complete with software to make it all happen. The software and all the data needed for the construction and operation of each cell, as well as the entire body is stored as digital information in the DNA located in the nucleus of each cell. The cell also has a digital processor implemented in biochemistry that can pinpoint, read, and process the data that tells the cell what form it is to take and what function it is supposed to perform for the body. The digital processor is capable of finding the software and data that pertains to its particular purpose even though the digital information is scattered throughout potentially dozens of chromosomes in the nucleus, while at the same time ignoring data that is not currently relevant to the cell.

The DNA contains all different kinds of information including how the cell can manufacture a copy of itself, how the cell can make a baby animal, and how to grow a baby animal into an adult. The DNA contains schedules and parts lists for doing all this. On top of that, the DNA contains instinctive behavior for how the animal can move about and get resources from its environment, establish a home, recognize and interact with other members of its species, reproduce, and perform its role as a part of an ecosystem. Information for all these different levels—cell, body, and ecosystem—is stored in the DNA of each cell.

The simplest form of life is a single cell—complete with software and data stored in DNA and a digital processing system to process it. The simplest form of life is far from simple. I believe God designed and created all this.

On top of all this, there is consciousness. Consciousness is an enigma. We all talk about it, but it something that cannot be measured or even detected by science. I know I am conscious, because I think and am aware of myself. I assume other people are conscious beings like me, and not merely biochemical robots, but I can’t detect their consciousness, and they can’t detect mine. It is true that science can measure brainwaves and blood flow to determine the activity level of a brain, but it can’t detect consciousness itself.

When I look at an object, light reflected from the object enters my two eyes and is detected by the rods and cones in my retinas as individual pixels. Information about these pixels passes along my optic nerves and into my brain where different areas of my brain deduce different features from these pixels—hue, brightness, movement, boundaries, texture, shadows, size, and 3-D effects. The information from these areas is combined with information from other parts of my brain to try to match the current pixel patterns with previously viewed patterns to hypothesize what objects are present. All this is happening in the neurons of my brain, but I do not see pixels, but rather I am conscious of a beautiful vase of flowers, a child playing on the floor, a cascading waterfall, or a smiling face. Somehow, what my brain processes gets transferred to my consciousness. All the biochemical activities can be detected by science, but not my consciousness. That is a gift from God.

Who is Lord?

Sometimes I read something and it gets me thinking and wondering, and then I do a quick word study in the Bible to check out a question or idea. The two questions that I was thinking about today were, “How did the gospel writers perceive Jesus?” and “How did Jesus perceive himself?” There are many ways to address these questions, but today I decided to do a quick word study of who called whom “Lord” in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This quick study was not intended to fully answers these questions, but a way to get a quick glimpse into one aspect of the subject.

The word lord in English versions of the New Testament is usually the translation of the Greek work kyrios, which typically means “lord”, “master”, or “owner”. It means someone with power and/or authority. Slaves would call their owners “lord”, and subjects would call their king “lord”. People would call their God “lord”.

I wanted to do a quick study, so I searched the gospels in an English version for “Lord,” with a capital “L” and followed by a comma, which would find most situations where a person addressed another as “Lord” to their face. (I could have done a more thorough study with all the verses containing the Greek word kyrie, but I was hoping I could see a pattern with a limited set of verses.) So, I got a list of verses from the gospels, and set out to ask three questions, “Who called Jesus, ‘Lord’?” and “Who did Jesus call ‘Lord’?” and “Who else was called, ‘Lord’?” Here is what I found:

1. Who called Jesus, “Lord”?

• The twelve disciples of Jesus
• Other disciples of Jesus
• A leper
• A centurion
• A Canaanite woman
• The father of an epileptic
• Two blind men
• A man healed of blindness
• Disciples of John the Baptist
• Martha
• Zacchaeus
• A random person asking who could be saved
• People who heard Jesus’s sermon about the Bread of Life

A lot of different people called Jesus, “Lord”. In John 13.13, Jesus reveals His perspective towards those who called Him “Lord”. At the Last Supper, Jesus told His disciples, “You call me, ‘Rabbi’ and ‘Lord.’ You say so correctly, for so I am.” He was saying that “Lord” was an appropriate title for him.

2. Who did Jesus call “Lord”?

Nobody. Even when He was in the presence of earthly authority figures like Pilate, King Herod, or the high priest, He did not call any of them “Lord”. Nor did He use any other honorific with them. In addressing God, Jesus called Him “Father”.

3. Who else (besides Jesus) was called, “Lord”?

This question was more complicated to answer than the other two, but what I found was fascinating. The those who were called “Lord”, other than Jesus, can be divided into two groups, a) God and b) characters in stories that Jesus told

a) There were two verses where God addressed as Lord.

• Simeon addressed God as “Lord”
• God was addressed as “Lord” in an Old Testament quote

b) Characters in stories told by Jesus who called someone “Lord”. (Most of the stories are parables.)

To analyze these stories told by Jesus, I have made a simple chart with a row for each story, and in each row you can see the people who called someone “Lord” and the person who was addressed as “Lord.” Take a look at the chart. I am not going to explain my reasoning for my interpretations, because this is a quick study.

People who call someone “Lord”	Person addressed as “Lord”
Matt 7.21, 22 – People claiming to be disciples of Jesus	Jesus
Matt 18.26 - Unforgiving servant of a king in a parable (The servant represents people Jesus’s audience.)	His king (The king represents God.)
Matt 25.11 – Five foolish maidens waiting for a bridegroom in a parable (Maidens represent unwatchful disciples.)	The bridegroom (The bridegroom most likely represents the Son of Man.)
Matt 25.37, 44 - Sheep and goats separated by the Son of Man in a parable (Sheep and goats represent people of the nations.)	The Son of Man
Luke 13.25 – People outside a door in a parable (They are people who wanting to be saved.)	Householder (Most likely the house represents the Kingdom of God, and the householder is the King.)
Luke 19.16 – Three servants in a parable of a nobleman who had gone to become king (The servants represent disciples of Jesus).	The nobleman who has become king (Most likely the nobleman/king represents Jesus.)

In each story the people saying “Lord” can be people in general, but in each case they include people in the audience that Jesus is telling the story to. In each story the person called “Lord” is either a king, the Son of Man, or Jesus. The Son of Man is a title that Jesus uses for Himself. In one story, the king clearly represents Jesus, and in another the king clearly represents God, and in the third he could be either Jesus or God. So, condensing all this, in the stories that Jesus tells, the people in the stories (which include people in His audience) call God and Himself, “Lord”.



In summary, looking at all the verses where someone addresses someone else as “Lord” in the gospels, the addressees are either God or Jesus.

Going back to the two questions that I started with, based on the limited scope of my short study, I would say that the answer is that Jesus perceived Himself as either being God or in the same class as God. Because of the texts they chose to portray Jesus, the gospel writers perceived Jesus in the same way.



Whenever I do a Bible study to find an answer a particular question, God frequently shows me something else apart from what I was looking for. In this study I looked at six stories that Jesus told, that I originally selected because they had one thing in common, they each contained the the word “Lord” followed by a comma. But as I examined the stories, they were all actually similar in other ways. In each story, one or more people have arrived at a turning point in their lives where they are standing before an authority figure, the one they call “Lord”. In each story, the Lord makes--or has already made--a decision about their future. Their future will either be inside with Him, or on the outside apart from Him, based on criteria important to Him.



Whether He is called, “Lord,” doesn’t really matter to Him. What is important is this: Does He know you? Do you spend time with Him? Are you accepting forgiveness and extending forgiveness? Are you helping the helpless? Are you doing what He told you to do? These are the kinds of things that are important to Him.