Unreasonable faith

"Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life." - Revelation 2:10

How should we answer the most important questions in life? And how should we choose our path?

If you think about it, no matter how intelligent you are there will always be someone smarter than you.

So to answer the most important questions in life if the answers can be intellectually discerned then we just need to find the smartest person on earth and ask her or him.

I believe God gave us a brain for a reason and we are supposed to use it to reason with ourselves and with other believers but not to reason someone into faith in Christ or to allow ourselves to be reasoned out of our faith in Christ. There are lots of things to be reasonable about but there are times when we are to be unreasonable.

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. 

I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away - 1 Corinthians 2:1-6

Even a serpent was able to reason Eve out of following God's commandments:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” 

The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”  

The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!" - Genesis 3:1-4

Doubt is powerful and it can cause our minds to waver but having faith in Christ and in His Word is a powerful shield. In this area its more important to be faithful until death than to be reasonable.

Caffè Americano

¹ 

Who has believed our message?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

² For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,
And like a root out of parched ground;
He has no stately form or majesty
That we should look upon Him,
Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

³ He was despised and forsaken of men,
A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;
And like one from whom men hide their face
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

⁴ Surely our griefs He Himself bore,
And our sorrows He carried;
Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten of God, and afflicted.

⁵ But He was pierced through for our transgressions,
He was crushed for our iniquities;
The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him,
And by His scourging we are healed.

- Isaiah 53:1-5

My four year old daughter asked me today to make her a coffee. "But don't put any of that bad stuff that you put in it last time"

That "bad stuff" that I put in it was coffee. She wanted milk and french vanilla creamer and I put the smallest bit of coffee in it and it really bothered her.

Anyways today I made her a "coffee" that was just milk with french vanilla creamer.

I think Christianity in North America is a bit like this. Some people want to be Christians without any trouble, trials or tribulation. Trouble in this world would be hard enough on its own, it would be extremely disheartening if you expected it to be all sugary.

One of my sisters once said to me, "I think God is more concerned with our character than our happiness". Things might make more sense looking at our lives in this world through that lens.  

Thankfully Christ has overcome the world.