Category: Faith Quest

A man is convinced he is dead. His wife and kids are exasperated. They keep telling him he’s not dead. But he continues to insist he’s dead.

They try telling him, “Look, you’re not dead; you’re walking and talking and breathing; how can you be dead?” But he continues to insist he is dead.

The family finally takes him to a doctor. The doctor pulls out some medical books to demonstrate to the man that dead men do not bleed. He takes him to the mortuary and pricks the fingers of the corpses with a needle to emphasize the point. After some time, the man admits that dead men do not bleed.

The doctor then takes the man’s hand and a needle and pokes the end of his finger. The man starts bleeding. He looks at his finger and says, “What do you know? DEAD MEN DO BLEED!”

We too can choose to obstinately believe what we wish irrespective of the evidence. This makes it very challenging to consider evidence objectively. Even if we don’t consider the external evidence, eternity is set in our hearts and there is a deep longing for it. Sometimes we kill the longing, yet it tugs at our heart strings given an opportunity.

What about our longings for justice? We know that most often justice in not served in this life. There are those who have cheated, stolen, indulged in vile behavior and even abuse but die without getting their just dues. If this life is all that there is, our sense of outrage at injustice in misplaced. Some will anyway escape it – but there is life after death and judgment.

But now pause for a moment and ask yourself – am I really who I pretend to be? What about my greed, my jealousy, my bitterness, my lust,…..? Am I ready to receive my just dues too, especially when I consider my thought life and my imaginations? The Bible tells us that ‘all have sinned and fallen short of God’s standard’. So what is the way out? Of course, we have to bear the punishment for it. But we will not be able to bear the punishment for our sins – it is eternal separation from God.

Now wait a minute – God has already done something to reach out to us – He has paid the price for my disobedience by the death of Jesus on the cross. He has taken my place in death so that I can share with him in his resurrection from the dead into eternal life. Dead men do not bleed and …. There is life after death. Eternal Joy for those who have been cleansed from their sin!

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FaithQuest is a safe place for you to ask any question you have about God, Faith & Life in general.

Every human has a hunger within that needs to be filled in by God. Blaise  Pascal, the famous French mathematician and philosopher, put it like this: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God the Creator, ……”.

C S Lewis explains ‘Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water. Men feel sexual desire: well, there is such a thing as sex. If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death; I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside; I must make it the main object of life to press on to that country and to help others to do the same.”

All religions at its root are about this hunger – humans attempting to reach God and please him. These are human efforts and really get nowhere at the end of the day, except to feel the vacuum more deeply. What happens after the gaiety of a festival? Are we waiting for the next one to take our eyes off the mundane-ness of our existence?

But Jesus Christ was born as man among men so that God could bridge the gap between humans and himself. Jesus Christ is God reaching out to us. And, that is the fundamental difference between the Christian faith and all the others. We just have to receive the grace of God given through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ to be in a living relationship with God. We are not only promised eternal life as individuals but we also start experiencing the daily fullness of a purposeful life. Not driven now by desires of the flesh that can satisfy only for a time, but by what is everlasting.

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FaithQuest is a safe place for you to ask any question you have about God, Faith & Life in general.

Q: Judaism,  Christianity and Islam came from the same source. If they are children of the same God,  why so many clashes in community? 

What is common about Judaism, Islam and Christianity is that they are theistic religions – meaning they all believe in a moral, personal, infinite God. They are also similar, in that, they believe in God who has revealed himself through writings, though each has a different book. Islam is based on the teachings of Mohammed the prophet.

The Christian faith shares the same books of Judaism which is called the Old Testament. But the Bible goes on to say that the Messiah that the Old Testament promises is Jesus Christ. Jesus is God himself who was born once as a human being, lived among men and was finally crucified on the cross on trumped up charges. But having lived a sinlessly perfect life, even to his death, he was raised from the dead to live eternally. The life of Jesus, his teaching and those of his disciples are recorded in the New Testament of the Bible.

One does not become a disciple of Jesus by being born in a Christian home as much as one does not become a car by being born in a garage. Even participation of the rituals of the church does not make one a disciple of Jesus. Irrespective of which community, culture, caste or religious persuasion you were born in you have to make a conscious decision to follow Jesus to become a disciple of Jesus. Those who have given their life to the Lordship of Jesus know what it means to be loved unconditionally and to also have a peace that passes human understanding.

Further, we need to keep in mind that God disclosed in the Bible in different in essence from that of Islam and Judaism – He is Trinitarian – meaning He is one God in three persons. The Godhead is in community and lives in perfect harmony. So, the Christian faith is rooted in the essence of one God yet in eternal fellowship. The triune God has lived in this perfect relationship from eternity to eternity. The question of a a disciple causing disharmony runs contrary to the very being of the God he claims to worship.

So, the disciple of Jesus is one who should have peace within and also be able to share that peace in society by being peacemakers. So, no one who is living as a disciple of Jesus would be the cause of disharmony in society.

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FaithQuest is a safe place for you to ask any question you have about God, Faith & Life in general.

Q: I’m confused what I wanna do in life , my parents want me to become an engineer but I wanna do sports that’s what I love . What should I do? 

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FaithQuest is a safe place for you to ask any question you have about God, Faith & Life in general.

First Vijit I want to thank you for this question. Because there is a lot of mis-understanding in the world surrounding the issue of money and the church. As well as a lot of mis-understanding about what GOD’s provision looks like in the life of His worshipers.

Let me begin with the first mis-understanding: God needs money. Just to be clear this is simply not true. Many people who claim the name of Jesus have mis-lead people about this truth. Let me say very plainly — GOD needs nothing! He is completely and wholly self-sustaining and has never needed anything from anyone or anything. The Bible addresses this mis-understanding in the book of ACTS.

ACTS 17
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for “ ‘In him we live and move and have our being’;

The first and greatest understanding of GOD in the Bible is that he is completely self-sufficient and needs nothing outside of himself to be whole. This is what makes God, greater than all other gods of the world.

The Bible begins with the phrase “In the beginning GOD created…” Before there was anything GOD existed. He is known as the eternal uncreated one. Which means he is not dependent upon anything but rather everything else is completely dependent on Him. Which leads to the second truth.

GOD owns everything. He created the world and everything in it. Which means He owns everything to begin with. We (His creation) are simply stewards living in GOD’s earth. everything we have is for the purpose of His glory which leads to our ultimate joy. We need air to breathe and need breathe to live.

We don’t produce air. GOD made trees which produce oxygen which is necessary for life. We don’t make rain our sunshine or any of the other things that are necessary to produce the crops which allow us to eat and live. This changes our view of GOD and changes how we view bringing our offerings to him.

It is not because He needs it is motivated by gratitude for what He has already given us. The concept of tithing (giving 10% of your income to the church) was not instituted because GOD needed something it was instituted because we need.

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FaithQuest is a safe place for you to ask any question you have about God, Faith & Life in general.

This is an incredible question and arguably the most important question that any of us can ask as we seek to know GOD.

Hidden in this question are the questions: How is the Christian GOD different than all the other gods of the world? AND Why is He worthy of my worship?

Let’s begin with where we get this idea of the Holiness of GOD…

Over and over in the Hebrew scriptures the GOD of all creation is described as Holy. In Isaiah 6 The seraphim (heavenly creatures) circle GOD’s throne singing Holy, Holy, Holy and at the end of the scriptures the whole earth is singing the same refrain Holy, Holy, Holy. God has always revealed himself in the splendor of His Holiness. GOD above all things will be known as HOLY. But what does that mean and why is that important for our knowing of GOD?

1 Samuel 2:2
“There is no one holy like the LORD, Indeed, there is no one besides You, Nor is there any rock like our God.”

This passage of Scripture is a great place to start. It simply states that there is no one like Israel’s GOD. He is completely and perfectly other. There is no comparison. He is more beautiful, supremely more valuable, and completely worthy of our attention, adoration, and submission.

To be holy is to be distinct, separate, in a class by oneself.

The Holiness of God is His most important attribute, because it is the Holiness of God that defines every other one of His attributes. Holiness is hard for us to understand because it means that there is no comparison. GOD is literally incomparably greater than all things.

Why?

Well first it is important to know that GOD created ALL things. There is nothing that is created that was not made by GOD, through GOD, and for GOD.

Colossians 1:16
“By him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”

This means that GOD has always existed and there will never be anything greater, more majestic, authoritative, powerful, worthy of worship than the one true GOD of the Scriptures.

One of our greatest problem in our understanding of GOD is that we try and compare Him with either ourselves or with created things.We have a tendency to imagine things about GOD that are not true and then live as if they are true. Since the beginning of humanity mankind has worshipped man-made god’s. We have a tendency to take created things, things that were meant to draw us to GOD and begin to worship those things as if they were GOD. We all ascribe attributes to these false god’s that were reserved only for the one true GOD of all creation. This is called idolatry.

When GOD began pursuing His people He caused them to see that He was like none other.

What makes God so beautiful is His holiness. Because all other attributes of GOD are defined by this attribute. God is loving, just, righteous, all-powerful, all-knowing, merciful, and sovereign over all. The holiness of God means that God’s love is completely and wholly different than anything else we know. It’s perfect and better than Man’s love. It’s pure and without spot or blemish. God is not only sovereign over all things, He is holy sovereign. Meaning no other power in the heavens and earth has ultimate power over creation.

This is why the Ten Commandments (Moral Law of GOD) begins with this truth:

Deuteronomy 5

Then Moses summoned all Israel and said to them:
“Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the ordinances which I am speaking today in your hearing, that you may learn them and observe them carefully. “The LORD our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. “The LORD did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, with all those of us alive here today. “The LORD spoke to you face to face at the mountain from the midst of the fire, while I was standing between the LORD and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the LORD; for you were afraid because of the fire and did not go up the mountain.

He said,
‘I am the LORD your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.‘You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. ‘You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, and on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

To know GOD as Holy is to recognize His supreme, beauty, worth, and power over all other things. We cannot know GOD if we don’t first recognize Him as HOLY.

Why is GOD so Holy? Because there truly is no one like our GOD!

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FaithQuest is a safe place for you to ask any question you have about God, Faith & Life in general.

The Bible tells us that God not only created a good universe, but also made humans in his image with the ability to love one another and make choices. When humans disobeyed God, the good life that God had planned for them was lost. Something fundamental changed within them – there came in greed, insecurity, lust, jealousy, selfishness and many other such negative qualities.

[bctt tweet=”Why is there difference between rich and poor?” username=”gatheringmumbai”]

Thus soon after the beginning of time we as individuals, depending on how we have allowed these negative qualities to govern us, have started exploiting nature and fellow-humans. Selfishness, greed and insecurity are at the heart of such wide economic disparity amongst humans.

These qualities cannot be eradicated by any means, but by allowing God to change us from within. Human effort has failed. History shows us that Laws, no matter how many, have failed to reign in our self-centredness. We are still able to manipulate and exploit loopholes to serve our selfish purposes.

Jesus died on the cross to give those who trust in him a new life from within. The externals may not seem to change but deep within us we start loving others and seeking their well being. This will lead to generosity beyond what is normally possible because we are secure for this life and the life to come.

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FaithQuest is a safe place for you to ask any question you have about God, Faith & Life in general.

Yes, the movie Ghostbusters was popular but there is no indication that ghosts that are produced out of slime (green or otherwise) exist.

[bctt tweet=”Do ghosts exist?” username=”gatheringmumbai”]

But, humans and created beings/creatures (birds, fish, animals etc.) whom we see around us are not alone. There is a realm of beings who cannot be seen, touched or heard by normal human faculties that exist. The Bible talks about God, angels, the devil and his hordes.

Angels protect and serve those who are in a living dynamic relationship with God who is revealed in Jesus Christ.

The devil and his ilk take upon themselves the task of destroying all that is good , beautiful and joyful in the human race.

But, finally it is God who rules over all creation and the devil and his followers cannot harm those who trust God.

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FaithQuest is a safe place for you to ask any question you have about God, Faith & Life in general.

There is sufficient evidence to clearly indicate that a ‘personal, moral, intelligent Super natural being’ Whom we call God exists. Though a detailed answer is possible the major points (which you can research further on) are:

[bctt tweet=”Can we prove that God exist?” username=”gatheringmumbai”]

a) The universe in finite. Every finite thing/effect is caused by another. But there cannot be a infinite chain of finite causes – it has to stop at the infinite – He is God

b) There is design in the universe – both at the macro and mirco level. This is undeniable. It is absurd to suggest that design can come about by accident or chance. It is not the way we experience things (imagine looking at an airplane and saying that it is the result of an explosion at an aircraft hangar? …. multiple explosions over a large period of time? Absurd). This God is definitely intelligent.

c) Humans have personality. This cannot have come from thin air or from impersonality. We are relational beings,have emotions, love-hate, appreciate beauty, desire justice etc. This has definitely come from one who is personal.

d) We differentiate between good and bad, between what is desirable and not. This moral fabric in every human cannot be denied. Even in the worst case scenario the most unscrupulous person would expect loyalty and faithfulness from a trusted aide. So again, if we are moral the one who made us would also be moral.

All of these factors which we have considered above is the God described in the Bible. The Bible goes on to tell us that this God who is the creator of this vast and intricate universe stepped into space and time as Jesus Christ. He lived among us, participated in human activity and then was subjected to a farce of a trial and sentenced to death by jealous religious leaders. He was crucified on a cross but rose again three days later – victorious over death. He thus defeated the ultimate inescapable human enemy – death; and now promises new life to those who receive his gift of eternal life.

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FaithQuest is a safe place for you to ask any question you have about God, Faith & Life in general.

As a natural “over thinker” myself I really appreciate this question Rushab!  If I’m not careful I find myself overthinking everything!  Asking questions of what if this happens or maybe I should have done this.

There are a few practical things that have really helped me in my life to stop overthinking things so much.  The first is to just recognize when I’m doing it and then remind myself that worrying about things will not actually solve any of my problems.  Another thing that I have found that really helps is evaluating what I’m over thinking.  Asking, what can I actually change, and letting go of the things I have no control over. There’s a passage in the Bible that really has helped me when I find myself overthinking things too much…

“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not of more value than they?  And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?  And why are you anxious about clothing?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even King Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?  Therefore do not be anxious saying what shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or what shall we wear?  For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.  But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.  Sufficient of the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:25-34)

Whether you believe the Bible to be true or not, this message is powerful!  Worrying and overthinking things will not add a single hour to our life and each day has enough to focus on so why spend our time and energy overthinking things we cannot change.

– Julie

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FaithQuest is a safe place for you to ask any question you have about God, Faith & Life in general.