Tag: faith

How Often Do You Have Meaningful Spiritual Conversations?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date December 2, 2018
2 Comments on How Often Do You Have Meaningful Spiritual Conversations?

Be Intentional about Discussing Faith and Avoid Superficial Chatter

After Jesus’s death and him overcoming death, he appears on the street headed to the city of Emmaus, traveling with two of his followers. But they don’t recognize him.

He talks to them about God, the Scriptures, and faith. When they eventually realize who he is, he disappears.

Then they recall how their hearts burned when he talked to them (Luke 24:13-32).

They had a meaningful spiritual conversation.

Yes, any exchange we might have with God would be a meaningful spiritual conversation, but we can have meaningful spiritual conversations with each other too.

What is a Meaningful Spiritual Conversation?

It’s hard to define what makes a conversation both spiritual and meaningful. Yet when we encounter one, we know it. This is a result of intentional action to make our words count, celebrating Jesus and inspiring one another.

It’s bypassing those easy comments about family, work, sports, and weather. It’s skipping trivial exchanges to embrace a dialogue of purpose.

It takes work to accomplish, but it’s worth the effort. Here are some of the results that occur when we have meaningful spiritual conversations.

Meaningful Spiritual Conversations Connect Us with Each Other

Talking with one another connects us. Having insignificant discussions results in insignificant connections. Having deep conversations results in deep connections. May we always be intentional with our words.

Meaningful Spiritual Conversations Encourage Us in Our Faith

Paul writes that we are to encourage one another (2 Corinthians 13:11, 1 Thessalonians 4:18, and 1 Thessalonians 5:11, as well as Hebrews 3:13). We encourage each other through our words.

For our encouragement to have the deepest impact, it must be both meaningful and spiritual.

These conversations build us up in our faith and inspire us as we walk with Jesus.

Meaningful Spiritual Conversations Point Us to God

When we have these meaningful and spiritual exchanges, we point people to God. This may be directly or indirectly, but it is intentional. When we’re with people who share our faith and our passion, we want our conversation to match that.

As our meaningful, spiritual dialogue connects us with each other and encourages one another, it automatically directs our focus to God.

Meaningful Spiritual Conversations Are a Form of Worship

Last, these intentional conversations allow us to worship God. In the Bible, John tells us to worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24).

I’ll likely spend the rest of my life trying to unpack all that this entails, but I’m quite sure that one aspect of worshiping God in spirit and truth occurs when we have conversations with others of a meaningful, spiritual nature.

May we never lose sight of this.

May we seek meaningful spiritual conversations with others every day.

Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

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Tags Emmaus, faith, spiritual growth, spiritual journey, worship

Christian Living

How to Deal with the Faith Versus Doubt Problem

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date September 23, 2018

Struggling with Doubt Isn’t a Sin, But We Must Avoid Letting Doubt Squash Our Faith

I once listened as a friend wrestled with the issue of faith versus doubt. She groaned in anguish over her struggle to believe with full faith, dismayed over the arrows of doubt that assaulted her.

I blurted out, “Faith without doubt isn’t faith. It’s a sure thing.”

I said this without thinking, and I’m still pondering it today. I hope it came from God, but I’m not sure. I think it’s profound, but maybe it isn’t. Yes,

Jesus affirms that great power results when we have faith without doubt. It’s a faith that can actually move mountains (Matthew 21:21). But does anyone have that kind of faith?

However, I suspect that to have faith without doubt isn’t a command. Instead it’s something to strive for, a goal to pursue even though we may never reach it.

As a result we’re left to contemplate the faith versus doubt problem.

What the Bible Says about Faith Versus Doubt

The word faith appears hundreds of times in the Bible, most prominently in Psalms (74 times), followed by Romans (40 times) and Hebrews (39 times).

In Hebrews we read that “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1, NIV).

The chapter goes on to talk about the great faith of people in the Old Testament. Nowhere in the whole chapter does the issue of doubt come up. And surely some of these patriarchs did have a tinge of doubt assaulting their faith.

Yet they moved forward in faith anyway.

Interestingly the word doubt only appears fourteen times in the Bible, with the book of Matthew taking the lead (3 times).

In it Jesus criticizes his disciples for their lack of faith and for their doubt (Matthew 14:31). Later he tells Thomas to stop doubting and to believe (John 20:27).

I don’t view doubt as a sin, but I do see doubt that keeps us from acting in faith as disobedience. Ideally God would like us to have a faith with no doubt, but I don’t think it particularly bothers him when we struggle in the faith versus doubt department.

If our faith wins out over doubt, we’re good. However, we must avoid doubt that squashes faith, causing us to cower in fear instead of acting in boldness.

As long as we’re human, I suspect we’ll struggle with faith versus doubt.

But if we follow Jesus, we’ll have the power to overcome our doubt through faith.

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Tags doubt, faith, sin, Thomas

Bible Insights

Women of the Bible: Esther

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date August 9, 2018

I’ve always liked the story of Esther. She was a peasant girl who won a national beauty pageant and became queen.

In my imagination, I’ve given this tale a Cinderella-like grandness, with Esther and the king, falling in love and living happily ever after.

Alas, the story doesn’t mention love and fails to include any hints of happiness. Let’s review the facts:

Esther and her people were forcibly relocated to a foreign land. She was a spoil of war.
Esther did not opt to take part in the beauty contest. All attractive virgins were compelled to participate.
Esther’s heritage prohibited her from marrying outside her faith. To do so would be a shameful and disobedient act.

Add to this these reasonable conclusions about Esther’s “relationship” with the king:

Even after she became queen, he continued to enjoy the company of other women in his harem.
She and the king didn’t have regular interaction. He had not “summoned” her for thirty days.
She had reason to fear him. She faced execution by merely approaching him without permission.

Esther’s Prayer

In the New Jerusalem Bible (learn more), we are treated to the prayer that she offered in the middle of this. She says, in part:

“I loathe the bed of the uncircumcised,” that would be the king.
“I am under constraint” to wear the crown, that is, to be queen.
“Nor has your servant found pleasure from the day of her promotion until now.”
“Free me from my fear.”

Sadly, there is no love, happiness, or satisfaction in her role as queen. Even so she did use her unwanted position to save her people, the Jews, from a certain annihilation.

So this account of Esther isn’t a love story, at least not in the traditional sense. It is, however, a tale of valor and bravery—and a reminder that one person can make a difference.

Learn about other biblical women in Women of the Bible, available in e-book, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Tags Esther, faith, Jew, Women of the Bible

Christian Living

What’s More Important, a Strong Theology or a Childlike Faith?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date August 5, 2018
2 Comments on What’s More Important, a Strong Theology or a Childlike Faith?

When We Focus on Theology We Miss the Point of Following Jesus

A lot of people today work hard to form a correct theology. Almost every church has a theology, be it formal or implicit. They use theology to determine who’s in and who’s out. Every seminary has its own theology as well.

If you agree with their beliefs, you have a chance to graduate. But if you take issue with it, you open yourself up for criticism, condemnation, and even rejection.

Most people and religious institutions use theology as a weapon. They leverage their beliefs to divide Jesus’s followers. They claim there’s right theology and wrong theology. Unfortunately theology is in the eye of the beholder. And everyone has their own.

The word theology, of course, doesn’t appear in the Bible. Faith does. Faith shows up several hundred times, from Genesis to Revelation and most of the books in between.

A Childlike Faith

Though the disciples shoo them away, Jesus embraces little children and blesses them. He says his kingdom belongs to them (Matthew 19:13-15).

Another time Jesus says that unless we become like children we can’t enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:2-4).

This is where we get the idea of having a childlike faith, the faith of a little child.

Jesus doesn’t say, “You have to get your theology right for me to accept you into my kingdom.” Instead, he says, “Come to me like a little child.” To Jesus our theology doesn’t matter as much as our faith, the faith of a child.

Yet we persist in pursuing a right theology, a systematic theology. Yet if a systematic theology was important, you think it would be in the Bible.

Paul would’ve been a good person to write it. Instead Paul talks about faith. He talks about faith a lot, mentioning it about one hundred times.

Our faith, not our theology, is important to Jesus. And our faith is also important to Paul, or he wouldn’t have written about it so much.

Over the centuries, especially the last five, people argued much about theology. They fought over it and even killed for it. Each time they did, they divided the church of Jesus.

Instead of being one, as Jesus prayed, we formed denominations—42,000 of them.

We’ve majored in theology and minored in faith.

We got it wrong, and we need to fix it. We need to stop our preoccupation with theology and simply come to Jesus in faith, just like a child. Then we will enter the kingdom of heaven.

Read more in his books, blog, and weekly email updates.

Tags denominations, faith, theology

Bible Insights

What’s the Only Thing That Counts?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date November 8, 2017
2 Comments on What’s the Only Thing That Counts?

Paul tells us that faith and love is what matters most

In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he opens chapter five with a discussion about freedom and slavery, about following the law and not following the law. He says that in Jesus these things have no value. So what counts the most?

His explanation of this is a bit confusing. It’s a passage we need to go back and reread to try to understand what this prolific biblical writer is trying to tell us. But if we don’t quite grasp it, that’s okay.

Paul summarizes his point in one succinct line: “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6, NIV).

The only thing that counts is love expressed through faith.

Think about it.

Faith

Faith is the starting point. We have faith in God the father through Jesus the son as revealed by God’s Holy Spirit. We have faith that God lives in us and is through us.

We have faith that a better tomorrow awaits us, both in this world and in the next.

We have faith that God is with us in all circumstances and at all times, that he answers our prayers aligned with his sovereign wisdom.

Love

But faith alone fall short. James tells us that faith without action is dead (James 2:17). While action could mean many things, let’s go back to Paul. He says that through our faith we are to express love. That’s what matters.

If faith is the starting point of the one thing that counts, love expressed is the outcome. Love is a confusing word in today’s modern society, covering the full gamut of emotions from preference to passion.

To understand the kind of love that Paul is talking about, we should go back to the Bible, we should go back to the words of Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church.

He starts out by saying, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud” (1 Corinthians 13:4, NIV).

Hope

He ends his explanation of love with these words, “Now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Did you catch this? In Paul’s trio of traits, he starts with faith, and he ends with love. Hope is what connects the two.

May we use our faith to express our love to others. It’s the only thing that counts. Paul says so.

[Read through the Bible this year. Today’s reading is Galatians 4-6, and today’s post is on Galatians 5:6.]

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Tags faith, hope, love, Paul

Christian Living

Bearing Fruit is Key; Having a Right Theology Isn’t

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date October 8, 2017

In matters of faith, it’s not what we believe, it’s what we do

One of the promises during the modern era was that through the Age of Enlightenment (Age of Reason) we could pursue truth and it would eventually converge on a single understanding of reality. This didn’t happen.

Instead of converging to reach consensus, we diverged to produce disagreement.

Though this is true in all facets of our life, it is perhaps most pronounced in the area of spirituality. Protestantism is a prime example, with our 42,000 denominations disagreeing with one another.

We fight about theology. Then we separate ourselves from those who don’t agree with us.

The sad thing about pursuing a right theology is the inevitable conclusion that everyone who doesn’t agree with us is wrong and headed down a misguided path. Then we separate ourselves and cause more division.

At a most basic level, theology is the study of God. I think about him a great deal. I contemplate my relationship with him. I wonder how that should inform the way I interact with others.

Yes, I think a lot about theology (God), not as an intellectual pursuit but as a matter of spiritual imperative.

To be painfully honest, I must admit a sense of pleasure over the results of my spiritual musings. I hope a degree of humility can replace this hint of pride.

Although I think my deliberations in spirituality are correct and produce meaningful insights, I hold my views loosely. After all I could be wrong.

The reality is that the details of how we understand God don’t matter as much as how this understanding affects the way we live. God doesn’t care about our theology nearly as much as he does our actions.

We need to produce fruit. Jesus says that bearing fruit glorifies God (John 15:8).

This means we need to put our faith in action. The Bible tells us to. James discusses this (James 2:14-26). He ends this passage by saying faith without action is dead (James 2:14, CEB).

What we believe doesn’t matter nearly as much as what we do. May we never forget that.

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Tags denominations, faith, humility, pride, theology

Christian Living

The Role Faith Plays in the Creation Versus Evolution Debate

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date September 24, 2017
2 Comments on The Role Faith Plays in the Creation Versus Evolution Debate

For all their differences, both creation and the theory of evolution require an element of faith

In school I learned about evolution. In church I learned about creation.

Creation marks the beginning of the Bible and forms the foundation of my worldview, which started as a child from my parents and became an informed decision as an adult.

I’m not sure if creation versus evolution is an either/or consideration, or if there’s a way for them to peaceably coexist. It could happen. But I do know is that either perspective requires an element of faith.

Obviously, it requires faith to believe in an unseen God who created the universe and has an interest in us as his creation.

However, when I look at the theory of evolution in follow its path back to the beginning, I reach a point where something had to come out of nothing.

That requires a great deal of faith, too, even more then is needed to accept that God made us and the world we live in.

To me it’s easier to, by faith, except a superior entity who exists outside our time-space reality.

In fact, since time and space exist on a continuum, if you perceive God as the creator of space, then he’s also the creator of time. That means he exists outside our time-space reality, which he created as our playground.

On a simple scale, it’s much like you or I constructing an ant farm. We would exist outside our creation, and the ants would live inside it. The ant farm would be the ant’s world, their reality.

We would be an entity external to them and beyond their comprehension.

The issue of creation versus evolution boils down to faith. Which is easier to accept in faith? At its basic core evolution requires we accept that something came out of nothing.

Conversely, creation requires we have faith of an entity who lives outside our time-space reality.

Given this, I need less faith to believe in creation than I do to accept the theory of evolution.

Yes, there’s a middle ground, that God created our reality using the process of evolution.

To me it doesn’t matter how God created us and our world. I see myself as a created being and desire to worship the God who made me.

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Tags creation, faith

Bible Insights

Put Your Faith in Action

Good deeds and right living don’t earn our salvation, but they do confirm it

Paul writes to his friends in Thessalonica. He reminds them—and us—that salvation is a gift from God. We can’t earn it and can only receive it through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9).

But it seems that many people do try to earn their salvation through their actions, by living in right ways and doing good works for others.

James helps us put this into perspective. Though our actions don’t earn our right standing with God, they do prove it.

He asks, “How can I see your faith apart from your actions?” He goes on to say, “I’ll show you my faith by putting it into practice. You’ll know my faith is real by the things that I do,” (see James 2:18).

From God’s perspective, our actions don’t earn us anything. Yes, doing good may earn us attention from other people. We can receive appreciation from those we help and admiration from those who watch us.

Yet to God our good works don’t matter.

Then why should we bother?

It’s through our right behavior and what we do to help others that we prove we have faith. By putting our faith into action, we demonstrate that it’s real. Faith without works is dead.

We don’t act in certain ways to garner God’s favor. Instead, the things we do emerge from our gratitude for what he has done for us. Think of our actions as a tangible way of saying “thank you” to God for the gift he gave us.

By his grace and through our faith, we receive salvation. We need nothing more. But if we truly appreciate this gift of what he has done for us, then we show him by what we do.

We put our faith into action. And that honors God.

[Read through the Bible this year. Today’s reading is James 1-3, and today’s post is on James 2:18.]

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Tags faith, salvation

Christian Living

Does Dropping Out of Church Mean Turning Your Back on God?

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date May 28, 2017

Church Attendance May Relate to Faith or the Two May Have No Connection

On a broader scope, I keep hearing reports that Millennials (or some other demographic) have turned from God and left their faith. What is the reason for this conclusion?

It’s simple. They’ve dropped out and no longer go to church.

Ergo they must have abandoned their faith. However, just as some people attend church and don’t really know God, others know God quite well but have given up on church.

We need to, once and for all, disconnect the assumption that church attendance equates to faith—and that regular attendance implies a vibrant faith.

To the contrary, I’ve heard many people say they stopped going to church to preserve their faith in God, that church attendance damaged their state of spiritual being more than it helped.

Don’t take my assertion that church attendance is not an indicator of faith as an excused to stop going. However, if going to church presents an unhealthy burden for you or causes you more harm than good, then perhaps you need to find a different church.

And by different church, I don’t necessarily mean a different denomination or a different style of service, but to perhaps re-envision what church is.

It’s All About Meeting Together

At the basic level church is where two or more people gather in Jesus’s name (Matthew 18:20). This might mean in a church building on Sunday morning. Or it may mean at a coffee shop Wednesday afternoon or a restaurant Friday evening.

How about a sports event on Saturday or dinner on Sunday? What about a game night or movie outing?

Before you bristle at the implication that playing games or watching movies in Jesus’s name is on a par to Sunday morning church attendance, which one offers more Christian community?

Which is the setting where serious faith conversations are more likely to occur?

When the Bible warns us to not give up meeting together (Hebrews 10:25), it’s not talking about going to church. It’s really talking about meeting together.

This may mean meeting at the coffee shop, restaurant, sports event, Sunday dinner, game night, or movies.

We are not to live our faith in isolation but in community. However, we must dissuade ourselves of the notion that this community should happen on Sunday morning.

If the traditional form of church has let you down, don’t give up on all forms of Christian community.

Find one that works for you and pursue it at all costs. Your faith may depend on it.

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Tags church attendance, faith

Christian Living

Let Us Persevere in Our Faith

Post author By Peter DeHaan
Post date April 23, 2017

The Book of Hebrews Tells Us How to React to What God Has Done For Us

An interesting passage in Hebrews opens with a reminder of who we are in Jesus and through Jesus (Hebrews 10:23-25). With this as our perspective, the author tells us four things we should do in response.

Let Us Pursue God

The NIV says to “draw near to God.” I like this imagery of us steadfastly moving toward God, getting closer and closer, almost as though he gently pulls us to him. Though we can accept or reject his supernatural yearning to pull us close, we consent to his attraction when we pursue him.

May we pursue God as if nothing else matters—because nothing else does. We need to do this with a sincere heart and full of faith.

Let Us Hold Onto Hope

Next we need to grasp the hope we claim to have within us. If we say we have hope but don’t act like it, what good is that? Instead our behavior, both in thought and in action, must align with what we believe.

And if we face temptation to waiver in our hope, Hebrews reminds us that he will faithfully give us what he promised. Cling to our hope.

Let Us Encourage One Another

Third is the reminder to encourage each other. While we can nurture many godly traits in others, this passage specifically mentions two: love and good deeds. It’s as if nothing else matters.

We love others in the same way God loves us. He shows us his perfect love and we strive to follow his example. And we help others. Why? Not to get God’s attention or to achieve some agenda, but because he says so.

The practical extension of love is to do kind things for others. Love connects to good deeds.

Let Us Not Isolate Ourselves

We can’t realize all God desires for us if we separate ourselves from his other followers. Together we stay strong. Apart we falter. As the Bible says, “A cord of three strands is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:12).

The oft-quoted text for this is to let us not give up meeting together, which many misapply (read more about this). The point is to hang out with others who follow Jesus. The details of what this looks like is for us to determine.

As followers of Jesus, may we pursue God, cling to hope, offer encouragement, and spend time with each other.

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Tags faith, hope, love, supernatural