Moments Together for Couples
MOMENTS TOGETHER FOR COUPLES
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MOMENTS TOGETHER FOR COUPLES
Pastors Joe and Diana Johnson, Senior Pastors
Risen Son of Faith Christian Center
11200 Baseline Road
Rancho Cucamonga, Ca. 91730
(800) 646-0796
SEEING IS BELIEVING (PART ONE)
John 20:29
Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”
Have you ever noticed how some businesses creatively communicate a service or product through a catchy name or slogan?
A few years ago I noted the slogan of Johnson’s Flower and Garden Center in Washington, D.C.: “Our Business Is Blooming!” Our garbage company had one of my favorites: “We guarantee satisfaction or double your garbage back!”
Another one recently grabbed my attention. A Christian optometrist named his practice “Seeing Is Believing.” When I saw that, my mind raced back to when I graduated from junior college.
I was a normal 20-year-old in the midst of the tumultuous sixties. I had no purpose. My life was chock-full of compromise, doubt, perplexing questions I couldn’t answer and frequent despair.
Everything I had touched for the past year had turned to gold-grades, girls and college athletics. You would have thought I had everything, but I had lost my faith. I had become a “practical atheist.” Just like Thomas in the book of John, I was full of doubts and had questions like: Is the Bible really God’s Word? Why does God allow suffering? If Christianity is a hoax, what is the purpose of life?
Precariously balanced with one foot on the banana peel of doubt and the other foot in the world, I began to honestly seek what God had to say about my life. Throughout my quest one question haunted me: “Must I really see it to believe it?”
My slippery spiritual descent was halted in the fall of l968 when God loved me out of my unbelief. One person He used was evangelist Tom Skinner who shared the following quote:
I spent a long time trying to come to grips with my doubts, when suddenly I realized I had better come to grips with what I believe. I have since moved from the agony of questions that I cannot answer, to the reality of answers that I cannot escape…and it’s a great relief.
You see, my life was riddled with questions I couldn’t answer. Ultimately, I doubted God’s existence. And I realized I needed to look at the answers I couldn’t escape.
Prayer: Ask God to give you an inner conviction of the truth of Scripture, or the answers you cannot escape.
Discuss:
What are the questions about God or Christianity that have caused you to doubt God’s existence? Be honest with your spouse about your questions.
Seeing Is Believing (Part Two)
2 Corinthians 5:7
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
As a young man I realized that struggling over questions that can’t be answered on this side of heaven’s gate was a waste of time. Why spend life questioning every minute detail of the Christian life when there are so many obvious truths that cannot be ignored?
I knew the Resurrection was true. If Christ is still in the tomb then Christianity has little more to offer me than other world religions. But it is an irrefutable fact of history-Christ is risen.
I knew the Bible to be true. We have more evidence that today’s Bible is what was originally written than any other historical document of its age.
Science and archaeology continue to prove (rather than disprove) the Bible’s historical accuracy. And its central theme remains clear: God loves mankind and wants to redeem men and women to Himself.
It tells us how to live. It gives us hope in the face of death. And it contains the best set of blueprints for building a home (a marriage and family) that I’ve ever seen.
One additional truth helped erase my doubts: I knew that the risen Lord Jesus Christ lived in me. He came to change my life. As I focused on the facts of Christianity I began to see the scales of faith tip toward belief. I began to base my life on what I knew to be true.
What have been the results? A life that is an adventure. Walking with God is electrifying. A lasting sense of destiny and significance that isn’t man-made or fake. The privilege of being used by God for eternal purposes. His Holy Spirit empowers me to deny my selfishness and enables me to love people. A sense of peace, well-being and contentment that can only come when I obey Him.
The phrase “Seeing Is Believing” may work for a Christian optometrist, but if you wait to believe until you answer all your doubts and questions, you’ll be waiting until it’s too late!
Prayer: If you’ve never done so, give God 100 percent control of your life right now. And if you’ve already done that, but have taken back ownership, you may need to reestablish who is going to be Lord of your life.
Discuss: What are the truths that you cannot escape? What impact should these truths have on your life and your marriage?
By Dennis and Barbara Rainey
