This week’s devotions are based on the Week 2 “Explore God” – Is there a God? (WATCH HERE)
A poll done in 2022 indicates that 85% would strongly agree or agree that God is real. 15% had doubts or certainty that God was not real. Another part of that poll indicated that in the last 10 years (2012-2022) there has been a 11 percentage point drop in those that believe in God (92% to 81%)
So while perhaps the question, “Is God Real?” was not as common 10-20 years ago, the question is being asked more today, challenged by many and answered in the negative by a growing number of people.
So is God real?
What if someone asked you that? How would you respond?
On the surface, the answer as a Bible-believing person is, “Of course, God is real.” On the other hand, the situation that has led a person to deny or dismiss the reality of God, let alone the God revealed at the true God in the Bible becomes more complicated.
Two questions I like to use when this topic has come up in conversation are these:
- What’s led you to question the existence/reality of God?
- What would you need God to do to prove to you he was real?
The answer to number one is often an incongruency between what is happening life and what the person believes or feels like God should be doing in their life or the life of others. When the incongruence is too great, instead of changing one’s understand of God and how he operates, the concept of God is dismissed an other explanations sought after.
The answer to number 2 is often challenged by specific “miracles” that are demanded of God and then the specific request isn’t granted and the reality of God is challenged in the person’s heart.
Remember the story of the person stuck on a roof during a flood and eventually drowned? Before he drowned, two row boats and a helicopter came to his aid, but he responded to each when asked if he wanted to get aboard, “No I believe God is going to save me.” When he died and stood before God, he asked, “So how come you didn’t save me? I trusted you would.” To which God responded, “I sent you two rowboats and helicopter. What more did you want?”
The point is sometimes we set in our minds how WE want God to prove his existence and fail to see what God IS DOING to show his reality and existence.
So we don’t miss it, where is God showing his reality?
By the fourth English word of the Bible, God shows up.
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
There is not a page in Scripture that eliminates the reality of God. Every book of the BIble is filled with references to God, God’s name, God’s activity, God’s interaction with people. If what the Bible says is true, then we ought to find evidence of God in places he indicates he will show up.
Perhaps at times we look too hard or simply don’t want to confront the reality of God. God is making himself plain in different venues of life. It’s these clear manifestations of God we will explore this week so that our faith in God is strengthened. These evidences have a purpose – so we know God is real and have no excuse to believe or say otherwise.
Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Apply: If you were to make a list of things that prove God’s reality to you, what would they be?
Prayer: Lord, send your Spirit to open my eyes to the many and varied ways you show yourself to be real in my life and the world around me. AMEN.