10 February 2013 – Day 549 – John Allen – http://encounters-with-god.com
When the police suspect someone of nefarious activity, they set up a fake operation where they pretend to be criminals themselves and offer to help. With their help, the suspect is able to make a free-will choice to carry out his plot. If they go too far and talk the suspect into doing something he wasn’t planning to do, they can be accused of entrapment and the suspect will be set free.
God has done the same thing with us. By giving us free will, he allows us to choose him or reject him. This gives us the false impression that our relationship with him is up to us. We think we are in control. The truth is that God doesn’t want to be with people who reject him, and it would not be difficult for him to determine that without consulting us, but he wants us to be aware of our choice so we can’t complain about entrapment.
The reason God created us, the only purpose for our existence, is to develop a relationship with God. Without that relationship, there is no reason for God to keep us around. So when you say, “I don’t believe in God,” he says, “Fine, I don’t believe in you either.” Guess who goes away into oblivion. We only exist as a thought in God’s mind. If God stops thinking of us, we don’t exist.
But there is another side to the sting. God tests us by disguising himself and coming to us every day in the form of all the people in our life. If we love them when they can’t do anything for us, he knows we will love him. He sends hard times to see if we will remain faithful to him even when we think he has abandoned us. If our relationship with God isn’t worth more to us than a happy, carefree life, he isn’t going to trust us to stand with him through eternity.
The point of going through hard times isn’t to see how much pain and suffering we can endure. Even though we may experience great pain and suffering in our trials, the point is to see if we will trust God to comfort and guide us through it. No matter how terrible it gets, God can make it work out for our benefit if we will trust him instead of blaming him.
There is overwhelming evidence for the existence of God, but since it is not objective evidence, it is subject to interpretation. We are surrounded by his workmanship, but we can’t take a picture of him doing it. If you want the truth, it is obvious, but if you don’t, you will be able to offer alternate explanations. Even though your alternative is highly improbable, no one can prove you are wrong.
So the nature of our situation allows us to freely choose to believe or not, which is what God wants. As I pointed out earlier, it is not God’s existence that is at stake. He doesn’t want us unless we want to believe in him. If we choose God, the evidence will confirm our decision, and if we reject God, we will be easily deceived into believing the evidence proves we are correct.
The unbelievers overlook two obvious facts. It is not possible to prove or disprove spiritual things with physical evidence, and spiritual evidence is just as real as physical evidence. God reveals himself as a Spirit to every person who accepts Jesus Christ. That evidence is real, even though it is spiritual. There is simply no physical evidence that can contradict the fact that God is a Spirit.
The reason God sets things up so we couldn’t prove his existence one way or another is because he wants our faith to be based on a free-will choice, rather than a logical conclusion of our mind. In the same way, he does not promise we will live happily ever after with no problems, because he doesn’t want our belief to be based on emotion and the rewards we get for being faithful.
This is serious business that will determine our eternal fate. There is no way to fake it, or slip one past God. We are here to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Nothing is more important than that. If we try to put anything else above love, we will get snagged by God’s sting operation.
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