Overcome the Illogical Fear of Believing
- Jerrold Reams
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Many people hesitate to accept the obvious truth [necessity] of the Creator and of the Gospel because they fear the changes that they believe will have to come with doing so. This fear often leads them to cling to a worldview that they know deep down is dreadfully wrong. They voluntarily live in a state of cognitive dissonance; a state of mind caused by holding conflicting beliefs, in this case because of choosing willful ignorance over confronting the truth (Romans 1:18-20, 2 Peter 3:5). This hesitation is often fueled by stereotypes about how Christians supposedly have to think and live. These are often images that are very unappealing and even frightening...even to me as a Christian. These tragic misconceptions are part of a larger deception that keeps people from even acknowledging the obvious existence God and believing the Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:3-4) and receiving irrevocable salvation (Romans 11:29) and the peace, and eternal security found in trusting Christ as Savior.
Let's unpack this a little bit. Again a major barrier to even entertaining the idea of acknowledging that there is a supreme Creator is the fear of the false image of what it means to be a believer. Many imagine a rather sterile, rigid, "religious," and legalistic lifestyle where every thought or action must be painfully scrutinized and where just about everything that might be fun is strictly prohibited. They imagine having to live in a constant state of mind that is akin to the proverbial walking on eggshells or to walking on a moving tightrope with burning flames directly beneath them, ever so eager to devour them, just waiting for them to slip up even just a little bit and fall in. I believe that it is this common and horribly ill-founded stereotype is that is so repulsive (it is to me) is what causes many people prefer to choose to reject the sensible and logical idea of belief in Creator God and choose to ascribe to the lie [religion] of atheism, which ultimately must reduce to the absolutely ludicrous belief that nothing, for no reason, with no cause, with no purpose, with no information, with no intention, became everything, and that then this "everything" through countless lucky accidents, each of them with odds against them being orders of magnitude, perhaps even thousands of orders of magnitude, beyond mathematical absurdity (mathematical absurdity being 1 in 10^50), with all of these lucky accidents occurring in just the right order (odds against this correct order is obviously being even greater than the odds against the aforementioned lucky accidents) then becoming the orderly universe that we see today, including our biosphere; including us. This its self is a religion; a religion that I do not have enough faith to even begin to consider. It is a religion because one must adhere to its tenets with ardor and faith in order to be able to even entertain the idea of holding it to be true.
God is not legalistic; God is the true embodiment of perfection, and perfection is anything but legalistic. Legalism produces people like the Pharisees; these are the people that Jesus (God) had his harshest words for in His earthly ministry (Matthew 23:13-39). It would be a gross understatement to say that He strongly disapproved of their behavior. The idea that choosing to acknowledge a creator demands legalistic adherence to a bunch of arbitrary rules is a lie from the pit of Hell, designed to keep people trapped in pride, ignorance, fear, and damnation.
Jesus (God) simply wants each of us to come to Him just as we are. He is not looking for us to make promises that we can't keep, or to make commitments that we do not understand and are not capable of honoring. He just wants us to do the will of His Father (God), and that is to look upon Him; which means to acknowledge Him for who He is, and believe on Him (John 6:39-40). To believe, means to trust Him and in His finished work of salvation; simply taking Him at His word. This is His desire for everyone (2 Peter 3:9).
Jesus says that His yoke is easy and His burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30). Trusting in Jesus is not only far more logical than trusting in the nothingness of atheism, but it is far more fulfilling, far more satisfying, far more hopeful, and indeed far more meaningful. You need not any longer a slave to fear (Romans 8:15), which is oftentimes masqueraded as stoicism regarding the tenets of atheism, such as final and absolute death, no free will, ultimately being utterly forgotten, no purpose, etc. You need not live in the lie that states that this is what you must resolve your existence to. He is not interested in you trying to feign feelings of sorrow or anything else, He is not interested in you somehow convincing yourself that you will resolve to live in a way that no one every could live, or would want to live. He is interested in you acknowledging your need for Him (you need Him), while fully trusting Him to fully meet that need.
He will indeed desire to (not by force) make changes in you and in your life; good changes; changes that you know deep down that you want; changes that will make you a more fulfilled, content (not complacent) purposeful, and happy person, to say the least. But again, none of this matters to anyone until they simply choose to take Him at His word and believe the Gospel; that He died for their sins, according to Scripture [in other words, trust that He is the perfectly righteous judge who judged you righteously and then fully served your sentence for you once and for all], that he was buried, and rose again on the third day [conquering death once and for all], according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15: 3-4).
OK, I know that believing that someone rose from the dead may seem like a tall order to some of you, however you are otherwise obligated to believe what is discussed in the second paragraph of this post. Just one take on this; for the Resurrection of Christ's dead body, all of the components are present and are essentially in just the right order for a human life. On the other hand, Abiogenesis, which is asserted in the second paragraph of this post does not have even a little bit of this this in place, to say the least...along with all of its other myriad problems. Also, why would someone with the creative and intellectual power of creating human life in the first place...along with everything else have a problem raising a fully formed man from the dead? Not to cheapen the Resurrection of Christ, but this would not be that big of a deal to an Almighty Creator. Also, the Resurrection of Jesus is well supported and acknowledged historically. I will not address this here at length, but the Reverend Charles Colson, who prior to being a Reverend, was one of President Nixon's chief advisors, and was involved in the Watergate scandal of the 1970's, sometimes referred to as Nixon's "hatchet man," put it this way:
"I know that the Resurrection is fact and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified that they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then proclaimed that truth for over 40 years, never once denying it. Everyone was beaten, tortured, stoned, and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men-and they couldn't keep a lie for 3 weeks. You're telling me that 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible."
I know that there are many who would "evangelize," even pastors, who can't seem to get the the idea presented here straight and make the idea of being a Christian seem much like what I described above, to one extent or another; some overtly, some, even more dangerously do so subtly. I know that many of these folks mean well, but I will say bluntly that they are wrong and they are steering many away from trusting Christ as Savior. The reality of a supreme Creator is obvious to anyone who would be honest with themself. Jesus Christ is that Creator (John 1: 1-14). He is also the Savior; not the cruel slave-master. Just let go and put your trust in Him today. This is the rest of the Lord that you are invited to enter into (Hebrews 4:3). Overcome the illogical fear of believing. God bless.
JJR
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