Questions are important and if you don’t ask the right questions you will miss much of what is most important in life. There are four essential questions in life. How you answer them determines almost everything else.
1. Does God exist?
2. Is God powerful?
3. Is God good?
4. Does God truly love me?
You may want to consider what you really believe regarding those questions. If God doesn’t exist, all bets are off. You (and everyone else) are on your own in a dangerous world. If God is powerful but doesn’t love you, you are still on your own and must protect yourself at all costs…perhaps even from God. If God is not good all the time, then he may abandon you or even hurt you on any given day on a whim.. And if God loves you but has no power, then you are gratified but must still protect and provide for yourself.
All of us as Christians would probably answer “Yes” to all four of those questions if they were asked in a group of fellow believers. But would we be expressing our aspirational beliefs or our actual beliefs? Aspirational beliefs are those we aspire to have because we know we should believe certain things or want to believe certain things. Actual beliefs can be different (and often are) and are revealed not by what we say, but how we consistently act.
To say God exists, he is good, he truly loves me, and he is unimaginably powerful answers the most important questions of life: Do I matter? Am I safe? Am I loved? Will I have enough? Can I face the future? To the extent that can honestly say I believe those things, I can live with peace and joy because I believe good is always coming my way, even in troubling circumstances.
Jesus believed that about the Father. I know he did because he slept through storms while others cried out. With small prayers he confidently took a few scraps of bread and fish and fed thousands. He walked on stormy seas and faced hostile leaders with the confidence that God would send a legion of angels to defend Him if requested. He walked confidently through crowds bent on his destruction because he knew that his appointed hour to suffer had not come and the Father would allow no harm to come to him until then. In the midst of a world in war and turmoil, he possessed peace.
But what about us? How often do we worry day after day about having enough because we are not certain God will provide? How many of us are “high on control” in our life and relationships as a means of self-protection because we doubt that God will protect us? How many of us are plagued by anxiety and persistent fears of abandonment? How many of us believe in our heads that we are children of the King, but believe in our hearts that we are orphans living on our own, left to meet our own needs, and always on the brink of disaster…about to lose whatever is precious to us?
Knowing who we are in Christ and believing it in our hearts is critical in every circumstance. If we could answer “Yes” to each of those questions at a heart level, then peace would rule our emotions. Paul prayed that God would give the church at Ephesus the Spirit of wisdom and revelation that they might know God better. Many of us have aspirational faith in the character and promises of God but our actual faith lags behind. How do we know? Just look at what we do and feel consistently rather than what we say. We need these essential truths revealed to our hearts more than we need them deposited in our heads. That is the work of the Spirit who reveals truth to God’s people.
Why did Adam and Eve eat forbidden fruit in the Garden? Satan convinced them that God wasn’t always good and didn’t always love them completely. Convinced that God was withholding good things, they took and they ate. How often do we too disregard God’s commands and go our own way in an effort to meet our desire for love, our need for security or our hunger for significance? We do that while we claim to love God and trust him completely. I’m not exempt from failing to fully trust God for all things at all times either. It is the human condition but one for which faith is the cure.
What we need is a daily revelation of God’s presence, his power, his love, and his goodness toward us. Ask the Holy Spirit every day to write “yes” on your heart to each of those three questions so that you can live with the peace and confidence of Jesus. Ask him to give you eyes to see God’s goodness and faithfulness in your life each day. And as Paul prayed, may the Lord give you His Spirit of wisdom and revelation today and everyday so that you may know Him better (Eph.1:17).