Project Faith
There is in our world today a “Secret Quest for God!” It is secret because the inner longings and heart-felt questions asked by mankind are not clearly or easily understood as a personal “Quest For God.” Increasingly, our world has distanced itself from the institutional Christian Church. However, even as outward evidence would indicate that people have little or no religious interest, the questions they are asking would indicate otherwise.
What is as “religious question” anyway?
A religious question comes in many different forms. Luther’s religious question was: “How do I find a merciful God?” Today we certainly would not put the question that way. However, today we might hear people ask, “Where is God? Does God exist?” When children are killed or maimed in wars, or the latest news reports an air crash, or when someone very close becomes terminally ill with cancer, then “religious questions” are asked.
In our text, St. Paul reminds us of God’s great truth, and perhaps life’s most difficult mystery, namely, “That we walk by Faith and not sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). Scripture reveals to us that fallen mankind is “blind” when it comes to spiritual matters. We don’t know where we came from and we don’t know where we are going. We can’t see the spiritual warfare that exists all around us. We can’t see the end from the beginning! Thus, all of God’s promises come to us by believing what God has written on the pages of Scripture. This is faith; believing in what you cannot see. That’s why Jesus told Martha in John 11:26, “…and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” Faith in what we cannot see is the Spirit-given conduit through which all of God’s mercy and grace pass to us.
Because people have these questions about life’s meaning and purpose pent up inside of them, its imperative that they receive an answer. That answer can’t come from lying and deceptive world which is herself blind to God’s truth. May God’s Holy Spirit encourage every heart to be there.