Why Are We Here?

[HKHaugan]

Why Are We Here? 

We don’t go to movies anymore.  Most of them are gross with muck and mire language, crude humor and visual obscenity like what we saw in the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show.  But occasionally, a friend will say “You’ve got to see this movie or TV show.”  Then we will.  What’s the basic process here?  First of all, we like good movies, movies with a message.  Second, we don’t trust advertising.  We trust who told us.  Third, that’s when we go.  The basic process is faith.  Faith is a verbal word, an action word, a response word.  It’s a go-and-do word.

 Let’s step it up a bit.  Each one of us has been given the ability to believe which is what our mind does.  It reasons the best way to do something and do it the right way.  We may even trust the character and experience of the personal source.  That’s a heart thing, a relational thing.  However, if we don’t act on it then we don’t exercise faith.  We may have believed and trusted what our mind and heart told us.  But we didn’t act. We didn’t use our faith.  Isn’t this what Paul and James were really talking about? 

 “The righteous will live by faith (Romans 1:16-17).”  “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead (James 2:26).” 

 In both passages the emphasis is on living, doing, acting, by faith.  When Jesus went to the Cross, He did more than believe he should and trust that He should.  He did it.  He accepted the Cross.  He carried the Cross. He died on the Cross.

 So, when Paul says “from first to last” it means each next moment, event, encounter (Gk.pisteos eis pistin---faith to faith), every next step in our lives, demands faith.  Paul goes even further in this faith thing when he says, “That which does not proceed from faith is sin (Rom.14:23).”  Ouch!

 Jesus Christ came to inform us of the most important experience we can have.  It’s a mind, heart and spirit experience, a relational experience with God who created us.  We have been informed about Him; the life He lived, the miracles He performed and the teachings He gave that build character.  We may even have trusted some of all that He presented.  But what did we do with it?  Did we just log it in our memory bank as part of the general cultural goodness people accept?  Did we take it personally or as randomly available to feel good about ourselves?  I’m talking about myself as much as anyone else. 

 It’s time to regain that moment of truth about who and what we are.  We are images of the I AM who is God, a faithful God.  We were made with a mind to think and believe, a heart to feel and trust and a spirit to act, be motivated and be relational. That’s faith.  It means our mission is to share the Lord by faith with those who don’t know Him.  All this, the gift of existing as a consciously unique person with all kinds of potential to be what we were created to be, exciting looking-forward individuals who love God and others.  Not only that but the relationships grow, we grow and we live forever in multiple relationships with God who is our Father, His Son Jesus who saved us for these relationships and the Holy Spirit who unites us all together forever.