“but in your hearts honour Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,”
There have been some aggressive atheists such a Richard Dawkins saying it is delusional to believe in God but for most part and many they are questioning what and who they believe in.
Equally in the past couple of decades there are those growing up in a generation who are not happy to take religion as significant in their lives and yet they are on a quest for what is Spiritual reality.
Everyone has a point of view on how they experience and see the world weaving the threads of the naturalism and and materialism they see there with what they sense in their core and spirit is where the questioning of what is real, what is true has its origin.
For Christians God makes sense of our extraordinary lives and that comes about usually because we have experienced Him.
God makes sense of extraordinary, vulnerable, human existence and why we have value.
Our experiences hold us firm yet open in areas where sceptics see no foundation nothing of value.
We are made in the image of God. That alone gives us inestimable value.
We know how we can love a baby as it is born. Could all that love have a random number of chemicals and cells at its core? Our love goes beyond that and is sourced deeper than that.
We look around and see a universe teeming with meaning. Our desires and moral stances come from somewhere as we view love hope and evil before us.
For Christians we see Jesus’ two marked hands held before in the one His love and value for us taken as far as death on a cross and God’s hope for us in His resurrection and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Our journey is for truth.
It comes from nowhere and goes nowhere and has no purpose if not to discover the words and language to express and experience our value and worth and love.
We have an insatiable appetite for God’s presence that cannot easily be denied however far we become distracted from it.
Ours is to love life. Life comes from Jesus who loves us. The Holy Spirit is our mark.
“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,”
He within us magnifies Jesus. Jesus magnifies God.
As one they are the word, wisdom, light that reveals our value as we too become part of that presence we cannot deny.
The magnifying glasses become also the mirror glasses to reflect us all.
“that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”
The illustration shows the Holy Spirit who magnifies Jesus who magnifies God. The Trinity as one emanating light that pushes back the darkness.
Three Scriptures that come to mind:
“but in your hearts honour Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect,” 1 Peter 3:15 ESV
“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,”. Ephesians 1:13 ESV
“that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” John 17:21-23 ESV
The song So Will I. Benjamin Hastings
Lessisgreater 