My First Doctrine - Still the Best!

As I look back on my Christian experience I see that the things that I “know for sure” about my Creator God - the doctrinal basis of my faith - have been steadily shrinking in the last two decades of my life.

In my younger years, as I studied about God and the Bible, I came to some very definite conclusions concerning church doctrine. As I perceived each doctrine that I thought God wanted me to believe and do, I immediately placed them in my “know for sure” mind file.

Consequently I peaked with about 80% of my spiritual knowledge in the “know for sure” section and the other 20% was in the “I’m still finding out” section and could be tossed around and discussed and revised with new information.

There has been a gradual shifting of these sections in my spiritual growth during the last twenty years so that now my “I’m still finding out” section is much larger than my “know for sure” part.

Know For Sure

Let me explain my “know for sure” section to you. The first thing I ever learned about God was in my Catholic kindergarten catechism. The first question in the book was: “Why did God make you?” The answer was:
God made me to KNOW Him, to LOVE Him, and to SERVE Him in this world, and to be HAPPY with Him forever in the next.”

Now through the next forty years of my Christianity I packed a lot more into my “know for sure” section.

But during the last twenty years, my “know for sure” part has shrunk back to, for all practical purposes, conform to that first kindergarten question. Here is what I see that I “know for sure”:

* God made me to KNOW Him.
God deals with each person that He creates to bring him to the knowledge that he needs God in his life. Then God deals with us to know Him in the form of Jesus Christ – God, Man, and Messiah. Due to man’s sinful nature at birth, he needs a Savior (Jesus Christ) and must choose to make Christ the Lord of his life.

* God made me to LOVE Him.
With a person’s repentance for sin and belief in Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross, the person receives an eternal new birth with the LOVE nature of God entering him through the indwelling Spirit of Jesus Christ. Jesus gave the command to “love God and love your neighbor.” Now that person in union with Christ forever is able to love God in return with the love nature that God has given him and is able to love his neighbor.

* God made me to SERVE Him.
Now that Christ is IN the person, as he stays aware of who he is in Christ, the person recognizes his dependence on God’s strength and receives His guidance to become a useful tool for God to the person’s own little surrounding world. And as the Christian serves God in this world, he receives the built-in fulfillment and blessing which comes with the territory.

* God made me to be HAPPY with Him forever in the next world.
The rebirthed Christian will live forever after his human death with God in His spirit realm called “heaven”. The Bible says that we actually are CHILDREN OF GOD or OFFSPRING OF GOD as actual members of His Family. We will live the HAPPY lifestyle of God forever!

I ‘m Still Finding Out

I love to search out knowledge with my mind. And as I see it, everything that I have not mentioned in my present “know for sure” section is up for discussion, debate, revision - such topics as the following:

God’s sovereignty vs. man’s responsi­bility.

Bible prophecy.

The how of creation.

Sacraments and rituals.

Why does God allow _____?

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Why so many denominations within Christianity?

Etc., Etc., Etc

What are your “know for sure” spiritual doctrines? What are the facts of your faith? Are you like I used to be - thinking that you know for sure too many Christian doctrines? Or, on the other hand, are you unsure about any spiritual things? Hebrews 11:1 tells us that “faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the EVIDENCE of things not seen.” There is evidence in God’s Word on which to build a “know for sure” spiritual basis. Every Christian must be clear in his mind what doctrines are untouchable bottom-line “faith-facts” and what are up for GRACIOUS DISCUSSION.

People who know they are secure in God’s hand find their motives shaped in that awareness. They learn to live with grace, to disagree in kindness, to love freely, and to trust God from day to day when matters beyond their control don’t go as they desire.

Gracious discussion and gracious disagreement are the way to be “harmless” in a violent world.

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