“Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).
FAMILY FAITH
Over the last 25 to 30 years I’ve been interested to watch the debate unfold about the Shroud of Turin. Most Christians that I’ve heard speak about it seem to be fair-minded: They are coming at the “shroud” with an open mind, perhaps there’s a fifty percent chance that it could be the burial cloth of Jesus with its miraculous negative image somehow transferred onto the cloth, and a fifty percent chance that it’s not.
Although, the more research that’s done on the shroud the odds seem to be falling in favour of it being the genuine burial cloth of Jesus. Whether it is, or whether it isn’t, is not the point of this “thought”. Rather what has struck me as I have been listening to people on both sides of the debate is that the people with faith seem, by far, the most likely to be scientific about the whole matter.
The sceptics don’t have the 50/50 approach of whether the cloth’s image is miraculous, they have a one-sided approach that it’s 100 percent not miraculous in any way. They refuse to believe in miracles of any sort, especially miracles that may transplant the image of a man in some sort of divine photographic procedure onto an ancient cloth. So the atheist shroud researchers have cut their chances of being correct down by at least 50 percent.
Thomas Aquinas said, “For those with faith, no evidence is necessary; for those without it, no evidence will suffice.”
And that’s the point I wanted to make. Some people refuse to accept Christ; and even when presented with wonderful testimonies of God’s power in people’s lives, they still make zero progress towards Christ themselves.
I have two friends who went to a church meeting years ago and came to the Lord in a powerful life-transforming way. They were so overcome with God’s presence at the church that they decided to hire a coach and bring their family members to the next meeting. And this they did, expecting their whole families to come to the Lord in the same way as they did.
But not one of their family members received Christ. My friends couldn’t understand why? And the reason why that happened is not an easy question to answer, for we have probably all seen similar scenarios, where we thought someone would be touched by God’s power, but did not respond as we thought they would.
John, in his gospel sums things up this way, “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19).
My two friends went on to become quite well-known communicators of the gospel, one in America and one in the UK and they have helped many towards faith and discipleship.
Somethings we have to leave with God and that’s where our own faith comes in, we don’t always understand but we have faith in God. “As for God, his way is perfect: The LORD’s word is flawless; he shields all who take refuge in him” (Ps 18:30).
We continue to pray for all those of our families who don’t know the Lord.