What I Believe About God

If you spend time on this site, understanding my core beliefs is crucial to understanding my world view and why I write the way I do. My personal faith is the foundation of who I am as a person. In other words, just who is God? What do I believe about Him? Why do I believe those things, and how do I live out my beliefs?

My Faith Journey, The Early Years

Like most people I would guess, it was during my mid-teenage years that I started questioning what I believed about God. Up until that point, my only choice was attending my parent’s church, which of course was not even a choice. My high school years is where I really started my journey. I tried to mesh all I heard about God into the world I lived in. Not to mention my various friends had a lot to say about it as well. They influenced me a lot during those years.

Note, as you journey through life, be aware of how friends can impact your where you end up. Being close to you, they have a huge influence on the direction your journey takes. Peer pressure is one of the many ways that the devil uses to divert you away from God.

While my journey began as Catholic, well, actually Greek Orthodox, it led me through various church doors. Methodist, Episcopal, Evangelical Free, and Assemblies of God. Even Lutheran. Who knew they could be so charismatic?

Meshing Beliefs into Personal Faith

During those years, my attempts to mesh everything together only confused me even more. Which in turn gave me more reasons not to believe in God. Eventually I reached a point where I rebelled against all religions, but strangely enough, never against God Himself. My faith in God’s existence was always rock solid. I knew that He was alive, in control, and waiting for me to show up. I just did not know how I was to show up. It got to the point where I even opened up the Bible. Oh, I had read it before, but it was a couple of sentences here and there, and on a good day, even a chapter. This time I opened it not to read words, but to find God in those words.

As I read, I began to realize that faith has nothing to do with religion (Heb 11:1). I was not prepared for that. Looking back, I now understand why I left those churches. Although each has its own religion, they were missing God. He had left the building, and they never realized it or even missed Him. Now when I look for a church, denomination only gets me in the door. Once inside, my focus is on who is leading, the pastor or the Holy Spirit. If it is the pastor, I am back out that door.

For more about the questions I had and the answers I found, visit the Why Am I Here page.

The Fundamental Beliefs Forming My Worldview

As I started my faith journey, I developed a list of sorts about my core beliefs. Just what did I believe? We all have the same list, I just took the time to write mine down. For a while, the list kept changing each time I learned something new about God and Jesus. I would question if that were true, how can this be true as well. Each time I questioned, I got that much nearer to finding my soul.

Over the years this list solidified and become my non-negotiable truths for living each day. A plumb-line by which I measure against what I read or hear. They help me to walk straight in a world that tosses me nothing but curves. They also serve as the plumb line for the posts I will be writing on these various pages.

Core Beliefs – The Short Version

1. The creation of the world and everything we see is a result of God’s word. How else do you explain all of what you see around you and how well it fits together? A “Big Bang”… really? That would be like a tornado traveling through a junkyard during a storm, tossing and banging parts against each other as it moves through. Afterwords, the only thing left in its wake is a fully formed 747 airplane ready for takeoff.
2. God has no reason to lie to us. People lie for all kinds of reasons, but an all-powerful God has no reason to protect or manipulate His creation. Worse case He would simply wipe us out and start all over. He actually did that once, remember? How could a God who lies ever expect us to love and believe in Him—how can you trust someone who lies to you?
3. God is relational, and He wants to be part of our lives. Our DNA seems to have a built-in need for relationship. We need to be around others. If you doubt that, why is solitary confinement considered one of the most severe forms of punishment?
4. God gives us the choice to either love Him or leave Him. God could have made us without freedom to choose, but it would have left out the very thing He wants, a relationship. How can you establish a two-sided meaningful relationship if one of them is simply programmed to love and obey?
5. The Bible is God’s message of His love to each of us. Only through a relationship with God can you truly understand the world and why you are here. The Bible is God’s love letter, one that helps us not only to find Him, but how to share our lives with Him. Would you prefer to read a marvelous book about your true love or be able to cuddle up in their arms?
6. By virtue of having free will, we are both sinful and lost. It is impossible to have a relationship with a Holy God when our lives ruled by sin rather than God. Before disagreeing about the sin in your life, be honest. Ask yourself how many wrong choices have you made in the past twenty-four hours?
7. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came to earth as a man to pay the ultimate price for our sinful nature, once and for all time. Grace and forgiveness do not come from confession, a church, or our own personal efforts. They come from a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Do you know Jesus? If you would like to, visit the Connect with God page on this site.

Final Thoughts on What I Believe About God

There is one final thing I believe about God that did not make the short list. However it is key. He wants us to grow up. [Hebrews 5:12-14] If God is not actively changing you, or rather you are not allowing God to change you, you are not walking out your faith.

Forget about the Christian faith for a moment. Go ahead, it will not kill you. Ask yourself. Isn’t one of the core reasons to believe, regardless of the religion, for you to be changed? If not, what is the purpose of believing in something bigger than you, something bigger than this world? I want to be changed. I want God to change me from the self-centered infant that I am to some resemblance of maturity. That is the whole point of my journey of faith and why I am so desperately seeking my soul. If you wonder what God is doing in my life, a sample can be found on the transformation goals for 2024 page.

How long have you been sipping milk? Don’t you have a craving for some real meat?