I am currently working on a piece for this week about problems I have with popularly identified “Christian leaders” John Ashcroft, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. In the meantime, here are some answers to questions I received via email last week:

Q: What if you don’t like God?

A: The Bible makes it clear we all have free will. Anyone who doesn’t like God
and wants no part of His gift of salvation can turn Him down flat and He will do the same.

Q: A leap of faith is more daunting than a leap of courage in my mind. If you
don’t have the faith, where do you find it?

A: Humans exercise faith all the time, even if it's as simple as trusting their tap water hasn’t been contaminated. Obviously a baby exhibits tremendous faith and that’s why it’s so valuable to have a parent instill faith in God and Jesus Christ from the beginning.

Faith in God works like a muscle—use it or lose it. Its growth is heavily dependant on reading the Bible with faith that the Bible was fully inspired by God and fully represents Him. As Paul says, “Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.”

Hebrews 11: 1-3 gives this definition: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen…through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

Paul tells us in Galatians 5:6 that faith in Jesus Christ “worketh by love.” To me, this says faith and love are intertwined. I can say "I love you" to someone but there's no way they can really know it's true, no matter how much I exhibit signs universally considered to demonstrate real love. All of us have to rely on faith that we are loved by God and out of believing in His love for us, our faith in Him builds.

Q: Do good works count for nothing? Charity?

A: In the Old Testament, faith in God wasn’t enough. Jews had to demonstrate their faith by their works. This system changed after Jesus Christ’s death. Today, a Believer in God’s Son is given grace through faith, period. God is offering all people—Jews and Gentiles—a free gift of complete acceptance and forgiveness that requires absolutely NOTHING except faith that His Son is real, that He died on the cross to pay for our sins and that He was resurrected.

The basis for any good works and charity today as a Believer is sheer gratefulness and wanting to be a part of what God’s doing, which is building up the numbers of Believers.
One of the most eloquent passages from all of the Apostle Paul’s writings—Corinthians 13: 1-13—explores the meaning of true charity:

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not
charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries,
and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
“And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my
body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
“Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity
vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
“Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily
provoked, thinketh no evil;
“Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;
“Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth
all things.”