Step 1.5

I mentioned in my last post that, as we are told in 1 Peter, the first step to apologetics is to make the Messiah Lord of our hearts. The key here is that the most important thing we can do is not to come up with the philosophical argument to trump all others. The most important thing we can do is to make the Messiah Lord of our hearts.

This goes beyond the cursory sinners prayer and regular church attendance. These things are important, but they don't indicate that we have given Him Lordship of our hearts. As believers, we need to, with the help of the Holy Spirit, continually grow in our relationship with our Savior. We need to be constantly denying the desires of the flesh. We need to come to a place where our faith, our belief is the utmost thing in our hearts and minds. This is not easy, and it doesn't happen overnight, and, like most of our Spiritual endeavors, it doesn't happen without our Creator's helping hand. This step-within-a-step is what we are called to first and foremost as Christians. Del Tackett, of Focus on the Family, put it this way in the production The Truth Project : "Do you really believe that what you believe is really real."This level of belief holds in itself a whole new world for most Christians. How differently would you lead your life if you, as a believer, really, truly, and deeply believed what was written in Scripture? I can hear the protests now: "but I DO believe that! Why do you think I'm a Christian?" If we really believed that everything we believed was really real, then we wouldn't do, say, or think those things we do only when we think no one is looking (God is omnipresent). If we really believed we were conversing with the Almighty God personally when we prayed, we would never be off our knees.

Penn Jillette, of Penn and Teller fame, a highly intelligent man, eloquent, and generally honest (I say generally, because I don't know the man personally), and an atheist, has an intersting insight into this in the story in this video (pay particular attention around 3:00):



Do you believe what you believe enough that you genuinely love that total stranger that is unsaved? Enough that you can kindly genuinely share your faith with him, overcoming the fear that he may find the situation awkward? That is the kind of belief that indicates the Messiah as true Lord of your heart. It's an ongoing process. One that you may be well situated with one day, and not so much the next. A process that will be ongoing until we are present with the Messiah. A process that we must never give up on. We can't call this step one or step two in apologetics for this very reason. It is one that we must continue to build upon, just as we build upon the answers that we have when someone asks us about the hope that we have. In a darkness such as this world, even the smallest spark of the light of the Messiah in our hearts will attract attention.