A Reasonable Faith

Before I became a Christian, I marched in lockstep with cultural cues where people told me what to say and think. But when I became a Christian, I started thinking carefully and deeply about life and about what truth is and what truth isn’t.

God says, “Come now, and let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18 NKJV). The Christian faith is a reasonable faith. It is even a logical faith. We start thinking biblically, and then we live truthfully.

To live a sincere, honest, candid life before God and others is to live a life devoid of secrets and ongoing sin and duplicity. Duplicity is hypocrisy.

I didn’t come from a Christian home. My mom, who was an alcoholic, was married and divorced seven times. I never looked to my mom as a moral example. Even as a kid, I knew she was messed up. Even as a kid, I knew I needed to help her because she didn’t think rationally.

As I began to search for meaning and purpose in life, I heard the gospel and believed in Jesus. I found what I was searching for. Yet I’ve met people who were raised in Christian homes and didn’t come to the same conclusion that I did. I was always perplexed by that until I began to realize that if they were raised in a home of hypocrisy, in some ways it was worse than the home I was raised in.

I’m not saying you should raise your kids as nonbelievers. What I am saying is the worst thing you can do is to say you are a Christian and put on an act. I’m not saying you have to be perfect. But being a hypocrite, which means to be an actor, is a way to drive people away from Jesus Christ.