Part 1
You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that and shudder.
James 2:19
When I read this the other day, I was hit by it so hard. Conviction immediately pierced me. Forever, I have called myself a Christian. I could say that I believed in the God of the Holy Bible. And what else? That was mostly the extent of my walk minus going to church on Sundays to selfishly feed my ego and secure my place in heaven. But the author says that even demons believe in God and shudder. Immediately, I realized that my Christianity was being compared to a demons knowledge of Christ existence. And not only do demons know of Him, BUT THEY SHUDDER. When had I ever feared my God? When was I ever humble before Him in full submission from fear. Now a demon was acknowledging my God in a way that I had never before.
I was experiencing something Dietrich Bonhoeffer labeled cheap grace: the perception that Christianity offers only a flood of blessings, the rights of the Kingdom without the responsibilities to the King.
I have fallen under the ‘cancer of compromise’ which is described by Charles Colson as an unseen threat implemented by the gradual acceptance of secular standards in a culture…that is even gradually being won over in our church pews. I was being won over by my job, time, desires of man, idols, control, and so much more.
It wasn’t until before The Race that I started to ask the Lord if there was more to faith than building myself up for eternal life. What would be God’s purpose to send me here to create a moral standard to live by and try to evade sin on earth so that I could then die and be with Him in heaven? Why would the creator of heaven and earth create me for such a vain quest? To simply better myself and then leave for heaven. I had to give him greater credit than that. Since He sent His only son to die for my sin, life cannot be just a vain quest to evade sin. So the questioned burned in me. Why am I here?
