Good evening brethren and Happy Sabbath!  I hope everyone is doing well and making progress as they read through the booklet, "Does God Exist?" This week, we will begin reading through chapter 4, "Our Amazing Spaceship Earth."

Crucial Questions

As you are no doubt aware, the first chapter of the booklet we are currently reading deals with the topic of 'Crucial Questions.'  What exactly is a crucial question?  It's the kind of question that is big enough and powerful enough to shape people's lives.  The title of the booklet itself is a crucial question - Does God Exist?  By the way, did you notice the galaxies in the shape of a question mark on the cover!?!

This is perhaps the biggest question of all time, but it's answer brings forth more questions.  If God does exist, why did He create human beings? What is the point and purpose of our lives?  Once we die, is that all there is to it?  How exactly did He make the universe, and man from dust?  All of these questions are crucial questions, and questions that we as Firstfruits should know the answer to!

Take Nothing for Granted

One of the main reasons we are starting with this booklet is because this topic is one of the biggest challenges our young people face today.  This fundament truth we take for granted is being attacked in ways we never considered in our youth.  Whether you have children or not, as a church family, we need to know and understand this assault is happening in our world, and we need to be able to help our young people defend what they know to be true!

But beyond being able to help others, we need to re-affirm God's existence for ourselves.  It's easy to say with our head that we believe and trust God.  But when a life threatening trial enters our lives, what does our heart say?  Is it fearful and filled with doubt about what will happen when we die?  Or is it at peace and calm, knowing that God's existence, promises and plan for mankind are sure?  More crucial questions we should be able to answer....

Getting the Answers

To a large degree, how comfortable you are with answering a hard question depends on how much you know about it.  That indeed, is one of the things I hope to accomplish in our Booklet Discussion Series.  By digging deeper into God's word through these booklets, I believe we will all grow in grace and knowledge, and become more comfortable answering some of these tough questions.  

And while I do believe this series will provide much spiritual growth for the entire congregation, at the end of the day, what you actually believe is not just a matter of knowledge, it's a matter of the heart - a matter of faith and belief.  Indeed, the questions mentioned above are fundamentally questions of faith.

The good news is that God can help us with this matter of the heart!  In Mark 9, we read a story of a father who had a boy that was tormented by a demon.  He knew God could heal his son, but he had doubts about whether God would choose to.  He told Jesus, "Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!"

As we work through this new Booklet Discussion Series, let's not just work on increasing our knowledge about God and His plan.  Let's ask God to help us in any areas of unbelief we may have and pray that He increase not just our understanding, but our faith as well!