It's Private

What you put your faith in is a personal decision: one chooses what one believes, right? Although a person can be convinced or misled into a belief system, that in and of itself, does not make a person believe. There is a process of choice involved. I am talking here about the normal means by which a person believes what they believe, using their own free will. Often times when people speak about their faith, they will bow out of a conversation by explaining that their faith is personal, and they are fine with what they have, but do not want to talk about it.

Without affirmation, how does one know that their belief system is based on anything more than feelings? Information is not simply the key either. One can get a ton of information, but without testing the information, it is nothing more than just that: information. That is why when a person tells me their faith is private, I struggle personally with that. If your faith is private, it might be because it has not transformed you, because faith without transformation is faith in the wrong thing.

Affirmation is not someone else with shared beliefs telling you that what you believe is right. Affirmation is reading God's Word privately, and it speaks to you in a way, or about an area of your life, that maybe there is a struggle you are dealing with. Then you go to church on Sunday and the pastor is speaking on the exact same issue. This is God's divine providence orchestrating the convergence of preaching and private devotionals, so that they work together. This has nothing to do with people agreeing to agree on something or agreeing about what they believe. It is nothing short of a supernatural experience, and if it is not supernatural, it is not from God.

So what does this mean? That although you can personally read and study scripture, one must be connected to a local expression of the body (church) to fully experience the supernatural power of God, affirming His voice into their lives. Missing church then is not about a missed entertainment or informational experience, and becomes more about a missed opportunity to experience God. That is something worth going public about!

In His grip,
Pastor Pat