We all believe in something.
"I believe in the right of a woman to have an abortion", says one person. "I believe the unborn child has rights too", argues another. "I believe we should get rid of nuclear weapons", asserts someone else. "I believe those weapons have kept the peace for forty years", claims his opponent. I believe... in the birch for hooligans; in capital punishment for terrorists; in experimentation on embryos; in Marxism; in capitalism; in freedom of speech; in censorship... The list could go on forever.

People that make such statements will attempt to produce facts and arguments that support their belief if they are challenged about them. These various beliefs seem reasonable to those who hold them -- even though they know that other viewpoints claim to be based on evidence too.

Even scientists have to have faith in some things. A belief that the laws of nature will remain constant is at the foundation of the scientific quest. No one can prove (in the strict sense of the word) that nature will behave in the future as it has in the past; or that the same laws apply throughout the universe. But unless they believe these things to be true, scientists cannot get to work.

We all live by probability and there is no opting out of belief. Faith is not a question of believing one hundred impossible things before breakfast. Christians are called 'believers', but we all base our lives on assumptions which cannot be proved with mathematical certainty.

Christians believe that God exists. Atheists believe that God doesn't exist. Agnostics believe that we don't have enough evidence to decide. The indifferent person believes that it doesn't matter either way.

Even the Devil believes in God.
However. we have not made much progress if we simply affirm that God exists and we believe it to be so. In fact. we could be quite radical and declare that to say “I believe in God” puts us on exactly the same level as the Devil! Read in the New Testament, the letter of James, that practical, down to earth, plain speaking man:

"You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe - and shudder."(James 2.19)

The demons believe and actually tremble! They not only believe in God, they know He must be taken seriously. In a very real sense the Devil himself is one of the most rigorous fundamentalists with regard to Christian doctrine. He believes it all. Scripture affirms that the demons believe and tremble, but they do not bow. They do not confess, because this confession that we believe in God is far more than simply giving intellectual assent to the fact of God, or to the facts of the gospel. There are many people who believe the facts who are not Christians. They believe, but, although they know the gospel is true, they will not allow the truth to lay its rightful claim to their souls and to their lives, to all they are and all they have.

When we speak of believing in God, we are saying that, because we believe God is, and believe what He has said He has done, we commit ourselves in trust and obedience to Him. The demons don't do that.

We must go on from the statement "I believe in God" to ask what we believe about Him.

God as Father.
Let us then see what the Christian view of God is.

The Christian believes in the paternity of God; the Christian believes that God is the source and origin and goal of all life; that God is the One from whom life comes and to whom life goes.

But even more, the Christian believes in the fatherhood of God, that intimate, loving, caring fellowship which goes so much further than paternity can ever go. The intimacy of the relation of the Christian to God is seen best in the name which Jesus used for God, and the name which Paul says that Christians too may use, the name Abba (Mark 14:36; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6). Abba is the name by which little children addressed their fathers in the home circle in the time of Jesus. In any secular context it would be translated simply as daddy. Nothing shows so well the intimate fellowship of the Christian with God. Here is a God who is as near to us as a father is to a little child.

This means that for the Christian God is love (1 John 4:8). The characteristic attitude of the love of God is defined in Matthew 5:43-48. There the distinguishing feature of the love of God is that God made His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. That is to say, no matter what a person is like, good or bad, just or unjust, God seeks nothing but their highest good and sends nothing but His gifts upon them. The love of God is all inclusive; it is a steadfast and undefeatable graciousness to man, which nothing that man can do can ever alter.

But the love of God for men is no vague, generalised benevolence. It is detailed and personalised. All the love of God goes out to each and every one of us. Augustine summed it up wonderfully when he said, "God loves each one of us as if there is only one of us to love."

God, as the Christian knows Him is the giving God. In almost every other religion the great characteristic of God is that God demands gifts from people. But the most characteristic thing that was ever said about the Christian God is that "God so loved the world that He gave" (John 3:16). The only thing which the God who is love desires from the people He loves is their love in return.

Further, God, as the Christian knows Him, is the forgiving God. The God and Father whom Jesus revealed to us is far more eager to forgive than He is to condemn. Any natural human parent would far rather forgive than condemn their child, and God is like that.

Still further, God, as the Christian knows Him, is the seeking God. It is not so very difficult to think of a God who will forgive the sinner who comes humbly and penitently back to Him on their hands and knees; but no man outside Christianity had ever thought of a God who would deliberately go out and search for the sinner until He found them and brought them home. We see something of this in those wonderful stories in Luke's gospel (15:1-10), the shepherd searching for his lost sheep and the woman searching for the lost coin.

All this goes to show that in Christianity there is established a quite new relationship between God and man. It is no longer a relationship based on law, where the idea is that God lays down His law; man obeys or disobeys, accepts or rejects; and is accordingly found innocent or guilty. It is now based on love, the relationship of father and son. And it is this love relationship that makes our obligation to God far greater and far more binding. When we commit a sin now it is no longer a breach of law; sin is a breaking of God's heart. So sin is not less, but far more serious.

God is Almighty.
We have been looking at what the Christian view of God is, and particularly of God as God the Father. But when we say the Creed we add a very important word, we don't just say God the Father - we say God the Father Almighty. The word Almighty is important because it stops us from sentimentalising the relationship of God to men. God is love, but nonetheless God is the Almighty, infinite in might, majesty and power. Yet it still remains true that this might and majesty of God are at all times motivated and directed and used in love.

The very fact that the love of God is backed by the power of God is the guarantee that ultimately and in the end the love of God cannot be frustrated. It can be hindered; it can be delayed; it can be grieved; it can be disappointed, but in the end it cannot be defeated, for we must remember that the infinite power of God has not only infinite might, but it also has infinite time, all eternity, in which to work.

When we say that we believe in God the Father Almighty we say that we believe in a God whose infinite might is ever used in His undefeatable love, and whose undefeatable love is ever backed by His infinite might. We therefore believe in a God whose love for us some time in time, or eternity will triumphantly work out its purposes.

Before we move on to the second half of this first statement, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth", let us summarize what we have learnt so far.

We have learnt that we all believe in something, even scientists have to believe in some things that aren't necessarily provable to be able to do their work. We have learnt that even the devil believes in God. But most importantly we have learnt that God as the Christian knows Him, is a God of love. He loves each and every one of us with a love that is backed up by the infinite power of God. And all He desires in return is that we love Him. But even that is not a condition of us receiving God's love. God loves us. all of us, even if we don't love Him. There is nothing that you, or I, or anyone else can ever do that will change that.

God as Creator.
When we speak of God as Maker of heaven and earth, almost instantly some scientists object, saying they reject the Christian doctrine of creation, and they bring forth all sorts of astonishing facts that are beyond the average mind to grasp. They lose us by the sheer dimension of measurements. They lay before us all their correlated statistics and formulated theories to explain the origin of matter, the world of creation. But that is not to say that all scientists are against the doctrine of creation. There are in fact many prominent scientists who are also Christians. For instance, Sir Bernard Lovell, the distinguished astronomer, who was director of Jodrell Bank and famous for his space research work. Of course we must remember that the theories of the scientists are concerned with how the world was made. That is not the Christian concern. The Christian is concerned, as they consider creation, not with the mechanics of the beginning but with the objectives of the Creator.

When we turn to the opening chapter of the Bible we read, "In the beginning God...". God spoke, and by the word of His mouth He called into being, out of nothing, all that we call matter, all the stuff, the substance of the created order of the universe. He spoke and it was done, and there was no difficulty in His doing it. When we speak of God as the Maker of heaven and earth, we are declaring that we have a world that is distinct from God, and yet always dependent on Him.

This doctrine is found throughout the whole of the Bible, and yet we never really find a full answer telling why God created the world. There was no need for Him to create. He lacked nothing. He was eternally sufficient in Himself. Why then did He create the world? We can only say that He chose to create. It was part of His purpose. It provided the theatre on whose stage He could demonstrate the glory of His grace and the wonder of His love. He chose to create and through that creation to reveal Himself, to make known what He could not reveal in any other way, the fullness of His love, and His redemption in Jesus Christ His Son.

It is by faith that we come to understanding, and there is no other way to grasp the truth about creation. It is not by an increase in scientific understanding that we come to faith. The things which can be seen, measured and compiled statistically cannot be explained only in terms of visible factors. No matter how we computerise, analyse and investigate them scientifically, logically or philosophically, they cannot be understood, they cannot be grasped, they cannot be explained apart from this hidden factor which is grasped only by faith. This hidden factor is God, who not only orders creation but orders the whole course of history. This is the God Christians believe in.