How Do We Know GOD Is Even Real?

You and I better get this one right - we all die and we need to know. But really, how do we know God is real?

I'm not going to pretend I can settle that for you in the next 5 minutes of reading. And pardon my cheesy image of God looking down on you while you pray. But how do you create an image of God?

Can anyone prove God is real? Nobody can. But I can tell you what I've found after doing the homework, and why the question matters more than almost anything else in your life.

This morning I was reading a Psalm and I just thought of this important question. Is He real? Where did He come from? I know you’ve asked the same questions.

Where did it all start? Where did the universe come from? How did earth and every planet around it find their exact location? Move earth a little closer to the sun, or a little farther away, nothing survives or can live.

Why is DNA coded? Why is there design in everything? I mean everything.

And if something exploded billions of years ago, where did that come from? What created that?

It’s really an ancient question. And here's something people don't want to admit: both answers take faith - right?

Some believe God created it all. Others believe nothing exploded into everything, and everything organized itself into minds, morality, mathematics, beauty, and life, with no one directing it.

Imagine you're walking along and your foot kicks a rock. You wouldn't think twice about it. Rocks are just there. But imagine your foot kicks a wristwatch instead, gears turning, hands moving, everything working in perfect sync.

You would never say, "I guess that just came together on its own." You'd know, instantly, without a second thought, somebody made that. Nobody has to convince you of that. It's obvious. A watch demands a watchmaker.

Creation isn't a wristwatch. Creation is a trillion wristwatches, nested inside each other, running for who knows how many years without stopping.

Scripture names this directly. Paul wrote:

Ever since God made the world, His invisible qualities, both His eternal power and His divine nature, have been clearly seen, understood through what God has made. So people have no excuse for not knowing about God.

(Romans 1:20 NCV)

Creation is the evidence. Not just trees, stars, and the heavens. Everything. DNA, body parts, organs, creatures, the ecosystem - everything. The evidence has been on display since day one.

Even before Paul, the psalmist saw it:

The heavens tell the glory of God. The skies show that His hands created them.

(Psalm 19:1 NCV)

And Isaiah asked the skeptics of his own day the same question we're asking now:

Look up to the skies. Who created all these stars? He leads out the army of heaven one by one and calls all the stars by name.

(Isaiah 40:26 NCV)

So many Christians, including serious philosophers and scientists, will tell you it takes less faith to believe in an eternal, intelligent Creator than to believe unintelligent matter accidentally produced minds that can love, question, create, and worship.

Others sincerely disagree. This debate won’t end today, but I think it takes more faith to believe the universe organized itself than to believe Someone organized it on purpose.

And it's not just theologians saying this. Dr. Andrew Newberg, a neuroscientist who has spent decades studying the brain during prayer and worship, found something striking, the human brain doesn't just tolerate the idea of God, it appears to be built for it.

He says areas tied to focus, meaning, and connection light up during prayer in ways nothing else replicates. Newberg isn't a pastor. He's a scientist looking at scans. And what he keeps finding is a brain that looks like it was wired for a relationship it wasn't an accident.

That lines up with something Solomon wrote three thousand years before any brain scan existed: “God has put a sense of eternity in people's minds.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 NCV)

A sense of eternity, wired in, that ache you feel for something more, that's not random. That's a fingerprint.

Paul said the same thing to a room full of skeptics in Athens:

God decided exactly when and where they should live. God did this so that people would look for Him and perhaps search all around for Him and find Him.

(Acts 17:26-27 NCV)

Notice that, you were placed exactly where and when you are, on purpose, so you'd go looking.

I think about God being real. I think about where He came from. Honestly, I have some of the same questions a skeptic has. But I've done the homework. And there is more evidence, more actual evidence, for God, for Jesus, for the Holy Spirit, than there is for everything evolving out of nothing, by nothing, for no reason.

Most people won't do that homework, though. It's easier to scroll past the question than sit with it.

But you have to look closely, at creation, at morality, at DNA, at the rhythm of science, at the planets, at all of it. Only then do you see the design. And only when you see the design can you see the Designer.

Then you have to open the Bible itself. Study it. Sixty-six books, forty writers, fifteen hundred years, and it reads like one voice telling one story, with no contradiction.

But here's the part that changes everything. You can stack up all the evidence in the world and still miss it, because this isn't something you figure out with your head alone. Hebrews puts faith this way:

“Faith is being sure of the things we hope for and knowing something is real even if we do not see it.” (Hebrews 11:1 NCV)

Faith isn't the absence of evidence. It's confidence built on it. And ultimately, it's the Holy Spirit who has to open your eyes to see it.

So it starts with a prayer this simple: "God, show me the truth. Help me see if You are real. If Jesus Christ is real. If the Holy Spirit is real." Have you ever prayed this if you don’t believe?

Now think about this with me. Why do we live fuller lives when we're kind? When we forgive? When we serve, when we're generous, when we slow down and actually take in creation?

Where did those instincts come from? Why aren't they in monkeys? In animals? Animals feel things, I know, I've had dogs. But not like this. Not at this level. We have soul and spirit. We connect with other humans in a way nothing else in creation does. Why? Where did that come from?

I believe God placed it there, on purpose, with your name on it.

Look around. I see it everywhere I go, people bored, angry, depressed, struggling with mental health, physical health, relationships. Insecure, restless, chasing happiness in a hundred directions.

And the answer has been right in front of us the whole time. It's God. It's Jesus Christ. It's the Holy Spirit. God designed us for Him. He's not distant from your struggle, He's your healer, your helper, your sustainer.

Jesus said it plainly: “I came to give life, life in all its fullness.” (John 10:10 NCV)

Not a stressed-out life, not an anxious, sin-tangled life, but a full one. Don’t you want a full and healed life?

God wants us to forgive and be forgiven. He wants us free of the weight we were never designed to carry. And He's preparing us for something bigger than this life, that's the purpose underneath all of it:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind... Love your neighbor as you love yourself.” (Matthew 22:37, 39 NCV)

That's it. That's the whole assignment. Love God, love people. Everything else is commentary.

He wants to hear from us. He wants communion with us, real relationship, not religious performance. That's the healing process of life.

Now, truth be told, it won't all be perfect this side of eternity. Full healing, full peace, no more tears, that's heaven. That's home. But in the meantime? We get to live blessed. Not perfect. Blessed. A life that's anchored, that endures, no matter what storm rolls through.

You aren’t immune from trouble, but you will be anchored in it - don’t you want that?

It's a personal decision. But you'd better get this one right, because we all die. And don't you want to know what happens after that? Don't you want to know if you go somewhere?

I wouldn't take another person's word for it. Not mine, not anyone's. Investigate the hard facts until you know that you know, and you know that you're right.

Because this isn't a question you get to leave sitting on the shelf. You were built with the question already inside you. The only thing left to decide... is what you do with it.

GOD, please open our eyes. Especially the eyes of the ones who wonder, who question, who aren't sure yet. Make us curious, truly curious, about Jesus, and about what life's purpose really is.

Thank You that knowing You makes life fuller right now, and secures what happens after we take our last breath. Thank You for Jesus, who died and paid for every sin we've ever committed, and who gives us eternal life freely, as a gift.

For the one still searching, meet them right where they are. Let this be the day the searching turns into finding.

IJNIP amen ♥️