We all Wager OUR lives — that God IS, or that God is not — by our thoughts, our choices, our words, and our actions. Our creator gave us the will to choose. God wants us to follow him by choice not by force. Whether or not we admit, all who have ever heard of God have made a choice to believe God is or is God is not. Our choice is apparent in our lives, as the way we live. Little known and scarcely understood is the fact that all who have heard of God have made a choice; and all will gain or lose as a result of their choice. For any wagering that God is not, it is not too late to change your mind.
The French mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal wrote what some called a practical argument for belief in God. It became known a Pascal’s Wager, with some referring to Pascal’s Gamble. Blaise Pascal (born June 19, 1623, Clermont-Ferrand, France—died August 19, 1662, Paris) was a French mathematician, physicist, religious philosopher, and master of prose.
Pascal accurately demonstrated how we gain or lose depending on how we wager.
Experience God through your heart:
He had an impressive religious doctrine of teaching the experience of God through the heart rather than through reason. Apparently he experienced leading from the Holy Spirit, just as God designed. From the abundance of our heart our beliefs are spoken.
Pascal further clarified his teaching:
“He argued that people can choose to believe in God or can choose to not believe in God, and that God either exists or he does not. Under these conditions, if a person believes in the Christian God and this God actually exists, they gain infinite happiness; if a person does not believe in the Christian God and God exists, they receive infinite suffering. On the other hand, if a person believes in the Christian God and God does not exist, then they receive some finite disadvantages from a life of Christian living; and if a person does not believe in this God and God does not exist, then they receive some finite pleasure from a life lived unhindered by Christian morality.”
In a profound declaration
Pascal said, “Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing.
Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.”
You must decide, will you gamble your place in eternity? When you can move past the wagering that He is or is not; when you see Him as “for sure and real,” then you have Him in your heart.
You don’t have to wager, you just believe.
Follow me next time for more on God’s Design for Man.
Source and References: Few from all that is available.
Encyclopedia Britannica
Romans 3:27 KJV
Matthew 6:21
Romans 10:9–10
