It is the toughest question he has ever had to answer. 

Matt is 23 years old and has recently been married to a beautiful young lady named Julia. Matt is a good guy but, even though he had been raised in a church as a child, has never really been active in a church as an adult. He has just completed a four year degree from a state school and recently entered the job market for the first time. After finding a job in his wife’s hometown, he started attending fairly regularly. Julia's parents are very active in the church and Matt feels he should show more interest than he would have ever normally considered showing just to stay in his in-law's good graces. The congregation has been very welcoming to Matt and his wife and has quickly accepted them as family. The men of the congregation have gone out of their way to make opportunities for Matt to help in services and even organize activities for the youth. Julia and her parents are so proud to have Matt be an active part in the church and have encouraged even more participation. 

Matt has had some serious reservations about the work that he was doing for the congregation but feels like he is trapped. Everyone he has come to care about in the congregation respects him as a man of God, but he has many unvoiced questions and doubts. Sometimes he even questions if there is a God. He often has thought to himself that church is unnecessary and even kind of a game that people play to feel good about themselves. He knows that if he had been living alone in a town where he didn't know people, he would definitely not have been willing to accept a leadership role in a church. In fact, he might not even attend, if left to choose for himself. 

Sunday after Sunday Matt goes through the rituals. Matt feels like he is living a lie and that he is trapped to continue this lie. He hates to think what his wife and in-laws would think of him if he ever said what he was thinking. He has learned to say the right things in a prayer and how to pass the communion trays but he has grown more and more resentful of the people that he feels are obligating him to ware this mask. 

Honestly, Matt wants to have faith. He wants to be convicted of the things like the other members seem to be, but he feels like his heart is full of so many questions that he doesn’t think anyone could answer. How do you really know there is a God? How do you know the Bible is His message? Why bring up these questions, and risk the respect of his friends and family, if no one can answer them? So, Matt continues to 'play the game' but his faith is not his own. 

Now he is sitting at a picnic table at a weekend youth campout he has organized, right across from a young lady who has just told him how much she admires Matt and Julia's Christian spirit ... that, more than anything else, their example has convinced her that she wants to be a Christian, too ... and would Matt baptize her? 


SCRIPTURAL POINTS OF LIGHT


John 4:23-24; Ephesians 1:18; Philippians 2:11-13; 1 Corinthians 13:12; 2 Corinthians 13:5-9; I Thessalonians 5:12-21; Hebrews 11; Titus 1:5-9; 1 John 5:13