"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." (Isaiah 1:18)

Our God is a reasonable God, and our faith is a reasonable faith, based on sound evidence. It is not a credulous faith like that of the evolutionist who blindly believes either in the god of chance or in some sort of cosmic consciousness.

Furthermore, He has told us to be reasonable in our witness to others. "Be ready always to give an answer [that is, an apologetic, a reasoned defense of our faith] to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear" (1 Peter 3:15).

But how can it be reasonable that one whose deeds have been crimson with sin could ever be made "white as snow"? That would seem impossible! He or she would have to be "born again." This would require a mighty miracle--a reversal of time--and eradication of all the sins of the past.

And that would indeed be unreasonable--even impossible, were it not for God. But "the things which are impossible with men are possible with God" (Luke 18:27). What seems incredible to human wisdom is altogether reasonable to the God of creation. He has allowed man the freedom to sin (so that he could also be free to choose righteousness), but He can never fail in His creative purpose. "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men" (1 Corinthians 1:25).

This divine wisdom is centered in the sacrificial death and victorious resurrection of Christ, our Creator and Redeemer, who "loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood" (Revelation 1:5). As a result, now our "reasonable service" to Him is for each of us to offer ourselves to Him as "a living sacrifice" (Romans 12:1). HMM