Atheism

Have you found yourself realizing a failing in your Christian life regularly? What are you doing about it? Christianity is not a game; it is not fictitious. It's real. We are not saved to sit on our rears idly passing the time. We are not redeemed to forsake God. We are not forgiven to continue in our sin.

It's insanity to weekly, daily, hourly be reminded of a fault in us(not praying, not reading the Bible, not loving, not serving, not praising, not worshiping) and yet do nothing about it.

If we sit in our pews thinking "I know I have this problem, and I'm 'working on it'" we are fooling ourselves. Would God really convict us so much on the same matter if we are actually working to mend it?

Conviction is the moment decisions are made on how we will change. If we don't say yes to God and obey Him, we won't later un-convicted. It is so much easier to go through the day without prayer, without reading the Bible, without praising God, without loving. It's almost natural. It goes against the grain to do those things. That's why we won't if we aren't convicted.

We must act at the moment of conviction. We must cry out to God to impart His strength on us to resist the urge of being lazy in our Christian walk.

We hold up a defiant hand when we choose to deal with conviction later.

I don't know...maybe it's just me that has this dialog.
God: Get this right. You know you aren't doing your best--if any.
Me: I don't need to. I mean, I know it's a problem. I'm trying.


But am I really? Am I pushing past the laziness, the apathy, the whatever to actually live the Christian life?


To be saved and to deny the presence of God in our lives by living how we want(Not reading the Bible, not praying, not loving God and others, not praising God, not worshiping Him, etc) we are only living the Atheist life, not the Christian life. The atheist denies the existence of God. They see him as a mere man-made theology, a feel-good philosophical system.

We are living the atheist life if we live how we want to live. We deny the lordship of God if we don't love him (for he has commanded us to love him). We deny the lordship of God is we live for ourselves.

What has God been placing on your heart lately over and over again? Are you choosing not to pray to Him? Are you choosing to neglect reading the Bible? Are you rejecting the thought of loving others, of loving God? Are you resistant to His call in an area of service?

Think about it.

Everyone can improve how they live their Christian life, but do you even have one? I'm not asking if you are saved--that's another issue entirely. I'm asking if you have taken that step from simply being saved to living out your salvation? You can't improve something that isn't there.

So, answer your conscience. Do you have a Christian life? and are you living it?

Or have you abandoned God after being saved? Are you now living the Atheist life after taking the sonship of God?


This is something you can no longer ignore. You need to deal with it right now.

Just because you are a teenager, if you are, doesn't mean you are incapable of becoming so deaf and blind to God that he can no longer use you. Satan seeks to destroy and devour you. That's his goal; that's his ambition. He doesn't have to only resort to tempting you to committing murder, immorality, or bank-sized theft. He can simply sit back while you do the work of ignoring God, and then slowly(so you won't notice) begin hardening your heart, making you a little more deaf, a little more blind.

The longer you remain atheistic, the more he can harden your heart. And the more he can harder, the closer he is to totally destroying you(though God can always break the hardened heart, mend the broken heart, and bind you up in forgiveness and love.).

So stop, stop, stop thinking you can live however you want. You can't and get away with it. God is not interested or pleased in His children living the in the flesh. He is only pleased when they live in faith and in the Spirit.


Take a look at your life right now, ignore the friends around you, ignore the laundry that's buzzing at their finish, ignore the TV show that is starting. Are you living the Spirit-filled, Christian life? Are you praying? Are you reading the Bible? Are you loving?

Or are you living the Satan-filled, Atheist life? Are you praying to your idols(of self, of friends, of money, of entertainment, of boredom relief)? Are you opening the Bible maybe once a day out of a guilt-erasing act? Are you secretly, or not so secretly, hating those are you or even hating God?


Just as the Spirit is convicting me now, I'm sure He is convicting you now. So now is your chance to act. Now you can put behind you the past of born-again atheism. Now is the time you can pursue the true Christian life. Now you can put a pause to every idle distraction and pull out your Bible. Now is the time you can thank God for his love and enter into a praise session with Him.

I'll leave you with the repeated question. You do with it as you wish, God won't force your hand.
Are you living the Christian life? or are you living the Atheist life?
God's conviction is now if you are living the Atheist life. So take this moment to pursue Him. Live the Christian life now.

Adultery

I wonder…do we excite ourselves when we get the opportunity to talk to God? Do we feel lonely throughout the day if we go without talking to him? Do we ache with every moment we are away from Him? Do we smile broadly when we get a chance to talk to Him? Do we get giddy inside knowing He loves us, when we enter His presence, when we see Him through His word, his songs, his people?

Or, is he an acquaintance we met along the pathway of life that we couldn’t care less, really, if we never met again?

When we talk to a single person extensively for a long time and then suddenly we are without communication, we feel empty, pained. We miss their fellowship, we miss their laugh or their mannerisms or simply just them.

But…can we say we miss God if we go a day without talking to Him? Can we say we agonize over the neglect we might have in a day to spend time with Him? Is he the only thing on your mind when you are not talking to him? Do you anticipate greatly that moment when you can open up the Bible to hear His voice, or turn on the radio to hear his harmonies, or open your lips to speak to him?

Or are we adulterers and adulteresses? Have we found another lover? One that we foolishly think can satisfy whatever God cannot(But, alas! There is nothing pure that God cannot satisfy. He satisfies love, peace, hope, forgiveness, happiness).

Read Hosea sometime. I read it once, maybe twice, and am thinking of re-reading it again starting today. God tells Hosea to love and marry a prostitute. To love her despite her affections for various other men, despite having given herself to other men. All to demonstrate his love for us, the adulterers and adulteresses. He loves us despite our unfaithfulness. He loves us despite the fact we give ourselves to every other thing in hopes of gratifying our desires and love-void. We are made to love, and I believe we will seek different avenues to feel loved and demonstrate our love. But God doesn’t want us to find love in glittering things of our lives, or give our love to someone or something else other than Him.
He wants supremacy. He wants priority.

Stop living an adulterous life.

An Afterthought on Idolatry

God is a jealous God. He wants your focus, your love, your devotion, your worship. It isn't too much to ask, he made you and bought you with the price of His son's blood.
When we do not make him our God, and instead make someone/something/someplace our god, He is grieved.

God throughout the course of the Bible has sent his servants to destroy the idols of His people, to destroy their groves, their temples. God doesn't want to share a throne, he wants exclusivity. Either he's on it, or he isn't.

But He doesn't wait idly for you to allow him on the throne. He will speak to you, convict you. Then he will remove the god little by little. In Jeremiah 4 it speaks of God giving an ultimatum. Return to Him, or be burned in an unquenchable fire of his fury. And it goes without saying that in that flame the idols will be devoured, common life will be devoured, and potentially lives devoured.

We are sheep. We need a shepherd, a guide, a god. We don't know the future, we barely grasp the present. We have very little strength, if any, in the grand scheme of things. We have little wisdom, knowledge, and understanding.

When we place our trust in gods and let them govern our lives, we will stumble through the paths of darkness and destruction. When we replace God with a person, or a thing, or even a place, then we have no guidance. The underlying goal is to remain in its presence for however long possible. To maintain a grasp of it.

And then God's judgment strikes.

We lose whatever thing we idolized(a talent, a car or house or any other materialistic possession, an ability of the mind--that is, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of any topic).

We lose whomever we idolized(a family member, a friend, a spouse, a girlfriend/boyfriend).

We lose wherever we idolized(a job).

And when those things are chiseled out of enthronement, we are empty, without guide, devastated.


God doesn't want to hurt you. He doesn't want to take away those things you love(so long as what you love is not what God hates). He simply wants to be your God, for you to be His servant, His child, His bride. Several times when dealing with Israel in the Major and Minor Prophets of the Bible, God cries out for them to return to Him.

Read Joel 2. In verse 12 he begins the ultimatum. God wants us to turn to Him with all our hearts. To rend our hearts(the picture being of biblical mourning and the rending of clothes showing outward repentance. God is interested in the inward repentance--the heart, the throne. God wants us to tear apart the throne we have in our hearts, removing the former god).
The passage goes on to say that God is gracious and merciful; and that He will supply full satisfaction (Remember, when we no longer have a god on the throne of our hearts a dark void overcomes us. God fills that void completely. God satisfies. (Note also that even when we have a god enthroned in our hearts, if it isn't God Almighty, then the void is still there, though we can deceived ourselves into dulling the hunger, to ignore the void.) )

Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, every one according to his ways, saith the Lord GOD. Repent, and turn [yourselves] from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin.
Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn [yourselves], and live ye.
--Ezekiel 18:30-32

God doesn't want to put us to ruin. God wants us to live, to have a new heart(throne) and a new spirit. God isn't delighted when we are punished and put to ruin because of our sin and idolatry. It grieves Him.

God continually cries out to the nation of Israel to repent, to remove the strange gods from among them, and to cling to Him and Him alone.

And He is crying out to you and me. He doesn't want a single god in our heart that isn't Him. He doesn't want friends to be elevated above Him. He doesn't want family to be elevated above Him. He doesn't want you to be elevated above Him.

God wants priority, exclusivity.

God made you and He bought you. He deserves our worship, our devotion, our love, our consecration, our focus. He deserves to be the God of our lives. To be our Guide and Shepherd. To be our Lover.

But he will punish you if you ignore Him. He will bring his fury upon you like an unquenchable flame if you regard idols in your heart, if you don't return to Him. He will destroy the groves, He will destroy the temples. God will remove our friends, our family, our jobs, our possessions.


So, right now, get the crowbar out and pry the gods off the throne of your heart. And then get a hammer and destroy that throne. God brings with Him His throne. Don't allow other gods to take enthronement in your heart.

Do you have a family member that you are elevating above God? Commit to yourself, if not to God(But take heed to Eccl. 5:4-5), to spend time with God before spending time with them. Pray, read the Bible, focus on Him.

Do you have a friend(or friends) that consume your thoughts, your goals, your reasoning? Do you fear the loss of their friendship so much that you live on broken glass, making sure you don't do something to ruin the relationship, or making sure they don't all of a sudden hate you?
Spend time focusing on God. Write things down in a notebook if you desire. Think of His love, His mercy, His grace. Think of His pursuit of you. Think of His forgiveness, His power, His ever-presence.

Do you have a job that you would do anything for(giving up time with God and your family)? Do you constantly think about your job, wondering about your security, or wondering about how to get elevated in the commerce ladder? Do you spend endless hours in your job, even if you're away from your job-place?
Devote a day, or an hour, to thinking of God. Thinking how you can improve your walk with Him, how to grow. Think of ways you can enliven your Bible reading. Think of ways to begin your Bible reading.

There is no excuse for not reading your Bible, there is no excuse for not praying. God has given us EVERYTHING we need for life and godliness.


Cast away the idols in your life. Place God as God in your life. Focus on Him.

Right now, go and spend time with Him. Ignore your friends, ignore your family, ignore yourself. God is more important than all of them. Your true friends will not hate you for spending time with God, your family will understand. (Now, don't be extreme and isolate yourself from them for a long time, but don't let them distract you from spending time with God after reading this, or tomorrow, or the next day. Take a part of your day and isolate yourself, think only of God, read only of God, speak only to God.)

Friendships and family are far more prone to destruction and loss by placing them as top priority than they are by placing them underneath God's place of top priority.


The ball is in your(and my) court now. What will you(I) do? God has given warnings in His word, and has spoken to us through this nugget(For me, it is more or less life than it is reading an internet blog).

Will you make God your God right now, removing all other gods?
...Will I?

Growth will not happen by mere knowledge. It takes application. And application won't happen until you choose. And a choice will be made in a few moments. You will either make that first step to removing idols from your life and enthroning God in your heart, or you will neglect God and continue worshiping idols. No middle ground. No "I'll do it later"s. The first step is at your doorstep, will we answer God's call and return to Him, break up our fallow ground, seek Him, and worship Him?

The time to choose is now.