Atheistic Bible Believers

Atheistic Bible Believers

7/24/18

The title of this article may seem a tad ridiculous and absurd to others but in truth, it is the definition of many people that consider ourselves to be followers of Jesus.  It is a harsh topic and title but one that God wishes for us to understand because this type of death trap of a belief does not represent God nor the Church that Jesus ordained before He left this earth.  Our hearts have become situated in stubbornness and laziness and it is because of this action or lack of action that we fall into this category.  Jesus gave us the command to go into all the world yet for some selfish reason we cannot even make it to our immediate family.  The Church is now ruled by the world and not serving her Groom, a place setting that has no good outcome at all and until we change this place setting in our hearts, we shall continue to see nothing but defeat and destruction.

I am probably the guiltiest person that has ever lived who falls into the category of not listening to God whisper into my heart when it comes to witnessing thus missing a prime opportunity for Him to shine into another person’s life.  All of us who have lived under Covenant have had plenty of opportunities that we have ignored or thwarted in which God has placed it upon our heart to tell the love of God and how His Son is the Savior of the world to someone that is ready to hear the truth about their lives.  In my line of work, not many people make it out alive and for the most part, the world and its laws have tied my hands to the point where I cannot say a word or even mention God to them.  However, there have been others who already know God and know their destination but in no way possible does this allow me to get off the hook of my selfishness in not taking the opportunity to witness to those who need God.  Yes, my attitude and light shines into their lives but my mouth remains shut and I do not pursue the opening like I should sometimes and it is this aspect of my life and of others that we need to really be wary about because if we do not follow the command of Jesus it will not take too long to find ourselves wrapped up in the title of this article.

We cannot turn on the television, read the news, or hear a song today without knowing exactly what the world feels about God and the plan of salvation.  We have become so self-servant that we have lost our entire scope of existence as individuals and as a nation, a nation that was created for a divine purpose for the dying world.  It has reached the point where I do not even wish to know what is going on in the world because in order for one to read the important details of the day we must first weed through the junk that this entertained society believes is more important.  When a completed sports trade or an actor’s third divorce makes front page news while a massacre in another land or even on our streets only hits page 5 we have a serious problem and from all indicators these “important” entertainment stories are followed more diligently instead of human tragedies and issues, the heart’s definition protrudes quite loudly.  Tragedies of a human nature only make headlines when it supports this entertainment conditions, a harsh statement but proven when a “famous” person commits suicide yet the two young lives who have performed this terrible act in this community does not even make the local newspaper.

God knows that not every person will come to know Him and live under His Covenant that He has provided.  God continues to wish that every child of His comes to the knowledge of Him and accepts His Ways as their own, and this position of His has never changed and shall never change either.  The only way that people will ever come to know Christ is if we alone not only show them Christ but tell them about Him as well and while it is said that actions speak louder than words and this is a true statement, if our actions are vocally mute they will be just for presentation only and not alive with testimony.  I have had the privilege to have been around many people in my life who were considered to be great people in a community but had no clue about God of that His Son died for their sins, an eternal tragedy that cannot be undone once they draw their last breath.  It is here that we turn our attention to what God has demonstrated throughout His definition and what His Son commanded us to do and that is telling others about the good news of eternal life through God and His Covenant.

Mark 16:12-15 will serve as the Scripture passage for this message, and even though it is a well-known verse there might be a detail that we have overlooked.  Verse 15 states this detail and gives us the reason why we need to preach the gospel to others for this verse is a Kingdom verse and it tells us that the Kingdom realm is active and is always in constant motion.  This verse also shows us that no matter what we must be on guard at all times too since this realm is active it means that our enemy’s realm is active as well and is need of spiritually combated as well.  “And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”  Pretty clear and concise wouldn’t you agree, concerning the command that Jesus gives His disciples here?  Now there are many words in this verse that can be considered important, and each one of them is but the word that we are going to focus on is “ye” or in our terms for today, the word you.

As we have learned throughout the last six years or so in the articles and growth that God has shared with us through these articles, is that it is our responsibility to spread the Word of God to those who are in need of God and His Ways.  There is no way possible that God can perform this action and still claim to be a sovereign, perfect, holy and eternal God without any origin of reference.  It is our command to proclaim God and the complete separation from the world that He wants everyone to know and to live under yet we have not done a very good job at keeping this command from Jesus simply because we do not believe it ourselves which brings us back to the title of this article because when it boils done to the foundation of life if we do not believe in ______ we definitely will not spend the effort and energy to find out every detail that we can about that subject.  This holds true for God and His Son and most importantly God’s definition.  If we personify God into a selfish image then we are in truth making Him an idol and thus confining His existence into a box for our own usage and not for spreading the truth and life to the dying.

First off, we must recognize that there are two forces that are vying for your eternity and that these forces cannot mix in any way, shape, or form, we have been taught this on many occasions in these articles from God many times.  Secondly, we must understand that it is this spiritual warfare that dictates many of our lives and even though we may not fully comprehend all that takes place in this realm it is necessary to know God and His Word well enough to know how to fight in this battle.  Many people do not understand that this truth is always in play and that there is a constant battle for your life and that if we do not consider this aspect and basic foundation of the spirit realm our battle is lost even before we reach the front.  It amazes me how Christianity fails to teach and to disciple those who consider themselves followers of Christ this truth about why they are believers in the first place.  It is a guarantee that our enemy knows the Word of God better than most people and I would venture to guess he knows more than 99% of Christians, so why don’t we spend more time studying the Bible than we do?  When we live our lives with self first we can only show up to this gunfight with our bare hands, that is what has occurred ever since the dawn of the Early Church and we have not changed one bit from that glorious day.

Do we spend more time on a daily basis reading a mystery novel or some self-help book than we do the Bible?  Another question that needs to be asked is how do you read the Bible?  Do you study it for hours each day applying it to your life and then telling others about what you have applied or do you read the Bible just as you do a mystery or romance novel, superficially and quickly.  It is not necessary to answer these questions out loud for it is evident as to how most of us read God’s Word, for there can be no mistake about who has control of the world and which kingdom controls the Church as well.  This my friends, automatically places us in the category of the title of this article for if we place a novel about a lie on the same plane or higher than God’s Word then we believe the novel and its content more than what God’s definition has within its cover.  See, God is the ONLY being that is undefeated and has no rival and His Word is His definition so if we do not spend quality amounts of study time in His Word there is no way that we can live as overcomers.

In the Old Testament, how did one live under the Covenant that God provided for the children of Israel?  They lived separate lives from the world and told whoever was around of their ways and who established their nation as a testimony to who God was to their existence.  It was not God who initiated the fall from His eternal protection it was the human’s idea to do such a thing.  We read in 1 Samuel that Israel once again made the choice to leave God and His Covenant and to go on it their separate ways and it states quite clearly who made that choice.  On down the road, we see that this separation from God brought forth a divided nation of Israel thus making vulnerable to stronger worldly attitudes in which they readily and speedily took a hold of.  This choice led to prophecies against their land in which they laughed off and continued in their acts of sin, and sure enough, over time God allowed enemies of the world, the ones that they chose to live with, destroy their land and their lives.  They became living testaments of atheists and showed this disbelief to their Creator on a minute by minute scale.

How can it be stated that they were atheists just like we are today and still be accurate in that proclamation?  Who gave me the words to write in this article and why were they even suggested as being the truth?  The passage in Mark 16:15 gives us the answer and it holds a truth that was stated by God way back in the Garden of Eden to Adam when God said to keep His one law and to dress and to keep Adam’s dominion.  God was making a command to Adam and then to Eve that their job was to keep up the dominion that He gave them which serves as the same authority that Mark 16:15 when Jesus told His disciples to go and to preach the gospel to the world, it is the exact same command.  Therefore, when Adam and Eve failed to keep the command that God gave them, their lives became selfish and lazy and even though they physically witnessed Satan in his physical performance their attitudes had already turned enough away from God that they were now atheists on an eternal scale.  If anyone does not believe in the awesomeness of God and His holy and eternal status first, it makes sense that they shall not study His definition which places the world first in their lives which automatically states to God that they are atheists and have atheistic tendencies against God.  Our purpose in life is to spread the good news about God and His existence and if we just do this on a superficial basis we are liars and do not deserve His eternal presence in our lives.

Do not get God wrong here, please.  God understands that you have a life and need to complete daily activities but it is the time that we spend in His Word and searching His Word for wisdom concerning Him and how to fight against our enemy.  We have learned over the past few years that people wear crucifixes around their necks or around other parts of their bodies and yet publicly decry their selfish freedoms of the world.  This is the prime example of a superficial believer and one that does not care about the eternal status of their own lives and of others.  Screaming out in public to have the right to have an abortion or to be able to be recognized as a transgender person is not practicing a well defined and continued study of God’s Word; however, it does represent a well versed worldly kingdom ruler and the message he preaches. 

How far have we come from the in-depth confines of the Word of God?  It is these activities that are performed and marched across this land every day without any obstacles being placed in front of them, which means that we consider these activities and beliefs to be normal and acceptable practices.  That is okay, for people have the authority to choose their beliefs but please understand that those who engage in such acceptances cannot see the Kingdom of God for they have skewed the truth concerning God’s Word and definition.  It should not be too shocking to recognize that these lovely creations of God follow the example of the kingdom they serve for they have studied it and have dedicated themselves to its cause.

We have previously and briefly touched on the subject as to why the New Testament was written, how it was written and who it was written for.  We cannot escape the truth that even in the early days of Christianity Satan was hard at work working his words around the hearts of those who considered themselves to be followers of Christ.  Each letter written in the New Testament has to deal with some issue that a specific group of churches was dealing with, which means that they had already come up with alternative messages about God and His Son.  It is apparent that the attention of the Early Church had waivered from the command that Jesus gave them and had turned to individual beliefs about how to be holy and upright before the heathens, not realizing that they had become heathen themselves in the “practices” to which the writers of the New Testament responded in kind.  We cannot afford to be lazy in the fact that we believe our sanctimony is higher than anyone else or that our “pious” reaches higher than any other person, Jesus tells us this when He states that “you” will have more power and do greater works that He did while He was on the earth.

One cannot perform such eternal and life-changing deeds if they do not understand what is going on around them, they just cannot.  It is this truth claim that God wants us to know that we are harboring atheistic tendencies within our hearts and these beliefs are turning even the strongest believer from God.  It cannot be stated any stronger since this message comes strictly from God’s heart when He says to us that we need to spend more time in His Word and allow Him to search our hearts and rid ourselves of the sin that we have allowed to inhabit.  As each day passes we are witness to further anger and animosity to those who do not follow the standards of the world and if you believe that this anger is going to go away then you cannot be further from the truth.  This is a step process and progression and as each day passes we see more steps taken in one direction only simply because the ones who have the authority to stop and to reverse this process are silent.  We have no idea how to combat the growth of such wickedness so we sit back and watch God be thrown out of every single part of our existence while sitting with our mouths open in disbelief.

Furthermore, if a person truly and honestly believes in something they will know its contents well enough to stand and defend it no matter what the conditions may present.  Do we stand up with this type of truth for the Bible and the ways of God?  We may for a moment or two but with a short blast of worldly arguments we falter and drift out of sight giving the ones who stood up for the world further strength to carry on in their conquest of human eternity.  We must know the Word of God from cover to cover and what it means to our lives because if we do not it shows and tells the world that we have no fight and that we really do not believe in what the Bible says which sums up the title of this article and without any defense noted we must find ourselves guilty of such statement and charge.  Do we not see this scenario developing and transpiring each day?  How can we not?

The world will convince the human that their life is so devalued that it will provide them with information supporting such lie and have the human defend it on a public scale.  Look at what issues run across the headlines of any newscast today.  Many companies will defend certain actions in order to stand ground with the political guidelines they support all in the name of freedom and popularity.  These companies will boldly and proudly stand in front of cameras and microphones and proclaim the popularity and wonderfulness of killing human beings or doing their best to gain an upper hand through self-indulgence.  Where are the defenders of life?  And I am not just referring to the abortion issues either, but the life and expectancy of the human, where are the defenders?  We no longer can define what life is without contradicting a previously man-made law nor can we even spend enough time preventing such irrelevant and egotistical laws from being passed in the first place.  However, on the other hand of things what do we expect since we pass laws just as we study the Bible.

Church, we have no excuse whatsoever for the silence we have made over our tenure.  It is embarrassing of the lack of conviction that we harbor by sitting around with our hands on our open mouths and wondering why things have gotten so bad and out of hand.  Well, duh!!  We do not have the guts enough to spend extra minutes or hours a day studying what Mark 16:15 means to our daily lives much less proclaiming that Jesus Christ died for ALL sins and for everyone.  Do we even understand the time frame logic of Jesus’ time on earth and I honestly believe we do not because we have no teeth or knowledge in what we are supposed to believe in?  Are you proud enough of the Word of God to stand on the corner of a street and just read out loud the words of the Bible?  Are we strong enough to engage in a question and answer setting with a non-believer to find out why he/ she do not believe in God?  Can we even correctly and adequately in love answer a pointed question about a specific verse in the Bible when asked? 

God wants us to think about this spirit of atheism that we have harbored into our hearts for it is a process that continues to grow and progress throughout the hearts of believers.  The spirit of atheism and having atheistic tendencies is a dangerous position to take and to stand within and we need to open our spiritual eyes and understand exactly where we are at and how to allow God to take us from such position.  The world is continually gaining strength and Satan is enjoying himself by watching those who do not know him defend their own deaths, AND watching the ones who are supposed to know about God and to tell those who don’t do absolutely nothing or a poor enough job that the ones who need God are quickly turned off.  Open your hearts to God Church and allow Him to light His candle in our hearts again for there is not much time left and if we do not change the course of this nation soon, we shall probably never have a lifestyle full of blessings again.  It is all up to us but in order for us to start winning back the world, we must rid ourselves of the status of Atheistic Bible believers.

DLB