Category Archives: Atheism, Belief, Perspective, Religion, Viewpoint

Posted on

Authentic Christianity

I have never claimed to be a very smart person. That, I am not. But what I am is a seeker of God and a follower of His way. My spiritual journey is an honest one, at least as much as is possible within me. God has changed my life. He healed me and has renewed me. I owe Him a debt of gratitude. He blesses me at His table of grace and fills me with His ever-deepening love. I have received His unmerited favor. I experience His unadulterated peace and holy presence. It is lovely to be God’s child, a safe and secure place to be.

God is the needle. I am the thread. He leads. I follow. With a willingly heart and an open attitude is how I follow my Father God. I learn from Him wherever He sees fit to take me. Praises to God.

It is God Who makes our lives holy. He consecrates the offering and proffers blessings as He sees fit. It is our responsibility and good pleasure toward God and His anointed Head, in reverent obedience and in unveiled contriteness of heart, to adore and worship our divine Creator and Lover. In this, ‘Come unto Me,’ our turning to Him, we find ourselves willing and able to receive more of God with a greater awareness of His being through a soft and sweet joining within the intimacy of spiritual relationship.

We are accepted children in the welcoming and warm embrace of our loving, heavenly Father God. This happens on God’s terms, not ours, and is meant for our own good. He knows the depth of our neediness, and He desires to meet us at the crossroads where faith meets reality in a decided, yet glorious, supernatural way.

No religion or theological position can unmask or detail for us the tenderness of knowing God as the Lifter of our souls. It is a divine union of a Father with His child in the wonder of close, unencumbered and uncomplicated, family relationship. In Him is life eternal.

We, far too easily, get hung up on the wrong things. What God wants from us is our heart, first, then our trust, loyalty, and obedience. What tripped up the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, can trip us up in today’s contemporary Christianity. We can pride ourselves on our ‘good lives’ and ‘good deeds’ our ‘ministries’ and our ‘outreaches,’ our church programs and building ventures, but, do we say the Jesus Prayer? “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner,” and is our life a reflection of the Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief, who said, ‘Neither do I condemn thee. Go, and sin no more’ to the one stained by her sin?

It was the form of worship that overtook the Pharisees’ religious hearts. They lost the abiding truth of the love of God which demonstrates itself in a love for all the people in the world.In this there is a form of hypocrisy that our religious eyes fail to see. The religious form can smack of spiritual arrogance and over-indulgent (religious) self-worship, a nauseous presence that grows inside church institutions of all religious traditions. There is a dullness that inhibits and blinds the person from knowing God and His ways. We are to come as children to Jesus, He will allow none to forbid the little children to come unto Him. Here we find innocent trust.

The church, its traditions and theology, is not in competition for primacy in a competing religious market despite what we may think or believe. That way of thinking is to have the wrong focus and gaze. Rather, it is the holy trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Who, with our gaze fixed upon Them, will bring us into spiritual unity and holy union no matter the religious belief of our childhood days and past spiritual experiences, present church leanings or lack thereof. “Come, unto Me.” is simple and profound and will fully be embraced the day we physically enter God’s holy presence in that day of all days.

God alone.

Posted on

Atheist or Christian? A Matter of Belief and Viewpoint

Belief or unbelief, Believer or Unbeliever, believing or unbelieving. . . .There are many ways to say it, but it can be reduced to a state of belief.

Yet, again, I read through another blog written by a former minister of the gospel who is now a professing and sharp-tongued critic of the faith. His world view is that of a rather new atheist who has found his peace in non-belief. I read his words and, actually, appreciate his honesty and transparency. His views along with others I have been reading who left the faith and have embraced atheism, shares a bitterness toward what they once believed and proclaimed but now whole-heartedly reject.

Even though I find it disheartening and sad beyond measure, I do somewhat understand their angst and desire to be removed, disconnected, and distant from what they once proclaimed. Christianity takes heart-belief not religious conformity. I can see anyone dissing that from their life. It offers emptiness. The falseness was overwhelming to them.

In my life, it worked just the opposite. I was floundering in my faith, feeling empty and lacking in joy, when I gave up. I couldn’t sustain the effort and hated the “going through the motions” that scripted religiosity serves to a person. But I loved God. I knew there had to be a better way. I asked God to show Himself to me and to change me.

Everything changed as a result of that prayer of sincerity. God came up close and personal. My spiritual life went through a radical renewing, I came to lose interest in Christianity that is performance driven. Instead I came to Jesus in heart, soul, and being. Then He gave me His love, and I accepted it. God’s love is earth-shattering real. I wish all would partake of it.

What drove some Christians into godless atheism, effectively drove me into God-inspired realism for lack of a better term. I didn’t want to continue living as I was, with a faith that is lacking in life and substance. The atheist and I have that in common. However, I went “to” because I still believed in God and His goodness, but they went “away” because they no longer believed in the truth and realness of God as a good God or as an entity who offers hope and life.

Resurrection is what I embraced in my inner self, my spiritual life. On this Easter weekend, I can truthfully say, you and I can go through our own crucifixion experience, where we die to self and become alive to God. It is so alive that it causes “joy unspeakable and full of glory.”

“The love of God is greater far, than tongue or pen can ever tell.”

Why do they no longer believe in God? It’s hard to explain, but if the thing is no longer “real” to someone, then it is useless and lacks in value. Add to that the “harsh” side of rigid views, people that only “love” those who are like them. And you have something that is easy to loathe because it lacks a genuine spirit of love.

Love is what brought God to man and man to God.

It is Easter weekend. I went to a three hour Passion Play last night in Elk Grove. The day before, I read the complete offering of the atheist I mentioned in the first paragraph. The contrast is great. As I watched the play, I kept thinking of former Christian believers who no longer share the faith. I was trying to see it through their eyes, and, quite frankly, it wasn’t that hard to see. One can’t help but wonder about it since there are so many who have “turned away” as Christians like to term it (but I prefer not to). I take their views as valid, and ask myself many questions. Christ needs to be real and life-giving or it is a mockery.

The Christ Story is a hard one. It isn’t neat and tidy or even happy. The love of God, when it is seen as brutal or belittling, cannot reach the soul. Is God’s love, real love? Is it pure? Are we at liberty to embrace His love? I cannot answer that question for you. It is a personal question one must grapple with.

I  do know this, though, God cannot be embraced through another person’s beliefs. It is through your own. I find God to be life-giving life-changing real. He completes my life. I would be much less a person without Him. I don’t believe I am making my emotions become who I am. It is not false or a facade. We live in a cursed world, one that is angry and struggling. The cross of Jesus Christ provides a way of escape for in Him new life is given.