The Living God

Greeting, brothers and sisters in Christ.

All my life I’ve run into atheists and agnostics who have questions. With the advent of the World Wide Web and social media, the numbers seem to be growing. Some arguments come up repeatedly.

What evidence is there for God?

“Evidence” is a key word in this argument. It’s a term that’s drawn largely from the sciences. But God transcends science. You can’t put Him in a laboratory. The scientific method looks for empirically verifiable or physical traces in the world. But God is not part of the world as we know it. He resides outside of time and space and can’t be analyzed.

“Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence”, as Carl Sagan said. But to anyone who has their mind made up, that sounds like a weak argument.

So the atheist falls back on the “blind faith” argument. It’s not possible to prove there’s a God, so the Christian believes in a myth.

The unbeliever will contend that humans make up gods as a way to explain that which is unexplainable. The Abrahamic God is just one of many, they claim. I’ll be devoting an entire post to this subject, so I’ll be brief here.

God implanted into the human brain the ability to recognize Him. We need to believe in God. We’re programmed for it. Civilizations and cultures and clans which have not met the One God will fulfil that need by making up false gods.

So how does a truly born-again Christ-follower know there’s a One True God? There’s an underrated verse for that:

Hebrews 11:1 says that:

Now faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for, the EVIDENCE of things not seen.

You have FAITH that the sun will rise in the morning, because you have seen the EVIDENCE that it happens every morning.

You have FAITH in God, because you have seen the EVIDENCE that He is working in your life. The SUBSTANCE of that evidence is concrete and incontrovertible.

Those who live a Christ-centered life experience that evidence all the time. I’m not talking about people who identify as Christian because they were baptized as a baby, or because they grew up in a [insert denomination here] home. I’m talking about people who have sought and received a personal relationship with Jesus and experience two-way communication. Christ-centered Christians experience amazing and unexplainable things.

Which brings us to something atheists often say:

Christians attribute coincidences to the work of God and call them miracles

It’s a funny thing. When a Christian becomes God’s hands and feet, their life becomes one long series of the most incredible and timely coincidences that work so well to answer prayers and serve others, like I tell about in This Post. Aren’t coincidences great events in the Christian life?

Of course, there are also those miracles that defy all the laws of the universe. Those are rare, and in my experience and observations, they usually only happen when you’re heavily involved in ministerial work. I’ll tell about some of those in future posts.

And about that two-way communication thing:

People who claim God talks to them are delusional

A Word of Knowledge is a revelation given by the Holy Spirit about something that is impossible to know in the natural. God works through everyone differently, depending on their circumstances, resources and abilities, but in my case, it almost always involves a need someone has that I am in a position to provide.

Most all Spirit-filled Christians experience that sudden and urgent need to pray for someone RIGHT NOW! Sometimes the Holy Spirit will even wake you up in the middle of the night to do so. It may be the next day, or several days or weeks before you run into that person and find out what happened at that minute on that day (or night).

You may have experienced an emergency of your own, and the next day someone calls, or the next Sunday in church someone comes up to you, and asks what happened? God had told them to pray for you at that crucial moment.

It can be little every day things, too. Some trivial something that Gods tells you to do or not do. You’ll learn the reason for it later.

Sometimes God gets amazingly specific, like I tell about Here

If all these examples are delusions, they sure are precise and well timed!

Of course you can’t talk about miracles and conversations with God to atheists. I’ve seen people try and it doesn’t end well. Atheists don’t believe a word of it, so just don’t even try. Atheists will ask (sarcastically), “If miracles happen, why haven’t I ever seen one?”.

It may be a scornful question, but it’s actually a valid question.

Matthew 13:58 tells of a certain incident that happened during Jesus’ ministry: And he did not do many mighty works there, because of their unbelief.

God does not perform for unbelievers, like some stage magician

And in John 4:48 “Unless you people see signs and wonders,” Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”

Put those two verses together, and it sounds like a catch-22 situation. But the fact is, with extremely few exceptions, unless and until an unbeliever gets saved, he/she is not going to experience the miraculous or hear God’s voice.

Atheists do occasionally get saved, as do those who “thought” they were Christians, just because they grew up going to Sunday school or whatever, but they never met God. I’ve watched remarkable interviews with former atheists, as well as people who had believed there was a God without realizing they didn’t actually know Him before they got saved.

But to continue with atheistic arguments…

Religion causes wars

It’s true that fanatics and power hungry despots will use religion as an excuse to violently gain their own ends. But this doesn’t come from the Abrahamic God.

Yes, I know, there are incidents in the Old Testament in which the writers claim God ordered the killing of people. I’m not going to cover that here. I’m saving that for a future post I have in mind.

As for the question Christians hate more than any other:

Why does God let bad things happen?

This is another one asked sarcastically, since the questioner doesn’t believe there’s a God. The real underlying reason for this question is, “How can you believe in a God who lets bad things happen?

I’ve seen all the trite answers to this question. But the answer is complex. Even many Christians don’t get it.

There are clues throughout the Bible, especially the New Testament, but several verses covering the events after the Resurrection and before the Ascension sum it up:

And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high.”
Luke 24:49

and

And while [Jesus was] staying with them He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, He said, “you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 1: 4-5 & 8

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we have been given the tools we need to save the world, and most of us aren’t doing our part. Not sure what you’re supposed to be doing? Pray fervently about it. There’s a task out there that has your name on it. Not enough of us are feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, ministering to the sick, and all the other things we’re supposed to be doing to help relieve the suffering in a hurting world.

But how to answer someone who asks The Question? Pray that the Holy Spirit gives you the right words.

Now how about turning this subject around, and cover a question that puzzles the Christian:

How can a Christian become an atheist?

Sometimes this person is even a former pastor. It’s inexplicable. It’s mystifying. I can only come up with two possible answers.

Either they never knew God, or somehow their mind just got totally corrupted. I think most often it’s the former.

How do we change the minds of unbelievers?

We can’t. It’s not our job. It’s the Holy Spirit’s job. Don’t argue with unbelievers and don’t proselytize to them. You’ll just push them further away. Instead, let your Light shine. Be there for them if they need you. Pray for your unbelieving friends and family members. Let go and let God.

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