Sunday, 07 February 2010

• Why There Can Be No Such Thing As "Ex-Christian Atheists"

  

  This note was spurred because of two persons. One was a Twitter follower who is an atheist and the other was a Facebook friend who's a Christian. And God of course did the inspiration. It all started because the Twitter follower told me that he had been in Christianity for 28 years. That's longer than I've been born! I'm not sure when he became what he calls an atheist, but he's a somewhat older guy. He was in the church for 28 years, and decided that God was not real and that the bible was a lie and that all the things written about Jesus were a lie as well. He believed that 28 years under his belt of being a "Christian" made him qualified to tell other Christians that they were making a big mistake by believing in the whole Christianity thing.

  But the Facebook friend said (and I quote), "I don't see how anybody that has a real relation with Jesus can become a non-Christian. I think they were into religion. Many are."

  For some reason, when I read his comment, a light bulb in my head went on! I realized that it was indeed IMPOSSIBLE for someone who says they were a Christian to have been in the church for any length of time and then to say that they were no longer Christians. The reason is because Christianity is not merely a religion like Buddhism, Wicca, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism is. No ma'am no sir. Christianity is about RELATIONSHIP.

  I had an idea about what people would mean when they would say, "Religion is what is messing up Christianity," but I never quite understood until today. While riding in my car to visit a church, God started downloading stuff into my head about religion vs. relationship. And it was fascinating!

  I've been in the church all my life. Both my parents were saved when they got married and had me. So I've always been exposed to church and the things and ways pertaining to church. I also have usually been in a traditional, denominational church, so I understand ALL about tradition. I know you're supposed to put your pointer finger up and hunch over if you need to use the bathroom during the church service. I know you're supposed to stand up when the pastor or speaker for the day walks in. I know you're supposed to "give an honor to God who's the head of my life and to the pastor and to his wife and all the deacons and elders and missionaries and...." I know ALL of that. I've been raised and trained in the things of the church.

  But I have a problem with some stuff. I don't believe it's a good idea to enforce man's tradition on new believers. If someone is an atheist who has decided to give this Christianity stuff a try, I believe that it is VERY damaging to start laying rules on him thick. I've been reading the letters of Paul to the church in Roman and in Corinth that were filled with doctrine. I've been reading the letters Paul wrote to Titus and Timothy to teach them the doctrine to give to the new church (a.k.a. body of Christ). So I am fully aware that people in the church do need rules to govern the lives and church services. I agree that as Paul said, things should be done decently and in order in the church. But I have a problem when people in the church are more concerned with teaching people church rules than they are with introducing people to the person of Jesus Christ.

  Let's go back to the beginning so we can see how things ought to be done.

  In the beginning, God made Adam and Eve. He had a personal relationship with them. They did not have to go to an synagogue/temple/cathedral/church/sanctuary/tabernacle etc. to commune with Him. One verse leads us to believe that God would perhaps even walk and talk with Adam in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden. I believe that God likely enjoyed this time with His beloved creation that He made in His own image. So how did we come to need a church to get to God?

  Well, it all started when Adam and Eve sinned. The put up a wall of separation between God and themselves. This wall was made of sin and disobedience. There was now a gap between God and them. They needed reconciliation. So God came down in the form of man - Jesus - to do what it took to get rid of the sin so that mankind could be back into relationship with God. Not ironically, Jesus is sometimes referred to as our Bridegroom with us in the church being referred to as His bride. God designed marriage in the beginning with Adam and Eve (not Adam and Steve or Adamina and Eve, mind you). But when Satan got between that marriage, it messed up stuff between us and God.

  

  Also, notice in the New Testament that the people in the church are regarded as Jesus' body with Jesus being the head of the body. We are all members and just like in a human body, we have our different functions. Eyes can't be arms and feet can't be bellies. So Jesus made us His body for the earth while He went up to heaven to be seated on the right hand of God until God made Jesus' enemies His footstool. So we are supposed to be doing what JESUS would have done had He still been here. And what would Jesus have been doing had He still been here?

  He'd have been STILL reconciling lost souls to their Creator. Our Heavenly Father God.

  But we don't know that. What we CHOOSE to do instead is enforce man's traditions upon them.

  The church's function is to reunite people with God. When Jesus came back from the dead to talk with the disciples before He left for heaven, He gave them what we call "The Great Commission". And that great commission was to make disciples of all nations. But is that what we do in the church now?

  It seems more to me that we are concerned with making people churchy and religious. It seems to me that we're more concerned with them playing a role than we are with them being reconciled to their Creator. The biggest mistake we can do to an unbeliever who has decided to get saved is to introduce them to a RELIGION instead of to the PERSON of Jesus Christ. That's like getting somebody a blind date and the whole time you just keep telling them the etiquette for the nice restaurant they're going to be meeting at. "Don't wear this! Don't do that! Say this!" NO! NO! NO! First tell me about the person who you say is interested in me! Introduce me to the man! If it's going to be this complicated just to meet him, then I don't want to go! I'll just order take out! I don't need ur rules yet! Let me meet him first!!

  Here's a scenario:

  Imagine a 40 year old man who's been an atheist ALL his life. So he hears a little about a man that people say can save his soul from sin and hell. He decides to visit the first Christian church he sees to see what they can tell him about the Man. Imagine how he feels when he goes to the altar call to get his soul saved and the FIRST thing he hears after reciting the sinner's prayer is, "... Now take out them earrings. That's faggoty. In the bible days, slaves wore earrings. And pull them pants up. Take them sissy braids out yo' head, and get a haircut. That's a disgrace for a man to have long hair. Wear a suit next time I see you. Don't be coming up in here with no thug's uniform. This is the Lord's house. You need to have some respect for the Lord's house!"

  NO! NO! NO! INTRODUCE HIM TO JESUS! HE CAME TO MEET JESUS AND INSTEAD YOU GIVE HIM RULES! LET HIM MEET THE JESUS HE HEARD ABOUT WHO COULD SAVE HIS SOUL! LET HIM MEET THE MAN THAT ALL THOSE WITNESSES TOLD HIM LOVED HIM MORE THAN HE COULD EVER KNOW! You see, THIS is the reason why so many new believers become disillusioned with church. They were told about a Man who loved them and who could save their souls and who could give them eternal life. But instead, all they hear is men's do's and don'ts. Man's tradition - some of which has no biblical scripture supporting it! First, introduce them to this "blind date". Then, as a result of the loving relationship they build with Him, their behaviors will change.

  This is how we do folk. First, we immediately look at their outer appearance. We look them up and down from head to toe to see everything about their looks or behavior need eradicating. Then we proceed to shame them out of that outer stuff. We'll embarrass the men about earrings and baggy jeans. We humiliate the women about short and tight skirts. We shame them both out of not "looking" and "acting" saved. But that's backwards! We need to stop trying to change people's fruits. FIRST YOU GOT TO CHANGE THE ROOTS! You can't shame an apple tree into producing oranges for fruit! You got to get them to the Man who can change their old nature and as a result of the relationship, they will want to change!

  Matthew 7:16Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 17Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 19Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

  The reason I am writing this post is because I met a man on Twitter who said said he is now an atheist because he had been a Christian for 28 years and discovered that it was all fake (to him). I told him that it was impossible for that to be the case. I say it's impossible because it's impossible to be in a relationship with a person for 28 YEARS and not know all the while that they were nonexistent. That's like living in a home, cooking meals, doing chores, and raising kids for a man that you've never seen. You HAD to have known from at the most the first week that he didn't exist! But this man thought that because he had been in a church for 28 years that it qualified him to say that Christianity was a fraud. What he didn't know all those 28 years was that he had just never met Jesus and God!
  
  He probably attended a church or two or three where the pastors kept telling him a list of dos and donts. He probably just got tired of the rituals of the church and felt like he was being robbed of something. His problem was not whether or not God and Jesus existed; his problem was that they had never been properly introduced! You can't be a Christian for 28 years because you can't know Jesus for 28 years and not know He wasn't there for all those years. Jesus is real! He was a human being that walked the earth about 2,010 years ago! If you think you are a Christian just because you sat up in a church somewhere for three decades, that does not mean you have a personal, intimate relationship with the PERSON of Jesus Christ. That does not mean that you are officially a Christian. It just means that you were a professional church member. You knew how to play the role and "get by" for several years. And it's a shame that no one came and helped you. No one was making sure you were getting acquainted with Jesus. No one was making sure you developed a person relationship with Jesus Christ. They were probably more concerned with you looking and acting like they did. They might have actually had a relationship but also liked to act religious too. So they probably assumed you were the same way. They never asked if you had been introduced to Jesus!
  
  So when a person comes to the church to get saved, point them to the Lord! Don't point them immediately to a list of rules and regulations. Don't point them immediately to a ministry or auxiliary. Don't point them to a man's tradition that has no biblical support for it. POINT THEM BACK TO GOD!

  

  I John 2:18-19 - Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

  These two verses above show us that if someone does leave the church, it could just be that they were never of us in the first place. It could just be that they were just demonic persons who would never want to get to know Jesus personally anyways. They might have just been sent by Satan to sabotage the church. But I believe that most people who leave the Christian church are not satanic. I believe that they are just hurting. Many of them have been victims of church hurts. I've heard of many people who said that the Catholic church had really hurt them. They say they don't like Christians because of how we killed innocent women during the Salem witch trials and hunts. They say they left the Christian church when they heard of its bloody history in the Crusades that lasted about 200 years. I know a man who said he's done with the church because he thinks everyone in there is faking (his mom used to get paid to run around the church and holler to make the pastor's preaching look better). I have an ex who is disillusioned with the church because he thinks the pastors are unfaithful to their wives. Some people have been sexually molested or raped by church officials and when they told other church officials, they were accused of lying or just told to shut up or told that the man had authority and therefore the right to do it.

  There are many different reasons as to why people say they "left Christianity". But the truth is that if these people had known Jesus all along, they wouldn't have left the body of Christ (even if they had just left a specific church building in particular). Jesus has NEVER hurt you. God has NEVER hurt you. YOUR CHOICE OF SINS and PEOPLE (Christian or not Christian) have hurt you. These people who claim they left Christianity should know that Jesus is represented by a church without spot or wrinkle - that He is represented by a church that represents His name! This church is not a building made wtih men's hands. His church is the assembly of TRUE Christians. The word of church in the New Testament is the Greek word "ecclesia". It means a gathering, assembly, etc. It does not mean a brick or wooden building. The people IN the church are the body of Christ and ONLY if they are sincerely in a personal relationship with Jesus. I ASSURE you. Everyone who is a member of a Christian church is not going to heaven because some of them are just playing a role without relationship. This next verse I list will surprise you if you've never head of it before:

  Matthew 7:21 - Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

  We see here that everyone you THINK is a sincere Christian based on what they "do in Jesus' name" is not necessarily a Christian. They will not get into heaven. You and they might think that because they prophesied in Jesus' name and cast out demons in Jesus' name and did wonderful things in Jesus' name that they are automatically authentic Christians. But no sir! But no ma'am! There are professional church imposters who know how to perform like a real Christian would. But they are not real.

  So I'll say it again. It is impossible to be with someone for any amount of time and to say that he is nonexistent. I know Jesus is real because I have a personal relationship with Him. I've heard of many credible persons say that they have actually seen Jesus. But even if all those persons were somehow discredited, I KNOW FOR MYSELF that He is real. He is my best friend. I know that it's not easy to discern spiritual things with natural tools (well actually it's impossible), but for what it's worth, I know He's real. When you get married to Him, it won't be so easy to lose Him even if you attend a church where they don't point you into His direction.

  HE'S REAL AND HE WANTS A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU!

  

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