I remember a story about a 4-year-old boy who started crying on the way home from his dedication at church. His parents asked him why he was crying. His reply was, “The preacher said he wanted me to be raised in a Christian home.”
“Then why are you crying,” his parents asked.
“Because I want to stay with you guys!”
We must ask ourselves the question does our life exemplify a person who believes in and believes God? Would our children cry because they wanted to live with us instead of a fine Christian home? Another question is do we seek God at all times, or just when we want something from Him? The fact is God looks down from heaven and knows our every thought and move.
The Psalms teach us that it is the fool who says, “there is no God.” This is a person who has developed a callousness towards God. This type of callousness leads to moral callousness.
For if we are insensitive to the standard of morality, then why would we be concerned with any sense of morality. When the Bible labels this “person” a fool, it is speaking of his moral orientation rather than any intellectual ability. The fool rejects wisdom in lieu of their own choices. In other words, the fool, as the Bible describes him, functions as one’s own god.
We can look down our proverbial noses at this person in disgust and dismay, but maybe we would be better served to understand why it is that sometimes we act and live as if there is no God. Why do we too often live as though God is irrelevant?
Maybe it is because we don’t think God is interested in us and our goings on. Or maybe we have decided He is far away from us and not available or involved in our lives. Bette Midler’s song “God is watching us from a distance,” couldn’t be further from the truth. He is a God who is near. And He is looking, according to Psalm 14, for those who have some understanding of His ways – for those who act wisely with prudence. He is looking for those who seek God. Remember He spoke through
the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 29,
“You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
This brings us to our title. There is this issue that is called “functional atheism” that we as followers of Christ must address. When God is looking for those who understand His ways and seek Him diligently with all their heart, does His eyes land on us? When Psalm 14 describes the fool who has said in his heart there is no God, it catalogs some characteristics that accompany atheism.
Moral bankruptcy, spiritual bankruptcy, and relational or social bankruptcy. The intent of this issue of The Kernels of Truth is proclaiming the name of Christ. We understand that the atheist has no desire for God in his heart and no resemblance of God in his life. For the atheist life consists only of self-centered concerns. Earthly existence is therefore reduced to materialistic and hedonistic (self-indulgent pleasure) pursuits.
Rubel Shelly, pastor and college professor, wrote “Practical (or functional) atheism is holding an intellectual commitment to belief in God but thinking, feeling, and behaving as if there were no God.” The apostle Paul wrote to his spiritual son, Titus,
“Such people claim they know God, but they deny Him by the way they live. They are detestable and disobedient, worthless for doing anything good.” NLT
In a sermon in the 1950s, Martin Luther King, Jr. opined,
“The most dangerous type of atheism is not theoretical atheism, but practical (or functional) atheism — that’s the most dangerous type. And the world, even the church is filled up with people who pay lip service to God and not life service.”
He continued,
“There is always a danger,” King said, “that we will make it appear externally that we believe in God when internally we don’t. We say with our mouths that we believe in Him, but we live with our lives like He never existed. That is the ever-present danger confronting religion. That’s a dangerous type of atheism.”
When we are swimming in the waters of functional atheism, we are living our lives without consulting or looking to God as our source of direction and morality. James in his letter referenced some people who just blunder through life saying, “today or tomorrow we will do this and that.” He reminds them “yet you don’t even know what tomorrow will bring.”
Rather we ought to say, “if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” Functional atheism causes us to become our own God, disregarding the always involvement of our Maker.
When we find ourselves living as those who declare our faith in Jesus Christ, but have not the life to demonstrate that faith, we must rise above the notions we have developed along the way.
To ensure we haven’t become a functional atheist, we must begin by engaging with God through prayer. Prayer is much more than just bringing our petitions to the Lord (although that is most assuredly part of it), but we must home in on the word “engaging.” Our relationship with God isn’t just about receiving things, but drawing life from the very One who gives us life every day. Deuteronomy 4:7 reminds us,
“. . . what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the LORD our God whenever we call on Him?”
It is our connection to our invisible, eternal Lord from whom flows benevolence, power, strength, direction, and fellowship. Let us be like Nehemiah who upon the rising up of any matter or crisis, he immediately went before the Lord – the place from where his help came from.
We must also read and study the Scriptures regularly. This is not so that we can become great theologians or Bible scholars. I hear from people all the time who don’t feel adequate in their Bible knowledge to be effective in the field of harvest. We study the Scriptures primarily to become more acquainted with the Author. Reading and studying the Bible should always direct us to the Lord Jesus. He said to the Jews,
“You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to Me!” NLT
The Scriptures are beneficial to each of us for instruction in the ways of God; for identifying where we might have strayed and then to leading us in the way of correction. Embracing the truth of the Bible will ultimately lead us into training in right standing with God and man. As Paul writes to Timothy,
“So that the man of God may be thoroughly adequate, equipped for every good work.”
I believe a vital part of our not succumbing to a functional atheistic lifestyle is to remain a part of a local faith community. Now this does not have to necessarily be in a building with a steeple, in a traditional sense. Of course, most of you reading this probably do take part in a somewhat traditional setup when it comes to church. But roll call is not what we are after here, but rather a lifestyle that operates within the truth that “we are members one of another.” The Bible says we are living stones being built together as a habitation for God. We are a unique people who belong to a unique (holy) God. As we function as the body of Christ in the earth, with each member doing its part, we advance the cause of Christ in the earth and we avoid slipping into a mentality that results in a worldly way of life. Our basic design by our Maker requires the involvement of other fellow followers. There is a part of us that cannot be completed without the fellowship and relationship with our brothers and sisters in Christ. The apostle John wrote in his first letter,
“…he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”
We are in this thing together; let’s be a participating part of a local body so the supply (Ephesians 4:16) can flow both ways.
We cannot accept a lifestyle that is counter to God’s design and instructions. We must not conduct our lives as if God does not exist or confess our devotion to Jesus, but actually deny Him by the way that we live. Peter wrote that we must always be ready to give an account of the hope that is within us. Sometimes the one we must give an account to is us. We must
remember who we are and whose we are. John Piper said,
“Doing things in secret that you are ashamed for others to know is practical atheism. God’s knowing doesn’t count?”
We need to examine our own heart to determine if there would be any sin or sinful way in us.
Proverbs 4:23 – “Guard your heart diligently, for from it flow the springs of life.”
Remember, the devil doesn’t have to destroy you, he just has to marginalize you from addressing God’s assignment for your life. If he can get you distracted with other things or people and cause you to deceive yourself into thinking you are in the center of His will when you are not, Satan has won that round. Let us guard our hearts against functional atheism…it looks like one thing, when it is altogether another one.
Since speaking recently on the topic of “Resolve,” this song has been on my mind, and I realized it is apropos to this topic.
I Am Resolved
Palmer Hartsough, James Fillmore
1896
1.
I am resolved no longer to linger,
Charmed by the world’s delight,
Things that are higher, things that are nobler,
These have allured my sight.
o Refrain:
I will hasten to Him,
Hasten so glad and free;
Jesus, greatest, highest,
I will come to Thee.
2.
I am resolved to go to the Savior,
Leaving my sin and strife;
He is the true One, He is the just One,
He hath the words of life.
3.
I am resolved to follow the Savior,
Faithful and true each day;
Heed what He sayeth, do what He
willeth, He is the living Way.
4.
I am resolved to enter the kingdom,
Leaving the paths of sin;
Friends may oppose me, foes may beset me,
Still will I enter in.
5.
I am resolved, and who will go with me?
Come, friends, without delay;
Taught by the Bible, led by the Spirit,
We’ll walk the heav’nly way.