Dear mister Atheist

So I've got a friend who posts NON-stop stuff on his facebook wall slamming Christianity left and right.

This is the same guy who when I first met him was a Christian.  Believed in God, still didn't like a pastor from the pulpit telling him how to live his life.  But he is definitely a Christian.

I had to "remove" him from his stuff showing up on my news feed via Facebook.  He preaches Love, then slams a christian.  He says we should all get along, the posts a negative comment about Christianity.

Does he slam any other religions?  Nope, because NONE of them are as threatening to his current way of life like Christianity is.  The truth of the matter is, whether he likes it or not, the HOLY SPIRIT is in him, and daily!  I mean DAILY he is going to have to denounce his faith.

One would think, If you're an atheist and want peace,  that you'd shut up and not care and live your life however you want because you have no moral compass other than the laws of the land.

He goes on and on about all the murder and terrible things that happened in the bible.  I'm actually thankful that the bible isn't full of lovey happy stuff.  I'd hate it.  Guess what D?  That's called life, and to not take account of it would mean leaving stuff out.

Let me tell you something.  Weed doesn't make you smarter.  It makes you stupider (yup, I said it the WRONG way so you'd understand).

I get not wanting live a life morally pleasing to God.  Then you'd have to face all your sin, and why do that when you can just not care and post endless crap about hating Christianity to make yourself feel better about your way of life.

You know what I hate?  When people try to force their beliefs onto me!  Oh wait, am I allowed to say that since I'm Christian?

Stop being a Bratty little kid!

I feel like maybe this has been said over and over again.  Yet we don't listen.

We read right past all the passages, and still don't let it set in.  Yup, it's the subtle things that we miss and fail at the most.  The stuff non-believers use against us all the time.

How can we preach, "don't judge us by our crazy christian friends" when non-believers have no concept of who God is in our lives?

I remember one time stepping into youth ministry when I was 20 years of age.  Before stepping into it, I'd have poker nights at my house monthly.  We'd smoke cigars and have a good ol' time.  The youth pastor knew of these things before having me come aboard.  The first thing he said was "If you're going to be a leader, these things have to stop."  It wasn't because they were bad, or terrible.  But what could potentially happen with the youth was something I had never thought of before.  And they were too young to handle these choices with self control, like maybe I thought I was.

The call always comes back to who we are representing.   If you have kids, i'm sure you've heard the excuse "Well my brother was doing it too!".  Which always makes it right!?  We do this in adult Christian land,  only more subtle.  We mentally point fingers, we tell ourselves, "well i'm not as bad as that christian".  When the truth remains the truth, and no matter what you say or do, we will all be perfectly judged in the end.  Just like a child to his parent.  We can kick and scream, point fingers, try to draw the attention to someone else, however at the end of life we will be perfectly judged.

Why am I saying all of this?  Because, I've been that guy whose had the fingers pointed at.  I got a divorce, and the rumors and gossip in the Christian community was almost earth shattering.  As though they have nothing else to focus on then why I left.  

I also get tired of non-believers using the lame excuses to avoid a relationship with God.  Like we think we are better than everyone else.  Well, truth is, we kinda are.  We have someone in our corner when we are sitting there at night crying our eyes out because we miss our kids.  We have a bible full of knowledge and wisdom to both spur us along, and motivate us beyond which we are capable.  And occasionally miracles happen that an Atheist would explain as a coincident, and a Christian would say it was an answer to prayer.  Was it truly an answer to prayer? or just a coincident?  That's up to you to decide, and further from my point.

Taking ownership in ourselves.  I once asked my manager if he had talked to an employee about "talking too much".  He said, "Oh man, that was the worst criticism I've ever dished out".  "She responded with all kinds of excuses and tried to throw everyone else under the bus!".

I'm reminded of a Proverb.  Whether you believe in God or not, the proverb couldn't be more perfect.
Proverbs 10:17 "Whoever heeds discipline shows the way to life, but whoever ignores correction leads others astray."

If you need to do so, take God out of it.  The verse still speaks truth into your heart.

L8s!

Judging the most Judged!

I find it interesting that out of all the religions out there, Christianity is the most hated of religions.  Yet Christ has the biggest following.  So much so, that some religions have thrown his name into their religion to get more followers.

Why is it so hated?  I think we do this in our everyday lives too.  That co-worker who is always right, or that girl who seems to be able to eat anything she wants and never gains an ounce.  We hate them!

I get it, Christians have pointed fingers, they have judged others.  Does it make Christianity wrong? Or the people following Jesus Christ wrong?  It’s in the bible to all the Christians out there!  “DON’T NOTICE THE SPECK IN YOUR BROTHERS EYE, WHEN YOU HAVE A PLANK OF WOOD STICKING OUT OF YOUR OWN!!!”

Do I hate you because you choose to have a partner of the same sex?  Do I hate you because you decided that yoga is your new form of religion?  Do I hate you because you don’t believe in God?

You know, I can’t speak for every Christian out there.  Truth is everyone has a little bit of judgementalness in them.   Even Christians judge other Christians, “You drink alcohol? Shame on you!”.  That’s always fun!

But why do we hate?  Is it because my co-worker is always right?  Is it because Sarah will never gain a pound in her life?  My answer is no…

The answer lies inside of ME!  The confidence I have in myself as a person that is passionate about life and my own opinions that I’m CONFIDENT about.  I don’t care if you’re an atheist.  I think it’s great that you’re passionate about something.   While I’m not going to force feed you my God.  Don’t do the same thing that you hate about Christians back to me.  

We are ALL on a path to death.  Where we go afterwards, well that’s between you and God, or whatever it is that you personally believe in.  Either way, some ones going to be right, and some one is going to be terribly wrong.  I pray I’m on the right side of that equation.