If not for God then i would be an atheist!

If not for God I would be an atheist!

I just lay down on our little sofa. I’m not kidding around, it’s small. In fact I wish I was shorter so I could stretch out but I’m not so I have to lay in a banana like shape to fit my whole body on it. It’s a good thing Christine is little because it means we can both snuggle up on one and is very cosy!

I just found Christine’s glasses on the couch next to me and as my mind trailed of I pictured her sitting there watching TV or reading a book and imagined what she was wearing and whether or not she was drinking tea, my heart leapt inside my chest. I cannot describe how much I love this woman, I truly cherish her.

It’s the little things. She never closes the door when she is on the toilet. The way she has to sit on a large cushion to drive my minivan because even though it’s mini, it’s far too big for her! If there is a cupboard door open in the kitchen she cannot enjoy her dinner until it is closed. If she goes to bed before me she generally falls asleep sideway across the bed.

These are just some of the things that reflect her incredible personality, complemented by the most genuinely loving heart I have ever known. I love to hear every fleeting thought she has, it kills me when she is upset and I’m responsible for it, and I will go out of my way to make her laugh because it makes me truly happy to see that she is happy. As you can see, I love her. There is no accurate description I can muster up to give you for the feelings I have toward her.

All that sappiness brings me to the question on my mind today. If I was an atheist and did not personally know God, could I possibly love somebody this much? Or is it that discovering God’s unbelievable love toward me that goes deeper and further then life itself that makes it possible for me to reflect that love onto my wife. And not only my wife but those around me.

An atheist looks at the world and concludes “I cannot not believe in a God who sees the evil that man inflicts on its own kind, the poor who die every day of starvation while the rich and greedy get richer and greedier, and the disease that kills millions of people across the globe, a God that sees these things, has the power to stop it and does nothing what so ever cannot exist.”

Truthfully, I have pondered this myself on many occasions, before I came to know the heart of God that is; I have not always known the truth about my father.
You see what an atheist cannot feel the immensity of is the love of God flowing between a husband and wife who have realised this love and been exposed to the heart of God, they cannot feel this love that has and will continue to compel hundreds and thousands of people to dedicate huge portions of their lives to feeding the hungry, providing shelter for the poor and caring for their fellow man regardless of their background, lifestyle, colour, circumstances. Prejudice is not a characteristic of love.

An atheist will see these things but because he cannot feel the love of God within the acts; he passes it off as a fear based exercise performed to gain eternal life, or a manipulative tool to gain converts or money. And although sadly they are sometimes right, as there are many Christians who live a life trapped in a works based mentality and because they lack a revelation of God’s love they cannot accept the freedom with which this love gives us eternal life despite our level of spirituality, and I know this because of been in this boat before, I believe that generally they are wrong.

God’s love is working In the most incredible, ‘bring you to your knees’ type of way through normal people who have done nothing superior, just looked through all the mist to find the father in our God and the heart he has toward each of his creations. Atheists can argue God’s non existence inside out, past to future, doctrine to devastation, but how could they possibly convince a people who have the very heart of God beating within them. You cannot not prove someone wrong about what tangibly consumes their very existence.

This is why I was led to title this writing “if not for Gods then I would be an atheist”!

GOD IS LOVE, the kind of love that surpasses our misled human ideas of love and can only be found in Christ. He is my joy, peace, strength and comfort.
Held recently in Melbourne was the international atheist convention, this got me thinking, what do these non believers gather to discuss? If they do not believe in God, why do they work so damn hard to disprove him with these events? They really do appear to be a religious group of their own these days. A religious group of non religions!

I believe that every human being is born with a hunger to know their creator or lack of, and this hunger is put in us by God. Therefore I must speculate that these people are trying to convince themselves as much as others that God is not real.
All I had to do to discover Gods truth was open my heart toward him, not my mind, or my mouth, my heart.

People that say they do not believe in God say this because deep within them, whether they realise it or not, they are dying to be proven wrong, I know this because I have been there.

So how do you lead them to this discovery? They know fear, they know theology, they know science, and they know man. What they do not know, and need to experience, is the love of our lord, reflecting through someone who because of this love is genuinely, truly caring for them, no strings attached, no agenda. The power of God’s love has being almost completely replaced in the Christian world by a gospel of works and fear causing them to lose sight of god and focus on themselves.
When you lose sight of God you forget so quickly that his love is free, unconditional and eternal. I stress the unconditional part, just as a side note, I would love for many Christian people to show me the scripture that says, “Love you fellow man, except for the junkies and gay’s”.

Standing on street corners yelling a people to repent........ Fear.
Using clever well thought out rhetoric and educated speech to convince people of their need for salvation.......... manipulation of fear.
I could go on but that’s a dead end thought and I don’t want to get myself in trouble here! The truth is that you could do those things with the love of God in you and see amazing results, but they would look and feel entirely different to what I see the majority of the time. With love, they would not be wishy washy fear based results that miss all together the heart of love; they would be eternal results, founded in the heart of God.

If we have not love, then we are lost. I just paraphrased many scriptures concerning God’s love. Scriptures that have fallen by the way side because we live in a world where people have developed an idea of love that is sick, conditional, and fallible and everything else evil that mankind has made it. My heart breaks for those who will live a life time and never feel the indescribable love of God.

It is this love which caused me to turn my heart toward him. No amount of words, church attendance, sermons, arguments, street preaching, or billboards on the side of roads could ever have got me there. But when the love of God moved within me through a person who had truly captured it and as a natural result reflected it toward me. I jumped in head first, left everything else behind, and am on the most exciting journey I had ever dreamed of. And believe it or not this all happened after my ‘conversion’. I think it’s time we all realigned our focus.

Perhaps after reading this you to feel that your idea of God has been clouded by this world, or have paused to re examine your life and relationship with God. Just remember. Knowing the truth is only half of it; it is what you do with it that counts.