Craig Groeschel (pronounced "Grow-shell") is one of those very likable pastors, like Francis Chan, who tell you a story and then stick a knife into you for a little surgery. The knife they use is the
Bible.
In
The Christian Atheist: Believing in God but Living As If He Doesn't Exist, Pastor Groescchel explores the sometimes startling disparity between what we say we believe and how we choose to live; acting as if God doesn't really exist, or as if He exists but doesn't really care about us, or as if He exists but doesn't really matter in our day-to-day lives. This is not a book about knowing "hypocrites," but about people who believe themselves to be Christians and who are crippled in their Christian lives by lies they have believed. Some of them are pastors.
Pastor Groeschel doesn't spare himself or his family from criticism. He clearly understands that his life and actions sometimes contradict what he says he knows to be true. We all fall short, but, wonderfully, we are covered by the Blood of the Lamb.
The book devotes entire chapters to twelve common reasons Christians drift into the uselessness (to God and to themselves) of being Christian Atheists.
1. They don't know who God really is.
2. They are ashamed of something they have done in the past and are afraid that it will be exposed.
3. They know that God loves others but aren't convinced that He could possibly love them.
4. They don't believe in the power of prayer. They don't believe He is listening, others feel awkward or silly talking to Him.
5. Seeing obvious injustices and tragedies in this world, they don't believe that God is fair.
6. They are unwilling to forgive, preferring to hold onto their hatred.
7. They don't believe that they are able to change.
8. They worry about everything.
9. They think that their personal happiness should be a priority for God.
10. They believe in God but place their real trust in their personal power, position, or money.
11. They are timid or unwilling to witness to others.
12. They don't believe in "organized religion."
What Pastor Groeschel is trying to do in this book is to call us to continually examine ourselves and our lives; to think honestly about our lives and faith; to learn to rid ourselves of hindrances to complete trust and dependence on God. He doesn't come right out and say it but he is ultimately talking about the process of sanctification. We don't want to go the other way and to become the "believers" of whom Titus was speaking:
"They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate." (Titus 1:16)
How terrible it would be to be that person and not even realize it.
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