Thinkaloud | God is not dead

bursting-with-joy news

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any people live as if there is no God, as if they are answerable to no one but themselves. Their life is entirely self-centred and has its roots in the things of this earth only. As far as they are concerned, life ends with the grave.

These people, of every nationality and from every level of society, and in every country of the world, are wrong. They are misguided, and they are in terrible danger. This danger has to do not only with where they will spend eternity, but also with the quality of the life they live during their years on this planet.

The Bible very correctly states that people who say there is no God are fools. This is not meant to be an insult, or an ill-tempered statement. It is merely an accurate judgment by the One who knows all and who is the only source of truth to be found in this universe.

Such people are foolish because they have refused to acknowledge the help they have been looking for all their lives, though in the wrong place. They have walked away from the feast with the hunger pangs still tearing at their insides. They have chosen to live in squalid ruins rather than accept the beauty and order that is offered to them. They embrace the cancer of their own sinful self rather than take the healing which is available.

Back in the 1960s some avant garde theologians made the headlines with their “God is dead” theories. Their short-lived notoriety resulted in a few books that were largely unread, and they were not seriously considered as being the founders of a trend in theology. Yet, unwittingly, they expressed in words the unspoken assumptions of the contemporary secular life-style.

The heart-rending tragedy is that people who ignore God have no defence against the evil that ravages the world, and that squats obscenely at the centre of their lives. They are utterly at the mercy of evil; they are the playthings of every wickedly seductive idea that is flaunted before them. That — by itself — makes life intolerable. There is no light at the end of the tunnel; none at all.

But the good news, the glorious, bursting-with-joy news is that God has not abandoned us to our richly deserved fate. He offers to every human being the choice to accept His love — and live — or to reject it and die. And this most fundamental of all decisions impinges upon everything else in life.

To decide for God by accepting His Son Jesus Christ as Saviour is to turn your life to all that is good and noble and pure and whole. It is to allow the shrivelled, parched soul to breathe with the life of God Himself. It is to taste the wild sweetness of eternity — here and now. Such a decision gives courage during wrenching sorrow, and peace when nothing seems secure.

No, God is not dead. He is life itself. He is mercy, justice, truth and beauty. All this and more.

Of course, there are still the foolish ones who — to their unutterable loss — refuse even to consider Him. They must be of special interest to Christians; to those who, having found the secret of life, wish to share it with those still without a true foundation for their earthly existence. Christian readers are invited to pray for at least one rejecter of God, by name, five minutes a day for a month. You see, He loves us all.

Writer: Lieut.-Colonel Maxwell Ryan is a former Editor in Chief in Canada and the UK. In retirement he is a copy editor of theRubicon and the author of theRubicon series called Resurrected Writers.

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