Just Continue That Thought...

A thought by Craig Groeschel, from his book, The Christian Atheist: When You Believe in God But Live as if He Doesn’t Exist (p. 171). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) But I thought that God wanted me to be happy? Craig said, “The Greek word makarios in Matthew chapter 5, also known as the Beatitudes, can be translated as ‘supremely blessed.’ In other words, God wants us to be more than happy. The happiness of this world is based on fickle happenings, but the blessings of God transcend the things this world offers. Scripture says in Psalm 112: 1, ‘Blessed is the [one] who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in his commands.’ Another way of looking at it: ‘More than happy is the one who fears the Lord.’ The Bible never says, ‘Blessed is the one who does something wrong in the pursuit of happiness,’ or, ‘More than happy is the one who settles for cheap, worldly imitations.” Later he says, “Max Lucado told a story...

A thought by Craig Groeschel, from his book, The Christian Atheist: When You Believe in God But Live as if He Doesn’t Exist (p. 158). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Now time is a very important obsession to many of us.   I was standing in line at the Coffee Bean this morning to get my coffee and this person in front of me was on her phone while she was ordering her drink.   She was wasting my time.   And my time is so important, right?   Even with God, time is very important to us. Craig says, “ God is outside of time. He has no beginning and no end. That means he has no yesterday and no tomorrow. He just is. So for God, tomorrow is the same as today, same as yesterday. Was God in control yesterday? Undoubtedly, yes. Is God in control today? You know he is. Then he’s in control tomorrow too.” Craig goes on, “Time is not an issue for him. He’s already present in tomorrow. So no matter what happ...

A thought by Craig Groeschel, from his book, The Christian Atheist: When You Believe in God But Live as if He Doesn’t Exist (p. 149). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. (Click on the book title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.) Wow, if that is true then it is very serious.  It really is!   Craig says, “When we live by faith, we believe that God has everything under control. But if we start to worry, how we live says the opposite. If we are worried about losing our jobs, we are essentially saying that our jobs are our providers. But isn’t God our provider? What if God has something else planned for us? And what if, as unpleasant as it may be to think about, the path to that ‘something else’ is through some pain? Will we still trust in God to provide during that time? “Worry, in essence, is the sin of distrusting the promises and the power of God. It’s choosing to dwell on, to think about, the worst-case scenario. It’s faith in the bad things rather than faith in...