5 Ways Our Heart Says "God is Dead"

This weekend we saw the movie, "God's Not Dead".  Good Flick.  If you haven't seen it you should.  In summation, a college freshman would not agree that God is Dead for the purposes of his course and is involuntarily challenged to prove God's not dead to pass his philosophy course.  This remonstrance cost him his girlfriend, free time, career stability and more.  Other characters were weaved within the story, revealing their faith and how God's not dead or dead in each of their lives. 

After reflecting on the many lessons in the movie it's apparent that the things we believe, our faith, determines God to be dead or not dead.  I know and believe God's not dead, but the issue at hand is that if everyone believed God is dead, than despite God not being dead, God would be dead because God lives and works within us.  God reaches us though the faith of others. 

Now to the point of the blog, these are 5 ways our heart says "God is Dead"

1.  Hatred.  Ultimately hatred is the response of believing something inside of me is broken or rejected.  Hatred is a toxic belief and erodes at our very being.  Hatred says God is Dead.

2.  Assumption.  Christians who are overconfident of their beliefs with the "I am right and you are wrong attitude" annoy me.  Not that I don't respect the faith and eagerness of any believer, it's just that I don't sense the heart and character of the Bereans or the humility of wrestling with God.  If one has truly wrestled with God on any particular issue, they would be too beat up to talk haughty or make assumptions about the issue.  Okay, so maybe assumption says God is weak.

3.  Fear.  Yoda has this awesome quote on fear and the dark side.  Jesus gave us some wiggle room on fear (Luke 8:25), however fully expects us to find faith before heading down the dark side and suffering.

 

When fear is matured, is makes God dead.

 









 





4.  Worldliness.  We are called to be in the world and not of the world.  As a child my parents sponsored an overseas foster family in Egypt.  At age 10 we were able to visit this family at their one room dirt floor home.  We never discussed faith, though I'm guessing their thoughts weren't consumed with their work and business and schedule and career and church and house maintenance and...  I believe their prayers brought us as financial support.  Jesus played in the dirt too (John 8:8), not in a supped up vehicle.

5.  Envy.  Let's face it, we've all been there.  This is the least fun of all sins, nobody ever looks happy doing it.  This really did make God dead, at least for a while:

(He knew very well that the religious leaders had arrested Jesus out of envy.)--Matthew 27:18

 

Let's be real about our attitudes and make a mindful decision to lead our hearts to say "God's not Dead"