The Christian Atheist

"Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men." - Isaiah 29:13

"He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." - Mark 7:6

Over the last several years I have come to the conclusion that there are people in the Christian faith that are what I call "Christian Atheists." These are people who will tell you they are Christians with their mouths and then will deny the Christian faith by their lifestyle. "Christian Atheists" can be anyone from the lay person in the church to the deacons and the pastor.

Many of these people will claim the Bible is the Word and of God and their final authority but they live their lives completely contrary to the principles found in the Bible or they treat other Christians in a manner completely contrary to the Book they claim to believe and follow. You will hear them talking about people dying lost and going to Hell but they have no desire to get personally involved with missions either by giving financially or by giving their time. You will hear them talking about standing before Christ at the Judgement Seat to give an account for their lives but they live as if they really don't believe that is true, or they just don't care. These are just a few of the examples that I have personally seen and I am sure there are many more.

The Lord Jesus Christ called the Pharisees hypocrites for doing these exact things. They were paying lip service to God in front of the people but in reality their hearts were far from God. Anyone can pay lip service, so we must keep in mind that our walk is more important than our talk. If we really believe that we are going to have to give an account to Christ for every idle thought, every word spoken, and every action of our lives we should be scared to death. We wonder why lost people aren't getting saved and why the world has lost what little respect it used to have for Christianity. Could it be that what we are saying with our mouths completely contradicts what we are living by our actions? We say we believe the Bible is the Word of God, we say Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven, and we say we are going to give an account to Christ for what we did in this life, but then we live our lives as if we were atheists. Something to think about...