Tuesday’s Truth is a free weekly devotional shared by Rev. Gary Mimbs
How Do You Live A Godly Life Without God?
I recently was doing business with a man I had just met and at the end of the deal I asked him could I pray for the item that I was selling him to work great and be a blessing to him and his family. He looked at me and said, “Go ahead if it makes you feel good but I am an atheist.” He said something like if mumbling a few words to a God that didn’t exist made me happy then go ahead but it didn’t mean anything to him. I went ahead and prayed.
I know that by the look of shock on my face when he said that he was an atheist that he realized that he had hit a nerve with me. So after I prayed he said something like, “Look I respect your beliefs but you should know that I live a ‘godly’ life just without the god”. I told him that I would be praying for him that he would discover the true and living God.
I left the conversation with my skin crawling. I hurt for this man who thinks that just because he is living a good moral life that he is okay. I also hurt for the people who have the same idea, many who attend church every Sunday, who think that if they are good, moral people they are alright. To him and them living a godly life but without the god is good enough to be better than most of the people in the world.
The problem with this belief is that without the true and living God to worship and obey you have made YOURSELF the god that you answer to. And comparing yourself to other people who may be worse than you as far as their being robbers, murderers, rapists etc is still not absolving you of YOUR sins. You still WILL have to answer to the real God one day at judgement – whether you believe in Him or not.
I am sure that this young man is an honest, fair, loving his fellowman, type of individual. Unfortunately that isn’t the standard that God uses to determine if we get to go to Heaven or Hell for all eternity. If our goodness was good enough we would not need God. But the best person’s goodness in the entire world is not good enough because we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
We need a savior who has never sinned to take our place on the cross and to receive our punishment for our sins. We need our sins to be covered by the blood of the one taking our place so that they will be forgiven and forgotten for all of eternity. We can’t save ourselves so God sent His Son Jesus to be our Savior. It is impossible to live a Godly life without God.
I should have told the young man that I appreciated his respecting my beliefs even though they were different from his. Unfortunately one of us is wrong in the way that we believe. If I am wrong then I still get to spend all eternity in Heaven with the true God. If he is wrong then he will spend all eternity in Hell with the Devil and his followers. What about you? Which side are you on?
In love with Jesus – Gary Mimbs