Practical atheism, according to Craig Groeschel, is when you believe in God spiritually, but practically live as if he doesn’t exist. “If I really trusted God, I wouldn’t worry so much. If I really believed in prayer, I’d spend less time strategizing and more time on my knees.” In our minds we say that we are absolutely sure that God can be trusted, but we show by our actions that we don’t trust him.

Craig gave a great talk on this theme at this year’s Buzz Conference. Videos and audio of the Conference are online; Craig’s talk on this theme is Session 4. Craig says that if God chooses to do something supernatural through you, and you start thinking that you’re good, you’ve just lost everything that God gave you. God works through you by his power, not yours.

If we think our private lives don’t affect our public lives, we are heading the wrong way. We are mistaken if we think it is more important to please people than to please God. If you don’t keep your eyes firmly fixed on Jesus, you will drift away. So how do you stop this happening? Craig recommends that you consciously step forward into a position of faith whenever the opportunity arises.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 17th, 2007 at 8:00 am and is filed under Faith. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.