Believing but not trusting

It should be easy to spot people who really believe that God exists and Jesus was who he claimed to be, because they should be acting as if God is an ever-present part of their reality, and yet surveys tend to show that there is very little difference in the way people who claim to be Christians behave when compared to others. Craig Groeschel explores why this is so in his book The Christian Atheist: Believing in God But Living as if He Doesn’t Exist.

The book examines a number of ways in which Christians fail to act consistently with their stated beliefs: not really knowing God, remaining ashamed of your past, being unsure of God’s love for you, not believing in prayer, not trusting that God is fair, failing to forgive, not believing that you can change, clinging to worry, pursuing happiness at any cost, trusting more in money than in God, not sharing your faith, and not being part of the church.

The book demonstrates that a lack of faith can be manifested in many different ways, and it points out what are likely to be some key areas of sin in the reader’s life, although it does this in a non-judgemental way because the author confesses that he commits the same sins. This is a very well-written book which anyone who claims to be a Christian would benefit from reading.