Craig Groeschel – Practical Atheist part 1

Craig Groeschel gave a great talk at Catalyst. He said from the beginning that it was his prayer that God would disturb us that day…it worked…big time. I sat for a hour or so by myself afterward and journaled through some tough stuff with God.

Craig is the founding pastor of Lifechurch.tv and author of the books Chazown: A Different Way to See Your Life, and Confessions of a Pastor. He is on my list of blogs that I read if you want to check him out further.

Craig shared how he had at one point in ministry become a full-time pastor and a part-time Christ Follower. Ouch! We all felt that one! Many of us, he said, live our lives as “practical atheists”. A practical atheist is someone who says they believe in God but then live as though He doesn’t. We were all kind of squirming in our seats by now…

Isaiah 29:13-14 And so the Lord says, “These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote. Because of this, I will once again astound these hypocrites with amazing wonders. The wisdom of the wise will pass away, and the intelligence of the intelligent will
disappear.”

Honoring God with your lips but your heart is far from me…we all get there from time to time. The problem is some people live there. Craig said that he realized that the way he was doing the work of God was destroying the work of God in his own life. More on this tomorrow...