Dear Ones,
Happy Weekend! Hope you have a good weekend and time to get refueled! I plan to go to Aldi’s and to do some cooking and baking.
Devotions from Judy’s heart
I have only personally met and talked with one atheist, and that was years ago as I was in a group standing up for life for the unborn. He was positioned right next to me and expressed he was an atheist. I responded to him that he must have more faith than I did to believe he was just placed on earth by happenchance! That got him thinking as we discussed more. There are many people around us that are atheists and some because they don’t believe that a God of love would allow the evil things to happen that are going on in our world today. But a heart-atheist as opposed to moral-atheist is more self-righteous and in his rejection of God has nothing to relate to but the self. Those stuck on self then need other things to grab their attention. Like Eugene Peterson says, if self makes its own rules and satisfies its own compulsions, then we use people around us to fulfill our needs and make us happy. Sounds very self-centered!

We may think what we believe is nobody’s business except our own, but what we believe shapes how we act and treat others in our world. The atheist will make decisions based on what is best for him and his desires but not what is good for others. Our beliefs really shape our behavior. When we think we know so much more than God, we end up using others as objects to meet our needs. If we all did that our society would become depersonalized.

That poor become a problem for the atheist, like Peterson says, “The poor are a standing indictment against the grandiose foolishness of self-righteousness.” They are no use to him and God confronts and requires something of us in the poor. God has so much compassion for them and reminds us, “Blessed are he poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Luke 6:20. The poor are not in control and are able to respond more easily to the gifts of God’s sovereign grace.
Perhaps all of us need to be weaned from ourselves and recognize we are poor and everything we have comes from Him. Self must get off the thrown and let God be Lord over all things in our lives. Let us be not foolish and think we know it all but be wise and put God at the center of our lives. It sems to always go back to the verse, “He must increase and I must decrease!”

Challenge for today: Ask the Lord to show you any area where you have taken over and ask for the Him to be the center.
Blessings on your weekend and prayers and love, Judy