Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching- John 14:23-24 NIV

A while back someone asked me if I thought Christianity was losing its power. The person asking was not a hater. On the contrary, the person asking is a believer who’s genuinely concerned the Christian faith appears to losing its ability to change people and transform the chaotic situations that are becoming increasingly more common in our world.

This person went on to point out that while the Christian faith has made massive inroads in the last century at the same time the people in the world are becoming more evil, more creative in spreading evil and far less interested in learning what God has to say about much of anything.  

Sigh.

I will not lie. Their question shook me. Seriously. It forced me think about the how and the why of where we have landed. After some thought I decided that I simply cannot accept the notion that Jesus has somehow lost His ability to transform people or heal situations. If Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever and I believe He is then problem can’t be with God (Hebrews 13:8). 

The problem is with us. 

Too many Christians have become what I call “functional atheists”. Functional atheists are people who believe in God and attend church. Some functional atheists even routinely read their Bibles and pray. However, in their day-to-day lives they don’t live as if God is real.  Functional atheists have come into the kingdom of God but have never had the deepest areas of their lives touched by God’s transformational power. They make Christianity weak because most of the time God chooses to do His most powerful work through people. Therefore, if Christians are spiritually weak then God’s power will be limited in certain situations. Not because God lacks power but because He will only work through those who are faithful and obedient (Mark 6:4-6).   

Following are five signs you might just be a functional atheist. 

You have ongoing struggles with sexual immorality- 

Fear of God is a clear indicator a person is in the process of being spiritually transformed. Fearing God is not about being afraid of God (1^st John 4:18). Someone who fears God genuinely believes God is who He says He is and that He will do what He says He will do and therefore changes their behavior accordingly. God has nothing even kind of good to say about sexual immorality or those who make a practice of it (Romans 1:18-28, 1^st Corinthians 5:9-11, 1^st Corinthians 6:9-10, Galatians 5:19). Because God is so clear about how He feels about this issue, ongoing, un-repented of, sexual sin is an indicator that person does not really fear God. When a person doesn’t fear God they inevitably end up living like an atheist. 

Misplaced faith-

Christians are commanded to put their faith and trust in God alone (Proverbs 3:5-6, Nahum 1:7). Too often, as believers we do trust God but we trust other things just a little bit more. We trust things like political figures, education, our finances, our social standing and jobs to protect us, give us peace and provide comfort in times of trouble. When we put our trust in anything but God to give us comfort, protection and peace those things inevitably end up functioning as idols in our lives. Idols never deliver what God can and trusting them causes us to live like the atheists around us.  

You feel contempt rather than compassion for most people-  

This world is full of sin and hate. Christians are called to hate sin and cast-off  foolish and sinful behavior (Matthew 7:24, 2^nd Corinthians 6:14). It is all too easy to allow our hatred of sin and desire to be free from worldly ties to morph into contempt for sinners and their stupidity. The problem with this is we are never called to feel hate or contempt for anyone and when we do we look more like our atheist neighbor than Jesus. 

There are places in your life that are unknown to others and untouched by God- 

Becoming a Christian is supposed to be a comprehensive, life transforming event. The only catch is that God will only change the parts of our lives we give Him access to. We give God access to our lives when we make regular practices of Bible reading, self-examination and prayer. This is how it works: When we read the Bible, we learn how God wants us to think and live. When we make a regular practice of examining ourselves to see if our lives match up with Scripture God will then tell us when we pray what needs to be changed in our lives in order for us to grow into the people He has called us to be. If we aren’t constantly seeking to grow we will go backwards in our spiritual maturity and eventually our lives will look more and more like the atheists around us. 

Because the world is so broken it is more important than ever that Christians live lives that embrace the truth of Scripture.

It’s only way unsaved people will ever see the power of God in this world.  We combat functional atheism in our own lives in two ways: first we pray like crazy and ask God to increase our faith (Luke 17:5). This is one of those prayers God answers. Secondly, we have to begin living like we really believe. The more obedient we become to God the more we see God working in our world.

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