You can live a comfortable and happy life without God?

 

    An atheistic organization has rented space on four billboards on the 465 loop around Indianapolis, Indiana, advertising, "You can live a comfortable and happy life without God."  This "billboard scheme of Satan" is being duplicated in several major cities in America, especially throughout the Bible belt States.

                It never ceases to amaze me *why* such people feel the need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to try and turn people against Someone they claim doesn't even exist!  What is it that keeps pushing them to try and disprove the existence of God? If it is as they proclaim, that God doesn't exist, why do they care that I believe in God?  Why are they continually trying to find fault with Christians and the Christian way of life?  Who is motivating them to try and turn me against God?  Why are they so "bent" on convincing me that I should be a "godless" man who marries a "godless" woman and raises "godless" children to live a "godless" life?  Furthermore, the cold, hard facts are, they don't really care whether or not I live a comfortable and happy life. The only thing they care about is that I live my life without God, and that will never happen! 

                The truth is, the very thing that they are trying to disprove, is the thing that motivates them, and that is the Bible.  As brother Foy Wallace Jr. says, "It won't let them alone, it won't let them rest, it haunts them at every turn."  This makes me wonder, are they really trying to convince me, or are they really trying to convince themselves?

                Can one live a comfortable and happy life without God? Certainly!  Most of us know people who don't give God a second thought, and yet they appear, on the surface, to be living comfortable and happy lives. On the other side of that coin, we know people who are striving to live a godly life, and are struggling to do so. Even Jeremiah asked God the question, "Why does the way of the wicked prosper?" (Jeremiah 12:1, NKJV).  Jesus paints the picture of discipleship as being a life that includes suffering and self-denial (Luke 9:23); a life that will include insults and being spoken of in an evil way (Matthew 5:11-12). On one occasion, Jesus said, "Woe unto you when all men speak well of you" (Luke 6:26). On another occasion, Jesus warned His disciples, "If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you" (John 15:20).

                It is not the goal of the Christian to live a "comfortable and happy life;" it is our goal to live a *peaceful* life. The only way this is possible is to live with the PRINCE OF PEACE, who is Jesus Christ our Lord (cf. Isaiah 9:6).  The reward for those who do so will not be found in this life; it is "reserved in Heaven for those who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time" (1Peter 1:4-5).

                This life offers us many things to make us temporarily comfortable and happy - - but this life is passing away, what then?  If we depend on this life to give us comfortableness and happiness, what happens when this life passes away?  Since this life is only for a few days and eternity is forever, shouldn't we be focusing on our eternal "comfort and happiness?"  Will you believe godless men who advertise on billboards, or will you believe Jesus Christ who came to us from Heaven and said, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness" (Matthew 6:33).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                Toby Miller