Atheists Among Us- Navigating Fear & Faith

When faith meets doubt, the journey can be as enlightening as it is challenging. Our latest conversation takes you through this terrain, exploring the complex relationship between atheism and Christianity. We don't shy away from the tough questions or the uncomfortable truths, especially when examining the scripture from 2 Timothy 3:2-5 in the context of today's world. Our discourse is filled with compassion and understanding, focusing on how believers can connect with atheists—not with fear, but with the love and empathy everyone deserves on their spiritual voyage. We also confront issues within the church, like the rise of narcissistic leadership, advocating for the genuine humility exemplified by figures like the apostle Paul. No matter where you stand on the spectrum of belief, this episode offers a chance to reflect on how we approach those who walk a different path, and how to seek wisdom from within and above.

Picture this: you're passionate about your craft, but voices of doubt and derision echo around you, threatening to snuff out your dream. I've been there, turning my love for photography and video into a flourishing career despite the naysayers. In sharing my story, we uncover the resilience needed to combat self-doubt and the harmful effects of external negativity. It's a deep dive into personal transformation and the power of faith to overcome obstacles. This episode doesn't just touch on the individual; it casts a wider net over societal issues like the refusal to admit mistakes and the quickness to blame others. We champion a different narrative—one where we lift each other up through both failures and triumphs, reminding ourselves to be our own strongest supporters in a sometimes unforgiving world. Join us for a heartfelt exploration into the struggles we all face and the victories that are within reach.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Faith and Failure Podcast. So today we're going to be diving into a very specific topic that is, in my personal opinion, probably one of the I guess, for a lack of a better term, you can say probably scariest, scariest conversation pieces that a Christian can face. And that is what do I do if I run into, or if you know somebody who is, or if you have a loved one that is an atheist. Now, an atheist is not something that we have to be afraid of. It's not a bad word that, as Christians, we don't have to have some sort of like I guess, for lack of a better term phobia that we need to be able to, as Christians, as believers in the Word of God, to articulate and not only articulate and I kind of I phrase it up a little like this, but I don't mean it to come across in this way, but so understand that my phrasing. That I'm saying is just a term, it's not a action that you need to follow is arm yourself, and I don't mean arm yourself as if you're going into battle. Yes, we are in a battle. We are in a fight for people's souls. Sometimes we forget that, and when we try to minister and witness to people. We talk to them as if they are the enemy, when really they have become prey to the enemy, just as we were once were. We were once sinners, lost undone and did not have, did not have God to turn to. We didn't know who to turn to, who to turn to, how to turn to Him. That's a biggest, probably biggest piece of the puzzle is laying down yourself and realizing I need God, like I cannot do it on my own. Is there a buzzing on y'all's end? There's a buzzing on my end and it's about to buzz me crazy and plug my headphones for a second and see if that solved anything. Maybe not. Let me see if, very possibly it's too loud. I don't know, it's driving me nuts. It could be a chord issue, maybe I don't hear it, so anyways.

Speaker 1: 2:37

So we're going to look at a scripture and it kind of sums up our culture today, which is crazy because it being written so long ago from the Bible and it speaks exactly to where we're at today. So we're going to look at a scripture in 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 2 through 5. Now let's read this and see if you understand that this is. Hold on, let me get my. I don't know why everything's off to date.

Speaker 1: 3:06

I had so much thinking trouble before I started the live stream a little later than I meant to. I had so much trouble with everything was going wrong. It's like I was not supposed to go live today. But I punched the devil in the face and I said we're going to do it no matter what. But Jesus, okay, that is going to have to be good enough. I'm not going to sit here all day and mess with this technical stuff.

Speaker 1: 3:30

So, as you see in the scripture right here and if you're watching a long, screenshot this. Anytime you go through scripture. I tell my people all the time. If you don't know, I'm a pastor of a church here in Longview, texas, and I tell them all the time hey, pull out your phones. If you're watching online, turn the phone sideways. Screenshot it whatever you got to do so that you can chew on this, so that you can remember where we went to in scripture, so that you can continue.

Speaker 1: 3:53

I don't want you to just take a clip of what I showed you online. I want you to expand it out and read all of the book, all the chapters, and get a good understanding of the word. So, 2 Timothy, chapter 3, verse 2 through 5, for people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents and ungrateful. You see how they put disobedience to their parents in the same same sentence as scoffing at God. It kind of reminds me a little bit.

Speaker 1: 4:29

So I have a teenager right now and sometimes there's some attitude that comes out, and so what is literally happening is he thinks that he is and in all, teenagers do this, I went through it, my dad went through it, and so on and so forth and what happened until the Lord returns, is that we think teenagers think they look towards their makers okay, follow me and they think that, for some reason, that they've got it figured out in the short little time they've been alive. Think about this on the perspective of God being eternal and we, as the creation, look to the Creator and dismiss him and think that we've got it all figured out. Those God allows us to take part of our own medicine I guess you would and we'll call it medicine and they consider nothing sacred. Now that, right, there is a big deal because, like it used to be, a handshake meant something and now you can't even. You can't even trust anybody on anything they ever say, and this bleeds into the church house. This is not a secular issue out in the world. This is like pastors. You can't trust them and I'm saying that being one. It's.

Speaker 1: 5:44

The church has become a platform for a narcissist man or woman to get fed into their personality of how they feel, how they see themselves, or to be accepted by people to be some sort of celebrity. And I'm not saying that that I mean if you read when Peter and Paul, when they begin to write and preach the gospel of Jesus, like it made them kind of a celebrity status. I mean we still talk about them today. They are timeless, so that can happen when you have something, because people will attach God to you and make you. That's why Paul kept writing and saying that he was nothing, that he was a sinner. He kept humanizing himself so that nobody ever put him in the place of God or put him at the same level as Jesus. So he kept repeating this over and over again.

Speaker 1: 6:40

And I think sometimes in the church we forget that we are human, that we are fallible, that we need a God, and we end up making it about us. And so first three. They will be unloving and unforgiving, they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. So this is a big issue with the well, I mean, it's called the pride community. Let's just go very basic for a second. The pride community it's all about pride. It's all about who you think you are and lifting yourself up above everybody else while claiming you are accepting and inclusive. When you accept and include nobody who has a different viewpoint as you, which is the exact opposite of that entire lifestyle claim of truth.

Speaker 1: 7:26

You could see how, when you put truth in quotations around that, it makes a whole lot of sense, because it's not a whole lot of truth, it's a whole lot of mad truth. And I know I say it in a mocking way because it's really annoying to me. Sometimes I have a small capacity for stupidity. But if I look past that as Christians, if we look past that and we look at people, who is actually being manipulated, whether it's by people in power or whether it's by a culture or demonic manipulation they're let astray. And if Jesus and I say this, I actually said this last Sunday if Jesus can look down from across as he's being crucified by the very people that he ministered to and healed and came for and said Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Then how, who am I think about it? Who am I to treat anybody else less than how he thought in that moment? Hear that truck.

Speaker 1: 8:27

So something to think about when we go immediately to judging and passing judgment on people that are caught up in a lifestyle, and if they are being. We're actually on a series right now in my church and it's about it's from the book from Craig O'Shea, winning the war in your mind, and I'm calling this series the Battleground, and your life will go in the direction of your strongest thoughts. So if you think about that like, the more you think of something, whether it's true or whether it's a lie, you will end up believing what is constantly repeated to you. So if you have somebody who constantly tells you you're ugly or you're not worth anything which a lot of, sadly enough, a lot of kids grow up in homes with abusive parents, even if it's just verbal abuse in that manner you're fat, you're ugly, you're stupid, you're never gonna, you're never gonna amount to anything.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Like I was in a relationship once, then that's what they told me all the time and I believed it about myself until I had other people outside, one of them being my mother, that actually told me that. That, which I mean, you kind of believe your mom, you wanna believe your mom, but then again she's like supposed to be your biggest fan. So I'm not gonna say I thought she was a liar, but I had to eventually begin to believe it, not only think it, but like feel it. You know what I mean. It made me walk different. It made me act different because actually and now the very job that this person told me I was never gonna amount to anything, never gonna be able to do, I have been able to, with the check from the church as well, cause I get paid for being a pastor, she get. My wife can stay home with our first baby together now, and now we're probably very soon gonna homeschool our teenager. So Blessings from God.

Speaker 1: 10:18

But I never thought that I could actually do anything with a gift in photography and video, that a gift that I had developed, that God had developed in me, because I Kept hearing that I was not, I was not a real job, that I was never going to do anything with it, and now I make more Than some households from this one job and praise the Lord for it, but I Could not get past without it's, without external help. I'm one of those, or was one of those. I'm not anymore. God's really transforming the last few years.

Speaker 1: 10:52

I used to be one of those that I would get so down on myself and so Just constantly, constantly, constantly, like nobody would have to, like. This verse says Unloving or forgive, forgiving, slandering, no self-control, like all of these things were me turned in on myself, like I would constantly Like not be loving myself. I didn't think I was attractive, I didn't think I had a good personality. I was even told I was stupid by somebody I was with once. Told me in and I'm comedy is one of my things, and so for her to say that I was stupid and Wasn't even funny, it was like the deepest cuts. Of the deepest cuts, I mean something that I thought was a part of the best parts of me. She was telling me that they were worth nothing and was trash. Needless to say, haha, proved you wrong, because I make people laugh all the time. Sucka, so back at you, but anyways, that's, that's just a little bit like for me.

Speaker 1: 11:53

This part on this was, like me turning it into myself. It wasn't me doing it to other people, it was me just never believing in me and I was always keeping myself down by believing the lies that I've been told over and over and over again, and this is a common thing, anyway. So no self-control, excuse me, there will be cruel and hate. What is good, so another thing about the pride culture is that you cannot tell them that they are wrong, no matter how blatantly wrong and immoral it is, because they they have made themselves into their own gods, and we do this a lot in the church. We um, we like to play the blame game. We eat our own, we kick people while they're down and then say, oh, I guess we're down and going to hell, when probably, in all honesty, that people acting that way probably gonna make it to heaven either. Faith and failures podcast.