Man persists to do life without God, to press on with life and leave Christianity out of the equation. One denies that God exists and takes life by the horns while another denies the God that is–the God of the Bible–the God of Christianity–and adopts a religion that offers a god more palatable to his liking. Either way, the determination is the same: to do life without God. But how does this work out? It doesn’t. It can’t.
Man was made in the image of God (Gen 1.27) and became a living soul when God breathed the breath of life into him (Gen 2.7). For all else that this means, it means at least this much: that man was made not only dependent upon God but also for communion with God. Man simply can’t live without God. This is why even self-proclaimed atheists have a “god.” Whether it be science, their ideals, or some exalted virtue, they live for something greater than themselves. They are motivated by, justify their actions by their devotion to, and sacrifice for, whatever their god is. They simply cannot live without the notion of the divine. It is stamped on their hearts. It is part and parcel with the image in which they were made. Man was made to worship and man will worship.
Likewise, this is why the “religious and spiritual sort” who deny the God of Christianity are yet compelled to adopt another religion. We are religious creatures made for the religion of our Creator and if we deny the religion of our Creator then we are compelled by our own conscience to adopt another. Hence, everywhere in the world, even in the darkest regions of the uncivilized and barbaric, we find religion. Man simply cannot escape the reality of his dependency upon the divine. He cannot escape the testimony of his conscience that he is a creature, that his Creator ought to be worshipped, adored, and obeyed. And if he will not admit the God of the Bible then he will make a god of his own.
But, again, we ask: how does this work out? And again we answer: it doesn’t. CS Lewis captured this well when he once wrote that man was made like a car engine. A car engine (for argument’s sake) is made to run on gasoline. It simply cannot run on anything else. Fill its tank with water or juice or Starbucks and it will conk out. None of its mechanicals will work properly, for none of them can. It has the wrong fuel. Nothing but gasoline will make it go.
Man was made to run on God. Man was made to be in relationship with God, to commune with God, to hear from God in His Word and to speak to God in prayer. Man was made to know God, to laugh at what rejoices God’s heart, to cry at what breaks it. Man was made to call good that which God calls good and to call evil that which God calls evil. Nothing else will make man go as he should. Nothing else will make man happy, satisfy man’s heart, comfort man’s soul. God made man for Himself.
That’s why, for all man’s ventures in creating a society without God, and for all man’s ventures for creating a satisfying religion without the God who is, something always goes wrong. It never lasts. As Lewis put it, “It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down. They are trying to run on the wrong juice.”
What are you trying to run on? Are you trying to build your life independent of God, as if you yourself were God? Are you trying to run on a god of your own making? It won’t work. However far you’ve come along, however many laps you’ve been able to cover so far, however well it seems to be going now, you’ll never be able to finish the race. You’re using the wrong fuel (Mt 11.28; Jn 14.6).
