Monday, November 25, 2013 Make Peace with God by Rick - TopicsExpress

Monday, November 25, 2013 Make Peace with God by Rick Warren “At one time you were far away from God and were his enemies because of the evil things you did and thought. But now, by means of the physical death of his Son, God has made you his friends, in order to bring you, holy, pure, and faultless, into his presence.” Colossians 1:21-22 (GNT) You’re never going to make peace with others until you make peace with God, and the only way you’re going to make peace with God is surrender. You were made to live with him as the manager, CEO, and chairman of the board of your life. Sam Harris, who is a friend of mine, is also a well-known atheist. We had a three-and-a-half-hour debate for Newsweek magazine. One of the last questions they asked was, “Can you be spiritual without believing in a spirit?” During the discussion on this issue, I said, “Sam, what interests me is not so much that you don’t believe in God but why you don’t believe in God. I don’t have enough faith to not believe in God. It takes far more faith to believe this is all an accident than to believe that there was a design and creator behind it. You can’t prove it, and I can’t prove it, so we’re both living by faith. I believe it by faith. You doubt it by faith.” I asked Sam, “If you were to believe in God, would you have to change your lifestyle?” When he said, “Yes,” I responded, “So that’s the real issue. The issue is not that you can’t believe in God. It’s that you don’t want to believe in God. The truth is that you just don’t want a boss. You don’t want a sovereign Lord who tells you ‘This is right and this is wrong.’ You want to make it up yourself. You want to be God.” That is the fundamental issue that causes our war with God: We want to be our own God. So, how do you make peace with God? The Bible says in Colossians 1:21-22, “At one time you were far away from God and were his enemies because of the evil things you did and thought. But now, by means of the physical death of his Son, God has made you his friends, in order to bring you, holy, pure, and faultless, into his presence.” (GNT). There’s only one way to make peace with God: by faith. The good news is that Jesus Christ has already done everything you need to make peace with God. All you need to do is surrender and accept it by faith. “So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.” Romans 5:11 (NLT).