Maybe you’re debating on whether or not to give up on God. Maybe you’re wrestling with some of these reasons listed below. I pray that this article is helpful to you. Let’s talk.
9 Terrible Reasons to Walk Away From God
1. I Don’t Like His Rules
It breaks my heart when people boil down following Jesus to a bunch of rules. Oh, how you have NO CLUE about grace. If you really knew the grace of God you would understand that the Christian faith isn’t about rules. It’s about a person who upheld every rule, every law, and then paid for your sin debt on the cross. Jesus set you free from religious law. Not only that, but he changes his followers into something brand new from the inside out.
Yes, there are standards of morality. There are expectations for Christians, but you may be putting too much focus on the rules. When you do this, you’re missing the whole point. Don’t walk away from God. If this is you, read this.
2. I Want to Live My Own Life
All throughout history there have been people who make this declaration and then walk away from God. They wanted freedom and control rather than being bogged down by a Deity that was a buzzkill. Again, if only you knew the grace of God! If only you knew that true freedom only comes by losing your life in Christ. If only you knew that the abundant life that Jesus brings is much better than anything you can come up with.
Here’s what I know: Eventually you’ll regret your decision because soon you’ll find that you don’t have near as much figured out as you thought you did.
3. Science Disproves the Bible
Oh, the arrogance. Okay, I digress. At least for a minute. You believe in evolution and you came across a guy named Ken Ham who is a 6-day Creation Fanatic. Maybe you even went to his museum in the Cincinnati area near where I live. You heard him talk about Christians who believe in evolution and you noticed how arrogantly close he comes to all but saying that someone who believes in evolution is not saved because they are going against the Bible. You think to yourself, well crap, that’s it? And you walk away from God because the evidence for your belief in evolution is greater than your evidence for your belief in God.
Without writing a book on the topic, let me share with you a couple things.
First, the book of Genesis is not a science book and it was never meant to be. It is not a settled argument inside Christendom whether or not Genesis even claims a literal 6-day Creation account. The best understanding I know of when it comes to Genesis 1-2 is this: God created everything! How he did that and in what time frame? I don’t know and neither does Ken Ham.
Second, your faith is not in a book. *Gasp* I know that’s blasphemy! Or is it? I will say it again. Your faith is not in a book. Your faith is not dependent upon the interpretation of Genesis 1-2. Your faith is not in a book, it is in a person and that person is Jesus. The better question for the Genesis-obsessed-person is this: What do you do with Jesus? That is a better thing to address. No historian will deny that he existed. A movement sprung up out of nowhere claiming him to be the Savior. Written accounts sprung up about his life from eyewitnesses. If they were false, people who walked with Jesus and talked with Jesus would have refuted it. The Jesus movement grew and in 300 short years it took over the Roman Empire. Any honest historian will admit that they cannot explain the rise of Christianity. Could it be that it was an act of God?
4. I Found Out About the Crusades and I Don’t Like It
Me neither. At least how they’ve been explained. A bunch of crazy Christians who were land hungry and blood thirsty. If you are interested in seeing a detailed account of the Crusades by a Crusades historian, read this.
Before I leave this for the next reason, let me say this: Jesus does not give his followers the right to respond to evil with violence. Sure, you can make a case for a Holy War, but I can certainly make a case that Holy Wars are not the mission of the Christian. You want to point to the Old Testament for justification and I’ll point you to Jesus and the new way he brought into the world. To really extrapolate this I would need to write a short book (maybe it would be really long). Soon enough.
5. Jesus Isn’t the Only Way, He Was Just a Good Teacher
Anyone who says this has no clue the claims that Jesus made. There’s a reason he was crucified. The Jews believed that he was a blasphemer. And if his claims about himself were false, he certainly would have been a blasphemer. In fact, Jesus said that he is the only way to the Father (God).
If you want to talk about other ways to Heaven then I would love to hear how those ways work. The truth that you won’t be able to get away from is this: all religions, except for Christianity, are merit-based systems. In other words, you do really well, you’ll be rewarded. If you don’t do really well, you’ll be punished. Depending on what floats your boat, you’ll be reincarnated (until you reach perfection, good luck with that), you’ll be punished for eternity, or you’ll cease to exist.
You want to go another way? Good luck climbing that mountain to reach your god. To reach your Nirvana. To reach whatever you are striving for.
I know of only one promise, one hope, one salvation where the conditions for your salvation are not based on what you have done or are doing, but on what God did for you. That promise, that hope, that salvation can only be found in Jesus Christ.
6. Christianity Doesn’t Work
What does that even mean? Do you mean that you think God’s goal with Christianity is to make you happy and you don’t feel happy? Do you mean that you think God’s goal with Christianity is to make your life free from trouble? Do you mean that you think God’s goal with Christianity is to make you Aladdin and Him the Genie? What do you think Christianity is supposed to do? I honestly want to know. I can’t help you with this reason if I don’t know what you mean. Leave a comment and let me know what you mean. Let’s talk.
7. Christians Are Hypocrites
Who do you know who, claiming to be a Christian, is claiming that they are perfect? Because this is rooted in the idea that someone is claiming one thing, yet not living up to that claim. The funny thing about Christ followers is that they are readily admitting that they are screwed up and that they need a Savior. That’s the point. Will they always live up to your expectations? No. They don’t stop sinning, but are being changed from the inside out. To be a hypocrite, they would need to be arrogant, claiming that they have reached perfection. If you know a Christian like that, just be patient with them. They’ll realize their sin soon enough.
8. There Is So Much Violence in the Old Testament
Again, this is an instance where I would need to take A LOT more time to talk about this reason. This is another time where it ultimately boils down to what you do with Jesus. But let’s address this in a paragraph or two.
From Exodus on, God is raising up a nation called, Israel. This nation is God’s chosen nation to usher into the world, His plan of redemption through the Messiah. They are to follow God and Him alone. Surrounding them are nations who are sacrificing their babies in worship to their various gods. Their actions are evil and disgusting. To bring Israel into the land that God wants them in, they need to conquer it. The nations occupying this land are full of evil and Israel is told to wipe them out. They don’t fully. Now comes in the whole intermarrying thing. God tells the Israelites to not intermarry with the other nations. The reason for this is not because God is racist. It is because these other people are idol-worshipers and God knows that if they marry the Israelites, His people will eventually turn to the idols. So, protecting His chosen nation who is to eventually be the vehicle for bringing in the Messiah who will usher in salvation to the whole world, God tells the Israelites to not intermarry.
The Israelites repeatedly go through wars. One after another. Nations that are rising up to conquer them never stop. The difference between Old Testament Israel and New Testament Christianity is this: one is a political nation (Israel) and one is Jesus. The majority of the 600+ laws in the Law of Moses, you know, the things found in Leviticus, are laws for a nation as a whole. Compare them to the Constitution or Bill of Rights. The New Testament is the ushering in of the community of Jesus followers. The community that is told by Jesus to turn the other cheek when someone hits them in the face. The community that is called to bring the good news of Jesus into the whole world. The community that is filled with equality. That there is no longer black nor white, Jew nor you, male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.
This is a topic that I would like to write more about. So stay tuned.
9. Someone in the Church Hurt Me
I’m sorry. I really am. I wish it didn’t happen. I wish people in the Church would act like the people they are called to be. I wish you didn’t experience what you experienced.
This is not God’s fault. People do stupid things, Christian or not. Don’t use this reason to walk away from God. He loves you, adores you, and desires a relationship with you. Don’t walk away from him because of something someone did to you.
A Somewhat Decent Reason to Walk Away
If you believe that God doesn’t exist, then I suppose you have made your faith decision. You can’t prove his non-existence and I can’t prove his existence. Neither one of us can declare with 100% certainty that he exists or not. I can tell you about how I have actually experienced God in a real way, but I can’t prove that experience with evidence that you can see other than the life-change you can see from the outside. But this is really the essence of all history, of all truth claims, that we choose to believe other people’s accounts. History is one big narrative where we choose to believe the account of the people who lived in the times that they speak about. The same is true about the Jesus movement. We choose to believe or choose not to believe the account of the people who walked with Jesus, talked with Jesus, and experienced a resurrected Jesus.
If, after all of your examination of the evidence for and against the existence of God, you choose to not believe, you’re not really walking away from God, for he does not exist to you. If you do this, don’t you dare use God as your reason for disbelief, for he does not exist to you. Don’t use him as an excuse when you talk about the evils in this world. How can someone who does not exist be responsible for evil?
If you choose to believe in God, then give Jesus your whole life. Don’t hold anything back. And don’t be held back in your walk with Christ. Get to know what God’s grace is.
If you’re wrestling with what you believe, I would love to talk to you about what you are wrestling with. I’m not the answer-man and don’t want to be. I can, though, relate to what you are going through. I wrestled with what I believe too. I didn’t grow up in the church, I didn’t have parents feeding me what to believe, I discovered God as a young adult.
I’m praying for you.
