An atheist society is promoting themselves and their cause this weekend by flying those banners behind planes that says "I can do good without God!". There are also billboards with the same ad campaign popping up here and there around the country. The question is, are they right? Can you do good without God?
YES & NO... There are many good people in the world who do not yet know God, and these people do good things all of the time. So, without the feeling of God in their hearts, people can do good. However, I would contend that God, even without a person's knowledge, works through good, and hence through good people who do good things. So, God is inherently present in good, whether it is a way of life, a state of mind, or an act itself.
In the spirit of these past few days, and the discussion of "the heart" and it's sacred and immaculate place in our being; one can see the struggle between the individual freedom to do good and the nature of being possessed by goodness to BE GOOD. The God that causes groups to hire ad companies to declare their freedom from religion on banners and billboards is the same God that finds His way into the good actions of good people. While I understand the concept that with freedom comes the freedom from being possessed by another's will, I would maintain that the mere mention of "God" in the phrase on the billboard itself is a giving in to His presence among us, and hence His work through us. I would further add that it's OK to be on the journey that takes one through the individual experience of living this life with and without the understanding that "we are God's people" (Psalm 100). God's love, and the potentially sacred and immaculate hearts He has placed in us all will always be witness to, and share goodness, and this will always prevail over evil.
So please be good, and when your journey takes you there, "Be God's!" (Rich Mullins)
I will sprinkle clean water upon you to cleanse you from all your impurities, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. I will give you a new heart and place a new spirit within you, taking from your bodies your stony hearts and giving you natural hearts. I will put my spirit within you and make you live by my statutes, careful to observe my decrees. You shall live in the land I gave your fathers; you shall be my people, and I will be your God.
Ezekiel 36: 25-27
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