Third Watch Ministries Nfp

      One of the guys I knew a bit from COD and then Elmhurst is Lee. His background is United Church of Christ and he’s in a band with Adam (Adam led worship for us at Elmhurst when we ran the Crusade group there.) For now Lee’s an Atheist. I found out about this development on Facebook, responding to something he wrote on his page. In response to my posts, some of his other atheist friends came out of the woodwork. Then I explained to Lee and one of his friends, Evan, that I did not believe in Atheists:
      “Yes, Evan, everyone has faith in God according to Christian doctrine taught in the Bible by the Apostle Paul and Jesus. God instills it in them though some are in denial. His invisible attributes have been made clear to them through what God created.”
       “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. Because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them." Romans 1:19&20
      “If you want to understand this belief a bit more you can read the parable of the talents Jesus told, which are talents of silver, so a form of wealth in the ancient world. In the story the talents are symbolic of faith. Everyone has some, at least one talent, but some don't act on it and build a relationship with God. You can read the story in Matthew 25 starting at verse 14. Both Paul in Romans 1 and Jesus in the parable of the talents basically teach everyone has faith. Not saving faith, but faith in as much as there is knowledge of the invisible attributes of God instilled somehow into us by God.” Evan then countered, “I have no response to that. Apparently I believe in god, despite my free will and independent thought. Go figure.”
     And this was where Lee was at as well. Ironically, being a socio‐genetic biological atheist, (he believes in Evolution) he philosophically is determined by his gene pool. He does not have any free will anyway. Philosophically speaking, only Christians are free beyond the determinations of this world because we have become one with the only radically free being; God through His Holy Spirit indwelling us made possible by the work of Christ.
     This is one of the things I explained to Lee later over lunch. We talked for 3.5 hours about everything from his growing up years to his evil, lying, professing‐Christian
Grandfather to his desire to go to cooking school. And a lot about God. Lee is a friend, and we are closer because we got into it on Facebook. I hope to win him to Christ, but I imagine it will take awhile and a few more hotdogs and fries at Portillo’s.