Good Without God?

This morning while surfing the Internet, I learned that subway ads are coming out next Monday in New York City declaring “You Can Be Good Without God.” This won’t be the first time this sort of thing has happened in the Big Apple. Earlier this year, a group of atheists sponsored bus posters that read, “You Don’t Have To Believe In God To Be A Moral And Ethical Person.” Similar signs have also appeared on buses in Chicago, Toronto, and London. Immediately I thought of Psalm 14:1 and Psalm 53:1 which both affirm, “There is none who does good.” Ecclesiastes 7:20 reads, “For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.”

How should Christians respond to atheists? While unbelievers need to hear the truth of God’s word, we must remind ourselves that it’s the goodness of God that leads one to repentance (Romans 2:4). Sinners need to hear about a God who wants to do good things in their lives. As David said in Psalm 52:1, “The goodness of God endures continually.”

It’s true that God called man “very good” in Genesis 1:31. But because of sin, the human race became estranged from God. Nevertheless, Matthew 5:45 says that God “…makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” God is so good that He even provides necessities for people who won’t believe in Him! So the next time you encounter atheists who say they don’t believe in God, you can let them know that God is good and He believes in them. Then if they will listen, share the plan of salvation with them.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. 
He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” – John 3:16-18

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