To Believe or Not Believe

To follow Jesus or not to follow Jesus, that’s where I am today on a Sunday afternoon.

Years ago, I shared that I wasn’t a Christian because I was deep into one of my addictions, and I was completely trapped and isolated.

The shame and guilt halted me, and I wanted to end my life because I felt like whatever I did, whether that was confessing or repenting, it was never enough.

I felt like there was no point of return for me.

The weight of my suicide attempt fell over my addiction to porn and being a filthy person who constantly fell short of the standard.

It was in that moment I shared that I wasn’t a Christian. I didn’t fit the mold of church, and I didn’t want to go to church, read my Bible, or pray.

So how much was I a Christian then?

The questions for me are the following:

Are you able to forgive without following Jesus?

Are you able to love without following Jesus?

Are you able to have empathy without following Jesus?

Does Jesus eliminate my sin?

What is sin?

Am I born in it?

Is there any goodness on Earth?

Do you need goodness with the knowledge of Jesus?

Can I be a good person?

Can I stop drinking, smoking, looking at porn, and lose weight all the while not believing Jesus?

If I can do all those things without believing in Jesus, then what’s the point of following Jesus?

Is it words or actions that matter?

If I confess Jesus, but do not love my neighbor or forgive, then am I a Christian?

Likewise, if I don’t confess Jesus, but love my neighbor and forgive them, then am I a Christian?

If I denounce Christianity, but stop looking at porn, stop smoking cigarettes, become healthy, treat my body as a temple, forgive my neighbor, love my neighbor, and feed the poor and the lowly, then am I going to Hell?

If you say yes, then I’d like for you to rethink your position as a Christian and what it means.

Going to Heaven isn’t by confession or saying a prayer of salvation on a Sunday.

Nor is it becoming a member of a church, reading your Bible, or praying that will save you.

You cannot do anything to be saved.

Let’s look at two people:

The Christian who understands Greek and Hebrew, goes to Seminary, attends Church every Sunday, and prays all the time. Yet cannot stop watching porn, lies to cover up his habit, and has a hard time forgiving his family and doesn’t love the poor. He says the prayer of salvation and does his best to follow the rules. Is he going to Heaven?

Then you take a person who doesn’t follow Jesus and even denounces Him, but yet loves his fellow human, cares for the poor, forgives his neighbor, doesn’t practice porn, is not a glutton, doesn’t smoke. Is he going to Heaven?

I know this is binary, and people are way more complicated than this, but if there is a good and just God, he’s not going to look at a religious hypocrite who uses Jesus to get into Heaven and rejects the person who embodies Christ's life.

When you look at Matthew 25.

When did we serve Jesus?

The answer in that story is as beautiful as it is terrifying to the religious establishment: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me.”

It turns out, the King wasn’t looking for a brand name or a confession of faith. He was looking for a cup of water given to a thirsty soul.

The ultimate irony of my life is that the religious system made salvation entirely about a transaction of words, while the universe operates on the currency of action.

They taught me to fear a legalistic trap, all while ignoring the fact that their version of “faith” left people trapped in the same cycles of secret shame, hypocrisy, and despair that almost took my life years ago.

So where does that leave me on this Sunday afternoon?

It leaves me standing outside the cage.

If choosing to be an “unbeliever” means I finally have the clarity to respect my body, the strength to conquer my addictions, and the genuine capacity to love and forgive the people around me, then I accept the title.

I will no longer let a system define me as “filthy” just because I refuse to play their game of fear-induced performance.

I am stepping away from the altar of cheap words.

I don’t need a religious label to be a man of integrity. I don’t need the threat of hell to compel me to be kind, and I don’t need the promise of a golden ticket to make me treat my body like a temple.

Goodness doesn’t belong to the church; it belongs to the people who actually choose to live it.

If a just and loving God exists, He will recognize His own reflection in a life lived with love, service, and sobriety—regardless of the name on the building I didn’t walk into.

And if He doesn’t? If a Creator would truly condemn a man for choosing radical honesty, health, and love over a blind, hypocritical contract? Then that is not a God worthy of a sovereign man’s worship anyway.

The panic button they installed in my brain is losing its power. The old security alarms are ringing, but the door is wide open, and I am walking through it.

I am choosing the substance over the shadow. I am choosing reality over the label. I am choosing life.