CarlZunker.com

My wife and I have two girls from South Africa that we’ve adopted in all the ways that matter, even if not legally. They were over eighteen when they came into our lives, but for all intents and purposes, they’re our daughters.

One of them asked me a question one day that stopped me cold: “What would you do if you got irrefutable proof that God did not exist?”

I stared at her for a second, trying to process the thought, but my brain couldn’t follow the thread. It was like asking what I would do if my house built itself. Colossians 1:17 says, “He is before all things, and in him all things are held together.” To imagine God not existing would be to imagine reality itself coming apart at the seams. I couldn’t do it.

But as I sat with the question, I realized it wasn’t really about what would happen if God didn’t exist. I started to consider why she was asking. The question underneath wasn’t “How would your life change?” It was “How did your life change when you moved from unbelief to belief?” My answer would give insight into how she might expect her life to change in belief.

She already knew my story. She knew I’d identified as a Christian my entire life, that I tried to walk the walk when it was convenient or made me look good, but I didn’t actually submit to Jesus for a good portion of my life. She knew there was a before and an after. And she wanted to know: what’s the difference?

I took the opportunity to ask her a question of my own. “What if you woke up tomorrow with irrefutable proof that Christianity is true? Not everyone. Just you. What if you met him? You now knew, absolutely knew, that Jesus is who he said he is, that the Bible is true, that all of it is real? How would your life change?”

She didn’t have an answer right away, but she acknowledged her life would change a lot more with this question than mine would with hers. This question seems to be the more difficult one. It is not a simple hypothetical; it is a diagnostic question to clarify our purpose. Would you submit to Jesus, or continue to ignore what you know?

Let’s try it.

Forget the apologetics for a moment. Forget the fine-tuning argument, the empty tomb, the prophecies, the moral case. Set all of it aside. I’m not asking you to believe anything. I’m asking you to try and honestly imagine this scenario.

Suppose you woke up tomorrow with absolute, personal, undeniable certainty that Jesus Christ is who he said he is. Not because someone argued you into it. You just knew, the way you know you exist, the way you know the sun rose this morning. Christianity is true. God is real. Jesus is who He says He is. The Bible is true, all of it, even the parts you don’t understand yet.

What changes?

If you are currently a non-believer, do you still chase the things you’re chasing? Do you still hold the grudges you’re holding? Do you still fear the things you fear?

The heart can resist what the mind acknowledges, but would your destructive habits still feel excusable, or would they begin to lose their justification? Not because you’re trying harder, but because you finally see them clearly as a rebellion against the God who fearfully and wonderfully made you. The affair, the porn, the drugs, the jealousy and coveting of what others have. Would they be revealed for what they are: a trade of something eternal for something that burns out in your hands after a short moment? How beautiful would it be to lay the shame and the fear and the worries of our wrongdoing at the foot of the cross.

And what if you are already a Christian? What if you’ve known this truth with either your head or your heart your whole life? What changes if both your head and your heart are now certain?

If you know God is real, do you stop putting on a mask of what you think you should look like on Sunday, knowing He sees through it? You walk into church with a smile. You say the right things. You sing the songs. But inside, you’re the same person who screamed at your spouse in the car on the way there. You’re the same person who’s been nursing resentment, feeding lust, cutting corners, living a double life. If you knew, really knew, that God sees all of it, would you keep pretending?

Would you stop treating sin like a negotiation, knowing what the cross cost? You’ve made peace with it. You’ve decided which sins are “not that bad” and which ones to deal with later. You’ve built a comfortable Christianity that doesn’t ask too much of you. But if you knew what it cost God to forgive you, would you still treat it like a license to do whatever you want?

The issue may not be about evidence or lack of belief. It may be about whether you’re willing to live under the implications of what the evidence points to. And for most of us, believer or not, the answer is: “Not yet. Not fully. Not at the price of giving up what I want to do.” But what are we actually giving up? I once asked my wife what Christianity really costs. She said, “It doesn’t cost anything, but at the same time, it costs absolutely everything.” Before we submit to God, we may only feel willing to pay the first half, but when you meet Jesus, you cannot wait to give him the rest.

If you’re reading this as a skeptic and the question of how your life would change sticks with you, if the idea that your life could be better under Christianity won’t leave you alone, then dig deeper. Don’t stop at the surface level objections. Don’t settle for the caricature of how society paints Christianity. Read the actual arguments. Look at the fine-tuning evidence. Study the historical case for the resurrection. Read the Gospels like you’d read any other historical document and see if the picture of Jesus that emerges is the one you’ve been rejecting.

You might find that the God you’ve been running from isn’t the God who’s actually there. And if you do the work and still can’t believe, at least you’ll have rejected the real thing instead of the straw-man version. That’s worth something.

I saw a video online recently. A woman asks her friend, “Oh, so you’re a dancer?”

“Yep.”

“How often do you practice?”

“Never.”

“Where did you go to school for it?”

“I didn’t.”

“How often do you dance?”

“I don’t.”

“But… you’re a dancer?”

“Yep. My mom and dad were dancers. I know how dancers think. I’m around dancers all the time. So, I’m a dancer. I’ve been a dancer for a long time now.”

It’s absurd, right? You can’t be a dancer if you never dance. You can’t claim the identity without the practice. Knowing about dancing doesn’t make you a dancer. Being around dancers doesn’t make you a dancer. Even having dancer parents doesn’t make you a dancer. You’d laugh at someone who called themselves a dancer under those conditions.

But we do the same thing with Christianity all the time.

“I’m a Christian.”

“Do you follow Jesus?”

“Not really.”

“Do you forgive people the way you’ve been forgiven?”

“No.”

“Do you love your neighbor? Pursue holiness? Read Scripture? Pray?”

“Not consistently.”

“But you’re a Christian?”

“Yep. I go to church every Sunday. I was raised in the church. I know what Christians believe. I’m around Christians all the time. So, I’m a Christian. I’ve been a Christian for a long time now.”

Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going into my garage every day makes me a car.

Jesus says: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’” (Matthew 7:21–23).

This is one of the most terrifying passages in Scripture. These are not unbelievers. These aren’t skeptics. These are people who did ministry in Jesus’ name. Prophesied. Cast out demons. Performed miracles. And he says, “I never knew you.”

Salvation is not about works-righteousness. You don’t earn your way into the kingdom by doing enough Christian things. A dancer who practices every day but has no love for the art is just going through motions. A Christian who does all the right things but has no love for Christ is doing the same.

Works still matter, because they flow from a repentant heart. If you’ve truly met Jesus and you’ve been forgiven, rescued, and made new, then your life will look different. Not because you’re trying to earn something, but because you’ve been given something. You want to pass that gift on to as many people as you can. You forgive because you’ve been forgiven. You love because you’ve been loved. You pursue holiness because nothing else satisfies.

A dancer dances because they love to dance. A Christian follows Jesus because they love Jesus. If there’s no practice, no pursuit, no change, then maybe you’ve not actually met him yet. Maybe you just know about him.

If you know him, your life looks different. Not perfect. Not sinless. But different. Genuine believers can still struggle deeply and look inconsistent, but its not a comparison to anyone else, but a comparison between where we are now and where we were before.

If you’re sitting in the pew with the same bitterness, the same unrepentant patterns, the same refusal to forgive, the same secret life you’ve been hiding for years, then the answer isn’t to give up, it’s to start. As Paul says in Philippians 2:12, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

This isn’t meant to frighten you. It’s meant to help awaken your desire to walk with God. The gospel is not “try harder and maybe God will accept you.” The gospel is “you can’t, so he did.” Grace changes you. If you’ve been forgiven much, you love much. If you’ve been rescued, you live like someone who’s been rescued. And if nothing has changed, then it’s fair to question how well you know Him.

The good news is it’s not too late. If you’re reading this and you realize you’ve been playing Christian more than being Christian, that realization is grace. Let the Holy Spirit start pulling back the curtain. The same God who said “I never knew you” to the pretenders is the God who says “Come to me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” to the ones who stop pretending.

If you’ve never met him, now is the time. If you’ve been pretending, stop. Meet Jesus and let him change your life.