Religion Is Not The Culprit...

by Colin Lagerwall

Religion only has a leg to stand on when you think you are missing one...

Many of us are taking a swing at religion as if religion is the enemy...
Religion will only have a landing place of there is one available.

And whilst religion is despicable, it is not the culprit... The culprit is the lie that we believe about ourselves, which causes us to think we are 'missing something' and therefore needing an extra leg...

We blame Hitler for his despicable acts, yet the major issue was not with Hitler, it was the self-perceived deficiency in the people of Germany that caused them to follow his promises of becoming a super-race...
If the people of Germany knew who they were, they would have flicked off Hitler's promises as the ridiculous drivel that it was...
And so it is with every controlling or governing body; it only has control if it is perceived that something is missing in our own selves...

Whilst seeing and standing against the false promises of religion is good, it can be a futile waste of time and energy if we do not tackle the real issue, and that is the identity of Man...
When this Identity and all that it entails is intricately known in the width and breadth and depths of us, the lie of religion will be flicked off of us like the booger it really is...

We are One with He who is Life, we are Loved by Our Father, we are honored beyond measure by the Most honorable, we are served by the Greater because He thinks we deserve it, we are the Living Dream of our Creator...

We have two legs to stand on, do not let a lie think you are missing anything, for in believing that lie, something will find it's home in that perceived gap, and it will not be good

.......
Nothing missing, nothing broken...
Mankind is in Him and of Him who is true, and we are Complete in Him...
Jesus' death burial and resurrection and our inclusion in that process is ample proof and a wide open display of God's only thoughts of us...

He is so confident in who we are that He gave us two legs to run on...
So run with the Wind!

How Jesus Reacted To Two Wealthy Individuals

Myth:

Jesus asked the rich young ruler to sell and distribute the wealth amongst the poor; therefore, wealth is bad.

When viewed from another angle:
The issue was about his TRUST in his wealth (Mark 10:24).

Now let's meet a "bad" guy - Zacchaeus. This guy was rich (Luke 19:2), and yet, we do not see Jesus asking him to liquidate his assets and disperse the funds.

The difference here is, Zacchaeus was not banking on his self-righteousness, unlike the rich young ruler, who supposedly kept all the commandments. When grace and unconditional love came to his life, the fruit followed.

It's never about people having money, but money having people.

Salvation is not just about a passport to heaven. The Greek word from which 'saved' is translated is Sozo, and here is the link to what it means.

Listen to the first words of Jesus after he began his ministry:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” - (Luke 4:18-19 NKJV)

Freedom in every area of one's life is what Jesus came for. Sickness or poverty does not glorify the Father, who is Love, especially when the redemptive work on the cross took care of all those problems with one sweep.

Was Jesus a Socialist or a Capitalist?

"God created man in His image and then man returned the favor." - George Bernard Shaw

One of the things that we love to do is mold God to fit our views.

Contrary to the folklore, Jesus was neither a socialist, nor a capitalist. Both these resources operate using the resources on earth. Jesus' source was the kingdom of God.

When the need came up to feed the five thousand (not including the women and children), neither did the poor give what little they had, to fund the need at hand, nor did the disciples organize a fund-raising event to gather the money from the rich. With the little that was given to Jesus by a little boy, He multiplied it supernaturally and in abundance. He did not just meet their bare needs. There were baskets of leftover food.

Since Jesus' source was not the economic systems of the world, it did not matter how bleak the circumstances around Him looked like. He was the answer, because He was connected to the Kingdom.

The kingdom of God is within us. The One who is in us is greater than all the earthly resources put together. Even though we are in this world, we are not of this world. We are supposedly, the "children of God". We are supposedly the "Ambassadors of Christ" and the ambassadors are not taken care of by their host countries.

But leave it to the enterprising churchianity to sell this truth on how to earn this blessing! I do not know if there is another truth that has been more abused by the organized Christianity. The solution is freely available through the redemptive work on the cross. The fact that this has been been prostituted much does not take away from the truth that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of poverty. There is nothing "spiritual" or "virtuous" about poverty. In my view, the organized Christianity played a prominent role in glamorizing poverty when not one human soul has to live under the yoke of poverty or mediocrity anymore. The church should be part of eradicating the curse of poverty, instead of inadvertently glorifying it.   

In Christ we are blessed!

But why?

"The blessing" is not the end of the story. We are not blessed to testify that, "God has blessed us", while our neighbor struggles. We are blessed, also to BE a blessing, to be conduits of His unconditional love. Giving a homeless man a cute sermon on how Jesus loves him won't answer his immediate problems. We need resources to spare. 

But how can we, when we are allergic to the very term 'money'? Aren't we supposed to be "spiritual"?

No sane person who is financially struggling would say that they do not want money. Broadly classified, there are mainly two groups of people who criticize wealth. The first group has never experienced poverty. They have their needs and desires met, month-to-month. The second group has bought into the lie that poverty is godly, when it is actually a curse.

Money, by nature, is neither evil, nor good. It comes from a tree. When zoomed in, it is energy. It is a neutral element. In the hands of a drug pusher, it is called "drug money", but to the person who is a conduit of Love, who knows WHO the Source is, money is nothing but a tool.

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Jacob cheated. Peter had a temper. David had an affair. Jonah ran from God. Paul was a murderer. Gideon was insecure. Thomas was a doubter. Sarah was impatient. Elijah was depressed. Zacchaeus made money illegally.

And yet, God loved them all, unconditionally. His love was not based on their religious theatrics or their heart-felt devotion.

Why then, would we assume that God’s love towards us is based on our actions, especially now that the price for the sins of the whole world has been paid by Christ Jesus on the cross?

 

Life would be a lot lighter when we are not so self-focused.

Be free from the yoke of trying to impress God.

We are loved, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

Old VS New

Thanks to the internet, we now have access to a ton of Christian messages than our earlier generations. We no longer have to be limited by tunnel visions!

While I'm thrilled with this convenience, I'm not attracted to a message, book or an article, simply because it is tagged "Christian". 

What I look for is, if the content is rooted in Jesus' perfect work on the cross.

Narrating the parables of Jesus or quoting 10 scriptures from the Gospels simply for the sake of it won't cut it, because Jesus was still living under the old covenant. 

Contrary to the popular assumption, the new covenant starts only after the resurrection and not with Matthew Chapter 1. 

Selah  ; )

So how do we know that the messages that we listen to or the material that we read stems from the old or the new covenant?

Under the old covenant, I get to bear a nice-looking, but a heavy yoke of trying to earn the blessings. My ego gets to be the star. The blessings or curses are hinged on my performance.

Under the new covenant, Jesus did all the heavy lifting; we are freed from the yoke and are liberated, once and for all. Jesus is the star here and through His obedience, we are made righteous (not self-righteous). Grace or Unconditional Love is the oxygen that we live in. Under this covenant, we are God's masterpieces, not unworthy worms.

Thou shalt be Free

Biblically speaking, we can only live either by law or by grace. Choosing to live by the law requires that one must keep all (I cannot pick and choose from the 10 commandments and the 600 plus sub commandments) the laws with absolute perfection. There isn't a slightest margin for error (James 2:10). I cannot pull the "I'm trying my best" card.

The religion comes in with blithe ignorance and proclaims that, "all you have to do is keep the law and God will smile at you" and place the sincere believer on a never-ending treadmill, when the the fact of the matter is, not one of us can score a 100 out of 100. And this is precisely why we need a Savior!

The purpose of the law (let's not forget that it was not even given to the gentiles) then, was to reveal man's inability to reach God's perfection with his self-effort. Not one action qualifies us to be in right-standing with Him. Not one action of ours qualifies us to receive His blessings. The only route through which we can receive anything from Him is by grace through faith. 

Law leaves us guilty and helpless, which in turn draws us to receive His grace and mercy. The heavy-lifting was already done by the rabbi from Nazareth. All we do is acknowledge and receive the free gift - the glorified Him. Law weighs us down while He frees us.

An Encounter with Jesus

You might be a professing Christian with several years or decades of experience, a Pastor, a famous preacher, a church leader, a theologian, a theology student, a new believer or a skeptic - but are you sure that you have heard the pure Gospel (Good News) yet? Listen to these messages with an open heart and receive Jesus Christ (not your traditions/principles/works) as your only anchor, for only in the person Jesus (not in a religion that loves to put people in bondage and condemnation), in His perfectly completed works, will you find true literal liberty.

An Encounter with Jesus: Message by Bertie Brits. Translated to Malayalam by George Varghese.

Click here for more of Bertie Brits' messages, which can be downloaded free of charge.