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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.

What actually took place is this:

"What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily."

- Galatians 2:19-21, The Message

I'm Right!

Cartoon, by David Hayward

 

Unpresentable || Spoken Word

Heart Vs Infrastructure

I disagree with the notion that one has to be in a particular camp (religious or non-religious) to experience God.

Saint Teresa of Avila was a Carmelite nun. Brother Lawrence worked in the kitchen in a monastery. And yet, both of them experienced God deeply and intimately.

The infrastructure is irrelevant; it is not the medium through which we connect with God. Heart is, and it does not care if the physical body is in a monastery, megachurch or the loo.

Why I Like This Video

 

This is one of the most popular videos on YouTube that is getting a lot of hits lately. It is liked and disliked by many for several reasons. 

I like it because it pops the self-righteous bubble that is seen in churchianity and briefly touches on the differences between the man-made religion and the gift of God through Christ Jesus.

I hope and would like to believe that the word 'hate' is not directed against a group of people that differ with his views. If it is, welcome to yet another branch of Christianity, which has close to 40,000 denominations.

I am siding with the idea that his feelings are targeted towards the religion, which to me is not an institution or a group of people, but a mindset that makes one run on a never-ending treadmill to "please God".

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.

Are you a Parrot or a Seeker?

"seek, and ye shall find" - Jesus

Parroting is easy. It's a life of staying on the surface. Someone does the thinking and interpretation for us. And we faithfully parrot "the truth", or so we think.  

Seeking is hard because it requires us to leave our comfort zones. It requires us to ask hard questions. It may sometimes lead us to swallow our pride and admit our ignorance, which may not be a pretty experience for our ego which thrived on "being right". In this journey, we may be ostracized by our churchy contacts and the so-called friends.

Regardless of the challenges, the journey of the truth-seeker is worth it, if the desire is to be in union with the Truth, instead of dogmas and concepts that merely puffs up one's head.

True seeking, however, will not begin until we experience the emptiness of floating in the Parrot zone.

Happy Birthday, Who?

I used to do the whole CHRISTmas thing sincerely, yet blindly, until it dawned on my bright head that we really do not have any solid proof that Jesus was born exactly on the 25th of December.

Nevertheless, I still appreciate this season because of the beautiful spirit of giving. I wish it is not just limited to Christmas.

The real reason for the season, as I see (a purely personal view), is Love and not a religious agenda.

One can, however, pretend that this is about Christ, and it is absolutely fine, but pushing that idea on someone who does not believe in Jesus is not Christ-like. Christ was never a bully.

With that as the backdrop, I wish you a very merry Christmas and happy holidays (or work days, depending  your work schedule!).

How to Love Unconditionally

In this post, I said about being the conduits of unconditional love.

But how do we love unconditionally? 

It is easy for me to love my nice elderly neighbor or my best friend. But the rubber meets the road when the object of our love is someone who hurt us or others. How do we love this person?

The easiest way is to not equate the so-called "offender" which his actions.

But in most cases, we cannot love a person unconditionally, if we trust in our strength alone. If you have any doubts, try loving Hitler, or someone who hurt you.

Unconditional love is not something that we can manufacture. It is the fruit of the Spirit that manifests as we remain in Christ Jesus. 

True, we see the fruit on the branches but notice that the branch does not strive to bear fruit. It is His Life within us that helps us bear His fruit, for we have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us; and the life which we now live in the flesh we live by faith of the Son of God, who loves us and gave Himself for us.

There will be a fight initially in our mind, especially if we are usually prone to be driven by the dictates of the ego, which is not in alignment with the Spirit, Who is housed in our spirit. But the more we cease from our striving and emotionally rest in Him, acknowledging our inability to bear His fruit, the more we will see His rivers of living water saturating us and flow through us. 

The fruit of the Spirit then will no longer be Christian-speak for us, but a living reality, which will not be dependent on others or the circumstances, no matter how grave or bright the situation is.