Friday, March 14, 2008

ivescrewedup

I am so moved by the multitudes that are forced to wear a mask due to the fear of religious judgment. What good the religion is doing in their life other than forcing them into depression?
I came across this website which allows people to confess their sins anonymously. It’s no a wonder that they open up under the title of ‘anonymous’. The world and the religion wouldn’t allow them to open up authentically. It’s not that we have to make all our secret sins public, but what if we have a group of people where we could confess to each other without the fear of judgment?
I think millions are dying in guilt, shame and fear due to many sins in their life. If we can stop acting that everything is hunky-dory in our life just because we are Christians, wouldn’t that be a lot better?

We, Christians are well known for the fact that we preach the salvation by grace through faith alone. We attract people telling them, no matter how sinful they are, they are still worthy for the salvation offered by Christ. They come with a lot of excitement and joy. Once we know that now they are ‘converted’, then we start giving the list of things they should be doing and the list of things they shouldn’t be doing. We preach the ‘finality of the cross’ with one side of our mouth and then preach the ‘biblical principles’ through the other side and we find pleasure in controlling people using law.

If we act as if we have got all our acts clean, how can we expect the real people to come and share their struggles with us? It is sad that we don’t realize the law causes us to lose our authenticity. But grace causes us to be real and blunt. In grace, there is humility, understanding, compassion and true love. In law, there is only pride, guilt, fear and punishment. What good is that? Still we like to be called as ‘law keepers’, people with ‘principles’ etc.

Jesus said ‘It’s finished’. But standing at the foot of His cross, we are telling people, “No, it’s not finished, you have to work on your sins”. Does Jesus lead us to holiness or does holiness lead us to Jesus?
When Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing’, how much holy were those people whom He was addressing? How many sins the thief on the cross cleaned up for him to hear something like this from Jesus: “Today you will be with me in paradise”?

Jesus’ Gospel is supposed to be a ‘good’ news but didn’t the religion make it into ‘bad’ news?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks for the comment on my blog...

"does Jesus lead us to holiness or does holiness lead us to Jesus?"

great question. I know i for years felt like any mistake I made pushed me farther away from Him. And conversely felt my "great" spiritual deeds made Him more pleased with me. I am thankful for His grace. It is an everyday walk, resting in His grace, I think... wouldn't you agree?

Walking Church said...

If we are found in Him - guess what?

Actually, Bino, it is GREAT news if appropriated.

Good post, yet again.

~8)

Bino M. said...

Chris,

Thank you for stopping by and adding your comments.

I would certainly agree that it is resting from all our efforts in the energy of our flesh to please God. Bible says, without faith its impossible to please God. Faith enables us to enter into the 'Sabbath' rest He has offered to us. I have lived in the futility of performance based religion under stress for a long time, but God graciously showed His grace to me. He is not interested in a behavior modification program, rather He is interested in living His life through us.

Again, thank you for visiting...

Bino M. said...

WC,

Thank you!