Here in America, we are fiercely independent. We take great pride in our American dreams of
working hard, and attaining the goals we set for ourselves. We relish the idea of earning whatever we get
in life. And frankly we tend to condemn
others as ‘lazy’ who appear any less fortunate than ourselves. Accepting this gift, implies we did nothing
to earn it, an admitted loss of control.
Accepting that God had to do ALL the work, means we do none of it. A gift therefore, humbles us. It becomes a sign that we indeed are NOT
equal to God, but are in fact inferior to Him.
We need help to save us, beyond what we could ever do. Even some Christians are completely reluctant
to accept this idea. They agree you have
to take the step of accepting it, but then state in order to keep it, you have
to perform a certain number of rituals, or good deeds, otherwise you lose it. I don’t recall God ever asking for this gift
back. We are able to reject it, many
do. But it would not be a gift, if you
accepted it, and then in order to keep it, had to begin working for it, to
somehow earn it afterwards. Get it straight
Christians, there is no working on your part
to be saved, it is a gift, pure and simple.
So what is the nature of the gift we are being given? What does it mean to be saved from our
current condition? It begins with discernment. The process of bringing us closer to God
begins with learning what is truly ‘good’ and what is truly ‘evil’. Think about it, if you knew which choice
would ALWAYS make you happy, and which choice would consistently hurt you and
those you love, wouldn’t you always choose the good one? It would take a masochist or a junkie to
choose something that always hurts you.
Understanding what is good is the first step in reconciling us to a
perfect God. This seems relatively
obvious, doesn’t it, to want to choose good – so what’s the catch here? It’s marketing. Turns out, ‘evil’ has produced the greatest
advertising and marketing campaign ever devised in the history of the
Universe. Its goal is to distort the
sharp differences between good and evil – to make things that are evil seem
cool, sexy, risky, and fun. Then it
makes what is actually ‘good’ for us to seem boring, a horrible sacrifice on
our part, a waste of time, and dull. And
evil has had unparalleled success at this campaign. Just look around you, everything that will
probably wind up hurting you, are the exact things we all crave.
Why would ‘evil do this you ask, what’s in it for
‘evil’? It seems ‘evil’ does know the
real score, and ‘evil’ is destined to lose.
At some point in the not-too-distant future, evil will be eradicated,
never to be heard from again. And
knowing this fact has pissed evil off.
Evil will not go down without a fight.
So how does one get back at an all powerful Creator God? By attacking, torturing, and killing His
children. How could evil make even this
heinous crime worse? By having God’s
children blame God for all the pain and sorrow, and then set about committing
these crimes on each other (sometimes even using the name of God to justify
their incredibly evil acts). Evil is on
the attack with rage and passion, and desperation as the time of its own doom
gets closer and closer. As the
extinction of evil approaches, its fury
intensifies, and we are in its line of fire albeit an indirect
target.
To see just how effective evil has been in its marketing campaign to
distort the judgment of an entire species (humans), take cigarettes as an
example. No, I am not saying that
cigarettes are inherently evil, nor am I saying that the people who make them,
sell them, or use them are ‘evil’ people.
(We’ll spend some time on another post talking about the dangers of ever
judging someone else.) I am simply
calling attention to how the marketing campaign works in this case. When you examine a cigarette physically, it
is nothing more than paper, and tobacco (a plant grown on the earth). There is nothing spectacular about a
cigarette, no diamonds or gold produced from its consumption; it’s just plain
old, paper and tobacco. But how are
cigarettes portrayed in this marketing campaign, they are associated with being
cool, sexy, suave, and sophisticated.
Advertisers want us to believe that smoking will turn us into something
more than we are today. We will be
better looking, more attractive, smarter, even richer from smoking – just look
at all the imagery an advertiser uses to convey this message. And it works.
But reality check here smokers, it is still nothing more than simple
paper and tobacco. It does not change
‘who’ you are. A cigarette cannot take
you from geek to chic. Despite what
marketers would have you believe; nothing you can buy, will actually make you
more than you already are. You were you,
before the cigarette. You will still be
you, after it.
Determining the true
motive of evil is often quite hard to do. Evil is very acquainted with the concept of
lying. Evil knows how to exaggerate,
omit, embellish, and of course use the half-truth-half-lie approach. And these tend to work very well in
increasing confusion, obscuring the clarity of good decisions. You see to continue our example a bit
further; it would appear that cigarettes contain a chemical called
Nicotine. This chemical works directly
on the chemistry of the brain to alter it (much like any other addictive
stimulant or behavior), in order for you to begin to ‘crave’ the cigarette. Now, smoking is no longer a matter of
conscience choice, it becomes automatic or second-nature. Instead of being something we choose to do,
we pick it up ‘naturally’. And we will
not stand it long, to go without it. We
don’t even need the constant barrage of a marketing campaign to change our
opinions after this happens, we self stimulate at this point. And what is the problem with an addiction to
cigarettes? Tar, carbon monoxide, and
half a dozen other far more dangerous chemicals that were also lurking around
in our simple cigarette. These far more
dangerous chemicals will give a smoker a guaranteed change of life in the form
of lung-cancer, throat cancer, mouth cancer, heart attack, stroke, and
premature, deformed babies just to name a few.
How ‘cool’ is that? And wait
there is more. Yes, it turns out that
just 2nd-hand-smoke can also give your partner or your family, or
those you love around you – all the same diseases you got from smoking, even if
they never touched the stuff themselves directly. This exposes the true nature and agenda of
evil; deceive the victim, alter his brain chemistry to make him a habitual
victim, then torture him and everyone he cares about with monstrous pain and
suffering and eventual death (and if possible blame God for everything). This is the agenda of evil. And again, it has been very successful.
The ability to see evil for what it is truly, is the first
part of our reconciliation with our Creator God. The reason we seek the counsel of God is
because we are able to trust Him completely.
God NEVER lies. God wants us only to be happy and completely
fulfilled in our lives – God HATES it when we suffer and experience pain. It is
especially hard on Him when the pain is often so unnecessary, and seemingly
crazy. I believe this is what the Bible
refers to as “the Mystery of Iniquity” that any intelligent life would actually
choose evil on purpose. Yet people do it
all the time. Some just do not see past
or through the marketing hype of evil.
We have bought in to some of the most hurtful lies in existence. God did not ‘save’ man from his
happiness, and freedom. God ‘saved’ man
to give it back to him. God does not
want little robots who go around worshipping Him out of repetition and fear. He wants real people, who think, reason, and
love. He wants your love because you
freely choose to give it to Him, like He has chosen to give it to you. Our ‘Salvation’ then is not some distant
reality, it is a present one. We are
saved from the conditions we are experiencing right now. We are ‘saved’ from choosing evil in
ignorance. We begin to reconcile with
our God starting right now. No need to
keep on suffering in darkness, but to leave pain behind and walk in the light. To find truth that has never been hiding from
us, but has merely been obscured by evil in an attempt to keep us in a constant
state of self-inflicted pain. This is
Salvation. And it begins with us simply
accepting it.
It continues to mystify me that there are those who say, “I
do not need to accept God’s salvation today.
I will put it off until I am old and about to die. Then on my death bed, I will accept God’s
gift and get the best of both worlds.”
This is ludicrous (not the rapper).
What this is really saying is – I choose
to be in complete misery and pain, to wander around aimlessly in
the dark, hurting everyone I claim to care about until I am just about to
die. Then I will finally leave all this
misery behind and find compassion, healing, forgiveness, and joy for a few
brief minutes right before I die. How
ass-backwards is this? Why would you
delay fulfillment, and meaning, and joy in your life until sometime in the
future. To do this is to have completely
lost sight of what Salvation really means.
Reconciliation with our God is a journey, not a destination per se. We will ALWAYS be learning more about Him,
about what Love really means, and the learning will become our source of joy,
wisdom, and contentment. Everything
‘good’ that has ever or will ever exist is being offered to us freely, and
immediately. There is not a second I
would waste grabbing hold of this free gift.
So what do we do, once we accept the gift? How do we learn more about our God? How do we figure out how to be closer to
Him? Excellent subjects for our next few
posts. Stay tuned …
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