Wednesday, 30 November 2022

Blessings for Sale --2

  

This blog is a continuation of the 'Blessing' series (The 1st part of the series can be checked HERE). As already discussed, blessings are the most misconstrued topic in Christendom. It's stuck to our psyche that devotion to God ends up in material blessings. This theology of Christians is not very different from the Hindus. Lakshmi, the goddess of good fortune, wealth, and well-being is worshipped fervently by Hindus to get more wealth. It's weird that the God of the Bible is also looked upon in the same way. Also, the theology of being chosen by God is marked by one’s prosperity and poverty is because of one’s sins. This concept mirrors the prevailing caste system of Brahmins and Sudras.

There are pastors who believe that God gives you a 'key' to open blessings and such pastors have delusional goals of making it to the top 10 richest pastors in the world. Sadly, many have become Christian psychopaths preying on the sheep entrusted to them (Ezekiel 34:1), grooming in such false theology in people's minds. Peter on behalf of all the disciples’ clearly states to Jesus in Matthew 19:27, “See we have left everything and followed you. So, what will be there for us?”. I urge you to check the poignant response of Jesus in the subsequent verses.

Today, the Church finds it cumbersome to help the widows, fatherless, the orphans and the saints who are in aggressive mission work. It feels it has a greater calling and has come to the point of distorting what pure religion is in the sight of God. The Church is hoarding its resources and refuses to spend the funds got in God's name for those who mean the most to God - the widows, orphans, fatherless and the saints serving Him full time. We have become abusers of the very people that God wants to bless.

Riches need not necessarily lead you to the love of money. If that is the case, then people like Abraham, Job, Joseph and David would have been lovers of money. They are classic characters of the Bible who teach us how to channelize money to worship God. These men were rich but loved God, not money.

If the blessing of a man’s life depends on how much he has, then the lives of the rich and the famous – movie stars, pop stars and sports stars - would be examples to us on how we too should live and label it a blessing. Contentment is worth more than all the wealth we could possibly accumulate. The Bible warns us, ‘People who want to get rich ‘fall into temptation and trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge into ruin and destruction.’. (1 Timothy 6:9)

We need to understand this truth. God’s highest desire is neither to make us rich, nor to make us successful, popular or famous. God’s dream is to make us right with Him. Today, you find people misinterpreting this truth which talks about Jesus like this, “but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”. (Philippians 2:7-8). We brazenly misinterpret telling that God made Himself lowly to make us rich. We sell garbage by manipulation to the Church.

Having walked the faith journey for the last 6 years, I can confidently say favor and grace of God has always upheld me to be a revolutionary for Him and turn many to Christ and to His mission. Even through the abuse I faced in Christendom, I was able to focus on God's purpose in my life and learnt my lessons well. Fulfilling God's purpose in our life does not require riches. I urge you brothers and sisters to lead people to Christ without promise of riches and guiding them to love God for who He is. This will undoubtedly enrich their experience of salvation rich rather than filthy promising them out God will bless them with riches. For this "Lakshmi" is enough.

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