Faith, Freedom and Failure

Faith flourishes where freedom and money are least available. 


Few people are strong enough to have faith in God's resources when they have the false confidence that they can simply have faith in their own instead.

The ability, for Americans to claim the "freedom of religion" means that we are free to claim a faith that requires of us no commitment and bears no consequence as the result of our doing so. 
It tends to make lazy laymen of us, and often we fail to understand the claims at the very heart of our faith or the deeper implications / impact for truly following it will have on our lives and those of others. 

When our conviction(s) born of faith become difficult or simply inconvenient we are free to walk away, or we can change and choose the parts we wish to (or not to) adhere to. We may change our minds on a whim, we even incorporate conflicting philosophical and theological views with our own, usually without much fear that others might point out the conflicts because most likely they too are in the same religious boat. 

Shrouded in ignorance, we live a misrepresentation our professed faith, confusing others and making it what it never actually was in the first place. However, we would be wise to consider that by avoiding the risks of following our convictions we have also avoided the reward for doing so as well. 

Barring some miracle, we wind up exercising a faith of mediocrity, and consequently experiencing results of mediocrity, we come to worship the God of mediocrity. This is not the God I know, and it is not the God of the Bible.

I can't believe were created simply to achieve mediocrity, I say this especially when I consider how I feel about my own children. I can't imagine saying to any of them, "Go out there and do a mediocre job guys! Settle for less than your potential. Take the road more traveled!" It just doesn't make any sense to me.

The cultural tone in America, and the problem with being a Christian living in that culture, is that we seem to be striving to be a nation of tolerance and acceptance. Not necessarily bad in and of itself as an ideal, but these two things are not always, each with the other, harmonious. 

Even those who would profess no religion at all, usually have some standards about things, which to them, are not acceptable. They are more commonly called laws.  

The disharmony then is all the more evident for those who claim adherence to a predefined religious world view. Religion by its very nature is not as inclusive as it is exclusive, simply by claiming moral and ethical absolutes which are divinely ordained but largely rejected.
 
Freedom to practice a religion means that we are free to follow the resulting convictions thereof. (But not free to impose them on others.) 

Any religion without conviction however is simply wishful thinking and no more, and so we seem bound to follow those convictions if we are claiming to practice a particular faith. In the Christian faith, there is a fair amount of freedom, and how following those convictions may in fact look depends largely on the background and understanding of the individual, and its appearance is as varied as the individual situations of people are.

Obviously those who don't subscribe to the particular faith in question, are bound to be offended at the suggestion that these standards are not only a universally applicable standards but also then bear universal consequences for their rejection and failure to submit, and why wouldn't they be? Certainly, no one wants to believe that they are in direct conflict with God simply by acting as they feel compelled to at any given time.

However, this way of thinking is a direct contradiction in and of itself. By stating that there is an omnipotent trustworthy God in control, orchestrating all things for good in the end, and then conversely stating that simply exercising our desired actions cannot be offensive to God.
Don't see it?

As those who oppose religions or faiths often say, believing something to be so does not at all make it so, and stating the above is basically equalizing ourselves with the position of God, by implying that our will is also God's as the two cannot be in conflict. God does not change because of people, people change because of God.

We seem to believe that being made in God's image, we should be free to respond in kind, making him in ours as well. It doesn't work that way and it is in nature the very thing that most people protest about religion. 
How's that for irony?

Most religions indicate quite the contrary view regarding our will and that of God's. Siting that our wills, simply by their very nature, are noted as being in direct conflict with God's. Being made aware of this conflict we are then forced to choose one over the other. My will be done?

All of this is particularly true of the Christian faith.

The difference however between the Christian faith and those who also proclaim a hope beyond this world (at least those I am aware of) is that Christianity offers a hope very different from that of all other religions.

According to Christianity there is no atonement we are qualified to offer on our own behalf, or acceptable in God's sight. We cannot offer to God that which is not already his and so earning it too is not an option. We are extended (and must choose) grace and mercy in order to receive forgiveness and restore our relationship to God, and so we have Jesus...who according to Christian belief became a sacrifice on our behalf. Not being guilty of sin, his death alone was the only sufficient and acceptable substitute for our own in exacting the price than sin demands.

When I consider the life of Jesus, one of the greatest and inspiring things I find was his ability to speak frankly, honestly and without offense to people about their spiritual condition. I suppose when I say without offense, I mean without judgement, but not without moving people to the sort of deep conviction toward facing their own convictions. The refusal to address it though would in deed cause offense. The offense however is/was not with Jesus and the truth he states, but it is an offense of one's pride.

With love, grace, mercy and compassion Jesus both inspired and required repentance. He did so without dispensing condemnation while retaining the ability to be frank about the spiritual condition of people's hearts. He knew a good deal about people.

At the same time though, he clearly conveyed the divine judgement that people would bring upon themselves should they reject the truth and refuse to change. Not a judgement that God would prefer to exercise but a judgement that our own actions demand by virtue of claiming for ourselves the authority that is God's alone in directing our lives.

In the parent / child relationship it is rebellion, in the government / citizen relationship it is called criminal, and so too it is called both by God as well.

While Jesus certainly didn't take, or speak of sin and its consequences lightly, he also did not shun sinners or refuse to associate with them, for he knew their needs would be met through relationship. Ultimately relationship with their creator, and usually preceded through relationship with others.

Unfortunately today we seem to dispense the grace we have been generously afforded in decreasing measure as we seem to think that we must choose between the relationship with our creator or relationships with those who may not believe the same as we do. 

What we apparently miss (and should clearly see if we examine the ministry of Jesus) is that in large part, the evidence and effectiveness of the relationship with our creator is evidenced and exercised in our relationships with others.

So why, and I ask myself as well, do we withhold those things we have been so generously given and so too we should be generously dispensing of?

Many, many reasons I suppose, but I think in large part, here we have returned to original point. We are busy pursuing the security of stuff over security in God, and we are constitutionally guaranteed the freedom to choose that which makes us comfortable in doing so. We have confused the kingdoms of our citizenship.

I have to think that our prosperity and freedoms have somehow seduced us and have now become our poverty and prisons instead.

Think about it, like something big depended on it...because it most certainly does.

d(-_-)b