The hokum of life improvement
The hokum of so-called “life improvement” beseeched from the pulpit is the source of many a Christian’s (and ex-Christian’s) agony.
I’m thankful that the theology I’ve adopted has freed me from a career of having to drum up life-betterment programs for my poor listeners each week. I don’t have to arm myself with empty threats about what will happen to people if they don’t “improve.” I’m free from feeding them the falsity that love will make their lives better and better and better forever (if they’d just work harder at it). I don’t need to wag my finger at anyone and warn them that they must stop sinning if they want God to like or love them.
I don’t even have to tell anyone that they need to be morally upright in order to earn God’s approval.
These are all lies. And I don’t have to perpetuate them.
Alleluia!
The good news is this...
In our death, by the death of Jesus, our sins are short work for God who has removed the charges against us and nailed them to the cross (Col 2:14).
We’ve struggled all of our lives with the innate fear of being among the least, last, lost, lonely, little, or dead. And not one of us has moved an iota away from any one of these conditions.
But in Christ, God has haphazardly gone and accepted every last one of us. God is tickled pink with us even in the midst of our biggest muck-ups.
When that reality hits our heart, we can’t help but praise God, the ground of our being, for ending our old destructive selves and freeing us to new ways of being.
Not because we have to
but because we are free to.
Jonas, As a follower more of Vedanta (non-duality) than Christianity, (although I was raised in the Protestant church), I enjoy your writings and find the similarities striking. Your viewpoint seems more in line with Christian Mysticism than the “scary God” that I was raised with, and I appreciate reading your point of view.
This blog post reminds me of something a Zen master told his students. It went something like this. There is nothing you need to "do" in order to become enlightened. You are already enlightened. But haven't yet realized it.