Deadly Religion

I once witnessed a long line of hundreds of people crawling up a two thousand foot mountain slope on their hands and knees. They started their climb well before dawn and reached the sumit at around mid-afternoon when the sun was hot and the air was dry. Meeting them was a priest of a particular religious order who would bless them and receive money from their hands. No meal awaited them, no cup of water. Just a spoken blessing and a gesture of the hand.
They did this for different reasons. Some wanted to get that blessing for the upcoming year in which they would face poverty and violence. Others wanted God to forgive them of sins. Still others did it in order to gain enough merit points to get them a ticket into heaven if they should die.
The sincerity of those masses was awe inspiring. The deception that motivated them to such a hardship was saddening. I could not help but feel deeply for them. I also had to muffle the bile rising up from my heart that wanted to utter a curse toward the source of their deception.
If you don't know it yet I'll say it loud, "RELIGION KILLS!" It'll make you deader than the fake corpses on CSI. In fact, spiritual rigor mortis will set in while you are still breathing, walking, and doing life. The reason religion kills is because its foundation is wrong; it is an honest yet faulty attempt to show God how good you really are. Like the poor folks climbing the mountain, trying to prove ourselves to God with works of service or self-sacrifice cannot work. Why? Try this. You may see a nice pool of cool clear water, you're thirsty and need a drink, so you dip you hands in and take a gulp. Problem is, the water is filled with itty bitty microscopic parasitic creatures. It looks good, tastes good, and seems to do the trick. Belive me, you will pay within about six hours. Well, our good looking efforts make God sick too!
Real works and sacrifice cannot come from the contaminated 'water' of our soul. Get this; Jesus stood up at the end of a special feast where thousands were doing their religious duty and said something cool. "If you are thirsty, come to me. I will give you water that will become like a spring, welling up inside you." (That is in John 7) In other words, the one who comes to Jesus gets the pure springs of pure water that will produce life, acceptance, and an eternally guiltless future. And it all comes simply by the application of faith that he is who he says he is and will do what he said he'll do. His grace does the rest.
Guess what happens after that; good works! Acts of service and sacrifice! You naturally begin to act like the pure watergiver and he does amazing works. You hardly have to try.
So, it all comes down to drinking the right water. You can drink your parasitic religious water or you can seek Jesus and become a well-spring of living water. If one really wants to use his knuckles and knees, one should find a quiet place, get down on them, and thank Jesus that he climbed up a mountain and did the only acceptable work and it was for all of would simply believe. Just something to think about! Happy Day, Pastor Jim

Happy By Choice

I once had the privilege of making a journey into the eastern plains of Colombia called the 'Llanos.' It is an area abou the size of Missouri that is made up of vast plains with large portions of jungles, including part of the Amazon basin.
On that particular trip, I was given the opportunity of preaching in a small hamlet along a tributary of the Amazon. It was a humble church in which the people sat on wooden planks mounted on clay bricks. Not too comfortable, but amazingly it was full. There was only one light bulb in the room and it was situated directly above the makeshift pulpt. Maybe 60 watts. It was quite an experience, dirt floors, open windows, mosquitos hovering around the bulb, everything that church in America is not.
Anyway, the pastor and his family asked me and my preaching partner to visit their home for breakfast at dawn the next morning. I remember walking into their little three room house with no bathroom or kitchen, just a table and three chairs in the living room across from a brick hearth used for warmth and cooking, and two small bedrooms with pallets on the floor for sleeping. My friend and I were offered two of the chairs as we waited for the pastor to return from the fish market. I noticed the same single light bulb over the table. (A couple of the mosquitos looked familiar too! Probably filled up with my own blood.)
After a short time, in came the pastor with a smile on his face and a very large, funny looking fish in his hands. It was part of the first river catch of the day and he had just purchased it with
the previous evening's offering. Being the one who preached, I was the honored guest and was appreciatively given a plate of rice and a bowl of fish broth containing the fish head, eyeballs and all. I greatfully ate the meager meal and later noticed that the pastor's wife and two children had gladly given up their portions so that the preachers could eat. Talk about being humbled.
Yes, we secretly left a large wad of Colombian pesos as a gift for the family, but that in no way was expected by them.
What struck me was how happy the family was, even in their poverty. They were full of joy. Now, some would say they were joyful only because they were ignorant of things they did not have. Wrong! Both the pastor and his wife grew up in middle-class families from the heart of the capitol Bogota, and both had graduated from Bible College. They were educated, well-mannered, and.......HAPPY! Their physical circumstances were not the source of their joy or their unhappiness. They were joyful and happy because they got to serve Jesus. They were happy because they chose to be happy.
I am reminded of that experience from time to time when I am discouraged about the way things go in my 'pampered' existence. I am jolted back to reality by realizing that each of us either chooses to be happy or chooses to be grumpy and down. I like what Nehemiah told his people when they had bad guys on one side and an impossible construction project on the other. Neh. 8:10; "The joy of the Lord is your strength." Whoa Nelly!
Okay, 2008 looms tomorrow. Are we going to be happy....? Your choice! So, instead of burning the calories necessary to be critical, or mad, or sad, or ambivalent, why not expend your energy being happy. All of them rub off, by the way. Make a choice to be happy. Remember that you are not stuck with a pallet for a bed or a single light bulb that you have to share with your church. HAPPY New Year. Pastor Jim