You will never reach American’s by preaching to them that they are going to hell. Fear may be a powerful motivator, but American’s are arrogant and prideful. They are at the peak of their rebelliousness, and shoveling the fire and brimstone into their faces will only force them to rebel yet more— feeding their self-righteousness with your need to be right more than your caring for their wellbeing.
The truth is, Jesus never would have burned a Curran, picketed a funeral, or attacked another church. What he did do was attack the evil that was sprouting in his own church. He let people come to him. People came to him because he was love incarnate— in the flesh.
I for one dislike pandering to their selfish lifestyle, but American’s have been deceived and desensitized to fear. We love and adore horror movies, violence, and all sorts of evil. To preach the terror card is like trying to convince a shark the benefits of a vegetarian diet.
The truth is, that fear mongers, and that is what bible thumpers and the like are, will not save people with their terroristic tactics. American’s need to see the benefits in real world applications. Their selfishness is also their weakness. American’s need to be around, and not just witness from a distance, real Christians. Christians that do not condemn and spew their hatred as righteous.
American’s do not need to be scorned by self-loving Christians that advertise how great they are because they don’t cuss, watch bad TV, or that they do any number of things that are holier than others are. It has been my experience that Christians that have to advertise that they are are generally the worst egomaniacs.
How can someone bragging about how great they are, because they have Jesus, show the love of Christ to the already confused, who may or may not be seeking what is right. Jesus humbled himself before God and man, yet we believe we can bully others into following Jesus, so that we can punch our harvest card. It has been said that if all you are doing is planting the seeds of salvation, but never reap a harvest of souls, that you must be doing something wrong. Trying to force the numbers is not impressing God.
In the seventies and eighties, pop music was all about love. It created a fantasy view of what real love is, and we have been desensitized even to that. Our counter to that is to show real love; not to preach love or sing about romance, but to share our lives, our time, and our attention to those in need of it. Our own selfishness is driving Christians into a brick wall of delusion. We falsely believe that we can stand back and criticize those who are following the wrong path and lead them back to the ways of love.
In today’s American culture, love is more a matter of convenience. We still have a desire to love and be loved, but should anything cause even the smallest of obstacles, it’s time to start over and find the next perfect person. We have been deluded into believing that there is only one perfect mate, and that out of the billions of people on the planet, there is no hope of ever finding them, so we seek, and never find.
We are shown, on television and movies, a romanticized fantasy love. Where actors spend years learning to act like decent human beings. The people in movies are as fake as the traits they are portraying. And we learn that that is what love should be like, and maybe it is what love should be like, but it is not— not our human capacity for love anyway.
When God created man, it wasn’t a product of too much fun and, oops, he was a father. God made us and formed us with his own hands, then breathed into us the soul of our being. Everything else in creation he spoke into being, but he molded us— with his love. God’s love is the real love that we need and sometimes subconsciously seek. People will always fail us— they are only human after all.
However, if we fail them, it should be, at least, with the right heart. Then we should do every in our capacity to make it right. Humble ourselves before those who we choose to love and show them that we are not attempting to control and manipulate them for the sake of our twisted desire to be right. We will never dominate others into submitting their will to God and his want for our love in return.
Matthew 6: Translation— stop doing things for the attention of man, and do what is right by God as testimony to his love for you. Humble yourselves and you will never feel that you are being disregarded, because you will already know that you are unworthy. You do not deserve God’s love and mercy, yet he died for you to show that he really does care and is willing to go to great lengths so that none need choose to suffer death and hell.
Is it any wonder that people would choose a god that does not exist rather than believe in a loving God followed by rage spewing fear mongers.
Is it any wonder that people would choose a god that does not exist rather than believe in a loving God followed by rage spewing fear mongers.
