Being thankful in God's grace

 

Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks to the Holy One
Give thanks because He's given Jesus Christ, His Son

And now let the weak say, "I am strong"
Let the poor say, "I am rich"
 Because of what the Lord has done for us

  As the clock passes 12 midnight, it was my birthday. I had just finished work. What a wretched life I thought.

I am vary of many gay inclusive churches because they are too much about themselves, their own earthly minded speculative theology and focused on how to love others when they really cannot love by themselves without being in Christ.

We can't love when we can't give thanks. Can we give thanks to God for creating us Gay?

It's impossible to give thanks if we don't have a touch of the supernatural, a touch of the presence of Jesus in the Holy Spirit of God. It is a touch beyond our postmodern intellectualism.

Gay christian churches seldom grow because they are too earthly minded. They reduce God to a universal God of love where all religions are equally about love, but not a personal God whom Jesus touched the prostitute that I am.

Are inclusive churches really that different from mainline catholic, protestant, evangelical churches? Yes they are, they become the hands and feet touching the prisoners of faith and the innocent who are harmed. But this is also our fall for being too earthly forgetting that we are bringing heaven down to earth.

We are so human and hurting until the bible is no longer inspired by God, nor the truth revealing Christ. It's just tradition we claim for we have felt the arrows used by those who has harmed us by quoting scriptures out of context.

When we throw away the bible as divine and sacred, we reduce Jesus to our own level of humanity, and make ourselves divine.

Religion is not about love but  man made religious humanity with the pointing fingers of condemnation and stone throwing deadly vengeance. We are to shield the innocent and sometimes be hit in the process.

We hunt after gays because we are fearful. If "Sin" is accepted, then there is no need to try so hard not to sin according to our religious works! This is outward religion because God's grace has not touched our inward hardened heart.

We are fearful if there is no law, no shema of Israel to demand that we are less sinful, or demand that we do more good works of love. Without doing love and no religious laws, surely we are afraid that we can't reach heaven in time.

As a result we make heaven, our prosperous commonwealth kindom on earth, and condemned those not conforming to our heavenly delusion of righteousness.

There is righteousness only in Jesus, and not in mere humanity or prosperity theology. We become righteous for being in Christ, not any other gods or belief systems however good and moral they are.

We condemn others because we are too fearful, and less mindful of the grace of God in our lives.

My Father died just over a year ago. He was too careful, fearful of the unknown, hence trusted the doctors and pharmacies too much. Perhaps, I am too fearful as well and too earthly minded.

How do we be less fearful of the past, present, and future. Perhaps to be mindful that Jesus was and is already there. How do we trust God in the darkness of the unknown? but only because Jesus descended into the unknown and rose again victorious.

Christianity is not really about a God of Love or religious laws/dogmas, it is about a God of Grace in Christ Jesus.

 We are all sinners, being too mindful of our sins and too determined to love and be loved, yet less mindful of the God of grace in Jesus Christ, and to give thanks for all than He has done in our lives even though we may not have much because of Christ death and resurrection.

Jesus didn't only die for us because of love, but He resurrected thus affirming His deity as God eternal, and the God of creation and life. We call it as mystery because it is supernatural, but it is no myth but the power of our salvation here on earth and in heaven.

What do we need to be saved from, here on earth, and for eternity? We don't need mysteries because we live real lives.

We disect Jesus into nothingness and common humanity by claiming that He is Love but fogetting that He healed the sick, feed the masses supernaturally, and resurrection supernaturaly. All myths we say, but I need His grace beyond the natural.

I am not interested in the natural, in common humanity on earth, in a delusional commonwealth kindom for the utopia that cannot be found, for our individual life calls out for grace beyond just mere assertion of love and comforting words.

I need hope when there is no hope. I need resurrection power when all is dead. Jesus said blessed are those who mourn, for surely they shall see God and be comforted.

What do we mourn for? and what comfort do we have when all is pain and despair?

It is easy to preach about social justice and helping the poor in God's love, and about bringing in the kindom of God, when you have a BMW and a good house, and the frequent holidays to exortic places. It doesn't work because people see through us. 

Sometimes, we are just unaware of the grace of God in our lives, totally unmerited because of what Jesus has done for me at the Cross of Calvary.

It is in times of little, that we treasure the goodness of God even though we often see only glimpses of it but God is good. What little we have becomes much in the hands of Jesus.

At the end, the starting point of everything is to give thanks because of Jesus Christ, for His death, and sacrifice, as God, my Lord and Saviour personifying the truth and grace of God.

I don't have much. Perhaps it is easy to see Jesus and His grace when you don't have much. It is easy to die to self and be "poor in the spirit" when you don't have much.

My birthday ended as it comes. It has no meaning anymore. It has only meaning when I could give thanks to God for the small and big things, for the friends, family and work.

Life has only meaning when I could give thanks to Jesus for the Cross of Calvary and for touching me as a Gay person and say to me, everything is gonna be all right.

For there is no fear in Christ Jesus, but a certainty of faith in God's grace beyond the relativistic religion that we have.

 

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