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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