What is your purpose when you participate in your religion? What is your purpose when you worship? Do you know what you are doing when you worship? Do you know what you should be doing when you worship? Are you simply worshipping by rote? Going through the motions? Doing “the appearance of religiosity” without feeling, without emotion? Are you connected with what you are doing? It is Sunday so you got up to an artificial alarm, got yourself through a shower, and got dressed. You ate something you didn’t remember five minutes later. You drove to church in a dazed state. You are now singing a familiar song. Why? You have repeated familiar prayers. Why? You dropped a contribution in the collection plate. Why? Was it because it is expected of you? Why? By whom? Are their expectations about you that important? Why? What have you achieved? Is God supposed to be impressed by this behavior? Why should He be impressed? Was your experience at church this morning an exercise that uplifted your spirits? Isn’t every moment of your existence a testimony of your relationship to God? Isn’t every moment of your existence a testimony about your relationship with God? If you can’t do better than you did this morning, don’t continue to waste your time. Stay home on Sunday morning, eat a doughnut, and drink some coffee. That at least will elevate your blood sugar and you will feel better. Maybe you will feel well enough to go help someone do something useful. What you do, 24 / 7, says everything about you. It clearly states your real religion. What you do clearly states how you really feel about God. By helping someone, you will truly feel better as a person. By helping someone, God will eventually be more pleased with you. You are then, at least, following His Plan of social cooperation for our species. You are doing something correctly. For those that think “form” is more important than “substance”, consider these ideas. Who are you really trying to fool on Sunday? You went to church dressed to the nines and smelling good. If the people of your community know you to be a philanderer, does the color of your tie really count with God? If your reputation is that of one who would steal a widow’s mite, or candy from a baby, does the label, or cut of your suit appease morality? Does it appease God? If your life’s purpose is the unprincipled accumulation of wealth, does generous donations to churches and charities cover your bets about God and an after life? Do you really think that you can buy your ay into God’s Good Graces? If you deliberately mistreat other human beings because of such unimportant issues as country of origin, skin color, or even religion, or culture, what learning are you really taking to God when you die? Building monuments to God, or to yourself, never impresses God. He is, after all, a bigger builder. If the monuments and achievements of your life are considered extraordinary, you may actually earn a minor kind of reward here on Earth. You may be rewarded with the knowledge that for a considerable number of years after your death, school children will be forced to memorize your name. Maybe they will also have to learn to spell it correctly. Is that your epithet and your epitaph? Is that the value of your life? Shall we carve it on your tombstone? “Here lies _________________, the Great. I make school children groan. Look at me. I was so great. I did great things. In the end, I make little children miserable.” What a wonderful legacy! Three cheers and a huzzah! How about a foundation to set off a fireworks display every year on the anniversary of your birth? Andrew Carnegie bought his way to fame with libraries. (Carefully named after himself.) Alfred Nobel earned a fortune with TNT and the deaths of millions. He founded a prize system. (Carefully named after himself.) For both of these men, the long term effects of their life on the human condition, is at best, mixed. A good deed performed later does not change earlier misdeeds. The former evil is still evil. The dead are still dead. The injured are still maimed. You simply cannot lay up “brownie points” in Heaven. God does not work that way. You cannot and will, not be forgiven of / for your sins. Those are uniquely yours. They belong to you. They are yours. You cannot cast them off like a snake skin. You get to carry them all your miserable life. You get to carry them with you in all their rotten glory when you are called to God. How God will receive them is His Choice, not yours. How your life will affect the balance scales of God’s Judgment is always an unknown. While I am pleased that some organized religious activities are active in helping others, what sticks in my craw are the fixed costs, the administrative costs, of that organization. When I was growing up in Oklahoma’s Tornado Alley, I heard of a small sect that had a simple plan. They pooled their contributions and fundraisers and purchased building materials at cash on the barrel head prices prior to the tornado season. When tornados hit, they loaded up, together with tents and bedding, food supplies, tools and families and they went on the road. They went into action mode. They’d drive into a farmstead, now missing a home, ask to see a picture of the former structure, and then replace it. At no cost. And by request, no thanks required, as well. Could they do it for every family? Of course not. The point is that that they did what they could. They did it directly. They did it now. That is direct action. That is Good Works. That is Real Prayer. That is Real Religion. That is what is Pleasing to God.
(c) Copyright 2006: George Wallace recently published a book on religion which lashes out at nearly all of the comfortable ideas about God, the trappings of organized religion, and the priesthood. His pithy comments and suggestions for a return to a God-centered personal religion will interest everyone. This article may be freely reprinted so long as all copyright attributions, and the full content of this resource box are included. www.OhGodIsThatYou.com
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