Many a person was raised in a home where s/he was told, “It is sufficient to know that God is supreme, a Being who issues His orders without the remotest regard to moral right; and if you question God’s authority you are in danger of blaspheming."
There is always a tendency in humans to produce an absolute authority. We then accept the authority of the Church (this is particularly true of Catholics), or of the Bible, or of a creed or statement of faith. And often we refuse to do any more thinking on the matter. In so doing we ignore the essential nature of Christianity which is based on a personal relationship with Jesus the Christ. Without this relationship we feel forced to perform “good works” based on responsibility or obligation.
Based on my faith in the redeeming work of Jesus I am saved. When God puts His Holy Spirit into me, He expects me to react on the basis of that relationship. I can evade it by dumping my responsibility on to a church or a book or a creed, forgetting what Jesus said, “Search the scriptures which testify of Me; and you will come to Me, that you might have life.”
The most effective way to understand the Scripture is not to accept them blindly, but to read then in the light of a personal, intimate and forgiven relationship with Jesus.
Happy Holy Days - and may the comfort of His presence allow for you to experience a Merry and Joyous Christmas.
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3 comments:
And a Merry Christmas to you, too, M.
Yes! God spent a lot of time making our brains -- I think maybe he meant us to use them! ;-)
No no Elise, God cannot have spent a lot of time making our brains since the only thing he did was design the mechanism for self-replicating eukariota.
Since then, evolution by means of natural selection drove the process, no god there... right Makarios? ;)
Joyeux Noël!!
(sorry but the French version of Merry Christmas does not have "Christ" in it...)
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