I’m Not a Serious Christian – Part 3

In order to experience the love of God for yourself, it’s not about the accumulation of spiritual knowledge or “serving God” by performing benevolent acts in the institution church. When a Christian believes that they have to get serious about serving God in the church, in order to be blessed and favoured by Him, they open themselves up to a whole lot of religious abuse. One of the main things that cause Christians to become so serious is the threat of punishment. When Christianity becomes all about avoiding hell or living right, they tend to become frightened people and critical and oppressive towards others - the grace message sets people free from such oppression.

You cannot qualify yourself as being a “loving person”, simply by making yourself do some of those things which someone associates with the character of a “loving person”. I believe that experiencing grace and love is much, much simpler than that. A loving personality comes from within, it is natural and is not something that you earnestly strive to prove or exercise through good works. You know when you are around someone who has a genuine heart of love: their body language exudes it and you can even feel it in your spirit.

I listened to the latest The God Journey podcast episode today: It’s the Living Loved That’s Important 25^th September 2010. Wayne and Brad related a lot of things along the same lines as what I have written above, in relation to the wrong motives that Christians have. I like the way that Wayne Jacobsen openly relates his experiences with desiring to establish a ministry empire from the flesh, together with how empty and unfulfilling all of that is. You can tell when someone is not living loved and are using the love of God as another spiritual “concept”, when they earnestly strive to get other people to agree with them on forums and other such platforms. When you live loved, you don’t have to prove it to other people – you live it. People who live loved don’t have to defend themselves or feel the need to argue their case – they can just walk away with the other person still holding onto their contrary beliefs.

The more you are in the flesh, not knowing the love of God, or treating the love of God as another spiritual concept that you have to master and teach others – the more serious you are bound to be. The more you live in the love of God, the less you feel you need to master spiritual concepts; and the more free you are to live life freely – and to not be so freaking serious about it!

Photo: Big Laughing courtesy of Tommy Wong.