A presidential candidate from a prominent political family recently stated religion “ought to be about making us better as people .” Really?
I have a pretty good idea that that view is shared by a large proportion of Christians. This is not surprising since the trend today, under the smokescreen of religious tolerance and acceptance, is to homogenize all religion. They are all the same; the same god with different names and faces. However, if you share that view, then you have pooled Christianity with all the false world religions and made it part of the ten billion dollar self-improvement industry which, well . . ., really cheapens it.
False, you say? Well that is very narrow-minded and bigoted, even hateful. What makes you Christians better? Well, actually nothing. That is the whole point.
First of all, if you signed up for Christianity, then you should be aware of the one major difference between it and every single one of the world religions. It is true that all others purpose to make people better, or appear better, through personal effort and/or compliance to a set of codes. Christianity doesn’t do that. You can try to modify and control behavior with some modicum of results, but man, in his human essence, has not the ability to improve himself. That means there are no high and mighty Christians. Actually, it’s the opposite. It’s the lowly, the poor in spirit who come.
Christianity is based on the truth that man cannot save himself. It is totally outside our grasp to improve ourselves. No effort, no achievement, no pedigree, no amount of charity or good works can change who we are or make us presentable to God. Sure, you have that degree from Harvard hanging on your office wall. You should be proud. But other than the fact you may have a good education, you are still you. That doesn’t make you a better person, just more educated. Sorry.
So, let’s cut to the chase. I had a manager once that was caught using his company computer to view porn. Guess he didn’t know IT was policing their systems. They wanted to fire him. I remember him saying remorsefully, “I thought I was a good Christian person.” Well, bless his heart, there is no such thing as “good Christian people.”
What he didn’t know is that man is neither good nor bad. He has no “nature” of his own. He doesn’t have the capacity for either. Jesus said, “Why do you call me good? There is none good but God.” All He was saying was what you call good, is simply the Father dwelling in Him. His human form was merely the earthly container for Him.
Man is no different. You see, like the Christ, our human forms are earthly containers, designed for someone to indwell. The choices are either the spirit of Satan or the Spirit of God. We all enter this world containing the former. There is the dilemma. There is no way to improve on Satan. He has no intention of improving himself. Now you can slap on some makeup, get educated, read all the self-improvement books, become more sophisticated, evolve into taking wine tasting classes, and even learn a new personality, but at the end of the day, you can’t shake off that which is inextricably joined in union with your spirit. That is who you are. You are simply putting gold rings in a pig’s snout.
So what do you do? There is only one way out to change this bad arrangement. To change who you are, you must replace the one who indwells you, the one who commandeered your life in the garden. Christ provided the only way for us. What do we have to do? Simple. Just believe in Him. We don’t change. We are still human containers. But the one who indwells us, the one our spirit is in union with, is replaced and we automatically take on that new nature. No effort. No striving. No adhering to do’s and don’ts. No more having to hide who you are. No more pretending. We don’t try to be good. Christ is that for us. That is His job. The liberated life begins.
Read also The Two Nature Myth
