BigPapaDean

In today's world we face a multitude of challenges as believers! Some are so sly as to hide within the very core of the belief system we incorporate to live by! I don't like using this but it's in the news everywhere so I feel compelled to use it as an example here. The way the extremist Muslims get children to do their most wicked deeds is they make them a promise. These young boys know what women are so this is an easy sell in a society and culture where life is not valued very high. They tell them if they wear a vest with a ton of C4 explosives into a crowd of unbelievers and blow them selves up that they will have a reward of 72 virgins waiting for them in the after life. What boy wouldn't be enamored by such a promise? They key here is it has to be non-believers! I use this to show how RELIGION pollutes any belief system. If you think for a moment this hasn't crept into the Christian faith you are sadly mistaken. I have asked many believers this question,"Why do you believe in God?" And almost unequivocally it is the following response! "I want to go to heaven." Why do you want to go to heaven? "Because the streets are paved with gold and all those other fantastic things." You see their first thought wasn't about how God loved them and saved them through the amazing precious "BLOOD" of Jesus it was about things they don't have now. I have learned that this life is so fleeting that the things we don't have are not necessary or needed! I also have sat in testimonial sessions and heard the same kinds of statements in testimonies! I am sure they love the Lord but He doesn't seem to be at the forefront of their minds. We as Christians and who believe we are nothing without Christ should take a moment each day to ask Him to help us in this change we should make to receive the fullness of His promises! We should be focusing on the re-warder and not the reward! This is an attitude of today's world we live in! They seem to always ask,"What's in it for me?" I have also heard evangelist use the reward to lure people into confessing faith in God when they were really confessing faith in the reward! You see there is a word that describes this and we don't think it has anything to do with ourselves as that is just wrong. Yet we let it slip in and corrupt us to where we take our eyes of the one that makes it all possible. Are you "GREEDY?" I dare say that there have been and still are greedy! I learned some hard lessons about this when I was out in that cold dark world among people who struggle just to survive. Some of us begin helping others when we could and the whole attitude of the ones we affected changed. We who have what we need should be able to accomplish this among us, right? I will leave you with that question and please speak your peace! God bless each and every one of you!