Skip to main content

Empty Religion

Two weeks ago, as I was leaving the supermarket I was approached by a beggar who I knew very well was going to waste the money in my pocket if I gave it to her. So I said initially no, and headed to my car. I rationalised she was going to "waste it" or "feed the habit".

As I sat in my car, God whispered quietly - "how many times have I given you something even after you have blown it? I never keep a record with you or ask whether Chola deserves to breath the air today after wasting it yesterday. So why don't you for once show the same grace to this woman?"

I humbly repented while in my driving seat before turning the ignition. And lo and behold, the woman came to knock on my window. I rather was stunned. And gave her the money I had. I was thankful for her. Now of course the woman most likely conned me. But I also know God used that opportunity to teach me grace.

What I have found even more interesting is how God has reinforced that message. On my way to Bible Study on Wednesday, I jumped into my car only to find that from Sunday I had left the car window completely open! Last year my car was completely broken into it and I lost my SATNAV. This time nothing has been taken. I praised and thanked God for the reminder of His care to me a repetitive sinner!

When I got to Bible Study, the passage was Luke 15:1-10. The opening verses were like a spear to my bones : Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:1, 2).

I thought to myself, "that is me Lord, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law". While Jesus is busy hanging around sinners and the down casts, I quietly shove my shopping past them and quickly get into my car and speed off! It is not very Christlike now is it? It is an empty religion that I hold that does not reflect the grace I have received!

I am praying God teaches me to treat people the way he has treated me. And the verse God has given me is this : This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:10, 11). 

And by the way, I did have at least two people say, "why did you not by the woman food instead of the money?" But they missed the point totally. It is not about the woman! It is about my sin and how far I am from God's will often. The problem was not buying the beggar food or giving her money, the problem is that my sin blinded me from the beggar!  
Copyright © Chola Mukanga 2013
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Humility of Newton

Thou hast honoured me. Thou hast given me a tongue and a pen, many friends; (Thou] hast made me extensively known among thy people and I have reason to hope, useful to many by my preaching and writings... It is of thine own that I can serve thee. And if others speak well of me, I have no cause to speak or think well of myself. They see only my outward walk; to thee I appear as I am. In thy sight I am a poor, unworthy, unfaithful inconsistent creature. And I may well wonder that Thou hast not long ago taken thy word utterly out of my mouth and forbidden me to make mention of thy Name any more! JOHN NEWTON ( Source : Wise Counsel) Newton wrote these words addressed to God in his diary in 1789. In that year, Newton’s fame had grown significantly because of his publishing ‘ Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade’ and his appearance before Her Majesty’s Privy Council appointed to investigate the slave trade.  I find Newton’s words quite challenging. The words reveal a heart truly shaped by t
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →

Incarnation and Modernity

[The Bible] resituate modernity's prejudices within a wider context from which they were originally wrenched, showing them to be reductive heresies of a more complex biblical reality. So whereas modernity privileges an unchanging a-historicity, in the incarnation God enters history at a particular moment to gather a people to be with him not in a Greck eternity of unchanging timelessness, but in a biblical eternity of never-ending and ever-renewed intimacy and relational richness. Whereas modernity subordinates the particular to the universal, the Bible perfectly marries the universal "image of the invisible God" together with a particular first-century Palestinian Jewish man. Whereas modernity seeks the abstract over the material and finds itself painfully akimbo between the twin idols of materialism and immaterialism, in the same gesture the incarnate Christ validates material reality and prevents his followers from ever worshipping it. Finally, whereas modernity secks
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →

I am what I am by Gloria Gaynor

Beverly Knight closed the opening ceremony of the Paralympics with what has been dubbed the signature tune of the Paralympics. I had no idea Ms Knight is still in the singing business. And clearly going by the raving reviews she will continue to be around. One media source says her performance was so electric that "there wasn’t a dry eye to be seen as she sang the lyrics to the song and people even watching at home felt the passion in her words" . The song was Gloria Gaynor's I am what I am . Clearly not written by Gloria Gaynor but certainly musically owned and popularized by her. It opens triumphantly: I am what I am / I am my own special creation / So come take a look / Give me the hook or the ovation / It's my world that I want to have a little pride in / My world and it's not a place I have to hide in / Life's not worth a damn till you can say I am what I am The words “I am what I am” echo over ten times in the song. A bold declaration that she
Post a Comment
KEEP READING →