On Being A Good Christian
It’s been a long time since my last update. About a year I think. I’m writing now because I’m reluctant to let the blog go without an entry for more than a year but I’m not sure what to say. I don’t even keep a diary any more because I don’t have much to say these days.
I’m doing well. The Lord has brought me to a place of peace and prosperity after a lifetime of lurching from crisis to crisis. I don’t have everything my heart desires. I’d love to own my own home but that is not looking possible with the price of property these days but I don’t have any complaints really as I have much more than I ever thought possible.
My spiritual walk has progressed but there is a long way still to go. As there always will be. Perfection is a goal not a destination. I have ticked off many things I wanted to accomplish. I’ve been celibate for 20 years, it’s almost three years since I last had a cigarette, I tithe more than 10 percent of my wage to charities, and I am currently trying to move from being vegetarian (no meat) to being vegan (no meat, eggs, dairy). I’m almost there but I keep caving in to temptation when it comes to having fish with my chips and cheese with my pizza.
There are times when I am sorely tempted to consider myself a “Good Christian” because I am doing so much better than so many other people who don’t care about anything but themselves but I know the standard for that is so much higher than I could ever reach.
Mother Teresa is a “Good Christian”. Anything less self-sacrificing than her life is a life of selfishness and that includes mine.
Mother Teresa never kept a single cent more than she needed to survive. She owned nothing more than the clothing on her back. She had one pair of shoes, one outfit, nothing more. She ate one meal per day and every cent above that went to helping the poor of Calcutta. She single handedly turned what was famous all over the world as being the incarnation of hell on earth into something less horrendous and she did it at great personal cost to herself. She died the same week as Princess Diana so she didn’t get the tributes and accolades she deserved then as people were too busy grieving the loss of Diana.
That is the true definition of a “Good Christian”. If you have one cent more than you need to survive, if you own more than one pair of shoes, more than one shirt, more than the clothes on your back you are taking food out of the mouths of the starving and that makes you, and me, selfish.
The world makes it hard to be anything but selfish though. How would it look to my bosses if I kept turning up to work in the same outfit every day? They would think I was a dirty pig who probably wears the same underwear every day too.
If I were a genuine “Good Christian” I would get rid of my car. I would put the car repayments (and public transport fares) to work feeding the starving of this world and I would walk to and from work. I would get rid of my expensive rented house and take a single room with a single bed in the cheapest available boarding house and I would put all the extra money saved by doing that to work saving lives instead of having it make this one life of mine more comfortable.
The world needs more Mother Teresa’s but I don’t think I have it in me to become one. I do, however, need to be on guard against becoming more like those at the top of the economic pyramid.
The gap between the rich and the poor grows steadily greater for a reason. There are those who love money and who cannot get enough of it. Every day they grow more and more greedy for wealth and the more they have the more they want. Every time there is a few dollars in the global economy these people siphon it off into their own accounts and they leave the world that bit short of money forcing the economic powers that be to gouge more out of the people on the lower levels of society because everyone else does not have the power to protect their personal wealth that those at the top have.
These things used to be hidden and secret but the powerlessness of the bulk of society has become so great that those at the top don’t even bother to try and hide what is going on from us any more. Big companies pay nothing in tax while the people doing unskilled labour struggle to get by from paycheck to paycheck no matter how many hours they work.
Politicians vote themselves massive pay rises and spend billions of tax payers money on food, drink, travel and entertainment then turn around and take away penalty rates from the battlers on the lower rungs of the financial ladder. They work harder and harder and harder to gouge money out of the pensions and superannuations and bank accounts and pay checks of the masses then give themselves generous six figure pensions for the rest of their lives after leaving the political arena and they do this because they can.
They do this because the only people with the power and money to put a stop to them are receiving truckloads of money in tax breaks and all sorts of devious and underhanded deals from them so there is no reason for those who could stop them to do so.
They do this because the people who are supposed to be calling them to account on our behalf, the media, are nothing more than paid servants of the powers that be. Instead of shining a light on the thievery and underhanded dealings of the powers that be the media is shining a light on the Kim Kardashians and the Justin Biebers and the Paris Hiltons of this world.
Programmes that used to be hard hitting news exposes have become nothing more than hour long advertisements for various products or services. Where there is genuine reporting it is buried under the truckload of shallow stories about celebrities and their antics.
You can’t even really blame the media because they are only giving people what they want. People don’t even want to know what the powers that be are getting away with any more because they know there is nothing that can be done about it. They can’t be stopped, they won’t be stopped, like the leeches they are they get fatter while the rest of the world dies of starvation, disease, pollution and global warming.
When people feel helpless, hopeless, and fed up with their lives violence and suicide become attractive options so expect to see more of both if things don’t change.
This is why Donald Trump won the election in America and why Pauline Hanson is gaining ground here in Australia. People know that politicians, by definition, are all lying thieves who will not do a thing to help us and they are hoping that these two candidates are NOT genuine politicians. They are hoping these two are business people who MIGHT do the right thing not politicians who are guaranteed to do wrong. People have reached a point where they would rather vote for someone who is racist and narrow minded but who might do us some good than someone who is greedy and dishonest and who is guaranteed to do us more bad.
Meanwhile the media doesn’t seem to be able to get their collective heads around the fact that society has written them off too. The only news they can tell us these days is celebrity news because that’s all we will accept from them now. When we want real news we turn to each other. What are real people saying on the internet? That is where the masses are turning for their news and information because that’s where they can find the truth. Main stream media says what their owners tell them to say and we all know that so we don’t believe a word they print any more. They are obsolete. They have sold their souls and now the devil can have them as far as we are concerned. I don’t think they can come back from that.
I understand why God said it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven now. The rich love money so much they put it ahead of everything and everyone else in this world so, when it is time to pay their dues on judgement day, they will discover they don’t have enough compassion or love for others to even pay for a cup of heavenly coffee let alone cover their entrance fee to heaven! (See below for a correction.)
I’m not Mother Teresa. I want a comfortable life not the life of a saint but I’ve promised myself I will never cross certain lines either. I’ll never spend stupid amounts of money on shoes, bags, jewelry or clothing and certainly never the amounts required to possess designer crap! I’d like to own my own home and I will save for that but I don’t believe I would ever be greedy enough to buy a mansion with more rooms than I could ever use. I would never sink so low as to go for disgusting displays of wealth such as having gold plated bathroom taps nor would I ever become greedy enough to own more than one home.
It is, of course, easy to turn my back on such excesses when there is no chance I could ever afford to indulge in them even if I were so inclined but I never thought I would ever be as well off as I am now so there is no guarantee I will not become rich some day. If I ever do I’m trusting God to ensure I never lose so much of myself to the love of money that I can’t part with it to ensure a decrease in the suffering of the world according to God’s will and direction.
I want to be sure I have enough love for others to cover the entrance fee to heaven (See below) when my time comes and the math is simple. The more I have the less there is for those who don’t have enough. If the wealth of the world were shared out evenly every last person on earth would be able to afford a nice house, a nice car, an adequate wardrobe and enough food to never know hunger. We would all be able to afford a nice holiday each year too so that tells you how much wealth the top 10 percent are hoarding doesn’t it. They hoard it because they love it more than their fellow man and they would rather see a baby die of starvation than sacrifice having possession of the latest designer bauble.
You can tell how much closer to Satan the rich are by how cruel they become. Torturing animals so they can wear their fur, hunting animals for fun and taking pleasure in spilling their blood, spending big money on food delicacies that are obtained through massive cruelty to the animals involved such as foie gras. The only way to be really rich is to have no conscience, no compassion, and no love for your fellow man so it is my prayer that I will never be rich!
I pray God will keep all of us safe from the love of money so that we may find the door to heaven! will open for us when the time comes.
EDIT: It has been pointed out to me that I’ve made an error in this entry by talking about an entrance fee to heaven. The reality is there is no entrance fee to heaven. There is a door.
Jesus said in John 10:9 – “I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved,”
It’s true we can’t buy our way into heaven with anything but, according to 1 Timothy 6:18-19, we can be “rich in good works” and that will allow us to store up for ourselves “a good foundation for the time to come” and that is what I should have written instead of talking about cups of heavenly coffee and entrance fees.
