SPOILER ALERT!! If you are feeling depressed today don't bother reading this. Go pet a kitten or cuddle a child or smell the garden outside....
Here goes...
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The idea of listening to God tell me something important is on the same level has holding out my hand as a rich relative hands me millions!
But, if the money doesn't spend......?
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So much of what even the humblest person "hears" and follows leads to nothing at all but more of the same old same old.
1.The same old "come quickly, Lord Jesus" searches the sky for Christ's return. The clock is still ticking on that one!
2.The same old dark fear: Armageddon lurks in the shadows of our bedroom at night like the boogeyman.
3.The same old job description: "Spread the Good News and the end will come" recycles the tired message as a quarter of a million new potential converts are born EVERY DAY! Talk about carrot and stick!
4.The same old "Change your life and possess true happiness" sucks converts into local congregations where their hopeful smiles fade to black when the
quality of day to day life swallows them up in cares.
I pay attention to promises and guarantees while keeping a wary eye on PERFORMANCE of same.
Christianity is perpetrating a Ponzi Scheme that promises riches while delivering precious little but the same old thing.
Most pious, devout, "spiritual-minded" people live in a world of moral famine. They are starved for love, kindness, morality and hope.
Religious promises offer SOMETHING as the world at large offers a big NOTHING.
But, where is the PERFORMANCE on the promises?
Moral people can live their life by high standards without giving 10% of their assets to "god".
Loving people can demonstrate love without showing up at a building and jabbering bromides about an invisible leadership in the clouds.
What good is an INVESTMENT that never pays anything but illsory dividends?
Isn't religion a Ponzi scheme with big rewards AFTER YOU DIE? Think about that one for a moment! You pay now and collect later! Really??
"Well, what else do we have to replace hope of eternal life?" You may well ask!
Fine, go ahead and HOPE.
I'm not stopping you.
But, when I visit the local Rehab hospital this morning and see those old people (who have insurance) draped in their wheelchairs like a slumped bag of potatos.....I have to wonder.....
Most all of them spent their lives as believing christians. They have tithed, sung praises to the Lord, prayed for mankind, given hopeful testimony and tried to raise their children upright and righteous. But now, when they NEED God to spill some treasure their way after a lifetime of pulling the handle on that one-armed bandit called FAITH.........the best ....the BEST....they can hope for is to DIE and be out of their misery.
Do you hear what I'm on about here this morning?
Our reward is "out there" on a horizon line. We can travel in any direction of choice but that horizon remains at the same distance regardless.
In the final analysis, is there anything at all to any of this "god" thing besides a giant pile of "promises" that never come to pass?
Each of us pays, performs, hopes, pays more, hopes more, seeks and knocks and the result? We slump in a wheelchair with a stroke and no family to come visit us trapped in silence inside a decaying body with the deafening sound of the clock tick tick ticking away what is left of us.
Is God an investment with no alternative but certain doom?
Is Faith a default setting rather than a real choice?
Have you met anybody who died and gave a thumbs up that it was all true?
I mean: for real?