What does it mean to be "blessed"?
I was struck this morning when I visited a church website and pictures of smiling, well feed, seemingly wealthy, good looking, people filled the screen as if to say "Come here, be part of 'us' and you'll be smiling, well feed, wealthy and good looking. Is that reality? Are all of God’s children upper crust, good looking, well feed, wealthy and healthy? How about Paul with his “thorn in the flesh” or those fisherman disciples…I bet they don't make the cover of GQ. Is Christianity God’s way of making the poor, dirty, hungry and ugly people beautiful, wealthy, well feed and clean? Why does the scripture say “blessed are the poor for yours is the kingdom of God”…and go on to say “woe to you who are rich, well fed, laughing and well spoken of”? Luke 6:19-23Christians everywhere talk about the poor, dirty and oppressed…but rarely do you see any poor, dirty or oppressed people around them. Why? Is it because we don’t mind going to those people wherever they are and doing some “mission” work…but…we certainly (for the most part) don’t want them back home living with us…going to “church” with us and intimately involved in our lives…why?
God's poster children committed adultry (David), murdered (Paul & David), lied (Peter & David), denied their faith (Peter & all the other disciples), etc. Why do we misrepresent "men after God's own heart" and "men of great faith" as those who never sin?
posted by Rick @ 6:12 AM
1 Comments:
Rick,
I have been in some of the poorest parts of our world and was deeply humbled by how much I learned and received from some of the poorest people of the world. It completely blows apart the arrogant assumption that the Western educated person is likely to understand spiritual things more than others or has more to offer by way of Christian insight. There's only one Spirit and I have so much to learn. We are ALL teachers and ALL students.
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