Kuolachalie Seyie
“I LIKE your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ”. (Mahatma Gandhi). Jesus is loved and liked by all, either Christians or not. It is sad but true that our Christianity in market place has failed to impress truthful people in the past and the same prevails even today. People could not see Christ in our life for our lack of practical righteousness, purity, love and unselfishness which is an insult to our Lord and Savior Christ. The faithless hypocrisy in our Christian community is a great crime of the day. Registering of names in a Church or a person with excellent biblical academy does not make one a Christian. Who then are Christians? To me, Christians are the one who become Christians by entering into the very family of God, became co-heirs of Christ Jesus, by means of spiritual and physical adoption. Adopted by a new Most High Royal Father, the old father has no more rights and control over him. Failing short of this adoption, he is a faithless hypocrite though he claims to be a Christian.
However, once we are genuinely adopted into the family of God, we also imbibe some of His characteristics and exercise absolute control over our own sinful and greedy human nature. He has brought us into His absolute purpose, direction and possession. The old life and the old father have no more rights whatsoever over us, God-our new Father only has the absolute right. Then in such a case as the past is cancelled and debts are wiped out; we begin a new life with God, inheriting all His riches, goodness, love and mercy. If that is so, we become joint heirs with God’s own Son, the Christ. Whatever Christ inherits, we also inherit. If Christ had to suffer, we also had to suffer; but if Christ was raised to life and glory, we also inherit that life and glory.
When people become genuine Christians, they became royal family members of God by faith and re-birth. We did nothing to deserve it, but God the Great Father, in His amazing love and mercy has taken away all our loss, ignorance, sicknesses, helplessness, poverty, debt-laden sinners and adopted us into His own family, to inherit the glory as Christians. The weak are made strong, the poor rich and the blind see.
What we, the present Me, Me, Me, Generations; are handling over a paradox of faithless hypocrisy in one hand and the potentiality to become sons of the Most High God on the other into the GenNext is a world full of inspiring realities coupled with incredibly daunting ones. At the core of all, today’s most pressing challenges are one fundamental issue: we have become profoundly disconnected with each other and God, our Creator. Gandhi was right for many reasons. We have forgotten how to salvage each other to become sons of God in real sense and start anew, thereby cutting all our connections of the past. We often end up in just building Church properties as an evidence of external and physical development, but lead shallow lives internally and spiritually. Yet deep inside, we still have the search and hunger to become sons of God. . “All things God works for the good of those who love Him” Rom. 8:28. “A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another as I have loved you by this all men will know that you are my disciple.” (Christ).However, unless we restore Christ to leadership in our lives, whether we are Church leaders or ordinary members, the consequences of faithless hypocrisy, uncontrolled greed for easy money, violence, hatred, bitterness and hunger for vainglorious power shown by many are inescapable.
Selfishness is a violation to human right. But being students of economics, we will learn that all of economics is rooted in the assumption that people aim to maximize self-interest. I hope we don’t just take that for granted. I hope we will challenge it. Consider the likes of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa who have impacted and rocked the history of our planet with the exact opposite assumption, with the belief in the goodness of our human nature. Or consider Ruby Bridges.
Six-year-old Ruby was the first African American girl to go to an all-white school on Nov. 14, 1960. All the teachers refused to teach her, except for one Mrs. Henry. Ruby received constant death threats and on the way to class every day, people would line up to shout and throw things. Mrs. Henry instructed Ruby not to speak to anyone, as she crossed the jeering crowds every day. But one day, she saw Ruby muttering, so she said, “Ruby, I told you not to speak to anyone.” “No, Mrs. Henry, I didn’t say anything to them.” “Ruby, I saw you talking. I saw your lips moving.” “Oh, I was just praying. I was praying for them,” Ruby responded. Then she recited her prayer, and I quote “Please, God, try to forgive these people. Because even if they say those bad things, they don’t know what they’re doing.” Isn’t wonderful for a six year old wishing well for those who were wishing her harm? How loving and great hearted is that? And what does it say about the power of the human heart? Our capacity to love is a currency that never runs out. This is what Christianity is all about. May each of us tap into that love ocean of Christ’s character and discover every day, what it means to give and to love others.
