His Story/our Story: Making A Living OR Living The Life?

Making A Living OR Living The Life?

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“….And then I came by. I saw you all miserable and bloody. Yes, I said to you, lying there helpless and filthy, LIVE”(Ezekiel 16:6 MSG)

It was a clumsy day, Wednesday to be precise. I posed by the shoemaker’s stand. One of my best shoes needed a repair. I can’t recall when I did that last. I wasn't really happy standing there in the sun and watching the man repairs my shoe.
But, standing next to him made my imaginations ran wide, not of work he was doing but of the thousands of feet trooping up and down before my face.

Then questions started erupting from my heart one after another as I watched humans that were once created in the invisible image of “Shamayim”. Not the questions of their ups and downs but the purpose of it.

Some passed before me with great smiles, some with their colleagues, some alone, some with frown faces, and some were lost in their thoughts as they were talking to themselves while walking alone, while others had their husbands/wives beside them.

But, one thing I couldn't find though, their facial looks attested to the fact that they've been working and walking since the beginning of the day; “the fulfillment of their labors”. They seem to have one single purpose as I watched them… "The Purpose of living...Making a living"... Their inner beings seem to be craving for something that's beyond what they already had...

No doubt about how we labor arduously in order to meet our needs, how we struggles in order to feel love or to be loved. But, at the end of it all we still feel miserable. Life beats us down and we rather pretend that we are okay than to accept our futility.

I’m human, I understand how we pretend many times and cover up in order to feel we have it all figured out whereas we DON’T!

In our society, family and working place, we want to impress one another, we want to show that we are better but at the end of it all, inside our cocoon where no one is seeing us, in the dark shadows where all is silent. We exclaim and gush out our true feelings. Sometimes we ask “why me?” and many time we conclude that “Life is not fair”

Is it life that is unfair or we? We don’t even know the definition of fairness. We thinking fairness is getting our ways, having our needs met and living in paradise on Earth. Our definition of fairness is attached to “I, ME and MYSELF”

We're broken people. We don't know what's worth living and dying for. We've turned Life to materialistic things, measuring every side of it with what we've acquired or gotten.

We are unfair because we're broken people.
We are abnormal people.
We need our normality.

All that we put our efforts into is to make us normal, but in reality they leave us in a more devastating state, and much pains without feeling alive or having sense of freedom.

The more life offers us the more we want more.

“To whom much is given much is required”

Life has offered us things we can't buy but, how we are paying back is through our various inventions which are like cancers, though, we called them pleasures and luxuries but in reality they are canker-worm.

Let's come to an agreement of who we are after the fall then who we ought to be would be reveal unto us.

We are SLAVES

We were born into slavery, under the master-ship of Sin. From the first day we came into planet earth, Sin has been our master, ordering our steps and monitoring our lives. It’s not really our fault, it’s just that our first parent made a wrong choice and sold us into slavery ignorantly.

We can’t blame them for doing what they did, if they had made the right choice and secured a good future for us, we would have appreciated them. So, there is no need in pointing fingers of accusation to Adam or Eve, we did it together.

If we find it difficult to accept that, at least let us accept the fact that on daily basis we have also been eating from that tree called “the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil” we've been living under Sin. We owe Sin!

Alas! All human enjoys it. There is a pleasure in Sin

We can’t just break away from him without paying the debt we owed. And truth be told, many of us don’t wanna break away from sin because our eyes has not yet been opened to see that we are actually a prisoner, bond in chains and feather under the bondage of Sin and Hell.

We are debtors, we've been imprisoned by our own choices for not been able to pay up the debt we owned.

We are trying so hard to pay up but, how can we?
By our self-righteousness that we called righteousness?
Where shall we begin?
And to whom shall the debt be paid?
How much is even the debt we owned before we start to calculate?

If indeed we desire to pay our debt then we might pay off through death....I mean totally death here now and hereafter.

“…..the wages of Sin is death"

BUT…

None of us want to died, we enjoy living, we enjoy every bit of things that comes our way yet we are saying there must be away that we can actually pay back.

If we are indeed we’re feel the burdens of our debt and we are sincerely willing to pay off the debt and we are serious about that, then, there is an excellent way of doing that. Someone has already paid the price in full, so let’s give up the Ghost and embrace this Person’s life. That's only way live.

Let’s come to him just as we are without any excuse, acknowledging our helplessness and misery. He will surely to accept us. Then, shall we find an exchanged Life for our life of misery and deaths. Which means we can no longer live, we don't have a single right, we shouldn't expect anything in return. All we can do then is to enjoy the new Life and this life brings us to absolute rest.

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But…, there is another problem!

This problem I shall try to address to you my reader. The context of what you will read next shall be for you O saints who has accepted the life that God offers. I shall in no wise reduce the harshness and bitterness I feel within me toward what men has taught and still teaching rather, I will try in my capacity to convey the message the best way I can. Take it not as an offense but see it as an encouragement and exhortation from one of your brothers in the Kingdom.

Severally, men has taught that you owe God your money, your time, your resources and all that you have. Some have even gone ahead to say that you owe him your prayers, songs and worship. There is a lot of things that has been spoken to you which seems to be the truth merely looking at them but, are in no way the truth rather it’s just another ‘Self-centered messages’ that has no foundation in God.

What if I tell you that you do not owe God and God himself do not owe you? How does that sounds to you? I know it sounds somehow awkward, may be a little bit heretic to you...

You will then begin to wonder “are you saying we shouldn't pray? Are you saying we should use everything we have for ourselves? Or are you saying we shouldn't give or tithes ( I shall in no wise address tithing here but if you a believer in this dispensation of grace, New Covenant, tithing is not part of your life)?” and with all other questions you want to include, my simple answer is YES.

You shouldn't pray because you owe God, you shouldn't give because someone says you owe God your money or resources, you shouldn't do anything because you wanna pay back what you owe neither should you do anything in order to gain something. This is nothing but the system of Law.

This simple truth will save you from every form of guilty and condemnations that men are imposing and heaping on you on daily basis. Those things above have appearances of righteousness but they are actually self-driven righteousness.

What happens when you don’t pray? What happens when you don’t give? What happens when you refuse/forget to sing, worship and do some “spiritual” gyrations?

Don’t you feel lost?

Don’t you feel disconnected from God?

Don’t you feel that you are no longer righteous?

Don’t you feel guilt and condemnation when you don’t do such things?

Or

What do you feel?

It’s important you answer those questions with all sincerity.

We often think what connects us to God are those external thing we are doing on daily basis. We think what keeps us with God is our gyrations and gymnastics that we called spiritualties but the shocking truth is that those things are not what connects us to God.

Our connection to God is Christ. Our access to God is Christ. We've been brought near to God by Christ. What keeps us to God is Christ. Nothing of our own can make us “more near” or “more connected” to Christ.

“He that’s joined to the Lord is one”

“He is the vine, we are the branches”

“If the Vine is holy, the branches are also holy”

Just as the vine does not to say to the branches “You owe me”, Christ also will not say to his branches (Body) “You owe me”. The branches also will not scream on Christ (The Vine) “You owe me this and that”, the same thing for you “God does not owe you”

Why? Because, they are ONE.

We shouldn't pray in order to pay God back, we shouldn't give in order to bargain with God. Our singing of Songs shouldn't be because we want to propel or force the hands of God to do something for us rather all these should be done out Love. Not the love of give and take but, the Love that gives without expecting anything in return.

This is why the New Covenant is totally different from the Old covenant…but, not all of us understand that, what many of us know is the “Hybrid of Old and New”(This I addressed in my upcoming book)

So, when you pray or you give remember that “You owe God nothing” and “God does not owe you anything”.

In fact, He has given you all things freely in Christ. Remember also that when you forget or hurry out to work without prayer or has nothing to give. You are still connected to Him. Your connection is not what do and don’t do, your connection is Christ and Christ is not a thing rather is LIFE, your very life.

“God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son. Whosoever has the Son has life”

Do you realize that?

Blessed are you if you know, understand and walk in that.

On the last note, if we are one with Christ and Christ is Holy then what are we? We are also holy. Do we start doing stuffs to be “more holy”? Holiness is not a thing but a Person.

We may not yet be holy in all our conversations just like the branches that often bring forth unripe (immature) fruits but rest assured that since we are one with Him, we are holy and all our conversations shall also be holy because the Father, the husbandman is purging us daily.

The formal is our identity the latter is how we respond to this unholy world.

What should motivate us to do anything as believers is the Love of Christ… This is what Living is all about. It's all about Christ....