The Balance

THE BALANCE
The sound of worship woke me up today. I am up long before schedule. A neighbour and others had chosen these few days to pray at midnight and only a nine inch wall separates us. So I am awake. I am awake but thinking. I think of heaven and of earth. Of the spiritual and the physical. Of good and bad, I think of darkness and light, of spirituality and carnality, of spirituality and religion, of Christianity and religiosity. My mind seeks a balance. A justification for each. I seek the effectiveness and the relevance, the productivity, the advancements and the progress that are expected. I am a Christian.  I believe in God. I love God. I am passionate about Christ I will stand for Him any day and I hope to be able to stand at all cost. He's sure worth it. I have seen religion too even in the name of Christianity that adds nothing to the development of the soul of man beyond the selfish animalistic instincts. I have seen spirituality that produces the supernatural too and superimpose possibilities in place of physical limiting laws. I ask again which one works. True religion must be one that does good and not hurt, true religion must be one which clones God in man and not that which highlights man and his baseness. True religion must be equal to godliness in character and not mere zeal in outward worship. Then true religion then must be the least of spirituality and the gateway to the supernatural. There is spiritual and sincere worship, such, Jesus said the Father seeks. True religion recognises God who hears in secret and rewards openly. True religion recognises God in the helpless in the neighborhood. Spirituality sees God in the sun that shines not just on the godly but also on the ungodly. And true worship desires to do same. I seek that balance. I don't want my spirituality to become a roadblock to passersby, my worship must be a plus even to those who are yet to appreciate God. My godliness must shine its sun on both the good and the bad. I can love the sinner and hate the sin without compromising righteousness. Religion when not true can be deadly. It propagates the selfishness of man and guards wickedness with the shout of  'Lord, Lord!' While the shouter shouts on to perdition. It's religion that will put heavy loads on its adherents without lifting a finger to help. It is religion that will pay the tithes of even the smallest of items while the weightier matters of justice and mercy are left as plagues.  Religion  is one whitewashed on the outside but filled inside with rottenness and the bones of dead men. Religion is man manufacturing God and using the product to propagate self and pursue his own passions and ambition in the protectiveness of outward piety. When I read  of Jesus I learnt of the Pharisees and the sadducees and I saw the deadliness of religion. And that is why I love Jesus. He is the balance between the physical and the spiritual. He shows me how to worship God in spirit yet being in the physical. He shows me God beyond the chief whip of the universe and tells me the possibility of going and sinning no more. He tells me you can defy religion and yet be godly, he tells me the possibility of loving the sinner and not being a sinner. The possibility of forgiving without end and saving to the uttermost. He showed me the laws of the spirit in contrast to the handwriting of contradictory ordinances.  He is the balance. He tells me how speaking the word only can make a miraculous difference contrary to the powerlessness of the shoutings of the worshippers of Baal.  He shows me God. He tells me when I do good to the least of men I do it to him and not otherwise. When I cloth the naked I had covered him and he wont forget, though that doesn't sound religious yet deeply spiritual, when I visit the prisoner I had visited him, when I give to the hungry I had fed him and when I visit the sick I visit him. How long have we kept him hungry yet giving fat offerings?  how long have we left him on the sick bed judging his unbelief in divine healing? How long have we refused to help him in his poverty telling him to go get a job and listen to good prosperity and motivational preachers? I must isolate mere religion from true spirituality, I doubt if religion will ever see God though much more popular amongst men. I realise also that religion isn't fully resident in religious houses or amongst claimers of religion. Even those who are not adherents to a religion still create their own gods and accompanying laws to critically judge spirituality and scorn true righteousness, it's religiosity hiding under a different garb. But I see God in Christ and it suffices me. I must strike the balance so as not to fall into the deceit of mere religion and religiosity. I must make my life the blessing God intends it to be, religiosity must not stop me from worshipping God in truth and in spirit neither must it stop me from seeing Christ in the people around me to bless them and not to hurt them. This is my spirituality, this is my Christianity; it is what I call true religion as against mere religion and it makes the world go round and makes the impossible possible. I hope I had spoken of yours too. Find your balance I have found mine. Tell it to your friends too! Good morning!