Sometimes, we get so caught up with our daily activities that we end up doing things simply because it’s part of the routine. We end up doing things for the sake of doing these tasks for their own sake, without knowing the reason behind them. Soldiers fight in wars and kill hundreds or even thousands of innocent people because their superiors told them to do so, but they don’t know why. All they know is that “they’re supposed to.”
An African myth, called Kintu and the Law of Love talks about this. Kintu is said to be one of the first men to walk on earth. He was a holy man, gentle, peaceful, and kind, who founded a small town. He eventually became its ruler, and the only law he set upon his people was the “Law of Love,” because, as he explains, no other laws are needed if mankind really do love each other. The village was happy for a long time, yet eventually, because the number of the people in the community kept growing every year, evil eventually crept into their hearts and overtook their senses, and they ended up hurting each other. Yet Kintu did not make any new laws, because he believed in the power of love. People laughed at him, calling him an old-fashioned fool. Then one day, a group of armed men approached him, the leader saying to him, “Kintu, we are your good friends. Because we want to bring the Law of Love back, we will kill everyone who does not believe in it.” Kintu says sadly, “You are as wicked as they are.” To that, the leader objected, “But we fight for a good reason! We are on the side of love! We fight in your name!” He then directed his soldiers to go off to war, shouting, “In the name of Kintu, let us march to battle!,” and they proceeded to murder those who did not believe.
Ironic, isn’t it? What makes the situation sad is that we are actually following what they are doing, because we do things not realizing what they mean, or having a very warped view on what it’s all about.
A lot of people who claim to be Christians are no different. When people ask them what their religion is, they would most often go, “I am a Christian,” and yet their words and acts belie something altogether different. Or, in another circumstance, people do all the good that they can with the belief that that would “purchase” salvation. The question then comes to mind: what does it mean to be a Christian?
Let’s take the word by itself. As “Atenean” means “of Ateneo,” “La Sallian” (or “La Sallite”, depending on who you’re talking to) means “of La Salle,” and all those other “-ian” words, so “Christian” means “of Christ.” In any given situation, a Christian would think WWJD – What Would Jesus Do? To explain things more clearly, however, we really need to get back to the basics – to the Gospel message.
Question: in a situation, do you think your friends, even those who you consider to be the closest to you, will literally give your lives for you so that you might be saved from a life-threatening situation? You know, like whether he/she would intercept a bullet meant for you so that you’ll be able to continue on living? It’s something that we see in films or TV shows all the time: near the end of the show, the hero faces the very distinct possibility of being ripped to shreds by a lot of bullets, when suddenly, his best friend-turned-evil-guy-turned-martyr suddenly jumps and receives all those shots that are supposedly for the hero. They then have a lovely tête-à-tête before best friend eventually dies in the hero’s arms. Wherefore, the latter vows revenge and suddenly miraculously sees a fully loaded gun conveniently lying around, grabs it, and hunts down the people responsible for the death. Sure, that is always possible in movies and such, but that’s actually a pretty hard thing to do. I mean, after all, it is our lives that we’re talking about – the only one we’ve got. As it says in Romans 5:7:
Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. You see? It’s even hard for a person to sacrifice himself/herself for a really good person, because it involves our own life. Yet someone willingly did it, even for people who are considered to be horrible to the nth degree, as can be seen in the succeeding verse: But God proves His love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us (Rm 5:8). This would always be the greatest love story that could ever happen, or would ever happen, for that matter. To show you the extent of His love for us, let us go back to the creation of man, as shown in Genesis 2:7: The
Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being. As compared to the other creatures and creations of God, whom He just cause to be by His word, He created man with His own Hands, and gave life to Man by blowing life into him. That is how intimate God’s love for us is, because He took us aside from all his other creations and created us with His own Hands.
Yet we rejected Him.
John 1:10-11 says,
He was in the world, and the world came to be through Him, but the world did not know Him. He came to what was His own, but His own people did not accept Him. Can you believe that? The very own people He created rejected Him, and yet Jesus still offered Himself up for them, for us.
Yet what does His sacrifice mean anyway? Why does He have to die a gruesome and painful death? Simply because He took our place. We are the ones who are supposed to die, probably not all of us being crucified, but we deserve death because of our sin. God created us out of love. He didn’t have to, because He’s already perfect by Himself. Yet He did it, and He gave us freedom of choice because He did not want empty-headed robots worshipping Him just for its own sake. What He wanted are people who would truly choose to love Him and to live for Him. Yet the sad thing is that mankind chose evil. Man has a sin problem. Instead of giving back all of the glory and love that He deserves, as He provided everything for us, we instead chose to stray from the path He wanted for us. What does it imply? Romans 6:23 puts it bluntly,
The wages of sin is death.” God cannot tolerate sin and that is why we cannot be with Him just like that. What does “wages” mean? In its ordinary sense, it is simply payback for a person’s actions. As our discipler has said, man is free to choose, yet he is not free to escape the consequences of his actions. Man chose evil; therefore, man deserves death. Once we commit sin, we put a barrier that separates us from Him. It’s pretty sad to point out, but it was our own decision that made Him far from us. We pushed Him away from our lives, and not the other way around.
Don’t even think that you can save yourself by doing good all the time. Isaiah 64:5 says,
All your works are like dirty rags, meaning, they’re almost completely worthless if taken by themselves. No matter how much we do good things, we cannot erase our sins because it is already there. It becomes a part of us. We are simply trying to cover/hide it, but it will always be there; we cannot take it back. All men are sinners. Romans 3:23 says,
All have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God. What then? Does that mean that all of us will be condemned to physical and spiritual death for all eternity?
Our God is loving and merciful, but He is also just. He is the One who has said in the beginning that those who are not for Him are against Him, and that means that those who have sinned will not be able to be with Him. It’s not that God does not want to be with us, but He is pure, and we, as sinners, are tainted. It’s not because sin has beaten God and that is why He cannot conquer it, but it’s because of His purity that He cannot abide it. He Himself has said even in the Old Testament that there has to be a blood sacrifice for the atonement of sins. The Levites (the priests/ministers of the Old Testament) themselves have to sacrifice a pure lamb as guilt offering so as to be able to enter the tent where the Ark of the Covenant is found, but that did not completely erase their sin. That is why Jesus died for our sake. He was already fully divine, but He also became fully human to be the perfect sacrificial lamb. Think for a moment how much that experience weighs: Jesus, who is God (the Son), became human, which means that He completely knows and feels all of our experiences, both the good and the bad. He came to experience human pain and suffering, and eventually, gave the biggest thing that humankind can possibly offer: His life. The Father sent the Son to die on the cross to take our place, to pay the penalty of our sin. Even if we gave our lives for Him, it wouldn’t amount to just how huge His sacrifice is for us, because He died without expecting anything in return, and all for a group of people who hates Him. Salvation does not lie in us, but in God Himself. Our Creator is became our Savior for His love for us. That is why the Cross is important in our Christian faith, because Jesus died on it for us, to save us from eternal torment. He loves us so much that He died in place for us, carrying our burden of sin as His own to save us from spiritual death. That’s how much God loves us: He willingly gave Himself away to be with us again, because we can’t be with Him while we are sinners, so He Himself made a way to be with us. Let’s make things clear: the cross was definitely not a beautiful thing, yet God transformed something so ugly into something truly wonderful that we have a new life waiting for us. We can never hide the fact that once, someone died for our sake. Someone’s blood was spilled for and because of us. Yes, the Christian life is good because it means enjoying fellowship with our God, but we can’t hide the cross nor sugar-coat it (1 Cor 1). It is at the core of our being, the symbol of unconditional love. A friend once said that the reason why the Cross is shaped like the plus (+) sign is because it means that something was added to us, and that is true.
So that we may know and experience fully His love and plan for our lives, we must individually accept Him as our Lord and Savior. Jn 14:6 says, “I am THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He is the ONLY way to the Father. Jn 1:12 says, “But as many received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” Ephesians 2:8-9 says, ‘For it is by grace through faith that you have been saved. It is not by your works, so you may not boast.” How can we accept Him? The good news is, He is the one waiting for us. Jesus says in Rev 3:20,
Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him. All we have to do is accept Him in our lives as our Lord and Master, our Savior. It’s not only by saying “I believe You, Lord!” and continue on with our old ways. Receiving Christ in our lives will completely transform us, because the Holy Spirit will be working in us, if we allow Him to. Receiving Christ involves turning to God instead of our own selves and trusting Him completely with our lives. This means repentance in the truest sense of the word: not mere sorrow that we have sinned and making empty promises of reform, but a resolute desire to live for Him. Receiving Him also means that we entrust our whole lives to Him, knowing that He will lead us to where we were supposed to go before our sin prevented us from living and enjoying His perfect plan for us. Acceptance of God is not mere intellectual exercise. Nor is it purely emotions-based. We accept Him as an act of faith, by our own will. No one else can do it for us. Maybe someone can lead us to that place, but we ourselves have to be the ones who will actually say, “Lord, You are my King and Master. I surrender my whole life to You.”
When He rose again, that also marked our new life. His death changed the entire system of old, when sacrifice has to be made, when all the rules have to be followed, because once and for all, the perfect sacrifice was given for all of mankind. His sacrifice set us free from our bondage of sin. He does not require anything from us except acceptance of Him in our lives and trusting Him. Good works are a result of our faith. James 2:26 says it clearly,
For just as a body without a spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead. It is not self-defeating, even though a verse in Isaiah (mentioned above) apparently says otherwise. Rather, James should be taken in its proper context: not that we act because we love Him, but because we love Him and that is why we act. Now, we do things not because of “the rules say so,” but because of love for Him.
It is this message that non-believers ought to hear, and Christians ought not to forget. This is the center of our faith as Christians: Jesus’ passion and resurrection. In closing, I would like to leave with this verse, something that almost all of us probably know, but probably have never fully processed:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son So that those who believe Him will not perish but will have eternal life (John 3:16).
