Stumbling Through Life

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Please, God – Don’t strike me with lightning! I’m just trying to figure this world out. Sometimes I think and say things that are stupid. But sometimes, too, You tell me things that are so meaningful that I simply have to write them down. This blog is nothing more than a diary of some of these thoughts.

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Christian = Love. Right?

I’m interested in causes that seem (to me) to be “loving.” One such issue is healthcare reform. It pains me no end that Christians seem to be anti-love. Why are some Christians more concerned with keeping their money from “freeloaders” than in taking care of those in need? Christians should be at the forefront of these causes!
I can find many, many verses that tell us to be generous with our money.
Luke 12:33: Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.
Matthew 19:21: Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
James 1:27: Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.
Especially, read Matthew 25:31-46 and try to interpret it another way.
I’ve experienced first-hand what it’s like to have inadequate healthcare. When I was a college student, I had no insurance at all. Don’t tell me I was a freeloader. I was living on my own, I was a student, and I had two part-time jobs. Now I have decent healthcare, and I am not so prideful to think I’m any better than those who don’t. Everyone deserves decent healthcare.

(If only this were the only issue in which Christians seem to be so selfish.)

Am I a minority of one? If it’s just the “Christian Right” making us appear this way, and if they’re a minority, then Christians left and center should speak up loudly enough to drown them out. The word “Christian” should be synonymous with love, caring and generosity. Instead, we appear to the world as stingy, selfish, prideful, hypocritical money-grubbers.

Pecae, love & grace.

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