Me: Wow, you look like you are having a nice walk Prodigal!
Prodigal Pig: Yes I am just looking at the flowers and enjoying the weather
Me: Well I am on my way to church Prodigal hope you have a nice walk!
Prodigal Pig: You are going to church now, on this day, at this time?
Me: Yes well let me explain my thoughts Prodigal….
Harold Kushner once said, Some people use religion to strengthen their immune systems and help them resist temptation. Some use it as an antibiotic to cleanse their systems of infection and make them feel healthy again. And some use it as an aspirin, to take away the pain of wrongdoing without affecting the cause of that pain. You know I have been at all three points in my life. I feel that there are three different levels of maturity with your walk with God. Some people only experience one. Others go through the levels and drop to different ones depending on different trails. Our goal is to love God and love others, our love depends on that relationship we have with God and how we view it.
When we go to church and use God as an aspirin then to the outside it may look like the hypocrite. These are the people who cheat on their spouse, are abusive, are addicts and they live all week trying to get more and more of that “thing” that is usually a disobedient act against God. It never helps nor heals. It just cause us to be further from God and to feel “pain”. We go on Sunday to somehow make up for the behavior, to somehow feel right for just one hour. Then the whole process goes on and on for one month, two years or three decades. We look at people and say how can you go to church every week with what you do during the week. Well people God is an aspirin. They just take the aspirin to stop the pain for a short while and never look at what is really causing the pain.
How about using God as an antibiotic to cleanse you system from an infections? Well this is when your spouse wants to leave you, you loss your job, you may have cancer or it is 9-11-01 and you have to make since of the world. You pray and go to church and find comfort in scripture that says “Trust the Lord with all your heart” You lean on him and start to draw close to him but then your spouse is fine and will not leave you, you get a new job, you made it through cancer and it now has been 12 years since 9-11-01. You don’t forget but life goes on and you seem to be fine. Life gets in the way and you don’t have time for God right now, after all does it really matter if I go to church this Sunday or pray tonight or read scripture? So the problem with the antibiotic is that you take it faithfully until there is no sign of infection but then it is not needed anymore and life goes back to normal. You go back to normal and your life really has not changed.
Then God can be strength to our immune system and helps us resist temptation. It is like a vitamin or mineral or herb. We take a vitamin B for energy everyday. When we don’t take it we notice less energy. It becomes part of our life. We feel off if we don’t have it. We noticed that in some way it has improved our lives. God is then part of our everyday lives no matter where we all. We worship him not for others but because we love him and it is part of us more then anything else! People see God through us and we shine with his love. God is no longer separate in our lives anymore but now part of us, just like taking that vitamin with our morning coffee.
Me: So Prodigal I am going to church and will take my vitamin after….
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