Christian Karma

First of all I wanna start off with a bang and thank everyone that's reading. There are a lot more people reading than I thought there were. Now, its not all about the numbers (I'm not a baptist mega church), but it does help encourage me. Well anyhow, in this post I kinda wanted to drop my two cents in on a strong undercurrent that's been sweeping through American Christian for a couple of decades. Also I need to make the statement that not all of this is my own thoughts. A good deal might come from the series on Ecclesiastes that Matt Chandler did a while back. If you haven't listened to that give it a look see. You won't regret it. That is unless you enjoy being a nominal Christ follower.

Finally I actually get to what I wanna talk about. The undercurrent that I referred to earlier is what could be called Christian karma. Basically it is the thought that if you do good things good things will happen to you. This does not fit in well with Scripture. In fact, it actually disagrees with some parts of Scripture. Take Job for instance. What did Job's friends suggest that he should do when his whole life was falling apart? They said he should repent of any sins that he might have forgotten about. This really isn't the thought that if you do good good things will happen to you. It's actually the flip side. If you fail to do good, bad things will happen to you.

Another part of Scripture that this mindset disagrees with (as you might have guessed) is Ecclesiastes. In Ecclesiastes chapter 7, Solomon (the wisest man in the history of the universe mind you) writes how he has seen the wicked flourish and the righteous die an early death. God does not treat us according to our actions.

You see this is the most encouraging part of all of this. I'll say it again. God does not treat us according to our actions. He always (always, always, always) acts with our best interest in mind. If our perfectly righteous friend should die at the early age of 30, it was for God's glory and for his best that his life was required of him. If we truly believe this our lives will change completely. Well, I guess I can't speak for everyone. Maybe there are some perfect people out there.

So I am lead to ask the question. Why do you choose to do the right thing? Is it for some possible reward? Or is it because its the right thing and that's how we can bring Christ the greatest glory? If we chase what's in God's hand instead of His actual face we will be disappointed every time.

Once again, thanks for reading. Ecclesiastes 2:24-25