As you all know, Reformation Day celebrated its 506-years anniversary last Tuesday, October 31, 2023, and guess what? On the same day, Appeal for Purity (A4P) celebrated its 10th year anniversary. Yes, time indeed flies! I feel like I started A4P like yesterday. Oh, behold! It’s been 10 years.
God is always good, isn’t He! May His name forever be praised! Through these short 10 years, I saw the LORD’s faithfulness in countless ways and I am yet looking forward to seeing more of my Savior’s endless steadfast love and faithfulness.
Next to my God, I thank my husband, my Berhan, and my beautiful three children (now we have the fourth child, our older son’s beautiful wife) who always carry me in their prayers.
And y’all who have been following Appeal for Purity starting day one encouraged me greatly. May God bless you all! And to those of you who just joined this family, thank you for all your Likes, shares, subscriptions and comments. They all mean a lot to us. May God bless you!
With that I will continue what I’ve started a few weeks ago, which is all about sexual purity.
These days it is becoming a new norm to hear all kinds of sexually immoral lifestyles among Christians. Divorce, sleeping around, going out of the marital covenant and bringing children into this world, beating up his wife and children and still ordained to be a pastor or if they don’t ordain him, he will ordain himself or his friends will, on and on and on. The study of the general public porn and substance abuse and addictions seem similar with the studies done in churches.
Why?
Sin is not new for us sinners who struggle with sin until we take our last breath, is it? Nah! But when we see filthy and sinful “lifestyles” which are unheard of among the people of this dark world becoming common among us, Christians, it should bother us.
Some people don’t even know if they are actually leading a sinful lifestyle because the Christianity that they were introduced to allows them to live in whatever way they would like to. Let’s see some of “the kinds” of Christianity that are on the market.
- To some people, Christianity is presented as an emergency tool box.
These people turn to “it” [Christianity] only when they find themselves in some unexpected situations such as, when their businesses are falling apart (or not doing well), when they hear a life threatening diagnosis from their doctor or finding themselves in a serious psychological breakdown.
During those times, these people turn to their “emergency tool box.” Then all of a sudden, they start to go to church, sign their names in choir or some kind of church ministry like sound/video ministry. They attend all prayer meetings and ask “the anointed ones” to lay their hands on their business, or on their bank book or on their body where they feel pain.
These people usually believe in their heart of hearts that there is someone who can rescue them from their current situation.
Why? Because the people who presented Christianity to them convinced them by their “plausible words of wisdom” that those ministers are actually uniquely anointed by God to do all kinds of miracles such as “breaking the curse which was the cause for their business to fall apart” and “making their business bloom in a day or two.” So, they run to them.
- To some people, Christianity is presented as a medicine cabinet.
When do you go to your medicine cabinet if you have one?
When you feel sick, right?
These people who see Christianity as a medicine cabinet go to their Bible, when, for example, they feel sick, to look for a verse that says, “By his wounds you have been healed.” When they find the verse, they repeat this verse to themselves until they feel good.
Or, let’s say, they watch porn videos here and there and watch sexually explicit movies just to help “their boring marital sex.” Then before they knew it, porn took over their lives and threatened their marriage and lives.
Then they run to their “medicine cabinet” that they haven’t visited for a while.
Then they sit and read their Bible straight for four or six hours, thinking magically the word does some fixing job in their lives. Or, they go to a place where they can be alone to fast and pray so that the porn addiction, somehow, gets suffocated by their spirituality and evaporates from their body.
For a few days, even a few months, they feel like they are free from any porn addiction. So they declare their freedom, even thinking of starting a ministry to show others how to be free from porn addiction. But when they least expect it, porn finds them again and they find themselves in a very serious porn addiction. And the whole cycle starts all over again.
- To some people, Christianity is presented like a per-diem job where a full-time working god is involved.
These people tap into their Bible or Christianity only when a need arises. If there is nothing, they don’t need to do anything. The full-time working “god,” they claim they have, “doesn’t sleep or slumber. He waits for us.”
This full-time working “god,” his job description is to protect these people’s health, wealth and all their well-being. They are not going to forgive him, for example, if their savings account goes down. Are you serious? You will hear them say, “What did I do to “god” for me to deserve this????”
They demand their full-time working god to give them a satisfactory answer.
“What did I do to deserve this diagnosis???? What???? Tell me!”
- To yet others, Christianity is presented as gambling or bargaining.
For these people, Christianity is based on something like, “I will give this to church or some ministry and God is supposed to give me or do this for me.”
“I give all my offerings and tithes to the church, to all those poor missionaries and pastors so that I can live a guilt and fear-free life.”
“I give my last savings to the church building so that my savings account will go up in a day or two by millions.”
If they get fired and the bank comes to take their home, they ask, “Other than all those good things, what did I do to deserve this???”
They always have a goal in mind before they do any “spiritual activity,” because Christianity for them is gambling.
They think they gave to “the god” of the Christianity they were introduced to something and they believe that “this god” owes them something. They don’t know or they have never read this passage in the Bible:
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
“For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?”
“Or who has given a gift to him
that he might be repaid?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” Romans 11:33-36 ESV
If Christianity is not an emergency tool box [First Aid Box] or a medicine cabinet, or those other things, what is Christianity then? – – – Contd. ///