Having recently retired from thirty years of pastoring people of all cultures, I was witness to a pandemic.
Having recently come from a serving for two months on a terrific International missionary training base in Hawaii; I was witness to a pandemic.
The smallpox pandemic disease killed an estimated 400,000 Europeans per year during the closing years of the 18th century (including five reigning monarchs), and was responsible for a third of all blindness. Of all those infected, 20–60%—and over 80% of infected children—died from the disease. Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300–500 million deaths during the 20th century.
No one knows exactly how many people died during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic. During the 1920s, researchers estimated that 21.5 million people died as a result of the 1918-1919 pandemic. More recent estimates have estimated global mortality from the 1918-1919 pandemic at anywhere between 30 and 50 million. An estimated 675,000 Americans were among the dead.
A pandemic (from Greek πᾶν pan "all" + δῆμος demos "people") is an epidemic of infectious disease that is spreading through human populations across a large region; for instance a continent, or even worldwide.
The world wide Christian community pandemic I’ve witnessed is…forgiveness.
Guilt, shame, and un-assured are the people of God, while they yearn for assurance, their unable to accept God’s truth about the matter. We are sinners; we get that, we are forgiven; we state that, we feel bad; and that’s that.
Part of the cause is that I think the new God family impression can’t overcome the old family impression.
Kids spend their entire lives with a very natural failing disease of guilt; we’ve failed at school work, house work, and kindness to siblings, as well as potty mouths, potty thinking, and a mountain full of disobediences, not to mention another mountain full of adolescence dabbling in things immoral and unethical, as we’ve tried to find ourselves, we’ve found sins imbedding guilt.
Youth failings seem to reside in our souls like dirt in a child’s ears. Then when the miracle of accepting the invisible Christ does happen, we are just as quickly beset with a new mountain range of does and don’ts marking our way, coupled with our family yoke, we live half submerged in guilt, no matter how good we are, we really can’t grasp in our hearts God’s good news press about us.
Jesus experienced the temptations of sin in order to “sympathize with our weaknesses (sins),” He doesn’t condemn us through them, they are there to express no matter what we’ve done, we are forgiven, now be thankful, joyful and accepting of my love, He says.
As an example of this false guilt, let’s address one small issue we Christians face daily, reading the bible. Do you feel guilty about not reading God’s word every day? Why? Most of the known world throughout history have been illiterate, plus the bible wasn’t brought out to the public until the 18th century, since these are both true, do you think God thinks we are not good Christians because we don’t read His word every day? Did He not love those who never had His word, does He condemn those today who can’t read, yet have a believing faith?
Shouldn’t we think God is pretty astounded that we even believe in His invisibleness, much less tithe, attend church, go to a home group, serve His church, serve others because of Him, and try to submit to His teachings? Didn’t Christ say the same thing when He said to doubting Thomas who just felt Jesus wounds and professed his belief “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
Why does the Christian world keep weeping over the same old stuff, if we’ve confessed our sins, He forgives, get over it, go on, be happy, quit weeping over, and over again, about past and current failings.
We are a miracle of faith. We are loved, God is pretty amazed at our straining after the invisible world. We should live like we are amazing, this is wild stuff, think about it, do you rotate your life around God in the slightest, if so, then know that you are knocking the socks off the Trinity.
If you can’t live in forgiveness, and are always feeling a little shame over stuff, you will throw this up on others in the form of not forgiving them, guilt mongers are guilt ridden people, hurt people, hurt people. If you don’t love sinners you aren’t living in forgiveness.
Didn’t read God’s word today? Feeling a little bad about it? Maybe it’s the demons of guilt and shame that are coming out of the ground of your old family story, what you need to do is rebuke them in the name of your new family story, the good news one, the forgiveness one, the God story of pretty amazing love.
Listen, if you feel guilty about not reading God’s word, what you are going to do with all the other guilt stuff. Joy and confidence should be our trade mark, grace, our God tattoo for the entire world to see. Christians are the most amazing people on earth, but if we keep living in false guilt and shame we will never be infectious, who wants to be like us if all we do is weep and mourn over past sins which Jesus clearly cleaned the slate over long, long ago.
Live in this love and you’ll throw it up on others, trust me, it’s in God’s word, I read about one day.
Below are a few sinners I've known...
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