"When my spirit left my body, I went down, down, down until the lights
of the earth faded away. I don't mean I fainted-I don't mean I was
unconscious. I died...(as I continued my descent) finally below me, I
could see lights flickering on the walls of the caverns of the damned.
The lights were caused by the fires of hell...I did not want to go into
the jaws of hell, but just as metal jumps on the magnet, my unredeemed
spirit was drawn to that place..."***
If my mother, your mother, her mother and his mother are required to cook the exact same meal after which we are each asked to rate the meals. Most probably, everyone will walk up to the display table behind which his/her mother is standing and nominate his mother's meal as the best tasting. Let's call this the 'my mama soup' approach to perceiving truths. (Hold that in mind, I'll illustrate something with that concept later.)
It would be sacrilegious not to nominate your mother's meal! Are you Judas Iscariot? After carrying you for nine heavy months and all the numerous helps and sacrifices she has made from the first minutes of your life to ensure you survived and have a better life-lot, than she had till your independence now. You want to throw all that away and choose some unknown woman's meal? Are you Brutus the backstabber?
You will agree with me that in such a scenario as painted above; where sentiments has dulled objectivity, the tongues of the tasters being controlled by allegiance to their mothers rather than their taste buds, truth will be hard to find or accept if perceived. If the same four meals, from the same four different mothers are set before four of us, with we, the judges, being blindfolded, the truth may seep out more easily because, then, we will judge by a true arbiter- our taste faculties.
The blinding of the 'eyes' to sentiments, opens the mind to quicker perception of truth; when we close our minds to emotional affiliations, they become truely open to see realities better. It was the famed intellectual, Albert Einstein that pointed out the true spirit of discovery when he said: 'one should look for what is and not what should be.' Armed with such a mindset we are to turn to the issue of most importance-life after death.
Very few of the world's major religion deny the existence of an afterlife. This consensus on the reality of an afterlife notwithstanding, there exists a great variation as to the states of the afterlife (i.e hell and heaven) and the nature of acceptability & accessibility into these realms of the great beyond.
Whether you believe in the afterlife or not is not the present issue of discourse. Let's just assume you do believe something about the afterlife. You should agree with me when, though without any research statistics, I safely and conservatively conjecture that, about 70 percent of what adults believe in this matter (i.e religious preferences) is predicated on the beliefs accepted on "my mama soup is best" basis. You, very likely included!
Let's pretend Christianity is a religion. Whatever you devotion to your professed faith: casual or committed,you will likely stand for & defend it in the face of opposition (the kind of opposition that doesn't involve head cutting or injury to our prized bodies- with all the comforts of technology, martyr material is hard to find these days!) The passion with which you refute other religions, be you Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Taoist, etc is very likely a product of this 'my mama soup' factor.
Are you a Christian because you were born into Christian home? Muslim because you were born into a Muslim home and so on? Or is your chosen life path a product of convictions born out of an impassioned search for what really is the truth? Do you know that if you had been born into another house hold of different religious faith, you probably would have been fighting the adherents of your present faith? Have you ever thought about that? I have-several times.
If the matter of one's chosen faith were without far reaching and eternal consequences, playing the 'my mama soup is the best' game in our choices would have been of negligible significance. Heaven and hell are real eternal destinations, yet all the religions point different ways to attain life and escape damnation- who is right because we all can't be right!
When I was a boy, born into a devout Christian home, I got born again and believed in Jesus because that's what my Parents believed and taught us as kids. But I have queried and overturned, some years back, the foundation of my beliefs and now I believe in Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ because I've known the truth for myself, aside my parent's leading. When we enter eternity, we enter as individuals not families or groups; so drop all your preconceived notions, hinged on familial affinities and see the light for yourself!
A christian songwriter captures one reason why I choose the Christian life in the clause: 'strength for TODAY and bright hopes for tomorrow...' Today, being emphasized because true Christianity doesn't present only the fantastic hopes of tomorrow- heaven and it's joys, anybody can boast about the unverifiable tomorrow; but Christianity, true Christianity, delivers to you Strength (power) for today. The power of Jesus touches the spirit; saving the soul, it touches the body-healing us miraculously and it seeps into the depths of our being to the emotions, healing the broken hearts. It's all in the Gospel of Jesus Christ: the panacea for all things!
In true Christianity we are not left as victims to the forces of life and existence, we are made masters of the Cosmos. Through our faith in Christ, we can upturn the unfavorable and determine outcomes in life. If you know Christians whose lives are at great variance from this, it's because they may not have found the WHOLE TRUTH as encoded in sacred Scriptures-the Holy Bible, in fact, we are all still learning of these endless riches in Christ.
As for the atheist, it is my opinion that many of them are more objective people than the average religious fellow. For those atheists who had religious parents, they had enough sense to know that, just because a parent is a parent doesn't make their faith-choice the correct choice. Thus they observed for themselves (OBSERVE, I didn't say INVESTIGATE) and chose to abide by no creed, no faith. Many of them, honest fellows, have turned away because of the recurring inconsistency and moral lapses in the character of leaders of religion, over the years. Their feelings of disappointment are cogent, their revolt against ecclesiastical hypocrisy is genuine but their conclusion to denounce the existence of God is wrong with dire consequences for the hereafter! Besides, these erring leaders are men too, seeking their own salvation-why quit your race because of their flaws? Friend, there's a real God and he probably isn't like what you heard-God is love. If you just turn right behind you, despite your past flaws, wrongs and all whatnots, you will find he's right behind you with arms open to receive you.
The quarrel over land matters in your kindred always follows this pattern: your parents are ALWAYS the rightful owners, and your wicked 'Chinwetalu Agu-ish' uncle is the usurper. Ever wondered why all of us have this uncles that are greedy for landed property? It's not a question for rocket scientists, it's simply that same pervasive 'my mama soup is the best' mindset. "My parents are always right!" You insist. Well, I guess that means you don't have a state of origin on Planet Earth because your parents must have fallen right out of heaven!
You are not a man of yourself, even if you feed and cloth a wife and several kids, if your basis for life most crucial decision-eternity-is a mere offshoot of an unevaluated and sentimental attachment to your background and parental upbringing. You really should think about this. While it may not be of weighty implications that we continue to defend, each of us, our mothers' literal soup as the best in the world, in choosing the grave issue of faith and our preparation for life after death, we must objectively consider the matter to find the truth for ourselves. Because in this matter, 'my mama soup' won't do!
Dave Nwajiuba
August 22, 2013
Port Harcourt.
***Rev. Kenneth E. Hagin; 1972, 'I BELIEVE VISIONS', page 6, Faith Library Publications.
(The experience of hell inserted at the outset of this write up is NOT fictional but true encounters of another writer.)
If my mother, your mother, her mother and his mother are required to cook the exact same meal after which we are each asked to rate the meals. Most probably, everyone will walk up to the display table behind which his/her mother is standing and nominate his mother's meal as the best tasting. Let's call this the 'my mama soup' approach to perceiving truths. (Hold that in mind, I'll illustrate something with that concept later.)
It would be sacrilegious not to nominate your mother's meal! Are you Judas Iscariot? After carrying you for nine heavy months and all the numerous helps and sacrifices she has made from the first minutes of your life to ensure you survived and have a better life-lot, than she had till your independence now. You want to throw all that away and choose some unknown woman's meal? Are you Brutus the backstabber?
You will agree with me that in such a scenario as painted above; where sentiments has dulled objectivity, the tongues of the tasters being controlled by allegiance to their mothers rather than their taste buds, truth will be hard to find or accept if perceived. If the same four meals, from the same four different mothers are set before four of us, with we, the judges, being blindfolded, the truth may seep out more easily because, then, we will judge by a true arbiter- our taste faculties.
The blinding of the 'eyes' to sentiments, opens the mind to quicker perception of truth; when we close our minds to emotional affiliations, they become truely open to see realities better. It was the famed intellectual, Albert Einstein that pointed out the true spirit of discovery when he said: 'one should look for what is and not what should be.' Armed with such a mindset we are to turn to the issue of most importance-life after death.
Very few of the world's major religion deny the existence of an afterlife. This consensus on the reality of an afterlife notwithstanding, there exists a great variation as to the states of the afterlife (i.e hell and heaven) and the nature of acceptability & accessibility into these realms of the great beyond.
Whether you believe in the afterlife or not is not the present issue of discourse. Let's just assume you do believe something about the afterlife. You should agree with me when, though without any research statistics, I safely and conservatively conjecture that, about 70 percent of what adults believe in this matter (i.e religious preferences) is predicated on the beliefs accepted on "my mama soup is best" basis. You, very likely included!
Let's pretend Christianity is a religion. Whatever you devotion to your professed faith: casual or committed,you will likely stand for & defend it in the face of opposition (the kind of opposition that doesn't involve head cutting or injury to our prized bodies- with all the comforts of technology, martyr material is hard to find these days!) The passion with which you refute other religions, be you Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Taoist, etc is very likely a product of this 'my mama soup' factor.
Are you a Christian because you were born into Christian home? Muslim because you were born into a Muslim home and so on? Or is your chosen life path a product of convictions born out of an impassioned search for what really is the truth? Do you know that if you had been born into another house hold of different religious faith, you probably would have been fighting the adherents of your present faith? Have you ever thought about that? I have-several times.
If the matter of one's chosen faith were without far reaching and eternal consequences, playing the 'my mama soup is the best' game in our choices would have been of negligible significance. Heaven and hell are real eternal destinations, yet all the religions point different ways to attain life and escape damnation- who is right because we all can't be right!
When I was a boy, born into a devout Christian home, I got born again and believed in Jesus because that's what my Parents believed and taught us as kids. But I have queried and overturned, some years back, the foundation of my beliefs and now I believe in Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ because I've known the truth for myself, aside my parent's leading. When we enter eternity, we enter as individuals not families or groups; so drop all your preconceived notions, hinged on familial affinities and see the light for yourself!
A christian songwriter captures one reason why I choose the Christian life in the clause: 'strength for TODAY and bright hopes for tomorrow...' Today, being emphasized because true Christianity doesn't present only the fantastic hopes of tomorrow- heaven and it's joys, anybody can boast about the unverifiable tomorrow; but Christianity, true Christianity, delivers to you Strength (power) for today. The power of Jesus touches the spirit; saving the soul, it touches the body-healing us miraculously and it seeps into the depths of our being to the emotions, healing the broken hearts. It's all in the Gospel of Jesus Christ: the panacea for all things!
In true Christianity we are not left as victims to the forces of life and existence, we are made masters of the Cosmos. Through our faith in Christ, we can upturn the unfavorable and determine outcomes in life. If you know Christians whose lives are at great variance from this, it's because they may not have found the WHOLE TRUTH as encoded in sacred Scriptures-the Holy Bible, in fact, we are all still learning of these endless riches in Christ.
As for the atheist, it is my opinion that many of them are more objective people than the average religious fellow. For those atheists who had religious parents, they had enough sense to know that, just because a parent is a parent doesn't make their faith-choice the correct choice. Thus they observed for themselves (OBSERVE, I didn't say INVESTIGATE) and chose to abide by no creed, no faith. Many of them, honest fellows, have turned away because of the recurring inconsistency and moral lapses in the character of leaders of religion, over the years. Their feelings of disappointment are cogent, their revolt against ecclesiastical hypocrisy is genuine but their conclusion to denounce the existence of God is wrong with dire consequences for the hereafter! Besides, these erring leaders are men too, seeking their own salvation-why quit your race because of their flaws? Friend, there's a real God and he probably isn't like what you heard-God is love. If you just turn right behind you, despite your past flaws, wrongs and all whatnots, you will find he's right behind you with arms open to receive you.
The quarrel over land matters in your kindred always follows this pattern: your parents are ALWAYS the rightful owners, and your wicked 'Chinwetalu Agu-ish' uncle is the usurper. Ever wondered why all of us have this uncles that are greedy for landed property? It's not a question for rocket scientists, it's simply that same pervasive 'my mama soup is the best' mindset. "My parents are always right!" You insist. Well, I guess that means you don't have a state of origin on Planet Earth because your parents must have fallen right out of heaven!
You are not a man of yourself, even if you feed and cloth a wife and several kids, if your basis for life most crucial decision-eternity-is a mere offshoot of an unevaluated and sentimental attachment to your background and parental upbringing. You really should think about this. While it may not be of weighty implications that we continue to defend, each of us, our mothers' literal soup as the best in the world, in choosing the grave issue of faith and our preparation for life after death, we must objectively consider the matter to find the truth for ourselves. Because in this matter, 'my mama soup' won't do!
Dave Nwajiuba
August 22, 2013
Port Harcourt.
***Rev. Kenneth E. Hagin; 1972, 'I BELIEVE VISIONS', page 6, Faith Library Publications.
(The experience of hell inserted at the outset of this write up is NOT fictional but true encounters of another writer.)
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