My little attempts to do
missionary work in my area gave me insight into religious attitude of many
people. The moment I talk about Jesus to them, they become defensive.
Straightaway they suspect me of attempting to convert them to Christianity.
So, they take stance
against Jesus, I would not say against me because I do not preach myself. It
did not take long before I realized that they weren’t quite religious, and were
not so much driven by their faith in their religion as by their vain egotism.
When they say ‘My
religion’, it is not the religion on which they put stress; rather it is the
word ‘My’ that is important. I follow this or that religion; how can anyone,
find fault with ‘My’ religion? They don’t care a hang for the ‘religion’; it is
important just because they follow it. What they think matters;
not the religion.
Because they follow their
religion for themselves and not for the sake of religion, whenever anybody
finds fault with it, they think he/she is finding fault in them and in their
choice. So it is purely to stress their ‘self’ that they stand up for their
religion. And since they don’t know much about their religion, their attempts
to defend it are absolutely irrational. One good example of this is the
Anti-conversion Law in India.
In many parts of the
country, the missionary work has shown light to many, bringing them to Jesus.
The Hindu fanatics aren’t too happy to see this. Therefore, they have put in
place the Anti-conversion Law to check the influence of Christianity here. It
works by putting checks on the missionary work and also on the people who want
to embrace Christianity. It has made it mandatory for the people who want to
become Christian to make affidavit, stating that they are not changing their
faith for money or under pressure. When they make such an affidavit, they expose
themselves to persecution from the Hindu fanatics in various ways.
Now, the Hindu who
consider this law to be an effective way to check the missionary work and stop
the Hindu from becoming Christian, are quite unmindful of the implications of
this law and how it affects them. They don’t see that it is not working against
Christ’s last instruction to His disciples to preach His gospel to the world;
rather it has compromised their own freedom to choose which religion they want
to follow! If it becomes impossible, the missionaries would stop the missionary
work. Simple! They are not going to lose anything.
But, just consider how
seriously the fanatic Hindu will find their own freedom compromised if in case
they themselves want to follow Christianity or any other religion in the time
to come! They have put in chains their own religious freedom; they haven’t put
hurdles in the way of Christian missionaries. They support such a law and they
are not even aware of the fact that they have willingly chosen to live under
‘spiritual bondage’! Even the British did not subject them to this kind of
bondage! The ‘spiritual bondage’ they have chosen for them is worse than any
other form of bondage conceivable under the sun.
Regarding such people Jesus
once quoted the Book of Isaiah in Matthew 13:
“Hearing
you will hear and shall not understand,
And
seeing you will see and not perceive;
For
the hearts of this people have grown dull.
Their
ears are hard of hearing,
And
their eyes are they have closed,
Lest
they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest
they should understand with their hearts and turn,
So
that I should heal them.”
People don’t want to be healed!
The sickness that Indians have been suffering from is slave mentality. It
tell-tales a spiritual condition. That is the reason why in its entire history,
India has hardly experienced 70 years of freedom. It seems this freedom they
have found difficult to digest. Small wonder that they are well on their way to
lose it again. And this time that they lose it, they won’t have another chance
to get it back.
Coming to the point, Jesus
has come into the world to spiritually liberate it. He said that the Holy
Spirit that He would send into the world after His departure would lead people
to the Truth, and the Truth will set them free. Let me remind my readers of the
fact that Jesus has said that He is the Way and the Truth and the Life. We can
learn from His teaching that life is no life at all if it is not free. Bible
says that God created Adam and Eve to be free – free to enjoy His blessings.
Therefore, He gave them the ‘free will’. It is Satan who turned them into
slaves – slaves of sin, curse, diseases and death. They became full of sorrows
because of this.
We, the missionaries, are preaching
the life which is not bound by sin, curse, diseases and death. We are preaching
the life that is eternal, holy and perfect – life full of endless joy. Jesus is
that Life. Accept Jesus; accept the life that is endless and marked by
unadulterated happiness. And the life that He offers is spiritual, not a
physical that ends one day. And the spiritual life He offers is lived in
Heaven, where God lives. Living together with God in the same place! Could you
imagine it! That’s what Jesus offers. Please do not be hard with yourself by
irrationally denying it. Leave aside your vain egotism. It will only destroy
your ‘self’ – mind, body and spirit.
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