Miserable sacrifice

"When you come to church, when you worship him, you’re not doing it for God really. You’re doing it for yourself, because that’s what makes God happy. Amen?”  -Victoria Osteen

Before I start, let me introduce myself by saying I am a person called by God into music ministry and I am not ashamed of saying so. That is all you need to know for the purposes of this blog.

So who are the Osteens?? They probably need no introduction to a majority of Christians but to those who do not know, they are the most controversial preachers of our generation and they lead one of the biggest congregations in the USA. They do preach what I may describe as a self centered Gospel that really dwells a lot on me, myself and I, which is half the Gospel if you ask me. I do not listen a lot to them and I rarely talk about them because it would be wrong to make a conclusive judgement based on hearsay and stuff I do not have direct evidence of.

Anyway, back to the statement. It was probably, the most controversial statement made this August and the YouTube comments show why. This is because it touches on a sensitive area and that is worship. Worship is as close to God as any man can get, and I am not speaking just about musical or artistic worship. This is because you worship what you most closely relate to. If it is money, that is it. If it is fame, so it will be and if it is God, so shall it be. And for it to be worship, it has to involve some level of sacrifice meaning you have to give up something about yourself, no matter how small. Thus comes in the aspect of sacrifice.

Worship also in another funky way is the evidence of one's love and admiration for the object of worship. The love part may not necessarily apply for all deities but for the Lord, it does because love is His very essence and nature. You cannot simply worship God without loving God.

So far, out of the many elements surrounding worship I have decided to pick these two. And the third element that we often love to overlook and that is Joy. Joy is one of the least expounded on topics when it comes to worship because church today has taught us there is no joy in sacrifice. It always has to be painful and therefore, any feelings of joy should not be present.
Put in another way, if we derive joy from offering our sacrifices, then it has not cost us enough. The deeper the pain, the greater the sacrifice. And from the pain, we gain a sense of self righteousness which again is totally not the goal of worship.

David in psalms 122 says, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go up to the house of the Lord. They joy was there before the sacrifice came. Let me put it this way, his righteousness preceded his sacrifice. And what I am about to say next will cause me some trouble.
God is the object of worship but man is at the center of it. People believe worship starts with sacrifice but it actually starts with man's delight in God. God is not interested in the depth of the sacrifice if the Lord isn't the delight of the man offering it. Our own joy therefore comes into scrutiny here. God is not a sadist who lives off the praises of man. That isn't him. A sacrifice offered up with melancholy is in no way God's idea of worship. And this is not to say that deep sacrifice is bad. I am just saying if at the end of the day after offering up worship or a sacrifice and all that is left in your heart is anything other than joy; if it is just pain and sorrow, you need to check yourself again.

Most Christians misunderstand joy. Joy is a fruit of the spirit, not a reward for anything we have done. The fruit of the spirit is something that all Christians need to exercise for we all have the Holy spirit as a result of accepting salvation. If joy and delight are not the center of our worship then we are doing it wrong.

The rest is for you to figure but that is the pinnacle of my thoughts regarding the statement by Victoria. I truly and shamelessly believe that man is also a priority in worship. Man's delight and joy are priorities in worship. Sacrifice in worship is important but that is not what God is essentially looking for. He wants to be the delight of our hearts. No delight, no joy, no worship.

Pride and atheism

The nature of man when presented with the idea of God is to come up with another alternative. That being the basic flaw of man and even of Lucifer himself. Pride.

The foundation above statement is drawn out of a C.S. Lewis teaching, not entirely my original work. However, the rest of this shall be my own work, so not worry, I will not be regurgitating other people's ideas.

The first sin committed wasn't that of rebellion to God's word but of pride. Adam did not sin when he ate the forbidden fruit but when he decided to take on another alternative other than God. That other alternative being his human logic and intuition. Pride!!! Pride in himself, that he could come up with a better alternative than that which God had offered him. And since then, that has been the fundamental flaw of man. The attempt to attribute everything to himself and his ability to create, explain or sustain. The flaw that made man imagine himself to be a god, though not fully omnipotent, a god nonetheless. I could speak about it in depth, for I as a human, have been constantly fighting this on a daily basis. From the moment I wake up and separate me time and God time, trying to own the time given to me by God and calling it my own. Then allocating to him a portion of that time as if it were mine in the first place and all I am trying to do, is do God a favour and remain in his good books because I have bought it with my own property. Pride!!!

What I'm I trying to say? All I am saying is that the carnal nature of man does not allow him to give full glory or recognition to any other being than himself. Man is inwardly predisposed to glorifying and worshipping himself first. Then when he has had enough of that, to probably share what is left over with other people or beings (which I suppose in this case is close to zero due to man's selfishness). Man has never been at one time been more humble than proud on his own volition. He has only been able to do so when something greater than him changes that. He has only been able to give greater reverence to that only which is greater than him upon meeting that greatness. Humility has never been man's strength.
Therefore I would like to propose the following two scenarios for people who challenge the notion that religious piousness is man's creation.

A baby once born is born faithless and has no spirit capable of communing with God. The parents then choose to bring him up as a Christian and inculcate in him a false notion that God exists and that he created us and we should worship him. This coming out of a point that all men are born faithless but due to their unlimited imagination, fear of the unknown coupled with such a great degree of humility causes them to attribute all that they know and do not know to a supreme being. They extrapolate evidence from their surrounding that such a being can exist. Or.....

Man is born with a spirit that inwardly recognises that there is a God and they need to revere this being because He is greater than all men. However, due to the intrinsic flaw of man, pride, he tries to come up with other alternatives and so resorts to the scapegoats of logic and science. They fit in perfectly into the picture since both rely on the human mind, man can use the two to exalt himself. After much reasoning and thought, he concludes that religion is a creation of men birthed out of fear and ignorance. Since the atheist by now has transcended that level of ignorance and.achieved a higher level of self-consciousness, and has become fearless and.somewhat self-sustaining, he concludes that there is no such thing as God.

An atheist once called my argument simple and naive and for the purposes of the following section, I will validate his opinion.

I could only come up with the above two alternatives since life is primarily composed of two choices. And so follows the subsequent questions.

1. Which element best depicts man's character: humility or pride? Are men creatures clothed with pride or are they creatures clothed with white stainless garments of humility?

2. Which is easier for man to do? To beat his own will and in great humility, declare there is a being greater than him who could conceive such a glorious universe or; to try in his pride to rob God of the glory due to him by attributing the myth of creation to science and logic?

Call me naive but I think it is a bit unreasonable and utterly stupid to imagine man in all his pride and glory to willingly declare that he is so humble, humble enough to ascribe the pride and glory he has so long held onto, to an imaginary being. Man is the most imaginary of all creatures, but the least humble of them all. And if an atheist argues that religion is the apex of man's imagination, he must be ready to prove that humility is the greatest virtue in all men.

To believe that men are more humble than proud sounds very naive to me. Even I believe it is impossible as a man, as a Christian, that I am able to attain humility by my  own strength. I need a good deal of the Holy Ghost and the cross for that, and I believe that is the same case as with all Christians, even the holiest of them all.

I stand to be corrected but I think it is possible for man to creatively come up with the notion of deity. However, it is impossible for man in his pride to worship such a being unless there is enough evidence to compel man to humble himself.

To reconcile imagination and humility to the extent of coming up with God and surrendering wholly to him must be the most self-defeating thing man in his state of pride can do.
To come up with the above scenario and validate it is to me, the most naive thing an atheist can do.