Does Our Religion have an Agenda?

INDIA | Ongole

As a team, we recently watched Finger of Love, which is a documentary that goes to find out about the work of the spirit around the world (if you have never seen it I def. recommend it). Around the end of the movie, they begin following Heidi Baker who is a missionary in Africa. They take her, though, to Bulgaria and she is doing door-to-door evangelism with the local pastor. As they begin to talk to an old women, they find that she needs prayer for healing. The local pastor is translating for Heidi, but everytime she tries to pray for the women he insists that the lady be told everything about Christianity and accept it for herself. He won’t pray for her until she agrees that what he is saying is truth. Heidi getting frustrated eventually walks away seeing that he is only looking at this women as a possible convert to christianity. At this point there is a voice over that asks if our religion has an agenda.

This point for some reason hit me. Have I been forcing my religion on people and then once they accept checking off a box as if I have finished? Do I see the world as people to convert or people to love? The bible doesn’t say that people need religion but he does say that love is the most important. We are called to love others not convert them. Don’t get me wrong I know the importance of people knowing their father and what Christ did for them on the cross. But do I go about showing them this through facts or love.

The movie talks about showing people the love of God, and once those people get a glimpse of the love of their Father their only response will be to believe. When you think about it like this, things seem to fit better. You see that ministry is not something done on particular days or just because I am at the orphanage or at church, its 24/7. Its something I do when I wake up in the morning, go to the store, get the mail, jump in a rickshaw. Loving people is a lifestyle. It can’t be fake and it can’t come from me. Genuine love can only come from the Father and then we are used as a vessel to pour out that love on others.

So the question is whether you see you being a Christian as a religion or a lifestyle? Is it contained just on weekends or at certain events or is it the basis of your life? Does your faith have an agenda or is it fully saturated in loving people? And if you believe it should be a lifesyle and it should be the basis, how are you doing at loving people, not just friends and family though they are important, but strangers. People on the street that need the love of the Father. People that need an encouraging word. Are you an open vessel for God to use you to speak to the lady in front of you in line? Are you willing to pray for someone you have never met….for blessings, healings, or just for God to show them who He is?

I have realized that most days I turn my vessel over like you would cups after you washed them. But when you think about it when you turn wet cups over is they dry off, or dry up in our case. When I turn my vessel over and decide I don’t want to be used because its awkward or too hard… or I just don’t have time… my life dries up. I am no longer able to fill God’s full joy, grace, and provision. So the next question is whether you like me have been turning your vessel over or if you have stuck your vessel under the faucet? I pray that God will make me aware of when I have closed myself off from being used and wake me up to what he has called us to do….love others. I pray the same for you.