The gospel of grace and peace

Growing up, so many religious pastors and prophets meandered in and out of our lives, each one with his own vagaries and preaching his own variant of the word. I suspected that something was amiss when one very light-skinned Pastor Frank that had been visiting our house under the guise of “church” started pestering, no, more like ordering me, to visit him at his house by myself. I was 15 or 16 years old. I'm using the description “light-skinned” for Pastor Frank because we had another cheery and very nice “Uncle Frank” who used to come around to tell us bible stories when we were very little.

Fair-skinned Pastor Frank taught my siblings and I how to “hear from God:” simply place your thumb on and open your bible at random and the verse that is closest to your thumb is what God wants you to know. Heh heh heh! One time, he used this system to show me what God was saying to me. We arrived at Psalms 18:16- “He reached down from heaven and rescued me; he drew me out of deep waters.” Somehow, according to Pastor Frank, this translated into me being in need of deliverance from marine spirits!!!

I often wonder what he would have said if we had arrived at “Cain slew his brother Abel” and next “Go and do likewise.”

My mom had always been wary of Pastor Frank but my dad seemed to like him, probably because he didn't act like a potential rapist whenever they were conversing. One day, I told my parents about Pastor Frank's persistent request for me to visit him at home and we never saw him again afterwards.

We also had this church that we used to attend where it seemed like the pastor's sole aim was to pit my family members against one another and collect tithes. Hardly a service went by without some tithing reference from the book of Malachi. My sis and I listened in awe as he told us that someone wanted to initiate us into a witches’ coven so we should be careful where we ate…sigh. This man was guardian to a cute little orphan boy who got sick. The child stopped coming to church and I wondered why. My sister told me that the man refused to take the child to a hospital because “God will heal him.” The child died. I pretended to respect him but my sister had no time for such nonsense. They were always at loggerheads with each other.

Yet another told my mom that God said he should marry me! My mom didn't bother to pass the message across to me but she told my sister who told me like a decade later. 

Funny thing is these "MOG" with the weird....quirks had no real impact on my life growing up. My older siblings and I used to laugh at and make fun of them behind their backs. It was the “good” ones among them who seemed to be practicing what they preached that got me; the ones that everybody respected and sometimes called "Daddy." They always seemed like they were doing right all the time, preached strongly on the need for us to "stop sinning and accept Christ" and ultimately made me feel that I was going to hell as I never could get my "sinlessness" act together by myself.

I realise now that all of the preachers that we listened to while growing up, including the good, the bad and the seemingly honest ones, both local and foreign, had one thing in common- their message: "Do right or else God will punish you, let the devil have a go at you and you will miss the Rapture and end up in hell. Get right with God or get left behind."

Never were we told about the love of Christ and His gift of everlasting righteousness apart from works to sinners -the crux of the message of the cross! If something bad happened to you or you had financial constraints, it was definitely because you sinned or didn’t fast enough, pray enough, give enough, wash church toilets enough, preach the word enough or tithe enough. If you did some, it was never enough. You had to do more. They preached that God will not bless you unless you sow a seed or keep the Ten Commandments. If a child died, it was the “will of God.” How?!!! The same God that does not want anyone to perish?

Such religious teaching left me with a constant dark cloud of fear and gloom hanging over my head for a long, long time because I just couldn't get right with God by myself and thought I would be punished somehow. Anytime the Rapture crossed my mind, my heart would lurch....until I started hearing the true gospel and not by my own engineering: there is nothing anyone can do by their own power to get right with God. Romans 3:20 says “For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.”

In Christ, this is how we are made righteous: by His obedience and not ours. See Romans 5:19- "For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous."

In Christ, this is how we GET TO live in triumph over sin: Romans 5:17- "For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and His gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one Man, Jesus Christ."

I heard more and more of the word of Christ and saw that what these religious people are teaching isn’t the gospel. Paul addressed this in Galatians 3, even referred to the Galatians as “foolish” for believing this “un-gospel” teaching.

People who are hearing and believing this wrong gospel preach on keeping the Ten Commandments and God punishing the sinner for failing to do so; they do not teach the Good News- God's love for the sinner and His sacrifice of His Son to make sinners (the whole world) righteous apart from works.

Such are very quick to condemn and pass judgment on people who do not conform to their own ideals — very unlike Christ who did not come to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved. John 3:17. A few will tell you that going to the hospital to get medical attention when you really want to or undergoing procedures like c-sections and IVF is a sign that you don't believe that Jesus will heal you. Jesus heals - I'm a beneficiary of divine healing, but it wasn't because I refused to go to the hospital to prove my faith to Christ. 

Such deny the finished work of Christ in making the sinner who believes righteous apart from works. Their own method of attaining righteousness is not by what Christ has done but what you must do, a direct contradiction of the whole of Romans 3, Romans 5:19 and 2 Corinthians 5:21.Beware of such, believers. In Christ, righteousness is not a work. It is the gift by which we overcome sin through Christ.

With Christ, we don't have to live right in order to be saved; we get to live right because we are saved. Salvation comes first. When you seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, not yours from trying to keep the law and doing good works, all these things, including grace to live right and do exploits, will be added unto you. In Christ, Righteousness is a gift.