Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Taken advantage of, tarnished, polluted, expolited and rejected

BOY DELEVERIO
Mindanao Monitor

What is the most important MESSAGE that a human being can get in life and yet being taken advantage of, tarnished, polluted, exploited and rejected?

This is no other than the GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST.

To be able to know this gospel, one has to answer the question: " Do you believe that you will be resurrected, or that you will live again after death and will never die again?

Certainly, a great majority will answer in the affirmative. Now, because the answer would be a big YES, the next logical question is: "How did you know that or what you made you believe so?"

No doubt, the believer is aware of the gospel of Jesus Christ. A gospel that has, since its inception and propagation, been taken advantage of, tarnished, polluted, exploited and rejected.

Of course, the rejectionists are non-christians. Sadly and lamentably, many "born again" Christians deliberately or unknowingly became rejectionist, simply because they don't believe in religion anymore. These born again rejectionists regard established religion as a form of racket. They are partly right, but they rejected the fact that no less than Jesus Christ, in whose name they are "baptized", founded and organized His church which is built upon the rock of revelation. They miserably failed in "seeking first the kingdom of God," because they decided and concluded that the kingdom of God (true religion) no longer exist in on earth.

And so, they proceeded to exploit it. Using the Holy Bible (old and new testaments) as their authority, they preached the gospel of Jesus Christ and founded/organized their own churches, subjecting their respective congregations oftentimes to wrong and self-serving interpretations of the Holy Scriptures, as well as, placing their faithful under their wicked and self-serving spell. No wonder, there are hundreds upon hundreds of them dotting the globe, all purported to be preaching the same gospel but endlessly disunited, disconcerted and in disarray. They exploit the gospel of Jesus Christ just to make a living; they practice "priestcraft."

Ask a Christian church evangelist, preacher, pastor, minister, priest or bishop what Bible is he reading and ascribing authorrity and the answer would differ in any aspects, because some will tell you that he ascribes to Duoay version, some will say they have more trust in the King James version, while many others will make strong claims that theirs is the version of the Baptist, Pentecostal, Adventist, Watch Tower and many more. Such is the way and manner the gospel of Jesus Christ had been tarnished and polluted.

And who took advantage of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Of course, the very church that claim "perpetuity" in the chain of popes beginning from Peter, the leading apostle of Jesus Christ. All the rest, who protested and departed from it similarly took advantage, because they too practiced priestcraft. All of them, who make a living through that gospel, is taking advantage of it, and they have to defend their stand to death, or else they ill die of starvation, hunger and deprivation.

What really is the gospel of Jesus Christ which has been taken advantage of, tarnished, polluted, exploited and rejected?

This is the looming fact that Jesus Christ was sent by the Almighty Father to atone for mankind, to teach about eternal life and how to earn it, to prove that there is life after death by His resurrection and to build His church that will carry on the mission of preaching the gospel, perfecting those believe and follow Him and to redeem the dead. Christ's mission was to ''bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."

When Jesus Christ was about His "business of the Father," He subjected himself to baptism by immersion in water, in order "to fulfill all righteousness." This means that all who would follow Him, must, first and foremost, be baptized under the hand of those who have His authority, always remember Him, keep His commandments and endure to the end.

Why believe and follow Jesus Christ? Because He is the only one fathered by the Holy Ghost, born of a virgin mother, taught eternal principles, lived a humble life, died in humiliating death and rose again from the grave to assume His rightful place in the Heavens. For He is the Son of God unto whom was "given all that the Father hath."