
Author Frank Perriti stated while speaking in chapel at Liberty University:
“Once people have a relationship with Jesus, they are often weighed down with a “cloud of shame” because they fail to live up to “customer expectations,” the differing church sub-cultures that dictate how one is supposed to act in order to be called a Christian.”
Perriti’s “cloud of shame” caught my attention. As a pastor for most of my life I have spent hours attempting to share with men and women, and young people the love of Christ for them. Depending on their religious background, helping them to live the Christian life is much like the task of Sisyphus. The basic problem being the erroneous teaching of immediate or extended family ideas that are as scriptural as the rants of Karl Marx.
You would think that religious people would have learned a lesson from having had Saul as King in that he was head and shoulders above the sons of Israel. Physical attributes were not to be the gauge of competency. Saul had looked better. Based on performance, David never appeared that much better than Saul. Before you protest, have you actually read David’s story? Yet, we continue to pile heaps of shame on the heads of those who refute by their actions the fallacy of Faulkner’s “perfectibility of Man” idea.
1 Samuel 16:7: “for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart.” Grace Teaches.
Copyright © Larry Lilly