By Nick Agule
Email: nick.agule@yahoo.co.uk
Facebook: Nick Agule, FCA
Twitter: @NickAgule
Today on a WhatsApp group where we share the daily Mass readings, Brother Joseph shared that:*_”forgiveness is an indispensable gateway to God’s heart”_*
This was his reflection on Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 18 that we forgive those who wrong us seventy seven times. I was so touched by Brother Joseph’s reflection and I was moved to post the below: Brother Joseph you couldn’t have said it better! Yours above is so apt!
Forgiveness is what makes us Christians because it’s because of forgiveness that God sent His only Son to die for us to be forgiven and saved and not only saved but to become heirs in the kingdom of heaven. If Jesus died to forgive our sins, we too must ‘die’ to forgive others otherwise we are not Christians the followers of Christ.
Unfortunately so many Christians are being taught the wrong way by wasting their prayer time with God to be killing enemies everyday! They kill these enemies until one day they themselves drop down dead!
Jesus did not kill any enemy and there’s no where in the Bible where Jesus prayed to kill anybody. Like you rightly said Bro Joseph, Jesus forgave those who were murdering Him. The Apostles who witnessed live Jesus’ ministry and continued with it did not also kill anybody nor pray a vengeful and vindictive prayer. So where is this killing ministry in Christianity coming from? There’s no where in the Bible that the Holy Spirit is used as an AK-47 to gun down enemies! You see the people in this killing ministry are always looking stressed and sad because everyone around them becomes a potential suspect and the killing prayers intensify!
God created EVERY human being in His own image – the image of God is perfect and nothing unclean about it. But along the way some are infected with all sorts of demonic spirits. So what a Christian prayer is to target is the demonic spirit and not the human carrier! Any prayer targeting a human being is a prayer against God because Jesus tells us the human beings we see are God and what we do to them, we do to God.
Unfortunately these prayers targeting human beings are creeping into Catholicism and we as soldiers for Christ must rise to fight this evil. Always reject such prayers because whilst they massage our vindictive human inclinations and egos, they actually do nothing because the people we are praying to die never die until God permits it. Some of the pastors leading us in these killing prayers even die and go! So the futility of these prayers should be glaring to us.
The worst thing is that once you join the killing ministry your life is practically destroyed! You are taught to see your parents, spouse, children, work colleagues and all people close to you as demons and that’s how your life becomes that of a killer and you simply can’t give love and feel loved anymore! Killing and loving can’t coexist in the same heart!
May the Lord grant us a beautiful and forgiven day. Amen