Questions and musings, and praise

This is a sweet blog from Tracy who went on the Cairo urban trek: http://cairotrek.blogspot.com/2006/11/trek-update-o-h-n-spells-cat-retro.html

Yesterday was thanksgiving. I've always found it difficult to be thankful, especially now that I'm back home. I have so much here, I'm rarely hungry, I have a comfy bed, I can watch nearly all the anime I can stand, and yet . . . . I don't know why, but it seems like the less I have, the easier it is to be thankful. Perhaps lack focuses the eyes on God, and forces me to see Him as THE sole provider. The beauty of a sunset supersedes a new CD, a chat with a friend is more valuable than time in front of a screen, meeting God in prayer and just wasting time with Him instead of entertainment. When I see God, then I am thankful, but when I see stuff, why should I bother? There is a quote from a Sudanese pastor from the above blog: "You people in the West, you have begun to forget what the Lord has done in your life. Because of materialism, people have begun to abandon God. ...They don't want to give praise to God. They want to be parasites feeding on what God has given them." I think he has it right. And so does Jesus. Look at the beatitudes in Luke 6:

And lifting up His eyes to His disciples, He said, Blessed are the poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you shall be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when men shall hate you, and when they shall cut you off, and when they shall reproach you and shall cast out your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of man. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy. For behold, your reward is great in Heaven. For so their fathers did according to these things to the prophets. But woe to you who are rich! For you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full! For you shall hunger. Woe to you who laugh now! For you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men shall speak well of you! For so their fathers did to the false prophets.

So who is to be more pitied, the poor or the rich?

One of the big ideas/issues/questions I've been wrestling with is the concept of human rights. Considering all I'm wondering about, this is probably the last place I need to start a discussion/sorting out of thoughts. I am an external processor, so if there are a lot of contradictions below, its because I'm working through it as I write. Hopefully the last line will sum everything up, if possible.

Do we as humans have rights? I know this must be a weird question to ask, since it is such a fundamental assumption. How many organizations are set up as defenders of human rights? We see a child starving, or genocide, or systemic inequalities and something deep down in us says, "That's not right! They don't deserve that!" Or more often, "I don't deserve this!" But what do we really deserve?

If God is just, and He knows our hearts and clearly stated: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings." Jer. 17:9,10 doesn't that mean He has a better view of what we deserve than ourselves?. So our heart is desperately wicked, and God will give to us according to our ways. The whole book of Romans starts with the concept. " . . . for we have before charged both Jews and Greeks all with being under sin, as it is written: There is none righteous, no not one; there is none that understands, there is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way, they have together become unprofitable, there is none that does good, no, not one." Rom 3:9-12. And we know the wages of sin is death. So, generally speaking, the only human right, is death. That sounds awful. Take the example of a small child. The parents ask him to eat his vegetables, and he refuses. He disobeyed his parents and sins. He now deserves to die. God is completely justified in sending a lightning bolt down and killing this defenseless, "innocent" child on the spot. Sounds cruel, right? It gets worse. Not only does this child deserve to die, but he has also garnered himself everlasting torment. As it describes in Revelation "But the fearful, and the unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, will have their part in the Lake burning with fire and brimstone, which is the second death" Isaiah describes the new heavens and new earth and how the people going into will "go out and see the dead bodies of the men who have sinned against Me; for their worm will not die, nor will their fire be put out; and they will be an object of disgust to all flesh." Isaiah 66:24. Jesus also quotes this verse only a billion times when talking about how it is better to pluck out your own eye than to be cast into hell(Gehenna for those purists out there), Mark 9:47.

So to sum up. The basic argument is that there are no such things as human rights since we've all sinned and as such deserve death and hell. As for counter points, God did view people before Christ as righteous (ie Zechariah(father of John the Baptist), Job, and others I can't think of right now). But some would argue they are only righteous out of God's grace. Also, we are God's creation and as such do have some intrinsic worth. How much of that is forfeit when we sin (I'm not going anywhere near original sin cause I don't understand that). Even so, a diamond has worth, but that doesn't mean it has rights. And also, the nonexistence of human rights just feels wrong. I mean to go to someone who has been kicked around their whole life, despised, abused, treated unjustly, unloved and go up to them and say, "Yep, you've deserved all of it" seems just horridly cruel. But God is God and He can do and view however He wants to. I can't run up to heaven and fight Him till He comes around to my point of view. But I think God tells us the truth of how terrible we actually are.

Unless that is recognized, mercy has no meaning. Why do I need mercy if I have rights? What do I need to be forgiven for? I'm a human being.

Or does it need to be, I am a human being, Lord forgive me! I do deserve to be mistreated and tortured, yet by His mercy, I am not. Growing up in America, it is so easy to think I have rights, that I do deserve life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and happiness itself just because I exist (and am lucky enough to exist in America). How is it possible to be thankful for something you deserve? If you get pulled over for speeding, and the cop lets you go, are you thankful? Initially, yes, but how long does it take till you start cursing the cop, merely for doing his job? When you do get a ticket, why does anger ensue, and sense of wronged rights? You broke the law, you deserve what you got. But since you don't get pulled over every single time you speed, you begin to think that it is acceptable to speed. You'll even develop a right to speeding, a right to wrong.

Christ calls his followers to die. I'll talk about this later, but we have no rights in and of ourselves. We deserve the foulest punishment. There is no right to anything, only death. BUT, the mercy of God extends itself to us. We don't deserve it, but He gives it to us anyways. Through Jesus, we are saved from ourselves and the punishment we deserve. How cool is that! Even as I'm writing, I can't totally understand it, it still seems to easy since I don't understand the full weight of wrong doing. 1 John 1:8-9.

So then, if no one has any rights, we can do as we please with them right? No, for the same mercy God gives to us, Jesus commands us to extend to others. The parable in Matthew 18:23-35 shows that we are to forgive our neighbors their trespasses, in our hearts. The second greatest commandment extends it, love our neighbors as ourselves. I love myself enough to feed myself when I'm hungry. I should feed those who are hungry to. The rest of the Beatitudes are full of crazy things of how Jesus calls his followers to love their neighbors (love your enemies, walk the extra mile (for the solider that is oppressing your country), bless those that curse you and so on).

If we can love our neighbors the way God loves us, it is far more powerful than any defense of human rights. Human rights can be lost, God's mercy can't. Even as your worst enemy has the knife to your throat after he has raped your wife and killed your children, Christ requires you to love him. He deserves the worst punishment imaginable, but you are a sinner as well. Christ forgave you, died for you; God watched as His own Son died to those who were cursing Him, yet Christ called God to forgive them. He will forgive your enemy too if He repents and accepts Jesus. Otherwise, let God do the punishing, it is not our place.

I think we can truly be free to love God and those around us when we die to ourselves and seek to love others not with the expectation of receiving, but rather giving fully as God does towards us. Even when we are faithless, He is faithful, but that in way means we can be faithless as much as we want. To me at least, it takes away all need to see anyone as perfect in order for us to love them. Many folks don't give to homeless people since they will just use it on drugs or alcohol. Aye, but God gave you all the money you currently posses, what are you spending it on? Or one group of people is helped only to have them brutalize another. Does that mean we should be disheartened by this? Nope, rather we need to love with the truth and never give up. Obeying God is not about results, but more on this later. To sum up, if love is based on the actions of the loved, then love will linger in the world for a day at most. But if love is based on God's love towards us (even though we did not love him), then it truly will never fail. :)

I guess the end results of standing up for people and against oppression are the same as either approached with the view of human rights, or the mercy of God, but I think the motivation is different. When standing up for human rights, it becomes so easy to demonize the people who are suppressing rights. But in the mercy of God, it is not only the oppressed that are in need, but the oppressors as well. Yes, God will hold those in positions of authority for harsher judgment, but that is God, not us. God has a huge heart for the poor and oppressed, and as His followers we need to love them that much more too. But we have no place to judge or punish those oppressing them. Rebuke and call to repentance, absolutely, but not slander and speak evil of. (The first is directed at them in order that they would repent while the second is behind their back).

I must conclude that this is impossible except by the power of the Holy Spirit. This runs so counter to everything we've known and everything we want, that only by His power can ourselves be overcome.

These are my basic thoughts on the topic, and I'm not sure if they are right. Let me know your thoughts and listen to God, He is the final authority.

UPDATE, there are 18 places in the Bible (NIV) 6 for rights of offspring, 1 for marital rights, 8 for the rights of the poor and afflicted, 1 for man's rights, and two for the rights of an Apostle. I wanted to look up what they meant and went to E-sword and found the word rights does NOT exist in the King James. The words in the rights of first borns or offspring can be either inheritance or birthright to that. The words for the poor and afflicted mean right judgment, do justice or right as in a court case. Same deal for rights of man, and for the apostle case, the word is akin to power or liberty, which Paul didn't exercise.