The Struggle to be 'Good': Christianity in Focus
A Christian Living Article from All-Creatures.org Guide to Kingdom Living

True Christian living requires us to live according to Kingdom standards which bring Heaven to earth.

FROM Anthony James

Back to these thoughts again. - Here we go again, the struggle to be faithful sets back in. Does it ever get easy? Where are the people helping people who want help to be and stay a good person? I don't see anyone around me? Does God want me to be alone and good at the same time so he keeps me isolated? So many people are isolated and that's why so many people are on antidepressants and other medications. Our world is in a sad state of affairs. It begs to question what is the answer to a planet's conundrum?

I don't want to be a sinner but I have nothing else to do?

Is America the toughest challenge in terms of being righteous before God?

I ask this question because I'm coming to know myself more and more and if I were going to mention one bible scripture it would be this one;

7 "Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!

8 If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire.

9 And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell." Matthew 18:7-9

When I read this I feel as though I have it harder than some in other places and as a Christian this does confuse me. For example, I know there are children in poor country's who die from starvation. This is the saddest occurrence and no one disagrees. However, if life is all about getting to Heaven, does this unfortunate soul get a quick pass into Heaven because he starved to death because he was born in a third world country? I struggle getting around this situation and others too where children die untimely deaths. - I can envision the notion that if a child dies his or her soul can be reincarnated but this would only be if it is an absolute necessity that every life experience the earth-challenge. The earth challenge? Sin? Yeah I guess so. Sinning is not easy to stop, and yet that is exactly what we are being asked to do?

Take lust for example. If you live in America like I do (New York)- and if it's true that we should 'gouge out our eyes and cut off our arms' well then, hey, I have to interpret this scripture to mean that I have to move out of New York? Why? Well first of all 9 out 10 female counterparts are scantily clad on the sidewalks I walk on and drive by. Being here in America means that I can't even open an email without an advertisement with a near-naked young female's photo. The television is inundating me with, again, mostly nude women? I have even seen provocatively dressed women in church? So am I supposed to isolate myself in a cave and live a completely sin free life so that I can be worthy of Heaven? I mean this isn't possible but if it's true what the Bible says that 'many are called but few are chosen' this game of 'Get To Heaven' begins to take on the appearance of an unsolvable riddle?

How can we be content if we have money if the rich don't get to Heaven? How can we avoid riches when the Sloth-bound don't get to Heaven. How can we be sinless around a world of people on psychotropic drugs who aren't even natural thinking, breathing people the way God created them? If I interact with someone at work and have an issue with someone who is taking medications to keep them calm I can be the one, whose body is natural, who becomes agitated by the lack of natural response? If I am drugged up and walking around the sidewalks like a zombie do I go to Heaven? Sure I'm not sinning in that state of mind, oh but it's a sin to get that bad I'm sure?

Is the Bible a maze we enter only to find that it paralyzes us with fear or impossible challenges? And if we fail, off to Hell we go? These thoughts I am having seem to be rampant among many who claim to be atheistic - it is like they have reached a dead-end in their ability to get around what eventually becomes an 'unsolvable riddle' in their hearts and minds. How many challenges and tests are we under anyway? What is the Truth and what are the answers? Good people go bad, bad people go good- who should I be? The Bible says God comes into our hearts but then if we sin He goes away? What must Heaven be like if we get there? Must we be robotic non-sinners? And finally if this is so, why weren't we made in the first place to be 'perfect'? And more importantly is this question, why were we made so imperfectly if it's so bad to be imperfect?

I get it, it's all a fine balancing act and if you fall off the wire you fall down to a burning pit of fire. Nice! Real nice. Hey come on, someone redirect me, please! I don't want to die after this life but I don't want to live like a freak afraid to be alive either. I guess what I'm saying here is 'hey I need help but I have none' I'm also saying that I don't want to be told where to go to get help, I want to be invited in by people who want to help.

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