Sunday Message: Karma and Christ, part one

This week, at a bored point, I was on StumbleUpon, that lovely random-site generator, and I have to say that the first two sites it took me to were anything but random. God had a reason for me hitting them at that time.  This week's story is about the first one.

Now those of you that follow these posts know that I have had "experience" in the runes and the Tao, both pagan new-agey philosophies.  But I have learned several valuable lessons from them, probably first on the list being that when pagans get spiritual, they begin to see the framework that God built into this world- a physical/metaphysical framework that can guide us to Him if we let it, and we accept the guidance of the Holy Spirit to get there.  And so it was when I was deposited on my first stop on someplace called CollectivelyConscious.net and read an article called 12 Little Known Laws of Karma That Will Change Your Life.  Well, they weren't going to change MY life- because I knew them all very well from the Bible.  I don't want to go into the whole list, and I'm not going to play 'where this is in the Bible" with it, though being that analytical type it was my first instinct.  Instead, I want to show you the overview of the thing, and what it will help us see in the coming weeks.


Basically, all twelve of these laws tell a story with three main points.  And the first contains this concept:  The universe of this existence is a closed system, as science teaches to and extent.  Energy and matter cannot just be destroyed, they just take different form.  And that means "you reap what you sow."  That is both Law #1 and Galatians 6:7 BTW.  What you put into the universe, be it energy, intent, love, is what you will get out of it.  Thus, life requires our participation.


And our interaction with that concept brings us into the second set of concepts.  These concepts I can explain more simply by showing you what it said in the article:

– Whenever there is something wrong in my life, there is something wrong in me.
– We mirror what surrounds us – and what surrounds us mirrors us; this is a Universal Truth.
– We must take responsibility what is in our life.

That is their "Law of responsibility".

– If you believe something to be true,then sometime in your life you will be called upon to demonstrate that particular truth.
– Every personal contribution is also a contribution to the Whole.
– Lack luster contributions have no impact on the Whole, nor do they work to diminish it.
– Loving contributions bring life to, and inspire, the Whole.


And that is a combination of much of the last 4 laws that point out our actions- responsibility and putting into practice. 


Together, these sets of concepts go hand in hand, and if we ran the world With them, everything would be cool.


But, we injected something into the closed system right at the start.  That is SIN.


Imagine the world as a clear, cool bowl in which we could all live in contentment, able to see, to one extent or another, the Creator who filled the bowl.  But sin is like filling the solution with mud and dust.  It obscured our ability to see the Creator and live in contentment.  And the Laws talk about these things I'm calling sin that we injected.  They include:

Negative thoughts and emotions.  From Law #3:

– If what we see is an enemy, or someone with a character trait that we find to be negative, then we ourselves are not focused on a higher level of existence.

And that tells us one of the concepts we need to combat the "mud" of sin- focus.  Focus, as I have often said, on the bigger picture.  From Law # 7:

– When our focus is on Spiritual Values, it is impossible for us to have lower thoughts such as greed or anger.

Or lust, or sloth, or any of the other deadly sins.

Another thing we let in is harmful  patterns, "of thought, of behavior, of dreams..."  But we have a weapon against this as well;  it's called CONTROL:


– For us to GROW in Spirit, it is we who must change – and not the people, places or things around us.
– The only given we have in our lives is OURSELVES and that is the only factor we have control over.
– When we change who and what we are within our heart our life follows suit and changes too.


And the final thing we let in is the desire for results without effort.  As you might guess, the Laws are full of references to fighting this.  From Law # 11:


– All Rewards require initial toil.
– Rewards of lasting value require patient and persistent toil.
– True joy follows doing what we’re suppose to be doing, and waiting for the reward to come in on its own time.


And the Laws give us one other very Biblical rule to help with this:

– Whenever there is something wrong in my life, there is something wrong in me.
– We mirror what surrounds us – and what surrounds us mirrors us; this is a Universal Truth.
– We must take responsibility what is in our life.  (From Law # 5)

– BE yourself, and surround yourself with what you want to have present in your Life. (From Law #2)


And to be spiritual, one must surround themselves with the spiritual... to be a Christian, you must surround yourself with CHRIST.


Focus-Control-Surround.  These are the actions you need to see through the mud to our Creator and true contentment.  And if you slack on them, the Laws have one further warning for you- the "Law of change":

– History repeats itself until we learn the lessons that we need to change our path.


Now I'm going to make one big bad note from what has gone before to what will come next week- notice I said, ... to be a Christian, you must surround yourself with CHRIST.  I did not say "with Christians" though that would help as well.  The reason why I bring that up is because next week I am going to share with you the second article- 21 Things Jesus Wants Every Sinner To Know... Right Now.  In that article, we'll see that while the above analogy is useful, it is NOT complete- and God is more than just the distorted face on the other side of the bowl.  Until then...