I welcome Linda Robins as a guest blogger this week. Linda spent two weeks in India in February and came home with much food for thought. Thank you, Linda, for sharing with us!

For You will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken spirit and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.  Psalm 51:16-17
 
Its funny how being surrounded by people practicing another religion can cause you to examine your own religious practices and beliefs. I recently had the opportunity to visit India and was directly exposed to Hinduism and Buddhism for the first time. Every day as I traveled, I met and talked to people who were living under the weight of karma. Karma is the sum of a person’s actions in this life as well as previous lives. Karma decides whether good or bad things will happen to him in this life and his fate in future lives. A person makes offerings and practices rituals to ensure that the gods pay attention and help change karma. Shrines are everywhere in India, and rows of prayer wheels, like the ones in the photo, surround the larger temples. Prayer wheels are small metal cylinders that contain a printed mantra, a sacred message or text. A devotee circles the temple, turning each prayer wheel with his right hand to gain wisdom and destroy negative karma. He must work constantly to increase good karma or he cannot become enlightened and “at one” with the supreme god. I know my understanding is limited, but the overall feeling I took away is that each person is responsible for his enlightenment – which could be considered a form of salvation – through his own actions.
 
These ideas are certainly distortions of biblical truth if not outright lies, but I wonder how many of us have unconsciously fallen into this kind of distorted thinking. Can you recognize ways that you labor to earn a salvation that God has already provided?  When you keep trying to be “good enough” for God to love you or forgive you? When you try to gain points with God through religious activity? Have you ever thought that if you checked everything off the list –  church, service, prayer, small group, Bible study – then you would please God and He would bless you? I have. But most often I am guilty of believing the lie that the success of my life, even the success of my prayers, is the result of my own efforts. I recently read this definition of temptation: an invitation to live life independently of God. Whether we realize it or not, we are always making the choice of independence or dependence.
 
Psalm 51 reminds me that no sacrifice, no effort, no religious activity, no self-generated goodness can please God. He is pleased when my heart is humble before Him and I live in dependence on Him. He is pleased when each of us prays to that end.

• Pray that God will reveal to you the areas in which you have not acknowledged your dependence on Him. Ask Him to help you trust Him in those areas and quit trying so hard to do it yourself.
• As you pray, remember to whom you are praying: the one true God Almighty. He is not far off, brought near only through religious ritual. He possesses power but also offers relationship. He is near and desires to hear what’s on your heart. Thank Him for His presence.

We as a church must also resist the temptation to live independently of God; we must embrace our dependence on Him in all things. Our Missions Council is pursuing His direction for our missions program, especially regarding a new missionary to support. The council, along with the elders, are seeking to hear His voice through an EFCA-guided strategy workshop on May 20. Please pray that the Lord will use that workshop to guide Calvary in the way He would have us go.

In Christ,
Carol Gilbert
Calvary Community Church of Brea