From spirituality to humanism – what is the answer for humankind?
Autor: Anderson Rodrigues | Publicado: 2016-12-16T13:52:00-08:00


I am particularly impressed how
this term, spirituality or new spirituality, has become popular. People are
openly rejecting religion and openly receiving new concepts of spirituality.
According to one “theologian” (which obtained his degree by the merits of the
rationalism of the college founders), the existing rationalism in the world was
surpassed by new concepts, since it failed. What this statement is about I am
not sure.



I have found this new
spirituality is nothing more than a confused mix of different elements with
some technical terms, with the objective of bring more confusion than clarity
on the matter. If the first step is to ignore rationality, how can this be
successful? 



“Look into your heart”. “Look
into you”. There is no point in looking into ourselves. Have we become the
point of reference? I do not think so. Look the mess around us. Furthermore,
who is the human being who has ever provided a solution by his own merits and
efforts? I remember the great passage in Isaiah where God says “Look to me and be
saved, all you ends of the earth” Isaiah 45:22. 

How can someone, who considered that
the whole world had failed, look to himself searching for answers, searching for
the “perfect love”, a concept the new spirituality folks like to brag about.
What kind of love is this who ignores the reason and have no boundaries? Love
without reason and boundaries is not love at all. Call it any other thing. If
the world needs love, I am convinced will not be found within us, except if we
allow the own love come into our hearts. I will talk about this in a second.



The new spirituality rejects or
distorts history and create a bunch of mixed thoughts from philosophy, science
and theology, out of their contexts and distant of the reality. Having its
roots in Pantheism mixed with Buddhism, at the end the answer is “you and I are
gods”, and to reach this conclusion we need to be in contact with the others,
the nature and ourselves, through meditation or any other activity that involves
emptying the mind. Meditation is praiseworthy, but meditate in nothing or in
vain philosophies is hazardous. 



A man is merely a man. Flesh,
bone and living soul. Earthly, from dust came, to dust goes. 



Moving to the other extreme. Nowadays
the desires of a man go directly toward pleasures, mostly related with his own womb.
The soul, therefore, is being suffocated within, having few or no value at all.
Meaningless and purposeless are praised among the super postmodern philosophers,
who themselves despise philosophy and to justify it put some scientific terms
within their confused messages, impressing the not intellectual educated majority
people, conquering some position with their futile messages. The fact is that
those considered famous intellectuals tend to believe in these concepts. The
idiotic and absurdness have been praised as well. We live times of superficiality.&nbsp;



Nevertheless, among all of these mass of humanistic contents are people with
empty chests. I would dare to say empty minds, but in fact, their minds are really
full. Full of useless information, gathered from different means of communication,
without any filter to help them distinguish what is good and bad. In fact, even
what is good and bad have lost its meaning. How can then, in the midst of this
social chaos, people find any meaning, which indeed means find life? Life and
meaning are entirely related. I do believe life is what the very word means in
its original form. Life is eternal; it is not just a bunch of years spent in
self-indulgence, seeking a refugee from sufferings and a large way for
pleasures. By the way, fear has its two ways; fear of losing what some have already
gathered and fear of not being healthy enough to conquer what some have not
been conquered yet. The idea for them goes like “How much pleasure is possible
to be acquired with less pain and suffering”. The problem is that these two are
also related. Without sacrifice, there is no victory. Unless you define victory
as the superficial and worthless things human being have bragged about. &nbsp;Life, therefore, is meaningful to the extent
that is eternal, otherwise, as Solomon well stated, under the sun (worldly
perspective) everything is meaningless.



The heart of the matter is, how
can we, mere mortals, see life’s purpose and meaning, if we don’t start looking
through the lenses of the Almighty creator, who brought life to existence? By looking
through God’s eye, we at the same time appreciate what is beautiful and have a
profound disgust of what is evil. The divine nature of human being does not
come from a human being himself. We are no gods. Not at all. Having a divine
perspective of life, however, is only possible having a divine real substance
within us. It is true that this was part of humanity at the very beginning.
However, since the fall we have lost the contact with the divine, our sins
built a wall between we and God and our soul started to suffer the lack of
divine portion, coming therefore sickness, pain, psychological and
psychosomatic diseases, suicide and all kinds of pains and hurts of the soul. 



The only possibility to be
restored to the original pattern is therefore through a divine intervention itself,
which will never come from within us, but it needs to come from the own divine
one. We cannot be deceived. There is no way to generate godliness from
ourselves, either by meditation or optimistic thoughts or whatever is the case.
Reaching the inmost being with mere mortal words, as beautiful as they might
be, will never be enough. It does not produces what it requires, because have
not come from someone who could do such things. Dead words cannot produce life.
The words that created the whole world are those only powerful and living enough
to bring dead to life, and therefore restore our consciousness and all the
other virtues we had lost in the fall. By this point on, we start looking
things differently. The opposite is also true. I mean, we men are not different
of a naïve stubborn sheep.&nbsp; They have
problems with their basic senses and are easy deceived, being, in the animal
kingdom, one of the few animals who do not have any mechanism of defense. The
same is true about our minds. We can be easily deceived and influenced by any
kind of evil. Unless we have the armor mentioned for Paul, in his letter to Ephesians
chapter 6, we are unable to defend ourselves from all the different tricks and
snares the Devil has been using for long time, trying to persuade us and lead
us astray from the only way that conduct us to those powerful words, mighty
enough to purify our minds and give us a new heart, which means new desires. 



It is only by the very words of
God that we can live a life close to what the original purpose was. There is no
other way. It is true that words have lost their credits today. People play
with words. You promise something today and do not accomplish it tomorrow. You
say something with other intention. People despise the power of a proper
statement. Tough times. I do believe God has a new beginning, but until that
day, we need to be carefully walking close to the one who has the words of
life. These words will not directly fall from heaven onto us, as Jesus
illustrate concerning the people of Israel. The process is simple. We need to
seek them, and when we find them, we need to keep them. And I would say, run
for your life! Faith in Jesus Christ is the most reasonable way God gave to
human being to be saved, and this come only by hearing the very words of God. These
words are not well comprehensible for some. In a specific passage in the Gospel
of John chapter 6 (or 8?), some disciples left Jesus after his hard speech
about himself. When asked by Jesus if they would leave him as well, Peter, the
distinct leader of the disciples replied “to where shall we go, if only you has
the words of eternal life?”



As a matter of fact, Jesus is
himself this powerful word that came from heaven. Words bring meaning, and
actions are the expression of the words. The old story comes alive here. Who
was born first, the chicken or the egg? I believe the word of God was the
beginning of creation and therefore, the expression of the words are seen in
our actions. Jesus is the word who became flesh, accomplishing every little
thing foretold by God. He is the living word of God who came to bring meaning,
thus to bring life to everyone who is hunger and thirst. Not only is he the
bread of life, but also the spring of waters. Therefore, no one who lives
without Jesus has life in himself. 



Let me take this time to clearly describe
what Jesus is and how only he is able to give us life.



The word of God - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word
was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. &nbsp;John 1:1

The light of the word - “I am
the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but
will have the light of life. John 8:12

The Shepherd of the flock – I
am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. John
10:11

The fold’s gate – I tell you
the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. I am the gate; whoever enters through me
will be saved. John 10:7;9.

The bread of life – I am the
bread of life… I am the living bread that came down from heaven. John 6:35;51

The well of living water – Whoever
drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him
will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

The way, the truth and the life - Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes
to the Father except through me. John 14:6

The true God and everlasting life - …his son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 1 John 5:20

The first and the last – I am
the Alpha and the Omega, the Frist and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
Revelation 22:13

The great “I AM” – I tell you
the truth, before Abraham was born, I am!

The Savior of the world - And
we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of
the world. 1 John 4:14

The example of all – Now that
I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one
another’s feet.

The “all in all” – But Christ
is all in all. Colossians 3:11

Everything – Through him all
things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. John 1:2



There’s no words and adjectives
enough to describe how important the son of God is.



In view of that, we need to keep
this truth sacred. We need to protect ourselves from every kind of distorted
truth, which is indeed a lie, that can come to our minds and hearts to pollute
and destroy what has been built by him.



There’s no way to advance towards
the Throne of God without the sword of the word, the shield of faith, the
helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, the
feet ready with the message. It is not a message, it is the message. The gospel
of Jesus Christ, not from men, but from God, is the only message powerful
enough to bring profound and true transformation in the life of a man.



Hallelujah, thanks be to God for
Jesus Christ our Lord.



I do not know of any other way
people can be transformed. The experiences I have had in my life are strong
evidences to increase my faith and of someone else. Not that I live based on my
experiences only, but they are one of the strongest evidences of the
effectiveness of the life and death of Christ. After all, experiential
relevance is the test of truth that no other belief has to confirm the effectiveness
of its core message. Only the Christian message, inasmuch as are the words of
the living and true God, produces life, changing every single cell of a person
body, who now does not live by themselves, whose way is death, but to God,
whose way is life eternal.



However, how can someone believe it
If has never heard about this word? How can someone hear if there is no one to
preach? That is the reason that I believe in the preaching of the gospel. I
believe I am doing this right now. There is no other, for more sophisticate
that may be, idea or ideal better than the simple preaching of this message. I
have never seen any other message more contested than this one, but no other
that have survived for so long since its beginning. Do you know why? Because it
is the message of the living God. As God is eternal, so is this message. Jesus
said “will earth and heaven pass away by my words will never pass away”. Glory
to God.




If I were you, I would seek for
this word with the entirety of you strength. God alone can provide what you
need, and believe me, the biggest need you have in your life is the need of
your soul, the need of meaning, the need of a Savior, the need of life, the
need of God.