I’ve been getting a lot of comments lately about karma. Some have asked if I’m trying to stack up my karmic points by traveling and serving. As if you get bonus points the further you go. Or they’ll drop a comment about how I can probably stop any time since my karma must be pretty good at this point.
My favorite was a discussion about giving away malaria medication to someone who didn’t have any. I still ended up getting malaria, and they chuckled and said that the karma that should have gone with that show of altruism obviously didn’t work. We both agreed that malaria doesn’t discriminate.
Karma is defined as: The force created by a person’s actions that some believe causes good or bad things to happen to that person. Or the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences.
Cause and effect. If I do good things, good things will happen to me. If I do bad things, bad things will happen to me. Simple. But the motivation behind the good deeds is ultimately to receive something, whether it be in this life or the next. If I do this kind or helpful thing now, I’ll secure something good later. It’s still a self-serving way of thinking. And your karma only covers you in the future.
As a Christ follower, the motivations are very different. Jesus doesn’t require a thousand good deeds before you retire to be considered for admittance to His Kingdom. The good deeds, the acts of service, helping the poor, those are things that flow from a relationship with Christ. We do them because we want to. Not because we have to. If simply being a good person was enough…then Jesus wouldn’t have had to die on the cross to pay for our sins.
“For it is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” -Ephesians 2:8-9
God gave us a gift that we didn’t deserve and could never earn. He sent His Son to be the ultimate sacrifice and reclaim our hearts as His.
I don’t want to help widows and orphans because it will improve my cosmic standing. The pain I feel in my chest for those who suffer the hell of human trafficking and those who have been devastated by war and tragedy; that’s His heart beating in mine.
My hope and prayer is that my life be used by God to show His love to those who are hurting and seemingly forgotten. If my time on this earth is used to bring joy and hope and love, even if just to one person, then it will have been worth it.
I don’t do it for the karma.
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