Life (7): Oprah, being all you can be and the plan of God

Are you a spiritual person? Have you been seeking something more out of your spiritual life? This is a question the majority of people in the western world seem to be asking. Generally speaking, most of us aren’t questioning whether there is a spiritual world but rather, we are asking how can I access the power that seems to be on offer through spirituality? The popular spiritual practices may include astrology, clairvoyants, tarot cards and so on.

This spiritual quest has been led by so called spiritual gurus like Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra. They offer a message that is up lifting and a hyper spiritual. Their message generally promotes self actualization (you can be all you can, you are who you are and you need to look in to self for answers) and self edifying (you are a good person, a demy god). Oprah particularly promotes the teaching that you can create your own destiny. She is rather fuzzy on what she believes about God, but most ‘spiritual gurus’ claim that there is some sort of God, which may be within us or in nature, but the key is to actualize it for this will empower you.

I was inspired to write this article after watching Matt Damon’s new movie “Adjustment Bureau”. It was an entertaining movie and very thought provoking. The basic premise of the movie is that there is a grand ‘Chairman’, symbolic of God, who writes the plans of the world. There are officers, who are symbolic of angels, who make sure the Chairman’s plan finds its fruition. The officers work for the Adjustment Bureau. Throughout the movie, Matt Damon’s character contests this plan as he seeks to find the love of his life while covertly changing his destiny, which causes great friction between him and the Adjustment Bureau.

For most part, the movie steps into biblical territory with the dominate themes of the movie being the will of God, angels and the will of humans. The director himself when asked about whether he intended the movie to step into this territory commented: “I wanted to raise questions”. The movie definitely raises spiritual questions, which in a way, is a good thing. The movie basically suggests that you can write your own destiny if you try hard enough. This led me to ask, can we, mere mortals who can’t even know whether we’ll make it out the front door of our houses safely, write our own destiny?

This is a deep and spiritual question, which people like Oprah are asking. The New Age movement and the occult direct us to look within, to look to self to find peace and answers to life. The movie “The Adjustment Bureau” is in line with this teaching. However, will looking to self or within really be our answer? This notion presumes that we humans have a ‘good’ spiritual core, which we have simply restrained. But as Jesus said, it is from the heart, the centre of our being where evil stems from (Matthew 15:19; Mark 7:21). Jesus, who is in my opinion the most spiritual person of all time as he is God, the king of all that is spiritual, claims that looking to self or within will do us no good for we are rotten to the core. But why would Jesus say this? It's so negative and I thought spirituality was positive, right?

The answer to the above question will also answer the question of true spirituality. See, the bible teaches that God, who is eternal, created the universe and everything that exists within the universe. He made us, humans, to live in relationship with him. It also claims that we are created in his image, which basically means to reflect God by the way we live and serve. God is our dad, our protector, provider and companion. True spirituality finds its fulfilment in God. However, we all have rejected God and decided to live separate from him. We all have decided to write our own ‘plan’. However, without God, we die both spiritually and physically. It’s kind of like using a TV, which needs to be plugged into a power socket, then ripping it out of the power socket; will it still work? No way! We are the same – we need to be plugged into God or we will die.

God in his loving kindness stepped into our world as the man Jesus to rescue us from our rejection and seperation. See, we need God. You can’t be spiritual without him. So, you must be plugged into him! But how do I get plugged into God when there are so many religions? The bible explains that Jesus is God, the one and only God and the only way to true spiritual fulfilment. Ok, I get that, but Jesus lived 2 000 years ago. The bible makes this amazing claim. It claims that it is the very words of God, revealing perfectly to us the person of Jesus.

Jesus is our answer. Our rejection of God was no mere innocent rejection, but rather we declared God as our enemy. This is a crime. We are criminals before God. That’s where Jesus steps in. Jesus, being completely God, became a human to pay our penalty. Rather then you paying your fine, Jesus paid it for you (John 3:16-17; Ephesians 2:8-10). The bible says that we can be plugged back into God by trusting that Jesus has died to pay our penalty. The answer to the spiritual question is to trust Jesus and to desire to know Jesus, through his bible.

Before we finish up, let me say that trust, which the bible describes as ‘faith’, is a life transforming thing. See, if you trust someone or something, you will be moved into action. For example, if you trust a chair, you will sit on it. Likewise, if you trust Jesus then your life will reflect what you believe.

To wrap up, Oprah and the spiritual guru’s have got it all wrong. True spirituality is a life that is plugged into Jesus. Anything else is faulty and false. We cannot write our own destinies for God, who is all powerful has written the ending to the greatest story ever told and that is the victory of Jesus over sin, death and suffering. Why not plug into Jesus today.