HAUS OF JOSH MALDITO

I love God and I love people - and I guess it doesn’t need to be more complicated than anything else.

Since I started this blog, to be honest, I felt a little bit perturbed, maybe in a good sense, when people asked me or told me that my blog seemed to be an “overtly-religious blog” or a “Christian Blog” in their own kind of perspective. Well actually, it’s not – although I follow Christ and been overwhelmed by his love and I’m not ashamed of living a life serving him.

I think it’s a bit strange, nowadays, when people really have to “label” you all the time to the kind of worship that you do. I mean, I admit that most of my typos are taken from the Bible but I never had that intention or thinking that this will make my blog a “Christian Blog” because if I would, I would surely miss my point. Why? Hang on, we’re almost there…

Again, I’m a Christian and with all my heart desired to live a life that honors and exalts the name of Jesus in everything that I do. Just like right now, I’m using my abilities like writing some stuff and blogging as my “practical”, “daily-day” act of worship because I’m also that person who believes that worship is a lifestyle, that it’s not about Sundays and going to church but it is in everything good that we do whether it’s giving a time for a friend  who needs your help, smiling to a stranger, patiently waiting and standing on a grocery store, or sitting on a traffic underneath the piercing sun and noisy buzzes.

 But again, my page where I write these things, my blog, is not a Christian Blog.

WHY? Let me tell you a story of an Anon who stepped on my ask button. On a day that I cannot remember, he said: (not really the exact words).

“You know what, I am an atheist. I don’t believe in God neither been so enthusiastic with stuff that talks about faith and religion. But I don’t hate those spiritual people or what they call themselves as “Christians”, I just felt so bland and neutral about those things. But you know what? I love what you are doing. I love how that “someone’s love from above” could give light and direction in your life. And you just inspired me to seek my own faith on my own and now I realized that a Saviour cannot just be found above, but with us, around us and that he loves us so much.”

If I would label my blog as a Christian blog, take for example this group of people who’s not Christian after all. Imagine the lost and the broken who were far stretch from our understanding about God’s love and his saving power. If I would confine myself in a label as a “Christian Blogger” then that may sound as an unpleasing invitation to those who doesn’t follow Christ at all. I don’t create this blog only for those who call themselves as “Christians” but to everyone because in the first place, one of the reasons why I built this blog is to have this some kind of an open invitation where we could inspire one another despite of our pasts and mistakes, and that we are deeply loved with the love of Christ.

Even Jesus illustrates it in the Gospel of Mark Chapter 2:17 “Healthy people don’t need a doctor – sick people do. I have come to call not who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

Now I realised that me being a Christian is more than just a label that you could flaunt to other people, but it must be deeply rooted unto Christ mission by giving light to the broken, a voice or to be an inspiration of another, and a helping hand to the needy. You know it’s so easy to say that we are Christians. It’s so easy to wear that label not knowing that being a Christian has also a weighted responsibility.

At the end of the day, I am always reminded that the art of following Christ was always been a challenge. Now I also encourage of where you are in that following stage right now to never give up as I keep holding on to that challenge too. Keep on pressing on to that desire to know Him more and live for his purposes, not by label, but by a way of lifestyle wherein our way of worship is genuine, true, and pleasing.

JOSH xx

PHOTOGRAPHY: JOSHMALDITO X CHIICHAN (c)

P.S Sorry guys, too tired to proofread because I’m so pumped to play Monster Mash. Does anyone of you here play that game too? Let me know! :) http://joshmaldito.tumblr.com/ask