Where do I begin? I want to be able to say what God is leading me in to speak about and still not offend anyone, and at the same time talk about the things or happenings that need to be addressed despite some taking offense?
Before any growth can take place, any and all, have to be willing to accept CHANGE. Change involves RISK, we have to be willing to step from the so-called known and into the unknown.
If that which we are doing is working, then why would we change to something different? But if it’s not attributable, then why would we continue to do it the same way? In other words: If you like what you got, keep doing what you’ve done. The definition of insanity is: Doing the same thing over and over and over, expecting a different result. Therefore, if we want something we’ve never had, we may have to do something we’ve never done, or see something we’ve never seen.
Folks, what we’ve been doing ain’t working. We may have more technology, we may even have a greater understanding of the workings of the universe, but I don’t know of anyone with the brains of a lizard that would say that planet Earth is a better place to live than it was a generation ago. Yes, we like to pride ourselves in being bigger, smarter, prettier, and more sophisticated, when in fact we’re in an accelerating downward spiral of disintegrating ourselves and our entire environment. Human nature isn’t growing kinder or more appreciative; we’re certainly not smarter that our forefathers, mankind has descended to a place that we don’t even know our neighbors, and not many of us could even point which way is north. What was called a fifth grade education seventy-five years ago is now called a high school graduate.
This ain’t working folks, what man is doing to man ain’t working. We’ve made a change all right, although subtle, it’s been constant, slowly descending to the depth we are now, a world that not only doesn’t know his next door neighbor, but probably hates him. We are anything but united. What ever happened to loving your neighbors, heck, what ever happened to loving ourselves? Thinking about it, this might be the problem; we hate ourselves. Therefore, man has no choice; we love, or maybe better said hate our neighbor with the same degree of affection that we use on our self. Looking at it this way, mankind might ought to look at himself, so that he can see the guy next door differently. If we can’t respect our self, how in the world can it be expected that one would even know how to respect or love the guy down the street or the person across town.
We, the human race, and even more precisely, Americans, have been fed a bill-of-goods. All are taught from our youth up to pledge allegiance, and I’m not just talking about to our country, but also to a set of ideas from the religious system.
Think about this. Democracy or a Republic is a great idea and looks good on paper, and as a matter-of-fact it is a great plan, but only in an ideal world will Democracy work. Power corrupts, and giving more power, it will certainly corrupt even more. We’ve been taught the idealism of a certain government, something that isn’t, or maybe even can’t be. Freedom, truth, and rightness are slowly, subtly being taken away from the majority of the people mainly by our pie-in-the-sky ideals and the pressure to bow to the political correctness that is being forced on us. I could probably write a whole book about this subject, but this is not what I want to express. Again I hope I can tie this manner of teaching that has been taught to us to the real subject that I think is so sorely needed for us to see and then internalize.
Now, I said all that so I could say this: In the religious world, it is no different. I’m not using the word religious as a good word, but in its’ purer definition. Religion or religious simply means methods. Did I just say methods? WOW!!!! I may have just completed in that one word all I wanted to say, maybe even just completed this book. There is even one denomination that uses that word in the name of their calling card.
In all religions, each and every one of them teaches one thing, and they all have it in common. That there is something we must do. I’m not leaving any religion out of this category, be it protestant, catholic, mormon, muslim, buddha, hindu, or any of the independent or even the home groups. There is virtually no true teaching of the true and pure Love, Grace and Mercy. All religions demand that there is always something we have to do to keep our status and fellowship with God. Folks, listen to me. This is not rocket science nor do you have to be a road-scholar to understand this. Nothing can be farther from the truth!
Love is simply Love. Grace is simply Grace. And, Mercy is just as simple, it’s Mercy. God just simply loves us, not because we’ve earned it, or deserve it, or believed it, or made a proclamation or a confession, and certainly not because we stood in front of the first roll of pews and let everyone come up to us, shake and howdy and then go on their way. It can be so elementally understood that; God just loves us, just simply loves us because that is what He does. Love us. Not because we meet at the building on the corner every week. Not because we pray, or read our bible or that we did or acted any certain way, He loves us because He loves us.
I’m thinking that at least one time in our lives we have all thought of God in a man sense, that is to say that we try to put our human attributes or maybe better said detrimental qualities onto God. His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts, so maybe it’s time to stop trying to create God in our image by manipulating Him to a human standard with our earthly qualities.
All of us have been taught by the religious system that God only loves the good. The ones that obey Him, follow Him, seek Him, and spend their waking hours showing this great love that we are supposed to have, or at least show the appearances that we have them. That’s crap! God just plain and simply loves us. Not because we’re pretty or have a gift for speaking, or because we went to some cemetery school, or that we can pray some beautiful prayer, or sing well, or read the bible often, or talk to others about Christ or any other high standard or good morals that we may have achieved. God just loves us for what we are in Him, his image. God didn’t so love a part of the world that He gave, He so loved all, where we are, in spite of who we are, or what we are, or even in spite of what we do or don’t do. God doesn’t love because we’ve proven ourselves worthy, or for that matter He doesn’t withdraw His love because we’ve proved ourselves unworthy. God loves and sets His approval on us because that is who, and what He is. The heart of every religion is that we must be doing something or saying something, you know acting religious, before we are recognized in His eyes. Again, that’s crap.
All, in this earthly body have fallen short, none in this clay vessel can measure up, but God meets us where we are, in His image. WOW! That’s not really hard to understand, but it’s certainly not what we’ve been taught. The Man within is Him. So as a matter of speaking we are all in the place where God wants us to be, in Him. No, no, no, we’ve been going or listening to these seminary teachings, I mean cemetery teachings that there is the good, the bad and the ugly. All, according to mans’ ways are about good and evil, and our judgments of people are based on our learned concepts of what good and evil is. In the tree of knowledge, good and evil both grew. Jesus asked; “Can a tree produce both good and evil (corrupt) fruit?” NO. Not unless they are the same thing. When Adam chose to eat of that fruit he was choosing his independence. And that’s all good and evil is; independence. Let us not forget, that God also placed in the Garden another Tree, the Tree of Life.