Death by Sympathy

When I indulge in mourning and complaining I am in reality trying to draw sympathy from others for myself at the expense of someone else. This involves accusations that contain a force that is both infectious and poisonous yet is very deceptive in nature. Worst of all, when I engage in this kind of activity I am following in the footsteps of Satan himself, for that is how sin originated in his heart in the perfect atmosphere of heaven. But just because I don't live in a perfect atmosphere does not lessen my guilt or danger in the least, for God and His character has not changed in the slightest. In reality, when I complain I am ultimately complaining against Him and am doubting His goodness and plans for me.

The next step when confronted about my complaining attitude will be to blame others and to imply that I would be a much better person if I were not so controlled by the decisions of others and their effect over my life. Thus I am attempting to avoid or shift personal responsibility, again following the pattern of Satan's original sin.

The outgrowth of this pattern in Satan's life resulted in a “theory of justice” that we have inherited through our sinful environment and have generally assumed as being true. This false idea of justice tends to be exclusive of mercy. In other words, the two become antagonistic toward each other, you can either be one or the other but not both at the same time. Thus, to be just it will appear that mercy is impossible or is a compromise, and to be merciful will appear to violate or suspend true justice.

This is the concept of justice inherent in what is commonly called self-justification. A person who justifies themselves claims to be as right or more righteous than even God. This was the trap that Job fell into. They feel that their decisions are just, pure and without fault in comparison to others. They are unwilling to admit that their advice or opinions might be wrong; are unwilling to challenge their own assumptions. This progresses into a spirit of merciless justice, a counterfeit of real justice that is abhorrent to God and blasphemes His reputation.

But this version of justice that is so commonly seen around us is not really a safe kind of justice; it is not even real justice at all. Even though it may appear right in the eyes of those who sympathize with us, the real problem lies in not seeing things as God sees them – what is going on deeper at the heart level. It is impossible for us to know reality or to perceive motive as God knows it without living in sympathy with God and relying on His wisdom and revelations. When we indulge in this counterfeit form of thinking and living we misrepresent God to others and come into sympathy with His archenemy who's example we are following perfectly. We have set up our own standard of judgment on others and set ourselves up as judge in His place. But worst of all we expose ourselves to the danger of damnation itself – the experience commonly referred to as God's wrath. And this – all because we started out on the road of self-pity and self-indulgence through mourning and complaining.

This extremely deceptive spirit is highly contagious and will infect many around us with that same spirit. It is inflamed by reinforcement from the same spirit that motivates demons and locks us into a mindset that is worse than slavery because we can be totally unaware of our condition. This condition is extremely difficult to expose because of the defensiveness of self-justification and blame that permeates it. But at its core is the spirit of disloyalty and selfishness.

There is only one hope for anyone exposed to be in this condition; that is total submission to the convicting Spirit of Jesus and placing themselves completely on God's side without reservation. The other option is to engage in lying and denial about their true condition which will isolate their heart against further painful conviction and will eventually harden themselves against all hope of recovery. Lying about the true nature of our condition will feel like the right thing to do to sustain us, but it is the path laid out by our flesh which always feels logical and right to us. But that path invariably leads to death in the end. We desperately need the conviction and salvation of God to deliver us from this most intense power of self-deception and the allurement of pride and self-protection.

Ultimately I am going to die one way or another. The choice for me is whether I will choose to die to my flesh now which is so extremely painful, or will I maintain what feels safe now and be exposed to the glory of the truth of God that will so expose me later that it will prove to be my eternal destruction? If I choose to allow the fire of God's presence and His Spirit of truth to expose me now, if I choose to agree with the convicting urgings of His Spirit inside of me (confession) to lead me to repentance and allow Him full access to my heart, then I can experience the early death to self through my own choice that will result in new life from Jesus being able to spring up inside of me that can never die. But if I resist and refuse to admit the presence of Jesus into my heart and resist the real truth about myself to expose the secrets of my heart, then I will deepen my resistance and blindness and will store up wrath within myself for the day that wrath will destroy me.

One of the most deceptive aspects of this kind of thinking and feeling is that truth and lies can all be mixed up together making me look just the way I want to appear to others. It is all about image management and control to avoid humiliation and self-defeat or exposure. It is so much less painful to tap into whatever works to justify myself at the moment than to maintain a straight line of absolute truth no matter the cost. But this is the path of crookedness, it is the course of maintaining appearances more than maintaining openness of my heart and true honesty. This alternative course claims that true facts are the real definition of honesty instead of true confession of what is in the heart, my deeper motives that remain impossible for others to see clearly.

But in the long run it will be impossible to avoid the reality of truth. Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. (Galatians 6:7-8)

Marley and Me

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a movie fan. In fact, I am moving in quite the opposite direction the more I realize how much the whole entertainment industry is brainwashing the world and synchronizing it together in preparation for the final showdown against God. But I am also aware that there are some unusual exceptions to the pervasive onslaught of perversion promoted by this industry and when I see them I don't mind sharing those with others.

Not long ago we saw the recent release called Fireproof that was produced by a Christian filmmaker and was quite well done as a movie, although at times a little idealistic as many Christian films tend to be. Tonight we watched another movie but this one not even produced by Christians as far as I know. But I was nearly stunned by the quality of the production combined with most amazing messages that run exactly opposite to nearly every other production of the movie industry.

The movie is called Marley and Me and revolves around a young family and the great impact their dog had on their lives. It is a most wonderful movie in my opinion and one I would highly recommend. The most surprising part was the obvious contrast between the main story line of the marriage and family who decided to stick it out together through all kinds of difficulties, and a friend who kept showing up all through the movie who lived the exact opposite kind of life, constantly moving from one exploitive relationship to another.

I am by no means a movie reviewer and I hardly ever even watch movies. I detest the effect that most movies have on my ability to hear God's voice to me personally and so I am always very cautious to the extreme about what I choose to watch. But the heart-warming and positive messages and emotions that this movie stirred up in me did not leave me feeling compromised like many of the ones I have seen in the past. So that is my story for the night.

Vengeance or Lovingkindness

I have been observing for a number of months the sad saga of a dear friend who is the victim of a corrupt judicial system in another state. He has been held in prison much longer than permitted by law without a trial and has been subjected to abuse and deprivation under harsh conditions while one corrupt judge after another has manipulated the system to avoid allowing him the freedom he deserves. They have repeatedly ignored all of his requests for justice and accountability by the court and in the last report I received yesterday I heard they even laughed openly at the mention of God by my friend.

Their words echoed closely the sneering comments of Pharaoh in Egypt when Moses demanded freedom for God's people. When confronted with the authority of the God of heaven Pharaoh said, “Who is God that I should listen to Him?” This was almost the same comments heard during a very recent hearing for my friend. When my friend heard them say this he is said to have almost cried – but not for himself and the injustice he is enduring but for the people who are so hardened against God that they will sneer and laugh at Him openly and despise His authority.

But what alarmed me was a comment of the person relaying this information to me. They added that they were certain that God was going to be very angry with those people for scoffing at Him in this way and that they are in great danger because of their comments. I know that this long ordeal that has dragged on in one form or another for several years now has been a tremendous drain on this close friend and I feel great sympathy for everyone involved. But I also am aware of a deep reservoir of bitterness in the heart of the person who has been keeping me up to date on this situation. This comment about God being very angry with these godless, unjust abusers is reflective of the feelings of many people throughout the ages who have endured injustice at the hands of others. But what I am confronted with is this: what does it say about not only God and His attitude toward those who flaunt Him but about us when we so desperately want to believe in a God who gets very angry at people who make fun of Him or who are hurting us?

What I am starting to perceive is that many Christians may be using their belief in a sovereign God to be their vicarious agent of revenge for the injustices committed against them. Being a Christian, they may feel that it is inappropriate to seek revenge on their enemies directly, but the intensity of their anger and bitterness inside is unavoidable, so as an outlet of release for all their rage they use God as a secondary means of threatening those who clearly are demonstrating the characteristics of the enemy. They use talk of stern judgments and thrive on ideas of a very angry God thundering down punishments on those who are clearly in the wrong. This gives them a little bit of hope and comfort in their terrible situations in hopes that someday Someone all-powerful is going to step in and even the score and inflict the pain and suffering that we feel is due to all those who exploit us.

But again I ask, what does this say about the God that we claim to love and serve? How is it supposed to attract those who do not serve Him now to want to come to Him? What about those enemies who are so heartless and unjust – does our attitude of vicarious rage cause them to want to repent and seek God for healing?

It is nearly an unchallenged assumption on the part of many Christians that the main method of inducing God's enemies to repentance is to threaten them with severe judgments and eloquent descriptions of “the wrath to come” on them if they continue to follow their evil ways. And I am not suggesting for a moment that there is not terrible judgments and punishments in their future if they do not repent. But the real crux of this question is, do those judgments and punishments come directly from the hand of an angry, revenge-seeking, offended deity out to settle a score, or are those judgments and awful punishments part of the natural consequences of violated eternal principles that are unavoidable if we reject the protection of God's mercy and grace that have already long protected not only those who have openly despised Him but ourselves as well? Is it possible that all of us are just as deserving of damnation and vengeance as those who more openly live in violence and wickedness? Is our relative righteousness compared to theirs somehow an insulation for us against suffering the wages of sin like we sometimes wish upon them?

For the past few years I have grappled with this issue of a God who seems more reflective of our own evil cravings for revenge and a desire to inflict pain on our enemies than on some of the plainest statements of Scriptures showing God to be very different than what we like to imagine. Just a few days ago I discussed some of this with another friend who was very reluctant to listen to such ideas about God as I was sharing, preferring rather to stick with beliefs in a God who will someday commit His “strange act” as most theologians like to refer to it. It is commonly accepted that someday God will finally come around to apparently see things the way we see them and get even with all those who refuse to accept His forgiveness and love for them like we want Him to.

It is then added by some – to the great confusion of the whole idea – that He is going to do this while feeling great sadness and pain for what He is somehow forced to do to end the great controversy. But it is believed that there is no other option for Him, so to get rid of evil He is going to have to torture the rejectors of His mercy in flames of hell for some period of time. But the farther we get into these theories the stranger it becomes to our teachings of justice and mercy. Generally it is said that mercy simply is suspended or dispensed with at that point since it is no longer available to the lost. That somehow gives God license to kill and torture some of His children in revenge for all the evil that they have committed against Him and against those who have been saved.

But the more I have pondered this and studied this subject and prayed about it and listened to the Spirit of God, the more I find these doctrines and beliefs totally unacceptable and even blasphemous in my opinion. These are not just “strange acts” for the God that I have been coming to learn about over the past few years but are closer to the characteristics of the very enemy that He is seeking to defeat. For God to suddenly adopt some of the tactics and attitudes of Satan to finish off Satan would be an irony that could easily sow seeds for further questions about Him that could linger on throughout all eternity. Maybe it is a strange act for very different reasons than we suppose concerning that word.

I realize there is enormous pressure on people to embrace these kinds of ideas about God when they are suffering under oppression from evil men. But is this really the Christian's hope that we should be encouraging? And furthermore, is this the spirit that will attract those same enemies to want to repent and turn to God for salvation themselves? What kind of witness are we bearing for the God we claim to love and serve when we promote such emotionally charged ideas about Him? Are we really being faithful witnesses for God or might we be found guilty ourselves of violating the ninth commandment?

I think the quickest way to find answers to all of these questions about God and the way He feels toward those who violently oppose His will is to carefully consider the life and example of Jesus, particularly during the awful treatment He received from sinful men during His last hours at Calvary. What attitude did He display toward those who clearly were out of line with any notion of justice or mercy? How did He react when tortured and abused to death by the very ones that He had come to rescue? The primary mission of Jesus to this earth was to reveal to us just how God feels about us and the real truth about His heart. Jesus and the Father have absolutely no discrepancies in their attitudes towards sinners. So if we do not see Jesus condemning or craving revenge against those who mistreated Him, how can we justify our desires to use God as our agent of revenge against those who mistreat us?

This is a very hard teaching for Christians to accept or even consider most of the time. That is because it betrays into the light our fleshly desires for revenge and retaliation that are so unlike the real truth about God. Unfortunately, religion has too often sought to conform our ideas about God more into our own image than to seek to truly understand the revelations about God that have been somewhat obscured through the filters of human messengers. But the truth is still there to be seen by anyone who is willing to lay aside their preconceived prejudices and allow the Holy Spirit to warm their heart with the real truths about our heavenly Father that have been kept in mystery and darkness for long ages.

Imagine the chances of Saul of Tarsus becoming a Christian and challenging the whole world to take a serious look at God if the early believers had embraced these beliefs about God that are so commonly held today. If those believers had been more interested in revenge against all the horrors that Saul was putting them through than in obeying the instructions of Jesus to pray for and love their enemies, I don't think Saul would have had much of an attraction to joining with them after His encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. But quite the opposite, I firmly believe that it was the intercessions of those very Christians that Saul was persecuting so violently and their Christ-like attitude in his face while he was trying to terrify and torture them that was the real source of the unavoidable pricks of conscience that Saul could never escape inside of his soul.

When Jesus exposed Himself to Saul on the road that day that turned his life totally around, it was not the first time that Saul had felt the strong persuasions and attractions of love and grace in his life. The constant witness of people who were choosing to act in the spirit of Jesus while he was abusing them was the most powerful weapon that could be used to disarm the lies that filled the mind of Saul. These repeated exposures to the presence of Jesus in the lives of His followers added to the convictions of the Holy Spirit reinforced by the prayers of Saul's enemies for Him, and this all became very painful for him as resisting them became a constant battle inside of his heart.

When Jesus showed up on that road, He was no stranger to Saul's mind by this point. Saul had long been hearing and resisting inwardly the sweet kindness and strange compassion of God in his soul that was so different than the stern, vengeful kind of God that Saul had grown up believing in. This idea of God as a merciful, forgiving, kind Father who treated people with infinite compassion and tenderness consistently was totally foreign to the religion that he had believed all his life. But it was the kindness of God that ultimately brought Saul to his knees in repentance, and nothing has changed in the years since that time.

I myself am just learning about this God and these truths are still seeping into my own thinking and perceptions. I too feel the pressure of wanting to endorse an angry, vengeful God when I am mistreated or witness horrible abuses of those I love. But I too must be reminded that the desires of my flesh will never bear truthful testimony about the true nature of God's feelings toward me or my enemies. God's ways are not our ways and God's thoughts are not our thoughts. I want to be transformed into the perfect image of God and not slip into the mistake of trying to form Him into my image.

O give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting. (1 Chronicles 16:34) When I looked up this verse on my computer I found that this phrase occurs 46 times in the Bible. I have come to see it as something of an anchor for my faith. God's lovingkindness really is everlasting.

Purpose of Probation

What would be the problem caused by Jesus coming back before every person had made a final decision about which side they were on?

Discussions on this topic almost always focus on questions about the real meaning, timing and circumstances surrounding the “close of probation”. But what is the significance of this “close of probation” from God's perspective?

"Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; and the one who is filthy, still be filthy; and let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep himself holy." (Revelation 22:11)

There is a lot of discussion and argument that revolves around how to get ready for this event. Most of the theories about preparing for Jesus' Second Coming and the “close of probation” generally center on perfecting “righteousness” in one's life which is generally assumed to mean eliminating all bad behavior. There are so many misconceptions about nearly all of the words and concepts in this debate that I don't want to get involved in that right here. What I want to focus on is an understanding that I have been coming to perceive, that the real issue here is the curing of both evil and righteousness. The completion of this curing process is extremely necessary to produce the iron-clad insurance that will prevent evil from ever rising again. And in my thinking, this is probably the core reason why it is so important for Jesus to tarry until every decision is fully cured, every character fully developed.

By curing, I am talking about the concept of maturing, developing, settling, like curing pickles in saltwater, not so much the idea of healing although that is an important part of what happens for those who are saved. This curing is more along the line of marinating something in a broth or juice so that the thing being marinated fully takes on the flavor of the liquid around it.

But the curing process is not just for the sake of the individual who is finally cured. It is part of a collective curing process whereby the whole universe becomes completely settled in its awareness of the inevitable results of following any other way but complete harmony with God's ways, the unbreakable principles of reality. This not only seals the hearts and minds of God's people on earth but seals all the intelligences of heaven. It also seals the hearts and minds of those who have chosen rebellion instead of repentance.

However, this sealing is not an arbitrary seal imposed by God on anyone but is a natural process of maturation from the choices of that individual. This sealing is represented as being carried out by the angels of God, but as with many other things like punishment and plagues, God and company accept responsibility for the natural progression that is built into the very principles of reality that He has set up in the first place. To not accept that responsibility would be to allow someone else to lay claim to it and to abandon responsibility, and God never sidesteps responsibilities. He will rather take the blame for anything even when misplaced, untrue or unfair than to give occasion for the enemy to have a potential foothold for any of his deceptions and lies about God.

If Jesus were to return before the final sealing was accomplished through the maturing of the choices of each person, there would then be some if not many who had not finished the sorting through of their options internally and had not yet made their own final choice as to which side they would choose for eternity. I cannot even imagine the enormous complications involved if God were to become impatient with waiting and rush prematurely to bring His children home. But a huge problem would be exposed when the confusion became obvious about which ones should be taken to heaven or should be left on earth.

This is where the issue of judgment comes in. Judgment is not about God determining the fate of everyone else but the maturing and exposing of their character to the point that there is no desire for them to ever want to change sides. The righteous will have become so settled in their mind and heart that they want to be like the loving God that they have come to know, and the lost will be so settled in their lies about God that neither side will ever be willing to change their minds again. The lost may appear to want to be saved when they see the riches of the New Jerusalem, but it is not because their hearts are melted by the love of God but from fear of the consequences of their rejection of His love.

Those consequences are likewise not something imposed from the outside onto them unnaturally. The punishments of God on the lost are not something forced upon them against their will but are the natural results of their resistant will when it is exposed to the presence of perfect love.

So again, hypothetically thinking, is it even possible to imagine what might happen if Jesus were to return sooner than it was safe to do so, before every person had settled in their mind their responses to the convictions of the Spirit of God about the offer of salvation? One thing that seems to be true is that God would be seen as very unfair in exposing them to His lethal presence before they had finished deciding whether to accept His offer of preparation for that encounter or not. And because God is never unfair in the slightest, that makes this scenario completely impossible.

It is our own very twisted ideas of salvation, the Second Coming and the rules of the great war between good and evil that give rise to our speculations and confusion about the timing of the coming of Jesus. There is enormous confusion about the elements that must be in place before this phase of the controversy can be initiated. Nearly all of our religious notions about the coming of Jesus are rooted in selfish reasons. We are more interested in getting ourselves away from people we don't like and circumstances that make us uncomfortable than we are in revealing the real truth about God's perfect character, His faithfulness and His everlasting lovingkindness. And as long as our desires for heaven are rooted mainly in selfishness instead of a desire to reveal God's true glory, we ourselves are not ready or safe to be saved and encounter His presence up close.

So it is not only the maturing of evil that must be allowed to be completed but it is the maturing and perfection of our own motives that must take place before it will be safe for us to be exposed to the real glory of God in Jesus that will be seen more clearly at His Second Coming. Many Christians today glibly believe that they are ready right now for Jesus to come and take them away from this earth. Most Christians have mistaken ideas about what it means to prepare for that great event. But it is God's mercy and grace that prevents Him from allowing Jesus to return while we remain in mortal danger of being exposed by the revealing light of His glory. It is not until we have our minds and hearts radically transformed by believing the real truth about God – totally different things about God's nature and character than what is commonly assumed now – that we will be safe to encounter the intensity of love that would destroy us in shame otherwise.

Shame is part of the essence of the fire that burns from the inside out whenever God's presence is encountered at close range by someone who has not fully embraced the truth about His character. That consuming fire is not something imposed by God onto them from the outside as a punishment. That fire is a natural consequence of lies buried in the heart being exposed to and yet resisting, truth that is unavoidable in the light of His glory. And the feelings aroused in that encounter will be shame, fear, terror, even hatred and all the other negative feelings that we are capable of experiencing. It is the overwhelming intensity of those emotions that will ignite the fire that consumes the life of all who resist the real truth about God's love, mercy and perfection.

Since Jesus refuses to allow anyone to be short-changed by not having enough time to finish their choices, He is going to allow events in the end times to coalesce together to compel everyone at some point in history to come to a final maturation of their characters at the same time. We cannot figure out now fully how that is going to take place, but we do have clues from the Bible. But it will happen whether we can understand it or not. Instead of trying to figure out how it is all going to happen, we need to spend our time and energy focusing instead on discovering the real nature and truth about His glory, His character, His beauty, His righteousness. The closer we get to perceiving the real truth about His loveliness and His consistent mercy and forgiveness and kindness, the more matured His character will be reflected in our own life.

Searching for Real Truth

I switched on the radio today to try to find some good music to listen to at the request of my family. What we heard initially was a speaker from a typical Christian ministry giving a simplistic version of what is often called “the gospel” trying to appeal to people and to convict them of why they should turn to God. But instead of making me feel excited about knowing God better, the words of the speaker only stirred up some very intense feelings of jealousy for God's reputation that was being unwittingly maligned by the many false assumptions about Him they were presenting.

More and more I find myself out of step with the mainstream of Christianity and the philosophies they promote about religion and God. Because of the confused and mixed messages that are almost always present in religious teachings I find myself wanting to scream out in protest at times, wishing that the real truth about God could become more obvious to people claiming to be representing Him. Instead, the messages most commonly given are along the lines of beliefs in an angry God being appeased by a loving Jesus who died a terrible on the cross to prevent us from being fried in hell if we will just somehow feel sorry enough for doing bad things that offend Him.

All of my life I have had some version or other of this kind of teaching presented by everyone around me and this was usually labeled as being the gospel. But something deep inside of me also felt confused by the duplistic nature of the things being taught and for the life of me I could not figure out how this could really be called “good news”. There was always so many requirements that had to be met, so many attitudes that I was somehow supposed to conjure up to satisfy the demands of this “gospel” that I just couldn't see how this could really be viewed as good news, at least for me. It seemed more like a competition to see if I could jump through all the hoops laid down by God before I could be accepted into heaven and on the other hand a God trying to find some reason to keep me out.

But what I have come to even more resent in the past few years is the underlying assumptions that are almost never challenged of a God who will inevitably turn on His created children and lash out in anger against anyone who did not meet His minimum requirements to get into paradise. Something about this whole theology just rankles deep inside my soul no matter how much rationalization the teachers and preachers do to convince me that it is somehow fair. And to top it off, when they can't produce enough reasonable evidence to integrate beliefs about a loving God and teachings about a vengeful hell together, they quickly resort to their trump card to shut down all discussion about the subject – the “strange act” syndrome or the “mysteries that we just can't know”.

This final move to shut off all thinking or questions about the inconsistencies between a God of love and a god of hateful vengeance smacks all too much of the mind and soul intimidation exercised most forcefully in the Dark Ages when religion imposed its harsh beliefs about God on every human being under their dictatorial control. Anyone daring to question the strong pronouncements of the church were quickly branded as heretics and were threatened with similar torture and pain that was commonly believed were the methods used by the God they believed in. The same kind of thinking still underlies much of religion today even though people think that the reformation has changed everything. The problem is, I don't think the reformation has ever really been finished. There are still very important truths about God that remain buried under the misconceptions of sinful men because of false interpretations of teachings in the Bible.

As we listened to the discourse on the radio for a few minutes before I got some music CD's playing, we heard the speaker talk about our need to be saved from the punishment for sin in hell. I then heard my daughter comment that what we really needed was to be saved from him. She was referring to the speaker on the radio, but it occurred to me that in fact what this religious teacher was really saying was that we needed to be saved from Him – God.

And that betrays the core issue that has bothered me all of my life about these confused notions of what really constitutes the gospel. For in nearly all of the teachings that are going around called “gospel”, it is ultimately God the Father that is either implied or explicitly taught to be the one that we need to be saved from. It is the “wrath of God” that is usually presented as the dire threat from which Jesus was sent to “save” us and only in doing whatever formula the teacher subscribes to are we supposed to be able to avoid that terrible fate. The formula presented is generally unique to whatever denomination or even cult that happens to be offering their path to salvation. But all of this is becoming very strange and disturbing to me as I see more clearly what constitutes the real gospel as taught by the Bible.

The more I learn (which is partly because I continue to ask lots of questions about assumptions and the real meaning of words) and the more I study the Bible on this subject, the more attractive the real truth becomes about the true nature of salvation and the real truth about how God relates to and feels about us. It is not that there is no real danger to be concerned with or that there will never be any such thing as hell. It is just that nearly everything we have assumed about these things have been based more on traditions in religion than on solid biblical study with open minds and hearts and led by the true Spirit.

The exciting thing is that there are more and more people in the world beginning to wake up to the real truths about God. I believe that His Spirit is in the process of waking up anyone who is willing to be taught, who is willing to reexamine their own beliefs and assumptions whether they are religious, atheist or anything else. Those who are truly honest in heart and hungry to know the real truth about reality are going to be blessed with fresh revelations of truth that are going to go far beyond anything that any present denomination teaches today.

This is why I believe that it is extremely important for people to not get stuck thinking that others can supply them with all the truth that they need to be saved. When we depend on any church, any teacher, preacher or theologian to be our source of salvation truth, then we are shorting ourselves of the access to fuller truth that God wants to reveal to those who are hungry to move us past what others claim is complete truth. We must not allow ourselves to make anyone our standard or source of truth without a willingness to go to the Source ourselves and learn to listen to the Spirit of God instruct us personally.

Many fear that if each person chooses to listen directly to the Spirit of God individually that the result will be chaos and disunity. But this attitude betrays a lack of real trust in the ability of God to communicate with His children. It also betrays a secret desire for control through human means to achieve the unity that can only really be produced by divine methods. The Bible teaches that all children of God will be led by the Spirit of God – not by any human agents. As that Spirit communicates with each person it will be seen that the real unity that Christians long for will occur naturally because the Spirit never contradicts itself and all truth will be seen to be in harmony with the Bible. But the ongoing revelation of truth may not always agree with the traditional interpretations and spin put on things in the Bible by humans trying to achieve doctrinal control over other people's faith.

What I have been learning is that all concepts and doctrines must be checked and reexamined, even repeatedly, in the growing light of the glory of God's character as revealed in the life of Jesus. If anything is the slightest bit inconsistent with the testimony and example of Jesus about what God is really like, then it is urgent that we become suspect of that teaching and be willing to reconsider what might be another way of perceiving it. I have found this to be an excellent way to flush out subtle errors in doctrines and teachings that all my life I assumed to be fact simply because my teachers and church insisted they were true. It is not enough to have Bible texts all lined up to prove some belief. Just because someone can quote the Bible does not mean that their conclusions are in line with heaven's perspective. More and more I am seeking to ground myself firmly on consistency of faith that must align with the Bible and most of all with the witness of Jesus' life and the promptings of His Spirit instead of simply believing what anyone else teaches or preaches.

I am still very blessed, instructed and even corrected by listening to various speakers or reading some of their material. But at the same time I always keep uppermost in my consciousness that everything I hear must be referred to the Spirit of God that dwells in me. Anythings that seems to be out of line with what I have already been learning personally from God needs to be examined by the above standards and I consciously ask God's Spirit what He thinks about it. Sometimes He confirms that I need to take it seriously and adjust my own attitudes, assumptions or beliefs. Other times He reveals that this person is not the complete repository of truth no matter how advanced and in tune with God they may be. They are not to be my final source of truth, they are only agents that God can use to add to what He has already been teaching me in my own journey toward knowing the real truth about Him.

This has brought me a great deal of peace as I no longer feel I have to feel guilty for not agreeing completely with every godly speaker or teacher. I realize that God may be teaching me things that they have not yet learned and at the same time is teaching them things that I have not yet learned. He definitely can use them to increase my own perspective of truth, but I do not have to give up what He has already shown me if it happens to differ from what they are saying. I do remain willing to once again challenge my own beliefs, but it is so refreshing to find out that God is never offended by anyone challenging or examining anything that claims to be truth. In fact, He is pleased when we are willing to begin thinking and questioning our assumptions. If our heart is pursuing a knowledge of His heart and an experience of knowing Him personally, He will be faithful to guide us in the right direction and takes responsibility to continue to draw us into a fuller understanding of truth.

What I am searching for are others who are willing to ask tough questions that motivate us toward a deeper appreciation of the real truths about God. I am hungry to dialog with people who are loyal to the Bible but not dogmatic in their prejudices. I want to connect with other hearts and minds that are willing to remain humble and open to new truths as God brings them to us and yet courageous in sharing these truths with others even when it is not popular with a church. And most of all I want to have a spirit free of bigotry and intensity. I am coming to realize that when I start to feel that “intense” feeling inside when others disagree with me that it is not reflective of the real Spirit of Jesus. This intensity is actually a counterfeit of the passion that God has to unite our hearts and lives with Him.

I want to have much more of the pure and holy passion that I am beginning to perceive in the heart of God and much less of the intensity of bigotry and defensiveness that characterizes much of the religious zeal seen in this world. I want to learn the ways of God, to share the feelings and emotions and reactions of God, to come into sympathy with Him and to see reality through heaven's perspective. This is my desire and my prayer and I believe is also His desire for me.