Religion and Friendships

A friendship that is based solely on doctrinal agreements is no friendship at all. In this case, the allegiance is only towards the doctrine and not the person, because the moment one of the parties in this relationship starts to think differently, the true color of the said "friendship" emerges.

When that happens, don't be surprised when 'friends' get offended or leave you. In fact, it is actually a blessing in disguise. Life is too beautiful to be wasted by playing religious games.

The Cosmic Turtle

A beautiful quote that I discovered the other day.

"If you shout to the world that you have the truth and then threaten and try to silence anyone who offers a different point of view, it is a good call you don't have the truth.

Here is a simple example of what I mean: If you know the earth is round and someone comes up to you and says, no, the earth is flat and riding on top a cosmic turtle, you would not feel the need to threaten or silence this person. The reason is, you know the truth and are not offended by someone who believes differently.

So remember, if what another believes makes you angry, or you feel the need to force them to believe what you believe, you don't have the truth! - because the truth cannot be offended and does not need to be defended! The Truth sets people free."

- Jacob Israel

The Disciples, Then and Now

During the time of Jesus, his disciples wanted to crown Jesus as the physical king of a physical kingdom, when the Kingdom of God that Jesus was talking about was spiritual in nature. We do not see Jesus trying to politically influence the Roman government.

Things haven't changed much. The disciples are in the same boat today - wanting to control the physical kingdom, instead of being the yielded and the effective conduits of the invisible Kingdom that is within and among us.

Two Catalysts That Set Me Free

The revelation of the grace of God and the revelation of the unconditional love of God were the two catalysts that set me free from the bondage of the religious treadmill. Few years ago, if it were not for these two, I would have walked away from anything that was even remotely connected to the mainstream Christianity. In my heart, I was through with the ineffective religious clubianity.

Before I met 'grace', I was exposed to and grounded in the 'Word of Faith' (WoF) camp. Despite the scorn it receives (even though some are well earned), I give them the sole and the well-deserved credit for instilling in me the goodness of God; that He does not teach lessons with sickness or poverty, the power of what one believes and the creative power of thoughts and words. But without the light of Grace, WoF can easily devolve into an old covenant mindset,  repackaged in a shiny new package. 

Prior to WoF, I was born and bred in a Pentecostal background. Thanks a ton to that background, I do not waste time debating about the Holy Spirit, healings, deliverance, spiritual gifts and all the charismatic related topics. But, this particular background was cemented in legalism, contrary to the truth, that what is begun in the Spirit cannot be made perfect by the flesh.

So, if you:

a. have not been exposed to the message of grace and the unconditional love of God as of yet,

b. believe God is angry with you and that He "prunes" you with disasters,

c. believe that His love towards you is depended on your actions,

d. desperately want to be free from the religious treadmill of never-ending and fruitless performances to please God, 

- consider reading or listening to books/messages by people like Peter Youngren, Joseph Prince, Steve McVey, Darin Hufford and/or Andrew Wommack (this is not an exhaustive list). Read or listen with the knowledge that the Holy Spirit is the teacher who enlightens. Listen with your heart. The Gospel is really good news.

Does this mean that I have arrived and have all the answers? Far from it and it is not my goal either. It would be presumptuous for anyone to assume that they have all the answers. It is this journey that I am treasuring. I am barely scratching the surface of the ever-increasing revelation of the person of Christ. Minus the after-effects of the religion in my psyche, which I still am being free from, this is one cool eternal ride.

Law Lovers

We are already in union with God.

Are We Really 'Wretched'?

I would assume that the apostle Paul would be banging his head now for using the term 'wretched' (in Rom 7). He used that term only once, while he was venting, like we all do at times. Never would he have thought that a good portion of Christians would be married to that term and see that as their core identity; when in fact, Paul himself said that we are a MASTERPIECE created in Christ Jesus (see Ephe 2:10 NLT).

"Unworthy worms" is merely a product of the religious mindset. It might sound so pious and humble to believe and say so, but it does not take much revelation or reasoning to come to the conclusion that the children of God are not worms. Do we call our children 'trash'? If not, why would we assume that Love would treat His children any different?

False humility is simply masked pride. Notice that in false humility, the focus is always 'me'. Our spirit has been fused with His Spirit (1 Cori 6:17). We are not "mere" human beings. In our core, we are divine. As He is (present tense: the glorified Jesus), so are we in this world (1 John 4:17) - regardless of what we feel.

How To Hear From God

God speaks to everyone, every day.

We miss it, because we usually do not expect to hear from him. When we (at least some of us) think of 'God speaking', we expect to see the clouds parting and hear a booming voice from the heavens.

While that may happen, he speaks through billboards, lyrics of a song (not necessarily “Christian”), movies, a thought, a friend, a stranger, a sermon, a book, a scripture, a tweet, a facebook update (that has a scripture, or not), the text on the side of a truck or via several other means through which we will know (but can’t prove) that it was  him.

Whenever I hear, see, feel or read anything that resonates with my heart, I consider that as him speaking to me. But (and this is a BIG but), what he says will align with his nature, that is, love. For instance, “gawd told me to ram a plane into a building”, is insanity. God’s communication will comfort, heal, guide, help and/or bring light to a seemingly bleak situation. Condemnation is not from him.

Religion gives out the impression that hearing from God is only reserved for the spiritual elite. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice”. Period. He did not say, “My super-spiritual sheep hear my voice”.

Although mountaintops and prayer closets are nice distraction-free zones, he does not indicate that one has to be holed up in a room to hear from him. In fact, trying hard to hear from him can be even more distracting. He is not afraid to speak amidst the chaos. This is the Creator of the universe that we are talking about and he is not limited on how he chooses to communicate with his children.

Simply start noticing (no need to strain), and pay attention to the heart – you will be surprised how simple this business of "hearing from God" is.

Also, avoid the temptation to over-analyze -- based on the simple premise, that a loving father longs to communicate with his children, much more than they realize.

How Jesus Reacted To Two Wealthy Individuals

Myth:

Jesus asked the rich young ruler to sell and distribute the wealth amongst the poor; therefore, wealth is bad.

When viewed from another angle:
The issue was about his TRUST in his wealth (Mark 10:24).

Now let's meet a "bad" guy - Zacchaeus. This guy was rich (Luke 19:2), and yet, we do not see Jesus asking him to liquidate his assets and disperse the funds.

The difference here is, Zacchaeus was not banking on his self-righteousness, unlike the rich young ruler, who supposedly kept all the commandments. When grace and unconditional love came to his life, the fruit followed.

It's never about people having money, but money having people.

Salvation is not just about a passport to heaven. The Greek word from which 'saved' is translated is Sozo, and here is the link to what it means.

Listen to the first words of Jesus after he began his ministry:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Because He has anointed Me
To preach the gospel to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty those who are oppressed;
To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” - (Luke 4:18-19 NKJV)

Freedom in every area of one's life is what Jesus came for. Sickness or poverty does not glorify the Father, who is Love, especially when the redemptive work on the cross took care of all those problems with one sweep.

Was Jesus a Socialist or a Capitalist?

"God created man in His image and then man returned the favor." - George Bernard Shaw

One of the things that we love to do is mold God to fit our views.

Contrary to the folklore, Jesus was neither a socialist, nor a capitalist. Both these resources operate using the resources on earth. Jesus' source was the kingdom of God.

When the need came up to feed the five thousand (not including the women and children), neither did the poor give what little they had, to fund the need at hand, nor did the disciples organize a fund-raising event to gather the money from the rich. With the little that was given to Jesus by a little boy, He multiplied it supernaturally and in abundance. He did not just meet their bare needs. There were baskets of leftover food.

Since Jesus' source was not the economic systems of the world, it did not matter how bleak the circumstances around Him looked like. He was the answer, because He was connected to the Kingdom.

The kingdom of God is within us. The One who is in us is greater than all the earthly resources put together. Even though we are in this world, we are not of this world. We are supposedly, the "children of God". We are supposedly the "Ambassadors of Christ" and the ambassadors are not taken care of by their host countries.

But leave it to the enterprising churchianity to sell this truth on how to earn this blessing! I do not know if there is another truth that has been more abused by the organized Christianity. The solution is freely available through the redemptive work on the cross. The fact that this has been been prostituted much does not take away from the truth that Christ has redeemed us from the curse of poverty. There is nothing "spiritual" or "virtuous" about poverty. In my view, the organized Christianity played a prominent role in glamorizing poverty when not one human soul has to live under the yoke of poverty or mediocrity anymore. The church should be part of eradicating the curse of poverty, instead of inadvertently glorifying it.   

In Christ we are blessed!

But why?

"The blessing" is not the end of the story. We are not blessed to testify that, "God has blessed us", while our neighbor struggles. We are blessed, also to BE a blessing, to be conduits of His unconditional love. Giving a homeless man a cute sermon on how Jesus loves him won't answer his immediate problems. We need resources to spare. 

But how can we, when we are allergic to the very term 'money'? Aren't we supposed to be "spiritual"?

No sane person who is financially struggling would say that they do not want money. Broadly classified, there are mainly two groups of people who criticize wealth. The first group has never experienced poverty. They have their needs and desires met, month-to-month. The second group has bought into the lie that poverty is godly, when it is actually a curse.

Money, by nature, is neither evil, nor good. It comes from a tree. When zoomed in, it is energy. It is a neutral element. In the hands of a drug pusher, it is called "drug money", but to the person who is a conduit of Love, who knows WHO the Source is, money is nothing but a tool.

24 / 7

Jacob cheated. Peter had a temper. David had an affair. Jonah ran from God. Paul was a murderer. Gideon was insecure. Thomas was a doubter. Sarah was impatient. Elijah was depressed. Zacchaeus made money illegally.

And yet, God loved them all, unconditionally. His love was not based on their religious theatrics or their heart-felt devotion.

Why then, would we assume that God’s love towards us is based on our actions, especially now that the price for the sins of the whole world has been paid by Christ Jesus on the cross?

 

Life would be a lot lighter when we are not so self-focused.

Be free from the yoke of trying to impress God.

We are loved, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.