Your records of how you hate might be more interesting.
the spirit is in your words.
The fruits of the spirit do not hang far from the tree, no matter what spirit that may be.
I am aware that God sees me. He sees everything. He reads every one of our thoughts.
And the weeds shall be known from the wheat.
And in the end, separated from the wheat and burned, if I remember correctly.
Welcome to the harvest.
Thank you. I need to have twenty characters to post, so …
Faith is not a leap into the unknow.
Christianity is based on historical facts.
At its most basic if Jesus didn’t rise fro the dead, there is No Christianity.
How do you follow Jesus?
Hebrews 10;24. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, 25not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
How do you do this?
2 Corinthians 5:7: "For we walk by faith, not by sight.
- Hebrews 11:1: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”.
Faith and hope end when what you believe is realized. Love continues past them. So the greatest of these is love.
Matthew 9:35-38
35 And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. 37 Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
I embody the love of Christ as best as I can with everyone I meet especially those who are put in my path, and hold no one better than another. Whether they call themselves atheist or religious, innocent or whore, evil or good. All people were once children, all breathe of the same spirit that animates this world. I try to inspire, lift up, heal and help, and confront when called to. An obstacle to the self righteous, a path forward for the humbled in spirit.
I try to be kind while maintaining my boundaries and practicing a love that both nourishes me and the world around me.
This is my spiritual practice
I also mediate on what is kind and good and just. And try to diminish negative self sabotaging beliefs, ideas, behaviors. Learning and growing into maturity is a process.
I don’t know everything, and I don’t believe God calls on me to know everything. When I learn a new concept, I try it out. I look at it. Ponder it. If it is useful or proven true, I keep it.
I don’t believe that God calls me to think ALL of the correct thoughts to think or that He punishes me for not staying on point or task.
And I don’t believe He calls me to proclaim a statement of faith in order to be right with Him when so many different people say so many different things and I have no way of knowing who is right.
The church has lied about things. So how can I trust them when they say the Bible is directly from God without error, when men wrote it and bound it together. I did not know those men. I can’t speak to their character or intention. How can I trust the church when the religion was weaponized to destroy countless lives? When facts were twisted- Christ’s day and season of birth for one example. Pagan gods turned into Saints so they could still be worshipped, another. What else was changed?
Besides, being told that you have to believe specific things is cult behavior, manipulative, controlling, religious in my opinion. It is not spiritual or beneficial.
I look at what Christ taught and I am on board with that. Love is the answer to everything. Was Christ the Son of God, crucified, resssurected, a sacrifice for my sins? I don’t know, I wasn’t there. I don’t even know if he existed
Even the Jewish texts have narratives that are questioned. The story is considered more symbolic than fact by some. And I don’t mean the God portions Cain and Able may have been 2 Kings or Kingdoms. I just read about an Egryption official that may have been Joseph, son of Jacob. His life parralels with Joseph’s narrative except different name. And very different ending than what you might think.
But I am not in opposition of Christ. I don’t need all of that to be true or false in order to search, listen, meditate, or to be changed by what Christ taught and represented. I don’t need it to be true or false in order to look for God’s guidance or the Holy Spirit. Or to be moved to act in a way that lines up with what God wants.
I look at what Christ says about the highest two commandments and that is all I need. And I have practiced it enough to believe Christ is right.
I was saved long ago. Baptised. I did make the faith statement when I was young. Almost became a Christian Minister. I did the religious thing for a while. Long enough to learn there is something wrong with it.
I don’t trust the church, or Christians, or politics which is largely what religion has become. But I trust in God. I trust the changes I have seen in my own life. The miracles, interventions, what God has brought me through.
I am only here now on this site because I feel like I have to do something about the times we live in. I can’t just allow the world to go to it’s end without a fight. Even if it was always meant to be. Some repeating cycles were made to be broken.
But spiritial fights must be fought in the spirit. And to destroy an enemy is to become that enemy. A higher standard must be met. Do good, not evil
Was Jesus just a sacrifice to you? Did his teachings mean nothing? His kindness, his pursuit, the challenges he brought to religion, the questions he asked?
There is more to Christianity than a sin debt and a payment in blood.
Oddly enough, if you take into account that love fulfills the law (the two highest commandments) , or that if you forgive others you will find yourself forgiiven (what you give to others will be given back) you need no more sacrifice. His teachings complete the task without the blood.
But you can’t get there to that logic unless you are allowed to question.
I understand that there is apparently a twin of the Tabernacle, and also the Temple, in heaven. God wanted the dimensions, and details, of them to be identical due to some spiritual/supernatural significance in that regard.
It is also interesting to note that the altars and even the wood laid out for burnt offerings were described in very detailed ways. I believe this is because there is a supernatural dynamic to these things. The power of God seems to require specific detailed prescriptions of things just like the enemy requires specific detailed manners of doing spells and rituals.
See Jacob’s use of what I would call ‘white magic’ when he used specific cuts of wood from specific kinds of trees and peeled them a very specific way and laid them near the watering trough of the sheep which ultimately caused their reproduction to have a desired outcome. (Gen. 30: 37-43)
If you do not tell people about Jesus and about judgement to come, are you really loving them?
How do you know what is ’ good ’ as you reject the authority of the bible.
John3:18 tells us that not believing means one is already condem ed.
Belief in anything other than Jesus has dire consquences.
The bible says, not any church or religous leader, that All scripture is breathed out by God and is for teaching, rebuking and training in righteousness.
How can you meditate on what is good if you do not accept what the bible says is good.
Jesus is my saviour, example, confident and friend.
But if he didn’t rise from the dead there is no forgiveness of sin, no hope of heaven and no loving God.
Without a faith in Jesus one has nothing, just meaningless works and an empty life with no future.