I want to make something clear, I know often in my rants, that many individuals who may run across what I write here, seem to think it is personal attack, against them.
Nothing of what I ever write is to condemn others, or to judge them, only God is judge, I like the prophets of old am compelled to speak only against their practices, beliefs or teachings that oppose the Who is God, and Who is the Son.
What we believe doesn't change that Christ came to die for all of us and that we all needed that, but it is His life - the message we must understand as well. It must be applied in every area of our lives.
Nothing of what I ever write is to condemn others, or to judge them, only God is judge, I like the prophets of old am compelled to speak only against their practices, beliefs or teachings that oppose the Who is God, and Who is the Son.
What we believe doesn't change that Christ came to die for all of us and that we all needed that, but it is His life - the message we must understand as well. It must be applied in every area of our lives.
However, history proves that people will kill to defend their beliefs, doctrines, or practices and thus the world rages now. The message cannot be applied but by His grace in our lives, but we must first approach God the Father through the Son always in prayer, not by doctrine or our "Orthodoxy or Orthopraxy."
Religion, Politics, Foreign Policy, Criminal Justice you name it, has it's roots in the sinfulness of men.
Systems are not pure, as the early Christians so better understood.
They may have used the term Devil or Satan but they had a definition outside of what later developed within the context of church. They didn't believe in the Devil, as an entity in competition with God, a second god. They were not dualist. They understood that "Adversary" was all that opposed God's love and mercy, and that individuals, groups, governments and the world are the "Satan".
They never perceived of Him as the church does or we have been taught to do. The Satan is not some weird little pointed ear, long tail, horned and red in color individual that was a "fallen angel" that is in some great cosmic game of chess with God using mankind as the playing pieces.
This teaching so widely accepted with all religions which are pagan, even our "christian paganism," are false and do more to excuse all people from personal sin, then anything else. It has done more to produce the very opposite of what God's revealed love in Jesus was to produce within His people.
All of the "adversaries" of God that I have not completely listed above are the "Satan" they are merely a reflection of the entire human condition of sin and death in this world.
Just as we are, and can be, when we fail to receive God's grace in our lives. We become and are the "Satan" - the adversaries of our Creator.
There is much more that could be said here on the dualism teachings of the church, and the gnostic origins of the church for what is taught but that's for another book perhaps. There have been some very good books written on this matter as well, by men who are thinking men, who have opened their eyes and ears to Jesus Christ, and not Jewish myths, traditions of men, and all the things Paul warned the body of Christ of, time after time. and John and Peter as well.
I love people of all races, because Jesus didn't die for the Caucasian race only as some would have us believe. He lived and died for all men regardless of race, color, creed or religion.
We all needed Him. We all still do.
Religion, Politics, Foreign Policy, Criminal Justice you name it, has it's roots in the sinfulness of men.
Systems are not pure, as the early Christians so better understood.
They may have used the term Devil or Satan but they had a definition outside of what later developed within the context of church. They didn't believe in the Devil, as an entity in competition with God, a second god. They were not dualist. They understood that "Adversary" was all that opposed God's love and mercy, and that individuals, groups, governments and the world are the "Satan".
They never perceived of Him as the church does or we have been taught to do. The Satan is not some weird little pointed ear, long tail, horned and red in color individual that was a "fallen angel" that is in some great cosmic game of chess with God using mankind as the playing pieces.
This teaching so widely accepted with all religions which are pagan, even our "christian paganism," are false and do more to excuse all people from personal sin, then anything else. It has done more to produce the very opposite of what God's revealed love in Jesus was to produce within His people.
All of the "adversaries" of God that I have not completely listed above are the "Satan" they are merely a reflection of the entire human condition of sin and death in this world.
Just as we are, and can be, when we fail to receive God's grace in our lives. We become and are the "Satan" - the adversaries of our Creator.
There is much more that could be said here on the dualism teachings of the church, and the gnostic origins of the church for what is taught but that's for another book perhaps. There have been some very good books written on this matter as well, by men who are thinking men, who have opened their eyes and ears to Jesus Christ, and not Jewish myths, traditions of men, and all the things Paul warned the body of Christ of, time after time. and John and Peter as well.
I love people of all races, because Jesus didn't die for the Caucasian race only as some would have us believe. He lived and died for all men regardless of race, color, creed or religion.
We all needed Him. We all still do.
What I stand against if you have read my writings enough is the total disregard, we, Christians, have for all people, just because of their race, color, creed or religion, and don't see ourselves in light of the living Word of God, that all men are in the same condition, and all institutions are in the same condition, all governments are in the same condition and all religion is in the same condition.
We are without redemption from our evil, ourselves, our violence, our hatred, our selfishness, without Christ being the centrality of our life. Not the Jesus that has so wrongly been portrayed to the world, but the Jesus of the Gospels.
We are without redemption from our evil, ourselves, our violence, our hatred, our selfishness, without Christ being the centrality of our life. Not the Jesus that has so wrongly been portrayed to the world, but the Jesus of the Gospels.
We have far too long focused on doctrinal matters (and most often, been wrong) and not enough on living matters.
God loves the hater as well as the hated, the evil doer as well as those who oppose evil, but without Him, Jesus Christ coming to us, changing us, by seeing the life he lived, the death he died, and what resurrection and Pentecost really mean, we are hopelessly lost in our hatred, and our being a victim of it. We are lost in our doing of evil, and our being a victim of evil.
It is the love of God, that has been shed abroad in our hearts that Christ body needs and the world at large.
Far too long traditional Christianity has defined the atonement in terms that are falsely Judicial rather than Christ the Victor terms.
God's mission to bring Justice, was in the person of Jesus Christ while He was here both in the life he lived, and the death he died.
God loves the hater as well as the hated, the evil doer as well as those who oppose evil, but without Him, Jesus Christ coming to us, changing us, by seeing the life he lived, the death he died, and what resurrection and Pentecost really mean, we are hopelessly lost in our hatred, and our being a victim of it. We are lost in our doing of evil, and our being a victim of evil.
It is the love of God, that has been shed abroad in our hearts that Christ body needs and the world at large.
Far too long traditional Christianity has defined the atonement in terms that are falsely Judicial rather than Christ the Victor terms.
God's mission to bring Justice, was in the person of Jesus Christ while He was here both in the life he lived, and the death he died.
Biblically to "bring justice" does not mean to bring punishment,
but to bring healing and reconciliation.
Justice means to make things right. All through the Prophets justice is associated with
caring for others, as something that is not in conflict with mercy, but rather an expression
of it. Biblically, justice is God's saving action at work for all that are oppressed:
"Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the
fatherless, plead the case of the widow". (Isaiah 1:17)"This is what the LORD says:
"`Administer justice every morning; rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who
has been robbed" (Jeremiah 21:12)
True justice can only come though mercy
"This is what the LORD Almighty says: `Administer true justice: show mercy and
compassion to one another. (Zechariah 7:9) "Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice".( Isaiah 30:18)
--From Penal Substitution versus Christus Victor Atonement-
"The Rebel God" a blog linked on this page.
I believe sincerely anything outside of the action of love, self sacrificing love, in the exemplary way that Christ lived and died, is not Christian. We can turn the Holy Bible into something more unholy so often by all the traditions of men, then hearing the Word of God and seeing the Living Word. We like to shake our fist at the Muslim and their Quoran. When we treat the Truth of the Word of God, and especially the story, the One we trust in, in disregard of the Story, we have reduced our "Holy Bible" to nothing more then that we accuse the Muslim of having - "a book of violence that propagates it."
Wrong, all religion propagates violence, even ours if we treat the Story- Jesus, as a book, defined and dissected by us, into a few choice verses, to justify our own sin. Then it becomes as unholy, as any book claimed to be God's truth, when it is in contradiction to all Jesus lived and died for. This is what the serpent did in the Garden, he was the first Theologian, a simple animal, became man's first great Theologian. The first to WRONGLY divide God's Word.
When we as men, turn to concepts of man's justice, man's hatred for others, man's pride, man's powering over others, man's solution as war to the problems of the world, we have negated Christ in His teaching, His life, and His death. How dare we call ourselves "Christian."
So what I do is stand against all that makes us less then what we are too be or claim to be in Christ, this includes, false teachings, practices, and living. I stand against those things which say, powering over others, rather than submitting to others, is the way we win.
No we win, when we see the REAL JESUS, and we turn to the love He showed, practiced and gave right down to the Cross. The reasons most Christians don't live this life, is because of false teaching, and listening to evil more than the Holy Spirit and story of God's love to us who deserved none but Christ won the victory for all of us, the victim and the victimizer.
He redeemed us not so we can say, now I can live like the world, think like the world and do like the world and go to heaven. No! He redeemed us, that we redeem others, in this life, by allowing His life to be lived in us, through us and as us. So, that in all that we do and say, it is the same love expressed through Him by the Father to us, that we by the Holy Spirit express that life to others.
His entire story, the message we miss is found in who God is. We have too long tried to define God in every whim of doctrine rather then answering the simple declaration of the Word of God.
God is love!
Thus I oppose war, and power structures, that leave men powering over others.
I believe as Jesus lived and taught, it is in powering under, that we gain real power, It is when we get down and wash each others feet, and the feet of our community, our State, Our Nation and the World, is where real power comes from, resurrection power.
It is when we lay down our lives in love to all men, that we have lived in obedience to the Spirit of Christ and not the spirit of this World (this is the Satan).
So, when I attack a teaching or practice it is to redeem God's people from the sinful thinking that it brings in their lives, and in the end when acted out, it destroys them and all those around them. Jesus turned over the tables in righteous anger against those taking advantage of the poor, the widowed and the orphan, I get angry and rant... Jesus loved the table tenders, He hated their belief system that had translated the "house of prayer" into a market system.He may have flogged them, but he didn't go get a AK-47 or any kind of sword that physically kills or maims, if any killing was done, it wasn't people that He killed, He killed their "adversarial actions and beliefs about the Father". He chastised those He loved the Temple market place people. We twist that, and say, well in the New Testament Jesus did get angry, so war and hatred is justified.
Yes, He did get angry, righteously angry and He is still angry at our total disregard of our love for Him first, and then our neighbor. He is still flogging us, as a person, a nation, and world. Not to destroy us but to save us, and make His people not the Temple, His house of prayer.
No we win, when we see the REAL JESUS, and we turn to the love He showed, practiced and gave right down to the Cross. The reasons most Christians don't live this life, is because of false teaching, and listening to evil more than the Holy Spirit and story of God's love to us who deserved none but Christ won the victory for all of us, the victim and the victimizer.
He redeemed us not so we can say, now I can live like the world, think like the world and do like the world and go to heaven. No! He redeemed us, that we redeem others, in this life, by allowing His life to be lived in us, through us and as us. So, that in all that we do and say, it is the same love expressed through Him by the Father to us, that we by the Holy Spirit express that life to others.
His entire story, the message we miss is found in who God is. We have too long tried to define God in every whim of doctrine rather then answering the simple declaration of the Word of God.
God is love!
Thus I oppose war, and power structures, that leave men powering over others.
I believe as Jesus lived and taught, it is in powering under, that we gain real power, It is when we get down and wash each others feet, and the feet of our community, our State, Our Nation and the World, is where real power comes from, resurrection power.
It is when we lay down our lives in love to all men, that we have lived in obedience to the Spirit of Christ and not the spirit of this World (this is the Satan).
So, when I attack a teaching or practice it is to redeem God's people from the sinful thinking that it brings in their lives, and in the end when acted out, it destroys them and all those around them. Jesus turned over the tables in righteous anger against those taking advantage of the poor, the widowed and the orphan, I get angry and rant... Jesus loved the table tenders, He hated their belief system that had translated the "house of prayer" into a market system.He may have flogged them, but he didn't go get a AK-47 or any kind of sword that physically kills or maims, if any killing was done, it wasn't people that He killed, He killed their "adversarial actions and beliefs about the Father". He chastised those He loved the Temple market place people. We twist that, and say, well in the New Testament Jesus did get angry, so war and hatred is justified.
Yes, He did get angry, righteously angry and He is still angry at our total disregard of our love for Him first, and then our neighbor. He is still flogging us, as a person, a nation, and world. Not to destroy us but to save us, and make His people not the Temple, His house of prayer.
So, don't become personally offended, but do if necessary.
Become offended enough to re-evaluate your actions and belief system in light of no longer proof texting everything you do believe, this is the worst thing that we can do to God's Word, we have come to think to "rightly" divide the Word, is to divide it up into one or two verses, that will appease our sinful nature, make a doctrine out of it, form a group around it, and hate all those who oppose it.
God's "RIGHTLY" dividing is the opposite of our dividing, rather than division it creates unity among those who believe the story. It will always divide when we "search the scriptures thinking we might find life in them, when they speak of Him."
The Bible is not one million verses on how to keep from going to hell, it is the story of God's love to and for His creation. He doesn't want to deliver us from some future "tormenting fires". He wants to get us out of the hell all men are in right now, in the here and now. This is only accomplished by trust placed in the story of His love expressed through the first human to ever be the full expression of who He is- Jesus Christ- the Second Adam. Our trust is in Him, because of the unity of the story, not it's divisions created by men. This is the worst thing men ever did, at first was to divide it up into chapters, verses, paragraphs, sentences, words, etc. The Christian church has used that division of the story far too long, and miss the entire context from Genesis to Revelation.
God is love.
In light of everything Jesus was, did and is. He is the full expression of the Father. He is love.
Jesus didn't come to formulate a new religion but to deliver us from religion to a life of love for the Father first, and then to our neighbor.
Then we will find common ground as Believers when we trust the subject of the story and it will be "God is love."
Become offended enough to re-evaluate your actions and belief system in light of no longer proof texting everything you do believe, this is the worst thing that we can do to God's Word, we have come to think to "rightly" divide the Word, is to divide it up into one or two verses, that will appease our sinful nature, make a doctrine out of it, form a group around it, and hate all those who oppose it.
God's "RIGHTLY" dividing is the opposite of our dividing, rather than division it creates unity among those who believe the story. It will always divide when we "search the scriptures thinking we might find life in them, when they speak of Him."
The Bible is not one million verses on how to keep from going to hell, it is the story of God's love to and for His creation. He doesn't want to deliver us from some future "tormenting fires". He wants to get us out of the hell all men are in right now, in the here and now. This is only accomplished by trust placed in the story of His love expressed through the first human to ever be the full expression of who He is- Jesus Christ- the Second Adam. Our trust is in Him, because of the unity of the story, not it's divisions created by men. This is the worst thing men ever did, at first was to divide it up into chapters, verses, paragraphs, sentences, words, etc. The Christian church has used that division of the story far too long, and miss the entire context from Genesis to Revelation.
God is love.
In light of everything Jesus was, did and is. He is the full expression of the Father. He is love.
Jesus didn't come to formulate a new religion but to deliver us from religion to a life of love for the Father first, and then to our neighbor.
Then we will find common ground as Believers when we trust the subject of the story and it will be "God is love."
Doctor J.
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