The biggest impediment to the Cross and the path of Jesus Christ is personal morality, and especially personal morality projected and imposed on others. The healthy do not need a doctor, only those who are sick.
What do I mean when I say that morality is the biggest impediment to walking the path of Jesus Christ? Do I mean empathy for others? Of course not. What I mean is the internal judgments of one thing as good and another as evil, one thing as right and another as wrong, because these internal judgments are always based on what pleases us and what displeases us, what we agree with and what we do not agree with, what we're attached to and what we are averse from. The path of Jesus Christ disengages from this internal judgment wiring completely and instead focuses on empathy and compassion towards everybody and everything regardless of who they are or what they've done, are doing, or intend to do. The path of Jesus Christ does not ask, "Is this good or evil?" The path of Jesus Christ asks, "Am I feeling what this person is feeling, and am I responding with love towards them?" The path of Jesus Christ bypasses the internal judgment mechanism altogether and seeks to see everyone as the Father sees them, their pains, their hurts, their twisted reasoning, their loves, their fears, their needs, and so on; both theirs and ours. The Father sees all of this imminently and immediately all the time with everyone and everything. He does not pass judgment because He knows who we are and what we go through and what's wrong with us. He has committed all judgment to the Son, who Himself did not come to condemn the world, but so that the world might be delivered through Him.
Morality is the judgment that some things and people are evil. Not that they are good, because good is a given and everything God created is good. But it is the arbitrary decision that some things or people are evil because "I don't like that" or "that hurt me or something/someone I like." Morality is different from empathy. Empathy seeks to feel what the other person is feeling and to treat them at least how you would want to be treat or to treat them as you treat yourself. Morality is fundamentally self centered where empathy is fundamentally others centered, or at least brings others up to the level of importance as the self.
Human morality began with a toxin introduced into the brain from a piece of fruit modern humanity's ancestors weren't supposed to eat. This toxin created a malfunction in the limbic system of the brain (affecting the hypothalamus especially) and caused it to treat every adverse condition, including abstract thoughts, as survival threats. Thus whereas evil was an unknown condition to the human mind prior to this poisoning, it became obsessed with it afterwards. The human brain malfunctioned and passed down this malfunction genetically ever since.
Everything Jesus taught as conditions for discipleship, and the bulk of His teaching on practice immediately addresses and contradicts the way the malfunctioning human brain is hardwired. Letting go of possessions, relationships, beliefs, and so on from which we derive our personal identities immediately sends up survival red flags to the hypothalamus which then reacts and frequently creates cognitive dissonance as we recognize and agree with the truth of what Jesus taught. This is why our own psychology must be disengaged from. This is why it becomes necessary for us to be joined to Him and for us to request and submit to the control of His psychology within us.
Fundamentally, morality feeds on legislation and rules. The written declaration that one thing is good and another is evil is what it thrives on, either clinging to the rule as necessary to survival or pushing it away as antithetical to survival. Morality does not understand that rules frequently need to have exceptions in order to be healthy, and it takes great effort to adjust and update its definitions of "good" and "evil" to encompass exceptions. If it is "good" for me, then it is "good" for everyone, and if a little is "good" then a lot is better. The same is true of "evil." Balance is a difficult concept for morality, and it is frequently ignored or balance itself declared "evil" for this reason.
The path of Jesus Christ passes no judgment on anyone, and condemns no one. The path of Jesus Christ empathizes with and is compassionate towards everyone. The path of Jesus Christ declares no one "evil" but malfunctioning and offers a way to be delivered from that malfunction in this life. The path of Jesus Christ forces no one to walk it, but asks that one considers the consequences of not. Not condemnation by God, but the continued descent into personal insanity and need for restraints described as the outer darkness.
Morality is the antithesis of the path of Jesus Christ, and what He came to deliver us from.
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