The Goal of Salvation

 

     One of the things which keeps coming up in conversations about salvation is heaven. In these discussions, heaven is imagined as another realm where God and His angels dwell as either a paradise, or some parody of an angel standing at pearly gates checking IDs like a bouncer. Most folks think that entry into heaven is the goal and purpose of salvation through Christ, and this is what we're taught by nearly every church and denomination.

      Except it isn't. Entry into heaven is not the goal of the salvation found in Jesus Christ.

      As I have written before, if heaven is where God dwells, then heaven is all around us infinitely in every direction, because God is omnipresent and there is no time or place in which He does not dwell. We simply don't experience it because of the distractions of this life and our physical senses, and because of our own peculiar human malfunction. In other words, we are all already there, we just can't see the forest for the trees, and are so wrapped up in our own stuff that experiencing the eternal and ever present presence of God at all is considered unusual and beyond extraordinary (and, if I were to be honest, would be overwhelming if it took place all the time in this physical world). Far from a realm of the blessed dead, the dwelling place of God is here and now, and the traditional images and parodies of heaven stem from medieval artwork and theologies, themselves influenced by previous pagan worldviews about the afterlife.

      The primary goal of the salvation found in Jesus Christ is to provide a solution for our common malfunction, that is, to make it so that we don't have to be enslaved to that malfunction in everything we say, do, or think so that we can act and speak free from it. Our salvation is first and foremost deliverance from this primary problem. This is accomplished through union with Jesus Christ in His death, burial and resurrection, intertwining each one of us with His Spirit so that we are parts of Him and He of each one of us as the parts of a body with Himself as the head which controls and guides the rest of it. But as we are united with Jesus Christ so that He may guide and take control of our words and actions, we are also united with the Father through Him. We become one thing with God Himself through Jesus Christ, so that wherever He is, we are, and wherever each one of us is, He is present.

      And so of course to be absent from the body is to be present with Jesus Christ, because we are one thing with Him. Of course when the physical body is stripped away we are exposed to the unfiltered presence of the Eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient Being who is love because we are already one with Him. God's solution to our malfunctioning neurology as human beings is to graft us to Himself, with our cooperation and permission, so that His Spirit and His Eternal life can be the new source of our behaviors and words. And the consequence of this grafting is that we are always wherever He is, and He with us, regardless of whether we are in the body or out of it.

      This is why the common misconception that salvation is all about who goes to some imagined celestial paradise, gets a big mansion in the sky, and lives out eternity in a kind of paradaisical retirement plan really, really bugs me. It's a distortion of the worst kind, and leads to all kinds of misunderstandings, spiritual abuse, and some pretty harmful theology. Everyone is just concerned about who gets through the gates and who doesn't, when that whole scenario is as much a product of medieval mythology as the Elysian Fields are a product of Greek mythology.

      God isn't going to ask anyone, "Why should I let you into My heaven?" like some Zeus like figure deciding who's been good and who's been bad, or deciding whose theology is correct enough. This is a popular image and the one most people think of when they think of it. But this isn't the reality of what our salvation found through Jesus Christ entails.

"How can God forgive that?"

      Tonight, I heard an interesting thing. Max Lucado, the well known devotional author and pastor, upon hearing of the prison conversion to Christ of Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer and cannibal, described it as one of the most difficult things he has wrestled with, and asked, "How can God forgive someone like him?" This is a question which often comes up, either as a hypothetical or as a real world difficulty of faith in the case of Dahmer. The actions of some are so heinous, so harmful, so vile, so evil that the question is raised about the reasonable limits of God's forgiveness. "God couldn't forgive that, could He?" or also as Max Lucado asked, "How could God possibly forgive that?"
      Imagine for a moment that you have a child who has a psychiatric disorder which makes them hurt themselves and others, sometimes badly. R.A.D. can be one such disorder. There have been documented severe cases where small children have not only attacked their parents and caregivers, but also seriously injured or killed themselves. Psychological disturbance can take many forms, and there are many disorders which can influence a child to have extremely harmful behaviors. That child spends the next twenty or more years so messed up that he or she leaves a trail of injured, hurt, and scared people behind them. And all you want is for that child to come to their senses and be rid of that disorder. All you want is to be able to love them and have that love returned. All you want is for them to be happy, successful, and at peace with themselves and everyone else.
      And then, one day, they change completely. They are no longer the same person at all, but are loving, affectionate, at peace and are able to participate in life like a normal person.
      How would you respond? Would you hold every evil thing they did against them? Or would you rejoice that this miracle had occurred and let go of who they had been and what they had done before?
This is God when someone comes to their senses and turns around from what they were doing, no matter what came before. His focus is entirely on recovering those lost to our common human malfunction, regardless of how that malfunction presents in any one human being. No one presentation of that malfunction, whether it be greed, murder, theft, lying, or just wanting what someone else has is worse than another because they all stem from the same disorder. When your kid starts acting like a normal kid instead of the devil incarnate, you start jumping for joy and hugging them relentlessly. The point isn't how bad the psychiatric illness got, or what kind of damage was done. The point is that it's no longer in control of your kid.
      We project our desire for retribution onto God, and because we want the person who hurt us or others to themselves be hurt at least as bad as the person whom they hurt, we assume God must want that too. But God's justice is about restoration and healing, not punishment and destruction. When an "evil" man turns away from his evil and does what is right, God says flat out in Scripture that the former evil will no longer be remembered. And the same is true of a "good" man who turns away from his good and does what is harmful or wrong. The good will no longer be remembered. Why? Because either one has become a different person altogether, and you don't punish or reward someone for something a different person has done, and we are each one of us different persons from one decision to the next.
      I don't know if Dahmer's conversion was sincere. I really don't. I do know that if he really had turned around and come to his senses, then God would have been rejoicing with tears, not debating about what to do with him.

More Thoughts on Repentance and Forgiveness

     The worst injustice we as human beings do to God is to project our own ways of thinking onto Him, and assume that He thinks the same way we do. We assume that He holds grudges because we do. We assume that He demands retribution because we do. This was true as soon as Adam and Eve ate the fruit they weren't supposed to. Why in the world would they have hid from God because they were naked? Every animal on the planet was naked. The answer is that their minds had become so warped that they believed being naked was shameful, and so of course they believed God would see it as shameful because they did. We project a darkened, deranged, malfunctioning mind onto the One who is without error or darkness because the malfunctioning human brain cannot imagine that someone else might think differently from itself.
      This is the reason why we do not trust God to forgive just because He says it. This is the reason why we want guarantees. We instinctively do not trust because of our inherent derangement, and because we know that, deep down, we want retribution for when we ourselves are injured or offended and letting go of that is incredibly difficult.
      And there is of course the temptation, the darker desire to be able to get or do what we want without consequence to ourselves, to be able to "work the system" to our advantage. Thus in ancient times you have wealthy "religious" people breaking commandments with what they believe is impunity as long as they keep the sacrifices flowing. Thus you have men of power and influence doing what they want as long as they make regular confession and donate the right amount of money to the churches. They believe they have "guarantees" of a "do what I want and get away with it" card, not understanding that God sees it, and that's not how this works.
      When God says something, He doesn't have to back it up with a guarantee. He's going to do it. He doesn't have to take an oath. His "yes" is as good as a promise engraved in diamond. And His "no" is as immovable for a human being as a mountain of the heaviest metal. When He says He will forgive the wrongdoing of a person if that person turns away from that wrongdoing and does what is right, He will do it. Period. When He says He will choose not to remember the wrongdoing, He will do it. Period. He doesn't need a sacrifice to bind Himself to that word. He isn't the same as we are. He isn't deranged or erroneous. He doesn't harbor secret, dark things within Himself. He doesn't talk out of both sides of His mouth. What He says is what He will do. God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
      The sacrifices were written into the Torah as a concession to our own fallen psyches. They were written in as a concession to our own malfunctioning consciences. He does not need them in any capacity, and would be just as good without them. They were written in as a mercy to our own inability to forgive ourselves or others, and as a counterpoint to projecting that inability onto Him.
      Jesus Christ died for us, but not because God needed blood to forgive us; rather, He died for us so that we wouldn't have to continue in that malfunction and inherited derangement. He died and resurrected so that we could operate from a different source of behaviors than our own malfunctioning neurology, our own erroneous flesh. All that it requires is that we shelter in place within Him, admitting and recognizing our own internal derangement, and handing ourselves over to the control of His Spirit so that He, free from that derangement and malfunction, would be the source of our actions, words, and thoughts. And the very act of turning to Jesus Christ, trusting Him and following Him, is itself turning away from the previous errors and wrongdoing. Of course God would forgive in so doing, because He said He would. Of course there is forgiveness found in Jesus Christ, because the person truly seeking to remain in Him and follow Him is a person who is repentant and has confessed and continues to confess his own errors, and so of course God is faithful and just to forgive that person's errors and wrongdoings, because He said He would forgive the repentant person to begin with, just as He justified the repentant tax collector but not the Pharisee.

Regarding Forgiveness and Taking Refuge

     I was going through the Scripture readings for today this morning in the "Daily Roman Missel" I still have. It's a thick black book of liturgy, prayers, and readings for every day of the liturgical calendar of the Catholic Church. I bought it in preparation for the priesthood oh, about eighteen years ago now, used it for Sunday Mass for several years, and still keep it for sentimental reasons, not least of which because it contains a record of those people whom I baptized. Now, it's held together with duct tape, and the pages are bulging from use and water damage which happened years ago. It's one of those books that's just been a companion through everything since that time.
     This morning, the last verse in the Psalms (34:23) reading caught my attention. In the Missel it reads, "The LORD redeems the lives of his servants; no one incurs guilt who takes refuge in him." (NAB) Either on a hunch or prompted by the Spirit, I'm not sure which, I looked up the same verse in the King James Version (34:22, the KJV doesn't include the title as the first verse), and curiously it read, "The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate." After reading the extreme difference in translation, I then did what I normally do and went to the Hebrew text followed by the Greek LXX and then the Latin.
     The Hebrew text reads, literally, "YHWH redeems [the] soul of His slaves and all the ones taking refuge in Him do not suffer for their guilt." The Latin and Greek were something along the lines of "...and all those hoping in Him are not guilty" (Vulgate) and "...and all who hope in Him will absolutely not trespass." (LXX)
     I checked a couple of other translations, and they were all some combination of either the Latin reading or the Hebrew depending on who was doing the translating.
My question then becomes, why did the KJV editors and translators so badly deviate from the original texts? According to what I've been able to research, they didn't copy it from Tyndale as Tyndale didn't translate this Psalm.
     I have to wonder if the reason for the deviation has to do with theology. At least, this question has crossed my mind. In my experience, the theology of a translator tends to color the way he or she views the original text, and they render it in a way which aligns with that theology whether or not the text actually does. Frequently as well, translators simply don't understand what the text is talking about, even if they understand the use of language, because they're not at the same point of spiritual development as the prophets and Apostles who wrote it.
     The Hebrew text says that Yahweh redeems or ransoms the soul of His slaves, and all those who take refuge in Him will not be held guilty. I'm not sure how much more clear a message of forgiveness and mercy for those who turn away from their wrongdoing and "take refuge" in Him there can be. Notice too that there is no mention of sacrifice here as being necessary for that being held guiltless, only taking refuge in Him.
Jesus said, "Remain in me and I in you." The word used in the Greek literally means to "stay put," or more to the point, "make your home." If that's not a similar concept to taking refuge, then I don't know what is. "Shelter in place" in Him might be another way of saying it.
     Another part of the readings today was from Luke 18 and concerned the pharisee and the tax collector. In Luke 18:14 there's an interesting use of words here. It reads, "I say to you, this one [referring to the tax collector] went down having been justified [made right] into his house as opposed to that one [referring to the pharisee]..." All the tax collector did was sincerely repent and acknowledge that he had screwed up. He said, literally, "God, be conciliated [or appeased] with me, the screw-up." Again, no mention of sacrifices being made.
     The only thing God has ever truly required for forgiveness and mercy is that we recognize the wrong we are doing, and turn away from it. Even Abraham was made right in God's sight, not from sacrifices for sin, but just because he believed Him. The sacrifices which were prescribed in the Torah were already a cultural thing, and were meant to help deal with the guilty conscience, but they were for human psychological benefit, not because God wanted animals slaughtered. We wanted a physical guarantee of forgiveness, a contract which said we would be forgiven, rather than trusting His word that we would be. And in the ancient world, the blood of animals was used to sign contracts.
     Those who believe in and follow Jesus Christ are forgiven because that belief and following presume a recognition and confession of one's screwing up. One agrees with God about his error, and God is faithful and right to forgive and to cleanse them of all wrongdoing. One takes refuge in Jesus Christ, and then His Spirit works within that person for him to be able to not screw up, and not cause harm, just as He was without error.
      It was never about the requirement of blood, but about the turning to God and sheltering in place in Jesus Christ.

*  *  *

Regarding the verse, "For without the shedding of blood, there is no remission":

    It's Hebrews 9:22, and in context, the author is describing what had to happen according to the Torah, not necessarily the laws of spiritual physics. The phrase itself doesn't occur in the Torah, or in the rest of the Old Testament as a requirement for forgiveness whereas turning away from one's wrongdoing and turning to God as a requirement for forgiveness is all over the Old Testament, and both Jesus and John the Baptist preached for people to repent and turn around rather than go and make sacrifices. It's clear in many places in the Old Testament, that God gets fed up with people making sacrifices instead of turning away from their wrongdoing; that is, sinning and then expecting Him to forgive because they spilled the blood of an animal. He says very clearly that such things abhor Him. 

     Also, as Paul wrote, Abraham lived long before the Torah was ever written. He had no Ark of the Covenant, no Holy of Holies, no prescribed altar of sacrifices, Day of Atonement, or any of it. There is no mention of him ever sacrificing an animal for the forgiveness of sins. Instead, we read about him slaughtering animals to sign a contract with God. We read about him nearly offering Isaac in sacrifice to God, but there is no mention of what the sacrifice was for except as an offering which was requested. Abraham simply trusted what God had said, and God counted it as good enough for Him. This is also true of Isaac and Jacob as well, who themselves also did not have the Torah. They only trusted God with what He said. 

     Going back to Hebrews, the thrust of the author's argument is that blood sacrifice could never "take away" sin. Notice, he doesn't say "forgive," he says "take away" which is a different matter. Only the death of Jesus Christ could take away sin, and this is accomplished through union with Him in His death, and submission to His Spirit whereby He who is without sin acts and speaks through us, and there is no sin found in our actions and words. Thus, sin has been taken away through Jesus Christ.

On Taking Refuge

"I take my refuge in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit."
      This is a play on an ancient Buddhist affirmation, but the principle of making God one's refuge is as old as the oldest of Scriptures, and is all over the pages of the Psalms. To take refuge in something is to seek safety in it, to hide yourself in it and behind its walls and barriers and allow these to protect you from the storms, enemies, or other dangers outside of that refuge.
      He is a refuge when all others fail, and yet to be honest, at first He can look far more dangerous than those things you seek shelter from. To take refuge in Him demands that you admit and let go of the illusions of safety you saw in other things. These other things might be individuals you trusted, institutions, organizations, literal and metaphorical structures, or even your own abilities on some level. They might be ideas, beliefs, philosophies, or theological constructs to which you held dear. To take refuge in Him means to leave the illusion of safety in all of these other things behind.
      And that looks and feels dangerous. It can be absolutely terrifying in point of fact. It can be terrifying because it means leaving the familiar behind, the things which, while not perfect, were comforting and always seemed to be what you could fall back on and rely on... until you couldn't, and until they failed you once, twice, and every time you came back to rely on them. They proved themselves an illusion. Smoke and mirrors which, when you leaned on them, when it really mattered, disappeared and left you hanging in mid-air with nothing solid to grasp at.
      God Himself is no illusion. He is solid. He is the foundation of all existence, and nothing can or does exist except it relies on His Being for its own. But the human senses do not register this. The human mind goes first to what it can see, hear, touch and so on. It goes first to what the brain can process immediately without effort, what it perceives as 'real," even if it isn't.
      To enter God's refuge means to acknowledge the illusory nature of all other things in which you sought shelter, and this itself is threatening to the human psyche. It means to acknowledge that all human beings, try as they might, are fallible and in error in some way. It means to acknowledge that all systems and institutions which depend on the decisions of these human beings are also fallible, and capable of catastrophic failure. It means also to acknowledge that those beliefs and ideas to which you held religiously are potentially also in error because they were communicated by said fallible and erroneous human beings. To enter God's refuge is to let go of all of these things and set yourself adrift in what looks at first like a void, a "Holy Darkness" as one author put it because your physical senses are blind to it, and trust that He has you when you have let all else go.
      This is why the conditions of discipleship which Jesus laid down are essentially to let everything else go, whether it be relationships, possessions, or even your own psyche. To be a disciple is to take your refuge in the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and in nothing else; to throw yourself into that Holy Void, that place where your physical senses no longer function and are screaming at you to turn back because they can detect nothing. It is to follow the Teacher when your mind is screaming at you that it is madness to do so. It is to surrender to the Spirit of Christ when your brain and body are screaming at you to act to protect yourself and survive.
      As someone who struggles with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, or at least its ways of thinking and modes of operation, this has been an especially difficult journey of understanding for me, and one which feels as though it has taken lifetimes. The Autistic mind is one which relies on structures, literalism, routines, and so on. To take refuge in God requires all of this to be disengaged from, let go, and even exploded if need be.
The only way forward is through. You cannot go backwards in order to make progress. You cannot run to the familiar in order to grow and mature. The only way to the Light is through the Holy Void which is the refuge of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

A Ramble about the Red Pill, the Blue Pill, and Knowing God

    I’ve been feeling like I need to write something for the last couple of days, but nothing would come. The first thing which did come to me was that, while I may seem to be a progressive theologian to some, I have never considered myself one. Yet, I can’t really consider myself a conservative theologian either. These labels, progressive and conservative, while dubiously appropriate for politics, should never be appropriate descriptions when applied to theology.

    Theology used to be known as the “queen of sciences” before the 20^th century. It is literally the study of the Divine, the study of God, in a similar vein to the study of physics, mathematics, the planet’s environment, or the human mind. You interact with the subject of your study, you make observations, you form hypotheses and, where you can, you test them and record the data. Our understanding of God, a living, sentient, and ever present Being should never be limited to someone else’s experiences with Him. You can read every book about a person, check the wikipedia, watch documentaries on them, even stalk them, but until you actually introduce yourself and form a two way relationship with that person, you will never truly know them. You can know all about someone. That doesn’t mean you know them.

    My theology today is not what it was 25 years ago. I think it’s fair to say that it’s not what it was even five years ago. But this reflects the evolution of a relationship rather than the shifting of academic stances as I have gotten to know Him better, and He has helped me to understand and know myself better.

    In “Matrix: Resurrections,” Bugs offers Morpheus both the red pill, which allows him to disconnect from the Matrix and pursue the Truth, and the blue pill, which allows him to remain right where he is, as a choice. To this Morpheus responds, “You call that a choice?” After a quick explanation of her own philosophical struggles, she responds, “Choice is an illusion. You know what you have to do.”

    For me, the pursuit of getting to know God through that relationship is like the choice between taking the blue pill and the red pill. The blue pill represents the safety of old ways of thinking about Him and myself. It represents a return to the doctrines and dogmas of the churches and organizations that I had tried to desperately to stay a part of. The red pill represents the continuously unfolding and maturing knowledge of Him gained from the day to day interactions of relationship and back and forth. In my mind, these things always present as a choice, and an intense fight akin to bloodsport because they frequently conflict.

    Like Trinity pointed out in the original Matrix, I’ve been down the road of the blue pill before. I know what’s there. And as safe as it looks in my mind, that safety is an illusion. There’s a reason why I’m no longer a part of those organizations or churches, and why I couldn’t return no matter how hard I fought to, or no matter how much I toed the line. But the red pill is frightening because it exposes the illusion for what it is and reveals reality for what it is, nothing more and nothing less. And between the illusion and the reality, for me, choice itself becomes an illusion.

    I know what I have to do, regardless of the costs. To “take the blue pill” now would be to turn my back on the light and walk in darkness while telling everyone “I’ve seen the light!” It would be lying, and not walking in the Truth. Worse than this, it would be calling God Himself a liar. To take the red pill is to pursue that relationship of knowing Him even if what it reveals contradicts who people imagine Him to be, and even if it contradicts what other people have said reality is supposed to look like.

    Jesus Himself was a walking, talking red pill. Those who fought against him the most and had Him crucified were those hell bent on preserving traditional theology and Scriptural interpretations. To the Pharisees, He was a raging New Age cult leader. To the Sadducees, He was a political threat. He absolutely refused to play by their rules. These “Sola Scripturalists” and “Judean theocrats” were the ones He rebuked constantly for their hypocrisy, pettiness, and twisted interpretations. Notice He never rebuked the Romans, the Greeks, the pagans, or really anyone else in the Gospels. Notice also how many churches and pastors today tend to insinuate the Pharisees and their ideals as godly and misunderstood in all but name.

    Jesus Christ at all costs. Truth at all costs. The love of God within and without at all costs. How can there really be a choice in this, knowing that the other option is to knowingly lie to myself, to others, and even to God? How great would the darkness be in choosing the illusion of safety, knowing that it is, in fact, an illusion? That would be willingly shutting my eyes and creating the darkness which blinds me.

    But the blue pill is ridiculously tempting. Just like with Cypher who tried to have himself inserted back into the Matrix. He knew it was all an illusion, and yet he wanted to go back and be ignorant of the Truth because of how hard the Truth was to live within. The lie of safety was so enticing that he became desperate; so desperate that he was willing to sacrifice anyone he needed to be plugged back in. Like Trinity said, I’ve been down that road before, too, and it wreaked damage to those closest to me as well. And this is the powerful lure of the illusion, and why it is so difficult to win against.

    I’m not a “Progressive Theologian.” I’m not a conservative one either. I don’t read books by popular modern pastors, nor do I jump on the bandwagon of this or that theological trend because it’s popular. I read the Scriptures in their original languages. I spend time with God throughout the day, and He with me. I read about the natural world, medicine, and the various sciences as well as other ancient texts. I weigh data and evidence He brings into my path. Either He gives me insights and confirms them, or He doesn’t. If folks don’t agree, or argue against because it conflicts with their interpretations, I can’t help that. I still have to pursue what is real, not what is comfortable or convenient. I am not dealing in myths which can be retold to suit one’s personal preferences. I am dealing in the reality which we understatingly call “God.”

A Ramble about Guilt and Torment

     Over the last several days, I've been having to work through some stuff. I went out on Friday morning to start working at the barn again, and I just began to feel like I had been hit by a truck. I would have thought I was physically sick, except I wasn't. I hadn't really been feeling 100% emotionally right a couple of days prior, since my last chiropractor adjustment on Wednesday, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it and it just really came to a head on Friday morning as I had to stop what I was doing and return to the house. I spent the next three hours feeling like crap in bed, and those hours afterwards not much better.
    This is going to sound really strange, but I had gotten from the Lord that I was supposed to watch the final season of Lucifer just after my Chiropractic adjustment. It wasn't my first choice of shows. I'd never really watched it before except for the occasional clip on Youtube because of its main premise and protagonist. But, I went ahead and ordered it, and it arrived on Friday just after I had needed to head back into the house. I didn't know why I needed to watch it, but I've found that there is always a reason for things like this, and it eventually makes sense once I've obeyed. So, I started watching Friday night, and finished it on Saturday (it was only ten episodes).
    By the second or third episode in, I was beginning to understand. In it, there was a lot of talk about a person being caught in a "hell loop" because of unresolved guilt which they hadn't dealt with or hadn't let go of. This played out with several of the characters. And for me, this was part of the message I needed to see and hear. I have done things in my past which I am not particularly proud of. But more than this, I tended to take responsibility for things happening which, if I was to be honest, were out of my control. And there was something which happened a very long time ago, which I do not wish to elaborate on, which hurt people I loved and for which I blamed myself. I was not the cause of their pain, but in the chain of events, it was my idea which led to the circumstances of it. And I had never forgiven myself for it, just like I hadn't forgiven myself for a host of other things which my ideas, words, or actions had led to.
    Here's the thing, at the time, I was trying to do what I thought to be the right thing as far as I knew. I think, for most of my life, that is what I have tried to do. Most people do. I know of very few people who intentionally try to do the wrong thing, and just about everyone has a justification for why they act the way they do, believing themselves to be right at the time even when the results end up hurting others and themselves. This is the very nature of hamartia, trying to do the right thing and ending up doing the wrong.
And this accumulation of subconscious guilt was physically hurting me, tormenting me, and keeping me from functioning. It wasn't God who wasn't forgiving me, it was me as though I was somehow more "righteous" than God by holding onto all of my own mistakes and erroneous behaviors.
    By the end of the series I watched, the main protagonist realizes his true calling is helping others to work through their guilt and problems so that they too can find redemption. But in order to be that person, he has to do something which he swore he'd never do because if he doesn't, he won't become the person he's supposed to be. And this was the second thing the Lord wanted to get across to me. I myself wouldn't be who I am now without having made those mistakes, and gone through what I have. I look back at my own existence, and there are many, many things I would go back and make different decisions if I could. But, if I were capable of doing that, I would no longer be this person. Who I am now would be destroyed, and those people who have benefited from who I am now would also no longer be who they are, and so on, and so on. It would be cataclysmic for not only myself, but those I love and those I don't even know. And I would only be doing it to selfishly keep myself from the pain of the guilt I now hold.
    So, after I watched the last episode of Lucifer, ironically feeling the Lord's presence next to me saying, "This is what I've been trying to tell you." I went for a walk on the property here. And as I sat down next to the edge of the lake in the back, I began to sob and let the guilt I had been holding onto out.
The thing I am learning is that, it's not really God's forgiveness that is most important. If we turn around from what we're doing, He's only too happy to forgive and set us on the right path. But the far more damning thing is our own guilt and unforgiveness of ourselves. It is our own guilt and unforgiveness of our past selves which keeps us bound and in chains. It is our own guilt and unforgiveness of ourselves which makes us feel that we aren't worthy, and causes us to feel like He's won't forgive us. Because if I wouldn't forgive myself, why would He forgive me? At least this is the logic used. And if we feel that He wouldn't forgive, we don't believe He would no matter how much blood is spilled in sacrifice or how much we might try to do to make restitution, even if He has already said He will.
    I'm doing better today, but I know I've still got a ways to go as well in terms of letting go. Subconsciously, our worst and most damning judge can be ourselves.