The Flesh and The Spirit

 Beginning with Jesus' conversation with Nicodemus in John 3, you see the difference between what is of the flesh and what is of the Spirit being pointed out throughout the New Testament, and with Paul's and John's writings in particular; what is born of flesh and what is born of the Spirit, or in John's first letter, what is born of God.

     In John 3, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be born again from above in order to even see the kingdom of God, and that what is born of flesh is flesh, and what is born of Spirit is Spirit, emphasizing that one cannot produce the other. In John 15, Jesus tells His disciples to stay put in or make their home within Him, and if they don't they can't do anything at all. In John's first letter he says both that the person who does this doesn't "sin," and that what is born of God does not "sin." In Paul's writings he becomes adamant about walking in the Spirit and not living according to the flesh, and states that these things are opposed to each other, so that you don't do what you want to do. He says that those living by the flesh cannot please God because the thinking of the flesh is hostile to God, and says that there isn't a condemnation for those in Christ Jesus who don't walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

     This understanding of the inability of those functioning from, living according to, or walking in the flesh to do anything other than "sin," and the total inability to do what God wants by them is the foundational understanding that runs throughout the New Testament. In the same way is this understanding that those who are born again from above, walking in or living according to the Spirit, inheriting the Kingdom of God can do nothing else but please God while they are so doing because it is God doing it through them.

     That both Jesus, Paul, and John were almost begging the disciples to do this and not to live according to their flesh says that it was a completely voluntary, and not a once and done thing. It was possible to make mistakes if you stopped walking in the Spirit, if you stopped making your home in Him, and it was possible to return to dong so if you did find that you stopped.

     The genuine teaching of discipleship, of even the Gospel itself, got muddied, shoved to the side, and even outright thrown away in some cases in favor of the teaching that it was all about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. And this latter thing has been used to beat and control people with fear for hundreds of years, something which Jesus never did. Neither did Paul.

     The Gospel which the New Testament preaches isn't about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. It's about what source our behavior comes from in the here and now. It's about manifesting the God who is Love through us instead of living in the existential hell which our own flesh forces us into. That Gospel about who goes to heaven and who goes to hell is a human construct based on human misunderstanding, guilt, and fear and transforms our perception of God into a cruel, vengeful, abusive bloodthirsty pagan deity, nothing like what Jesus showed us the Father is.

     "Walk in the Spirit, and you won't bring the desires of the flesh to completion." This is the practice of being a disciple of Jesus Christ, the sum total really, in a nutshell. The rest is commentary.

An Overview of the "Sin Nature" and Its Solution

 What Evangelicals call the "sin nature," Paul called "hamartia," and the ancient Hebrew authors called "khata'," is actually the improper growth of certain small parts of the human brain to a larger size than was intended, in particular the human amygdala, also affecting the hypothalamus as the amygdala controls how the hypothalamus is activated. This is a result of our ancient ancestors consuming a piece of fruit containing a toxin which altered our genetics involving this part of the brain, causing it to grow larger than theirs originally had been.

     The enlargement of the human amygdala caused the human brain to enter into an overactive or nearly constant survival response, treating everything as either a survival threat or a survival necessity whether it was a physical survival threat or not, something which is unknown among other animals. The constant sub-conscious survival or panic response drowned out the immaterial consciousness' natural connection to God, the Source, so that the "necessities" or "threats" were instead constantly being reinforced in the human mind and the human mind then latched on to them, forming a pseudo self-identity based on what it "liked," those things it believed were necessities, and what it "didn't like," those things it believed were threats. Those things it liked, the survival necessities, were deemed beneficial or "good," and those things it didn't like, the survival threats, were deemed malevolent or "bad." These effects can be seen in very young children from nearly the time they have learned to talk. From two years old or earlier, a young child has determined that those things it likes are "good" and it must have more of them, and those things it doesn't like are "bad," and it must eliminate them or be removed from them immediately. This is the foundation of human moral development as it moves from self-centric morality to black and white rules based morality, those rules the child agrees with, to a more nuanced, philosophically based morality. But the foundation of all of them is whether or not the person agrees with, likes, or disagrees with, doesn't like, the thing or rule in question.

     This is also the reason why animals do not appear to have a concept of morality. Compassion and empathy, yes, but not a sense of arbitrary "good" or "bad." Their survival response mechanisms are still working as intended and are applied only to actual perceived physical threats.

     Because of this relatively minor alteration from the human brain's original configuration, an enlargement of the amygdala, human beings are nearly constantly ruled by fear, aggression, and bodily cravings which are only kept in check by human society with a somewhat functional empathy, the ability to feel what the other person is feeling and its accompanying compassion, and whatever rules and punishments are agreed upon in order to constrain harmful human behavior. But those rules and punishments, because they operate from the same survival response system's psychology which is the problem, cannot actually solve the malfunctioning behavior, and at times can actually make it worse.

     This is the reason why this whole system must be bypassed as a source of human behavior, and the original connection by the consciousness to its Source must be allowed to operate freely. This is the reason for Jesus Christ, His birth as a virgin born human being, His life and teachings, and His death, burial, and resurrection. The re-connection afforded by our union with Him in His death, burial, and resurrection allows for the malfunctioning parts of our brain to be bypassed so that His Consciousness may then return to its appropriate function within the human psyche, thus producing non-harmful and beneficial behaviors in synchronization with the character and Person of the Source, that is, God.

Fully God and Fully Human

      What does it mean that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully Human, the orthodox doctrine handed down by Ecumenical Church Councils since the fourth century, and upon which so much modern Christian theology rests?

     I wrote something the other day, and a friend posited a query about it in relation to Jesus being, as the orthodox teaching goes, fully God and fully Human. His line of thinking followed that, logically, Jesus could be one or the other, but not both, and if Jesus was any different from any other human being, He could not be fully human.

      What does it mean to be "fully human"? This is a question that has serious ramifications for how we see other people. Does fully human mean representative of the average or "normal" human being? If this was the case, one might exclude those with Down's Syndrome from being fully human, or anyone born with a deviation from normality. In truth, this is a question many people have tried to answer repeatedly over the centuries and millennia, and failed with damaging and disastrous results. It might actually be a question that goes back to when there were other species of hominid in addition to homo sapiens. Our ancestors didn't answer that question well then either, at least in my opinion, as we are the only remaining species of hominid left.

     If one were to define "fully human" as having human DNA which matches the DNA of other human beings within the same tolerance which we would use for the rest of us regardless of physiological abnormalities, if we consider His being born without the malfunctioning survival response system an abnormality, then there's a good bet that Jesus Christ was in fact fully human. It's clear from observations written about Him that He was in fact born from a woman, He grew up, had a childhood, ate, drank, needed to sleep, could be physically touched, and had His own, independent free will, intellect, and emotions like every other human being does. When injured He bled. He appears to have had a heart condition possibly related to the circumstances of His parthenogenesis. I think it can be presumed that if He ate and drank, He would need to eliminate those waste products as well. So, clearly, from all observable evidence, any reasonable definition, and within the tolerance we would show for anyone who might have been born different from the average, Jesus Christ was fully human.

     And fully God? How was He fully God? this is where we get truly hung up, because this is human beings trying to explain or define what we simply don't have the language tools or experience to explain or define. In John's Gospel, he describes Jesus as being the Logos, both existing right next to God and being itself God, having taken on human flesh. The Logos in the ancient Roman world was similar in concept to the Tao or even the Hindu Om. It was divine in nature with a relationship to the God, as the ancient Greeks and Romans used the term, which at times seemed distinct and at times overlapped. A standard definition might be the "divine principle which was used to create everything, and which also resides in every human being in some form." According to John and the other New Testament authors, this divine principle was born as a human being, was either identified as "I Am" Himself or "I Am" spoke through Him so frequently as to be indistinguishable from His own personality, was before everything else, the "firstborn of all creation," and was responsible for creating everything.

     It occurs to me that without the inherited malfunction, when Jesus Christ was born, His brain would not have been born in the same "panic mode" which the rest of us are born with. His brain would not have jury rigged an "emergency OS" so to speak. It wouldn't have needed to. He would have been born with His own name, His own free will and intellect, His own set of experiences, preferences, biology, and so on, but without the malfunctioning EMI which plagues the rest of us. He would have been born with full connection to, submission to, and cooperation with that Consciousness of I Am which is also the Foundation, the base upon which all of creation is coded or shaped. He would have been born enveloped in His Father's presence and love from the start without any kind of resistance to it. His personality, aside from the clearly human experiential and biological component, would have been otherwise entirely shaped by this unbroken connection with the Father, the Source. And these two non-competing components of His individual personality, Human and Source, if you will, can be observed from the Gospel writings.

      Jesus Christ represents a human being the way a human being was meant to function, with full connection and cooperation with the Source Consciousness, if you will, the Father from the start. According to the Scriptures, He was meant to be the "Firstborn among many brothers," that is, He was meant to set the rest of us right so that we could be like He is, free from the malfunction which causes all of our problems and separation. He was and remains fully Human as well as fully God, and invites the rest of us to become as He is through union with Him.

On the Error of Misunderstanding God's "I Am" with One's Own "I am"

 I've been reading and taking in a fair amount of what would be considered "New Age" material lately. This kind of material would likely have scared me off twenty years ago or more, but not any more. Like with everything else, it's not a matter of being afraid of it, it's a matter of dealing with the ideas and information, testing them, and either accepting or rejecting them based on best possible current and previous evidence.

      I have written before that God the Father is the "Foundation" of all of creation, including human beings. That is, everything which was created was coded using His very Being or substance to build it. In this way, all of creation is essentially information using Him as the "building blocks" to give it form and substance. After all, when God was all there was, what else was He going to use to create from? Void when void didn't exist?

     The New Age materials seem to understand this concept very well, except it is my opinion that they make a serious error in failing to grasp a significant nuance.

      Everything which exists, including human beings, is made from God, and it requires God in order to "physically" exist as anything more than just information. This being said, the nuance that isn't grapsed is that while all human beings are coded from God's own Being, and all human consciousnesses are coded from God's own Consciousness as independent free wills, this does not mean that all human beings can lay claim to being "I Am." Coded or built from "I Am," but not the singular personality that is "I Am." The pot which is made from clay requires the clay for its existence, but the shape, hardness, and characteristics of a pot are "programmed" into the clay so that it thus becomes a "pot," a "cup," or a "plate." It is made from clay, but the clay has been so altered so that the "pot" or other dish is the vessel's "persona" if you will.

     It's clear in nearly every Scripture from virtually any ancient religion that the persona of God, the person of "I Am," is a separate mind, will, and emotions from the individual personas of creation, and reacts and responds to human beings as a distinct persona from them.

      It is my opinion that this error in thinking in human beings is generated by the malfunctioning EMI which takes the truth of the concept of being coded or made from God's own being and then, because of the inability of human language to convey the important distinctions and nuances involved, assumes that it is one and the same as "I Am," when in fact the EMI itself is an artificial construct, the physical brain's attempt to jury rig an OS if you will because of the interruption of its connection to that original Consciousness due to the overactive survival responses and the underlying panic mode in which it finds itself. Thus the Ego caused by the malfunction misunderstands and calls itself "I Am" after learning the truth of the origin of the human consciousness, and creation as a whole.

     I am made or coded from I Am's own Being, but "I" am a distinct free will and independent intelligence from I Am Himself. I cannot and do not exist without Him, but He can clearly exist without me. That distinction is one which He Himself makes and respects, refusing to involuntarily erase the free will and independent intelligence of any of us, choosing instead to elicit our cooperation in relationship with Him. This is of absolute importance to Him in a way which the malfunctioning EMI of a human being simply cannot comprehend, and it is ironclad, adamantine, and immoveable either within time or outside of it. Even in the reports from NDEs when a person experiences the love and Being of God and union with Him in its fullness, there still remains a distinct free will and intelligence even as the person's consciousness experiences oneness with everything and everyone.

     It is an important distinction, and important nuance to understand this difference as one progresses in relationship and union with God, regardless of the religious tradition one might approach it from.

God is Love

 God is love, agape. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Because the human brain, and the self-identity it creates, doesn't actually operate from a position of love or agape. It operates because of its malfunction from a position of panic, aggression, and bodily cravings. It doesn't really comprehend or apprehend agape.

     God is love. If the human mind truly understood the depth of that statement...

     God is love. This, more than anything else, should inform those who profess to act and speak in His name on what their own behavior should look like. Lovingkindness, mercy, and compassion should be the primary and overwhelming drive of everyone who professes to know and follow Him.

     God is love. Anyone who hates anyone else doesn't know Him, doesn't follow Him, and has no understanding of Him at all. There's a reason the most important commands in the Scriptures are to love God and to love the person next to you. There is simply no leeway, no exception, and no room for anything else. 

     God is love. God is not complicated. He's not as mysterious as human beings think He is. He is actually about as simple as it gets. He is love. We believe Him mysterious because we can't wrap our malfunctioning heads around the simplicity of Him being love, wholly and totally.

     God is love. This is why He is holy. This is the foundation of His justice, a justice so very different from ours because He doesn't seek to punish, but to make right without destroying the person's free will. The greatest justice is the restoration of the offender to a state of right being through love, not his destruction.

     God is love. How many different ways does it have to be said? How many times does He have to command it, say it, explain it, and draw pictures to get His point across?

     God is love, and He wants us to be love too. That's all. That's what we as a species were initially created to be. Love incarnate. Then we screwed up and for all intents and purposes became fear incarnate and doomed ourselves and our planet. His justice is to restore us, renew us, and bring each and every one of us back to this state of right being, this state of love, no matter how long it takes.

     God is love. From unending to unending, He is love. There is no bottom, no ceiling, and no boundaries to it. God is love.

Thoughts About the Mosaic Law and the New Contract

      One of the biggest mistakes in Christian theology is the idea that the Mosaic Law, the Ten Commandments, most of the Prophets, and anything written therein has anything to do with the afterlife. Even a cursory reading of the text of the Torah will demonstrate that this is a document concerned exclusively with earthly things in the here and now, and not heavenly ones in the hereafter.

     The Torah, or the Law, was the Kingdom of Israel's founding document and penal code. Deuteronomy in particular follows the same pattern as what was called a "suzerainty treaty," a contract between a ruler and the people that ruler has subjected. But the whole of the five books of the Torah could be seen as following this pattern, culminating in Deuteronomy. There is a history of the ruler's interactions with the subject people, a list of expectations, a list of rewards for keeping the contract, and a list of punishments for breaking it. In addition, as I said, it also functions as a penal code not terribly different in design from the penal codes by which crimes and punishments are determined in the various U.S. states and territories.

      Within this penal code, there are rules and laws which deal with both intentional crimes and unintentional crimes. For intentional crimes, there are strict rules of jurisprudence which must be followed, and strict punishments for the person found guilty. For unintentional crimes, a person would be able to offer a sacrifice for forgiveness, or be able to flee to a sanctuary city in the case of murder, though he would never be able to set foot outside of it again. This understanding of a division between intentional or unintentional crimes operated on both the individual level and the national level. Crimes committed by the nation as a whole, represented by its leadership or by the actions of the majority of its citizens, were also dealt with as either unintentional, forgiven by offering a blood sacrifice, or intentional and triggering the list of punishments such as famine, drought, foreign invasion and so forth as Israel would be reminded Who their King, by the contract they signed with blood, actually was. It is correctly observed that the Torah was not dissimilar in function to other Middle Eastern codes of law during the second and third millennia BCE, the major difference being the Ruler laying it down and with whom Israel was contracted.

     For these reasons, there is no justifiable basis, Scripturally speaking, to assume or teach that God would require a blood sacrifice for heavenly forgiveness based on the Torah. Heavenly things and the afterlife were never the Torah's domain. When God sent plagues and judgments upon Israel, it was always in keeping with the contract they themselves signed and broke, and it was always for earthly reasons, not heavenly ones. When He speaks in the Prophets of the Old Testament and judges against Israel, it is always in the context of the very earthly treaty which was contracted. Paradise or torment in the afterlife was never, never in view. 

     These spiritualized interpretations of the Torah did not begin to come about until much later, well after the Babylonian exile when Israel's constant violations of the Torah came to a point where it was the last straw, and God did exactly what He said He would do as a result, no more and no less. It was really only after the Babylonian exile that the Torah became more spiritualized as Israel no longer really governed themselves under the contract of the Torah ever again. Yes, there was the Maccabean revolt and the Hasmonean dynasty, but it was never the same as the true Kingdom period, and the rulers during this time were usurpers and pretenders, not of the true line of Israel's Davidic kings. Even the State of Israel's government today has no real connection with the Kingdom, or the contract under which it had once been governed. Like the period after the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in 70 CE, the rabbis and teachers of Israel had to find a way to make the Torah continue to be meaningful and relevant without being able to actually carry it out literally, as it was meant to be. Once the Kingdom of Israel collapsed, there was really very little legitimate use for the Mosaic Law except as providing a general idea of the kind of behavior God wanted in the first place, but the rewards and punishments promised applied exclusively to the nation and its institutions that had signed it, which now no longer existed except as a memory.

     And thus what was meant to be a literal, earthly penal code and constitution was mistakenly applied to the afterlife and to heavenly things. And this mistaken understanding eventually carried over into Christian thinking as well, either intentionally by Pharisee infiltrators as Paul described, or unintentionally by well meaning Christian theologians and scholars. This was the reason why Paul wrote so much about the proper use and place of the Torah. He was explicit in his letters to the Romans and to the Galatians that the Mosaic Law was exclusively earthly in nature, and could only punish wrong behavior, but had no ability because of the weakness of our malfunctioning flesh to actually produce right behavior because it was never designed for that to begin with.

     And so, when we talk about the forgiveness of "sins" in the context of the Torah, we're talking about the unintentional crimes committed under this ancient penal code which only originally applied to the nation of people who had signed it, only dealt with very earthly penalties and jurisprudence, and is no longer enforced because the Kingdom of Israel no longer exists as a political entity but only as an idea in the minds of many. As the Scripture says, where there is no Torah, there is no transgression.

     So then, why would God be primarily concerned then with providing a blood sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins for the whole world, past, present, and future if the Torah itself doesn't actually apply to the whole world, past, present, and future? Even in the Prophets during the Kingdom period and after, He's far more concerned with the actual harmful behaviors of the people than He is about being placated with blood, as He tells them repeatedly that He doesn't want their constant sacrifices, and their rituals, sacrifices, and festivals make Him sick to His stomach with their hypocrisy. Wouldn't He be more concerned with providing a way to produce genuine right behaviors? And this is the thrust of the New Contract which He promised in the Prophet Jeremiah, where He says explicitly, "I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" (Jeremiah 31:33, NKJV), and then almost as an afterthought after explaining it a little further He adds, "I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more" (v. 34). The most important thing about the New Contract is the production of right behavior, and the least important, almost an afterthought is the forgiveness of wrong, something which is easy for Him to do, and which He promises in the Prophet Ezekiel if someone leaves off the wrong behavior and engages with the right. As Jesus said, "Which is easier? To tell a man, 'your sins are forgiven,' or to make him walk (being previously lame)?" The more pressing matter, and what even we consider to be miraculous, is making the lame man walk.

     And this is the whole point of the New Contract, and the Salvation which comes through putting one's trust into Jesus Christ, that is, the miracle of producing right behaviors instead of malfunctioning ones. Of course God forgives, and tosses the wrongdoing away like it never happened, because His whole goal and focus is our submission to and cooperation with the Spirit of Christ so that we would be producing the right behaviors, because it is He who does them within and through us. And this is why the New Contract has absolutely nothing to do with the Mosaic Contract, the Torah, except that it was offered to those who had previously signed that contract first, and when they rejected it, it was offered to anyone and everyone who would be willing to accept it, no matter who they were. And this is why no one operating within and under the New Contract is subject to the Torah in any way, shape or form. Forgiveness for past transgressions is assumed, because if you're submitting to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ, then you've clearly turned away from the wrong behaviors produced by your malfunctioning flesh.

     Jesus Christ's death, burial, and resurrection was always about uniting us with Him, collecting and joining every descendant of Adam with His life, death, and resurrection so that our own malfunctioning flesh would be rendered inert, and His life would then be lived through us as we submitted to and cooperated with His Spirit instead of our malfunctioning flesh. The Father didn't need a blood sacrifice to forgive us. We needed to be joined as one with Him through Jesus Christ in order to produce right behaviors.

A Short Commentary on John 3:16-21

 "Because God loved the world in this way, as He also gave His one of a kind Son, so that every single person who puts their trust into Him would not destroy themselves but hold the Eternal Life. Because God didn't send His Son out into the world so that He would judge the world, but so that the world would be rescued through Him. The person who puts their trust into Him isn't judged; yet the person who doesn't trust has already judged themselves, because they haven't put their trust into the name of the one of a kind Son of God. And this is the judgment that the Light had come into the world and the human beings loved the dark more than the Light; because their behaviors were deranged. Because every single person practicing foul things hates the Light and doesn't come to the Light, so that their behaviors won't be lit up for everyone to see; yet the person doing the Truth comes to the Light, so that their behaviors would shine forth that they are having been performed by God." - John 3:16-21, my translation this morning

     We see John 3:16 posted everywhere, but somehow we never see the rest of what Jesus said to Nicodemus. We never see the context unless we crack a Bible and read it. Why is this? What's interesting here is that, in what is considered "The" most basic gospel verse by the majority of people (theologians excluded, they prefer 1 Corinthians 15:3-4), Jesus says nothing about sins being forgiven by blood sacrifice. It's just not about that. Instead, it's about a person's behavior, and whether or not they are willing to come to the Light, that is, Himself, and whether or not their behavior, their actions, is theirs or has been performed by God through them.

     One might argue, as many do, that 14-15 refers to the crucifixion, and thus to a blood sacrifice for forgiveness of sins. But you would really need to already assume penal substitutionary atonement in order to get that out of these verses, as the immediate previous context again talks about being born from above, and being born of the Spirit as opposed to the flesh, the same teaching we see in Paul's writings in Romans 6-8, Galatians 5, and elsewhere. Therefore, the context does not lend itself to forgiveness of sins by blood sacrifice unless you shoehorn it in because of a previously held theological assumption or belief.

     God loved the world so much that He sent His One of a Kind Son to rescue it from its deranged behaviors through a person being born from the Spirit, and God performing His behaviors through that person, so that the person wouldn't judge himself, or bring judgment on himself, and thus be destroyed through his own deranged behaviors, but so that every single person who puts their trust into Him, and not their own flesh, would hold His Eternal Life within themselves.

If You've Been Watching Me, You've Been Watching the Father

 "The person putting their trust in Me isn't putting their trust in Me but in the One having sent Me. And the person watching Me watches the One having sent Me." - John 12:44b

"The person having seen Me has seen the Father; ... Don't you trust that I am within the Father and the Father is within Me? The words which I speak to you I don't talk from Myself, and the Father making His home within Me does His works." - John 14:9b, 10

     How many times did Jesus say this in John? A lot. He went out of His way to emphasize that He didn't say or do anything which the Father wasn't saying or doing through Him. If you were watching Jesus, you were watching the Father, it was as simple as that. If you were observing Jesus, you weren't observing Jesus' own EMI (ego/mind/identity), His own self-identity per se (son of Mary, born in Bethlehem, native Aramaic speaker, Jewish by birth, potential heart problems etc.), you were observing the Father acting and speaking through Jesus, and Jesus surrendering wholly and totally to Him. Jesus was already doing what He taught His disciples to do. He was making His Home in the Father just like He taught His disciples to make their home in Him, thus making Himself the go-between, the Mediator, the "adaptor" so to speak. And His making His home in the Father formed the basis of every action He took and every word He spoke.

     This is the basis of everything Paul taught as well, though He went into much more excruciating detail so that he wouldn't be misunderstood (though sadly he was anyway): Submission to and cooperation with the Spirit of the One who was submitting to and cooperating with the Father. Imitating Him, just as He was imitating the Father. And later, as Paul wrote, "Imitate me, just as I imitate Christ," who was imitating the Father. "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father." "If you have seen me, then you have seen Christ." But the absolutely fundamental understanding here is the Father ultimately acting and speaking through the human being through Jesus Christ as a conduit.

     John knew Jesus the best of any of the disciples. He was his cousin at least through his mother, and His best friend likely from childhood. He recorded what he thought were the most important things about Him, His life, and His teachings, and the hill John chose to stand and die on in his writings was that if you saw and heard Jesus, you saw and heard the Father, and Jesus taught His disciples to do and be the same thing.

What Jesus is Really Like

      What is Yeshua (Jesus) really like? First and foremost, He is human. God, certainly, but you wouldn't have known it just meeting Him. That was the point. You would have seen just a Jewish man, almost the spitting image of His mother, in His mid to late twenties with chestnut colored hair, sea green eyes, standing about 5'6", average for the time, with a beard and hair tied back in a thin braid. His clothes were travel stained as they hung off of His modestly thin frame, and He walked barefoot most places. You would have seen a man with an easy smile, and good natured laughter in His eyes who looked at you as though you were His dear brother or sister every time you met His eyes, and those eyes were always welcoming. You would have met a man who instantly felt safe and non-threatening, protective even in spite of Him being easily tired from exercise that most wouldn't find challenging. He was a Man that you felt like you had known all of your life, had grown up with even, when you had just met Him. 

     And He knew things, things He would let slip every now and then that He couldn't possibly have known. Nothing embarrassing, nothing that would be threatening except for the fact that He somehow knew them. Sometimes it would be your name when you first met Him. Sometimes it would be little details about your childhood or your family that no one else would have known. It only added to the feeling that you had known Him all of your life.

     Most of the time, He either spoke Aramaic or Greek depending on who His audience was. Aramaic with His own family certainly, and when addressing just those whose first language it was, but Greek when talking to the large crowds, though He still had the Aramaic rural accent. But on occasion, you'd hear Him say something in Latin just out of the blue when speaking to a Roman. Or even some language you'd never heard before to a foreigner from Africa, Arabia, or much farther north. When asked about it, He'd only reply, "Was I now? I didn't notice."

     Above all though, He was kind. Just kind. He would give away His last lepton without a thought to a beggar on the streets of Jerusalem, and Himself rarely if ever carried any coins on Him. He never really carried anything except the clothes on His back, and when He was given something, it wasn't long before you'd see it in the hands of someone else who didn't have it before. And He was patient. He would sit for hours if need be just listening to you, even if what you were saying made no sense or was offensive. The smile in His eyes rarely wavering. He always made you feel like you were the most important person in the world to Him.

     His disciples called Him "Teacher," either in Greek or Aramaic, and this was how just about everyone addressed Him. As time went on, He would be called "Owner" or "Master," though He wasn't enamored with those titles. One time He even turned it back on those who called Him such and asked them, "If I'm your 'owner' why don't you do anything I say?" He disliked such appellations intensely because it set people on different tiers, and He wanted to identify with the people around Him, not have them see Him as above them, even though He really was. that was the reason why He kept calling Himself the "Son of Adam." It was Him saying, "I'm human just like you."

     The only people He really every became angry with were the religious people, those who would use the Torah for their own personal and political gain. And even then, it was like a brother scolding His siblings because He cared.

    This is who Yeshua was and is.

Rambling About What's On And Around My Desk This Morning

      I'm sitting here staring at the pages of my black, "A Reader's Hebrew and Greek Bible" praying for something to write about. It's a great Bible for having access to the original language texts and their lexicons right at your fingertips. My Hebrew is still pretty rudimentary. I still need to reference an English text to find anything. But the Greek text is generally pretty open and easy for me these days. It's rare I need an English text to locate anything there. I know these pages, their layout and where to find just about anything, better than I do any of the English translation Bibles I have. 

     The one gripe I have about this particular Bible is the binding. The binding broke not long after I got it so that it's half come away from the pages of the book itself. I've tried repairing it with different kinds of glue, even duct tape, but the repairs never hold. It always comes apart again. I hid my broken Bible in a big black, "Swiss Army" Bible cover which almost resembles a briefcase for a long time before I decided to just pull it out and put it directly on my desk, broken binding, residual duct tape, and all.

     I bought this Bible to replace my aging and worn "A Reader's Greek New Testament." This was a nice, red, leather covered New Testament that I have had for so long I don't remember when I got it, and it looks like it now. The pages are filled with notes and underlining. They're dirty, especially certain books and passages, from my fingers going over them again and again. The nice leather wore off of the cover, as did the gold leaf lettering to where I had to use a pen to re-mark the cover title. The spine was opened so many times that it has absolutely no resistence now, and just falls open easily. Most importantly though, the New Testament of the Bible I have now is an exact copy, page for page, of this older New Testament, so that I don't have to learn the page layouts again at all. None of my Bibles or New Testaments show the wear and use which this one does, and even now it, rather than the black, full Bible, still accompanies me when I go on trips because it fits much more easily into my laptop bag. 

     The closest English Bible I have which might show a similar amount of wear is either my old "Pastor's Bible," an "Orthodox Study Bible," or my old rose colored "New Scofield New King James Study Bible" which I bought at the first Bible School I attended back when I was eighteen or nineteen. The one that really shows its wear and age though is no longer in my library, but was given to my son years ago. That was the New King James Bible I was given as a birthday present by my mother when I turned sixteen. That one makes my old Pastor's Bible look pristine, especially with the nail hole in the spine (I was trying to repair it without knowing what I was doing).

     Underneath my black Hebrew and Greek Bible on my desk is my "quotes journal." This is a journal I bought to replace all of the index cards I had around my desk, computer monitor, and wall that I had filled with quotes of wisdom and Scripture (Greek text). I was running out of room, so I copied them all into the journal, and now I continue to put different texts and quotes into it when I run across good ones. Everything from the Greek text of the N.T. to quotes from the Matrix, the Philokalia, the Tao Te Ching, the Gospel of Buddha, Star Wars, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and George MacArthur have made it into this little grey book.

     I still have some of those quote framed on my wall to my left. Chiefly and in a prominent place are the conditions of discipleship from Luke in Greek. Underneath these are also in Greek a prayer, Colossians 3:3, and 1 John 4:8 and 10. Above these are quotes from the Dalai Lama, a prayer I wrote, and a quote from Dan Millman.

     Directly above my monitor, and the most prominent fixture at my desk is a picture of Jesus Christ as painted by Akiane. It's my favorite portrait of Him because it's the face which most resembles what He actually looked like based on a number of things, and was identified by a 4 or 5 year old boy as Jesus' actual face out of dozens of pictures after an NDE. Akiane herself painted it when she was 8 after seeing it in a vision. It's the face which most calls to me deep into my soul. The one something within me somehow remembers though these eyes have never seen it.

     Outside of all of these things, on my desk and to my left is my refurbished Panasonic Toughbook, arguably my favorite computer that is probably on it's tenth operating system, Windows 8.1 for now, and directly in front of me mounted on the wall is my desktop monitor which was kindly bought for me for my birthday by my daughter in order to replace the one that died.

      I don't really know why I'm led to describe what's right in front of me this morning, but this is the environment in which I study, write, play games (Fallout 4 most recently), and frequently watch movies or series when I have time. 

Thoughts on Non-Judgment and Doing My Best

 [In what follows, I'm using myself as an illustration that others will hopefully be able to take and use for themselves. I want to make clear that I'm not trying to garner sympathy in the event that it could be taken that way.]

     My life experiences have been a rocky roller coaster at best. When I was four, I lied and told a girl's parents that she had said a swear word, and consequently got her spanked, because she had made a friend of mine cry. At six, I chased my sister around with a nail file like it was a knife. At the age of ten or so, I held my Special Education teacher up against the wall by her throat. As a child, I could be violent, and could occasionally nearly strangle to death a peer who had frustrated or angered me. As a teenager and young adult, I became very involved in my church and later went to Bible School. I pounded on the doctrines and rules of my religion, and drove away and hurt a lot of hurting people. As an adult I couldn't keep a job on average for more than a year or two, and most of them were for far less time. I moved my family from state to state, and even into Canada for a time, either looking for work or trying to finish my schooling so I could find a more stable position. As a result, my children never really had a stationary home environment for very long. I changed churches and denominations several times trying to be a part of the "true" church or faith, or at least trying to find it. I packed my family into an R.V. at one point with $3,12 in my pocket and set off from Arizona across the U.S. believing that this is what God wanted us to do, effectively making my family homeless for a year and a half and relying on Him to provide, almost a year of which was spent squatting on my uncle's land in Arkansas after the R.V. broke down and we couldn't repair it. After that I brought my family to California where we spent seven years in a bedroom in my mother's house making the most money we had ever made in the best jobs we had ever had, and still unable to make it on our own.

     "I did the best I could." I say honestly.

     "Well it wasn't good enough!" A voice might respond, either in my head or from someone observing the situation.

     Compared to whom? I ask as I reflect on this exchange. Who else has found themselves in my exact situation, with my biology, neurology, and exact life experiences? Compared to another man who was born with mild to moderate Asperger's, whose father left at five years old, who developed an attachment disorder from living with his two clinically narcissistic and emotionally abusive mentally ill sisters, whose first religious training was in a politically conservative, non-denominational Evangelical church and Bible School? Seriously, compared to whom was it not good enough?

     Every human being is unique. Every human being has a unique biology, neurology, and set of life experiences. Every human being has a unique set of "programming" which dictates what they see as "right" and "wrong." And that programming drives every human being to do what they understand to be the "best" thing to do for themselves in any given decision point in any given moment. Every human being is literally trying to do the best they can with the cards they've been dealt without exception.

     "But what about...?" Fill in the end of the sentence. The best any human being can do almost always inadvertently causes some kind of harm somewhere. It's never intentional. It's never truly desired. But it happens as we continue to believe that what we're doing in the moment is the "right" thing to do even if it hurts someone, because we ourselves are enslaved to our own sense of what is "right" and what is "wrong," which of course is the fundamental malfunction in human beings.

     You can't ask a human being to do anything more than the best they can do for themselves or others. But the best one person can do may look very different, even opposed to the best another person can do.

     Jesus taught, "Don't judge so that you won't be judged." Non-judgment is one of Jesus' fundamental teachings and is born from His teachings and commands to love one another as ourselves. When we love the other person as ourselves, we recognize that they're doing the best they can just as much as we are, and were we dealt the same cards they were, there's the strong possibility we would have chosen the exact same route they have.

     I literally did the best I could with my life under the circumstances. I'm still trying to do the best I can with it. My understanding of what that means has changed over the years, and so have I. Consequently, my best has also changed and will continue to change as I do.

      I and we need to apply that understanding to both ourselves and everyone else around us.

I Want Mercy And Not Sacrifice

 "In that time Yeshua went on the Sabbath through the sown fields; and His disciples were hungry and started to pick the heads of wheat and eat them. and the Parushim having seen it said to Him, "Look, Your disciples are doing what isn't allowed on the Sabbath. And He said to them, "Didn't you read what David did when he and those with him were hungry? How we came into the house of God and ate the bread on display, which wasn't allow for neither him nor those with him to eat, except for only the priests to eat? Or didn't you read in the Torah that on the Sabbath for the priests in the temple the Sabbath is a common day like every other day, and they are innocent? And I say to you that a greater One than the temple is here. And if you knew what "I want mercy and not a sacrificial victim" is, you wouldn't have sentenced the innocent. Because the Son of Adam is also the Owner of the Sabbath." - Matthew 12:1-8, my own translation this morning

This. This right here, and the following verses where Jesus (Yeshua) openly challenges the Pharisees (Parushim) on whether or not it's allowed to heal someone on the Sabbath. How many times in the churches today are the "rules" of that church or denomination placed in a higher position than simple mercy, or in the original Hebrew of the verse Jesus quotes, "khesed," "lovingkindness." I want mercy and lovingkindness, not tithes, not sacrifices, not Sacraments, not dress codes, not inflexible codes of conduct. 

     How many times did God have to say this in the Prophets and in how many ways? How many times does He have to say it now? How many times does He have to say, "I don't want your sacrifices, I want you to love"? "I didn't ask for your religious practices and traditions, I told you to be kind, show mercy, defend the defenseless and innocent, and above all to love. Love Me, and love your neighbor like yourself." Religious practice without mercy, sacrifices and offerings while being cold to those around you, murder, hatred, unfairness, and treating others badly in His Name makes Him sick to His stomach, so to speak (this is something He Himself says in the Prophets).

     God would rather have a homosexual who loves Him and loves the person next to Him than a straight, conservative Christian who is merciless. The former person is actually honoring Him, while the latter is blaspheming His Name. He would rather have a destitute homeless beggar who shares the last piece of bread with the person next to him, than the wealthy businessman who refuses to lift a finger to help them, no matter how much he gives to a church. He would rather have the prostitute who is kind, than the nun who beats children. Mercy, love, compassion, forgiveness, kindness, yes, simple kindness like giving a cup of cold water to someone who is thirsty, these are the things that are evidence of the true worship and obedience to God our Father. And Jesus went out of His way explain that in no uncertain terms to the religious leaders who were more concerned with their rituals, traditions, personal wealth, and politics.

     God would rather have the repentant tax collector than the squeaky clean Pharisee.

Thoughts on Past Life Traumatic Stress Disorder

      Of the many thousands of documented cases of children remembering past lives, there is one which, while not necessarily being unique, does stand out as a textbook example. This is even more so because the past life in question was identified after a good deal traveling and research by both the parents and the psychologist who investigated the case. This is the case of a boy named James.

     James had terrible nightmares of crashing a plane into the ocean from the time he was two years old. His playtime also involved crashing toy airplanes into the floor or coffee table. When he could talk, he told his parents that he had been a pilot who flew planes from a boat called the Natoma, and he had a best friend named Jack Larsen. He also called himself the "third James."

     With the help of the psychologist and his resources at the University of Virginia, they were able to discover that the U.S.S. Natoma Bay had been an Aircraft carrier in the Pacific during WWII. From there, they were able to establish that Jack Larsen had been a pilot, very much still alive and whom they were able to meet, on that carrier. From Mr. Larsen, they discovered that James Huston had been his best friend who had crashed into the ocean during a battle not far from Iwo Jima (I could be wrong on the location, but I think it was Iwo Jima). The boy was having nightmares about and reliving the last moments of James Huston's life.

     While being a good textbook example of this phenomenon, it isn't the only documented case, as I said previously, nor is it the only case where the past life was positively identified. This particular group of researchers specialized in identifying, if possible, the past lives which children between the ages of two and five were reporting with the goal of working through it as a therapy to help the children move past the previous life and get on with this life in a healthy way. But what this case does also illustrate is a phenomenon another psychologist termed "past life traumatic stress disorder" (PLTSD)

     Someone with PLTSD presents with emotional trauma, irrational fears, sometimes nightmares, and many of the symptoms of PTSD without any explanation in the context of their life experiences, and sometimes involving factual details inexplicable to this life as well. From childhood, a person might be terrified of drowning in water without any obvious event in their lives to explain it. A person might have horrifying nightmares of images that they could never have possibly seen either in images or their life experience. A man might become emotionally upset to tears at the thought of not being able to bear and carry children, even though it makes no sense for him to be upset by this. One researcher speculated that the psychology of transgenderism might be because that particular "soul" or "consciousness" was in fact the opposite gender in the previous life and was confused and unable to let go of it in this life. The brain is a fascinating instrument, and will try to conform itself to whatever the consciousness believes that it should be.

     One psychology author wrote along the lines that memory is emotional in nature. That is, our strongest memories are tied to the strong emotions we were having at the time. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the memory. One good example in my own life should illustrate this well. On October 27th, 2017, I received a call from my wife that my oldest daughter had passed out on the field from the heat. I left work and rushed over to my daughter’s high school. What followed was six years of her continuing to recover from heat stroke related brain damage to her cerebellum as well as a lawsuit where the lawyers for the other side took almost five years to depose my family and I. When it was my turn to relate the events of that day, all I had to do was close my eyes as I walked the other side’s lawyer through my exact footsteps and what I saw as I found my daughter lying on a bed in the nurse’s office clearly out of it and unable to walk. I literally remembered that day as if it had been yesterday, even five years later because of the strong emotions associated with it. What emotions were at play? Fear and anger certainly. Love and concern for my daughter, absolutely. Shock? Yep. “No this can’t be happening, can it?” Just a hint of denial in my subconscious that I had to shove to the back of my mind in order to deal with the crisis clearly at hand.

      A person might clearly remember the person and events surrounding a strong, passionate romance. They might remember clearly what it felt like to rescue someone as they went into crisis response. The warm feelings and affection of a mother’s or father’s love are strongly remembered. At the same time, emotionally traumatic events also imprint themselves strongly, such as watching a friend die. Being beaten or abused, or nearly dying are things which people only forget because the emotions surrounding them are so strong they overwhelm the mind’s ability to cope with them. All of these things appear to be the kinds of emotional memories which can be carried over from one life to the next. That is, it appears that, rather than factual or logical data, it is feelings and emotions and the memories, even images, associated with those that imprint themselves on a person’s soul or consciousness. And these emotional imprints are what can present themselves without any plausible or even possible context in the experience of one’s current life.

     In order to work through emotional distress, one has to allow themselves to feel the emotions and let them run their natural course. Often times it is incredibly difficult to do this if you have no idea why you are feeling the way that you do. Without any experiential context in which to place the emotions a person is feeling, they are far more likely to suppress them, hide them, and tell themselves there’s no reason to be feeling that way. They may even believe themselves to be going insane. None of which actually helps the distress in any way, and only increases the likelihood that the emotional distress will transform into a debilitating mental disorder. Accepting the possibility of PLTSD and emotional trauma which may have transferred from a previous life, even if only as a psychological metaphor or placeholder, allows for the possibility of placing the trauma within some kind of experiential context which can then be ferreted out and worked through in some way. It allows the person experiencing those distressing emotions to have a reason for feeling them, and thus opens the door to letting them go.

     Of course, all of this requires that one accepts the possibility of reincarnation, something which flies in the face of western ideology, either atheist materialism or traditional Christianity. It’s easier to believe that someone is “just crazy” than to change one’s ideological worldview to accommodate evidence which doesn’t fit within it. The problem though is that telling someone they’re “just crazy” rather than accepting the possibility that your worldview may be incomplete is itself harmful to the person, and is itself bad science. The most accurate view of the world is one which is able to incorporate and explain all available evidence and data, not just that which one agrees with.

God's Provision and a $1500 Mechanic's Bill

      I'm going to pick up my car today from the mechanic. I dropped it off a week ago because one of the "idiot lights" that we couldn't ignore came on after the trip to the Renaissance Faire in Ohio. It turned out that the idiot light was telling me that the catalytic converter was going to need to be replaced, and the shop quoted me over $1100 to do it. Okay, fine. The money was there. It would hurt, but we could limp along. Then, come Monday when we were supposed to pick it up, I'm told by the mechanic that one of the oxygen sensors is bad, and it's going to cost another $400.

     Ouch. I mean really, ouch. Is the money there? Yes, but it's going to hurt a lot more. A lot more. I needed to sit down after that and process through it.

     It's altogether too easy to be triggered by fear of not having enough. You'd think by now this would be old hat to me, but still, the fear of lack rose up.

     If I am in union with God through union with Jesus Christ, then I have access to everything in His possession to meet my needs. If I am submitted to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ, then all I need do is ask the Father for anything I need and He will do it. Even more so, He knows what I need before I need it. The truth is that for right now, in this moment, I have everything I need. To suggest that I lack something I need is actually preposterous, as like the child of the multibillionaire, all I need do is ask and the resources are limitless. It makes no sense to complain of lack when you are literally surrounded by wealth. It makes no sense to cling to the oh so few digits in a bank account when your Parent owns not just the bank but all of creation. Because I am one with Jesus Christ, I am one with the Father. And if I am one with the Father then everything which belongs to Him becomes my inheritance as well, which is literally everything which exists.

      And yet there I was, worried and fearful of not having enough because of a $1500 bill which after today will be nothing but a memory in the rearview mirror because I already have it. Worried and fearful because of a lack which didn't exist.

     Our brains are hardwired with an overactive fear response that activates, not just on existing physical threats like it's supposed to, but on imaginary ones and even threats which have long been resolved. We even derive our very self-identities based on what our brains believe is either a survival necessity or a survival threat. What we're afraid of losing, or what we're afraid of happening. Instead of staying in this moment, right here and right now, the brain's thoughts are preoccupied with either what did happen or what could happen as it continues to overassess potential threats or needs. 

     And when we engage with that malfunctioning survival system, we disengage from the submission to and cooperation with the Spirit of Christ. We blind ourselves to our infinitely wealthy Parent who has said, "If you make your home in Me, and what I said makes its home within you, you will ask what you want and it will happen for you." And who also said, "Don't worry about what you will eat, what you will drink, or what you will wear, because your Heavenly Father knows everything you need before you ask Him. ... Only look for the Kingdom of God and His right state of Being first then all of these things will be added to you." Look for the Kingdom of God first, that is, be in submission to and cooperation with the Spirit of Christ first, and then your Father's bank account, the wealth of the infinite multiverse, is available to meet your needs.

     This $1500 has been another examination for me, a test that is neither pass nor fail, but only meant to demonstrate where I'm at in this moment. It has been instructive to see where I'm at and how far I have to go.

Rambling Thoughts About the "Imago Dei"

       What does it mean that human beings were made in the image of God? This is a question that has sparked many answers from many different theologians. A surface answer would be that it means that we somehow look like God physically, and this is still how many mistakenly understand the Scripture when it says in Genesis 1 that "haAdam," male and female, was made in the image of God. Thing is, our physical bodies are clearly animal in nature, and research scientists today can trace that lineage of evolution back millions of years to creatures which don't resemble human beings in any way. At some point, all animals on Earth, human beings included, share a common ancestor. Our bodies are very much of these four dimensions, of this space and this timestream. Our thoughts even in trying to describe extra-dimensional realities are limited to the symbology and experiences of the four dimensions by which we are constrained because the physical, animal brain literally can't process anything more.

     But what being made in the image of God tells us is that we, as human beings, are not our bodies. We are not the thoughts our brains come up with, or the sum of the things we experience in this life. We are not our names, our likes or dislikes, or anything else in this world with which we identify. We are not anything which can be corrupted, get sick, be hurt, or even die. All of these things can happen to a human body, but not to the consciousness which inhabits that body. The consciousness which is connected to or inhabits that body is like a person playing a computer RPG using an avatar such as in World of Warcraft or Skyrim. Many horrible things can happen to the avatar that will never touch the player themselves. The player may so identify with the character that it becomes truly traumatizing (though we would suggest that player was imbalanced if it did), but what happens to the avatar can never truly harm the player.

     So then how does this essentially immortal consciousness relate to a human being the image of God? God is the ultimate original, primal Consciousness. Every other consciousness derives from His. What separates each human consciousness from His is our own, individual free will. Our ability to choose differently and independently from what He would choose and do. The "substance" of it, for lack of a better word, is derived from His own Consciousness, but "programmed" in such a way to where we are volitionally autonomous. And this is something He will absolutely never revoke or take away, because to do so would destroy the unique individual consciousness much like wiping a hard drive or clearing the RAM in a computer would destroy the unique data therein. The RAM and Hard Drive of course still physically exist, but the program within is just gone. Our individual free will is precious to Him. This is why He guides, teaches, sometimes coerces, sometimes corners, but never involuntarily overrides a person's free will, never turns them into an automaton no matter how harmful their choices become.

     The human being's physical brain is malfunctioning, as I have written copiously about, but the "imago dei," the image of God that each human being genuinely is remains intact because nothing can actually harm it any more than anything can actually harm the Being from whom it derives. It can become confused with the self-identity which the malfunctioning mind creates, and so share in the suffering which the malfunctioning mind endures, but nothing can actually harm it, damage it, or remove it because the image of God is what each human being really is.

On What the Scriptures Actually Teach About "The Rapture"

      Let's talk about the teaching of the Rapture for a moment, and see what the Scriptures actually say about it. "The Rapture" has been popularized in many different books, most notably the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye, but also in different popular eschatology books, such as those by Hal Lindsey. 

     When someone says "The Rapture" in most church circles, they're talking about the teaching that all real believers in Jesus will be bodily taken up to heaven before the final apocalypse takes place, usually over a seven year period of hell on Earth. This teaching is known as the Pre-Tribulation Rapture, and first made its appearance among a fringe Pentecostal group in Scotland before being popularized by Darby in the 1800s among American non-denominational and Baptist churches and Bible Schools. Other variants include the Mid-Tribulation Rapture and the Post-Tribulation Rapture. There is no record of this teaching or eschatological understanding in Church writings prior to the 1800s. The truth is that it takes a great deal of Scripture out of context, and a great deal of theological gymnastics to support this conclusion simply because the Scriptures do not actually teach it.

     So what does the Scripture then say? There are two passages which are truly salient on this topic. These are 1 Corinthians 15:35-54 and 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. Let’s look at these passages in order:

35 But someone will say, “How are the dead raised?” and, “With what kind of body do they come?”  36 You foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not made alive unless it dies.  37 That which you sow, you don’t sow the body that will be, but a bare grain, maybe of wheat, or of some other kind.  38 But God gives it a body even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its own.  39 All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds.  40 There are also celestial bodies, and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial differs from that of the terrestrial.  41 There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory.  42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable.  43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.  44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body. 

  45  So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” *x3 The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.  46 However that which is spiritual isn’t first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual.  47 The first man is of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven.  48 As is the one made of dust, such are those who are also made of dust; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.  49 As we have borne the image of those made of dust, let’s also bear the image of the heavenly.  50 Now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood can’t inherit the Kingdom of God; neither does the perishable inherit imperishable. 

  51  Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,  52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.  53 For this perishable body must become imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.  54 But when this perishable body will have become imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will happen: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” (WEB)

And,

  13  But we don’t want you to be ignorant, brothers, concerning those who have fallen asleep, so that you don’t grieve like the rest, who have no hope.  14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.  15 For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left to the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede those who have fallen asleep.  16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first,  17 then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever.  18 Therefore comfort one another with these words. (WEB)

     What is Paul talking about in the context of these passages specifically? The resurrection of the dead. Now what is clear from other places in Scripture, the book of Revelation in particular, is that the resurrection of the dead is meant to happen at the end of all things when the earth and the sea give up their dead and they are returned to life. In the passage in 1 Corinthians, Paul goes into a discussion about what the resurrection body is in comparison with the current “earthly” body we now possess. Fundamentally though, it is a transformation from the familiar material flesh to the spiritual or energetically based. And what Paul reiterates in both passages is that this transformation happens to both those dead and those living, with those who are dead being transformed first and then those living undergoing the same transformation. And in that moment, the human race as we have understood and known it ceases to be altogether in favor of something eternal, timeless, set right, and whole as the full “adoption” takes hold, we receive the entirety of our inheritance through our union with Jesus Christ as the children and heirs of God, and we become fully realized, as Jesus Christ Himself is, as physical manifestations of the God who is Love incarnate. Whereas now we see a dim or distorted image as in a highly polished bronze mirror, then there will be no barrier, no obstruction, and no distortion of vision because of the physical limitations of four dimensional flesh and blood. We will see Him, the fullness of God filling everything and surrounding everything with His love, light, and goodness clearly, “face to face.” And this is the final redemption of Adam, all of Adam, from the mistake made tens of thousands of years before. 

     God has never been interested in just rescuing a “chosen few” from the malfunction which occurred in our species in Eden. He has never been interested in just redeeming a select group of people. No. He’s infinitely bigger than that. His sights are set on rescuing and redeeming each and every descendant of Adam no matter how long it takes for them to come around. He’s the Shepherd that leaves the ninety nine to save the one that ran off. And the Scriptures are clear that all of humanity will have to suffer through the apocalyptic consequences of its own actions, because God is not mocked. What humanity has sown, humanity will reap. But at the end of it all, after Heaven has had to invade and occupy Earth to keep us from completely destroying ourselves, every single human being living or dead will be transformed because the good work which He started among us He will bring to completion.

Rambling About Theology, Time, Light, Energy, and the Fundamental Existence of God

      One of the concepts which theologians of the past simply could not grasp was the timeless nature of eternity, that is, that eternity exists outside of the flow time which we experience. For them, eternity always meant "always" or "forever" within some kind of flow of time even if it wasn't that which we experienced within our own existence. The reason for this is because the human brain is simply not capable of visualizing something outside of three dimensions of space and one of time. And so this human inability to conceptualize a timeless existence has led to many misconceptions.

     Time is simply another vector of motion like width, depth, and height within a multidimensional universe, and the greater multidimensional, potentially infinite multiverse. According to modern theoretical physics, our reality must exist in at least eleven dimensions, only four of which we experience directly. These dimensions, like the aforementioned four, are also merely vectors of motion as all of creation remains in motion since the beginning.

     Nothing can move faster than light (except perhaps theoretical tachyons, but that's a subject for another discussion), and the speed of light is constant (300,000 kps) and unyielding. This is a well established scientific fact. Another point about light is that an object travelling at the speed of light travels instantaneously from its own point of view, and is therefore at all points in space and time simultaneously. But why is this? Perhaps it is because we are looking at it from the wrong point of view just as we once looked at the sun as revolving around the Earth instead of the Earth revolving around the sun. Perhaps relative to the creation, light itself is absolutely at rest, and everything else is in motion through it, including time. That is, it is the nature of light to be timeless, that is, eternal, and to exist outside of time and space.

     In some ways, this shouldn't be a surprise, as light is a form or manifestation of energy, and energy itself must be infinite, omnipresent in space and time, and eternal (cannot be created or destroyed, and therefore has no beginning and no end) in an infinite multiverse. This is something which is hinted at in the existence of what's called zero-point energy. That is, it is impossible to completely remove all energy from an object or space (usually in the form of heat), because even at the "zero point" Kelvin, particles are seen popping into and out of existence from the background energy upon which creation rests. Light is at absolute rest relative to the rest of creation because the Source of energy itself is at absolute rest relative to the motion of time, space, and all possible dimensional vectors along which the base components or coding of our existence, the frequencies, amplitudes, and spins which form the base sub-atomic particles and bosons, move.

      That Source of energy itself, eternal existing outside of the time and space which move through Him, infinite, omnipresent, immutable, unmovable, and by His very nature of Being, omnipotent and omniscient, is something, someone whom no theologian in time past, and few in time present, could conceive of or conceptualize. All moments to Him are "right now" as He is equally present in every moment at every point in space since time began through to when space and time cease to be. There is no word in any human language which can actually describe His relationship to time as "timeless" simply doesn't do it justice, and "eternal" in English is misleading.

     And this is the Being whom Jesus Christ called His Father, sacrificing His own self-identity so that the Person whom His Father is could be seen shining radiantly through His own human born Person. "If you have seen Me you have seen the Father." And that Person, that Personality whom Jesus Christ displayed was Love incarnate, pure and unadulterated by attachment, jealousy, or fear. And it is this Person, this Personality through Jesus Christ for whom we are to sacrifice our own self-identities so that, through manifesting Jesus Christ, we also manifest His Father. "The one who has the Son has the Father also." So that we too may be incarnations of a sort of God Himself like Jesus was and remains, so that we too might be the Logos become flesh for a time, camping out in a tent within the world.

     There is nowhere one can go where the Father is not. There is no time, no place, no dimensional vector of travel one can run to or along which does not exist within or travel through Him. To Him, all times and all places are right here and right now. Every point along our common timestream is an open book with every page displayed at once, every frame of the film frozen and fully visible. From eternity, there is no such thing as the experience of time passing except to see each page or frame displayed equally. One might enter any point in our timestream equally whether or not it is considered our past or future.

      And that Being's very Person is Love, and the most important things to Him are Love, Kindness, Mercy, Compassion, Joy, Trust, and that we know Him and get to know Him.

More Thoughts on the Authenticity of the Documents of the New Testament

     If you've ever watched the British production of Poirot with David Suchet, you'll know right away that English isn't Poirot's first language. He peppers his sentences, nearly every sentence with "Frankisms," French words, phrases, and pronunciation. In the series, he says he doesn't have to speak that way, but he does it in a calculating way to throw people off their guard so they will be dismissive of him and thus more likely to be careless in what they say or do. But his heavy accent is a perfect example of what I was reflecting on this morning.
     Growing up in Southern California, you're introduced to speakers of other languages at an early age. There's something like 200 different languages spoken in Orange County alone on a daily basis, sixty at my High School alone. The only way anyone could and did communicate was by speaking English, but it was generally very clear when English wasn't the other person's first language, even if they were perfectly understandable. And even if English was technically their first language, their particular accent or dialect was frequently heavily influenced by the first language of their family or close knit community. With Spanish speakers, sometimes an article would be left out, or they would only pronounce English words with the five vowels of Spanish. With Vietnamese, the tones would be weirdly applied to English at times, and several consonants simply couldn't be formed correctly. With Arabic or Semitic language speakers, they might form the possessive using the "for me, for you" construction depending on how familiar they really were with English. Russian speakers form their sentences awkwardly in English. And on and on there are just little tells that, if a person isn't fully aware of them, can pin exactly which language or language family is their first.
     Much has been made of the Aramaicisms which pepper the Greek of the Gospel narratives. From Aramaic metaphors, to vocabulary, to awkward Greek grammar in places. Some have insisted that, because of this, the Gospels and even the New Testament at large was originally written in Aramaic (Classical Syriac to distinguish it from Biblical Aramaic, which is five hundred years older; the suggestion that they were originally written in Hebrew, a dead language in the first century, is laughable). But if these works had originally been written in Aramaic, why would the translator, presumably fluent in Greek himself, have not used regular Greek vocabulary, grammar, and syntax in rendering it throughout?
     Rather, the Aramaicisms in the text, in my opinion, more reflect the authentic originality of the Greek texts in that they were recorded, either written themselves or dictated to an amanuensis in the cases of those who were illiterate, with the same kind of heavy accent and cultural influence you would expect from those for whom Greek was a second language, and not their first or their family's first. John in particular speaks with these Aramaicisms, and all of the Gospels record Jesus speaking with a heavy Syriac accent. Paul rarely if ever uses them, Luke virtually never. Other authors use them to varying degrees. There is no real uniformity of language use between the authors, also arguing for the originality of the Greek text by each author and none of them being a translation.
     There are a number of people now who talk about the New Testament, and the Bible in general, having only come about or been written in the fourth century by the Church, three hundred years after the events they describe. Any honest examination of the language of the text will reveal that is absolute nonsense. Each document of the New Testament reads exactly as you would expect it to read if they were written by the kinds of people you would expect in those dialects, in that language, in that culture, in that region, and in that time period they were purported to have been written. If these documents had been written three hundred years later by theologians, they would be radically different, uniform in language, and anachronistic in content in lockstep with the theology and culture of the fourth century.
    A comparison might be made with the Book of Mormon, purported to be a translation of an ancient American text from the seventh century written in a language descended from Hebrew and Egyptian, and written by multiple authors. Even a cursory reading of this text by someone familiar with both ancient American culture and languages and ancient Middle Eastern/Egyptian culture and languages will tell them that this is complete nonsense, and that this text reflects the period and religious language and landscape of 1820s American Protestantism, is completely uniform in language usage, and reflects a single author who was fluent in the American dialect of English in the early 1800s. They will also tell you that the purported examples of this ancient language's vocabulary, person and place names as well as names of weights and measures (excluding the obvious Biblical names), do not reflect or represent any ancient American or Middle Eastern language. This is in addition to the startling number of anachronisms.
     Whatever one might believe about the content of the documents of the New Testament, all internal evidence reinforces that they were written by whom they say they were, when they say they were, and where they say they were. Anyone who says otherwise either has not done the research and is ignorant of what they're saying, or is deliberately trying to malign the New Testament for their own reasons.

Reflections on "Muscle Testing"

 Over the last several years, my family and I have learned how to "muscle test" questions, and in particular questions of a health related or medical nature. It began when Heidi was still struggling through trying to recover from her bad Multiple Sclerosis flare. We were both skeptical about it at first, but after running a few tests we realized that there was definitely something to it and it could be used with a high degree of reliability. Through using this technique, Heidi, having had her diet growing more and more restrictive over the years because of the seizures that would result if she was wrong, was able to accurately test which foods might be safe for her to ingest and which weren't. With the assistance of this newfound tool, Heidi was able to not only get the M.S. flare under control, but was able to reverse and eliminate the plaques on her brain and spine altogether.
      The idea behind muscle testing is based on the body having its own energy field, sometimes referred to as "chi" or "qi" which reacts with the energy fields of other things either positively or negatively. In addition, the body's energy field will react to a truth or untruth positively or negatively either being strengthened or literally pulled towards the truth, or being weakened and literally repulsed by the untruth. In this way, it is possible to ask and receive answers to yes or no questions with a high degree of reliability.
     There are however some caveats we've learned about this technique, sometimes the hard way, which are well worth reflecting on and pondering. The major caveat to it is that you cannot get a reliable answer to a question where you have an attachment to the answer you get. Your own subconscious will interfere and skew the results to whatever you either think it should be, or whatever you're afraid it might be.
     If you are in a state of fear, conscious or unconscious, or aggression your answers become unreliable and the muscle testing will start delivering gibberish responses where "yes" can be "no" and vice versa. In other words, if you are engaged with or in submission to your own malfunctioning survival responses, the muscle testing doesn't work right and itself malfunctions. Any emotional state which is ultimately rooted in fear or aggression such as despair, anger, or pride results in unreliable answers. In order to receive reliable answers, fear has to be let go of and the practitioner has to shift in the direction of courage, reason, joy, compassion, and ultimately love (not of the romantic variety but of the agape variety). The closer one is to agape (and the farther one is from fear), the more accurate and reliable the answers become.
     And what I have been reflecting on is how much this is similar to what I have been writing about submitting to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ. The more one does this, the more Jesus Christ manifests within that person, but in order to do this one must disengage from one's own fear, aggression, and bodily cravings. So in the same way, perhaps where muscle testing is concerned, one is not asking the questions of the energy of one's body per se, but one is connecting to the Energy or Spirit of Christ in order to receive information about a thing. And then when one disengages and reverts to the fear and aggression responses of their flesh, they only get wrong or unreliable answers because they have disconnected themselves. And maybe it works this way whether or not one understands the mechanism accurately because every human being has been joined as one with the Spirit of Christ through His birth, death, burial, and resurrection.
     Regardless, it's clear to me at this point that the best path and practice is that of letting go of one's attachments and the fear and aggression they can generate. By letting them go, one can sense and communicate with the Truth more freely, and be able to allow that Truth to express Himself freely through you. The best thing we can do is to remove all obstructions to Him doing this.

On Whether Jesus and His Disciples Actually Taught If He was the Son of God

      There is a persistent teaching floating around progressive Christianity and New Age circles which, at its most innocent is a simple ignorance or misunderstanding of history and the historical documents of Christianity, and at its worst is a pernicious falsehood. Like the Reformers reaction and rejection of the Roman Catholic Church's teachings because of its abuses, sometimes throwing out the baby with the bathwater, this too is a reaction against the abuses of modern Christianity, and it too is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. This teaching is that Jesus wasn't taught to be either Christ or God until the Great Ecumenical Council of Nicea in 325 CE, almost three hundred years after His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. A related teaching is that the documents of the New Testament originated at this Council. Both are simply not true. While this Council and its succeeding Councils sought to codify and set in stone the theology which had always been universally accepted (to a greater or lesser degree of success), they were not attempting to invent anything which had not already been taught and accepted by the churches at large. They themselves were going off of the writings of their predecessors from both the New Testament authors and the writings of the bishops and church leaders that had come before them. Whether or not one agrees with their conclusions, their methodology and decisions were at least credible and well intended to reflect the historical belief system of their spiritual ancestors.

     The first century historicity and authorship of the documents of the New Testament is well attested in a number of different ways. First, the internal language is reflective of the various dialects and modes of speech reflected in first century Common Greek. In addition, it's very clear that those documents ascribed to Paul were all written by a single author, those written by Luke were written by a single author, and so were those written by John. Those authors who only wrote a single document within the New Testament also reflect their own unique modes of speech and dialect distinct from the others. Second, the writings of the late first and early second century all cite various sections and passages from these primary New Testament documents, suggesting heavily that these documents had not only already been written long before the second century writings, but had been copied so many times that they were in widespread circulation. Third, it's clear that they were in widespread circulation by at least 120 CE when they were translated into Syriac in what is known as the Peshitta. Thus, while the Great Council in 325 CE may have acknowledged the twenty seven documents we now know as the New Testament as canon, they did not originate there, and they only chose these documents and not others because these were the ones everyone tended to use and agree on. Were there others? Yes, but not everyone agreed on them, and they were focused on canonizing what had been universally accepted, not what had only been accepted by a minority.

     The Divinity of Jesus Christ likewise is a teaching which is found in not only the documents of the New Testament, but also in the earliest extant documents of the leaders of the church dating easily to the late first and early second century. First, Jesus Himself said in no uncertain terms, "I am the Son of God" in the Gospel of John. Further, John's writings go to great lengths in ways the other Gospel writers do not to not only equate Jesus with God, but to reinforce His divine parentage as Jesus refers to Himself as God's one of a kind Son, refers to God as His Father numerous times unambiguously, and of course, the very opening lines of John's Gospel declare, "At the start was the Logos, and the Logos was with  God, and the Logos was God. ... And the Logos became flesh and camped out among us, and we looked at His glory, the glory as of the one of a kind Son of the Father..." It's clear from the context of the Gospel and John's first letter that He is referring to Jesus as the Logos become flesh. And it's also clear from first century understanding of the term "Logos" as used in John's writings that He is referring to the Logos in the same understanding as the Stoics and other philosophers would use the word, that is, the operating divine principle through which the world was created and continues to operate. It carries a similar understanding to the eastern concept of Tao, as well as the Hindu Om. You simply cannot read John's writings and come to the conclusion that neither Jesus nor the author believed that He was God, the Son of God, or Divine in some way. The same is true of Paul's writings, where Paul is explicit that the world was created through Him, and calls Him "our God and Savior." Peter's writings as well reflect this. This same understand continue on in the writings of Ignatius who was the Bishop of Antioch at the turn of the second century and was martyred by being thrown to lions in 105 CE. This understanding peppers the writings of the church fathers all the way through the second century and beyond. Even just the authors of the New Testament calling Jesus "Lord," that is, "kurios," was a kind of acknowledgement of His Divinity, being the same word used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament to translate the Divine Name, and at the very least was a declaration that they were owned by Him as it literally means "owner or master."

     Wherever someone might land in terms of whether or not Jesus is in fact the virgin born Son of God, it is clear from what documents we do have from the period prior to the councils that this is what the first disciples and their immediate successors came to believe and understand, and this is what Jesus Himself said He was according to what they wrote.

What is The Kingdom of God?

 The kingdom of God doesn’t come with empirical observation, neither will they say, “Look, here!” or “There!” Because look! The kingdom of God is inside of you. - Luke 17:20b-21

Because the kingdom of God isn’t eating and drinking but a state of right being and peace and joy by means of the Holy Spirit; because the person being enslaved to Christ with this is a delight to God and proven to human beings. - Romans 14:17-18

And saying that, “The time has been fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at this point in time; change your mind and trust in the Gospel.” - Mark 1:15

     What do Jesus and the New Testament authors mean by the twin phrases, “The kingdom of God” and “The kingdom of Heaven”? These can be some of the most misunderstood terms when studying what the Scripture says because they invoke the imagery of a political entity, a nation with territorial boundaries, and the imagery of a literal kingdom on earth with the Messiah as its head of state subjugating all other nations through force. It is this kind of kingdom that the Judeans in the first century were taught to look for, the restoration of a Davidic king on the throne in Jerusalem bringing all of Israel’s enemies to their knees. And when we see all other pretenders to the Messianic title in the first century, this is exactly what they attempted to bring about, culminating in Rome losing their patience and destroying the temple, razing Jerusalem, and hunting every last “ZELΩTHC” down that they could. As Jesus predicted this would happen if they didn’t listen to Him and turn around, clearly, this isn’t what He was talking about.

     The kingdom of God, as the New Testament understands it, is made up of all those who choose to submit to and cooperate with the Spirit of Christ. By so doing, they maintain their connection to Jesus Christ Himself like members of the body to their Head. By so doing they acknowledge and commit to the absolute authority of the Spirit of Christ, the absolute authority of God Himself over their words, actions, behaviors, and lives thus acknowledging Jesus Christ as their “king” in this kingdom. It is a kingdom without borders or boundaries. It is a kingdom that, like the mustard seed, begins small inside you and then grows immensely large. It is a kingdom that, in order to really obtain it, one must say goodbye to everything to which they are attached. It is a kingdom where some are enslaved to the Spirit of Christ, and some are enslaved to their own flesh and it is hard to sort out who is who until the end. It is a kingdom whose citizens are not of this world, do not live enslaved to their own malfunctioning flesh, and realize they are merely passing through. It is a kingdom for whom God Himself is their home, their king, and their security. It is a kingdom that cannot fall to any earthly attack, because its citizens are one with God Himself.

     One cannot bring the kingdom of God about on earth through political or military action because these things only serve to incite the malfunctioning flesh to fear and aggression, thus pulling back control from the Spirit of Christ. One cannot force someone to submit to and cooperate with the Spirit of Christ. This has always been and always will be expressly voluntary. He will not force Himself on anyone. Attempting to enforce “God’s Law” by political, military, or other violent means cannot further the growth of the kingdom of God because these means are diametrically opposed to its nature, and any attempt to do so will only result in the same self-destruction which happened to Judea in the first century. One might be able to create a fear stricken population of religious zealots, but one will not and cannot build the kingdom of God using these means. One can only build the kingdom of God by making disciples of the Way of Jesus Christ, and this is done by teaching them to submit to and cooperate with the Spirit of Christ, not by teaching them to keep rules and laws.

     One also cannot bring the kingdom of God about on earth in any other meaningful way because Jesus Christ already did it in the only way that is meaningful. One can only build the kingdom further by being a disciple themselves and teaching others how to be disciples, make their home in Him, and walk as He walked, manifesting Him in their words and actions.

     At some point in the future, sooner rather than later I suspect given the direction everything is heading, humanity will have driven this planet and themselves to such a brink of self-destruction that our only salvation as a species will be invasion and military and political occupation by Heaven’s forces. But don’t mistake this for the kingdom of God which Jesus and the Apostles preached. This is Heaven sending relief and peacekeeping forces to keep us from finishing the job much like Pompey occupied Judea to keep the Judeans from destroying themselves through their civil war. This is Heaven saying “enough is enough,” while still not forcing the Spirit of Christ on anyone. This is last resort for our survival as a species and the survival of our world until the completion of everything. The only way we keep ourselves from reaching this point is by being disciples ourselves and building the kingdom of God as Jesus taught us to do.