I remember like it was yesterday, running to mama, crying “W-a-a-a-a-h, Mike said I was a human being! :'( I’m not a human being – I’m a girl!

Well, I’ve come a long way since then, I hope :p . But this is reminiscent of what I’m seeing everywhere these days – stuck-in-the-mud type thinking. A real Christian doesn’t do thus and so. They think thus and so. Living a schizoid life seems more “christian” than fully discovering their true Self. 🙁

Manmade Religion presents the faithfulness of God like fragile broken eggshells beneath our feet

when in truth God’s faithfulness is stronger than anything

Stronger than Peter’s denial
Stronger than Thomas’ doubt
Stronger than David’s lust
Stronger than Moses’ murder
Stronger than Paul’s persecution

Stronger than life
Stronger than death
Stronger than sin
Stronger than shame

Stronger than your worst day
Stronger than your greatest mistake
Stronger than anything you will ever face

God will be faithful to you
He will never leave you
He will never forsake you
He will be faithful to you

Because he loves

And it’s his joy to rescue you

Even from yourself

~Jeremiah Johnson

“21 Things I Did, Exploring Spirituality Beyond Institutional Religion:

1. I made peace with my religious past.
2. I took responsibility for my spiritual journey.
3. I stopped dividing up the world into “sacred” and “secular.”
4. I began listening to and trusting my inner voice.
5. I started looking past the externals, and relating to the deepest reality I knew was present in every human being.
6. I quit making my humanity the enemy.
7. I resisted the need to build a persona around being an enlightened person.
8. I opened myself to the rhythm and flow of life in nature.
9. I explored what the natural sciences have to say about the universe and my humanness.
10. I focused on addressing the root of my suffering.
11. I paid attention to my deepest desires and passions.
12. I sought to cast off my fictitious self, and be an authentic and fully-expressed me.
13. I questioned and applied critical thinking to my default assumptions and beliefs about the world.
14. I expanded my relational world beyond religious sub-culture.
15. I resisted creating a new religion out of my latest discovery.
16. I operated with the assumption that every human being knew something I needed to know.
17. I resisted latching onto the latest guru, and began seeing all people as my teachers.
18. I explored new fields and areas of interest that were largely unknown to me.
19. I shifted my focus from the question of life after death to making the most of my life before death.
20. I approached my life as a reality I was free to create.
21. I became interested and involved in the lives of people I encountered naturally along the everyday paths of my life.”

– Jim Palmer

IS YOUR ENTIRE BELIEF SYSTEM pretty much the same now as it was five years ago?
And do you really think that’s a good thing?
Don’t you know the Holy Spirit has been imparting tons of fresh revelation?
Can’t you see there are things He can tell us now that He couldn’t tell Peter, James and John?
God never intended for the Bible to become itself a religion.
Hey, He never intended for religion to become a religion.

When you reject religion as I do
Are you rejecting Jesus?
Are you rejecting the Christ?
Or, are you rejecting man-made Christianity?

That last one’s a tough one.
Isn’t there a biblical counterpart to
“Don’t throw the baby out
with the bathwater!”?

Or maybe the only way to clean up
the mess that religion has made
is to see it implode upon itself
and give mankind back their own mind.

Some years ago I pretty much devoured “A Course In Miracles”. I knew I needed it because line upon line it eviscerates the ego.
This morning I found myself bemoaning to Papa “W-a-a-a-a-h! The Course didn’t ‘take’.
You wanna hear what he tol’ me?
He said “You’ve heard of planting a seed in someone, right?”
Yes, Papa, I wailed.
“Well, it planted a garden in you!”

Here’s the best answer I’ve ever heard to that gnawing question:
ARE YOU A CHRISTIAN?
It all depends on how one defines CHRISTIAN. If one is referring by that nomenclature to traditional doctrinal beliefs promulgated by a Western understanding of Holy Scriptures, then, NO, I AM not a “Christian.” However, if one means one’s belief in the Universality of the CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS which is one with LOVE being one’s natural and only state, then, YES, I AM a Christian and brother to CHRIST and a Son of My Father.
<3 ~PA~. Albert Joseph Jefferson

The God that you believe in, will be the God that you read in the Bible.
If you believe in the love of God you will be able to navigate your way through the mazes of different theologies in the Bible.
However if you believe in the wrath, anger and judgement of God, it will lead to a disturbing dual concept of God, that your mind cannot internally process.
The Bible is a historical document of man’s journey to discover who God is.
Some got it right, and some got it horribly wrong, which is the detrimental dilemma of those who still try to read the Bible literally.
But for those whom the Bible points to the spirit of God within;
They are free to experience, explore and discover the spirit of freedom and love.
This is life eternal and eternal life.
~Dan Shaffer

The new religion is boasting of no religion and the new law is boasting of no law. If you don’t agree with my new religion and new law then you are religious.
Don Keathley

The things I think and think about but am too timid to mention – thank you, Don, for exposing! 😉
RJS

< Sigh > I remember when “religious” used to be a good word! I brush my teeth religiously. I do my homework religiously. I exercise religiously. Now if erryone’s gonna trace religious to its roots (religare) and conclude that is a return to bondage, can you blame us for running away with all due haste?
RJS

Christians say that “we” are “sinners” in Romans 3 and that “we” need to be saved by grace in Ephesians 2.

But let’s just use basic common sense and context.

Who is the “WE” ?? Paul is a Jew writing to the Jews and Greek proselytes who were under the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant was given by Moses. Jesus said that not one bit of the Law would pass away until heaven/earth passed away in Matthew 5. We know from Matthew 24 and Luke 21 and several other passages that the heaven/earth is the law – the old covenant itself – that passed away when the Temple and Jerusalem was destroyed in their generation !! Jesus said that they had to fulfill the law (Matthew 5). So did Paul in Romans 13. So did James in James 2. Those under the Old Covenant had to fulfill the Law by faith in Christ – they had to receive the Holy Spirit and be empowered to fulfill the law – by following Jesus. Something that most Christians today do not follow. Following Jesus was to sell all possessions (Luke 12), forsake family, jobs, lands (Luke 14), NOT TAKE ANY MONEY (Matthew 10:9), radically obey the ten commandments (Matthew 5), to forgive and love enemies (Matt 6), to turn the other cheek, to love and bless those who cursed them —> This was the supernatural faith of the Bible – which the 1st Century people obeyed. The entire New Testament was written to the people under the Old Covenant. God was making a New Testament with THEM !! Not us !! We were never under the Old covenant to begin with !! The New Covenant was made with those under the Old….the 2nd coming happened to those who saw the 1st coming.

We were never in the picture at all.
The judgment Day and 2nd coming of Christ happened in 70AD just as the ENTIRE NEW TESTAMENT prophesied.

All of Scripture was written by Jews to those under the law. It was not written to us. Want proof? Christianity today looks nothing like the 1st century church – nobody follows Jesus, there are 41000 divided denominations. God is not the author of confusion. Man gladly does through religion. True Christianity ended in 70AD. We live in the new humanity – the new world, where sin has been eradicated because Jesus took away the law. Jesus completely reversed the work of Adam’s fall.

YOU WERE BORN RIGHTEOUS….without sin….without needing any faith. You are PERFECT from birth !
~Mathew Simon