Posted by Roberta Grimes • December 29, 2018 • 47 Comments
Jesus, The Teachings of Jesus
I read frequent communications from three very different clergymen. One is an eloquent Catholic monk who has devoted his life to elevating whatever he finds to be of value in Catholicism while he happily ignores the rest. The second is a pastor who trumpets all the mainline Protestant ideas and especially insists that Jesus died for our sins. The third is a fire-and-brimstone preacher whose entire goal is to get every one of us to claim Jesus as our savior because God’s judgment is upon us and if we are not “saved” we will go straight to hell. Reading them together is an education! It is clear that all three are devoted to Jesus, and it just never has occurred to them to wonder whether their own particular Christian denomination might not be the one that the Lord prefers. Or might it even be possible that the genuine Christ, Who came to us as God on earth, actually wants something else altogether?
These three clergymen and so many others remain still oblivious to the fact that God is about to rock our world. Based upon abundant evidence, we know at last that God is real, God is Consciousness and all that exists, and our minds are part of that infinite eternal Mind which continuously manifests this universe. So for the first time in human history we can begin to understand the true nature of God. We even can start to figure out what it is that God actually wants! For awhile longer, the advent of God on earth will mean little to the billions of people who are still stuck in the world’s religions. But for you and me it presents some very exciting possibilities!
As you may know, afterlife researchers and others have lately been made aware of an ongoing effort being made by those at the highest levels of reality who are working through many people on earth to raise the consciousness vibration of this planet away from fear and negativity and toward ever more perfect love. This is an urgent matter! We are told that unless this effort succeeds, within just a couple of centuries our planet will be a desolate wasteland. So getting it right will be important! And Who better to tell us what we should be doing to powerfully transform the world and avoid its imminent destruction than the genuine God Whose Mind continuously manifests this universe?
Let me say here plainly that for various reasons I consider it more likely
than not that almost everything that Christians believe about Jesus is true. He is the promised Jewish Messiah, born of a virgin as God on earth and eventually crucified, entirely dead, risen from the dead three days later, and bodily assumed into heaven. All quite possibly – even probably – true. But we also can conclusively demonstrate that Jesus didn’t die for our sins because God already forgives us all. In addition, now we know that everyone who practiced any religion on earth – or even practiced no religion – goes to the very same religion-free afterlife. But these Christian errors cannot in the least diminish the fact that the life of Jesus is now demonstrated to be a miraculous gift from God! And God doesn’t give us miraculous gifts just to show off. So we know that the gift that is the life of Jesus must have had an important purpose. And since we know now that purpose was definitely not the religion that was later built around Him, don’t you agree that it is well past time for us to give the Lord another chance to tell us in His own words why He came?
We began to set the scene last week. You and I are observant Jews who have discovered an itinerant Teacher so compelling that we have lately begun to follow Him around and listen to Him. We have no idea what the next hour will bring, so for certain we know nothing about Jesus’s later charge that we should spread His teachings, nor His crucifixion, Paul’s letters, Christianity, nor anything else that the future might hold for this Teacher. We just enjoy listening to Him now. So, what do you and I hear Him saying?
I will give you here five primary things that I can hear the Lord telling us, but you might be hearing other things, too. I urge you to open the Gospel words that we now can confirm are genuine, and read and think and draw your own conclusions. But for now, the sun is hot on our heads. From nearby comes an unforgettable Voice…
Jesus Came to Abolish Religions
Religions are a fear-based holdover from the millennia when people served 
multiple Gods. Now that our people serve one God, Jesus has come to take us past the need for religions altogether. He begins by throwing away the entire Old Testament – what the Jews of His day call The Law and The Prophets – and replacing every religious law with God’s law of perfect love. When asked what is the greatest commandment, He says, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets” (MT 22:37-40). He assures us that His outright abolition of religious laws is part of God’s plan when He says, “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill” (MT 5:17).
Jesus speaks out against religious traditions, and He especially reviles clergymen. He says, “Why do you transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?… You hypocrites! Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from me. But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men’” (MT 15:3-9). And, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in” (MT 23:13). Wow! is what you and I are thinking, sitting here and listening at the Lord’s feet. Is the Teacher telling us that God is abandoning His Chosen People?
Jesus Came to Teach Us How to Relate to God On Our Own
Actually, Jesus is telling us that we have grown beyond our need for religions, and God would prefer that we begin with Him a one-on-one relationship. He says, “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you” (MT 6:1-6). And we can see that Jesus is trying to avoid being seen as a religious figure. For Him, it is His teachings that matter! He says, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” (LK 6:46). “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter” (MT 7:21). You and I, at the Teacher’s feet, glance at one another. We cannot help but conclude that, amazingly, God no longer wants us to practice the religion of our fathers, but instead God wants us to begin to develop a personal relationship with Him.
Jesus Came to Teach Us to be Seekers
The Lord knows that humanity will continue to advance in understanding past this sunny afternoon by the Sea of Galilee, so He wants us to keep seeking more knowledge as we 
become better able to comprehend it. He says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened” (MT 7:7-8). He also says, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (JN 8:31-32). Again we share a glance. We think we understand this, too. We should be looking for more truths to come, but what the Teacher is telling us now is a basic set of truths that will not change.
Jesus Came to Teach us How to Grow Spiritually
The teachings of Jesus on forgiveness and love are the easiest and most effective method for achieving rapid spiritual growth that ever has been given to humankind. And clearly Jesus knows that. He keeps telling us how those teachings will transform us when He says things like, “But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two” (MT 5:39-41). And, “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for He Himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (LK 6:35-36). Sitting at His feet and looking up at Jesus, you and I realize what He is saying. He is telling us that following His teachings on forgiveness and love is going to help us become more like Himself.
Jesus Came to Bring the Kingdom of God on Earth
Right at the start of the Lord’s ministry, “after John (the Baptist) had been taken into custody, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel’” (MK 1:14-15). And He said, “How shall we picture the kingdom of God, 
or by what parable shall we present it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the soil, though it is smaller than all the seeds that are upon the soil, yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade” (MK 4:30-32). Jesus talks incessantly about the kingdom of God and His planned role in bringing about the advent of the kingdom of God on earth. For example, He once tells His listeners, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose” (LK 4:43). He expects the kingdom of God to dawn on earth amazingly soon! He says, “There are some of those standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of God” (LK 9:27). Of course, sitting there at the feet of Jesus, you and I as first-century folk have no clue what Jesus is talking about now, nor can we see how it fits with the rest of what we have been hearing Him say. But after two thousand years it does make sense.
Jesus is telling us that He came to earth to help the world’s first true 
monotheists move on from religions altogether and establish individual relationships with God that would better enable them to grow spiritually. And He adds that their rapid spiritual growth, had it happened as it had been planned to happen, would fairly soon have brought the dawning of the kingdom of God on earth. His mission was hijacked soon after His death by religion-builders steeped in human ideas, but its fulfillment has only been delayed! What we see as modern Christianity is nothing more than a distracting wrapper. And the genuine teachings of Jesus that still are safe within that wrapper are needed now more urgently than they ever have been needed before. Doesn’t every Christian on earth, including my three zealous clergyman friends, owe Jesus His right to at last be heard?
If I understand correctly, you want to erase the entire Bible and leave only 2 commands. The proposal is interesting.But how can you convince Christians who have a thousand-year tradition of interpreting the Bible, the miracles that came from their prayers?
Dear Dmitriy, what I might want doesn’t matter. The only question for Christians is what Jesus wants, and as the religion continues to die around us each Christian is going to have to answer that question. Indeed, judging from the emails I am getting now, many Christians are already answering it by rejecting the religion resoundingly.
What I want – and this is all that I want! – is that before those who were born into the faith decide to reject it altogether, they will please, please listen to Jesus!
If all that a religion is can be represented by “commands,” then indeed Jesus gives us just one two-part command to replace a whole raft of religious laws. But the shift is much more positive than that, because His law of love is the center of an entirely new way of thinking spiritually that clearly is what the Gospel teachings are all about, but that Christianity largely ignores.
It all is up to God, Dmitriy. And just as Jesus didn’t try to take down Judaism, but He urged His followers to remain in their faith while adopting His teachings and following them separately, so Christians can learn more about what Jesus taught and begin to follow Him more closely without leaving their traditional churches. This is how Jesus tells us that the transformation is going to happen. And even a small number carefully following those teachings can together bring the kingdom of God on earth!
This totally makes senses . What I’ve been feeling for years . Now I understand why Doreen Virtue is talking so much about Jesus in the past few years ! thank you Roberta for confirming my views !
I’m delighted, Mary Jane! Thank you for commenting. Perhaps it won’t surprise you to learn that I am hearing from many people now who feel essentially as you and I feel, and are increasingly eager to find a way to have the closer walk with God that Jesus promised us. This is such an exciting time to be alive!
Amen to that !
I have always felt a deep connection to Jesus. I was raised Catholic and I always felt his presence, even during a period in my life of rebellion and resistance. However, I never felt any connection to all the rules of the church. It always seemed to be incongruous with the personality of Jesus. Furthermore, the cosmic Christ was never fully distinguished from Jesus the man. I want to follow the truth. I think most of what you are saying is the way indeed. It feels right intuitively. Thank you
Thank for your thoughts, Mike! It begins to feel as if we are a growing chorus, all singing the Lord’s truth! I think your comment that Jesus the man was never distinguished from the cosmic Christ in Christian doctrine is a great one, and I would say even more that there is, amazingly, an intimate indwelling Jesus that it is possible to know, and to invite to live in our entire being. It always has amazed me, really, to find that so many at the start of Christianity were willing to die rather than renounce the Christ. Certainly they weren’t giving their lives for the principle that Jesus died for our sins? No, I realize now that they had become so attuned to the genuine Christ that He was indwelling in them and completed them and it was that perfect internal Christ for which they were cheerfully willing to die.
Hello Roberta,
Your words definitely ring true to my heart. I have felt the restrictions of my own religion for many years. As a young child, I felt it ( and I am 59 now). I continue to participate in some of my religious traditions because it is a connection to my “tribe”, for lack of a better term.
However, I know in my heart that Jesus came to us to teach that we are all One – one heart, one blood, one faith of love. It’s the judgement we create about each other’s religions that separates us and keeps the fuels of fear stoked.
Thank you for your beautiful heartfelt words.
It’s love, compassion, empathy, and trust that will reconnect us to each other and to Jesus. Your words continue to comfort me and give me the courage to speak to others as well.
Anegret
I am so glad, Anegret! You know, of course, that it is to the Lord that any gratitude is due: I gave my life to the God, and God accepted my life, so now I am thrilled to be given these truths to share with you. But they are not my truths! Sometimes I am amazed to see what appears on the page ;-). Thank you especially for beginning to share these truths of Jesus the Christ with others. I can testify that there are so many people who are now agreeing with what you say, but they don’t know where to turn. As Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” (MT 9:37).
Thank you for your reply and the words of truth and inspiration that you share!
Thank you for the post. How can I in a practical sense have a more close relationship with God? What can I really do everyday that brings me closer and more understanding? Reading the Bible never really helped me but confused me.
Dear Laurel, this is a wonderful question! It probably needs a post of its own. Our core problem is of course the fact that all the major religions – and Christianity in particular – are based in fear of God, and that fear becomes so ingrained in us in childhood. It is impossible to love what you fear, which means that for most of us to draw closer to God requires that we first do some repair work on our own attitudes toward the genuine God. You are right in saying that reading the Bible will likely just confuse you! For me, I think what helped a lot was, first, my extensive studies in the afterlife literature and becoming convinced that our lives are eternal; and, second, my intensive study of the Gospel teachings that included getting rid of what is obviously later additions made by the Council of Nicaea. As you come to know the Son, you also come to better know the Father. Some people have told me that reading Liberating Jesus helped them to better see God through the Lord’s eyes.
We are looking now into beginning an online university that might help you, too….
Thank you for your quick reply! I will order the book. Gratitude:)
Also can I get a link to the university.
Dear Laurel, we believe it will be called Seek Reality University, or something like that, and it will co-ordinate with my radio program and podcast and be based upon my Fun series. None of that was my idea, and I fought it at first, but I can see that it does make sense for a number of reasons. Our goal is to have it up and running in the first half of this year, but to do it right is a huge undertaking. Once it is underway I will for sure let you and everyone know!
None of what you mentioned is at all indicative of adhering to an actual religion. There are no demands or scary threats whatsoever. Instead, the message is quite simple – love, forgiveness and tolerance are what he meant to convey. Why can’t people accept that, and where did they get the idea that Jesus was “pushing” any organized religion? I see nothing that you quoted that would even give that impression. so it’s hard for me to see how that idea even got started let alone flourished for centuries.
My own sense is the answer is Paul. But I am not knowledgeable enough to know if his ministry could be considered the “start” of an organization. Nonetheless he went from town to town and left groups with “leaders” in charge and then wrote back to them to advise them on how to proceed. Those letters seem to have at least as much influence on Christianity as the gospels, and certainly they reflect an “organization.”
Thank you, Mike! I tend to blame the Council of Nicaea in 325, but Paul was a rampant church-builder and he was at it almost immediately after the Lord’s death and resurrection. Jesus sent His disciples out to spread His Gospel teachings, but Paul tacked on to their duties the concept of baptism and the need to create and run local churches, etc. Yes, I think you’re right that it was Paul’s work that began the process of creating the religion, and so many of Paul’s ideas and interpretations became central to the early Christian church. But it was probably the Roman Emperor Constantine – who sponsored Nicaea, as I recall – who really sealed the concept that there was one Christianity – one set of Christian truths – and it was what Paul and Nicaea had built, not what Jesus had said.
My comfort in seeing how it all went wrong lies in the fact that other than editing the Gospels a bit, Nicaea did preserve the key teachings of Jesus, and Christianity protected them as well, even though it largely ignored them. We can now think of Christianity as nothing more than a protective wrapper, and in this better and freer and more enlightened day, we can at last open the Lord’s true gift!
Dear Lola, it really is remarkable how little the Gospels have to do with the religion! But forming a new religion around Jesus was what people would have done back then – that instinct was ingrained in people! – so it was happening even while He was alive, to His profound irritation. There were many schools of thought, however, until the Council of Nicaea in 325, which first assembled the Christian Bible, edited even the Gospels, and created a religion that was full of ideas that were simply in religious vogue at the time – sacrifice, a trinity, sin and redemption, and so on. I believe the notion of creating just another fear-based religion around Jesus got started primarily because the ideas that Jesus brought were so radical that few people of the day could understand them; and the human instinct then was to be fearful of God, so if Jesus came from God then their impulse was to venerate Him and give Him His own religion.
thanks Roberta.
I just ordered a book called ‘ a course of love’ by Mari Perron and it is the follow up of the course of miracle that you mentioned to me. But this time it is all about love from the heart, the next ‘bible’ that Jesus is trying to intuit. I did not expect to find that book. It just happened and I knew then that I was on the path of love and my mind was taking less place in my life , I mean my ego. Now, it is time to be in my heart but with also with the greater Mind. Time to materialise love in my life now. I look forward to read the book and what Jesus has to say through Mari. thy will be done x
Dear Chantal, I hope the book is helpful to you! I’m not aware of it so I can’t comment on it, but the Lord and those with him are working through many people on earth to try to shift the consciousness vibration of all of humankind away from fear and toward more perfect love, and this may be another example of that effort.
It certainly makes sense that with so many hands in the till (Paul, Constantine and the Council of Nicea) that the messages of Jesus would be exaggerated and twisted to suit whoever was in power. It’s also very true, like you mentioned, that a punitive God was kind of the fad in those days. I agree that most of the people couldn’t even fathom anything different
Dear Lola, what is most astonishing to me is the fact that the actual message of Jesus was altogether ignored! Nicaea simply added some anachronistic bits on goats-and-sheep, end-times, judgment, and church-building: things that are easy to ferret out and throw away now because they often sharply contradict what Jesus said, and they also contain words and references that He could not have used before AD 33. And then Christian church-builders simply used those later additions to mold their view of the message of Jesus into what they would have wished He had said. It’s appalling, but it’s allayed a bit by the fact that we can indeed still tell what is genuine and what is not. They didn’t entirely murder the Gospels, which is something they easily could have done and we never would have been the wiser!
Great discussion! Thank you…
So, in light of all of this focus on Jesus, how do we relate to The Father and Holy Spirit?
Thank you.
One thing I know is that I relate to the Father as cosmic consciousness the vibrationless spirit beyond all creation.
Holy spirit is the vibratory realm of creation or you could call it the Word or Aum
The son is Christ Consciousness or intelligence of God in creation
Taken from ‘the yoga of Jesus’ by Yogananda edited by SRF
Hope it helps.
Thank you for this, dear Chantal! I think it’s lovely how people try to protect those old beliefs and let Christians down a bit more gently.
Thank you Scott – this is a great question!
In fact, God is only Spirit, and we are part of that infinitely powerful Spirit which continuously manifests this universe and is in fact all that exists. So we know that God is not a trinity – and Jesus never said God was a trinity! – but since to speak against the prevailing religion was then a capital crime, Jesus couldn’t come right out and say that God is ONLY Spirit so ditch the big guy with the beard. He did the best He could – in fact, He actually did say “God is Spirit” – but we have no words surviving from Him that nixed the old anthropomorphic God. So by the time of His death, there were already two aspects of a trinity in place to be claimed by later revisionists. Then along came The Council of Nicaea in 325, which was a time when trinities were in vogue in religions of the area, e.g. Egypt. And you can almost see the lightbulbs flicking on over their heads when it occurred to them that could just add Jesus and have a trinity too!
Thank you Roberta,
It’s lovely to read your words and insight about Jesus, they are in total harmony with my own thoughts.
It’s a pleasure to me to read the comments as well.
This blog sends the light and love of Jesus direct to my heart.
It’s a nice place to be.
Thank you
Oh my, Driek – thank you so much! I don’t think that anyone has ever said anything to me that was quite so wonderful. God bless you, dear beautiful friend, and I hope your 2019 will be glorious!
Hi Roberta,
You mention the great and foremost commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
I think there may be more to these words than is obvious at first glance.
Can you love that which you fear? Not really. Maybe you can think of a close relative that you feared but still loved, so let me re-phrase the question: Can you love that which you fear with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and with all of your mind? Of course not.
Next question: Would Jesus give us a commandment that is impossible for us to keep? Of course not. Condemning us is not his job.
So the ONLY way it could be possible for us to love God with all of our heart, and all of our soul, and all of our mind, would be if we had absolutely NO REASON TO FEAR HIM!
Therefore, any line of thinking that results fear towards God has a mistake in it somewhere.
(By way of example, Proverbs says that “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Yes, but it’s ONLY the beginning. John tells us what it looks like once we have gained wisdom: “Perfect love casts out ALL fear.”)
Anyway I think the teaching that we have absolutely no need to fear God is at least one of the concepts hidden within the great and foremost commandment.
Dear Duke, you have neatly encapsulated the entire problem facing those of us who want to help Jesus to finally bring His truths to the world. In fact, we know now – as Jesus of course also knew, but as few people even suspected before this century began – that consciousness is a form of energy, it continuously manifests this universe, and it is all that exists. In other words, what we experience as human consciousness is a subset – a part – of the genuine God! Consciousness – now it deserves a capital letter – is governed by emotion; and like all energy, it vibrates. Fear is how we experience its lowest vibration, while perfect love is its highest vibration. Fear and love are polar opposites, and they are so far apart that – you are right! – it is impossible for you actually to love what you fear. Impossible!
Much of what Jesus says in the Gospels is meant in one way or another to lessen His listeners’ fear of God, but even back then this was a hard thing to pull off. Nowadays it may be worse, since Christianity’s only remaining hold on people is fear. It tries to instill a fear of God and God’s judgment to get us into the pews, and then it dangles over our heads the notion that the only way we can escape what the church itself has taught us to fear is if we keep on warming those pews!
You are right. As Jesus tells us in the Great Commandment, our entire enemy is fear. And we can fight it, but the only weapon we have against it is, of course, the Lord’s encouragement that we achieve His standard of perfected love.
Hi Roberta,
Thank you for your reply, and for your efforts to lift us to a level far beyond what religions teach. Thank you for pointing out that what really matters is believing the TEACHINGS of Jesus, rather than believing something ABOUT Jesus.
These words in your reply stood out to me: “We know now – as Jesus of course also knew, but as few people even suspected before this century began – that consciousness is a form of energy, it continuously manifests this universe, and it is all that exists. In other words, what we experience as human consciousness is a subset – a part – of the genuine God!”
I think some aspects of this teaching are tucked into the second commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
If human consciousness is a subset of God, as you said, then there is a real Self we all share. Soon as this concept dawns on us, we begin to love our neighbor AS a fellow manifestation of this same Self.
Here are some implications of this literal reading of “love your neighbor AS yourself”:
– “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” becomes more than just a behavioral rule-of-thumb; it becomes a description of the way things work, if we do indeed share the same Self.
– “Turn the other cheek”, giving freely to him who asks, and forgiving endlessly no longer seem like such utterly insane ideas IF the “other person” is in some way actually you, just having a really bad day.
– Perhaps Jesus was totally serious when he said: “Whatever you did to the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did to me.”
Perhaps the idea that “we are One” is more literally true than we have imagined, and I think Jesus was sneaking it into his teachings two thousand years ago.
Let me paraphrase the verse that immediately follows the second commandment. I’m going to take liberties in this paraphrasing, on the theory that Jesus had to use wording like “commandments”, ”the law”, and “the prophets” in order to sneak his teachings past the temple guards:
“On these two Principles (we have no reason to fear God and therefore every reason to love God; and we all share the same Self [which is a subset of God] and therefore have every reason to love everyone) will all true teachings be based.”
I was struck early in my research by the fact that Jesus says “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” although of course Christians always read it as if it were “… love your neighbor as if your neighbor were yourself” (MT 22:39). So I began looking at other translations – at the time I was using NIV – and in every one that I examined the words were the same. Then as I came to better understand the primary role of consciousness as the base creative force, I realized that of course what Jesus had been saying had in fact been “Love your neighbor as yourself… because your neighbor IS yourself!”
Roberta, I did the same thing! Questioning my unorthodox interpretation of what the second commandment seemed to imply, I looked at every translation I could find. And every single one was “as yourself” or something equivalent – nothing like “as if your neighbor were yourself” ever came up. It’s like this concept has been hiding in plain sight all along.
Ever heard of the One Electron theory? Apparently it’s mathematically possible that there is only one electron in the universe, and it’s moving along something like ten to the eightieth power different timelines. I’m not saying that’s how anything actually works, but it’s interesting that such a possibility could exist, even if only theoretically. You can find a video or two on the subject on YouTube.
Amen to all those beautiful words and Happy New Year to everyone. May you melt your body to become that spark of Spirit reuniting with the light of consciousness. Many blessings.
And a very Merry New Year to you, dear Chantal, and to all our wonderful friends!
I am looking forward to your next book, Roberta. One of my favorite passages in the gospels is when the crowd decides “this is too hard” and wanders away. The narrative doesn’t really specify why they decide it is too hard, but we can infer that it’s because Jesus is completely rearranging the cultural take on God and the cosmos. The crowd had only “old world” concepts that were so inculcated into them that they could not “get” it. The task now is the same, isn’t it?
Wonderful insight, Mike! As G.K. Chesterton said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting—it has been found difficult and left untried.”
And to this day, the truth that the Lord came to share with the world – the “Christian ideal” that Chesterton talks about – has not been taken seriously by more than just a very few in each generation. Christianity as a whole treats the teachings of Jesus – which were the entire reason why He came! – as mere suggestions, but not compulsory because Jesus died for our sins so if we just claim Him as our Savior we are going to go to heaven, regardless. Why take Him seriously and try to get an “A” in spiritual growth – to be “perfect,” in the Lord’s own words – when Jesus’s sacrifice gets us a guaranteed gentleman’s “C,” no matter what?
And of course, the whole notion that Jesus died for our sins – or needed to – is altogether bogus. There is no evidence in nearly 200 years of abundant communications with those that we used to think were dead that the death of Jesus on the cross has ever made an afterlife difference for a single human being! And that fact is not surprising. The whole bogus notion is an insult to the genuine God, and a humiliating reduction of the greatest Teacher to nothing more than a silent sacrifice :-(. The sooner we kill that great religious lie, the better off by far the world will be!
But you know, I consider all of this to be in a way kind of good news? Those Gospel teachings work amazingly well, but they have never been tried on any meaningful scale. So this can be the generation – finally, after 2000 years! – that will have the incomparable gift of sharing the Gospel teachings with the world, and thereby beginning the long-promised advent of the kingdom of God on earth!
This blog touches my heart, particularly. As my own inner sense of Jesus is, as you say, love centered. Truth is not the encrusting ideas of two thousand years of Christianity, that has tried to calcify the message and person of Jesus Christ.
Christ is the light of love. How can one truly calcify light ?
Please let me share that I’m from an orthodox Jewish tradition and I was always seeking the inner God, as it were. Then one day, just sitting one Saturday morning, I had what can only be described as an experience of Jesus. He put clear thoughts straight into my mind. The ‘touch’ was very powerful and very gentle at the same time. (Strange as it may sound.) And yet this experience felt natural and kind. I was so calm.
Jesus changed my direction that day, and I realized who He is and that I could relax the ‘tention’ imbued in my seeking. There was no need to judge myself or doubt myself. I was, am and will be loved.
Shortly after that I found you on Youtube, Roberta. You explained what I now know; that we are already loved and saved. We are one with Spirit, with Christ when we love. And we can banish fear.
I look at the path from the Torah to the Gospels to Christ as a growing tree. The good stuff within the Bible bespeaks Spirit. Then came Yeshua (Christ on Earth) to manifest it and to take us to love and back to the Source.
To me it is like the tree which produces branches, leaves and finally flowers. These flowers eventually shed their husks, then their petals. The pollenised ones grow a fruit. The fruit leaves the tree and grows a new tree. The new tree becomes part of the forest; part of the whole.
So shedding is part of growing. The old Law can be shed. The essence of it becomes the fruit. The whole Bible comes down to Yeshua’s two commandments; out of which arises the oneness of Love.
I look forward to your university, Roberta. Maybe this is an important way to build a core of people who wish to hear Christ anew and bring a new kind of Christ centered love, beyond religion and fear.
I wish you every success.
Oh Efrem, this is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing it! Jesus was and remains a Jew, as you probably realize: the religion that was founded long after His death and bears His name has nothing to do with Him. It is the greatest privilege and joy to be sharing the Lord’s truths with the world after 2000 years, and I am especially delighted that one who was reared in the Lord’s religion is being called by Him, too! We are looking now at a possible home for this new movement, and you may smile to know that it is an abandoned synagogue, complete with its wonderful Jewish stained glass windows. Let’s bring the Lord home and begin His movement anew from the root that He Himself chose!
Roberta,
I was in Salt lake City a few years ago, and I visited the Mormon Tabernacle grounds and their bookstore. I was immediately struck by the artwork for sale in the bookstore. So many showed beautiful images of Jesus during his days of teaching, but no painting of the crucifixion or crosses in the store. I felt so connected to some of the lovely images, and still part of me, the church raised part, recognized that they were leaving out the purpose of Christ coming to earth. Now as I grow spiritually, I can separate the redemption part from the truth of his teaching, his all encompassing love, and it brings such peace and joy to be free of the religious part.
I am so with you on this, Tim! Envision a time when there are no images at all of crosses anywhere, but instead there is only the exultant teaching and living of the Lord’s pure truths!
Dear Tim and Roberta,
I am a nonbelieving Mormon who never completely bought into the theology as I’ll explain later. I KNOW my Guides have led me to real truth; to reality. A large part of who I thought I was had to dissolve but now I revel in bliss, love, and complete peace while continuing to reside in the midst of Mormondom in Utah.
At the core of Mormon belief is that Christ was crucified for our sins but the focus is on His resurrection and not the gory images of death on the cross. Alas, it is another man made religion based on fear.
As a Native American eight year old child, I was taken from my birth family to spend the school years with a Mormon family to be educated and indoctrinated. The teachings of their Book of Mormon identified native people as, “Lamanites” the wicked dark skinned remnants of an ancient civilization but it held out a promise that our dark skin would become, “white and delightsome” as we progressed in their faith. Try being the new brown Lamanite kid in an all Mormon elementary school! It was h-e-l-l-i-s-h!
My belief in The Great Spirit was incorrect and dismissed but a judgmental, white, bearded god who sat on a throne was my new god to worship. How gratified I am to learn that my ancestors were correct: God is not a divine human who requires worship! Incidentally, in more recent editions of the BofM, offensive terminology has been edited, for political correctness I suppose. Also, thanks to the miracle of DNA analysis, I am also no longer a Lamanite! Hooray!
Oh my dear precious Kitty, I am so sorry that you ever were treated this way!! Please know that in the Summerland levels, Native Americans are so far advanced spiritually that people who have been especially damaged in a lifetime are brought to their encampments on the plains – where millions of buffalo peacefully surround them, in herds stretching to forever! – and there, these people who were so harmed by false Christianity and by other horrible negativity live in the perfect love of these people until they are healed, when a being appears out of what looks like the sky to take them back to their loved ones. I kid you not!! We are told that some of the native spiritual practices and beliefs that Christianity stamped out were far more advanced than any more “civilized” practices and beliefs ever have been.
Dear Kitty, the genuine God is more loving and infinitely more perfect than that cranky Christian (and even Mormon) God! Welcome, and I hope you will comment here again. We have much to learn from you!
Thank you so much for this wonderful Blog Roberta, and to all the wonderful replies. I am learning so much from your teachings and your research, they are literally transforming my life a little every day, and it has still been less than two weeks !!
Dear Kenneth, I am happy to take credit for having done so much research, although for the most part it has been guided. Mine has been an easy and joyous journey. But I can’t take credit for the teachings! My job is just to illuminate the Lord’s words in His own pure light of truth, far beyond the human-made neon that is their longstanding religious package. When we sit at His feet and simply listen, something truly magical happens in our hearts!
“But we also can conclusively demonstrate that Jesus didn’t die for our sins because God already forgives us all”
Quoting your aforementioned passage, I’d like to offer a few reflections. According to the teachings outlined in the Bible, the path to God’s forgiveness for us, sinners, involves sincere repentance and a sacrificial offering. The narrative in the Bible recounts an incident where the consumption of fruit from a forbidden tree led to the fall of the first humans. Prior to this transgression, they lived in eternal sanctity, but after disobeying God’s command, they lost their holiness, experienced suffering, and eventually faced mortality. Hence, repentance becomes the means through which we can rebuild our connection with God.
In my perspective, the concept of “fear of God” should not be construed negatively. I interpret the term “fear” as akin to respect, similar to the reverence we hold for individuals we admire in real life, such as my mother. This doesn’t imply a fear in the conventional sense, but rather a deep respect for her sacrifices and dedication to the well-being of her children, irrespective of her own interests. Consequently, if she were to seek my assistance, I would feel compelled to oblige out of respect for her.
i am very interested on your knowledge of life after life, hence i have been trying to dig more information. So my way of understanding the topic is open to correction,thank you so much,
best wishes,
Johannes