Posted by Roberta Grimes • November 09, 2015 • 26 Comments
Human Nature, The Source, Understanding Reality
I’ve been telling everyone that sincerely giving your life to God will transform it altogether. Perhaps it isn’t surprising that some people are taking my 
advice. And I love them for that! But one reader has just reminded me that it isn’t quite that simple. She said in a blog post comment:
You write “I urge you to give your life to God. And mean it! When you do that, God will give you things to do that are more wonderful than anything you can dream up yourself.” This sounds very convincing – I’d love to experience that for myself!
So what if you do give your life to God, surrender, try to be as open as possible – but things seem to get worse than they were before … ? What does that mean? I feel a little discouraged at the moment.
I realize now that the joy that began for me when I gave my life to God has made me portray the process as easier than it actually is. And I’m sorry about that. For this beautiful seeker who reminded me that giving your life to God can be complicated, and for everyone else who is thinking about giving the rest of your life to God, I should share with you what our beloved Paul Harvey might have called “the rest of the story.”
It’s important to remember that your life is not random. Each of us came into this lifetime with a spiritual lesson-plan, and our spirit guides are going to keep us focused on completing all the lessons in our plan. Since these plans vary so considerably, it is difficult to make a blanket statement, but it’s likely that most of us will be still working on completing our spiritual lessons until we are at least middle-aged. This doesn’t mean that no one younger can make a gift of his life to God; but it does mean that working hard to Ace our spiritual lessons should be first in our minds.
So, let’s suppose that you have decided sincerely to give your life to God. Why might you not be feeling the changes in your life that some others have experienced 
when they made their own gifts? There are so many possible reasons that I’m sure this list is not complete, but let’s look at a few of them:
Let’s look now at my situation, since it is the only one that I know well. I have 
friends who have made the same gift, but I respect them too much to inquire about the intimate details of their lives.
I gave my life to God one morning in April of 2009 as I was sitting in a pew of a Unity Church that I then attended. It seemed in that moment to be the only way to get as close to God as I was craving to be. I pray in gratitude affirmations, so what I prayed was, “Thank You for giving me work to do. Thank You for showing me how to do it.” I recall thinking through the words as I was saying them that first time, and then deciding that I had nailed it. I have prayed those two lines every day ever since.
I didn’t know how to give my life to God. I never had discussed it with anyone! I spent that first giddy afternoon thinking about how someone as psychic as a post might possibly be able to discern God’s will, and eventually I kind of thought, “Okay, God, now I’m Yours. Whatever you put in front of me I will think must be a sign from You.” From that day forward, I have pursued everything that felt as if it might be from God until it seemed no longer to feel right. I still live that way. Every day.
At the time, it never occurred to me that God might not accept my gift. But I realize now that giving their lives to God doesn’t work as well for everyone as it has worked for me, and as best I have been able to discern the reasons why, they were some combination of those listed above. As I think about it now, here is why it seems to have worked in my case:
was winding down.I have come to understand just in recent days that it was my primary spirit guide, Thomas, who prompted me to give my life to God. He did it because he was about to put the series of tasks in front of me that I had agreed before my birth would be the purpose of this lifetime, and he wanted me to be on the lookout for them. Had I known from the first that a world-changing experience like giving birth to Liberating Jesus was six years away, I might have been more circumspect about telling everyone that giving your life to God will be a certain ticket to joy. It has been that for me! But might it be that for you?
We all live many earth-lives. I have seen estimates from the hundreds into the thousands. We come into each lifetime with a plan that we ourselves have carefully drawn to assist us, over millennia of time, in perfecting ourselves spiritually. But a 
life-plan is not a rodent’s maze! We have the power to take control; we can transform our lives while we are living them. If, after reading this, you still want to give your life to God without reservation, then I urge you to tackle the five potential obstacles to God’s being able to use your life that I have listed above. Get them out of the way. Then, when you have freed the rest of your life to be useful in God’s service, begin to pray my gratitude affirmation. From then on, seek every day and in everything that happens in your life the call of God to begin your new work. Even if you didn’t come into this lifetime with a pre-planned job to do, the work of transforming the world that God has only now begun is going to have a use for your gifts! And let me hear from you. I am glad to help you find the perfect role that God is calling you to play.
I appreciate your blog, especially this one, as I am still wanting to give my life to God, even after spending more than 20 years in “Unity”. I hope no one thinks it may be “the Answer”, as Truth is no longer the focus at Unity Headquarters. Some individual ministries may still be close to Truth. but I would not like anyone to be encouraged to think Unity holds the answers, only a relationship with God does.
This is so helpful, dear BJ – Thank you! I also thought when I first discovered it that the Unity movement would be my answer. I missed Christianity so much! And at first, Unity felt like studying the Gospels, shorn of the rest of the Bible and with other bits of ancient wisdom added. Everyone I met there was a “recovering Baptist” or a “recovering Catholic.” And they were into A Course in Miracles. I was thrilled to have found my spiritual home!
But within a few years I came to realize that Unity was becoming just another religion. It taught dogmas. It didn’t emphasize the Gospels as much as it should have done. I was coming to see what you also see: God is calling to us now directly by fresh emphasis on just the Gospel teachings of Jesus, so any religious overlay at all will get in the way of our spiritual growth. Religions create confusion and fear. It really is only the Gospels (once you get rid of the Councils’ later additions) that hold the simplest version of the Truth in a form that modern Westerners can understand. As Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” And indeed it does!
Thank you for joining our family, dear BJ. Please let me know how you are doing as you work on giving your life to God – know that I am here, and I’m glad to be a sounding board.
What do you mean by “Truth is no longer the focus at Unity Headquarters?” I have been attending for about 1 1/2 years and am curious …
Hello dear Renee! I don’t personally know anything about what goes on at Unity Headquarters. My only Unity relationship is with a wonderful Unity Church that I joined a decade ago and of which I still am a member. It was our commenter, BJ, who made the observation that you question, but I did see the point that he was making. I’ll tell you why.
Religions are belief-systems. Religions by their very nature distance us from God because they interject themselves into what should be the central relationship of our lives and they tend to make us fearful of God. This is especially true of all the various versions of Christianity, but I think that it probably is true of every religion that has a set of dogmas, a tenet of beliefs, a prescribed way for us to relate to our Source.
When I joined my local Unity Church ten years ago, I really thought that I had escaped religions. At first, it seemed to be just a place to go and talk about the wisdom of the ages and listen to beautiful sermons to help us better understand the Gospels. Beautiful! I did A Course in Miracles there. It was wonderful.
But lately I have come to see that there are indeed dogmas in Unity, too. Certain things to believe and not to believe. It may be my imagination, but these seem to have been getting stronger. And the urgent need to live the Gospels 24-7 that I feel now clearly is not felt by everyone in Unity, since there are ego issues and infighting there, too, just as there are in all human institutions.
I am coming to think now that perhaps what we are being called to do is to reinvent altogether what it means to be followers of the teachings of Jesus. In order to live those teachings ever more perfectly, we must above all be free of dogmas and encouraged to relate to God on our own!
Thank you for the response. I appreciate you taking the time to explain.
Thanks for the blog Roberta….it was super….keep them coming
Hi Lorna! Thanks for your wonderful encouragement, dear. I’m trying! Actually, I have ideas and article links for six more blog posts that could be written right now, but after the publication of Liberating Jesus and Flying High in Spirit I am spending half of each day interacting with people by email (which I LOVE!), with the other half split between trying to keep legal clients happy and fulfilling commitments to my beloved grandchildren. My husband and I are talking about actually going out to dinner tomorrow night… because we’ve got to attend a concert in which our viola-playing granddaughter will be performing. My goal is to get back to blogging weekly again, rather than biweekly. I’m trying!
There are times when a person gives their life to God sincerely that the old structures in their life have to be dissolved or crumbled. usually unless you have a really good understanding of what’s going on, that feels terrible! but for some people that has to happen before things can get better. a certain amount of that happened in my life and I wasted a lot of energy trying to maintain relationships and situations that weren’t for my highest good. I’m in transition and I don’t feel very anchored but I have a wonderful perception of where I’m going so I’m trying to relax and allow myself to be moved into a position where I can truly serve God which would be my greatest joy.
Very wisely said, dear Lorie! And from your comment, it seems that you are among the many who are being called now to do our part in raising the consciousness of the planet. Whatever your religious tradition may have been, it may help you to focus your gift if you read the Gospel words of Jesus on love and forgiveness and let them work on your heart. That was what made the difference for me! Please keep in touch and let me know how you’re doing, dear.
I enjoyed your blog, Roberta, as it is challenging and stimulating.
I’m around your age, but unlike you, I’ve realized I didn’t get in all the life and spiritual lessons I could have in this life. Things have stabilized for the time being in certain areas, but not at the level I’d like them to be. So now, I’m already partly planning out my next incarnation in broad terms. Hopefully, it will carry over. I’ll see what happens specifically to me on the otherside in the “life between lives.”
You’re right about following the true teachings of Jesus, as regarding love and compassion.
Keep on going what you love doing. You sure have lots of energy!
Heh – Dear Michael, I do have a lot of daily zest, but with Liberating Jesus and Flying High in Spirit coming out last month and both being bought by all the major chains, I seem to have come to the limit of what I can handle! There are many days when I spend most of my time responding to emails and helping people, which is my thrill. But I’m still practicing law! Something has to give. We’ll figure it out.
My dear, I will be seventy years old next summer. You could not possibly be as old as I am! Although I have to say that I love being old. It is the most liberating thing you can imagine to be this old and with a certainty about what comes next; I feel as if I’m rounding the final turn, and those I love who are already there are in the stands, jumping up and down and cheering me home!
Dear Michael, I respect your sense that you have more lessons to learn. Evidence strongly suggests that we live hundreds of lifetimes, so you likely do have a few more ahead. But what I have learned – to my amazement, actually – is that simply, strictly living the Gospels can advance you by light-years spiritually. It doesn’t even seem to take very long. I was a different person five years ago; you really wouldn’t have liked me then! Jesus came to tell us how to cut shorter the time that we spend doing what Buddhists call “turning on the wheel” – living lifetime after lifetime. And His teachings work! My next nonfiction book will be The Fun of Growing Forever. I have known about this book for the past five years – I was given the titles of all three FUN books at once – but it is only now that I realize that it will be a practical guide for modern folks in how to live the Gospels and make them work for you. It will be out in the first half of 2017. When you see it coming, please send me an email through this website and I will send you a copy. Big hug, dear!
Thanks, Roberta, for the message, suggestions and kind offer. I’m already acting on what you said, and will take you up on the book offer, come 2017.
But, first we have to get through 2016. This looks to be quite a “wild and woolly” year coming up!
Oh, yes, I am as old, almost! We were born the same year, but you’re a few months older.
Then, congratulations, dear Michael! You are rounding the far turn, too, and those you love are starting to cheer. YAYY!!
So this means that it’s time to put on the great burst of speed that all true champions possess. We use 2016 as the year when we learn and practice perfect radical forgiveness; then in 2017 we work on perfect love. Are you game?
I think I have blogged on forgiveness before, but it has been awhile. And I am starting to think about that 2017 book (or am I just getting downloads? I no longer know). I will do a blog post before the end of the year in which we name 2016 as our year to learn forgiveness (don’t worry – I won’t name you, dear!), and will begin there to lay out how I have done it and how anyone can do it. Then we’ll do updates during the year. Thank you for such a wonderful suggestion!
Such a nice blog — thank you. I have been feeling so discouraged about not being able to go for the gusto, spiritually speaking, as you have. I have such a love for learning of the afterlife knowledge and research, near death experiences, growing to truly understand who and what God is, etc., yet I have problems that keep me from sharing much of what I am learning. The biggest problem is that I am 52-years-old and have suffered from social anxiety, particularly with respect to what people thing of me, for my entire life. It hasn’t been constant as in every second, in every situation, but rather seems to rear its ugly head at different phases of my life and in certain situations. Because of this, as well as the fact that I am shy, introverted and have no worldly title to add to my credibility like you have (attorney with a degree religion as well), I feel as though I don’t have anything to offer in terms of spreading the word regarding all this beautiful knowledge. Because I worry so much of what people think of me, when I am talking to people about this stuff, if I sense they are judging me, I sometimes feel so fearful that it literally makes it so that my memory betrays me, and I often can’t remember all the details and information necessary to defend my understanding.
Anyhow, the reason for sharing all of this is to say that it is comforting to know that some of us have to finish with our lessons that we came here to learn before we can move on to bigger things. I definitely am still in that process. I wish there was some magic button I could push to make it all go away. What I know for sure is that I don’t want to have to come back here again in another life to try to learn this lesson again. I really want to be done with it here in this life.
So, since I cannot help to the extent that you are, I want you to know that I greatly appreciate all that you do, and I think you are doing a great job. I love your joy and enthusiasm. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
So I thank you for all that you are doing
Oh my dear Renee, the very fact that you so badly want to serve tells us that you are being called to serve! And there are so many ways that your knowledge and your love for helping others will be useful in what is coming, dear. We have a world to save. It is going to take all our various skills and efforts in our different capacities!
There is no way to know for certain what lessons you still have to complete in this lifetime, but you likely have some hunches about what they are. And it’s likely that to Ace them you will need only to learn the core lessons behind them – how to perfectly forgive and how to perfectly love. I’m going to do everything in my power to help you do that, dear. Once you master those two core lessons, the rest will be easy!
And as for your being nervous about speaking in front of others, you could not possibly be more nervous than I once was. The only cure is for you to begin to DO IT. You will make the same realization that I made decades ago, and then you never will be overwhelmed by nerves again. I still recall my moment vividly. I was talking before a group of business owners gathered to have a dinner that I was paying for, and I was trying to convince them that I could be of help to them as an attorney and CFP. I was stumbling like mad, but I was determined! Then I noticed there in the back row a young man (we all were young then!) who was giving me the biggest possible grin. He was all but shouting, “Don’t worry! We love you!” It was then that I realized that they all WANTED me to do well! They were pulling for me even harder than I was pulling for myself! And from then on, I have been able to speak before groups of even hundreds of people. Whenever I feel at all nervous, I recall my first sight of my dear friend Geoff there in the back row, and I remember that even those whose faces are blank are really, really hoping that I will feel good about how I’m doing. It works every time!
Big hug to you, dear Renee, and don’t worry. You are being called to do your own particular set of services, and you will be able to do them perfectly!
Thank you so much for your kind words. They are helpful! They will continue to be helpful. I will try to trust that God will equip me to do what he wants me to do. ?
Dear Roberta,
thanks so much for this helpful and thought-provoking post!
I think there might be two approaches of giving your life to God, at least that’s how many people see it.
One approach is the way you explained it so thoroughly in your blog post: Being ready to serve God with all that you have, having your own life well established before you answer God’s call.
The other is what many people refer to as “letting go and letting God” when you need help, when you are in crisis, when you can’t do it all on your own any longer. I know many spiritual teachers who recommend this kind of surrender to a higher force / the Divine especially when you feel insecure, face problems, need help, etc. And I sincerely hope that it’s true, that God can and will help you just in the moment you need it the most. That God is actually willing and able to take over your life.
I’m not sure I explained that well enough though – sorry! 🙂
What Lori writes makes a lot of sense to me, too – I think I might be going through the same experience at the moment.
Thank you for the inspiration, Roberta!
Michaela
Hello dear Michaela! I agree, of course, that your life will go better if you seek and follow the daily guidance of Spirit. My strong suspicion is that it is God’s minions who are helping us – spirit guides and angels – but that is a distinction that makes no difference. In a reality governed by Consciousness, to try to do anything in contravention of Consciousness simply makes no sense!
What I talk about here, though, is something bigger. It’s a shift altogether in the purpose of your life. It is taking the step – once your children are grown and you seem to have handled your life-lessons okay – of giving the whole rest of your life to God. What Roberta wants doesn’t count anymore; indeed, she never again thinks of wanting anything (except bodily necessities and maybe some chocolate now and then).
It’s a big step. I didn’t realize on the day that I impulsively did it what a very big step it was. Looking back over the course of more than six years, though, I can see that my enjoyment of my own life improved tremendously after I gave it to God! I am far happier at this moment than I ever before have been in my life. Oh, I still love my husband, and I help my children and grandchildren: today I have a 6-year-old overnight, and I’ll be hosting a 14-year-old’s birthday party later on. But my priorities are clear. What God asks of me comes first. Now I cannot imagine living in any other way!
Roberta, your reply reminds me of Tosha Silver – are you familiar with her work?
She wrote the books “Outrageous Openness: Letting the Divine take the lead” and “Change me prayers: The hidden power of spiritual surrender”.
Tosha often speaks about offering everything – her whole life – to the Divine so that things may happen through her instead of by her. She wants what the Divine wants for her. It seems the exact same approach that you have: “What God asks of me comes first.” And: “What Roberta wants doesn’t count anymore.”
Tosha actually says that everyone can learn to live that way and it’s more fulfilling than taking the “normal” route through life.
I think it’s a courageous move and I admire you people that you can do it! I’d love to be so open and trusting myself.
Well, I’m working on it … 🙂
Hello Michaela! Yes, I’ve heard the name, but I don’t know much about her. But I do agree wholeheartedly with what she says! It has been my experience that God won’t accept the gift while we are still working actively on our spiritual lessons; we’ve got to get all the big ones out of the way, first of all. But it isn’t really so courageous, dear, if you think about it. God owns your life anyway, so simply acknowledging that fact is a simple step. There is No One I would trust more to know what is going to make me happiest!
Such beautiful words. Blessings. All I want to add is that when we die we awaken, I believe.
Hello Julian! Thank you for your kind thoughts. And according to the dead who have communicated with us, you are right about the fact that death is an awakening: they tell us that where they are now is reality, while where we are is the illusion. Best blessings to you as well, and a hug!
Roberta,
If what you believe is true, and that God allowed a Bible to exist which was misinterpreted, which then led to millions of deaths in wars over the correct interpretation of doctrine, and that 2000 years later decided to correct the record, why do you think he chose you, an author likely to be read (with all due respect) by a small fraction of humanity, as opposed to the leaders of ISIS, or the Mormon Church, or the Pope, or others who would seemingly be much better positioned to act on this knowledge?
I understand you had a subjective experience which you interpret as having Jesus dictate your book, but doesn’t the improbability of Jesus choosing you (again, with all due respect) make you question that assumption? Or did Jesus explain this to you? I don’t recall from my reading of your book.
Best,
Michael
Oh Michael, what a wonderful question! Now you understand why I had such a hellish summer. I didn’t want to publish Liberating Jesus! At first, I couldn’t believe it was real. Then, as I got past that (too long a story to tell here), there was the why-me? problem. But then again, of course, if it was going to happen at all, somebody had to be asked to do it. And realistically, we know that none of the candidates that you suggest would be willing to tear down the Tabernacle, since they all are too invested in it. They earn their livings from it and have their life-status derived from it. When Helen Schucman, who received A Course in Miracles, asked why she – a Jewish stenographer – had been chosen to receive that amazing book that had been written by “J,” the answer she got was, “You were willing to do it.” I am sure that, at rock-bottom, that was the reason why I was chosen, too.
And I’m certainly not the first person to have been asked to deliver to the world what Jesus said several times as He was channeling it through me is His “new revelation”! (Which is precisely the same as His “old revelation” – only this time He hopes that we will take Him seriously.) For certain, the historical Thomas Jefferson was chosen and agreed to do it, and he wrote the book (probably in his old age) but then he couldn’t publish it. For all we know, for many more centuries there have been other people who were willing to entertain the possibility, to begin to write the book, and perhaps even to finish writing the book, but then for one reason or another they were unwilling or unable to take that last step of publication. Dear Michael, you might have considered Thomas Jefferson to be a much more credible source, but he says now that the world wasn’t ready for this kind of information two hundred years ago (probably true). And of course, for him to have gone public with something like this back then would have destroyed his reputation (something that mattered to a venerable old man – he was human, after all). How many Popes and saints and American presidents and other noble people you would have considered to be much more credible than I am have been asked to do this but have been unable to put their lives and reputations at risk in the year 422, or perhaps in 1348, or even in 1922? My personal guess is that it has been hundreds of people. Perhaps thousands. Knowing what I went through last summer, if I had a shred of a public reputation that mattered to me, or if I were making my living from a religion, or if I did not, in the end, love the Lord so much more than I love anything else, especially including myself, then I would have become just one more soul who wrote that book but then found justifications for not publishing it. I would have added my name to what I am beginning to guess is a very long list!
One of our clues that probably God has been trying to do this for centuries is the fact that the team working with the Master (everything the dead do is done by teams) seems not to have been prepared for this book actually to see print. For weeks last summer, as I was still anguishing over it but as apparently they came to realize that I actually was going to do it, they seemed to be scrambling to figure out what now to do to get their book “known” (their term). Thomas chose a publisher, but then switched to a different one. I woke up one morning realizing that he had asked me during our nightly session if I would mind being martyred, and when I had said, “No – is that what’s going to happen?” he had said, “We don’t know yet.” They don’t know?? They can see the future, they do all the planning, and they don’t know something basic like that?? Susanne Wilson and I knew that they had their plan set only when Thomas was literally transformed from the agitated and no-nonsense fellow that we met in February into a mellow, mellow guy in September, someone she said was actually smiling. She told me she wasn’t allowed to read it, but she has been shown the new plan for the rest of my life and it is the most detailed, if-this-then-that-or-else-this-other-thing creation that she has ever seen. And so be it. I gave my life to God in April of 2009. If I must now spend the rest of my life answering questions like yours at 3:00 in the morning, then I will do that for God (and for you, dear). With joy!
Your question implies that if this is what God actually wants, then God should bellow it. Should write it in the clouds in thunderbolts. But that is up to God, is it not? People have said to me in frustration, “Why did Jesus wait so long?” That is a question related to yours, but I get it from folks who (unlike you, I surmise) had figured out long before I did that Jesus never meant to start Christianity. So, why did He allow a bogus religion that had claimed His name to go on for so long? And why such a “soft” introduction of the truth now?
We can’t know that for certain. Thomas certainly hasn’t told me, and since he has found that whatever he lets me remember of our nightly conversations I will then blab to the world, he has put me on a strictly need-to-know basis. But based upon what the afterlife evidence tells us about reality and also the bits that I have learned in the past year, this is what I now think:
1) This earth-life is not real life. It’s nothing more important than a bad day in school. And for all we know, all the wars and the other pains that have come from that bogus religion’s existence have been useful to the spiritual growth of billions of people. Who are we to say? Our lives are eternal, and where we live our eternal lives we know the truth and we are bathed in God’s love. These few minutes on earth are zippo in terms of ultimate importance.
2) What makes earth-life useful for our spiritual growth is the amnesia that we agree to before we arrive. If God wrote the truth in the clouds now, and we all suddenly got it, then the greatest spiritual school of which we are aware would become useless. I assume that’s why this wasn’t done through some great supernatural event.
3) If Jesus came in person to say this, nobody would believe He was who He claimed to be. Even if He did miracles! Or else, God forbid, we would get Christianity #2. The Lord gave us His “first revelation” 2000 years ago, remember? And those to whom He gave it turned it into a religion. It’s hardly surprising that He hasn’t tried that again!
4) God and God’s minions are more urgent about raising the consciousness of all humanity now than they ever were before. Apparently for the past 70 years – ever since people used atomic bombs in war – a concerted effort has been underway to retard our weapons development and jump-start our spiritual development. (I was born one year after those bombs were used. No coincidence.) This work is ongoing by many people who are here now, and it is happening fast!
During the summer, when I felt both compelled to publish what I knew had come from Jesus and anguished by the fact that I couldn’t bear to let that book see light, I would comfort myself with the thought that likely just one copy would be purchased. One. And it would be found on some bookshelf 200 years from now, and the Lord would use it then. I hoped that was the plan! After all, as you say – and I don’t at all mind your having pointed this out – I am happily a nobody.
But one assumption that you and I have made already turns out to have been wrong. This book is not going to be read by only “a small fraction of humanity.” Liberating Jesus has been bought in volume by every national chain that sells books! International distribution has just begun, but distributors in every country where it has been offered have bought it. The publisher now predicts that it will be a New York Times bestseller. As you and I both well know, dear, none of that has anything to do with an obscure old lady in Texas who had the odd experience last spring of believing that she was channeling Jesus! No, if I ever had doubts that Liberating Jesus is God’s will, seeing sales take off in this unprecedented way has allayed those doubts. It seems unlikely, I know! But apparently future history is going to record that in the year 2015, Jesus at last made His “second revelation.” I know you share my gratitude for that, and my prayer that this time His revelation will be taken as seriously as He means it to be taken and humankind will at last begin to bring the Kingdom of God on earth.
Thank you again for troubling to ask this great question!
Hello Roberta,
Where can I find the gospels without the council’s later additions, as you mentioned in one of your responses? Thank you!
Hello Lori! Oh my goodness, what a great question. Do you know, I haven’t even been able to find a modern translation of the Gospels alone? You can buy a red-letter New Testament, but that’s it. And since every modern translation is copyrighted, we won’t be able to even have the Gospels alone without buying permission to do that. Until we have persuaded sufficient Christians that the Gospels are the only part of the Bible that Jesus wants us to read, so printing the Gospels alone is not a sacrilege, how likely is it that any holder of a modern Bible copyright will dare to sell us just the Gospels alone?
With you, I so much wish that we could resurrect just the Gospel words that Jesus said in a slim and true Bible bound in red leather, perhaps small enough to carry in a pocket. That day will come, dear, although it won’t be soon. I give it maybe fifty years. Meanwhile, there are red-letter New Testaments that we can edit with pen and scissors on our own. It’s a start!