Posted by Roberta Grimes • October 01, 2022 • 35 Comments
Jesus
Imagine there’s no heaven. It’s easy if you try.
No hell below us. Above us, only sky.
Imagine all the people Livin’ for today.
Imagine there’s no countries. It isn’t hard to do.
Nothing to kill or die for. And no religion, too.
Imagine all the people, Livin’ life in peace.
You may say I’m a dreamer, But I’m not the only one.
I hope someday you’ll join us, And the world will be as one.
– John Winston Lennon (1940-1980), from “Imagine” (1971)
It amazes me to say that Jesus easily could have sat down at the piano and written “Imagine” with our dear Brother John. Well, except for the “Imagine there’s no heaven” part, although Jesus wouldn’t call where He is living now “heaven.” He would call it simply reality. Just a few days ago I was in shock about what Jesus was saying, and with no idea of what He might say next. Here is a Man who has accepted the torture and murder by Roman Christianity of millions upon millions of people in His name over seventeen hundred earth-years. And I was used to that Jesus. How clueless I was! I assumed that He simply loves people. So He welcomed, and He patiently healed all those victims, and in the process He Himself became ever more personally powerful, as would happen to anyone Who is living such constant, intense and perfect love in a reality governed by Consciousness. Then all in a moment, He didn’t just turn over all the money changers’ tables in the Temple (MT 21:12). Oh no. One day He decided to turn over and smash the entire Temple altogether. And He did it joyously!
And Jesus did all of this just as we were in the process of finishing a book and preparing a website to showcase His teachings, and all at His request. But this is not personal. Actually, I wrote that book three years ago, and it was good of my Thomas to refuse to let me publish it back then, since He knew that Jesus was about to make it obsolete. Now I can revise it and make it accurate. And I will do that, because this does make sense. It is alarming, but also exciting, and beyond anything that I ever could have expected from our Friend; but it is consistent with the four canonical Gospels. And after a couple of nightly meetings that Thomas has not allowed me to remember, but that Jesus has pushed through the essence of anyway, I get it. I do. Traditional religions – and especially all the forty-two-thousand versions of Roman Christianity – all make our spiritual growth more difficult, or they even make it impossible. So we will abandon them now, and we will follow Jesus.
The revelation that has shaken me a bit at first is that the new Christianity of Jesus must be unstructured. It can have no leaders and no rules at all. It must be based only on the four canonical Gospels, after all the parts that later were added by Nicaea have been cut away. It is a movement and not a religion; it is a set of teachings meant to transform each of us internally. And I can see now how that might possibly work. Without the distractions of churchy political nonsense to bother and befuddle our days, perhaps for the first time in two thousand years, people with even just a passing interest in Jesus might read and begin to put into practice what He taught.
The notion of building an entire movement around the four canonical Gospels will seem nonsensical to many theologians. Those Gospels were chosen, only four out of many, by the Council of Nicaea in 325, and choosing those four now leaves out some things that Jesus reportedly said. Ignoring the letters of Paul leaves out some ideas developed by the early church. There is just one reason why building an entire movement around those four Gospels makes sense. And that reason is that Jesus wants us to do it. He believes that people coming out of Roman Christianity will feel safest and most comfortable at first with just the canonical Gospels. And Jesus adds that if those who have been lifelong Roman Christians never venture beyond the canonical Gospels, they will still have enough of what He taught to achieve the kingdom of God on earth. Therefore, what they have will be sufficient. And if they want more, then they also will have the other Gospels in publication and close at hand! But to do what the Roman Christians have done, and to distort the Lord’s message with admixtures from the Old Testament and from Paul all muddling through the sacred words of Jesus as if they carried equal weight is pure foolishness and plain sacriledge.
Jesus carefully designed His teachings as a prescription for rapid spiritual growth. He undertook that earth-lifetime as Jesus two thousand years ago specifically to study people in order to figure out how to help us to achieve the most rapid spiritual growth, and He tells that story in an Appendix to The Fun of Loving Jesus. Most importantly, His teachings really do work well! They work amazingly well, but they have hardly been tried because Roman Christianity soon intervened and added its fear-based ideas and dogmas, and thereafter hardly anyone has taken the Gospel words of Jesus seriously. I write this, and then I read it, and I am freshly horrified. We have revered the Man, while never once in two millennia caring at all what Jesus actually said?
But if the Lord’s teachings are indeed the most ideal method for achieving rapid spiritual growth, why then did He not introduce them to us sooner and insist that we take them seriously? Of course, He has an answer for that question that shames Roman Christianity to its core. During all of the past seventeen earth-centuries, Jesus has sadly had a greater priority. In an astral reality without time, Jesus has spent the past seventeen hundred earth-years in healing the hundreds of millions of victims of Roman Christianity. First there were the pogroms against the millions of Jesus’s first followers, who were murdered as Roman Christianity was being established. Then there were the Crusades and the Inquisitions, all the ways in which many millions of people over the centuries were murdered in the name of Jesus. (And my dear friends, if you never have read Helen Ellerbe’s book, then please, for the sake of all the people that Roman Christianity has martyred, try to find the time to read it now!) And then, of course, in the twentieth century came the Holocaust, and the torture and murder of almost six million Jews and another five million others, simply for their ethnicity. And the murderers of all these people were, as we know, Roman Christian Nazis. So let’s just say that Jesus hasn’t had the time to do anything about Roman Christianity until now, because for most of the past two thousand years He has been otherwise occupied.
So now at last Jesus is witnessing the slow death of the Roman Christian usurper of His name and His rightful place. Now we might say that He can choose to take over Christianity and the use of His own name at whatever point in the history of what should have been His movement He might like, and carry it forward from there. And as I think about it, He seems to have been considering how best to do exactly that, during the months of earth-time that I have been observing Him since I channeled Liberating Jesus for Him in early 2015. We who are living on earth assume that upper-level discarnates know everything that we know about human life. But in fact, they seem to be entirely disengaged from it. And even our spirit guides are connected to what is currently happening on earth only through us, so I am amazed to tell you that a lot of Jesus’s exploration of current conditions on the earth plane seems to have been happening through my Thomas, the being that He still refers to as His brother even six thousand years after they actually last were brothers in the flesh. And of course, my Thomas in turn is connected to the earth through me. So the three of us are basically Texans. But I realize in retrospect that Jesus has been trying to find a way to introduce His teachings without disrupting the two billion Christians that He so much loves, only to see that there really is no way to remove the fear from Christianity. Fear is baked in the cake. And since fear is the opposite of love, what you fear you cannot love, so to follow any religion at all makes spiritual advancement close to impossible.
Once Jesus had worked out all of that, it didn’t take Him long to decide that His only option was to erase Roman Christianity from His personal vision altogether, and to allow the religion to quietly die on its own. And of course, for someone who has lived as Jesus has lived for so many centuries, feeding astral fish in an astral river and communing with those astral deer while He patiently loved all those millions of victims of Christianity back into spiritual health, for Him to go right back to teaching in Galilee makes sense. So that is what His website will be: a recreation of His canonical Gospel teachings, together with instructions about how to use those teachings to achieve the kingdom of God on earth in the way that He told us that it will unfold, not out there but rather in our innermost hearts. For as Jesus told one of the Pharisees, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is within you” (LK 17:20-21). It is the very same spiritual elevation that you came to earth to achieve. And once you steep yourself in the teachings of Jesus alone, and in the right order, and you simply trust Jesus – keeping your hand always in His – then I don’t care if you are eighty years old when you begin to take the Lord’s teachings seriously, you can make this your last earth-lifetime. That is how amazingly transformative these teachings really are.
Oh my dear ones, this is so simple! And it has always been simple. The religion has only ever been in the way. When each Christian stops fearing God as a deity so lacking in love that God could actually require the blood-sacrifice to Himself of God’s own Son, and when each Christian instead realizes and truly knows in his or her deepest heart that God loves you, purely and completely, as God’s own favorite and best-beloved child, then the kingdom of God can take root in your heart. The pure Christianity that Jesus taught is entirely devoid of fear, as Jesus first told us in some of the most beautiful and comforting words ever spoken. Jesus said:
“And which of you by worrying can add a single day to his life’s span? Therefore, if you cannot do even such a very little thing, why do you worry about the other things? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither labor nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will He clothe you? You of little faith! And do not seek what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying! For all these things are what the nations of the world eagerly seek; and your Father knows that you need these things. But seek His kingdom, and these things will be provided to you. Do not be afraid, little flock, because your Father has chosen to give you the kingdom!” (LK 12:25-32).
Imagine no possessions. I wonder if you can.
No need for greed or hunger. A brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people, Sharing all the world.
You may say I’m a dreamer, But I’m not the only one.
I hope someday you’ll join us, And the world will live as one.
– John Winston Lennon (1940-1980), from “Imagine” (1971)
Dear Roberta,
Thank you for the post, which opens the door to some ideas some of us have a bit of difficulty comprehending-a movement with no leaders, no hierarchy, no religion; my first question which niggles at me since it has for a long long time, is where is Paul in all this? For whatever reason, for as long as I can recall, I have never particularly cared for Paul’s writings, and how so much of what I was exposed to in church relied on his teachings rather than the gospel. I know you’ve gone over some of it, and you’ve presented that all the early followers did their best, but so much of what we know as Christianity is what is termed “Pauline doctrine”.
I know/believe there are other Spirits working with Jesus very closely, as much as Thomas, and I wonder about some of those early followers, if they are in spirit. What are they doing to help?
I know this may seem trite compared to all you are presenting today, but I see that name, Paul, and my ire is ignited. Many blessings to all.
Hi Fran,
I agree with your comment and I was about to ask the same question. Paul figured prominently in the religious upbringing I had. What about his experience of light ? Does he associate with Jesus now ?
Oh my dear Fran, the Apostle Paul never even knew Jesus in the flesh. He doesn’t figure in this project at all. Where was Paul while Jesus was teaching? If anything, Paul was an enemy of the Word. He would have been speaking against Jesus, if he had been doing anything at all.
Dear Fran, I share your quetioning about the role of Paul.
My dear Jack, I have asked Thomas if any of the Lord’s Disciples are around Jesus now, and He says that most of them are involved with the religion, as Jesus is not. They are saints, being prayed to, and so on, while Jesus has instead been healing the religion’s victim’s. So, what happens when people pray to Jesus? Thomas tells me that Jesus responds to their prayers through His very much expanded Council, but apart from the religion.
I confess to finding this a bit confusing. If the religion, Roman Christianity is false why are the past disciples of Jesus acting as ‘saints’ for people to pray to? Why are any people in the afterlife continuing the Christianity story?
In a similar vein , I was wondering why during NDE experiences ( I understand that the people have not died), the spirit guides pretend to be religious figures . Is this not more confusing?
Hello.
It sounds like there is a multiplicity in method here, with disciples deciding to work within the system while Jesus is deciding to start a new way. This does not sound like a problem, because the people who will be following Jesus here have the Base of already being dissatisfied with the religion of Christianity while wanting a closer relationship with Jesus himself. The people who the disciples will be working with, they have the Base of wanting to stay within Christianity, who enjoy saying the Rosary and venerating Mary and the Saints, who enjoy the ritual of Mass and the smell of incense. It seems contradictory because it is, but it is not a problem.
I have taken a look at part of the Helen Ellerbe book “The Dark Side of Christian History” and even from a quick glance it is possible to see the consequences of the belief that there can be ONLY one God, one Truth, one Book, where no multiplicity is possible, no variation is allowed. There is TRUTH, and all else is heresy. How much persecution was there because there had to be ONLY ONE CORRECT definition of who and what Jesus was?
I have been going through (or being led by Renfield) some of my Buddhist past. Looking at Shambhala and their foundational idea of Basic Goodness, for instance. Also, wondering why there was such variation within Buddhism. The Tibetans (and there are multiple traditions within the Tibetan system) look different from Zen, which looks different from Pure Land, which looks different from the Soka Gakkai, which looks different from Theravada. Shambhala and a few other groups answer that by the concept of Base, Path, and Goal. Even if the Goal is the same, the Path will be different based on the Base, the starting point of where people are. So if people are doing different methods, it is not a problem. And sometimes the Goal of one Path becomes the Base of another.
I won’t be able to say much about NDEs where spirit guides pretend to be religious figures. I did the experiment a few weeks ago to see if I could contact my spirit guide, and that’s when I found Renfield. What guide names themselves Renfield? One with a sense of humor, and more seriously, one who knows what Renfield means to me. He won’t pretend to be a religious figure, even though I get the feel that at one point he was a yogi/philosopher.
My dear Jason, the problem of violence in Christian history was of the times, I think – in the end, there were millions of victims, but those were times in human history when brutality was routinely used as a means of control. And no, it wouldn’t, happen now. But since elevating ourselves spiritually is the entire reason why we take these earth-lives, it stands to reason that we want to live lives that will make spiritual growth as easy as possible.
And that is why Christianity of the old style needs to be thrown out altogether. There is nothing about it whatsoever that is spiritually elevating. Quite on the contrary. And I say this with a heavy heart! But following Jesus can help us make this our final necessary earth-lifetime. That works. So let’s go for it!
Hello, Roberta.
Thanks for responding to my note. I waited two days for Maggie to get a response to her questions. Not seeing one, I gave a reply on how there could be multiplicity of method, based on ideas in Buddhist Tantra.
But, if multiplicity of method is going to be rejected in this case, if we are going to say there is nothing about Christianity whatsoever that is spiritually elevating, then Maggie’s question deserves a reply.
Roberta,
Did you know The Tao Te Ching that was written by Lau Tzu was the first to not want rules? Spiritual rules or any other rules to govern people? The Toa Te Ching is older then Jesus and the bible! You keep knocking Roman Christianity and I agree with most of what you say, but, you do realize that proto orthodoxy (Greeks) transcribed the bible to their liking! What they did not understand in Aramaic they put their own pagan spin on it! Most of the bible was written by Proto Orthodoxy! Most everyone that studies to become a priest all tell me they had to learn ancient Greek to learn the bible. Litsa
Yes, my dear Litsa. And very wise of them. As Jesus said, it is impossible to have rules without introducing sin and fear.
Roberta
I just do not understand why Jesus would need a website to spread what? What message? Not rules? That Christianity was wrong about his message That all is Love? To be vindicated at last? For what reason?
As you stated a lot of my friends and I have walked away? It’s not hard to understand all is love? What am I missing here?
Litsa
Jesus is trying to show us how to navigate this physical realm and accomplish spiritual elevation which is the entire reason we are here. “All is love” is great and all but I don’t believe it helps us achieve our goals. Compared to forgive your neighbor no matter how many times they wrong you. That is something we can sink our teeth into and try to implement. Goals are great and all but they don’t really help us get to where we want to go. That is why we need systems, like Jesus is trying to teach us. It is much easier to see where we fail when using a system so we can correct our behavior. With goals, it is more difficult to nearly impossible to see what needs to be corrected as they tend to be very generic like “All is Love”.
You are right, my dear Thomas! We need to bring it down from the airy-fairy and into the real world! We need simple, concrete steps. And that is why following the teachings of Jesus is important. He came to earth to study us and specifically developed a very straightforward method of raising our spiritual vibrations that works beautifully, even if we apply it late in life.
My dear Litsa, that Jesus should need a website that shares His genuine teachings with the world is really not at all hard to understand. Please think this through with me:
1) Right now, Jesus’s name is either the first or second most famous and/or most popular name on earth.
2) But the religion that uses the name of Jesus outright lies about Him. Nothing that Christianity says about Jesus is what Jesus said, and nothing that it says about Him is true.
3) Moreover, Christianity is now dying. People are falling away from the religion. Within a few decades, it will be dead.
4) Jesus has personally asked me through my spirit guide to create a website that will attach His genuine teachings to His extremely famous name while it is still famous in order to preserve His name and share His genuine teachings with the world.
Does the idea make any more sense to you now?
I think you are are doing is fantastic, Roberta.
Do you have any thoughts on the parable of the Wheat and the Tares? It’s one of the favorites of religionists.
Thanks!
Oh my dear Duke, not specifically. The religionists enjoy that one because they can use it to talk about hell, but that is not what the parable is about and in fact there is no fiery hell. I think it likely that is one of the passages that Nicaea may have added, but I haven’t studied it closely enough to be certain.
Thank you Roberta! Nicaea makes more sense to me than trying to reconcile that parable with Jesus’ nature as demonstrated in teachings which are clearly His.
Even going by the parable as recorded, it would be a mistake to interpret it as a call to judge our neighbor, as it is not the job of the self-proclaimed “wheat” to decide who is and who is not a “tare”. Not even the angels can reliably make the distinction before “the end of the world”.
I can see our incorrect ideas being “cast into the fire”, but I cannot see our Father casting his children who made mistakes into the fire.
Which translation of the New Testament do you use? I would like to start using that one.
My dear Duke, I read the New International Version mostly, since I think it sounds the prettiest. When writing books, though, I’ve got to use the NASB (not sure what that’s actually called) since it has more liberal use rules.
Rejoice Roberta!
It took this long reading and praying
to realize we were born with the Kingdom within us.
That precious gift is the only tool we need as we read Jesus’s
Words over and over and over on your website.
We can continue to live our lives without fear and guilt.
I have tried hard to evolve, to obey and still enjoy each day,
but I was working without my soul, my Kingdom .
..Now I can drop the weight of trying. I can drop the
weight of judging. I can drop the fear of not feeling loved.
It is exciting to follow Jesus, without rules. Reading
His Words will soak in and change me. I know I will
want hold his hand tight, because I am starting again,
I am a little reluctant-scared.
This is the Gift above all others.
I am glad to be alive now, right now.
Love,
Erica ,
Oh my dear sweet Erica, no worries! I am so glad to be alive now too, and no need to be fearful at all, dear one, because Jesus is excited about what is to come, and His excitement is quite contagious. I used to worry that we might be too late, but I am catching His excitement now. This really is going to be fun!
@thomas Belknap,
I get what you are saying, but Roberta is stating Jesus wants no rules. I understand why each person is down here at the Earth School.
But the question is WHY does Jesus need his own website the question?
There are many who have met Jesus through Astral Projection as well and some even call him Yeshua!
I guess what I am trying to say and maybe I have NO right stating it on this blog what does Roberta get a message saying he wants a website?
To destroy the Christian Religion? It is starting to happen whether Jesus has his website or not..
But what about Buddhism, Hinduism, and the Muslim religion? I have been to many sides EXCEPT becoming a Muslim and I can tell you they all have their SUPERSITIOUS beliefs that hinder growth as well.
Litsa
My dear Litsa, I have answered this question above, but I think I answered it after you asked the question a second time here. Despite Jesus’s universal fame, there are not three percent of the people in the world who are actually well acquainted with what Jesus said, because no Christian denomination ever has taught what Jesus taught – and what is just as important, they have all taught a great deal of nonsense that Jesus did NOT teach. The least that He deserves is one place where people can go to learn what He actually said. You will be amazed.
Hi Roberta – I’ve been round and round in my mind about that Acts 1: 1-11 where it reads that we can expect Jesus to come back in the physical – the disciples themselves believed He was coming again in their lifetimes. And then in last week’s post you wrote this:
September 30, 2022 at 9:44 am
“And my dear Cookie, Jesus actually made the point to me just last night, in the middle of the night, as I was waking up – perhaps He was thinking of what you had said here – that if He could save the religion in some way for those who still love it, then He would. And that’s amazing, when you think of it! I should think He would have every reason to hate the religion. But, no. He actually said that. It’s just that fear is “baked in the cake.” And I have no idea where He got that phrase! But it’s true.**** So He said He has no choice but to go back to Galilee and begin again***. By the time I was fully awake, He was gone.” (my stars)
And this week, you have written this same thing again;
“He patiently loved all those millions of victims of Christianity back into spiritual health, for Him to go right back to teaching in Galilee makes sense.”
My take on this is the literal interpretation, not an allegorical one! If Jesus said this to you; and you have remembered it word for word, then there is a distinct possibility that He is coming back to the Galilee – specifically the Mount of Olives where he left those adoring disciples two thousand years ago. My Hope is not quenched – there is still a little bit of it left.
Love you Dearly – please do not be irritated with me ! Betty
Oh my dear Betty, of course I’m not irritated with you! And I discovered later that day where He got His “baked in the cake” reference, since I had used it in answering an email from a podcast listener the day before. But I think His reference to Galilee really is to a time in His life, and not to the place. Realistically, I don’t think that He can believably appear on earth. I think an astral body can probably pass for a material body, provided that He can get to the astral for help and support. It worked for more than a month after His resurrection. But this is a much more cynical age! And He wants me to narrate His website. It may be that some future technology will let Him communicate from there, but sadly I’m not holding my breath.
Hi Litsa,
The way I see the no rule is this…
Currently what is being taught.
“If you don’t do this you will go to hell forever.”
What Jesus is teaching us.
“If you want to get the most out of your time here you may want to try doing this.”
One is clearly a rule and when you break a rule you get punished. The other is a suggestion and if you decide not to do it there is no punishment.
Oh my dear lovely Thomas. you are very sweet!
Dearest Roberta,
Heck I’m sick of religions and their rules! So many rules for everything. (In fact, our modern societies have also become choked will rules and regulations killing all spontaneity.)
The limited thinking that a sin-and-punishment or virtue-and-reward religious belief system reminds me of Ouroboros, the snake that keeps eating its own tail ad infinitum. It’s a flat circle. It’s kind of dead. It never really goes anywhere; it’s a mental loop and rivets us to the duality of this world. If anything, religious rules tempt us to judge each other, and we may hold grudges as a consequence. Then there is fear and guilt, of course, and the dull, ever present pain of self loathing.
No my dear, I prefer the inner, living transformation that disposes of fear and guilt and takes us toward perfect love and Oneness. Jesus’ transformative teachings get us to the Kingdom which is Spirit within. It reminds me of a rising helix; elevating, ever brightening and joy giving. It is beyond rules and seems to me a living process. Perhaps it can be compared to the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. I mean, what rules does the emergent butterfly follow to fly free of its chrysalis?
And I do find it exciting that Jesus will at last be able to show us The Way without the fetters of religion. 🦋🙏🏼❣️
Oh my sweet Efrem, yes, exactly! And there is nothing whatsoever spiritual about rules at all, or about a snake that forever eats its own tail. The butterfly really is the right image. But my problem this week has become Jesus Himself, and becoming caught up in such a monumental love. When you are free of the rules, thre is only this absolutely monumental love of God.
The monumental love of Jesus floors me. I am overwhelmed by it in those moments when I start to ‘get it.’
Even to carry the knowing that He loves us so much, through my daily life, is completely soothing, healing and inspiring.
As you say Roberta, “When you are free of the rules, there is only this absolutely monumental love of God.” This line of yours seems to sum up the liberation from rules that opens into the vastness of Love.
🙏🏼 ❣️🌅
That’s it, my dear beloved Efrem. That is what I have been wrestling with this week.When you really begin to know Jesus, He makes it possible for you to to find God as never before.
What you said is so true, Efrem. Following religious rules moves us away from love and forgiveness and forces us to love only those who follow the rules (all of which are man made).
Oh yes, my dear lovely Lola! And now that we see that fact about religions, it is impossible to un-see it! How is it possible that anyone anywhere thinks that any religion ever can contribute anything to spiritual growth?
That’s it, dear Lola,
As you say, rules make us love only those who follow the rules..
I guess that is how religious cliques become a thing in church communities: The ‘in-crowd’ and those not quite good enough to be part of it… Such a pity I guess.
🙏🏼🕊❣️
And what is even worse, my dear Efrem, is that that sort of in-group and against the out-group bonding isn’t even real love at all, unfortunately.