Posted by Roberta Grimes • July 11, 2020 • 24 Comments
Book News, Jesus, The Source, The Teachings of Jesus
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still waters, He restoreth my soul.
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
– Attributed to King David, from Psalm 23 of the Book of Psalms (1000 BCE)
Learning and adopting a whole new way of thinking and living is a very big task! For the past six months we have been laying the ground for a new Christianity that is not based in the Roman councilors who claimed they were being “inspired by God,” even though in fact they were being inspired by the needs of Constantine the Great. And Emperor Constantine’s corrupted version of Christianity has persisted for two thousand years as what Jesus would likely call the fruit of a poisonous tree (MT 7:17-18). Jesus tells us He came to teach us the truth, and those that we used to think were dead have abundantly confirmed that His words are true. Christianity uses Him as a sacrifice, but otherwise He has been sadly ignored by Constantine’s version of Christianity. And we are being called now to introduce to humankind a fresh and eternally pure Christianity that has nothing in common with Constantine’s version but is based in the Gospel teachings of Jesus. So we began this cycle of posts in January by sharing what Jesus tells us in the Gospels about why He came to earth; and we end it now by talking about how our abandoning that false and fear-based version of Christianity and beginning to share with all the world the love-based and non-religious teachings of Jesus will make it possible for us to begin at last to heal this hurting world.
I apologize for the fact that I didn’t know until this morning that we have been building a cycle of information for the past six months! As I have confessed to you, the genuine authors of all that I write are my primary spirit guide and his team. He gives me the titles and the general ideas for each blog post a week or two
beforehand, and then he lets me flounder until the day before each post is made. (This can be frustrating! He tells me he is teaching me to write on my own, but I can tell from his tone that I am a slow learner.) I had written an entire post for this weekend which has turned out to be another miss, so I begin again now with Thomas’s help. He chose the 23rd Psalm for our frame, and he asks that we think of those beloved words as having been the Lord’s first Gospel message, delivered a thousand years before His birth. Thomas then reminds us, as Jesus also did, of the words of David’s Psalm 118:42-43:
“Jesus said to them, ‘Did you never read in the Scriptures,
“The stone which the builders rejected,
This became the chief corner stone;
This came about from the Lord,
And it is marvelous in our eyes”?
Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing the fruit of it’” (MT 21:41-43).
When Thomas pointed this passage out, I had gooseflesh. For two thousand years Christians have assumed that they were the inheritors of God’s work that King David had told us would be based on Jesus as its Cornerstone. But is it possible that David spoke those words, and then Jesus later reminded us of them, because in the long fullness of additional time all religious fears would be outgrown, and we would at last actually read and follow the Lord’s Gospel teachings? Then those teachings, which Constantine’s Christianity has ignored, will in this new day become the true Cornerstone? And does this then mean that we who devotedly follow the teachings of the Lord might be granted the gift of cultivating the vine which will at last bear God’s kingdom as its fruit? Is this passage from David that was quoted by Jesus a thousand years later more important than anyone has imagined?
Long before our current cycle of posts began six months ago, I was being shown and I was sharing with you the fact that Christianity is shockingly altogether unrelated to the Gospel words of Jesus. And this is all notwithstanding the fact that Jesus tells us in the Gospels that His teachings are what matters! He 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). But to this day, adherents of the Roman version of Christianity consider what the Lord taught us to be nothing more than good suggestions. And Jesus 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). But modern Christians are taught that Constantine’s dogma-based version of God long ago gave us all the answers that we ever are going to get.
Jesus rants against the clergymen of His day, saying, “But 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). And, “Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men… You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition” (MK 7:8-9). Man-made religious traditions are anathema to the Lord! 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). Back when I was reading the Bible every day and assuming that I would join the clergy, I used to wince when I would come to these passages. Why do modern clergymen not also wince? Do they think the Lord’s disapproval of our placing human traditions over God’s divine Word somehow ended when Constantine came along, even though he ignored what Jesus actually said?
Surely the worst sin of the Roman Christianity that is dying all around us now is the fact that it is cheerfully willing to directly contradict the Gospel words of Jesus! We know that the Gospels were edited as Roman Christianity was being developed, including by the First Council of Nicaea in 325. Those who were building one uniform Christian faith out of many early versions tried to scrub from the Gospels everything that contradicted Constantine’s nascent Christianity, including all talk of reincarnation; and they added to the Gospels passages on church-building, sheep-and-goats, end-times, and God’s judgment that are frankly anachronistic. So it seems to me that we must consider the words of Jesus that were allowed to remain in the Gospels to be especially important, and maybe even doubly-certified to have come from God!
And Jesus tells us right in the Gospels that God does not judge anyone. Jesus says, “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father” (JN 5:22-23). And furthermore, those that we used to think were dead have been telling us all along that God never judges anyone, and that the death of Jesus on the cross has never made an afterlife difference for a single human being. But, wait! Doesn’t Jesus judge us, then? No. He says, “If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world” (JN 12:47). “Aha!” say adherents of Roman Christianity. “So He says He did come to save the world!” Yes. But not from a divine judgment that He assures us never happens. It is abundantly clear from the Gospels that what Jesus came to save the world from was ignorance and man-made religious notions. So there you have it. The core belief fostered by the early version of Christianity that Constantine founded turns out to be a defamation of God that Christians easily could have discovered if they ever had actually read the Lord’s words. As always, Jesus is precisely right.
This has been a hard personal journey. When the Lord first called me out of Roman Christianity in the late nineties, I was sure I couldn’t be hearing Him right. I kept
going to Mass. I tried to ignore Him. When He asked me through Thomas to channel Liberating Jesus, I refused until Thomas broke into my daytime life and told me why I had to do it. But even after having channeled the Lord, and after having studied the Gospels obsessively, I realize now that I still have been fighting this calling to give the rest of my life to the Lord’s own Christianity. He insists to all of us that it is His words that matter! He says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death” (JN 8:51). And, “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). But still, I was resisting. Who am I to be doing all this? So Thomas has given me this last six months of posts to be shared with you, but he tells me now that he has done them primarily so he could convince me it is finally time for us to begin to fight for the victory of the Lord’s truth on earth.
Thomas is telling me amazing things! I’m having trouble getting my mind around it all. He says, first, that I must stop thinking of Roman Christianity as a mistake, since this entire history was planned by the Godhead. He says that King David was the Lord’s precursor, and his prediction that the teachings of Jesus that the builders of the first Christianity would reject were later going to become the Cornerstone of a genuine Christian movement is being fulfilled now, three thousand years later. He is telling me, too, that he ended this six-month series by talking last week about the Founding Fathers of the United States because they, too, were motivated by the Godhead; and the nation they founded is meant to be the vehicle by which the Lord will operate on earth and assist all of humankind in elevating our consciousness vibrations. On a personal note, Thomas tells me that the first draft of the Declaration of Independence actually was channeled, and enough of what was important in it survived its editing for us to consider it a sacred document.
I am sorry to sound boggled, but this is all news to me! Thomas has shared more about our next week’s offering, and he assures me that I will find it easier to understand and accept. There isn’t space enough to 
summarize so many posts, so I hope that you will reacquaint yourself with the information in the posts that our beloved friend has asked me to link; and please, if you have time, skim these last six months. I think I can find this next stage easier, if only we can do it together….
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.
Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.
Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
– Attributed to King David, from Psalm 23 of the Book of Psalms (1000 BCE)
Dear Roberta,
Surely we are in the midst of a time marked by a series of catalysts for major change. What you and your guides have been doing the last six months is what we English majors call deconstructionist analysis of what our culture has assumed to be true for too many generations. But this deconstruction is necessary in order to find and understand our true selves.
We have leaned much during this process. Jesus says, “knock, and it will be opened to you.” And what happens when it’s opened? Our arrival at where we have been going? Or is it just our beginning?
I feel truly blessed and lucky to have found your writings Roberta. Thank you for fighting through your doubts and struggles and bringing us these words.
Dear Natalie, thank you for such a beautiful message! I am very glad that we have found one another. And knowing that my working through all of this has been of help to you really does make all these efforts worthwhile!
Oh dear Mike, this has been such an emotional two days for me! I’ve gone back over these past six months on this blog, and of course not all the weekly posts are freshly resonating with me now but enough of them are that I can see what Thomas has been doing. And the passage that he pulled from Matthew this week – where Jesus quotes a passage from a thousand-year-old Psalm – has always seemed to me to be a throw-away line. After all, it’s not about forgiveness, love, or the other strong threads that run through the Lord’s teachings; so I guess I always have seen it as maybe Jesus getting exasperated with people who didn’t understand His teachings and telling them to get with the program or He would take away His blessing. It seemed to be not His best moment! And Christians, to the extent that they notice it at all, seem to consider that passage from David to be just a reference to the fact that Jesus was coming, the world would reject Him, but they – the Christians who were eventually going to follow the religion – were going to make Him their Cornerstone.
So I am overwhelmed by all of this now. Of course the Lord’s teachings were rejected by the Roman builders of Christianity eighteen hundred years ago! All they cared about was that Jesus died and then rose from the dead, a genuine miracle, and they had a ready explanation from Paul that was based in the then-current Jewish practice of sin offerings. That explanation let the Romans craft a religion that was based in fear, since unless you became a faithful Christian you couldn’t partake of the Lord’s redemption so your post-death elevator was going straight down.
The new Christianity that began under Constantine was exactly what he needed at the time, and the fear at its center helped it to become a dominant religion in ancient times that has a remarkable staying power even now. The only problem was that it was based in a false premise – divine judgment – that Jesus had refuted even during His lifetime. So now, three thousand years after David first wrote that Psalm, and two thousand years after Jesus quoted it, God is giving us all such an incomparable gift! Now is the time, and we are the people being called to take up the Cornerstone that the builders of Christianity long ago rejected and to build with it the Lord’s true Way.
Lots there, Roberta,
If Jesus says only those who do the will of his father will enter the kingdom of heaven, isn’t this same as judgment?
Donal
Donal,
I think on the surface you might think that, but if you consider it more a process, the way something works, the judgement piece falls away. For instance, in order to for me to produce a perfect batch of soap, I need to follow a process. I need all the correct supply, and tools. If I divert from the basic process, I end up with a mess, or a substandard piece of work. I simply didn’t follow the process. Nothing is judging me, I simply didn’t follow the process and get what I get from that process.
Dear Fran, you have absolutely nailed it, and you have said it better than I could. Thank you for this!!
Dear Donal, this is a great question! And Fran’s answer is wonderful. I might just add to it the fact that what Jesus calls the kingdom of God is sometimes translated in Matthew as “the kingdom of heaven,” but the phrases mean the same thing. The kingdom of God/heaven refers to the highest aspect of the afterlife levels, just below the Source level, and since it is impossible to go higher than the level to which our state of spiritual development suits us, truly the only way for any of us to get there is by following the steps that are necessary to help us grow spiritually. Fran is exactly right! Whether you are making soap or raising your consciousness vibration, either you follow the recipe or you never get anywhere.
Roberta, your blog was a synchronicity for me. Everything your saying I have been thinking about this past week regarding the the conflict I was having with my minister friend and his old doctrine and the things you have opened my mind up to. Looking foward to reading what Thomas and you have to say next week and beyond! Dave
Dear Dave, I am really enjoying answering your emailed questions and watching you expand and grow so much! Thank you for making our ongoing conversation a part of your journey 🙂
Thank you Roberta for sharing your message with us
Dear Millie, thank you for this! You cannot know what a difference it makes for me to hear that what I have said is of help to you. It makes all the work that I put into this worthwhile!
Dearest Roberta, this blog has been a game-changer for me. I was astounded to read that the first draft of the Declaration of Independence was channelled. That means a lot to me and many others, but probably not to those in the news these days who are giving short shrift to low-numbered articles of our Bill of Rights. I believe that which is ordained by God will persist, and that is a great comfort to me in these perilous times.
I sympathize with you when you write “This has been a hard personal journey”. This morning Fr. John’s sermon was based on a scroll fragment from Nazareth that may fill the gap between Mt. 13:23 and 24 and has been called The Sower and the Seed (part 2). Near the end of the fragment after yet another explanation from Jesus, he said to a still-puzzled Peter “For even if you hear the word and understand it, it does not mean that you, like me when I come to Jerusalem, must not lose your life in order to bear good grain and be plentiful? We all must experience our own passions, our own deaths.”
I tried to get more information on that fragment, but no luck as it was newly-discovered last year, too soon for scholars to look into it. But I did find a paper, “The semiotics of the sower and the seed” by Andrew Chua, that had a passage that leapt out at me; it’s actually a quote from Benedict XVI “…the parable demands the collaboration of the learner…he himself must enter into the movement of the parable and journey along with it. At this point we begin to see why parables can cause problems…in the case of parables that affect and transform their personal lives, people can be unwilling to be drawn into the required movement.” –Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth.”
This crystallized a moment for me when reflecting on the parable which I “knew”, I suddenly realized that understanding the meaning is OK, but is not the desired response. I am actually supposed to behave differently as a result of reading the parable, not just merely understand it. So, what was I supposed to do differently? The answer just popped into me; “Total Commitment”, along with the realization that my present commitment is far from total. How do I justify my present situation? The simple answer is I don’t, but I hope this is at least a little kick in the pants to take things a little more seriously.
Oh my dear friend, this is a journey of learning for all of us! And no one can presume to speak for Jesus, but rather in interpreting the Gospels we’ve got to be extremely careful to try to understand what was in His mind, and not read the Scriptures or later-found fragments based on today. Thomas tells me that often and emphatically, and as I recall my experience of channeling the Lord He seemed to want to use only the translated canonical Gospels, and nothing extraneous. There was a period when I seemed to be hearing His thoughts, and at one point He seemed to want to add something but then He thought it was more important to use what was there. “It is enough.”
We’ve got to remember, too, WHY He spoke in parables so often! Yes, He was speaking to primitive and unlettered people mostly, so He had to say things very simply. But His primary reason seemed to be this need He had to say radical things right in front of the Temple guards who were just waiting to hear Him speak against Judaism so they could arrest Him for a capital crime. The way He handled it was amazingly clever! He gave pieces of truths over days of time; or He answered questions correctly, and then went a bit further very subtly and in an offhand way; or He told stories – parables – and then added something like, “He who has ears, let him hear.” You can almost see Him winking!
Dearest Roberta,
I get the sense that your inner journey, as it were, has covered so much terrain that it makes any possible outer, physical journey small (even petty) by comparison. Thomas’ guidance certainly involves many unknowns, twists, turns and reveals; disorientation that becomes clear revelation. Hence I’m seeing a process that is unlike anything I have ever witnessed. I can’t even imagine what this must feel like or what the relationship that your good self and Thomas have is actually like, that enables this process of revelation.
My own Guidance is incremental by comparison; patient, paced, and of course, quite loving. It is a slow and steady dawning.
One thing that is clear is that your Guidance involves all of you, always, no matter how fast or vertiginous are the twists, turns, loops and spirals that may come… And the result for you my dear?
Is it becoming a vessel of pure Light?
🙏🏼❣️😉
Dear Efrem, I have been trying since I first read your comment to think of how I might best describe my working relationship with Thomas. I first became aware of him when I was eight, when he suddenly, very briefly withdrew so he could show me how much of a difference that would make; and since I didn’t realize what was happening, the experience was so terrifying that it produced my first experience of light. It felt as if a substantial part of me had suddenly disappeared! Although it came right back. At the time I interpreted it as a sudden absence of God, which I guess is what it amounted to. Everyone reading these words has a primary spirit guide, and for everyone that primary guide really is a substantial part of what we feel is ourselves!
I began to learn about spirit guides in the course of my afterlife research, and it was then that I first understood my age-eight experience. I learned to work with Thomas without realizing that was what I was doing: he prompted me to do all that afterlife research, to become a fan of and a student of Thomas Jefferson, to write a biography of Jefferson’s marriage, and to concentrate thereafter in areas that had interested him in the latter part of his life – the abolition of slavery, the perfection of the American form of government, and the Gospel teachings of a basically secular Jesus. I seem to have been following his guidance well right up until I was supposed to write Liberating Jesus in 2014, whereupon I felt so unworthy that I said, “No way, Jose!” And he prompted me to consult a medium so he could break into my waking life.
For two years Thomas was willing to speak to me regularly through a medium, but he hated it. I was a groupie fan-girl asking a lot of questions about his Jefferson lifetime, even though he was so completely over it that he didn’t even present as looking like Thomas Jefferson and he didn’t want to talk about him at all. So after two years, with the book safely written, he flat refused to communicate through a medium anymore and went back to working internally.
The difference now is that I am sensitive to him. I can feel – not really hear – what he is thinking. If I’m writing something, I pause often and get his “yes” or “no” to whatever I have just written, and if I haven’t asked him about something that he doesn’t like then he will draw my attention to it repeatedly until I fix it. If I’m talking to someone and say something he doesn’t like, he lets me know at once that he disagrees; or if I please him, I can feel his smile as distinctly as if I were seeing it in front of me. I have complained about the fact that he doesn’t get serious about our blog post until Friday morning, so today – a Wednesday – I am floundering with this first draft; but I know that he has my back. Come Friday morning, I will be writing up a storm and feeling like a genius. This whole spirit-guide dance is such a wonderful relationship!
Dearest Roberta,
I have reread this reply several times. Thank you for the effort you put into it, to give me and all of us in our blog family, such a detailed and clear picture of your relationship with Thomas.
And the feelings it has evoked, I am unable to put into words –
I can say that all this is deep and clear and good; God does indeed work in amazing ways. And He seems to include us from either side of the veil between life and the Afterlife. And the keenest thing is, the beauty of our relationships is His gift beyond measure. I now begin to see that its depth and reach is far greater than we humans yet perceive.
🙏🏼❣️🌅
Dear Efrem, it really is surprising to see how much the veil between us and them is thinning. The way that each of us is working now so casually and so deeply with our guides was impossible just a few decades ago – certainly, it was for me! And Thomas has been showing me just how completely God is in control, in part to get me to back off from thinking that saving the world is all on my shoulders. God marks not only each sparrow’s fall, as Jesus assures us is true in the Gospels, but even the fall of every smallest feather. The more that veil thins, the more overwhelming is our realization that there is in truth nothing but love.
“I began to learn about spirit guides in the course of my afterlife research, and it was then that I first understood my age-eight experience. I learned to work with Thomas without realizing that was what I was doing…”
Hi Roberta, hi everybody — I am starting with this quote from your description of your relationship with your guide because it draws attention to the way we all can and will be working closely with our guides. I don’t know — I am not an expert — but I suspect that we all need and will become more aware of their roles in our lives before too long, and then the transformation can truly begin. Already many of us have pointed to moments in our lives when we first became “aware” that we were not alone. For me, like you, it began when I was a child but I didn’t fully understand that certain things were communications from my guide and her team. I was comfortable from an early age with the Catholic Church’s concept of a “guardian angel” and so I chalked a lot of it up to the nearness of my angel. My beloved guide began to build up a head of steam when I was in my early teens and really began to come out to me in ways very difficult to describe in a few words here when I was in my 50s. Then two years ago — she revealed herself and still is revealing; herself and others on the “team.”
They are already doing the work. They would love for us to invite them in. That turns a mentor/mentee relationship into more of a partnership, and then things really start to happen. Roberta, of course as I write this I have no idea what the themes in your next topic will be, but I have a feeling that this partnership with our guides will become increasingly important to all of us.
I agree, Mike! Our guides do want a more open relationship – if nothing else, it makes their lives with us more interesting. They all work differently. For example, Thomas wants to be more internal while some others are happy to have us see them as separate. After all, our spirit guides are people, too! But this relationship that we have with our guides is so intense and so entirely based in love that I am coming to think it is the most rewarding part of being in a body. I want everyone to be much more aware of this relationship!
I have been receiving your weekly messages for the last several months and really enjoy and appreciate them. I also have heard you speak on 2 occasions when you visited your cousin locally and spoke; however this is my first time to comment.
I appreciate the statement in this message that this nation was meant to be the vehicle by which the Lord will operate on Earth. I have been in agreement with that statement but the current events have concerned me that the nation will not actually fulfill that destiny. Some years ago, I studied the IAM teachings and they were patriotic however, it appears to me that today so many of those studying this type of teachings are in opposition to the ideals of the Founding Fathers.
Anyway, thanks to you and Thomas for renewing by optimism regarding my belief in this nation and its founding ideals.
Hello and welcome, Earl! I do recall meeting you! I love the Denver area and its wonderful people. It’s good to see you here!
Thomas is surprisingly relaxed about where things are going in the United States, and I think he wouldn’t be quite so relaxed if we were in serious trouble. But I don’t know. His whole focus now is on using the teachings of Jesus to save the world from negative-energy destruction, and if the U.S. were not part of the plan to help the world then I think he wouldn’t hesitate to abandon the country that his earlier self helped to found. Our perspectives do change so much after death!
Dear Roberta. By a strange coincidence 😉 I found myself on friday reading an argument in a book stating that Mark made many allusions to the Psalms; #22 for the crucifixion, such as “Why have you forsaken me,” or “For my clothing they cast lots,” #23 the stillness of the Sabbath in the tomb, and “24 the triumphal hymn on the morning of the first day of the week that would be sung to throw open the gates of the Temple, just as the women intended to do at the tomb on the morning of the first day of the week. In the Temple, the Holy of Holies symbolizes the Kingdom of Heaven, and the veil imposing separation of it from the earthly realm was rent in two at the culmination of the crucifixion. There is even an echo of this in Psalm 118, mentioned by Thomas, with the “gate of the Lord.” It’s almost like a shout of Hosanna from the rooftops as Jesus walks through the entrance of the tomb and heads to Galilee to hammer home the truth of his teachings. On a hunch, I looked at Psalm 25 and it mostly seems to deal with developing a personal relationship with Spirit (“Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths, Lead me in your truth, and teach me.”) just as Jesus was saying we should do. I find it fascinating that Thomas sees King David as a precursor of Jesus and I wonder if Jesus had told his disciples this. I look forward to seeing what gates you and Thomas will open in the coming weeks. Is the Cornerstone being excavated from the detritus of centuries and being readied finally to build upon?
Dear Scott, the fact that Jesus was of the lineage of David – a scion of the royal line, a thousand years later – seems to have been important to His followers, although it is hard now to know the extent to which it mattered. But yes, clearly we are being told that the stone that the builders rejected is about to be the Cornerstone – the teachings that the builders of traditional Christianity rejected are about to be the start of a new Christianity. That seems to be pretty clear now! I wrote The Fun of Loving Jesus – Embracing the Christianity That Jesus Taught two years ago, and I thought it was supposed to come out then, but Thomas kept delaying it. Only now do I realize that he wanted to build a better grounding for the book. I always thought that we couldn’t call a new spiritual movement based upon the Lord’s teachings “Christianity”; but now it seems that we are supposed to call it exactly that, perhaps in part so it will attract more semi-disaffected Christians. I don’t know, but each day Thomas seems to be making all of this just a little clearer.