Section 21 Violence
Violence is the red badge of shame that is worn by the human race. It is our greatest crime against God and it is our greatest crime against our fellow humans. The only way in which we can start to pay God back for all we have done to Him is by decreasing the violence in our world.
Everyone involved in a fight tries to say that the fight was all the other person’s fault, just as everyone involved in a war tries to say that the war is all the other side’s fault. The truth is that both sides in a fight and in a war are always partially to blame, and that both sides in a fight or in a war must take responsibility for making sure that fights and wars don’t happen. Every fight and every war happen for the same reason: because one person or one group of people want or need something that another person or group of people do not want to share. Both the desire to take and the desire to keep are natural human desires that we will never be able to rid ourselves of. We should not try to rid ourselves of these desires and we should not try to pretend that these desires do not control most of our actions. Instead, we should accept these desires and we should try to control them so that they do not lead us into violence. People who want to take should often resist their desire to take and people who want to keep should often resist their desire to keep.
Jesus tells us to sell all that we have and give to the poor. (Lk 18:22, Lk 12:33, & Mt 19:21). This requires us to resist our desire to keep. Jesus tells us to resist all of our desires when He says, “If any one will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily.” (Lk 9:23 & Mt 16:24)
More than anything else Jesus does not want us to think we are better than we actually are. Jesus wants us to admit our true motivations. Jesus wants us to do this because when we admit our true motivations, then we will see how much we need God’s forgiveness, and then we will then forgive other people as we need God to forgive us, and because when we admit our true motivations, then we will do a better job of controlling our desires, and of resisting our desires when we must resist them. It is when we tell ourselves that the reason we fight is not to try to either keep or take something that another person also wants that we do the least to resist our desires. We love to create abstract concepts that sound noble to us and to then say that when we fight we are fighting for those concepts. When we do this we often stop trying to resist our desires at all: and then the powers of darkness have their day.
Jesus tells us not to think we are better than we are and Jesus tells us not to think we are better than other people are. These two thoughts are actually two parts of one thought that is more dangerous to us than any other thought we could think. Jesus tells us not to think we are better than we are, and not to think we are better than other people are when He says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a Lord who forgave one of his slaves a great debt, and who later learned that, that slave had refused to forgive another slave a much smaller debt. That Lord then said to that slave, ‘O you wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you asked me to: Shouldn’t you also have pitied your fellow slave, as I pitied you?’ Then his Lord delivered this slave to his tormentors, till he had paid all that he owed. So also will my Heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you, from your heart, forgives your brother.” (Mt 18:23-35)
Resist Not Evil
Jesus tells us to, “Resist not evil.”
It’s hard for us not to resist evil, and often we won’t be able to follow this command. Still, we must always try to do this if we hope to receive the rewards that Jesus tells us of.
In order not to resist evil we must forgive, as we need be forgiven. If we resist the evil that other people do to us, then God will resist the evil that we do to Him, and we will be doomed by God’s resistance.
It is possible to resist evil, and to later repent our resistance, and to then forgive as we need to be forgiven, But it is very hard for us to do this. Resisting evil is a habit that grows stronger and stronger, each time we do it, And that makes it harder and harder for us to forgive, as we need be forgiven, each time we do it. Resisting evil makes it hard for us to forgive other people as we need God to forgive us because resisting evil leads us to think that we are better than the people who we are resisting. We convince ourselves that we are better than people who we choose to resist in order to make ourselves feel that our resistance is justified. We see that people who we resist are evil, but we refuse to see that we are evil as they are evil. When we refuse to see our evil then we do not think that we need God’s forgiveness, and when we do not think that we need God’s forgiveness then we will not forgive other people, and when we do not forgive other people then we will not receive God’s forgiveness.
Resisting evil is one of the many ways in which we reject the mercy that God offers us.
If we forgive as we need be forgiven, then we will do everything that Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus tells us to love our enemies, and to pray for those who persecute us. Jesus tells us to sell all that we have and give to the poor. Jesus tells us to give to every one who asks of us, and not to ask for anything back from one who takes from us. Jesus tells us to give to people who will not be able to give us anything back, and to give without hoping for anything in return. And Jesus tells us to take no thought for our life. Jesus tells us to humble ourselves, as little children, and to serve, as the younger serves the older. And Jesus tells us to love each other, as He has loved us.
All of these things will be very hard for us to do. Still, we must always try to do all of these things if we hope to receive the rewards that Jesus tells us of.
When our faith in Jesus is weak we will all resist evil.
Still we must always remember that Jesus told us not to resist evil. We must remember this so that when we resist evil, we will see our resistance as proof that we cannot follow Jesus, so that we will see our evil, and so that we will see that we need God’s forgiveness. If we see how much we need God’s forgiveness, then we may later repent having resisted evil, and then we may then forgive as we need be forgiven.
2.) What Jesus teaches us to do when evil is done to us.
While Jesus tells us not to resist evil (Mt 5:39), Jesus does tell us how we can often avoid being victims of evil. One way in which we can do this is by showing other people that we do not have anything they could take from us by doing evil to us, or that if we do have anything they could take from us by doing evil to us, they could get whatever they want from us more easily if they simply ask us to give them what they want. Jesus tells us to do this when He says, “Give to every one who asks of you, and do not ask one who takes from you to give anything back.” (Lk 6:30), and Jesus tells us this again when he says, “Sell all that you have and give to the poor” (Lk 18:22, & Lk 12:33, & Mt 19:21)
If we try to resist evil, then people who are trying to do evil to us will try harder to do evil to us and often our resistance will fail. If on the other hand we show other people that doing evil to us will not help them get anything that they want, then other people will stop trying to do evil to us.
It is when we try to resist evil and succeed, though, that we become enslaved by evil. If we do this then we stoke the evil that exists in our selves and we turn that evil into a raging fire that consumes us. As Jesus says to us, “Everyone who sins is a slave of sin” (Jn 08:34)
Jesus also tells us how we can talk to people who do evil to us in a way that will often get them to stop doing evil to us. Jesus tells us how to do this when He says, “If your brother trespasses against you, first tell him his fault in private. If he will not hear you, then go to him again and bring some witnesses with you. If he still will not hear you, then tell it to the church. If he will not hear the church, then let him be as a stranger to you.” (Mt 18:15-17).
We know that this command applies to all people because Jesus tells us that all people are our brother’s and sisters. Jesus tells us this when He tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and when He then answers a man who asks, “who is my neighbour?” by telling of a Samaritan who helped an injured Jew when other Jews would not help him, and then asking, “Who was this injured man’s neighbour?” When the man, Jesus had asked this of, answered, “He who showed mercy on the injured man”, Jesus replied, “You go and do likewise.”(Lk 10:25-37). All people need our help, therefore all people are our neighbors, and in the same way all people are also brothers and sisters.
Jesus teaches that we should be as strangers to people who will not stop trespassing against us when we ask them to, but that we should never try to resist evil they do to us. This tells us to never try to force anyone to do anything other than what he or she chooses to do, even if that person is trespassing against us: even if a person strikes us on the right cheek: even if a person takes our coat, or even if a person forces us to walk a mile with him. (Mt 5:39-48 & Lk 6:27-38).
Whenever any person forces any other person to do any thing, then that person does more harm than good: no matter what he or she forces one of his or her brothers or sisters to do. Even an action that would be a good action if it were done voluntarily, will be an evil action if a person performs that action because he or she is forced to perform that action. This will be so because when one person forces another person to do what he or she wants that person to do, then that person turns a human being into a machine. A person who coerces another person turns the other person into a machine at least temporarily because without choice and freedom we are no more than machines, and a person who coerces another person also turns him or herself into a machine because without compassion for our brothers and sisters, we are no more than heartless, soulless machines. Whenever we try to do anything to one of our brothers or sisters, that we would not want done to us, we lose our compassion, and we lose our hearts and our souls.
We will only do this to one of our brothers or sisters if we have failed to forgive our victim either for something they have done to us or for something they have not done for us that we feel they should have done for us. When we fail to forgive one of our brothers or sisters, then we harden our hearts toward that person, then we fail to show that person compassion, and then we lose our hearts and our souls and become empty, hollow machines that are cruel perversions of the human beings we once were.
If we later repent and forgive as we need be forgiven, then we can regain our hearts, our souls, and our humanity. Once we have forced other people to do what we want them to do, though, it is very hard for us to repent and to forgive as we need be forgiven, and few people who have coerced other people will be able to forgive as they need be forgiven.
Speaking out against evil
Many people think that speaking out against evil is a form of resisting evil.
Jesus tells us to speak out against evil, and Jesus also tells not to resist evil. It is clear that in Jesus’ eyes we can speak out against evil, without resisting evil. Otherwise Jesus never would have told us to do both of those things.
Sometimes, though, speaking out against evil can be a form of resisting evil. This is so because words that we speak can sometimes lead other people to try to force people who are doing evil to us to stop doing evil to us. If we are trying to get other people to force people who are doing evil to stop doing evil to us, then speaking out against evil is a form of resisting evil. When we speak out against evil we must be trying to get a person who is doing evil to us to see the evil that he or she does, and to ask for God’s forgiveness. If we do this, then speaking out against evil is not a form of resisting evil, but is instead our sacred duty.
If we want a person who is doing evil to us to ask for God’s forgiveness, we must convince that person that God will show mercy to him or her if he or she asks for God’s mercy. Most people believe that they must be good in order to gain God’s favor. People who believe this will never admit that they are evil, and will never admit that they need God’s forgiveness.
2.) Because most people do not believe that God will show mercy to them if they are evil, most people will try to silence anyone who shows them their evil. Because the scribes and pharisees of Jerusalem did not believe that God would show them mercy if they were evil, the scribes and pharisees of Jerusalem tried to silence Jesus by having Jesus killed.
Jesus told the scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem that this was the reason they would have him killed when he said to them,
“You say, ‘If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have partaken in the blood of the prophets.’ By saying this, you show that you are sons of those who killed the prophets.” (Mt 23:29-31).
By saying this. By saying they would not have killed the prophets, these scribes and pharisees showed how they were like their fathers who killed the prophets. They were like their fathers who killed the prophets, in that they wanted to see themselves as people who wouldn’t kill prophets, in that they wanted to see themselves as people who were good.
It was the desire to believe they were good, that had led their fathers to kill the prophets: because the prophets had shown their fathers they were not good. It was the desire to believe they were good, that led these scribes and pharisees to kill the greatest prophet: because the greatest prophet showed them they were not good. And it is the desire to believe that we are good, that leads all of us to our greatest acts of evil, and that would probably lead all of us to reject Jesus, as these scribes and pharisees rejected Jesus, if Jesus were to come to us as he came to them, and if Jesus were to preach to us as he preached to them. Jesus told these scribes and Pharisees about great evil they had committed, and these scribes and pharisees didn’t want to hear Jesus. If Jesus came today and told us about great evil we have committed, we wouldn’t want to hear Jesus either.
“The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their works were evil. Everyone who does evil, hates the light, and stays away from the light for fear his works will be reproved” (Jn 3:19-21).
“Blessed be you poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now: for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now: for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men will hate you, and when they will separate you from their company, and will reproach you, and cast out your name as evil for the son of man’s sake.
Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy: for behold your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did Likewise to the prophets.
But woe to you who are rich: for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full: for you will hunger. Woe to you who laugh now: for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men will speak well of you: for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” (Lk 6:20-26).
4.) Because the world will hate anyone who testifies that it is evil, and will oppose anyone who testifies that it is evil, speaking out against evil requires great courage and requires great faith.
People who want to resist evil try to glorify resisting evil by pretending that resisting evil also requires great courage. In truth it is the lack of courage that leads people to resist evil. People who resist evil are lashing out in terror at a world that they can’t understand.
5.) If I and people I cared about were forced to choose between resisting evil and dying, I would try to remember that God’s forgiveness is more valuable to us than our lives are, and I would try to remember that not resisting evil is a part of forgiving people who do us evil, as we need God to forgive us.
Jesus says that, “Not all who say ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven. But only those who do the will of my father.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46)
Every thing that Jesus tells us to do is the will of His Father, including Jesus’ command that we not resist evil.
If we resist evil that other people do to us, then God will resist evil that we do to Him, and than we will be doomed by God’s resistance.
Everything Jesus tells us to do is a part of forgiving other people, as we need God to forgive us.
If we have forgiven other people as we need God to forgive us, then we will be merciful toward other people as we need God to be merciful towards us.
If we have forgiven other people as we need God to forgive us, then we will be meek toward all people, as we pray that God will be meek when He judges us, and then we will humble ourselves as children.
If we have forgiven other people as we need God to forgive us, then we will serve other people as the younger serves the older, as we know that all that we have comes to us because of God’s service to us.
If we have forgiven other people as we need God to forgive us, then we will help everyone who needs our help, as we need God to help us.
If we have forgiven other people as we need God to forgive us then we will sell all that we have and give to the poor, for we will know that without gifts God has given to us we would be so poor that we would have nothing.
If we have forgiven other people as we need God to forgive us, then we will give to all who ask of us, and we will not ask people who take from us to give us anything back, as we pray that God will give to us even though we seldom give anything back to God.
If we have forgiven other people as we need God to forgive us then we will love our enemies, and we will pray for those who persecute us, as we pray that God will love us even though we fight against God and make ourselves God’s enemies.
And if we have forgiven other people as we need God to forgive us then we will not resist evil, as we pray that God will not resist evil that we do to Him.
If we have forgiven other people as we need God to forgive us, then we will do all that Jesus tells us to do. Following Jesus and forgiving other people as we need God to forgive us are the same thing.
Jesus’ command to forgive if we would be forgiven applies to all that we do. All of Jesus’ more specific commands are descriptions of how we will treat other people if we have forgiven them.
Jesus command that we love our God with all our mind, all our soul and all our heart, and that we love our neighbour as ourselves (Mt 22:37-40), and his definition of our neighbor as anyone who needs our help (Lk 10:25-37), also applies to all that we do. This command is another way of telling us to forgive our neighbour for any evil that our neighbour does to us; as we forgive ourselves for any evil that we do to ourselves.
If we feel anger toward any person, then we have not forgiven that person as we need God to forgive us, and as we feel anger toward that person, God will feel anger toward us.
All who wander in dark valleys and founder in currentless shallows
Arise and take the place that has been prepared for you
Walk in the light to the highest peak and ride the swell of the fullest wave
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I can be reached at gpelly.bosela@gmail.com . I may also be able to be reached at (440) 647-5182. If you get an answering machine with my voice on it, try leaving a message. I may get it, but I may not be able to get it. I may also have to go for weeks at a time without getting to a computer to check my email, but I will probably will be able to check my email every day or every few days. One way or another I will probably receive all emails sent to this address within a few weeks. The full speech that I am sending you the beginning of, can be found.
Refer everyone you know who might want to help heal our world, to this web page http://howwecanheal.blogspot.com . When you want to print this speech you may have to press the paper feed button on your printer periodically.
Section 22 We should not be surprised that a cloud of confusion meant to shield us from Jesus, has risen around Jesus’ teachings. The reason this should not surprise us is that Jesus tells us to do many things that we don’t want to do.
When we read Jesus’ words we do not want to understand what Jesus means by them; because if we understand what Jesus means, then we will feel obligated to do what Jesus tells us to do. We will feel this way because, If we learn Jesus’ true teachings it will become clear to us that Jesus is teaching us what Our Creator wants us to do. Because we do not want to feel obligated to follow Jesus, we have surrounded Jesus‘ teachings with a tradition of errors that makes it hard for us to understand Jesus.
Because we all fear Jesus, a part of each of us will always cling to this tradition of errors. Our better selves, though, (the parts of us that must control our lives if we hope to receive good things from Our Creator). These parts of us want to understand Jesus. And all parts of us will suffer greatly if we fail to understand Jesus or if we misunderstand Jesus. By misunderstanding Jesus we avoid the immediate discomfort we would feel from seeing how far we all fall short of truly following Jesus, but by misunderstanding Jesus we also condemn ourselves to suffer pains that are much greater than the discomfort we avoid when misunderstand what Jesus teaches.
Thankfully, some of the same people who have helped to create the tradition of errors that makes it hard for us to understand Jesus, have also preserved Jesus’ words. By reading Jesus’ words, while, at the same time, surrounding Jesus’ words with a cloud of confusion, these people have convinced themselves that they were following Jesus, without having to do the hard work that must be done by any person who truly follows Jesus.
If we can see through the cloud of confusion that surrounds them, Jesus’ teachings are clearer and easier to understand than any other teachings, and no one else teaches all that Jesus teaches us. We can see through the cloud of confusion that surrounds Jesus’ teachings, by paying close attention to what Jesus says to us.
It is often hard for us to follow Jesus’ teachings. Doing so is well worth our effort, though, because following Jesus’ teachings, is the only way we can receive God’s rewards, and avoid God’s punishments. We can sometimes learn some of Jesus’ teachings from sources other than Jesus. Because of this, learning from sources other than Jesus can sometimes lead to great good, but learning from sources other than Jesus can also sometimes lead to great evil. We need Jesus because only Jesus teaches us the importance of forgiving other people as we need God to forgive us, and because Jesus teaches us how we can forgive other people when they do evil to us.
How calling Jesus, ‘Christ’ distracts many people from doing what God wants them to do, and, by doing this, keeps many people from receiving God’s rewards.
Calling Jesus, ‘Christ’ focuses our attention on things that Jesus does for us, and causes us to ignore things that we must do for ourselves. Calling Jesus, ‘Christ leads many people to think only about what Jesus does for us, and to completely forget about things that we must do for ourselves. These people then come to believe that Jesus will give us all that we need if we only praise his name. Believing this leads these people to become the people Jesus tells us of when He says, “Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father.”
“On the day of judgement, Many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?, and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them, “I never knew you, leave me, you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46)
Jesus does great things for us: things that no one else has ever done for us. Jesus teaches us what Our Creator wants us to do, and Jesus teaches us how we can do what Our Creator wants us to do, and Jesus sacrificed His life so that His teachings would come to many people, and so that all people would take His teachings seriously.
Sinners that we are, if Jesus had preached just as He preached, but had not died on the cross, we would not take His words seriously. We would say that talk is cheap, and we would think that Jesus was asking us to do something that He wouldn’t do. In fact, because we all would have felt this way about Jesus, people who lived when Jesus preached, would not have preserved and passed on Jesus’ words, and people alive today, would not even be able to hear, or read Jesus’ words.
When Jesus died, His blood flowed down from the cross to form the words of His gospels. Every time we read these words, and live by them, we are drinking Jesus’ blood. Every time we read these words, and live by them, we are eating Jesus’ body.
Jesus tells us to drink His blood, and to eat His body, so we will know we are so sinful we can only live because of his death. (“Truly, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” Jn 6:53). So that, finally, we will admit we cannot be good, and will, in doing so, accept God’s mercy.
These are the things that Jesus has done for us that make Him, “Christ.” These things will only help us, though, if we follow what Jesus has taught us: They will only help us if we drink Jesus’ blood and if we eat Jesus body. If we do not do these things, then all that Jesus has done for us will not help us at all. If we do not do these things, then we will be throwing away all the gifts that Jesus has given to us.
Why Jesus tells us not to judge.
a.)
One reason Jesus tells us to, “Judge not” (Mt 7:1 & Lk 6:37), is that judging often leads us to think we are better than other people are, and that thinking that one’s self is better than other people’s selves, is one of the most common ways in which people come to believe they are good.
If we do not judge other people, and do not judge ourselves, then we will not think we are better than other people are.
b.)
Another reason that Jesus tells us not to judge is that our judgement is very poor.
Jesus tells how poor our judgement is when He says, “The stone that the builders refuse, will be the head cornerstone.” (Lk 20:17). Jesus tells us of our poor judgement, again, when he asks, “Why do you see the mote in your brother’s eye, but ignore the beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me pull the mote out of your eye’, when you have a beam in your own? You hypocrite, first pull the beam out of your eye, then you will see clearly to take the mote out of your brothers eye.” (Mt 7:3-5, & Lk 6:41-42). Jesus tells us that our judgement will not be the same as God’s judgement, when He says, “The last will be first, and the first last.” (Mt 20:16). This tells us that people whom we would put last, are people whom God will put first, and that people whom we would put first, are people whom God will put last.
Often we judge that God favors people who have what we think is ‘good fortune’, and that God opposes people who have what we think is ‘bad fortune’. Jesus told us that when we do this, we will not judge as God judges. Jesus told us this when His disciples saw a man who had been blind from birth, and asked Jesus, “Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus then answered, “Neither this man sinned, nor his parents. He is blind so that the works of God may be made manifest in him.” (Jn 9:1-3). What Jesus’ disciples had thought was a punishment, was actually a preparation for a reward.
Jesus also tells us that even when we are correct in thinking a certain thing is bad, we will still be in error if we judge that people who have ‘bad fortune’, have done more evil than people who have good fortune. Jesus tells us this when He says to people who had told him about some Galileans whom the Roman government had killed, “Do you suppose that these Galileans were sinners above all other Galileans, because they suffered these things? I tell you they were not; Unless you repent, you will all perish as they perished. Or do you suppose that those eighteen people in Siloam who died when a tower fell on them, were debtors above all men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you they were not; Unless you repent, you will all perish as they perished.” (Lk 13:1-5).
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon. (Mt 6:24, & Lk 16:13,
Section 23 Becoming One in Jesus
Jesus tells us to become as one with all people, when He tells us to love all people who need our help as we love ourselves. Jesus tells us to do this when He tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and when He then answers a man who asks, “who is my neighbour?” by telling of a Samaritan who helped an injured Jew when other Jews would not help, and then asking, “Who was this injured man’s neighbour?” When the man, Jesus had asked this of, answered, “He who showed mercy on the injured man”, Jesus replied, “Go and do likewise.”(Lk 10:25-37).
This is why Jesus tells us not to think of things of man, but to instead think of things of God. (Mt 16:23).
While God is far from us, and often seems to be hard to understand, other people are close to us, and often seem to be easier to understand. This often leads us to think we can know how other people will respond to our actions, and to think we cannot know how God will respond to our actions.
When we doubt God, and when we think we can know other people better than we can know God, then we will try to get things that we need, from people instead of from God.
When we try to get things we need or things we want from people, we will try to do so by joining groups of people, and by allying ourselves with these groups in opposition to other people.
2.) Another reason we all often cling to groups we belong to, and often use these groups to separate ourselves from other people, is that belonging to groups helps us pretend that we are good by allowing us to pretend that people in groups that we consider ourselves to be parts of are better than other people are.
We often use our attachment to groups we belong to shut ourselves of from other people, by using groups we belong to, to help us refuse to forgive other people.
Because God wants us to forgive people who need our forgiveness, He rewards people who forgive other people who need their forgiveness, and He punishes people who refuse to forgive other people who need their forgiveness.
In order to try to receive the rewards that God gives, we all often forgive people who seem to be close to us, But because we still want to pretend that we are better than people who are not close to us, we all often refuse to forgive people who are not close to us.
Forgiving some people who need our forgiveness, but not forgiving all people who need our forgiveness, can help us if we see the forgiving we do as practice that must prepare us to later forgive all people. Often, though, we act as if forgiving people who are close to us is an end in itself, and often we think that forgiving these people will be good enough for God. If we do this, then forgiving some people, but refusing to forgive other people, will just be our way of pushing Jesus away from us, and will just be our way of rejecting the mercy that God offers us.
2.) Just as Jesus wants us to call no man Rabbi, Father or Master, Jesus wants us not to call any person by any name that might lead us to follow that person instead of following Him. It is clear that Rabbi, Father, and Master are the first three names in a list that includes any name that puts people in places that we should reserve for Jesus and for God. Jesus is not our secretary, and we would be insulting Jesus if we asked him to list every name that would encourage us to put people in places we should reserve for God and for Jesus. Jesus started the list and if He is truly our master, then we will try to finish it.
Many other names are just as dangerous to us as the names Rabbi, Father, and Master are, And like the names Rabbi, Father, and Master, these other names must never be names that we call men by.
Two of these names are the names Pastor and Reverend.
Call no man pastor, for Christ is your pastor, and you are all brothers and sisters in His flock. People can be pastors to sheep, but only Jesus can be a pastor to people. The word reverend means, that which is revered. Call no man reverend, for you have a reverend in Heaven. Revere no man, for you have one whom you revere in heaven.
People who never mention Jesus’ name can sometimes do the most to help us learn what Jesus teaches.
A number of people can help us learn what Jesus teaches. These people range from the first gospel writers who preserved Jesus’ words for us, all the way to any person who helps us better understand Jesus’ teachings. Sometimes the people who will do the most to help us better understand Jesus will be people who never mention Jesus’ name.
Jesus himself says that, “Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of My Father. On the day of judgement, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?, and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them, “I never knew you, leave me, you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46)
The many people who call Jesus Lord but who do not the will of Jesus’ Father will teach falsely about Jesus, while many people who never say Jesus’ name will sometimes teach lessons that Jesus taught.
Some of these people have learned from Jesus but choose not to teach in Jesus’ name because the actions of people who say they follow Jesus often do more to mislead a new student about Jesus’ teachings than they do to help a new student learn Jesus’ teachings. Jesus tells us of these people when He tells us that if a person does God’s will that person’s, reward will “In no way be less because he does so only in the name of a disciple.” (Mt 10:42)
Some of the people who teach some of the lessons that Jesus taught, are people who have learned some of what God wants us to do, and who have learned some of what God will reward, from sources other than Jesus. Some of what God wants us to do can be learned by any person who is perceptive and honest, and who looks closely at our world over time. Many people learn a great deal about what God wants us to do from sources other than Jesus, and great good can sometimes come from people following teachers other than Jesus.
Section 24
People who call themselves Christians have given Jesus a bad reputation.
Most people in western societies claim to follow Jesus, but do not try to follow Jesus’ teachings, While the small number of people who actually do try to follow some of Jesus’ teachings often do not claim to follow Jesus. This is so because Jesus’ presence and personality are so powerful, that all people are drawn to Jesus and want to follow Jesus, but few people have the strength of character to actually try to follow Jesus. People who do not try to follow Jesus, though, are the people who shout Jesus’ name the loudest. This is so because praising Jesus’ name is easy for these people to do, so these people choose to believe that praising Jesus’ name is all that they have to do to follow Jesus.
These people use their churches to try to convince themselves that they are good people who will receive good things from God because they praise Jesus’ name, and these people use their churches to try to convince themselves that people who are different than them will be punished by God, and to stoke their hatred of people who are different than they are.
By doing this these people give Jesus a bad reputation. They make it seem as if Jesus is an egomaniac who gets His kicks from having people praise Him loudly, and they make it seem as if Jesus approves of their self-righteousness and their hatefulness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Still this reputation discourages many people who actually try to follow some of Jesus’ teachings from claiming to follow Jesus. These people claim, instead, to follow some other teacher who teaches some of the lessons that Jesus teaches. In this way, many of the people who could benefit most from Jesus’ teachings, push Jesus away from them. People who do not claim to follow Jesus, will not study Jesus’ words, and in this way they will prevent themselves from learning much of what Jesus taught us.
That claiming to follow Jesus, and trying to live in His name will often make us look bad is a small price to pay for the wisdom that Jesus teaches us. (much of which we cannot learn from any other teacher). In fact having to endure humiliation is good practice in learning to follow Jesus, because the greatest skill that Jesus teaches, is the ability to accept that we are evil people who need God’s forgiveness, when we want to believe that we are good people who deserve God’s thanks.
The true power of Jesus lies in the way of living He teaches us.
Jesus’ power will only be present in our lives to the extent that we live as Jesus teaches us to live. The more often we follow Jesus teachings the more we will benefit from knowing Jesus, and the less often we follow Jesus’ teachings the less we will benefit from knowing Jesus.
People who call themselves Christians, but who ignore Jesus’ teachings, try to say words and try to perform rituals that they think will please God and please Jesus, instead of trying to do what Jesus tells us to do. No words or rituals will please God or Jesus, though, if they do not lead people who speak those words or who perform those rituals to do what Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus tells us that saying we will follow Him will not help us if we do not then do what He tells us to do, when He says to us, “Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. On the day of judgement, Many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?, and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them, “I never knew you, leave me, you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46)
Jesus tells us that rituals we perform are meaningless to Him and to God if they do not lead us to do God’s will, when He says to the Pharisees of Jerusalem, “Woe to you Pharisees. You pay tithe of mint, thyme, anise, and cumin, but omit weightier matters of law, judgment, mercy and faith.” (Mt 23:23 & Lk 11:42 ).
Mint, thyme, anise, and cumin can be good things, if they lead people to think about law, judgment, mercy, and faith, and if they lead people to try to follow the law, to try to have faith, and to try to show mercy. If they do not lead people to do these things, then mint, thyme, anise, cumin, or any other ceremonial scent or material, are distractions, that keep us from seeing God’s will, and that will bring us only woe.
Jesus tells these Pharisees, again, that religious rituals are meaningless if they do not lead to doing God’s will when He says to a Pharisee who was surprised when Jesus did not perform a ritual washing before eating, “You Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter but your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness. You fools, did not He who made the outside of things also make their insides. Instead give alms of what you have and all things will be clean to you.” (Lk 11:37-41, see also Mt 23:25-26), and when He says to the scribes and Pharisees, “You are like whitewashed graves which indeed appear beautiful from the outside, but are within full of dead men’s bones and all manner of filth. (Mt 23:27-28, and Lk 11:44)
Jesus tells us again that religious rituals are meaningless if they do not lead us to do God’s will when he says, “What goes into the mouth does not defile a man. It is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a man. For what goes into the mouth comes out in the draught. But what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and from the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnesses, and blasphemies. These things defile a man.” (Mt 15”10-20)
Jesus goes even further and warns us that, if they are misused, religious rituals can keep people from doing god’s will. Jesus told us this when he said to people who thought that he should not heal on the Sabbath, “Who among you would not save a sheep that had fallen into a pit on the Sabbath day, and how much better is a man than a sheep. Therefore it is lawful to do good works on the Sabbath days (Mt 12:9-13, see also Lk 6:7-11, Lk 13:10-17, and Lk 14:1-6)
b.) Jesus told us that doing the will of His Father is the only thing that makes any person His brethren, when, as He stood at a podium before a large crowd, He was told that His mother and brothers were outside the building He was speaking in and wished to see Him. Jesus then asked the crowd of people who waited to hear Him speak, “Who is my mother?, Who are my brethren?”, then Jesus stretched forth his hands to his disciples and said, “Behold my mother and my brethren. Whoever shall do the will of My Father in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother. (Mt 12:46-50), My mother and brethren are these who hear the word of God and do it. (Lk 8:19-21)
Telling God that we will do what he wants us to do, but then not doing what God wants us to do, will not help us at all. Jesus tells us this when He says to the chief priests and elders of Jerusalem, “A certain man had two sons. This man said to the his first son, “Go work in my vineyard.” This son said, “I will not”, but later repented and went. This man then said the same thing to his second son, and that son said, “I go sir”, but went not.”
Jesus then asked, “Which of these two did the will of their father?” After a person answered, “The first”, Jesus said, “Truly, I tell you the publicans and the harlots will enter the kingdom of God before you will. For John came to you, in the way of righteousness, and you believed him not; But the publicans and the harlots believed him; And you still have not repented, that you might believe him. (Mt 21:28-32)
Jesus is telling the chief priests and elders of Jerusalem that, like the son who said that he would work in his father’s field but who did not do what he had said he would do, They had spoken the words that God wanted to hear when they said that they would do God’s will, but they did not then do God’s will. Jesus then tells these priest and elders that people who had done great evil (Publicans, who by working for the Roman government had helped to steal the land of Israel, and Harlots, who had been with many men instead of cleaving to one man as God them to do), would receive God’s favor before they would, because these publicans and harlots had done God’s will when they believed John.
Jesus tells us that God will punish people who say they will do God’s will, but who do not God’s will, more harshly than He will punish people who never say they will do God’s will, when he says to the Pharisees of the temple of Jerusalem, “You devour widows houses, and make pretence of long prayer. For this you will receive greater damnation.” (Mt 23:14, & Lk 20:47).
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Following Jesus will help us see our evil
And Following Jesus will build our faith in Jesus
1.) Trying to do what Jesus tells us to do, will help us see our evil not only when we fail to do what Jesus tells us to do, but also when we succeed in doing what Jesus tells us to do.
If we do what Jesus tells us to do, then we will be forgiving people who have done us harm. This is so because forgiving people who have done us harm, is the only way in which we can do any of the things Jesus tells us to do. Forgiving people who have done us harm will help us see our evil because, If we forgive people who have done us harm, we will see that the evil we are forgiving in these people is the same evil we need God to forgive in us.
2.)
a.) Trying to do what Jesus tells us to do, will also help us build our faith, whenever we are able to follow some of Jesus’ commands. This is so because every time we forgive people who have done us harm, we will see that God truly will forgive us for the harm we have done to Him, if we forgive other people for the harm they do to us. We will see this when we see the good things that God will give us every time we forgive other people.
Because we will only forgive people who do us harm if we see that we are evil, weak, and frail, as Jesus tells us we are evil, weak and frail, God will give us His greatest rewards, If we believe Jesus when He tells us we are evil, weak and frail. God’s greatest reward is the ability to do His will: God’s greatest reward is the ability to do good. Because God will give us the ability to do His will when we believe we are evil, weak and frail,
The less good we think we can to do, The more good we will actually be able to do.
One reason this will be so, will be that the less good we think we can do, the more help we will seek outside of ourselves. Another reason this will be so, will be that the less good we think we can do, the more time and effort we will spend trying to transform ourselves into people who can do some good.
Truly, people who put themselves last, will be first in God’s judgement,
And truly, people who put themselves first, will be last in God’s judgement.
Truly, people who exalt themselves will be humbled,
And truly people who humble themselves will be exalted.
b.) We need to see the good things that God will give us if we follow Jesus, because, even though Jesus promises that God will give us good things if we follow Him, it is still hard for us to believe that God will show us mercy we don’t deserve. A part of us will always believe that God will show us justice instead of mercy, and that God will only give us good things if we are good.
Unless a person believes that God will show him or her mercy, any person will refuse to admit that he or she is evil, no matter what Jesus has shown that person. That person will instead try not to see anything that would show that he or she is evil.
Jesus tells us this when he says, “The World hates me because I testify that its works are evil.” (Jn 7:6-8).
And Jesus tells us this again, when He says, “The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their works were evil. Everyone who does evil, hates the light, and stays away from the light for fear his works will be reproved. But one who is doing the truth, comes to the light, that the works of God may be manifested in him” (Jn 3:19-21).
When we are doing good, we will come to Jesus’ light, but when we are not doing good, we will fear and hate Jesus’ light, and we will stay away from Jesus’ light. Because Jesus has told us that all people do evil, we know that Jesus is saying that all people will hate the light He brings to our world, and will stay away from that light. Even the most faithful follower of Jesus, will seldom come to Jesus’ light, because even the most faithful follower of Jesus, will fear that his or her deeds will be reproved. People who follow Jesus, hate Jesus when Jesus testifies that their works are evil, just as all people hate Jesus when Jesus testifies that their works are evil.
Though we will all fear God and hate Jesus, If we dare to hope that Jesus is correct when He tells us that God will show us mercy if we see our evil, and if we show mercy to other people who are evil as we are evil, then we will sometimes come to God in spite of our fear and hate and ask for His mercy. Only if we do this will we receive good things from God. If we can sometimes make ourselves come to Jesus’ light, we will learn that its heat will warm us, not burn us. If we can overcome our fear, we will see that God truly will show us mercy instead of justice.
3.)
Trying to do what Jesus tells us to do, is the only way in which we can build our awareness of our evil, and is the only way in which we can build our faith in God’s mercy.
While a person will not even start to try to do what Jesus tells us to do, if he or she does not see some of his or her evil, and if he or she does not have some faith that God will show him or her mercy, instead of justice, Any person’s awareness of his or her evil, and any person’s faith in God’s mercy, will both be small, even by human standards, until that person has built them up by trying to obey Jesus in many different times, in many different places, and in many different ways.
Section 25
Why faith in Jesus must be based immediately and directly on Jesus’ words.
Any foundation other than the words of Jesus is a weak foundation that will not stand the test of time. To be strong in our faith all of our beliefs must be directly and immediately derived from the words of Jesus.
The only thing that any Christian church can do to help people who belong to that church, is to teach and discuss the words of Jesus. Every lesson that is taught must start with a quote of Jesus’ or with a story about something that Jesus has done. Teachings that are not based directly on Jesus’ words in this way can only be based on the belief that people in one’s church are good people who will teach good things.
Faith that is based on the belief that good people have taught us good things is faith that is built on shifting sands. People who we believe, believe what they teach us because they believe that their teachers were good people who taught them good things, and their teachers believed the same thing about people who taught them, and so on in a long chain that wraps around on itself to become a circle because the most respected teachers base the beliefs on the wisdom of the common man.
People in such a feedback loop are like children piping to each other who act as if the melody piped by other children tells them what God wants us to do, even though that melody is only a slightly varied imitation of the melody that they had previously piped to those children.
If we are honest then sooner or later we will see that people in our church are no better and no worse than any other people are, and any beliefs that we have believed because we once thought that people in our church were good will crumble and fall.
2.)
Believing that people in our church are good also puts our souls in mortal peril. Believing that people in our church are good does this because it is only a small step to go from believing that people in our church are good to believing that we are good, and because if we believe that we are good, then we will not forgive our brothers and sisters because then we will think that we do not need God to forgive us in order for us to receive good things from God. We will think, instead, that God will reward us for the goodness that we believe we possess.
Jesus tells us clearly that this is not so, but we do not want to hear this and we will try to ignore Jesus. Jesus tells us this when He says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a Lord who forgave one of his slaves a great debt, and who later learned that, that slave had refused to forgive another slave a much smaller debt. That Lord then said to that slave,
‘O you wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you asked me to: Shouldn’t you also have pitied your fellow slave, as I pitied you?’
Then his Lord delivered this slave to his tormentors, till he had paid all that he owed. So also will my Heavenly Father do to you, unless each of you, from your heart, forgives your brother.” (Mt 18:23-35)
And Jesus tells us this again when He says,
“If you forgive men their trespasses then your Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive men their trespasses then Your Father will not forgive you” (Mt 6:9-15), and when Jesus says, “Forgive if you would be forgiven” (Lk 6:37)
4.)
If any of us sometimes do good things we only do good things because it is easy for us to do good things at those times because we are faced with little temptation to do evil at those times.
If any of us are faced with great temptation we will do great evil. If we are poor enough, we will all steal from the poor and the lame. If we become frightened enough we will lie to people who have told us only truth, and we will all kill people who frighten us regardless of whether or not they have tried to kill us.
Whatever evil shocks any of most, or seems most reprehensible to us.
If we are put in a difficult enough situation we will all do that evil. If we are put in a difficult enough situation we will do every evil thing we can imagine.
Jesus tells us that we will do great evil when we are led to temptation, and Jesus tells us this often and clearly. Jesus tells this most clearly when He tells us to pray to God, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Mt 6:5-15 & Lk 11:2-4)
Jesus is telling us to pray that we be delivered from the evil we would do if we were led into temptation. It is this evil that we truly need to be delivered from. Evil that is done to us does us little harm, compared to evil that we do, which does us great harm.
By telling us this Jesus encourages us not to put our faith in people and encourages us only to put our faith in him, so that our faith will be strong instead of weak.
5.)
Even seeing that Jesus sometimes felt doubt instead of faith will not shake our faith in Jesus.
In Jesus, doubt was not a weakness because Jesus never let His doubt dissuade him from doing what God wanted Him to do. In spite of His doubt Jesus still gave His life for us.
Doubt is only a weakness when it keeps us from doing what God wants us to do.
Jesus doubt only shows us how much courage Jesus needed to have to be able to sacrifice His life for us. If Jesus had never doubted that God would save Him from death and if Jesus had never doubted that God would give Him great rewards that would more than make up for His suffering then it would have been easy for Jesus to die on the Cross. Dying on the cross would simply have been an unpleasant chore that Jesus would have done to receive great rewards once it was finished.
We see Jesus’ doubt most clearly when while He is on the cross Jesus asks “Lord, Lord, Why have You forsaken me?”
We also see Jesus’ doubt when shortly before his crucifixion Jesus asked God to spare him from this fate. When Jesus asks this, though, we also see the courage that allowed Jesus to overcome His doubt when Jesus says to God “If this is not possible, then Your will be done, not mine.”
Jesus is saying that He will do what God wants Him to do put our faith in people and encourages us only to put our faith in him, so that our faith will be strong instead of weak.
5.)
Even seeing that Jesus sometimes felt doubt instead of faith will not shake our faith in Jesus.
In Jesus, doubt was not a weakness because Jesus never let his doubt dissuade him from doing what God wanted Him to do. In spite of His doubt Jesus still gave His life for us.
Doubt is only a weakness when it keeps us from doing what God wants us to do.
Jesus doubt only shows us how much courage Jesus needed to have to be able to sacrifice His life for us. If Jesus had never doubted that God would save Him from death and if Jesus had never doubted that God would give Him great rewards that would more than make up for His suffering then it would have been easy for Jesus to die on the Cross. Dying on the cross would simply have been an unpleasant chore that Jesus would have done to receive great rewards once it was finished.
We see Jesus’ doubt most clearly when while He is on the cross Jesus asks “Lord, Lord, Why have You forsaken me?”
We also see Jesus’ doubt when shortly before his crucifixion Jesus asked God to spare him from this fate. When Jesus asks this, though, we also see the courage that allowed Jesus to overcome His doubt when Jesus says to God “If this is not possible, then Your will be done, not mine.”
Jesus is saying that He will do what God wants Him to do even when He has doubt, and even when He is very frightened.
Sects
I am Catholic and Protestant. I am Franciscan, and Mennonite, and Quaker.
I am Dominican, and Methodist, and Baptist. I am Jesuit, and Episcopal.
I am Benedictine and Lutheran. I am Presbyterian and Congregational, I am Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, Jewish, Jain, Sikh, and Parsee,
Learning what God wants us to do and then trying to do what God wants us to do is hard. People in each of these groups do different things to try to learn God’s will, and people in each of these groups do different things to then try to make themselves do God’s will. But people in each of these groups all try to do the same thing. They all try to do God’s will. Jesus doesn’t care how we make ourselves do God’s will. Jesus only cares whether or not we do God’s will. Jesus tells us this when He says,
“Whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven. That person is my brother, and my mother, and my sister.”
This is why I consider myself to be a brother to all people who try to do the will of Jesus’ Father.
Most of the time, we live our lives on the basis of the principles ‘Look out for number one’, and ‘Go with the flow’
Usually teachings about what actions we should perform, and about what actions will bring us things that we want and things that we need, come to us as anonymous sayings that we do not think about very much. The two principles that most guide our actions are ‘Look out for number one’, and ‘Go with the flow’
When we start to learn that these principles will not lead us to do what is right, and that these principles will not consistently bring us things that we want or things that we need, then we slightly modify these principles.
When we say ‘look out for number one’, we expand the meaning of number one to include not only ourselves, but also a group of people whom we feel close to, and when we say, ‘Go with the Flow’, we now mean that we will “Go with the flow of the group of people we have chosen to identify with’.
After we make these slight changes to the principles we live by, we still live lives that are based on competition and that are based on doing what is easiest for us to do without thinking about the consequences of our actions.
2.)
Because we are fearful creatures, living by the principles “Look out for number one”, and “Go with the flow” is very comfortable for us. We are all afraid that we will never be able to learn how we must act in order to get things that we want and things that we need, and we are all we are afraid that there is no way in which we can get things that we want or things that we need.
We try to forget this fear as often as we can by trying to avoid thinking about the principles that we live by. Thinking about the principles we live by and deciding how we will choose to act reminds us that we may not be able to get what we want and what we need, and in doing so reminds us of the fear we have been trying to forget.
Because of this we prefer living by whatever principles make it easiest for us to act energetically and with little reflection. Limiting our concern to ourselves and to people close to us makes it easy for us to act energetically and with little reflection, and so does ‘Going with the flow’.
We adopt these principles without thinking about what we are doing because we learn how to act by imitating other people who have themselves learned how to act by imitating other people in a chain that goes back to a person who chose to live by these principles in a conscious attempt to forget the fear that we all feel.
3.)
Because we are all creatures of habit, when we must change anything about ourselves we change as little as we believe we can get away with. If we lived forever, then through making small changes every time we see the error of our ways we would eventually learn how we can live as we should live and we would eventually learn how we can get what we want and what we need. Because we do not live forever, though, we must make great changes in ourselves, not small ones.
In order to get what we want and what we need, we must base our lives on principles that are wholly opposite to the principles of, ‘Look out for number one’, and ‘Go with the flow’
Instead of looking out for ourselves or for a group of people whom we care about as much as we care about ourselves, we must look out for and care for all people equally. Instead of going with the flow, we must carefully consider all of our actions to determine whether or not it is right for us to perform them, and to determine whether or not they will bring us things that we want and things that we need.
Because we must learn these things during our short lives on this earth, we must learn them from people who will tell us to live by these principles immediately, who will give us confidence to believe that these principles are true when we doubt them, and who will teach us what we must do in order to live by these principles.
Jesus of Nazareth has done all of these things for me, and I believe that He could also do all of these things for you.
Jesus says, “A man shall leave His father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife and the two of them shall be one flesh. What God has joined, let not man put asunder.
The Pharisees to whom Jesus spoke then asked why Moses allowed divorce, and allowed men to put their wives away. Jesus answered that Moses allowed this because of the hardness of you hearts, but from the beginning it was not so.
Whoever puts away his wife, except for fornication, and marries another commits adultery. (Mt 19:3-9), Jesus’ disciples then ask, “If these actions are adultery, then isn’t it better not to marry at all.”, and Jesus answers by saying, “Not all men can receive this saying. Only those to whom it is given can receive it. Many men are Eunuch’s, and some of these men are Eunuch’s for the Kingdom of God’s sake. He who is able to receive this saying, let Him receive it.” (Mt 19:10-12) Clearly Jesus is saying that not all men will join with women, but that men who do join with women are to cleave to those women, and are not to put them away. This command is a part of larger command that we cleave to people whenever we are able to do so, in spite of their evil. Jesus tells us to do this, when Jesus tells us to do this again, when he says, “If your brother trespasses against you, rebuke him, and if your brother repents, forgive him. Even if he trespasses against you and repents seven times in a day.” (Lk 17:3-4) If Our brother trespasses against us and repents seven times in a day, there is a good chance that when he repents he is lying to us.
Jesus tells us that if we do not do His Father’s will, then we will be strangers to Him, no matter how much faith we claim to have. Jesus tells us this when He says, “Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of My Father. On the day of judgement, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?, and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them, “I never knew you, leave me, you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46)
And Jesus told us that if we do His Father’s will, then we will become His brothers and sisters, and will become closer to Him than blood relatives, when as He stood at a podium before a large crowd, He was told that His mother and brothers were outside the building He was speaking in, and wished to see Him. Jesus then asked the crowd of people who waited to hear Him speak, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?”, then Jesus stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said, “Behold my mother and my brothers. Whoever shall do the will of my Father in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. (Mt 12:46-50), My mother and brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it. (Lk 8:19-21).
Section 26 Crucifixion
If the scribes and pharisees who had Jesus killed, committed more evil than we have committed, it is only because they were led to greater temptation than we have been led to (as they surely were), or because they had been given less strength to resist temptation than we have been given. Had we been placed in their circumstances, each of us would have probably tried to have Jesus killed, just as they tried to have Jesus killed. If we follow Jesus’ command to, “Judge not”, each of us must assume that he or she would have done this.
No person can be good, Any person can only win God’s favor by forgiving other people, as he or she needs to be forgiven, And all people need to follow Jesus’ teachings to be able to forgive other people who do them harm. Because Jesus knows these things, He died on the cross, so His teachings would come to many people, and so those people would take His teachings seriously.
This is why Jesus says, “Eat, this is my body, which is given to you. Drink it all, this is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many for the forgiveness of sins. (Lk 22:19-20 & Mt 26:26-28).
The covenant for which Jesus shed His blood, is the covenant that if we follow Jesus’ teachings, God will forgive our sins; But if we do not follow Jesus’ teachings, God will punish our sins.
Sinners that we are, if Jesus had preached just as He preached, but had not died on the cross, we would not take His words seriously. We would say that talk is cheap, and we would think that Jesus was asking us to do something that He wouldn’t do. In fact, because we all would have felt this way about Jesus, people who lived when Jesus preached, would not have preserved and passed on Jesus’ words, and people alive today, would not even be able to hear, or read Jesus’ words.
When Jesus died, His blood flowed down from the cross to form the words of His gospels. Every time we read these words, and live by them, we are drinking Jesus’ blood. Every time we read these words, and live by them, we are eating Jesus’ body.
Jesus tells us to drink His blood, and to eat His body, so we will know we are so sinful we can only live because of his death. (“Truly, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you.” Jn 6:53). So that we will admit we cannot be good, and will, in doing so, accept God’s mercy.
List of Commands
Below is a list of some of the things that Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus tells us to Forgive, if we would be forgiven (Mt 6:14-15, Mt 18:23-35, & Lk 6:37) and to Judge not, lest we be judged (Mt 7:1 & Lk 6:37)
Jesus tells us to humble ourselves as children (Mt 18:4-5), and to serve as the younger serves the older (Lk 22:26). Jesus says to His disciples, “The greater of you shall be your servant. (Mt 20:26-27, Mt 23:11, Lk22:25-27), And Jesus tells His disciples, “Whoever wishes to be great among you, he will be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you, he will be you slave. Jesus also tells us that whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Mt 23:12, Lk 14:11, Lk 18:14).
Jesus tells us to help all people who need our help. He tells us this when He tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves, and then answers a man who asks, “who is my neighbour?” by telling of a Samaritan who helped an injured man when others would not, and then asking, “Who was this injured man’s neighbour?” When the man, Jesus had asked this of, answered, “He who showed mercy on the injured man”, Jesus replied, “You go and do likewise.”(Lk 10:25-37).
Jesus is telling us, that to love our neighbour, as ourselves, we must show mercy on all who need our mercy. He is telling us, that all, who need our mercy, are our neighbours.
Jesus says, “Sell your possessions and give alms. Provide yourself with wealth that will not grow old, an unfailing treasure that no thief will come near to and that no moth will corrupt.” (Lk 12:33, see also Lk 18:22, & Mt 19:21)
Jesus says, Give to every one who asks of you, and do not ask one who takes from you to give anything back. If you lend to people, who you hope will pay you back, what thanks have you? Even sinners lend, to receive as much again. Do good, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the highest, because He is kind to the unthankful and the evil, and He makes His sun rise on evil men and good, and He rains on just men and unjust. Be you compassionate as your father is compassionate. (Lk 6:30 & 34-36, & Mt 5: 42-45).
Jesus says, “When you make a dinner, don’t invite your friends, or your brothers, or your relatives, or rich neighbours, lest they invite you to their dinners in return. If this happens you will have been paid back.
Instead, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind; and you will be blessed, because they cannot pay you back. For inviting these people, you will be paid back at the resurrection of the just.” (Lk 14:12-14).
Jesus says, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. If you love those, who love you, what thanks have you. Sinners also love those who love them.” (Mt 5:44-48, Lk 6:27-28, & Lk 6:32-33).
Jesus tells us, “Not to resist evil” (MT 5:39)
Jesus says, “If a man strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him your left. If a man wishes to judge you and to take away your coat, offer him your cloak also. Whoever compels you to go a mile, go with him two.” (Mt 5:39-41 & Lk 6:29).
Jesus says, “You have heard it said that whoever kills shall be in danger of judgement, but I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without cause shall be in danger of judgement, and whoever says ‘You fool’ to his brother shall be in danger of hell fire.” (Mt 5:21-24)
Jesus says, “You shall love your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind, this is the first great commandment. The second is you shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Mt 22:37-40)
Jesus says, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. . Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow will take thought for itself. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.” (Mt 6:25-34 & Lk 12:22-34).
Jesus says, “Be as wise as serpents, and as harmless as doves.” (Mt 10:16)
Jesus tells us not to let other people believe, that we can do what only God and Jesus can do, nor to ourselves believe, that other people can do what only God and Jesus can do. Jesus tells us this, when He tells his disciples not to be like scribes, who love to be called “Rabbi, Rabbi.” And then says, “Don’t you be called Rabbi, for Christ is your master, and you are all brothers. And call no man father, for you have a Father who is in heaven. Neither be you called master, for Christ is your master.” (Mt 23: 5-12 & Lk 20: 45-47)
Jesus tells us, not to try to force other people to treat us fairly, if we cannot persuade them to do so, when He says, “If your brother trespasses against you, first tell him his fault in private. If he will not hear you, then go to him again and bring some witnesses with you. If he still will not hear you, then tell it to the church. If he will not hear the church, then let him be as a stranger to you.” (Mt 18:15-17)
Jesus says, “As you would have men do to you, Do you likewise to them: for this is the law of the prophets.” (Lk 6:31, & Mt 7:12)
Jesus tells us to love each other, as He has loved us (Jn 13:34 & Jn 15:12)
Jesus tells us, that when we help any person, we are helping Him, when He says, “When the Son of man comes in his glory, He will sit on a throne and all nations will be assembled before Him, and He will separate them into two groups. Then He will say to the group on His right, “Come, blessed ones. Inherit the kingdom that has been prepared for you since the foundation of the world. For I hungered and you gave me food, I thirsted and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you took me in, naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”
Then these people will ask ‘when did we these things?’ and the king will say, “As you did to the least of my brothers, you did to me.”
Then He will say to the group on His left, “Leave me, cursed ones. Go into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I hungered and you gave me no food, I thirsted and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not take me in, naked and you clothed me not, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.”
Then these people will ask, ‘When did we not do these things?’ and the king will say, “As you did not to the least of my brothers, you did not to me.” (Mt 25:31-46)
And Jesus tells us how important it is to Our Creator that every person be saved, when He says, “There will be more rejoicing in heaven for one sinner who repents than for ninety nine just men who have no need of repentance.” (Lk 15:7 & Mt 18:12-14)
Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it lives alone: but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. (Jn 12:24)
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Unless we have made peace with our enemies, then we have not forgiven our enemies, and if we have not forgiven our enemies, then Our Creator will not forgive us.
We can only make peace with our enemies by becoming our enemies friends. Like a friend we must tell our enemies of the punishment that warlike people will receive from Our Creator, so that they can avoid this punishment.
2.) Have faith in Jesus and in God. Have faith that people who do not forgive their brother’s and sisters, will not be forgiven by God.
3.) Confidence is not something we can have because we say that we want to have confidence. Confidence is something we will only have if we are frequently in situations in which we receive positive responses from other people.
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Section 27
Churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques, are all things of man.
Many people go to churches that they call “Christian” churches, to try to convince themselves that they are good, instead of going to these churches to learn from Jesus that they cannot be good. These people ignore Jesus’ teachings whenever Jesus’ teachings make their evil clear.
All people who claim to follow Jesus, often ignore Jesus’ teachings because all people fear that God will show them justice, instead of mercy. Some people, who claim to follow Jesus, ignore Jesus’ teachings so often that they wholly depart, from the path of following Jesus. Jesus is speaking of these people, when he says,
“Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. On the day of judgement, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?, and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them, “I never knew you, leave me, you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46)
We all want to believe that we can follow Jesus by doing things that are easy and enjoyable. Usually, people who claim to follow Jesus, like to imagine they can follow Jesus by going to church regularly, and by talking about how great God’s gifts are.
God’s gifts are great, and Jesus does want us to praise God by talking about His gifts, but Jesus also tells us that we must do much more than talk about God’s gifts, in order to receive God’s gifts.
When Jesus tells us that if we follow Him we will be persecuted, Jesus knows that if we follow Him, we will be persecuted, both by people who openly disbelieve Him, and by people who follow His name, but ignore His teachings. A person can commit just as much evil in the name of Jesus, as he or she can commit against the name of Jesus. This is why Jesus says, “Whoever speaks against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Ghost will not be forgiven.”(Mt 12:32 & Lk 12:10)
The Holy Ghost is Jesus’ teachings, and the help that God gives to people who follow Jesus’ teachings. Jesus cares much more about what we say about His teachings, than He cares, about what we say about Him. This is so because Jesus knows that following His teachings, will save us from great suffering, but that saying good things about Him, will not help us at all, if we do not also follow His teachings. Jesus only cares about what we say about him, or what we think about him, if what we say about Him, or think about Him leads us do the will of his Father.
Only in the name of a disciple
It can take a long time for any person to learn that Jesus truly does teach God’s will, and to learn that he or she needs to follow Jesus’ teachings.
We all enter this world not knowing what God wants us to do and not knowing how we can learn what God wants us to do. We all start trying to learn what God wants us to do from people who are close to us and most of us continue trying to learn what God wants us to do from people who are close to us, throughout our lives. If people who are close to us do not follow Jesus then it may be a long time before we even hear Jesus’ teachings, and even when we do hear Jesus’ teachings we will probably not hear them taught in Jesus’ name.
This does not matter to Jesus, though, and it also does not matter to God. Jesus tells us this when He tells us that if a person does God’s will that person’s, reward will “In no way be less because he does so only in the name of a disciple.” (Mt 10:42)
And Jesus tells us this again when he says, “Whoever speaks against the Son of Man, will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Ghost, will not be forgiven.”(Mt 12:32 & Lk 12:10)
The Holy Ghost is Jesus’ teachings, and the help that God gives to people who follow Jesus’ teachings. Jesus cares much more about what we say about His teachings, than He cares, about what we say about Him. If we learn how to forgive people who do us evil, and if we do forgive people who do us evil, then Jesus doesn’t care whether we learn how to do these things in His name, or in someone else’s name.
Jesus only wants us to follow Him if following Him leads us to do the will of His father.
Jesus only wants us to follow Him because following Him is the best way we have of learning How to do the will of His father.
Why some people follow Jesus’ teachings more closely than other people follow Jesus’ teachings.
Jesus tells us that we all do evil when we are led into temptation, and that we only do good when God gives us gifts that allow us to do good. The greatest of the gifts that God gives is the understanding of the true value of Jesus’ teachings.
Some people follow Jesus more closely than other people follow Jesus because those people understand that Jesus truly does teach us what God wants us to do, and truly does teach us what actions God will reward. If all people understood this about Jesus, then all people would be equally eager to follow Jesus’ teachings.
If we were all led to the same temptations, and if we were all given the same strengths and abilities by God, then we would all follow Jesus equally closely.
Jesus shows us we cannot be good, by showing us we cannot do everything God wants us to do.
Jesus shows us this by telling us what God wants us to do, and by telling us that God will give us great rewards if we do what He wants us to do.
This shows us that we cannot do all that God wants us to do, because, after we hear this, we will try to do all that God wants us to do so that we will receive the rewards Jesus promises, and we will often fail to do what God wants us to do.
Though we will often fail to do what God wants us to do, we will also sometimes succeed in doing what God wants us to do. If we do not do some of what God wants us to do, then God will know that we are not trying to follow Jesus.
When we can do what Jesus tells us to do, God wants us to do what Jesus commands, And when we cannot do what Jesus tells us to do, God wants us to try to do what Jesus commands and, when we fail, to learn from our failure that we cannot be good.
Until we have tried to be good with all our might and failed, we will think that we can be good, no matter what else we have seen or heard. All words, even Jesus’ words, will not convince us that we cannot be good, until we have tried to be good, and failed.
2.)
Jesus says, “When you make a dinner, don’t invite your friends, or your brothers, or your relatives, or rich neighbours; lest they invite you to their dinners in return. If this happens you will have been paid back.
Instead, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind; and you will be blessed, because they cannot pay you back. For inviting these people you will be paid back at the resurrection of the just.” (Lk 14:12-14).
Jesus says, “Give to every one who asks of you, and do not ask one who takes from you to give anything back. If you lend to people who you hope will pay you back, what thanks have you? Even sinners lend to receive as much again. Do good, hoping for nothing in return. And your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Highest: because He is kind to the unthankful, and the evil, And He makes His sun rise on evil men, and good, And He rains on just men, and unjust. Be you compassionate, as your father is compassionate.” (Lk 6:30 & 34-36, & Mt 5: 42-45).
Jesus says, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow will take thought for itself. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.” (Mt 6:25-34 & Lk 12:22-34). And Jesus says, “Sell all that you have and give to the poor. (Mt 19:21 & Lk 18:22). Sell your possessions and give alms. Provide yourself with wealth that will not grow old, an unfailing treasure that no thief will come near to and that no moth will corrupt.” (Lk 12:33)
These are some of the things that Jesus tells us God wants us to do. None of us will be able to do these things, though. We all take thought for our life. We all worry about how we will get food, and drink, and clothes. Because of this, we do give, hoping for something in return. And because of this, we do not sell all that we have and give to the poor.
If we try to do these things, we will see that we cannot do them.
If we try to do these things, we will also see that we only try to help other people when we think that helping other people will help us. If we see this, then we will be able to stop thinking that we are being good when we try to help other people, and we will be able to start thinking more clearly about how we can best help ourselves when we try to help other people. If we do this, we will see that we help ourselves most when we help people who give us nothing in return. This is so because if we help people who give us nothing in return, then God will give us greater things than people could ever give us.
3.)
Jesus also tells us, “Not to resist evil” (Mt 5:39),
And Jesus says to us, “If a man strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him your left. If a man wishes to judge you and to take away your coat, offer him your cloak also. Whoever compels you to go a mile, go with him two. Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. If you love those who love you, what thanks have you. Sinners also love those who love them.” (Mt 5:39-48 & Lk 6:27-38).
These are also things that Jesus tells us God wants us to do, that we will not be able to do.
We will only start to do these things, when we see that we do evil to God, just as other people do evil to us, and when we see that if we resist the evil other people do to us, then God will resist the evil we do to Him.
The reason we cannot be good, is that our faith in Jesus cannot be strong enough for us to always do what Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus tells us that if we follow Him, God will give us rewards that will more than make up for any suffering we will know. Because we want to receive the rewards Jesus tells us of, when we believe Jesus we will do what Jesus tells us to do, so that we will receive these rewards. If we could always believe Jesus, then we would always do what Jesus tells us to do. When we do not do what Jesus tells us to do, then, at that moment, we do not believe that following Jesus will bring us rewards that will more than make up for the suffering we believe will come to us from following Jesus at that moment.
Of course none of us always follows Jesus, because none of us is strong enough in our faith to always believe Jesus. The best we can hope to do is to sometimes follow Jesus because we sometimes believe what Jesus tells us.
This weakness in faith is a part of our natures that we cannot escape. Jesus knows that we all are weak in our faith and Jesus tells us this. Jesus tells us that our faith is small each time He says to us, “O you of little faith” (Mt 6:30, Mt 8:26, Mt 14:31, Mt 16:8, & Lk 12:28), And Jesus tells us that we will only be able to have a small amount of faith, when He says to His disciples, “If your faith were as a grain of mustard seed, you could tell that mountain to move, and it would move.” (Mt 17:20). This tells us that unless a person can make a mountain move by telling it to move, that person does not have enough faith to fill the smallest seed Jesus knew of.
Saying that we have faith in Jesus, is just another way of saying that we are good, and saying that we are sinners, is just another way of saying that we have little faith.
The main thing that Jesus wants all of us to do is to admit that we are sinners. Jesus wants us to admit this because if we admit that we are sinners, and if we remember how great our sin is, then we will forgive other people as we need God to forgive us. Jesus does not want us to claim to have more faith than we have.
If we try to follow Jesus, we will never say that we have faith in Jesus. If we try to follow Jesus, we will say instead,
“Jesus, I will try to follow all of your teachings, so that I will be able to forgive people who do evil to me, because I want God to forgive me for evil that I do to Him. Will I be able to forgive people who do evil to me often enough to get God to forgive me for evil I do to Him? As you tell me to ‘Judge not’, I will try not judge myself as I try not to judge other people. I will try to leave all judgement to You, and to God. And I will fervently hope that I do forgive people who do evil to me, often enough to get God to forgive me for evil I do to Him.”
2.)
Because Jesus knows that our faith will be small, He knows that we will not believe all that He tells us. All that Jesus cares about is that we believe enough of what he tells us, to be able to do His Father’s will. All that Jesus expects of us, is that we believe Him when He tells us that we have done great evil to God, and that God will only show us forgiveness if we show forgiveness to people who have done great evil to us. If we believe this, then we will do what Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus tells us that all He expects us to do, is to believe enough of what He says to do His Father’s will, when he says, “Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. On the day of judgement, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?, and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them, “I never knew you, leave me, you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46)
People who say ‘lord lord’ most loudly, will be the people who will do the will of Jesus’ Father least often. People who claim to have the greatest faith in Jesus, will be the people who will do the will of Jesus’ father least often. This will be so because people who claim to have faith in Jesus, are saying that they are good, and because people who believe they are good will not believe that they need God’s forgiveness, and will not forgive people who do evil to them, in order to receive God’s forgiveness.
Jesus told us that He only cares that we have enough faith to do His Father’s will, when, as He stood at a podium before a large crowd, He was told that His mother and brothers were outside the building He was speaking in, and wished to see Him. Jesus then asked the crowd of people who waited to hear Him speak, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?”, then Jesus stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said, “Behold my mother and my brothers. Whoever shall do the will of my Father in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. (Mt 12:46-50), My mother and brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it. (Lk 8:19-21)
Our Creator may have expected less of people whom the Old Testament tells us of, than He expects of us today, because people whom the Old Testament tells us of, had not had the opportunity to learn from Jesus, that we have had. Jesus tells us often that people who have been given advantages will be held to a higher standard than other people will be held to. Jesus tells us this most clearly on two occasions. The first is when Jesus says to us, “Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48), and the second is when Jesus says to the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida, “Woe to You Chorazin and Bethsaida. If the mighty works that have been done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, Tyre and Sidon would have repented long ago. It will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you at the judgement: and also for Capernaum.” (Lk 10:10-16)
We should never wish that we did not have the opportunity to learn from Jesus, so that we would be held to a lower standard. Without Jesus we would have less of a chance to learn what Our Creator wants us to do, and without Jesus we would have less of a chance of winning Our Creator’s favor. Some people may learn to forgive as they need be forgiven, without Jesus’ teachings, but if they do so, it will be harder for them to learn forgiveness without Jesus than it would be with Jesus, because only Jesus teaches us that we will only get things that we want and things that we need, if we forgive other people as we need Our Creator to forgive us, and that each of us needs more forgiveness from Our Creator than any other person will ever need from us. Jesus also teaches us how we can forgive other people when they do evil to us.
Even if we did wish that we had not had the opportunity to learn from Jesus, so that we would be held to a lower standard of behavior, our wishing would not change a thing. We are the fortunate people who have the advantage of being able to learn from Jesus, and because of this advantage Our Creator expects us to forgive our brothers and sisters if we want Him to forgive us.
Our judgments have no influence on God’s Judgment. The only thing our judgments have an influence on is our ability to follow Jesus. And our judgments make it harder for us to follow Jesus. Our judgements do this because when we judge we tell ourselves that if we are careful our judgments can be correct. When we do this we are telling ourselves that if we are careful we can be good. If we believe that we can be good, then we will believe that we do not need to forgive other people to gain God’s favor, because we will believe that if we are good, then God, in His justice, will reward our goodness.
Understanding statements that seem to contradict each other is the key to understanding Jesus
1.)
Jesus often says things that seem to contradict each other.
Jesus never does contradict himself, though.
Sayings of Jesus that seem to contradict each other show us two parts of the message Jesus is teaching, and the fact that they seem to us to contradict each other, shows us two ways in which Jesus’ message can easily be misunderstood.
To avoid misunderstanding Jesus’ message we must consider all of Jesus’ sayings together and we must see how they are all parts of one great teaching.
We can see this most clearly when we consider that Jesus said, “Forgive if you would be forgiven”, and that Jesus said, “Ask and you shall receive.”
If we imagine a person who asked, but who would not forgive as he or she needs to be forgiven, then for that person one of these statements would have to be false. We know this because we know that God will only give a person all that person asks for, if that person forgives other people.
A person who would “Ask”, but who would not forgive other people, could not exist, though.
The reason for this is that when Jesus says, “Ask and you shall receive”,
Jesus is telling us that if we ask for forgiveness, we shall receive forgiveness.
If a person asks God for forgiveness, then that person has seen that he or she is evil and that he or she needs to be forgiven, and that person will forgive other people their evil, as he or she asks God to forgive him or her, his or her evil.
2.)
Jesus statements only seem to contradict each other if we imagine things that are impossible. The only true contradiction is the contradiction between reality and such imaginings.
So long as different things that Jesus said seem to contradict each other, we know that we are not understanding Jesus. If we can discover what makes us think that different things Jesus says are incompatible with each other we will also have discovered how we are misunderstanding Jesus.
Many of the most destructive errors people have ever made have come from trying to follow some of Jesus’ sayings without considering all of Jesus’ sayings.
When Jesus tells us what Our Creator wants us to do, Jesus shows us that we cannot do what Our Creator wants us to do, because each of us will fail to do many things Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus also tells us often that we will often not be able to do what Our Creator wants us to do. Jesus tells us this when He says to His disciples, “Pray that you know no temptation Indeed the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mt 26:41 & LK 22:46). Jesus tells us this when He tells us to pray to Our Heavenly Father, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Mt 6:5-15 & Lk 11:2-4). Jesus is telling us to pray that we be delivered from the evil we would do if we were led into temptation. It is this evil we truly need to be delivered from. Evil that is done to us does us little harm, compared to evil we do; which does us great harm. When we do evil, we harden our hearts against the victims of our evil, and against all people we might want to do evil to in the future. By doing this we make it harder for ourselves to forgive other people when they do evil to us, and we make ourselves less likely to receive Our Creator’s forgiveness. Not receiving Our Creator’s forgiveness would do far greater harm to us than any evil other people could ever do. And Jesus tells us all to expect to do evil, and to plan on doing evil, when He says, “Use unrighteous mammon to make friends, so that when it fails, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” (Luke 16:9). Jesus is telling us that we will try to live by unrighteous mammon, that when we try to live by unrighteous mammon, unrighteous mammon will fail us, and that we will only be received into everlasting habitations if we have used the fruits of our unrighteousness to make other people our friends; If, instead of trying to avoid other people because we fear their evil would corrupt our goodness, we see that we are evil, as they are evil, and we befriend them because their evil, like our evil, causes them to need help, as we need help.
If we forgive people their trespasses against us, when we do this we will be able to do what Our Creator wants us to do. Whenever we forgive another person, then we will do all for that person that Jesus tells us to do for that person.
This is why Jesus’ teaching that we will only be forgiven if we forgive, is the greatest part of the wisdom Jesus gives to people he has chosen to follow Him. While not all people have been given the wisdom to understand this teaching and the strength to follow this teaching, none of us, however strong or wise we may be, will be able to do what Our Creator wants us to do in any other way than by forgiving people who trespass against us, and none of us will forgive people who trespass against us, unless we see that we need greater forgiveness from Our Creator, than any other person will ever need from us. While people may learn forgiveness from sources other than Jesus, Jesus teaches us directly and clearly that we must forgive people who trespass against us to receive Our Creator’s forgiveness (“If you forgive men their trespasses, then your Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, then Your Father will not forgive you” (Mt 6:9-15)), and Jesus shows us how we can forgive people who trespass against us.
The reason we will only forgive people who trespass against us if we see that need more forgiveness from Our Creator than any other person will ever need from us, is that before we see this we will all believe that we deserve good things from Our Creator even if we do not forgive people who trespass against us, and because we all believe that Our Creator will be fair, and will give each of us what we deserve. Jesus is showing us that what we deserve is severe punishment and that if we do not forgive people who trespass against us, then Our Creator will give us what we deserve. The good news Jesus, brings us, though, is that we can escape the punishment we deserve by forgiving people who trespass against us. If we do this we will receive Our Creator’s forgiveness, and as a part of this we will receive many good things we do not deserve. Once we hear this of course we will all say we forgive people who trespass against us, and because Jesus says, “Judge not, lest you be judged. For with whatever judgement you judge, you shall be judged.” (Mt 7:1-2, & Lk 6:37), we should not try to judge whether or not a person who says this truly has forgiven people who have trespassed against him or her. Jesus tells us, though, that “There is one who judges.” Jn 8:50. This one is Our Creator, and he will judge us by our hearts and by our actions. Whenever we forgive a person we will do all that Jesus tells us to do for that person. This is how our actions will show if our forgiveness is sincere.
We know that none of us will forgive all people who trespass against us, because we know that none of us will always do what Jesus tells us to do for other people. How often must we forgive people who trespass against us to receive Our Creator’s forgiveness. No person knows the answer to this question. We do know, though, that different amounts of forgiveness will be required from different people. We know this because Jesus says to us, “Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48), and when He says to the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida, “Woe to You Chorazin and Bethsaida. If the mighty works that have been done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, Tyre and Sidon would have repented long ago. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you at the judgement: and also for Capernaum.” (Lk 10:10-16). The people of Chorazin and Bethsaida had been given the gift of hearing Jesus speak and of watching Jesus work. The more any person is able to learn from Jesus, the more Our Creator expects of that person.
Our words, and religious rituals we may perform will only help us if they help us forgive people who trespass against us. If they do not do this, then they do not help us at all.
Section 28 Judge Not
a.) When we forgive other people, as we need God to forgive us, then we will treat other people as Jesus tells us to treat them.
b.) How often will we forgive, as we need be forgiven? How often will we treat other people as Jesus tells us to treat them? How much of what God wants us to do, will we do?
We can never know the answer to this question. We don’t need to know the answer to this question, though. And Jesus tells us not to try to know the answer to this question.
Jesus tells us this when He tells us to “Judge not” (Mt 7:1, & Lk 6:37).
When Jesus tells us to judge not, He is telling us both not to judge other people, and not to judge ourselves.
God will judge us. God will know if we have truly tried to follow Jesus. And God will know if we have truly tried to forgive other people, as we need Him to forgive us.
Our judgments have no influence on God’s Judgment. The only thing our judgments have an influence on is our ability to follow Jesus. And our judgments make it harder for us to follow Jesus. Our judgements do this because when we judge we tell ourselves that if we are careful our judgments can be correct. When we do this we are telling ourselves that if we are careful we can be good. If we believe that we can be good, then we will believe that we do not need to forgive other people to gain God’s favor, because we will believe that if we are good, then God, in His justice, will reward our goodness.
In order to judge not we must …
a.) In order not to judge other people, and not to judge ourselves, we must assume that any differences between what we do and what other people do, are due wholly to differences between temptations we have been led to and temptations they have been led to. If we see a person do whatever is most reprehensible to us, we must realize that if we had been led to the temptation they had been led to, then we would either have done what they did, or we would have done something else that was just as evil as what they did.
b.) Jesus tells us that when we do good, or when we refrain from doing evil we only do these things because God has led us away from temptation and because God has given us the ability to do His will.
Jesus tells us that our ability to do God’s will depends on whether or not we are led into temptation, when He tells us to pray,
”Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Mt 6:5-15 & Lk 11:2-4)
Jesus is telling us to pray that we be delivered from the evil we would do, if we were led into temptation.
Jesus tells us that we will only be able to do what God wants us to do, if God gives us the strength and the knowledge we will need to have to be able to do His will, and if God gives us the good fortune to avoid temptation. Jesus tells us this when He says, “Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48).
By saying this, Jesus tells us that God expects people, who have been given more, to do more of what He wants them to do.
Jesus tells us again that God expects people who have been given more, to do more of His will, when He says to the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida, “Woe to You Chorazin and Bethsaida. If the mighty works that have been done in you, had been done Tyre and Sidon, Tyre and Sidon would have repented long ago. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you at the judgement: and also for Capernaum.” (Lk 10:10-16)
The people of Chorazin and Bethsaida had been given the gift of hearing Jesus speak and of watching Jesus work. The more any person learns about Jesus, the more God expects of that person.
Jesus tells us that people who have been given more will be able to do more of His will when He says, “Whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever has not, even what he seems to have, will be taken away from him.” (Lk 8:18, Lk 19:26, Mt 13:12 & Mt 25:29).
This will be so because only people who have been given the ability to do what God wants them to do, and who have been led away from temptation, will be able to follow Jesus, and because only these people will receive rewards that God will give for following Jesus.
c.) We will only be able to do God’s will, if we believe Jesus when He tells us we are evil, weak and frail.
The less good we think we can to do, The more good we will be able to do.
One reason this will be so, will be that the less good we think we can do, the more help we will seek outside of ourselves.
Another reason this will be so, will be that the less good we think we can do, the more time and effort we will spend trying to transform ourselves into people who can do some good.
Truly, people who put themselves last, will be first in God’s judgement,
And truly, people who put themselves first, will be last in God’s judgement.
(Mt 20:16).
Truly, people who exalt themselves will be humbled,
And truly, people who humble themselves will be exalted.
(Mt 23:12, Lk 14:11, Lk 18:14).
d.) When we do God’s will, we do good.
Jesus tells us, though, that when we do God’s will, we do not do God’s will because we are good, but instead, that when we do God’s will, we do God’s will because God is good. If God had put us in different circumstances, we would not have done God’s will, but would instead have done great evil.
If we sometimes follow Jesus, Jesus does not want us to think that we have earned a reward from God. Instead, Jesus wants us to see that we sometimes follow Him because we sometimes use gifts that God has given us.
Jesus says to us, “When you do all that you are commanded to do, do not expect thanks, but say instead, ‘we are unprofitable slaves. We have only done what we ought to have done.’” (Lk 17:9-10)
Why Jesus tells us to judge not.
a.) One reason that Jesus tells us to, “Judge not” (Mt 7:1 & Lk 6:37), is that judging often leads us to think we are better than other people are, and that thinking that one’s self is better than other people’s selves, is one of the most common ways in which people come to believe they are good.
If we do not judge other people, and do not judge ourselves, then we will not think we are better than other people are.
b.) Another reason that Jesus tells us not to judge is that our judgement is very poor.
Jesus tells how poor our judgement is when He says, “The stone that the builders refuse, will be the head cornerstone.” (Lk 20:17).
Jesus tells us of our poor judgement, again, when he asks,
“Why do you see the mote in your brother’s eye, but ignore the beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me pull the mote out of your eye’, when you have a beam in your own? You hypocrite, first pull the beam out of your eye, then you will see clearly to take the mote out of your brothers eye.” (Mt 7:3-5, & Lk 6:41-42)
Jesus tells us that our judgement will not be the same as God’s judgement, when He says, “The last will be first, and the first last.” (Mt 20:16).
This tells us that people whom we would put last, are people whom God will put first, and that people whom we would put first, are people whom God will put last.
Often we judge that God favors people who have what we think is ‘good fortune’, and that God opposes people who have what we think is ‘bad fortune’.
Jesus told us that when we do this, we will not judge as God judges. Jesus told us this when His disciples saw a man who had been blind from birth, and asked Jesus, “Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus then answered, “Neither this man sinned, nor his parents. He is blind so that the works of God may be made manifest in him.” (Jn 9:1-3).
What Jesus’ disciples had thought was a punishment, was actually a preparation for a reward.
Jesus also tells us that even when we are correct in thinking a certain thing is bad, we will still be in error if we judge that people who have ‘bad fortune’, have done more evil than people who have good fortune.
Jesus tells us this when He says to people who had told him about some Galileans whom the Roman government had killed,
“Do you suppose that these Galileans were sinners above all other Galileans, because they suffered these things? I tell you they were not; Unless you repent, you will all perish as they perished.
Or do you suppose that those eighteen people in Siloam who died when a tower fell on them, were debtors above all men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you they were not; Unless you repent, you will all perish as they perished.” (Lk 13:1-5).
Jesus shows us how different Our Creator’s judgment is from our judgment, when He tells us of a Pharisee and a Publican who both went to a temple to pray.
The Pharisee stood, and silently prayed, “God, thank you that I am not as other men are: rapacious, unjust, adulterers, or even as this Publican. I fast twice a week, and give tithes of all I posses.” The Publican stood, in the back of the temple, beat on his chest, and would not even look up, as he said, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.”
“I tell you”, said Jesus, “This man went to his house justified, rather than the other. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Lk 18:10-14).
Though this Pharisee may have been rapacious and unjust, in spite of his claim that he was not, This Pharisee truly had avoided doing at least one very evil thing that this Publican had done. A Pharisee was a priest of Jesus’ church, and a Publican was a worker for a foreign government that had stolen the land of Israel (a Publican was a worker for the Roman empire). So a Publican, like many government workers, was a thief. By not taking part in the theft of a nation this Pharisee had avoided doing evil that this Publican had done. By refraining from adultery this Pharisee had also avoided at least one other evil act he had seen men perform. And this Pharisee had probably done some good when he gave tithes.
All of these things would lead people to judge this Pharisee favorably, and to judge this Publican unfavorably. None of these things justify this Pharisee in Our Creator’s eyes, though. The only thing that will justify any person in Our Creator’s eyes, is for that person to say that he or she is a sinner and to ask for mercy, and for that person to believe that he or she is a sinner. This is so because even when we do good, we do very little good by Our Creator’s standards, and because a person who believes that he or she is a sinner and who asks for mercy, will forgive other people, as he or she needs to be forgiven.
Jesus tells us that God will reward us if we are humble and that God will punish us if we are proud.
Jesus tells us this when He says, “Whoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Mt 18:4)
Jesus tells us this again, when He says to His disciples, “The greater of you shall be your servant. (Mt 20:26-27, Mt 23:11, Lk 22:25-27), Whoever wishes to be great among you, he will be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you, he will be you slave.” and when He says to His disciples, “He who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and He who is chief, let him be your servant. For who is greater the servant or the one who is served. Isn’t the person who is served greater? But I am with you as a servant. (Lk 22:26-27).
Jesus tells us again that God will reward humble people and will punish proud people when He says, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Mt 23:12, Lk 14:11, Lk 18:14).
If we always try to forgive as we need be forgiven, then we will ask for very different things than we would ask for if we did not always try to forgive as we need be forgiven. This will be so because people who always try to forgive people who trespass against them, will seldom ask out of anger or hate.
We can learn some wisdom from all religions and we can learn all wisdom from Jesus. (Though no person has ever learned all Jesus teaches, and though most of those of us who call ourselves Christians learn very little of what Jesus teaches).
We can all do more to improve our lives and our world by trying to follow Jesus’ teachings than we can do in any other way.
Most of us, though, do not try to follow Jesus’ teachings, because most of us do not know or understand Jesus’ teachings. (including most of those of us who call ourselves Christians).
Jesus knows we have these fears. This is why He says to us, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow will take thought for itself. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.” (Mt 6:25-34 & Lk 12:22-34). This is also why Jesus tells us that though following Him will do us great harm in the short run, in the long run following Him will bring us rewards that will more than make up for our suffering. Jesus tells us this when He says to his disciples, “Beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake. And brother will deliver brother up to death, and the father the child: and the children will rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all men for my name’s sake: but he who endures to the end will be saved.” (Mt 10:17-18 & 21-22) Jesus tells us this again when He says to all of us, “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, the daughter against the mother, the daughter in law against the mother in law. He who loves father more than me, is not worthy of me. he who loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. he who takes not his cross and follows me, is not worthy of me. he who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life, for my sake, will find it.” (Mt 10:35-39, Mt 16:24-26, & Lk 9;23-25). And Jesus tells us this yet again when He says, “Blessed are you when men will hate you, and when they will separate you from their company, and will reproach you, and cast out your name as evil for the son of man’s sake. Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy: for behold your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did likewise to the prophets.” (Lk 6:22-23)
If we want to increase the good in our world, then we must do more of what Jesus tells us to do (even if we learn to how do what Jesus tells us to do, from someone other than Jesus).
Appendix A
Why it will be hard to follow Jesus
and Why it will be easy to follow Jesus
1.)
The reason we will all have to suffer greatly, and will all have to make great sacrifices, to receive rewards that God will give to Jesus’ followers, is that it is very hard for us to ask God to forgive us. It is hard for us to ask God to forgive us because it is hard for us to admit that we need to be forgiven: We are afraid to admit that we need to be forgiven, because we are afraid to admit that we are evil, And we are afraid to admit that we are evil, because we are afraid that God will give us our just rewards, and will punish us for our evil.
If we do not ask God to forgive us, this is exactly what God will do. And as our evil is great, so also will our punishment, also, be great.
If we do ask God to forgive us, though, Then God will show us mercy, Then God will forgive us our evil, Then God will give us all that we ask of Him.
If we ask God to forgive us, then following Jesus will become easy for us.
Jesus tells us this, when He says, “Ask, and it will be given you, seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. (Lk 11:9-10 & Mt 7:7-8).
If we ask for God’s forgiveness, we will receive it, and once God has forgiven us, God will give us all that we desire.
2.)
Often, though, we won’t ask for God’s forgiveness. And if we do not ask for God’s forgiveness, we will not receive God’s forgiveness.
One reason we often won’t ask for God’s forgiveness, is that we fear that God will only give us good things if we are good. The good news that Jesus tells us, sounds too good, to us, to be true.
Another reason we refuse to ask for God’s forgiveness is that we do not want to forgive other people who have hurt us. It seems easier to us, to pretend that we are good, and to imagine that God will reward our goodness.
Jesus tells us, clearly, and often that we are not good, And because Jesus tells us this, we know that if God shows us justice, then justice will lead God to punish us all severely. When we do not want to forgive other people, though, we will try to forget what Jesus has told us, and we will try to forget what Jesus has taught us.
3.)
Jesus knows that often we won’t be able to ask God to forgive us.
Jesus tells us this when he says, “The World hates me, because I testify that its works are evil.” (Jn 7:6-8).
And Jesus tells us this, again, when He says,
“The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their works were evil. Everyone who does evil, hates the light, and stays away from the light, for fear his works will be reproved. But one who is doing the truth comes to the light that the works of God may be manifested in him” (Jn 3:19-21).
When we are doing good we will come to Jesus’ light, but when we are not doing good, we will fear and hate Jesus’ light.
Because Jesus has told us that all people do evil, we know that Jesus is saying that all people will hate the light He brings to our world, and that all people will stay away from that light. Even the most faithful follower of Jesus, will seldom come to Jesus’ light, because even the most faithful follower of Jesus, will fear that his or her deeds will be reproved. People who follow Jesus, hate Jesus when Jesus testifies that their works are evil, just as all people hate Jesus when Jesus testifies that their works are evil.
4.)
Though we will all fear God and hate Jesus, If we dare to hope that Jesus is correct when He tells us that God will show us mercy if we see our evil, and if we show mercy to other people who are evil, as we are evil, Then we will sometimes come to God, in spite of our fear and hate, And then we will sometimes ask God for mercy.
Only if we do this, will we receive good things from God
If we can sometimes make ourselves come to Jesus’ light, we will learn that its heat will warm us, not burn us. If we can overcome our fear, we will see that God truly will show us mercy, instead of justice, And all we desire will be ours.
When we are willing to admit that we are evil, and When we are willing to forgive other people the evil they have done us, Then we will ask God to forgive us the evil we have done Him.
5.)
Everything that is hard for us for us to do in following Jesus, is something that we must do to make ourselves the sort of people who will ask God to forgive us. If we can ask for God’s forgiveness, then following Jesus will become easy for us. This is why Jesus says, “My yoke is easy, and my burden light.” (Mt 11:30)
How we will treat other people if we have forgiven them.
1.)
Each of us will often say that he or she forgives people who have done him or her harm, when he or she has not truly forgiven those people. Jesus helps us guard against doing this by telling us how we will treat other people if we have truly forgiven them.
Everything that Jesus tells us to do is part of forgiving other people, as we need God to forgive us. And everything that Jesus tells us to do is one of the ways we will treat other people if we have truly forgiven them.
2.)
Jesus also teaches us how we will treat other people if we have truly forgiven them, by telling us how God will treat us when He has forgiven us.
When God has forgiven us, He will give us all that we ask Him for. In the same way, If we forgive other people, then we will give them all that they ask us for, whenever we are able to do so.
3.)
Asking for God’s forgiveness is not something that we can do once, It is something that we must do always.
If we are doing what Jesus tells us to do, at any moment, Then we are asking for God’s forgiveness, at that moment, And If we are not doing what Jesus tells us to do, at any moment, then we are not asking for God’s forgiveness, at that moment.
If we have asked God to forgive us, then we will not ask God to make other people stop doing evil to us,
because if we have asked God to forgive us, then we will forgive other people for the evil they do to us.
1.)
Jesus tells us again, that if we ask for forgiveness we will receive it, when He says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you will, and it will be done to you.” (Jn 15:7), And Jesus also tells us that if we ask for forgiveness we will receive it, when He says, “All things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive. (Mt 21:22)
While God will give us all that we desire, if we ask for His forgiveness.
Even after we ask for God’s forgiveness and receive God’s forgiveness, other people may continue to do evil to us. The reason for this is, that if we have asked God to forgive us, then we will not ask God to force other people to stop doing evil to us.
If we have asked God to forgive us the evil we do Him, then we will forgive other people the evil they do us.
If we have forgiven other people the evil they do us, then we will try to help other people whenever we are able to do so.
And if we have asked God to forgive us the evil we do Him, then we will see that we only asked God to forgive us because we had seen some of the evil we had done.
If God had forced us to stop doing evil before we had seen that evil, we might never have asked for God’s forgiveness. And if we had not asked for God’s forgiveness, we would not have received God’s forgiveness.
If God were to force people who do evil to us, to stop doing that evil, before they see that evil, then the same thing might happen to them. If we have truly forgiven people who have done us evil, we will want to keep this from happening to them.
2.)
God lets us all do evil so we will be able to see our evil, and so we will be able to then ask Him to forgive us the evil we do.
If we do not ask God to forgive us our evil, then we will not forgive other people their evil, and God will not forgive us our evil.
If we do not forgive other people their evil we will also not be able to become one with all people as God and Jesus want us to become one with all people.
If we have truly forgiven another person, then we will be compassionate as God is compassionate, and like God, we will not want a person to stop doing any evil thing until that person has seen that evil thing, and until that person has learned to ask for God’s forgiveness for that evil with all of his or her actions.
3.)
Evil that another person does to us, may cause us great suffering by human standards, and we will always hope that other people will stop doing evil to us. Still, we will never want a person, who is hurting us, to stop hurting us, until that person sees the evil that he or she does to us, and then asks for God’s forgiveness.
One reason we will never want this, is that we know that any suffering that another person’s actions may cause us, will be small in comparison to the rewards that God will give us if we forgive, as we need be forgiven, and will be small in comparison to the suffering that God will shield us from if we forgive, as we need be forgiven.
4.)
If a person did ask God, to force another person to stop doing evil to him or her, that person would be trying to resist evil by asking God to stop it.
Because we want people we have forgiven to see the evil they do, to repent the evil they do, and to ask God to forgive them the evil they do, We will not try to resist evil, that people we have forgiven do to us, either by asking God to stop this evil, or by trying to stop this evil through our own actions.
We might try to show people we have forgiven the evil they do to us, And we might try to show people we have forgiven how it would benefit them to stop doing evil to us, and to ask God to forgive them, But we would never want a person we had forgiven, to stop doing evil to us, unless he or she had seen that evil, and unless he of she had asked for God’s forgiveness.
We will also remember that if we resist another person’s evil, then God will resist our evil, And that we would be doomed by God’s resistance.
God wants evil to continue until it is transformed into good.
God gave each of us life and God continuously chooses to sustain our lives. God wants each of us to be alive and who are we to question God.
Though we seldom do God’s will, God never wants us to doubt that we should go forward with our lives. By going forward we may be transformed into what god wants us to be. If we stop going forward, if we give up on our lives (on our selves) then we will never become what God wants us to be.
Even if we never do become what God wants us to be, maybe by going forward we will help someone else become what God wants him or her to be.
True, if we fail to become what God wants us to be we will pay the consequences for this failure, but we will pay more painful consequences if we give up on our lives (on our selves) than the consequences we would pay for any evil that we might commit as we go forward.
God does not want a world that is free of evil. If God wanted such a world He would not have given us free will. Instead God wants a world in which evil continues until it is transformed into good.
If evil is killed then that evil can never become good, and if all evil were killed then there would be no good. There would then be nothing. Good must come from evil that has been transformed. Good is transformed evil.
Our world is an oven in which ingredients that are not good in themselves (our individual selves) are combined (baked) into something that is good. Our greater self in which we are all parts of a whole.
There may be macro certainty in this process: (God may know that something good will come of it), but there is no micro certainty in this process (no individual person knows whether or not he or she will become a part of the good thing that is being created. Our evil may hold us back from doing this.)
If we join with other people in becoming something greater than ourselves, then we will know joy. But our evil may keep us from doing this.
I have wanted to kill evil when I have seen it, instead of wanting to transform it into good. Because of this I have wanted to kill myself.
2.)
Good can only come from evil. Good is transformed evil. If there were no evil there could be no good. All that is good was once evil.
Evil is a stage that we must all pass through. It is the infant that can grow into good. As a stage evil is natural, and there is nothing wrong with it. Evil only becomes evil when it continues beyond its proper time: when it does not transform itself into good.
We all begin our lives as beings who pursue only our self-interest, and who live in competition with other people. In this stage we see our world in terms of confect, and we seek out conflict. We believe that we can only get what we want if we keep other people from getting what they want. We think that for us to win everyone else must lose.
This is simply how we are when we start our lives. There is nothing good or bad about this. It just is.
The only way in which we can eliminate all the evil that is in us at once is by killing ourselves. If we go on with our lives, then we will do great evil.
The best that we can hope to do is to transform parts of ourselves from evil to good, while as a whole we continue to do great amounts of evil.
We cannot immediately become good. Becoming good is a long process, and it will take us a long time.
If we want to kill evil when we see it, then we will want to kill ourselves, and we will never be able to continue to try to become good anywhere close to long enough, to actually become good.
There are two ways in which a person who feels like this will stop trying to be good. The first way is by simply ending his or her life. The second, and much more common way is by telling him or herself that he or she has become good and is no longer evil. While less dramatic, this way of giving up on the attempt to become good is just as destructive to our selves, and is often more destructive to other people. This is so because only people who think that they are good can commit truly great acts of evil.
To receive all that we ask for we must truly follow Jesus
Jesus tells us again, that if we ask for forgiveness we will receive it, when He says to people who follow Him, “If any two of you agree on anything, and ask for it, It will be done by my Father in heaven.” (Mt 18:19). Jesus also says, “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, keep my commandments.” (Jn 14:14-15), And Jesus says, “Truly, whatever you ask the Father, He will give to you in my name.” (Jn 16:23)
Of course, God will only do whatever people who ask in Jesus’ name, ask Him to do, if those people truly follow Jesus. Jesus tells us about people who say they follow Him, but who do not truly follow Him, when he says,
“Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. Many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?, and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them,
“I never knew you, leave me you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46)
Jesus tells us, that He cares much more, about what we say about His teachings, than He cares, about what we say about Him, when He says, that
“Whoever speaks against the Son of Man, will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Ghost, will not be forgiven.” (Mt 12:32 & Lk 12:10).
The Holy Ghost is Jesus’ teachings, and the help that God will give to people who follow Jesus’ teachings. Jesus cares much more about what we say about His teachings, than He cares about what we say about Him. This is so because Jesus knows that following His teachings will save us from great suffering, but that saying good things about Him will not help us at all, if we do not also follow His teachings. Jesus only cares about what we say about him, or what we think about him, if what we say or think about him leads us do the will of his Father.
Appendix B Our Faith
Jesus tells us of a businessman whose business had done well and had earned him a great deal of money and many possessions. This man then sat back and thought about all the money he had, and about how long that money would support him and about how happy all of his possessions would make him. God then said to this man, ‘You fool! Today your soul shall be required of you. Then whose shall all of those things be?”
So it is with all people who are rich in things of man but who are not rich towards God. Sell all that you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven: treasure that will not grow old and that moth and rust shall not corrupt, and that no thief shall come near to. (Lk 12:16-21 & Lk 12:33)
….. Why do you think we do not do as Jesus says and sell all that we have and give to the poor? …….
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Jesus tells us often that if we do what God wants us to do, we will receive great rewards. Because we want to receive the rewards that Jesus tells us of, when we believe Jesus, we will do what Jesus tells us to do. If we could always believe Jesus, then we would always do what Jesus tells us to do.
Our human nature keeps us from doing this, and our inability to have faith is the part of our human nature that keeps us from doing this.
The main thing that Jesus wants all of us to do is to admit that we are sinners. Jesus wants us to admit this because if we admit that we are sinners, and always remember how great our sin is, then we will forgive other people as we need God to forgive us.
If we admit that we are sinners then we will not say that we have faith in Jesus.
Saying that we have faith is just another way of saying that we are good, and saying that we are sinners is just another way of saying that we are faithless.
Jesus often calls us “You of little faith.” When the phrase “You of little faith” is translated from Greek to English the literal translation is “little-faiths”. Jesus calls us little-faiths because the smallness of our faith is a part of our human nature. The smallness of our faith is the part our human nature that most saddened Jesus, and is the part of our human nature that most set us apart from Jesus. It is Jesus’ faith that leads to all that He is able to do, and it is our lack of faith that leads to all that we are unable to do.
When Jesus’ disciples asked why they had not been able to heal a man who was only healed when they asked Jesus to help, Jesus answered, “because your faith is too small. If your faith were as a grain of mustard seed you would be able to tell that mountain to move and it would move.”
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It is important for us to understand our faith, and for us to learn what faith we are capable of, and what faith is beyond our ability. It is important for us to learn these things because it is important for us to see ourselves as we truly are, so that we will see how much we need God’s forgiveness, and so that we will forgive all people who trespass against us, as we need God to forgive us our trespasses against him.
In order to understand these things we must ask ourselves questions about our faith, and we must try to answer these questions. The first question we must ask is, “what leads us to believe that Jesus is correct when He tells us what God wants us to do.”
There are many good reasons for us have faith in Jesus. These reasons should give us great faith in Jesus. Because we are not capable of great faith, though, we will all often doubt Jesus.
The strongest reason that we should have faith in Jesus is the evidence that we see in our lives whenever we do what Jesus tells us to do.
Whenever we do what Jesus tells us to do we see that we are rewarded, and whenever we do not do what Jesus tells us to do we see that we are punished.
Another reason that we should have faith in Jesus is that Jesus tells us that we will have to do things that are often hard for us to do to gain God’s favor. If anyone tells that we can gain God’s favor by doing things that are easy for us to do, then we know that, that person is lying to us: because we know that nothing worth having comes easily.
Jesus tells that in order to gain God’s favor we must receive God’s forgiveness, and Jesus tells us that God will only forgive us if we forgive our brothers and sisters who trespass against us. Often this will be hard for us to do. Still, when we have faith in Jesus we will be eager to forgive people who trespass against us because we want God to forgive us our trespasses against Him.
Rewards Jesus promises to people who will follow Him
1.)
While Jesus tells us that God will give us great rewards if we follow Him, Jesus also tells us that if we follow Him we will know great suffering, and that we will have to make great sacrifices to follow Him. Jesus assures us, though, that the rewards God will give us if we follow Him, will more than make up for the suffering we will have to endure, and the sacrifices we will have to make to follow Him.
Jesus tells us this when He says to his disciples, “Beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake.” “And brother will deliver brother up to death, and the father the child: and the children will rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all men for my name’s sake: but he who endures to the end, will be saved.” (Mt 10:17-18 & 21-22),
and when He says, “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, the daughter against the mother, the daughter in law against the mother in law. he who loves father more than me, is not worthy of me. he who loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. he who takes not his cross and follows me, is not worthy of me. he who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake, will find it.” (Mt 10:35-39, Mt 16:24-26, & Lk 9;23-25).
Jesus tells us that if we follow Him, God will give us all that we need when He says, “Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water I shall give shall never thirst. The water that I shall give shall spring into everlasting life.”(Jn 04:13-14), and when He says, “I am the light of the world. One who follows me will in no way walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (Jn 08:12).
Jesus tells us again that if we follow Him, God will give us all that we need when He says, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Mt 6:25-33 & Lk 12:22-34).
Jesus tells us that if we suffer now, we will receive rewards later, and that if we receive rewards now, we will suffer later when He says to his disciples, “Blessed be you poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now: for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now: for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men will hate you, and when they will separate you from their company, and will reproach you, and cast out your name as evil for the son of man’s sake.
Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy: for behold your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did Likewise to the prophets.
But woe to you who are rich: for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full: for you will hunger. Woe to you who laugh now: for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men will speak well of you: for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” (Lk 6:20-26, see also Mt 5:3-12).
2.)
Jesus says, “There is no man, who has left house or parents, or wife or children for the kingdom of God’s sake, who will not receive many times more in the present time, and in the world to come, life everlasting” (Lk 18:29-30).
This tells us that God will give people who follow Jesus, rewards that will more than make up for their suffering and their sacrifices, both in this life, and after this life ends.
Jesus tells us this because He knows that our faith is so weak that most of us cannot believe that God will give rewards that will more than make up for the suffering, that Jesus’ followers will know, and for the sacrifices that Jesus’ followers will make, both in the present time, and in the world to come. Many people, though, can believe that God will give rewards that will do this, either in the present time, or in the world to come.
Jesus tells us about both rewards in the present time, and rewards in the world to come, so that each of us will believe in whatever rewards he or she is able to believe in.
All that matters to Jesus and to God, is that we do what Jesus tells us to do. If we do what Jesus tells us to do, then Jesus and God don’t care what rewards we believe we will receive.
Jesus told us this when, while He was speaking to a crowd, He was told that His mother and His brothers waited outside, seeking to speak to Him, And He responded by asking the person who had told Him this,
“Who is my mother? and who are my brothers?”, and by then stretching His hand out toward His disciples and saying, “Behold my mother and my brothers:
For whoever shall do the will of my Father, who is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mt 12:50, & Lk 8:21).
3.)
Some people can believe only in rewards in a life after this life, because, though they cannot believe that anything in this world could more than make up for the suffering they see, they can believe that rewards in a world to come could more than make up for the suffering they see.
While other people can believe only in rewards in this world, because, though they cannot believe in things for which they cannot see evidence, they can sometimes see evidence of rewards in this world, and when they see a person who they think is following Jesus suffer, but do not see evidence of rewards that more than make up for the suffering they see, they can believe, either that they are failing to see rewards that exist in this world, or that the person who they see, is not truly following Jesus.
Just as Jesus says to us, “O you of little faith” (Mt 6:30, Mt 8:26, Mt 14:31, Mt 16:8, & Lk 12:28), and just as Jesus tells us that unless we can make a mountain move by telling it to move, we do not have enough faith to fill a grain of mustard seed (Mt 17:20), Jesus also knows that we will never be able to have faith in more than a small portion of what He tells us.
Jesus does not want us to claim to have more faith than we have.
1.)
When we cannot believe something He has told us, Jesus wants us to freely admit this. If we say we have faith in more than a small portion of what Jesus tells us, then Jesus will know we are lying. A person who lies about his or her faith in Jesus, will offend Jesus, because this person will be making Jesus the cause of an evil lie.
When we say that we have more faith than we actually have, we do so because we are trying to make ourselves look good.
Jesus never wants us to try to make ourselves look good.
Jesus never wants us to do this because people who try to make themselves look good, often come to believe that they are good, and then often reject God’s mercy, because they think that they don’t need God’s mercy.
People who try to make themselves look good, will also commit acts of great evil in order to silence anyone who shows that they are not good: Just as the scribes and pharisees of Jerusalem had Jesus killed because Jesus showed that they were not good.
Jesus tells us that God will punish people who try to make themselves look good, when he says to the Pharisees of the temple of Jerusalem,
“You devour widows houses, and make pretence of long prayer. For this you will receive greater damnation.” (Mt 23:14 & Lk 20:47).
These Pharisees said long prayers to try to make themselves look good to people who heard these prayers, and to try to make themselves look good to God. And by doing this, they increased the punishment that God gave them.
2.)
Jesus doesn’t want us to talk or think at all, about how much or how little faith we have, and Jesus doesn’t want us to talk or think at all, about how much good or how much evil we will do.
Jesus tells us this when He tells us to “Judge not.” (Mt 7:1, Lk 6:37).
When Jesus tells us to “Judge not”, He is telling us both not to judge other people, and not to judge ourselves.
Instead, Jesus wants us to see that however much faith we have, our faith will always be small, that however much good we do, we will always do little good, and, that however much evil we do, we will always do great evil.
Jesus wants us to see these things so we will ask for God’s mercy, and so we will forgive as we need be forgiven.
Though God does not force us to do what He wants us to do, God does encourage us to do what He wants us to do by giving more to people who forgive as they need be forgiven, and by taking what he has given, away from people who do not forgive as they need be forgiven.
Jesus tells us that God will do this when He says that, “Whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever has not, even what he seems to have, will be taken away from him.” (Lk 8:18, Lk 19:26, Mt 13:12 & Mt 25:29).
Our Creator will give more to whoever has, because people who have been given the ability to do what Our Creator wants us to do, will forgive their brothers and sisters, as they need Their Creator to forgive them, and Our creator will take what they seem to have away from people who have not, because people who have not been given the ability to do what God wants us to do, will not forgive their brothers and sisters, as they need God to forgive them.
God will take into account what we have been given if He judges us. Jesus tells us this when He says, “Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48).
God’s rewards can be hard for us to see.
1.)
What is truly a reward, will often seem to us to be a punishment, and what is truly a punishment, will often seem to us to be a reward.
Jesus told us this when His disciples saw a man who had been blind from birth and asked Jesus, “Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus then answered, “Neither this man sinned, nor his parents. He is blind so that the works of God may be made manifest in him.” (Jn 9:1-3).
What Jesus’ disciples had thought was a punishment, was actually a preparation for a reward.
2.)
The greatest rewards, that God gives, are things that help a person do His will. People who do not live by Jesus’ teachings, will not see that these things are rewards, at all.
The more often we forgive people who do us evil, the easier it will be for us to forgive people who do us evil even more often.
This is the greatest reward that God gives to people who forgive other people who do them evil.
Though none of us will ever be able to do more than a small part of God’s will, just as none of us will ever be able to have more than a small amount of faith, God sometimes gives, some people the ability to do some of His will.
One way in which God does this, is by leading people away from temptation, to deliver them from the evil they would do if they were tempted. (Mt 6:5-15 & Lk 1:2-4).
God also sometimes, gives some people the knowledge, and the strength they need to have to be able to do His will. Jesus tells us that God expects people who have been given more, to be able to do more of His will, when He says, “Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48).
Jesus tells us again that God expects people who have been given more, to do more of His will, when He says to the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida, “Woe to You Chorazin and Bethsaida. If the mighty works that have been done in you, had been done Tyre and Sidon, Tyre and Sidon would have repented long ago. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you at the judgement: and also for Capernaum.” (Lk 10:10-16). The people of Chorazin and Bethsaida had been given the gift of hearing Jesus speak and of watching Jesus work. The more any person learns about Jesus, the more God expects of that person.
Jesus also tells us that, because only people who have been given the good fortune to avoid temptation, and who have been given the ability to do what God wants them to do, will be able to follow Jesus, Only these people will receive the rewards that God will give for following Jesus. Jesus tells us this when He says, “Whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away from him.” (Lk 8:18, Lk 9:26, Mt 13:12 & Mt 25:29).
Jesus tells us these things so that if we follow Him, we will not think we have earned a reward from God. Instead, Jesus wants us to see that we sometimes follow Him because we sometimes use gifts that God has given us.
Jesus says to us, “When you do all that you are commanded to do, do not expect thanks, but say instead, “we are unprofitable slaves. We have only done what we ought to have done.” (Lk 17:9-10)
Rewards that Jesus promises to people who believe in Him
JN 03:14-15 Whoever believes in the Son of man shall not perish but shall have eternal life.
Jn 6:27-35 Labour not for the meat that perishes but for the meat that endures into everlasting life that the Son of man will give you.
… I am the bread of life, he who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.
What it means to believe in Jesus.
When we believe in Jesus we will do everything that Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus tells us that God will give us rewards if we follow His teachings that will more than make up for any suffering that following Jesus will bring us. When we believe Jesus we will follow Him because we will want to receive the rewards that Jesus tells us of.
If we could always believe Jesus, we would always do what Jesus tells us to do: to ensure that we would receive these rewards.
When we do what Jesus tells us to do. Then we believe Jesus, And when we do not do what Jesus tells us to do. Then we do not believe Jesus.
Jesus tells us that our faith is small each time He says to us, “O you of little faith” (Mt 6:30, Mt 8:26, Mt 14:31, Mt 16:8, & Lk 12:28).
And Jesus tells us that we will only be able to have a small amount of faith when He says to His disciples, “If your faith were as a grain of mustard seed, you could tell that mountain to move, and it would move.” (Mt 17:20).
This tells us that unless a person can make a mountain move by telling it to move, that person does not have enough faith to fill the smallest seed that Jesus knew of. (Mt 13:31-32)
Appendix C Why Atheism is logically impossible
While all people are sometimes agnostic, it is logically impossible for any person to be an atheist.
This is so because we can only understand our world in terms of cause and effect, and because every effect must have a cause.
Everything that happens must have a cause, including the fact that life exists at all, and the fact that our world exists at all. What caused life to come into existence? What caused our world to come into existence? What keeps living things alive?, and what keeps our world in existence?
If we are very agnostic we will say that we don’t know much about the force that causes these things, but it is simply nonsense to say that there is no force that makes these things happen.
2.)
In its most basic sense the word God is simply the name that we give to the force that created life, and that created our world.
While every person who thinks about God believes different things about God, everyone who uses the word God uses the word God to mean the force of creation. These people all use the word God because the using the word God allows us to speak efficiently about a force that is very important to all of us.
Even people who say that separate Gods created different parts of our world, believe that these separate Gods have enough in common with each other that calling them separate Gods really means the same thing as saying that they are different parts of one God. Whether we call God one or many does not matter very much. What matters is what we think God is like.
What we can decide and what we must learn
God has made us in such a way that certain actions will bring us joy, and certain actions will bring us sorrow. If we want to know joy instead of sorrow we must learn what these actions are, and we must then perform these actions.
1.)
God has made our bodies so they will function best when we feed them the nutrients they most need, when we give them the ideal amount of exercise, and when we give them bodies medicines that they need.
We can often decide what we will eat, we can often decide what exercises we will perform, and we can often decide what medicines we will take, but we cannot decide what foods, what exercises, and what medicines will make our bodies function best. The foods, exercises, and medicines that will make our bodies function best have already been determined. We can only try to learn what these foods, exercises, and medicines are.
In the same way God has made us so that our entire selves will function best when we are guided by the thoughts and emotions that are best for us.
We can often decide what thoughts and emotions we will be guided by, and we can often decide what actions they will lead us to take, but we cannot decide what thoughts, emotions, and actions will make us happy.
We can only try to learn what thoughts, emotions and actions will make us happy.
2.)
Both health and happiness are very hard for people to talk about because people will often say that they are healthy or happy when they are not healthy or happy, and because people will sometimes say that they are ill or sad when they are not ill or sad.
Though a person may say that he or she is healthy, If his or her body is not functioning as it should function then that person is not healthy.
In the same way, though a person may say that he or she is happy, if his or her intellect, emotions, and will are not functioning as they should function then that person is not happy.
Though we can often not tell if a person is happy, just as we can often not tell if a person is healthy, both health and happiness are real, and both health and happiness can be measured, if we know what to look for, and if we are able to observe a person closely enough to measure these things.
Of course it is much harder to measure happiness than it is to measure health because happiness is much more complicated than health is. It is also much harder for us to learn what thoughts, emotions, and actions will bring us happiness, than it is for us to learn what foods, exercises, and medicines will bring us health.
3.)
The more strongly we believe that we know what actions will bring us happiness, the more confident we are that we know what thoughts, emotions, and actions God has determined will bring us happiness, and the less agnostic we are.
No person is wholly agnostic, because all people believe that certain actions are more likely to bring them happiness than other actions are. If any person did not believe that certain actions were more likely than other actions to bring him or her happiness, then that person would never choose any action over any other action, and then that person would never act at all.
Our actions show what we believe God will reward.
Jesus can teach us how we can be happy.
God created us so that the thoughts, emotions, and actions He wants us to think feel and do will bring us joy and contentment. This is how God rewards us if we do His will.
Jesus tells us what God wants us to do. Because of this, if we do what Jesus tells us to do then we will know happiness.
We can see the joy and contentment that following Jesus will bring us most clearly in our own lives. In our lives, we can see that whenever we have done what Jesus teaches we have received great rewards from God (though we have also often known great resistance from people who are opposed to God) and we can see that whenever we have not done what Jesus teaches we have received great punishment from God (though people who are opposed to God have often helped us defy Jesus commands).
Over time the rewards that God will give us for doing what Jesus teaches will be greater than the resistance that other people show us for doing what Jesus teaches, And the longer we persist in following Jesus patiently and in living in the spirit of His love the more often the resistance that other people show us, will be transformed into love for us and into love for Jesus. If we forgive our brother seven times seventy times, as Jesus tells us to do, then our brother’s hatred will become love.
If some people patiently and persistently follow Jesus’ true teachings, then over a long enough time the resistance of all people who are opposed to God will be transformed into love and all people will become as one in Jesus. We cannot know how long this will take to happen, and to us it will seem to take a very long time. If we are constant in our love for Jesus, though, and if we faithfully follow Jesus teachings, then eventually all people will become as one in Jesus.
Physical sciences describe part of God’s creation, but physical sciences tell us little about even that part of creation.
Physical sciences describe some of the ways in which God develops parts of His creation. But the physical sciences tell us very little even about the physical aspects of God’s creation, and the physical sciences tell us even less about God’s desire for His creation. To learn about God’s desire for His creation we must search in places other than the physical sciences.
For example the theory of evolution describes some tools that God sometimes uses to develop parts of His creation. These tools are ‘genetic mutation’ and ‘natural selection’. The theory of evolution describes how lower life forms can change physically when a genetic mutation that helps an individual survive is passed on to future generations in greater numbers than other genes are passed on.
We see how little this theory tells us even about our physical world, though, when we see that it does not describe how beings that can change in this way first came into existence, and when we see that it describes very little of the physical change that occurs in human beings, and describes none of the spiritual or moral change that can occur in human beings.
This is so because ever since people have lived in societies, genetic differences between different people have had very little to do with determining which people will be most likely to survive and to have children.
What does determine these things is how well different people learn to live in harmony and cooperation with other people.
Genetic differences are important in animals because animals cannot cooperate to build societies. Among people it is behavior that allows one to live in harmony with other people that is important. This is so because if people work together then people can build societies that will help people in that society much more than a genetic difference ever could help those people.
The fact that God rewards people for living in greater harmony with each other tells us much more about God’s desire for our universe, than any description of the role of genetics in changes in lower life forms could ever tell us.
Appendix D
More on not thinking of things of Man
1.)
Jesus makes great efforts to teach us not to think of things of man, and to teach us not to seek the favor of men. Jesus does this, because pursuing things of man, seeking the favor of men, will keep us from learning how we can get things of God.
Most of us spend most of our lives pursuing things of man, and seeking the favor of men. And by doing this, most of us keep ourselves from learning things of God.
Most of the things that we buy, are things of man that do nothing to help us learn how we can get things of God. These things keep us from seeing God, both while we are paying attention to them, rather than paying attention to things of God, and while we are working at jobs, to earn money to buy them.
In the rare instances in which working at a job helps us learn how to get things of God, the time we spend at that job is not wholly wasted. Very few jobs help a person learn this, though. Instead, working at most jobs causes a person to become more and more caught up in things of man: things that pull that person further and further away from God.
Some jobs help people learn things of God indirectly, by helping those people stay alive, or by helping those people maintain good health, so they will have more time and energy, that they can use to study things of God, if they choose to do so.
2.)
We spend far too much time working to get things of men, and we spend far too little time working to get things of God. People who see this will try to avoid working forty hours a week. If most people in our society saw this, then most jobs in our society would become part-time jobs.
Only a very small fraction of all jobs in our society today help people learn about God. Even if jobs that only help people maintain abilities, such as life and health, are counted as jobs that help people learn about God, far fewer than one fifth of all jobs in our society today could be counted as jobs that help people learn about God. If we saw the worthlessness of all other jobs, and if we eliminated all other jobs, then the remaining jobs could easily be completed by people working one day a week, and these remaining jobs would still be done much better than they are done today.
Time that most people now spend at jobs that teach them, and that teach people they work with, to pursue things of men. Most people would be able to spend that time doing things that could help them, and that could help other people learn to pursue things of God, and doing things that help them, and that help other people learn to get things of God, If they did not have to spend that time at jobs that pulled them away from God.
Today though, because most people in our society do not see this, most jobs in our society are full-time jobs (especially most good jobs). In this situation, it is hard for anyone to avoid working full-time because it seems to most of us that we need to work at full-time jobs in order to survive.
Jesus tells us not to concern ourselves with getting things we need to have to survive, when He says, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear; Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Mt 6:25-33 & Lk 12:22-34).
3.)
Though Jesus tells us this, Most of us will not be able to take no thought for our lives: because if we cannot see how we will get things that we need to have to survive, then all of us will fear that we will not be able to get these things at all (even if we seek for God’s righteousness, as Jesus told us to do). When we cannot see where our next meal will come from, we will doubt Jesus, and we will be strongly tempted abandon his teachings.
Jesus is far away from us, and we can only be certain that we are learning his teachings, when we read those teachings in the Bible.
Though Jesus may speak to us in voices and signs, we can never be sure that voices we hear, or that signs we see truly come from Jesus. These voices, and signs might also come to us from powers other than Jesus: from powers that want us to mistake them for Jesus.
People, on the other hand, are often close to us, and we can often speak to people and be certain that we know who we are talking to. This makes it seem as if we can know people we are close to, better than we can know Jesus (and maybe we can know people we are close to better than we can know Jesus).
Whether or not this is true, though, Because this often seems to be true, we all want to believe that men can give us things that only Jesus can give us.
This is why we pursue things of men, instead of pursuing things of God, And this is why we all try to please men, instead of trying to please God. We will only stop doing this when we see that Jesus is telling us the truth when He says that pleasing men will bring us woe, and that only pleasing God can bring us joy.
We cannot do what God wants us to do and because God created us we should do what God wants us to do.
God has given us every ability we have. Every time we use what God has given us to do things that God doesn’t want us to do we are stealing from God.
God will only forgive us for the evil we do to Him when we refuse to do what He wants us to do, if we forgive other people for evil they do to us.
2.)
We cannot always forgive other people who do evil to us. Often we cannot even forgive people who have done us no evil but who instead make us feel afraid that we will not receive God’s favor. This fear can be good for us if it does not drive us mad, but still we hate people who make us feel it.
When we can forgive people who do us evil, then God will forgive us.
When we cannot forgive people who do us evil, then God will not forgive us.
The more often we forgive people who do us evil, the more often we will be forgiven.
The more often we forgive people who do us evil, the easier it will be for us to forgive people who do us evil even more often.
This is the greatest reward that God gives to people who forgive other people who do them evil.
Could we ever be able to forgive all people who do us evil? In this life the answer is no. Every time we feel anger towards another person we have failed to forgive that person.
In another life maybe we could forgive all people who do us evil.
Almost 1/6th of all people in our world live in India, and most people in India never eat meat. The only way we can imagine how we appear to these people is to imagine a society in which nearly every person did something that is morally repugnant to us. For example to imagine a society in which nearly every adult had sex with children, or to imagine a society in which nearly every person ate other people. Some one from India must be horrified by our society in a similar way to the way that we would be horrified by these two societies. (A person from India is probably more horrified by us than we would be by a society of adults who had sex with children, but is probably less horrified by us than we would be by a society of people who ate other people.)
Just as our emotions tell us to do every thing in our power to stop cannibalism, and tell most of us to do everything in our power to stop adults from having sex with children. So must the emotions of a person from India who does not eat meat tell that person to do everything in his or her power to stop people from eating animals.
We can all agree, though, that treating people well is more important than how we treat animals. Keeping this thought in mind might allow a person from India who does not eat animals to see past this issue, and to become friends with people who eat animals. If this happened people from India who do not eat animals, and people who do eat animals might work together to make our world a place in which all people treat each other better.
We should all often use this way of thinking to allow ourselves to work together with people who do something that we believe is wrong.
We may never stop feeling horrified by what certain people do, just as a person from India may never stop being horrified by us. We must ask ourselves, though, “Is the thing that horrifies me a violation of the value that is most important to me?” If it is then trying to stop this action will be more important to us than working with a person who performs this action to achieve any other goal. If it is not a violation of our highest value, though, then it will be more important for us to work with another person to attain our highest value than it will be for us to try to stop the actions this person performs.
If we do not think in this way then we will never achieve the goals that are most important to us, because we will seldom work together with other people to achieve these goals. Just as people from India who do not eat meat would refuse to work together with meat eaters, so also would many people from outside India refuse to work with any person from India who perpetuates the caste distinctions that have great force in India and that seem to violate the principle of judging people on the basis of their own actions that is cherished by many people (especially by many people in western societies.)
Whenever any of us feels horror at any other person’s actions we must remember that each of us does many things that horrify many other people.
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I support what you have done. I see it as an attempt to bring about changes that are needed in our world. If I am correct in this, then you will want to join your work to my work by supporting The Church of Human Weakness. If we all work together then we can bring about the changes that our world needs. If we work apart, our efforts will bear little fruit.
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I can be reached at gpelly.bosela@gmail.com. I may also be able to be reached at (440) 647-5182. If you get an answering machine try leaving a message. I may get it, but I may not be able to get it. I may also have to go for weeks at a time without getting to a computer to check my email, but I will probably be able to check my email every day or every few days. One way or another I will probably receive all emails sent to this address within a few weeks.
Refer everyone you know who might want to help heal our world, to this web page.
When you want to print this speech you may have to press the paper feed button on your printer periodically.
I have recently become aware of some of your work and that work leads me to believe that you may want to help heal the wounds of our world. For this reason I am sending you the first part of a speech I have written, that talks about how we can do this.
Our world is being torn apart by greed, violence, and self-righteousness, and each one of us is being torn apart by greed, violence, and self-righteousness (both by greed, violence, and self-righteousness in ourselves, and by the effects of other people’s greed, violence, and self-righteousness). Our world will only be healed if a large number of people try as hard as they can, to live as Jesus tells us to live, and any one of us will only be healed if we try as hard as we can, to live as Jesus tells us to live. (Even if we learn how to live as Jesus tells us to live, from someone other than Jesus, who does not talk about Jesus, and who does not try to follow Jesus, and even if we do not say we follow Jesus.) At least for those of us raised in western cultures though, and probably for all of us, Jesus’ teachings give us our best chance to learn how to do this. We know that following Jesus will heal the wounds of our world, because we see that the more we try to live as Jesus tells us to live, the more healing we experience in our lives, and the more healing we see in the world around us.
Jesus tells us that what matters to Him is that we live as He tells us to live, not that we say we follow Him, when He says, “Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. On the day of judgement, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them, “I never knew you. Leave me, you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46).
Everything Jesus tells us to do is something that will bring us together with other people. If we do all that Jesus tells us to do, then we will come together as one with all people as certainly as water flows down a mountain when snow melts on that mountain’s top. And then all people will live in harmony and brotherhood. We can all do more to improve our lives and our world by trying to follow Jesus’ teachings than we can do in any other way. Most of us, though, do not try to follow Jesus’ teachings, because most of us do not know or understand Jesus’ teachings. (Including most of those of us who call ourselves Christians).
The first part of the speech that talks about how we can heal our world, that I am sending you, is an attachment to this email. This speech and the ideas outlined in it will be at the heart of a movement that will help heal our world. Some ideas may have to be added to this speech for it to be able to do this, and some modifications in its presentation may have to be made. If either or both of these things are needed, I believe you may be able to help do them. Whether or not these changes are needed, the movement this speech must lead to, is desperately needed by our world, and our world needs you to be a part of this movement. Read this speech, think about how you can best help heal the wounds of our world, and contact me as soon as possible. I can be reached at gpelly.bosela@gmail.com. I may also be able to be reached at (440) 647-5182. If you get an answering machine with my voice on it, try leaving a message. I may get it, but I may not be able to get it. I may also have to go for weeks at a time without getting to a computer to check my email, but I will probably be able to check my email every day or every few days. One way or another I will probably receive all emails sent to this address within a few weeks. The full speech that I am sending you the beginning of, can be found at http://howwecanheal.blogspot.com . Also forward this email and the first part of the speech attached to it to everyone you know who might also want to help heal our world. When you want to print this speech, it is better to print the attachment I sent you than to print from the web page that has this speech on it, because the attachment I have sent you includes print formatting I was unable to put on the web page. To print this attachment you may have to press the paper feed button on your printer periodically.
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The words, “God, Gott, Bog, Chuv, Dieu, Domine, Theo, Yaweh, Allah, Brahman, Omazd, Ekam, Shang Ti, Ameratsu, Molongo, Tangaroa, Taiowa, and Adanvdo
Parsee, Tamil, Chinese, Japanese, a Bantu language, Tahitian, Hopi, Cherokee
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Jesus says to us “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Mt 6:25-33 & Lk 12:22-34), and Jesus says to his disciples, “Do not put gold or silver, or copper in your belts. Nor a bag for the way, nor two tunics, nor sandals or staves, for the workman is worthy of his food. In whatever city you enter, find those who are worthy and stay with them until you leave.” (Mt 10:9-10).
These commands give Jesus’ teachings a great deal of the strength they have, because they allow us focus on what is important to us, learning how to forgive people who trespass against us, when without these teachings we would otherwise almost certainly be distracted by material concerns. My life is a perfect example of this. I have had to spend a great deal of time and energy learning what I have learned about Jesus and about how to follow Him, because the ideas I learned when I was young were hostile and antithetical to all Jesus’ teaches. I have had to change all of my habits ands tendencies and have had to fundamentally reprogram my personality to be able to live well at all. These commands, along with the rest of Jesus’ teachings have allowed me to do this. Not without effort, though. This effort has required so much time and energy and concentration that
I have been unable to earn much money or establish a career. This, along with the fact that I have been betrayed by people I thought I could rely on, has led me to a state of extreme poverty in which I have not been able to feed myself adequately and as a consequence I am now suffering from malnutrition and from general poor health. Still I am better of for doing this, because now I have learned what I must do to live wisely from Jesus, and because now I have learned to do some of the things he has taught me. One of the things I know I must do is help other people learn from Him without having to make the sacrifices I have made. This is now the overarching goal of my life. Because of my poor health, though, I am now in dire need of help to b able to do this. If I can eat well, sleep well, and get a little exercise, I will be able to become healthy enough to spread Jesus’ teachings. I now need help to be able to do this. Once I put the speech I have sent you on a web page will show up on search engines, and get traffic for word of mouth, and that will allow me to take donations to the church I will establish over the internet, I will probably be able to eat well enough to improve my health. Right now I cannot do these things, though. In other words I need both intellectual and financial aid to be able to establish the church of human weakness. I also need to move to a new place and probably establish the headquarters of the church of human weakness there. Because I have devoted my energy to personal transformation rather than earning money I am now so poor, that I am forced to live with people who hate me, hate Jesus, and persecute me for trying to follow Jesus. I could have earned a great deal of money in my life, but doing this would have required me to live with the personality I was given in my youth, and I would have become a part of the evil that is tearing our world apart. This is probably true of many people, and these are the people I most want to help. Many of these people have probably tried what I have tried, and many of these people have failed because they have become so poor that their health has suffered more than mine (especially if they have become homeless and because of this have become malnourished and have not been able to sleep well.) When these things happen to a person, that person’s productivity declines greatly, especially if that productivity is dependent on writing. I know because this has happened to me. For this reason, this letter is not written nearly as well as the speech I have sent you, (most of which was written when my health was better), and that speech is not written nearly as well as it would have been had my health been better. To a point my malnutrition may have helped me gain focus as fasting sometimes helps people gain focus, but I passed that point long ago, and any gains in focus have been more than outweighed by losses in energy in recent times. When we think of the causes of evil in our world it is easy to see that people who find themselves in this predicament, (the predicament of having learned evil at a young age, and having to earn money instead of reprogramming themselves, is the primary cause of evil in our world. Most of us want to be good, but have not learned how to be good, but have only learned how to be evil. The only way to change this fact is to help people learn how to be good. We can do that by helping people understand Jesus’ true teachings. That is why I sent you the beginning of the speech I have written, and that is why I am writing to you again now. I just want to let you know that while this church will be able to help great numbers of people understand Jesus, right now it I\s in danger of not being started because of my health problems and residential problems. This is when it is especially important to remember Jesus’ command to his disciples, “seek out whoever is worthy and stay with them for the workman is worthy of his food. I have not tried very hard to seek out whoever is worthy in the past. Now that has changed.
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Even those of us who are not following twisted and perverted versions of what Jesus taught us, usually do not focus nearly as much as we should on understanding and following Jesus’ true teachings. This is the weakness I see in many churches that call themselves Christian churches. Helping people focus more clearly on the teachings that will bring us happiness if we follow them, is the aim of the Church of Human Weakness,
and is what I want to help all people do. I see a great desire to learn how we can be happy, in all people, but most people make great errors that prevent them from doing this. From what I have seen, you and most people in your church seem to have avoided many of the greatest errors that many people make, and seem to have a strong desire to learn about and avoid other errors that prevent you from finding happiness.
I am sending you this essay because I hope and believe you will want to help heal our world and will want to help spread the knowledge of what actions will hurt us and what actions will help us, and because I believe we can all do more to help accomplish these goals by living as Jesus teaches us to live, and by helping to spread Jesus’ true teachings by joining or supporting a church of human weakness, than we can do in any other way, (even if we learn how to live as Jesus teaches us to live, from someone other than Jesus, who does not talk about Jesus, and who does not try to follow Jesus, and even if we do not say we follow Jesus. Other teachers often teach some of the same lessons Jesus teaches, and people who follow other teachers often learn and do more of what Jesus teaches us, than do those of us who say we follow Jesus. This includes teachers we call religious teachers.) I tell why I believe these things in the essay I have attached to this email. I believe that after you read this essay you will agree with me.
When you have read enough of this essay to understand a good part of the meaning of the church of human weakness, and when you want to either join this church, help this church, or learn more about this church, please email me at gpelly.bosela@gmail.com, or telephone me at (440) 647-5182. I will probably be at this number when you call, though for reasons beyond my control I may not be, but I will almost certainly be able to receive all emails sent to this address shortly after they are sent, and I will try to be at this telephone number because I especially look forward to telephone calls from anyone who is interested in the church of human weakness.
I have sent this essay to you as an attachment to this email. This attachment contains many formatting commands that make this essay easier to read, that would have been lost if I had copied this essay into the main text of this email. Many of you may be reluctant to open this attachment for fear of viruses. Let me assure you that this attachment has been checked for viruses by a highly respected anti-virus security program that google mail uses to check all attachments that are sent with it’s mail service. If this program finds any cause for concern in any attachment it simply won’t send that attachment, so there is no reason to fear that there might be a virus in the attachment I have sent you.
This essay can also be found along with later sections that are not included in this email at http://howwecanheal.blogspot.com . At this website these later sections are included as a separate blog entry. Refer everyone you know who might want to help heal our world, to this web page. When you want to print this essay either from this attachment or from this website you may have to press the paper feed button on your printer periodically. Again the attachment has formatting commands that the website version does not have and will print in a way that will be easier to read.
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