Sections 17-26 – How We Can Heal Our World and Our Selves

Section 17.
How do we know Jesus is correct when He teaches that we will receive things we need and things we ask for, if we forgive other people as we need Our Creator to forgive us?
We know that Jesus is correct when He teaches that we will receive things we need and things we ask for, if we forgive other people as we need Our Creator to forgive us, because when we forgive people who trespass against us, we see that we receive things we need and things we ask for, and because when we do not forgive people who trespass against us, wee see that we are we do not receive things we need and things we ask for. Sometimes we will not see rewards we expect to receive though, because we all often lie to ourselves, telling ourselves we have forgiven a person, when we actually have not forgiven that person. If we have truly forgiven a person, we will do all that Jesus tells us to do for that person. If we do not do this, then we have not truly forgiven that person. Even when we truly do forgive a person who has trespassed against us, we still may not see rewards that are given to us because sometimes rewards we receive for forgiving people who trespass against us, will not come to us immediately, and because we often will not recognize rewards we receive as rewards. The greatest reward Our Creator can give to us is the ability to fully forgive people we have started to forgive, and the ability to forgive more people who trespass against us in the future. This reward allows us to know joy, that otherwise would be absent from our lives. If we do not expect all rewards to come immediately, and if we see abilities we possess as the rewards they are, then if we forgive people who trespass against us, we will see that we receive rewards that more than make up for any suffering we will know from the opposition of other people. This is the moral and spiritual law that governs our world. Sometimes rewards that will come to us if we forgive people who trespass against us, will come through the actions of other people. Often, though, other people will oppose us if we try to forgive people who trespass against us.
One of the greatest rewards Our Creator will give to people who forgive people who trespass against them, is the ability to develop the potential He has given to all of us. If we do not forgive people who have trespassed against us, then the anger and hate that is in us, will weigh us down like an anchor about our necks. Forgiveness frees us of this anchor and allows us to develop abilities Our Creator has given us, as Our Creator wants us to develop those abilities.

We also know that Jesus is correct when He tells us that Our Creator wants us to forgive people who trespass against us, because we know that only forgiveness will heal the wounds of our world, and because we know, in our hearts, that Our Creator wants the wounds of our world to be healed. Our world is in dire need of moral regeneration. Violence, hoarding, and self-righteousness. These things are tearing our world apart. And these things are tearing each one of us apart. The wounds of our world will only be healed if a large number of people try to always forgive people who do harm to them, try to always help other people, try to never judge themselves to be better than any other person, and try to always think of things of God instead of things of men.

Throughout human history, people who have called themselves Christians have often done evil and have sometimes done good. On balance, we who call ourselves Christians, do about as much evil and about as much good as all other people do, in proportion to our power. Because on average people who have called themselves Christians have had more power than other people have had, people who call themselves Christians have done both more good and more evil than other people have done. The actions of people who call themselves Christians, show us nothing that would lead us to believe that Jesus is correct when He tells us what Our Creator wants us to do. Instead, we know that Jesus is correct when He tells us what Our Creator wants us to do, because we see, in our lives, that when we forgive people who trespass against us, as Jesus tells us to do, then we receive things that we need and things that we ask for. Receiving things that we need and things that we ask for, is the reward Our Creator gives to people who do what He wants us to do, and not receiving things that we need and things that we ask for is the punishment Our Creator gives to people who do not do what He wants us to do. Power is seldom a reward to people who possess it, but is more often a punishment to these people because power often leads all of us to do evil for which we will later be punished. If we have forgiven people who have trespassed against us we will seldom ask for power.

All knowledge is based on facts that must be discovered, and that could never be proven or deduced by reason.
Any object seems natural to us once we have learned of it. Consider for example a common fruit. What could be simpler? If we had never seen a fruit, though, and if another person described a fruit to us, that person’s description would sound like the wildest sort of unfounded science fiction. If someone told us that sweet round objects grew on structures called trees, and that we could simply reach out and grab one of these objects, and that we would be nourished by it, we would accuse that person of wishful thinking, we would say that we too could imagine pleasant things, and we would be sure that what that person was telling us was not true. So is it also with Jesus’ teachings. Jesus teaches us that there are certain things Our Creator wants us to do, and Jesus teaches us that Our Creator will reward us if we do these things. This will also sound like wishful thinking to us, if we have not learned the truth of Jesus’ teachings.
It is often hard for us to believe that Jesus is correct when He teaches that If we follow His teachings’ Our Creator will give us rewards that will outweigh any suffering that comes to us from following those teachings, because if we follow Jesus, other people will often oppose us, and because things that other people will do to us will often cause us great suffering. Jesus tells us often that this will be so and also tells us often that if we are faithful we will receive rewards that will more than make up for this 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). Jesus also tells us that, though other people will do great harm to us if we try to forgive as each of us needs be forgiven, The harm people will do to us will be small compared to the harm our Creator will do to us if we do not try to forgive people who trespass against us. Jesus tells us this when He says to us “Fear not those who can who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul. Fear instead He who can destroy both the body and the soul.” (Mt 10:28 & Lk 12:4-5)

One of the saddest ironies of our world is that many of the people who could benefit most from Jesus’ teachings, are dissuaded from learning about Jesus by the false imputation that Jesus’ teachings are not logical, while the strong desire to be logical is the very trait that could lead these people to benefit more from Jesus’ teachings than most other people would.
Jesus’ teachings are actually very logical. They are logical in the way that Euclid’s geometry is logical. In Euclid’s geometry principles of geometry are applied to many different situations. In Jesus’ teachings the knowledge of what Our Creator wants us to do is applied to many different situations. While the foundation of any system of thought must come to us through discovery, not through reason, it helps us to be as logical and as rational as we can be in applying the truths we discover to different situations we face. As for example Euclid’s geometry, though it will never allow us to create building materials, can help us build well once we have found building materials. So also can logic and rationality help us build our lives well on the foundations we can discover through Jesus. This is why people who try hard to be logical can benefit most from Jesus’ teachings. Many people believe that thinking logically makes their emotions weaker, less sincere, and less enjoyable. We will all feel this way at times, and It should not surprise us that many people believe this all of the time. This should not surprise us because we will all disparage activities we do not want to take part in, and because none of us want to think logically any more often than we have to, because thinking logically requires us to work, and because none of us want to work any harder than we have to. In truth, though, logical thinking often makes our emotions far stronger than they would be if we did not think logically. For example thinking logically helps us understand Jesus, and the more fully we understand what Jesus has done for us, the stronger our feeling of gratitude will be toward Jesus.
If a person does not try hard to think logically about any particular thing, not doing this is a sign that, that person doesn’t care very much about that thing. In the same way if a person tries to pretend that any thing can be understood through logic alone (without first discovering facts that could never be discovered through the use of logic: facts that must be the foundation of all knowledge), then this is also a sign that, that person does not care very much about that thing. For example if I didn’t try hard to think logically about Jesus’ teachings, that would be a sign that I didn’t care very much about understanding Jesus, and because I believe Jesus, that would also be a sign that I didn’t care very much about receiving rewards Jesus tells me of. In the same way, if I tried to pretend I could learn what actions would lead me to receive things I want and things I need, through logic alone, that would also be a sign that I didn’t care very much about learning what actions would lead me to receive things I want and things I need. If we want to receive rewards Our Creator gives to people He forgives, and if we believe that Jesus is correct when He teaches us how we can receive Our Creator’s forgiveness, then we will work hard to understand Jesus’ teachings, and then we will use all the logic and rationality we are capable of to do this. If we do not try to do what Our Creator wants us to do, then logic and rationality will not help us get things we want or things we need. If we do not use logic and rationality, though, then we will fail to do what Our Creator wants us to do. If we do not use logic and rationality to understand Jesus, we will be easily misled by people who want to make us believe that Jesus taught different things than He actually taught. It is natural that many people will want to mislead us in this way, because it is sometimes hard to follow Jesus, and at these times our lives would be much easier if Our Creator wanted us to do less than what Jesus teaches us Our Creator wants us to do. Because of this, most churches that call themselves Christian churches ignore most of what Jesus taught us, and instead teach rituals that mean nothing if they do not lead us to do what Jesus teaches us to do. We all want to ignore Jesus when He tells us to do difficult things. If we believe Jesus, though, and if we want Our Creator’s forgiveness, then we will try to do all that Jesus tells us to do.
The ability to think logically is one of the greatest abilities Our Creator has given us. Because of this we should work hard to develop this “thing of God”, instead of trying to develop “things of men”. If we do not do this Jesus will say to us as He says to Peter, “You are an offence to me because you do not think of things of God, but think instead, of things of men.” (Mt 16:23). We all seldom do try to think logically, though, because the more logically we think, the more often we see reality as it is, and because we all prefer to think of fantasies we can believe if we do not think logically. We are unwise to do this. The reality we want to hide from is a mixture of pleasant and unpleasant things. Whether we know more that is pleasant or more that is unpleasant in our lives, depends primarily on how closely we follow Jesus, and we will only be able to follow Jesus is we think logically about all he has taught us.
Jesus tells us it is right for us to perform certain actions, by telling us that ‘God, Our Father’ wants us to perform those actions, and Jesus tells us that certain actions will bring us things we want and things we need, by telling us that ‘God, Our Father’ will reward us if we perform those actions. By speaking to us in this way Jesus reminds us that the only thing we can possibly mean when we say that anything is right, is that Our Creator wants us to do that thing.

We can only get things that we want and things that we need, by doing what Our Creator wants us to do. This is so because we will be rewarded if we do what Our Creator wants us to do, and because we will be punished if we do not do what Our Creator wants us to do. It is logically impossible for any person to believe that we have no Creator. This is so because every effect must have a cause. A person who did not believe this would be unable to think even the simplest thoughts. It is nonsense to say, “A rock that I dropped fell, but nothing made that rock fall.” It is nonsense to say, “The tree that I am pointing at came into existence and grew but nothing made this happen”, and it is nonsense to say that any person came into existence and grew but that nothing made this happen. Something made each of these things happen. Each of these effects has a cause, And the effect that we call human life was caused by the actions of Our Creator. There are many things that we cannot know about Our Creator, and different people will have different beliefs about what Our Creator is like, just as different people will have different beliefs about what the process of creation is like. For example, the theory of evolution is one way of describing the process of creation. The theory of evolution in no way implies that we have no Creator. It simply tries to describe the process of creation. Darwin himself saw this clearly, and throughout His life Darwin said that he was only trying to describe the actions of Our Creator. While different people will believe different things about Our Creator, all people who are able to think, and who are honest, will agree that we have a Creator. Our Creator’s desires for our world are easiest to see in the physical world. We can see that Our Creator wants water to flow downhill, and that our creator wants objects to fall to the earth if they are heavier than air, and if they are dropped. These desires are parts of what we call the physical law of gravity. We can see that Our Creator wants opposite magnetic charges to attract each other, and wants similar magnetic charges to repel each other. These desires are parts of what we call the physical law of electromagnetism. And we can see that Our Creator wants objects that we can move, to move away from us when we push them, and to move toward us when we pull them. These desires are parts of what we call the physical law of reciprocal forces. Whenever we see that certain effects always follow certain causes we are seeing a part of Our Creator’s desire for our world. Our Creator’s desires are much harder to see in the world of human affairs. This is so because in human affairs we cannot see all of the causes that lead to any effect and because in human affairs we cannot see all of the effects of any action. We can never even come close to seeing all of these causes or all of these effects as we can in the physical world when we perform experiments. Though Our Creator’s desires are harder to see in human affairs, it is in human affairs that we will benefit most, if we are able to see Our Creator’s desires. And in human affairs we will benefit most if we are able to learn what Our Creator wants us to do.
Trying to learn what Our Creator wants us to do is the great task and is the great adventure of human history. If we are able to learn what Our Creator wants us to do, then we will be able to know great joy and righteousness by doing what Our Creator wants us to do. If, on the other hand, we do not do what Our Creator wants us to do, then we will cause great suffering to ourselves and to other people. The good news that Jesus brings to our world is the news that we can win Our Creator’s favor, and the news of how we can win Our Creator’s favor. Jesus tells us how we can win the favor of the One who can confer all blessings on us. This is why Jesus’ teachings are like a treasure that is hid in a field, for which a man will sell all that he has and buy that field.

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 fight was all the other person’s fault, just as everyone involved in a war tries to say that 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 two reasons: because one person or one group of people want or need something that another person or group of people do not want to share, and because all people have a strong desire to believe that they are good, and that their adversaries are evil, whenever they disagree with other people.
Both the desire to take and the desire to keep are natural human desires that we will never be able to rid ourselves of. So is the desire to believe that we are better than other people are. 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 resist them so that they do not lead us into violence. Jesus tells us this 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).
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, and all people should admit that they are usually not good people.

When we tell ourselves that the reason we fight is not to try to either keep or take something that another person also wants, and is not to try to silence people who will not admit that we are better than they are. It is when we tell ourselves this 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 altogether. Then the powers of darkness have their day.

Stories We Tell Each Other.

We believe that violence is necessary because we believe the stories we tell each other.
About 90% of the films, television programs, magazine articles, and newspaper articles, produced in our society tell stories about violence, and nearly all of the stories they tell about violence show violence as a thing that is sometimes needed, and most of these stories portray violence as a thing that is often needed. In these stories if violence is not used, then “evil” people will destroy and leave destitute “good” people. These stories are designed to help us believe that we can use violence and can still be good people. They make it easier for us to obey our violent urges and impulses and to still feel good about ourselves.
Of course, everyone who takes part in violence believes that he or she is the “good” person in the story that is taking place, and believes that his or her adversary is the “evil” person in that story. Because of this each of us threatens our adversary, and each of us tells ourselves that we are doing so in an attempt to promote peace by deterring an “evil” person who otherwise would surely ravage us with unlimited violence. At the same time we tell ourselves that our adversary’s threats are not attempts to promote peace but are instead clear and undeniable signs of our adversaries evil and violent nature. Believing this we escalate our threats, until threats lead to blows, and until blows lead to wars.

The truth that if we refuse to fight, and also refuse to run from a person who is threatening us, but if we instead try to find our common humanity with people who threaten us, through rational discussion, then we will almost always create situations that are better for everyone involved. This truth is a truth that we seldom tell each other in stories that we tell each other about violence, because telling this truth does not make us feel good about ourselves when we give in to our violent urges.
In the small portion of situations in which violence avert harm that would otherwise come to us, that violence will also bring us greater harm than it will avert, through other effects it will have. This is another truth that we leave out of stories we tell each other about violence. We do so because telling this truth would show us that we make ourselves fools when we give in to our violent urges, and because we do not want to believe that we are fools.
We would rather feel good about ourselves while we tear down everything that is good in our world by using violence, than feel bad about ourselves when we commit violence, because we are trying to avoid tearing our world apart, by trying to avoid violence. The stories we tell each other make our culture a culture of violence. Our cultural heroes are people who use violence but who use violence in a way that we tell ourselves is good. They are our heroes because they give in to the violent urges that we all feel, but are still called good people by our society.

The only place in our society where we are told clearly and consistently that violence is not good, is in the gospels of Jesus. Jesus tells us that we should always refrain from violence, even though He knows that we will not be able to do so. Jesus also tells us, in detail, how we would treat other people if we were able to lead a life that was free of violence. If we can do any of the things that Jesus tells us to do, then we will decrease the violence in our lives, And if we could do all that Jesus tells us to do, then we would eliminate all violence from our lives. Though we will never be able to do this, Jesus tells us clearly that this is what we should do.

The greatest weakness of most contemporary peace movements is that they do not teach that we should be peaceful in all situations, as Jesus teaches that we should be peaceful in all situations. Most contemporary peace movements teach, instead, that violence is appropriate and good in some situations. They only teach that violence is wrong in one particular situation. They say, ‘Not this fight’, or ‘Not this war’ but they are perfectly willing to support other fights, and other wars.
This severely limits the persuasive potential of contemporary peace movements, because when people believe that violence is appropriate in some situations, they will disagree about what situations violence is appropriate in, and because these differences of opinion will be based on each person’s unique experiences, to a greater extent than they will be based on all people’s common experiences.
In particular, most people inside contemporary peace movements, almost never share very many experiences in common with most people outside contemporary peace movements. There is a social chasm between these two groups, that the rhetoric of contemporary peace movements does nothing to bridge. People in the contemporary peace movement often present specific factual information about a conflict that might sometimes persuade people who support a fight, to oppose that fight, but this seldom happens because at the same time people in the pro-war movement are presenting contradictory factual information, and because in this situation each person will believe and will follow whatever person they feel closer to socially.
Because of this, most contemporary peace movements become forums in which people congratulate each other on opinions that they held in common long before they became a part of any peace movement. Very little persuasion goes on in contemporary peace movements. Speakers in contemporary peace movements are preaching to the choir.

Much more persuasion can take place, though, In peace movements that teach that violence is never good and is never appropriate, as Jesus teaches that violence is never good and is never appropriate. This is so, because the decision about whether or not violence is ever appropriate is based on experiences that we all share in common. These experiences are the experience of what pain feels like, the knowledge that violence leads to pain, the experience of what has made violence go away for short periods in our own lives, and the knowledge that violence cannot go away permanently for some people unless it goes away permanently for all people.
Because of this following Jesus can lead us to peace that contemporary peace movements could never lead us to. We must follow Jesus’ teachings if we hope to achieve peace in our world. We can learn many of Jesus’ teachings from sources other than Jesus, but the best source we have for learning how we can live in peace is the teachings of Jesus.

In order to achieve peace we must make peace with our enemies. The enemies of people in contemporary peace movements are not people who live in foreign countries that our government is at war with. The enemies of people in contemporary peace movements are people in our country who support the war that they oppose.
To make peace with our enemies, we who are involved in contemporary peace movements must admit that we would probably have been just as warlike as our enemies have been, if we had been in power when our enemies were in power. (though our wars might have been different ones). For example, in the United States today, had a democrat been president for the past four years, our military would probably have pursued members of Al Qaida from Afghanistan into Pakistan, and our nation would then have become involved in a civil war that would have broken out in Pakistan.
We will all fight if we become frightened enough, and we must admit that if we were in the same circumstances as our enemies, we would become frightened just as they have become frightened. As it is, most of us who are involved in contemporary peace movements are using the “peace” issue to try to wrest power from our enemies in this nation.

We who are involved in contemporary peace movements are right to urge our government to withdraw from wars it is currently involved in, but doing this is not enough to create a lasting peace: either in foreign nations, or in the United States.
Unless we make peace with our enemies, we will always be dragged to our destruction by violence. In order to make peace with our enemies, we must follow Jesus command to “Love our enemies, and to pray for those who persecute us” (Mt 5:39-48 & Lk 6:27-38).

If Our Creator gives us liberty, then who are we to deny each other liberty, and if Our Creator sometimes controls what we do, then who are we to interfere with Our Creator by trying to control each other. Jesus tells us not to deny each other liberty 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). This tells us that if we cannot persuade our brother to stop trespassing against us, we are to let him be as a stranger to us, rather than trying to force him to stop trespassing against us. Jesus tells us again not to deny each other liberty when He says,” You have heard it said: An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you: Do not resist not evil: If a man strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him your left. If a man judges you and takes away your coat, offer him your cloak also. If a man 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).
When used correctly the word liberal means that which promotes or is appropriate to liberty. Consider the term “liberal arts.” Liberal arts are the arts that are considered appropriate for a person who has freedom of action. The people who created this term forthrightly stated their belief that most people at that time had little freedom of action, and for that reason should learn other arts than the liberal arts. The liberal arts were meant to train a person with the freedom to choose to choose wisely. A person with little freedom of action need not be able to choose wisely because he or she will seldom be able to choose at all. Today we use the term “liberal arts” because historically the “liberal arts” have been associated with wealth and power, but most of us have forgotten the true meaning of that term. Today most of us have much greater freedom of action than our ancestors had, but we do not act like free people because we have the mental attitude of followers: An attitude that has been passed down to us from our ancestors, through a chain of children emulating their elders. Jesus tells us some of the actions that will work for us, and Jesus tells us some of the actions that will not work for us, Our Creator gives us the freedom to either apply these lessons to our lives or not to apply these lessons to our lives, and because of economic and political developments less of this freedom has been taken away from us than had been taken away from most of our ancestors. Because we do not train ourselves to make choices, though, but instead try to find someone or something to follow rather than trying to choose. Because of this most of us do not know the freedom Our Creator gives us. It is people who do not know freedom in their own lives who most often try to restrict other people’s freedom. What we call recreation are activities that make many demands on us, because we only feel comfortable if we are being told what to do. Fashions, styles, and spectator sports show examples of this even more clearly. We do not believe we truly are free, but instead believe that the freedom we seem to have is illusory, and that if we do not find someone powerful to follow we will be punished for failing to do this. When we do not believe we are free, then we do not act like free people. To fully develop the intellects Our Creator has given us, each of us must choose how to act in unique situations that no other person faces. Most of us do not do this, though, because we follow other people too often. The choice we have to make is described vividly by existential philosophers, and for this reason existential philosophers are unpopular with most of us. Jesus tells us that we should not allow human rules, structures or, demands to keep us from developing abilities Our Creator has given us, when He says to Peter, “You offend me because you think of things of man but do not think of things of God.” (Mt 16:23)
When Our Creator gives each of us the freedom to choose how we will act, He promotes liberty, and He shows that in the true sense of the word He is a liberal. We do not know why Our Creator sometimes does this, but it is not unreasonable to think that maybe freedom is necessary for the creation of what Our Creator wants each of us to become. A baker cannot bake a loaf of bread without using heat and yeast. We are still being created and freedom may be necessary to our creation in the same way that heat and yeast are necessary to the creation of bread.


“I have food that you know not of. My food is to do the will of Him who sent me, and to finish his work.” (Jn 4:32-34)
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Do you try to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ? If you do I congratulate you. If you do not, I believe you’ll still want to hear what Jesus teaches about poverty. Jesus says, “Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in the heavens” ”It will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (Lk 18:18-25, see also Mt 19:16-24, & Lk 12:33). If you live in the United States you are probably rich (well over 95% of us are), and if you are rich, Jesus says it is very unlikely you will be let into the kingdom of God. But you can change this by giving away your riches, as Jesus commands. What is required to end poverty in our world is so much less than selling all we have and giving to the poor, that the two are not even close. 6 million children die every year from hunger related causes. In the United States 13 million children (more than one in every ten) have to skip meals or eat less at their meals to make ends meet. 852 million people go hungry (more than one out of every eight people). The United Nations estimates we could meet the nutrition and food needs of the world’s poorest people for less than people in the U.S. spend on pet food (for $13 billion a year). Far from requiring us to sell all we have and give to the poor, ending hunger only requires us to give up a few luxuries that don’t help us anyway, and give what these luxuries cost to the poor. Of course if we believe Jesus, we will do much more that this, so we can get into the kingdom of God.
It is important that we all join together in this effort, so (especially in a rich nation such as ours) we should give some of what we have directly to the poor and we should give some of what we have to an effort to preach Jesus’ true gospel, so that as many people as possible will give as much as they can to the poor (and so as many people as possible will be able to enter the kingdom of God). Much of what is taught in so-called Christian churches are things that Jesus doesn’t care about. What Jesus does care about, though, is something we all need to learn. If I were you, I would sell all I have and give half to hunger related programs and I would give half to ‘The Church of Human Weakness’, a new church that is dedicated to preaching Jesus’ true gospel.
Of course selling all that we have and distributing to the poor, does not refer only to selling material possessions. It also tells us to dedicate all of our abilities to the service of the poor.

“Do not give what is holy to dogs. Neither cast pearls before swine, lest they trample the pearls, then turn and rend you.” (Mt 7:06)
“Your house is left desolate unto you. You shall not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the lord’” (Mt 23:38-39)
“There shall not be left here one stone atop another that shall not be thrown down.” (Mt 24:2)
“You are Peter. I build upon this rock and against my church the gates of hell shall not prevail” (Mt 16:18)
“All these things shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” (Mt 24:35)
“Straight is the path and narrow the gate that leads to life. And few will enter therein.” (MT 7:14)
“Every tree that does not bring forth good fruit will be hewn down and cast into the fire.” (Mt 7:19)
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In our minds we often minimize the destructive effects of our behavior because something similar was once done to us and because we can only go on if we tell ourselves that what was done to us was not very bad and either did not hurt us at all or did not hurt us very much. Of course we are still angry about what was done to us, and we take that anger out on someone weaker than we are, by doing to them something similar to what was done to us, and we tell ourselves that what we do to that person is not very bad.
Telling ourselves that what has been done to us has not hurt us very much when this is not true, is in no way a part of forgiving people who have trespassed against us. Instead it is something we tell ourselves when we are not able to forgive a person who has done great harm to us, and when we are also not able to avenge ourselves against that person.
In order to forgive we must always remember that if we do not forgive people who have trespassed against us, then Our Creator will not forgive us for our trespasses against Him, and we must remember that whatever harm any person has done to us, each of us has done more harm to Our Creator. Jesus tells us that this is so, 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)
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“You are an offence to me because you think of things of man, but do not think of things of God” (Mt 16:23). Jesus says this to His chief disciple Peter. We all often spend great time and energy thinking about things of man. But do we think about things of God. Jesus tells us how to think about things of God by telling us what God wants us to do. What is it that Jesus tells us God wants us to do.

The most important thing to remember about what Jesus teaches us is that what Jesus tells us to do is what will work for us: is what will bring us things we want and things we need. (what Jesus tells us to do will not always work for us in the short term, though often it will, but it will always work for us in the long term.)
This is especially important to remember when Jesus tells us to do things that seem as if they will not help us, such as when Jesus tells us not to resist evil. Jesus tells us the reason for this command when He says to His disciples as He sends them forth to preach His gospel, “I send you in the midst of wolves, therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” (Mt 10:16) We are to do these things, because doing these things will allow us to survive in the midst of the wolves that surround us.

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 )

And Jesus tells us that we will only love Our Creator greatly if we understand how much forgiveness Our Creator has shown us, when He says of a woman who had sinned and who sought forgiveness, “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but people to whom little is forgiven, love little. (Lk 7:36-50)

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Jesus teaches us what Our Creator wants us to do.
When Jesus came the priests of Jesus’ church thought that they were already doing what Our Creator wanted them to do and when Jesus told them that they were not doing what Our Creator wanted them to do, these priests became angry. So these priests thought to themselves, “How does Jesus know what Our Creator wants us to do?, Does Jesus have special knowledge of Our Creator?”, and so these priests said that Jesus claimed to be the son of God, and claimed to be the messiah.”
When Jesus heard this early in his ministry He responded by saying, ‘If you believed what the founders of our church wrote, and if you believed what the prophets of our church taught, then you would also believe all that I say.’ “If Abraham were truly your father, you would do the works of Abraham.” (Jn 8:39), “If God were truly your father, you would love me.” (Jn 8:42)
When, near the end of His ministry, the high priest of Jesus’ church asked Him directly, “Are you the Son of God?, Are you the Messiah?”, Jesus replied, “You say that I am. Still I know you don’t believe this. Later you will see that God is with me.” (Mt 26:63-64)
The priests of Jesus’ church had wanted Jesus to back down, and to say, “You know what God wants better than I do.” When Jesus did not back down these priests decided that they wanted Jesus to be killed. Because the land of Israel was being ruled by the roman empire at that time, these priests then got together with their Roman rulers (who also wanted Jesus to be killed), and together they nailed Jesus to a cross and left Him there until He died.
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“You call me teacher and lord, and you are right to do so. If then I your teacher and lord have washed your feet, so should you wash each other’s feet.” Jn 4-5, &12-17
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“There is one who judges.” Jn 8:50
“In the completion of the age, The Son of Man shall send out His angels and they will collect out of His kingdom all the offenses and those who practice lawlessness and they will cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be the wailing and the gnashing of teeth.” (Mt 13:40-42)
We do evil to Our Creator every time we do evil to any part of His Creation, and we do evil to Our Creator every time we use abilities Our Creator has given us, in ways Our Creator does not want us to use those abilities. It is because of this evil that we need Our Creator’s forgiveness.
Our Creator has given us our lives and our abilities because He wants us to use them to do His will. When we do not use these gifts to do Our Creator’s will, we are stealing what our Creator has entrusted to us. We all know that we seldom use abilities Our Creator has given us, as Our Creator wants us to use those abilities, because Jesus tells us how Our Creator wants us to use abilities He has given us, and because it is clear to anyone who reads Jesus’ words, that we all seldom do what Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus reminds us that we cannot live without gifts Our Creator gives us, when He tells us to pray to Our Creator, “Give us this day our daily bread.” (Mt 6:5-15 & Lk 11:2-4), and Jesus tells us that we cannot do anything without gifts Our Creator gives us, when He says, “We must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day, night will come when no one can work.” (Jn 9:4). Our Creator gives us the bread that we all must eat if we wish to live, and Our Creator brings us the rays of the sun that lights the day, and that allows all people to live, and to work.
Jesus tells us that because God created us, we should do all that God wants us to do. Jesus tells us this each time He says that the Kingdom of Heaven is like a Lord and His slaves. (see Mt 18:23-35, Lk 17:9-10, Mt 25:14-30, & Lk 19:12-27). Jesus says to us, “When you do as you are commanded to do, do not expect thanks, but say instead, ‘we are unprofitable slaves who have only done what we ought to have done.’” (Lk 17:9-10). Jesus tells us again, that because God created us, we should do what God wants us to do, when He says, “Swear not at all, not even on your own head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your communication be, ‘yes yes, no no’, for whatever is more than these is evil.” (Mt 5:33-37). People who swear believe they can guarantee that what they swear to will come to pass. Jesus is telling us that because we did not create ourselves, we cannot even guarantee that we will do any particular thing, And Jesus is also telling us that because we did not create ourselves, we should not try to control what we will do, but should instead try to let Our Creator control us.
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A fundamental mental shift (a paradigm shift) is the hardest thing for people to do. People will fight wars and will die before they will think in a new way: before they will believe that giving to all who ask of us and not asking for anything in return, and not resisting evil, will work better for us, than fear and fighting will work for us.
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Lk 10:38-42 Mary and Martha –“Martha, Martha, you are concerned with many things, yet one thing is needed. Mary chooses the good thing that will not be taken from her.”
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Jesus tells us that following him is worth the effort it takes even when we have to make great sacrifices to follow Him when He says, “If your right eye leads you to do evil, it would be better for you to pluck your eye out than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna, or if your right hand leads you to do evil it would be better for you to cut of your hand than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna .” (Mt 5:29-30). We know that it is not the right eye or the right hand that can lead us to do evil, but that it is our hearts that lead us to do evil, but knowing that if it were our eye or hand that led us to do evil, and that if losing our eye or hand were the only way we could stop doing evil, we would be better off without these parts of our body, helps us to understand how important it is that we follow Jesus. Jesus tells us the true source of evil, when He says, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man. Mt 15:19-20.
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Everything that is evil in us has been created so it can be transformed into something good. This is the way good is created. Good is evil that has been transformed. It may be that not every evil part of us will become good, and that not every person will become good enough to receive rewards from Our Creator, but this is what Our Creator wants to happen. Jesus tells us this when He says, “I came that I might save the world.” (Jn 12:47), and Jesus tells us that Our Creator especially wants people who are most evil to become good 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). I believe this is so because people who are most evil can do the most good, if they transform their evil into good through repentance.
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Jesus tells us of evil often; (Jn 3:19-21 and Jn 7:2-8, Mt 26:41, LK 22:46, Lk 16:9, Mt 6:5-15, Lk 11:2-4, Lk 14:26-33, Lk 9:23 & Mt 16:24)
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If each of does as much good as Our Creator expects us to do then we will be saved.
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Throughout human history, people who have called themselves Christians have often done evil and have sometimes done good. On balance, we who call ourselves Christians, do about as much evil and about as much good as all other people do, in proportion to our power. Because on average people who have called themselves Christians have had more power than other people have had, people who call themselves Christians have done both more good and more evil than other people have done. The actions of people who call themselves Christians, show us nothing that would lead us to believe that Jesus is correct when He tells us what Our Creator wants us to do. Instead, we know that Jesus is correct when He tells us what Our Creator wants us to do, because we see, in our lives, that when we forgive people who trespass against us, as Jesus tells us to do, then we receive things that we need and things that we ask for. Receiving things that we need and things that we ask for, is the reward Our Creator gives to people who do what He wants us to do, and not receiving things that we need and things that we ask for is the punishment Our Creator gives to people who do not do what He wants us to do. Power is seldom a reward to people who possess it, but is more often a punishment to these people because power often leads all of us to do evil for which we will later be punished. If we have forgiven people who have trespassed against us we will seldom ask for power.
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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. 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). I try to follow this command. When Jesus sends His disciples forth to preach His gospel, He says to them, “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).

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)

Jesus tells us to love each other, as He has loved us (Jn13:34 & Jn 15:12)
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)
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 be merciful, and meek, and poor in spirit. (Mt 5:3-12 & Lk 6:36)

What we say about our intended victim is what our intended victim said about people he or she did violence to. It is easy to vilify our intended victims.

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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People who call themselves Christians, often make the error of believing that following Jesus, means following the commands of people in their churches. Jesus tells us not to follow the commands of any person, but to only follow His commands, when He says to His disciples, “Be not you called Rabbi, for you have a teacher and you are all brothers. And call no man father, for you have a Father in the heavens. Neither be you called master, for Christ is your master.” (Mt 23: 5-12 & Lk 20: 45-47). This tells us that we must never call people any name that might lead us to follow those people instead of following Our Creator, and rabbi, father, and master are only three examples of these names. Jesus is not a secretary or a list maker. Jesus is instead our teacher and, if we are wise, Jesus will also be our master. If Jesus had tried to list every name we should reserve for Our Creator and for Him, He would have had less time left for the rest of His teaching. Thankfully Jesus did not do this. Jesus tells us enough names for us to see what those names have in common, and then Jesus leaves it to us, to add to this list each time we learn of another name that might lead us to follow people instead of following Him. The names Reverend and Pastor are two of the names we should add to this list. A reverend is anything that is an end toward which we direct reverence. Revere no man for there is one in the heavens whom you revere. While people can be pastors to sheep, only Jesus can be a pastor to people. Call no man pastor, for Christ is your pastor.

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MT 16:24 Then said Jesus to his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 16:25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. 16:26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
LK 9:23 And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. 9:24 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. 9:25 For what is a man advantaged, if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?
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Though most people who call themselves Christians, do not try to do most of what Jesus tells us to do, societies in which a large percentage of people have called themselves Christians, have still experienced great benefits from having a much higher percentage of people in these societies who have known how far their society is from the way that Our Creator wants all human societies to be. This has been a great benefit to these societies, because this awareness has led to creative tension in these societies, which has led to almost constant change, and to ever-present reform movements. It is always popular to call for change in societies in which a large percentage of people call themselves Christians. In other societies the belief that Our Creator wants all human societies to be radically different from the societies that currently exist in our world, is much less widespread. Even in societies in which most people call themselves Christians, only a small minority of all people, realize this. But this small minority makes a great difference in these societies. One way in which this awareness has helped these societies, has been by being the primary cause of the great advantage in technology that these societies enjoyed from before 1500 A.D. till approximately 2000 A.D., and of the great advantage in material wealth that this technological advantage has led to. The almost constant change that has occurred in these societies, has included an almost constant search for more effective technologies. One recent popular analysis of the causes of technical advantages in different societies, tries to attribute the vast majority of technical advantages, to conditions that are more favorable for the development of agriculture. This analysis does seem to explain the technical advantages of societies with conditions that are more favorable for the development of agriculture, over other societies. But it does nothing to explain the great technical advantages of some societies with conditions that are more favorable for the development of agriculture, over other societies with conditions that are more favorable for the development of agriculture.
The almost constant change and almost constant striving for something better, that characterizes societies in which a large percentage of people call themselves Christians, is considered a form of insanity by our modern mental health profession. This is so because to people who work in our modern mental health profession, this striving seems to come from a mental state in which a person can never be satisfied. People who work in our modern mental health profession, believe that it is impossible for human beings to live the way that Jesus tells us to live. And in truth, life does often seem to be much easier for people who do not try to do this. So if a person considers mental health to be choosing whatever path seems easiest in the short term, then to that person, trying to follow Jesus, would be a sign of poor mental health. True mental health, though, is realizing that sometimes things that are worth having, are difficult to obtain. Our Creator’s favor is one of these things. And obtaining Our Creator’s favor, is well worth trying as hard as we can to do all that Jesus tells us to do. People who work in our modern mental health profession, choose not to do this, and to make their choice seem more reasonable, these people do everything they can, to marginalize anyone who tries to follow Jesus. These people correctly note that it is very abnormal for a human being to try to live as Jesus tells us to live. And then these people try to discredit and punish anyone who by continuing to strive for this difficult goal, makes them look bad.
It is important for us to be willing to say that even though most people who call themselves Christians, do not try to do most of what Jesus tells us to do, societies in which a large percentage of people have called themselves Christians, have still benefited greatly from Jesus’ teachings. It is important to say this because those of us who belong to these societies, must be aware of these benefits in order to share them with people from other societies, because all people must see this to be able to understand Jesus, and because only people who understand Jesus will live as Jesus tells us to live, and for this reason, only people who understand Jesus, will receive the rewards that Our Creator will give to all people who live as He wants us to live. Jesus tells us all to share any benefit that we may possess, when He says, “Give to every one who asks of you, and do not ask for anything back from one who takes from you.” (Lk 6:30 (27-36), see also Mt 5:42- 48), and when He 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), and when He says, “Sell all that you have and give to the poor. It will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Lk 18:18-25, see also Mt 19:16-24, & Lk 12:33). Recently, though, many people from societies in which a large percentage of people have called themselves Christians, have tried not to say that their societies have benefited from Jesus’ teachings, because they think that it is not polite for them to say this. This can be seen most clearly in recent changes that have been made to the system of dating that we use. In creating any system of dating, it is essential that a certain year be chosen as the year 0, and that dates after this year be determined by counting forward, and that dates before this year be determined by counting backwards. Many different years have been chosen in different dating systems, and the reasons that different people have chosen to use different years, is an important part of history. Until recently the names used in our dating system, told us why people had chosen the year that is used in our system. Every year after the year zero was followed by the initials A.D., and it was common knowledge that these initials stood for the Latin phrase “Anno Domini”, and that this phrase means “Year of Our Lord”, And every year before the year zero was followed by the initials B.C., and it was common knowledge that these initials stood for the English worlds, “Before Christ”. These initials told us that in this system the year zero was chosen because it is believed to be the year in which Jesus Christ was born. This is an important historical fact, that most young people probably do not know, because in recent times the initials A.D. have been replaced by the initials C.E. (which stand for the English words, ‘Common Era’), and the Initials B.C. have been replaced by the initials B.C.E.. (which stand for the English words “Before Common Era). The claims that these words make, are simply false. There is no sense in which human history became more interconnected or more common at this date, and this date was not chosen in common by different groups of people in our world. These are the only two meanings that a young person would think of when hearing these terms, and both of these meanings are false. The only true thing that a young person might think about these terms is that they are nonsensical words that mean nothing. We have replaced terms that helped us learn about history, with terms that instead obscure history. We do not change history by doing this. All that we change is whether or not we know history. We intentionally make it hard for people to learn history, and by doing so, we make those people, more stupid than they would be otherwise. The only honest way in which we can use new names in our dating system, is to choose a different year zero. And maybe this should be done. The date on which Jesus was born, will still be just as important, whatever name we call it by. And there have also been many other important events in human history that might be chosen as new year zeros. The first time that people used writing, is one very important date that could be chosen, and so is the first time that people engaged in farming. Both of these dates are uncertain for people alive today, and for this reason, would have to be estimates, but archeology tells us approximately when these things happened. Or maybe people would want to use the date of the invention of the printing press as a new year zero. It is foolish, though, for us to injure ourselves by using names that make it harder for us to learn from the past. We might wish to change many of the things that have led to this dating system becoming a worldwide system. The primary reason this happened is because European nations ruled over the rest of the world, through the system we call colonialism. We might wish that this had not happened, but it is important to remember that this did happen. And trying to hide from this fact, only makes us more likely do things that are similarly unjust, in the future. Learning from the past, is something that we desperately need to do. And this needs to include learning both from things we are proud of, and from things we are ashamed of. As long as history is true, it is something that we need to learn from. I hate the fact that this dating system, associates Jesus, with colonialism. Colonialism is so antithetical to the teachings of Jesus, that it would be hard to imagine two sets of ideas more different than these two. Still, we should never try to hide from the truth, and the truth is that people who used the terms “Anno Domini”, and “Before Christ”, did create the system that we call colonialism. And though this system had great evil in it, I have no desire to try to try to hide from this fact. One of the most valuable things about Jesus’ teachings, is that these teachings can help evil people become good, if those people will admit their evil, and will work hard to transform that evil into good. This is what I hope will happen in the future. But if we try to hide from our past, then this will never happen.
Another reason it is not impolite to mention that many good things come from Jesus’ teachings, is that most people who call themselves Christians have still benefited so little from Jesus’ teachings, compared to how much any person will benefit from trying to follow Jesus’ teachings, and because for most of human history, the people who will benefit most from Jesus’ teachings, will be just as likely to come from any society in our world. One reason for this is that 2,000 years is a tiny period of time when compared to the amount of time for which people will benefit from Jesus’ teachings, in the future. We forget that we are still at the dawn of human history, and that many things which, like Jesus’ teachings, will help all people, have not yet had enough time to spread equally to all societies in our world. If we think of the total time that human history will last, as equivalent to a day, then the nearly 2,000 years that have passed since Jesus came to earth, are equivalent to far less than a second.

At this point some of you may want to know something about my personal history. So far I have not talked about myself because I know that I do not matter very much. What matters about me is whether or not I can help people understand Jesus’ teachings. Still I do have a personal history that I am not trying to hide, so I will now tell part of my personal history. And if anyone wants to know more about me, all they have to do is ask. Many parts of my personal history, are the partial fulfillment of the predictions that Jesus made when he said to His disciples as He sent them forth to spread His teachings, “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). “I came not to bring peace, but a sword. 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 10:34-39, Mt 16:24-26, & Lk 9; 23-25).
I have not encountered any opposition as severe as the opposition that Jesus told us His disciples would encounter, but as a disciple of Jesus, I have encountered some significant opposition.
Jesus’ teachings frighten many people greatly, because our world would change so much if Jesus’ teachings were truly followed by any significant number of people, and this fear leads many people to do extreme things to try to fight Jesus’ teachings. I have personally seen many of the extreme things that people do to fight against Jesus’ teachings, in the actions that my earthly parents have taken to try to force me to abandon my efforts to spread Jesus’ teachings.
It has not been easy for me to learn what Jesus teaches us. I am not complaining, because it is hard for most people to learn what Jesus teaches us, because most churches that call themselves Christian churches, are so far from teaching what Jesus teaches. This makes it so hard to learn about Jesus that most people who call themselves Christians, never understand Jesus correctly. But Jesus’ words are so clear that we can overcome this obstacle, and I believe that most people in our world, want to understand Jesus, and would benefit greatly from understanding Jesus. This is why I am trying to help these people understand Jesus better. To be able to do this, of course I had to learn what Jesus teaches, for myself first. To do this I had to devote myself to studying Jesus’ words full-time. This led to my not having enough money, and to being forced to live for a time live with relatives. Specifically, I was forced to for a time live with my earthly parents. During this period I was so short on money, that I was often not able to eat well enough to maintain good health. This made it take much longer for me to learn about Jesus, and to be able to write an essay that would help other people learn about Jesus. But I still feel very fortunate because I was able to do these things eventually, while so many other people are not able to do this.
My earthly parents had always complained about the state of our world, and had always claimed that they would work to try to improve our world, so I expected that they would want to help me spread a truer understanding of Jesus’ teachings. They did not want to do this, though, but instead tried in many ways to force me to abandon my efforts to spread Jesus’ teachings. One of the ways they tried to do this, was by often physically attacking me when I lived with them. They stopped their attacks before they did me permanent physical harm though. What they did, that was much more harmful, was to tell lies about me, that led to my being to my being imprisoned in what was called a “mental health” facility, for 2 months in the spring of 2008.
For about half a year after this, this experience made me believe that the opposition to Jesus’ teachings, was too great for me to fight against. But then I redoubled my courage and continued with my efforts to spread Jesus’ teachings.
After this imprisonment ended, I was forced to live with my earthly parents again, for a time, and during this period they did inadvertently help me prepare to spread Jesus’ teachings, while they tried to force me to abandon my efforts to spread Jesus’ teachings, in other ways. Though they also did many things that hindered my efforts to spread Jesus’ teachings. I am currently in this situation, and I will probably be forced to do many very risky things in order to spread Jesus’ teachings, because these earthly parents are now threatening to imprison me in a so-called “mental health” facility, again.
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Many other parts of my personal history have been much more pleasant than this. I received a good education, and this has helped me in countless ways throughout my life. I received this education first at public elementary schools in Northeast Ohio, in the towns of ‘Canal Fulton’ and ‘Wellington’, then at Wellington high school, then at Oberlin College where I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Then I had a number of work experiences, and while these work experiences did not lead to the career that I hoped for, I did learn a lot from them. Most of these work experiences took place in Northeast Ohio, and I spent more time working as a news reporter than I did in any other type of job. It is only in recent years that I have devoted myself full-time to studying Jesus’ words.
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We know that the conflict that Jesus brings to our world, will only be temporary, because Jesus also says to us, “I came that I might save the world.” (Jn 12:47). If the conflict that Jesus brings to our world, were meant to be permanent, Jesus would have said that He only came that He might save a part of the world, not the entire world. The conflict that Jesus brings, is only a step we must take in order to come together as Jesus wants us to come together.
Maybe I never will encounter any opposition as severe as the opposition that Jesus told us His disciples would encounter. I do not believe that Jesus was saying that every person who tried to follow Him would face this much opposition. Instead I believe that Jesus was telling us that some people who tried to follow Him would face this much opposition, and was telling us about the most opposition that any of His followers would face, so that we would be prepared for however much opposition we might have to face. I am surprised that my earthly parents have done these things to me. I never thought that they would.

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. 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). I try to follow this command. When Jesus sends His disciples forth to preach His gospel, He says to them, “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).

Again, I do not believe that Jesus was saying that all people who try to spread His gospel, must follow these commands. But Instead, I believe that Jesus was saying that some people who try to spread His gospels, will be forced to do these things, and that all people who try to spread His gospel, must always be prepared to follow this command.
It appears that I am one of the people who will be forced to follow this command.

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Jesus says to us ‘ “The foxes have their holes, and the birds have their nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” (Mt 8:20), and Jesus says, “The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If I have been treated as badly as you see, and if I am your master, think how much worse you will be treated.” (Mt 10:24-25, see also LK 6:40). These words tell me how lucky I have been, because I have still not been treated as badly as Jesus.

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I have often tried to help my earthly relatives learn about Jesus, and I have often asked these people to join me in my attempts to follow Jesus, and every time I have done either of these things, I have been attacked and shouted down by members of this family who refuse to even talk about Jesus’ teachings.

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Jesus is very clear in His command that I must forgive my earthly parents for all they have done to me. And I am currently doing this. Naturally, I am ashamed to be associated with my earthly relatives. And I am most ashamed of my earthly father, because he has been more extreme than all other people in these behaviors. Because of this shame, I hesitate to call myself by their family name. I also hesitate to do this because using this name, is misleading because it implies that I am more like them than I am. But I will still use their family name because I do not want to hide anything about myself. And because we are all often ashamed of things that our relatives do, and because if we do not stop being ashamed of the weakness that leads to all mistakes, then we will make the same mistakes they have made.
It would have been nice if I had not had to do these things, to be able to write an essay that could serve as an outline for the creation of a church that will encourage its members to try to follow the commands of Jesus Christ. But it is unrealistic to imagine that this was possible. Many people before me have tried to create a church that would do this. And at least since the fourth century A.D., they have all failed. I posses no special ability that was unknown to these people. And I have long known this. The only difference between me and them, is that I have known that I would only succeed in this endeavor, if I did many things differently than people have done in the past. And if I was willing to make sacrifices that people before me were not willing to make.
I have only been able to write on outline for creating such a church, because I have revised and rewritten this outline thousands of times. And I would not have had the time to do this, if I not made the sacrifices that I have made for this work. First I had to clearly state the truth, knowing that most people do not want to hear the truth, and in the face of great opposition from many of these people. And then I had to revise what I had written, so that most people who would hear or read what I had written, would realize that while they still do not want to hear the truth, their only hope lies in hearing the truth and in trying to make to best choice among alternatives that they wish were different. The way to do this, lies in the words of Jesus. Jesus tells us that he faced this exact problem when He says, “The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their works were evil.” (Jn 3:19-21), and when He says, “The World hates me because I testify that its works are evil.” (Jn 7:6-8). This desire to hide from the truth lies deep in the human soul. And we all share it. Just as with all people, it took me many years before I gave up on believing that our world is a good place, and realized that if any of us wants our world to be a good place, then we will have to drastically change our world. Many people before me have done a better job than I can do of describing the horrors that humankind enagages in whenever we face difficult circumstances. When circumstances have been extremely easy, we have treated each other well enough, not to seem horribly cruel, but to any objective observer, we will never seem nearly as graceful or as beautiful as other animals. The best that we can hope for from any objective observer, is the description that Douglas Adams famously gave to the human race when he called humanity, “Mostly Harmless”. At our best, this may be an accurate description of humanity, but the sad truth is that at most times and in most places, it is just another example of the ever present human desire not to see the truth about ourselves. But this description of humanity, is an important step towards seeing the truth. It is a description, in which we start to see the truth about ourselves. But it is only a step. Unless we are willing to see the full truth about our selves, and our societies, we are very dangerous to other human beings, and to all other creatures that we encounter.
While many people have seen how much we need to change ourselves, only Jesus tells us all that we must do, in order to solve our problems. And Jesus tells us how we can do these things. We must start by admitting that we do not want to do the right thing, but that we will only do what is right out of necessity. That is why Jesus tells us so often that none of us, will ever want to do what He tells us to do.
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It is natural human curiosity to, after reading or hearing all or part of what I have written, do Internet searches on my name or on parts of my name, and it is natural human self-interest to try to contact people who might be related to me in the hope that those people would be able to help us learn about Jesus. I am writing this to warn people against doing this with all people named Bosela other than myself, because if one did this that person would only find people who would probably show them same hostility they have shown me by attacking them as they attacked me, and who would not be able to help anyone learn about Jesus. The Pelly part of my name came to me because it was my mother’s maiden name. In recent years I have lost touch with my relatives in this part of my family, as in recent years and I have also lost touch with all other relatives on the Bosela side of my family and have not sent what I have written to these relatives, so it will also be likely to prove a fruitless search to try to contact any of these relatives of mine.
If I ever do feel I am being dragged down too low by the weight of the shame that the name ‘Bosela’ brings me, and if this ever leads me to use another name, I will choose a name that reflects my ancestry just as much as the name Bosela. I may choose my biological Father’s mother’s maiden name of Este, and would then call myself George Este. I might also start using this name if too many people try to contact my relatives who oppose my attempts to follow Jesus, with the hope of learning about Jesus from them. This might be especially likely to happen with my biological father, because he and I also share the first name George. In an attempt to imitate royalty, He calls himself George the second and gave me the official name of George Bosela the Third, instead of giving his children last names that included our Mothers’ Maiden names so that our names would have tell more about our ancestry, and so we all would have been firsts as we are in reality. I am like my Father in some ways but I am different from Him in so many ways that we should have different names to reflect these differences. The fact that we do not has often led to great confusion. In this regard the famous Bush family is more sensible and includes mothers maiden names in all people’s names, as have many other families in our world. Doing this is not a novel idea. In the past I have often used the name of George Bosela, III that was given to me, but now, I have now corrected this error by including my mother’s Maiden name of Pelly as a part of my name. Right now a google search for “George Bosela” brings up entries about my biological Father, not me. I do not believe there is any shame in changing one’s name, and I do not believe that anyone is obligated to carry the burden of shame a family name that brings him or her if he or she refuses to join in that family’s source of shame. It is simply that in my case this shame is a burden I choose to carry. Though I do choose to correct the error that my earthly parents made in calling me George Bosela, III, by using the name George Pelly-Bosela.
Because a last name usually tells about a part of our ancestry, I want to here tell everything I know about my ancestry. As I said before, Este is the maiden name of my earthly father’s mother who was named Sunya Este. Her last name and came from her earthly father, Robert John Este who was born somewhere in Italy). Her mother Emily Pondou was of French Ancestry. I do not believe I am related to the Estes who have been powerful people in Italian history. I believe instead that some of my ancestors were named for the town of Este, located just southwest of Venice. My earthly father’s father, also named George, was the son of Paul Bosela and Anne Lipka, both of whom came from Slovakia. My earthly mother’s father, Frank Pelly, was born in Reggio di Calabria. My earthly mother’s mother, Filomena Davanzo, was the daughter of Nick Davanzo, whose ancestors came from Naples. My earthly parents, my self, my brother, and one of my sisters were all born in Youngstown Ohio, and my other sister was born in Canton Ohio. If at some point in the future I use the name Este, that name would be very similar to a stage name that actors use or a pen name that authors use. But if I ever use that name in my attempts to spread Jesus’ gospel, that name will become the most important name I will possess Whatever names we use on Government documents, really doesn’t matter.
Because I am now writing about myself, I also want to now write about a traumatic experience I had involving people who worked in such a legal/penal system, who used coercion to try (with some success) to make me act as they wanted me to act. In September of 2004 I was falsely accused of disorderly conduct by a man who worked for the police department of Wellington, Ohio, and I was held as a prisoner under humiliating conditions for 13 hours until my earthly father and mother paid a bail that led to my release. Though the charges against me were false, in a decision I now regret, I pleaded no contest to these charges because I knew the man who would act as judge in the court I would have to stand before, and I had reason to believe this man would believe the lies that were told about me, and because the public defender who was supposed to represent me, was making it especially hard for the truth to be heard, and along with my earthly father harassed me with that public defender treating me rudely and with great disrespect and with my earthly father threatening me with physical violence. Under the duress thus inflicted on me, I pleaded no contest to the charges against me even though by doing so I was lying about what I had done and about what had been done to me, because the plea of no contest indicates agreement with the lies that had been told about me that were the basis of the false charges mad against me. I did this, though, because anyone who was likely to read my plea had made it clear that they had no interest in knowing the truth about me by working in a legal/penal system that was trying to encourage me to say what they wanted to hear by threatening me with 30 days in jail if I went to trial. The public defender that was supposed to represent me clearly said to many times, in his most threatening tones. “If you are found guilty in a trial you might be sentenced to pay a large fine and might have to spend 30 days in jail, but if you plead no contest and pay a smaller fine now you will avoid jail time, showing me that the primary concern of this public defender was trying to frighten me into making a false plea. Clearly people who want to know the truth will not threaten people like this to elicit a response they have already decided they want to hear. Arguments that trials would be avoided because they cost money, can never justify any attempt to encourage people to falsely confess. Arguments about trials being expensive should lead court and police workers to show restraint in using the courts as weapons, but when courts are used as weapons, arguments that money could be saved by false confessions are the arguments of people who want to deny rights and trample freedoms. It is correct that court money should never have been spent on the false charges made against me, but the only just way to have avoided this expense would have been to have restrained the corrupt man who worked for the police department of Wellington, Ohio, who had made false charges against me.
In spite of all that these people did to me, I did not want to join in their lies about me, and I regretted doing so almost immediately, and tried to withdraw this plea five minutes after I entered it on a document that was partially forged by the public defender who was supposed to represent me, but I was prevented from withdrawing this plea by an obstructionist court worker, and by a court bailiff who threatened me with violence. I have not told the names of the people who did these things to me because many innocent people probably also have the same names, but if anyone asks me I will not hesitate to name the people who did these tings to me. This experience has helped open my eyes to the corrupt nature of the courts in our nation. I know that I suffered little harm at the hands of these courts, compared to many people who suffer great harm at their hands. In addition to slandering my reputation, the corrupt man who lied about me, with the help of other police workers and the help of jail workers who believed his lies, had me abducted me and forced me to spend one humiliating sleepless night in jail, and because all that he did to me started when I was driving and he forced me to stop, I have since greatly reduced the occasions on which I drive on the mean streets on which this corrupt police worker could stop me at will, or shoot me at will. Jesus Christ says, “Judge not, lest you be judged.” Our corrupt court system shows us one of the reasons we should all follow this command.
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Because of their hostility to my attempts to follow Jesus, it is best at this time for me to have as little as possible to do with my earthly father, mother, brother, and sisters. Jesus also found Himself in this situation. This is made clear to us when as He stood at a podium before a large crowd, Jesus was told that His mother and brothers were outside the building He was speaking in, and wished to see Him. Jesus then asked the person who had told Him this, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” then Jesus stretched forth his hand to 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), and when before the advent of His public ministry Jesus’ brothers harassed and taunted Jesus by challenging the value of His teachings, saying, ‘If your teachings are valuable then start your ministry earlier than is ordained (Jn chap. 7). We can also tell that Jesus was distant from His mother by His initial response to her when she asked Him to turn water into wine, of ‘What have I to do with you, woman.’ (Jn. Chap. 2). Later, though Jesus’ mother did stand by the cross He was nailed to, and after Jesus’ crucifixion some of His brothers helped spread His teachings, so it appears that these people did later gain some respect for the value of Jesus’ teachings, or at lest saw after Jesus’ crucifixion that they could make some money by helping spread Jesus’ teachings, (as I suspect is true of Jesus’ brothers).
I hope that that like Jesus, I can be at least partially reconciled with my biological family, but at least at this time I can do a better job of teaching Jesus’ gospel if I have nothing to do with them. To distance myself from them, and to prevent people who have not read this far in what I have written from trying to contact them and learn about Jesus from them, I am tempted to now change my name. I will not do this, though, because any shame they bring me is my burden to bear and I will not shirk that burden.
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Though I have spent most of my life in Northern Ohio, and currently live in Northern Ohio, I now believe that northern Ohio is probably not the place in which I should now work to spread Jesus’ gospels or in which The Church of human Weakness should be founded or headquartered. At one time I thought that it might be, but since then I have met great resistance from many people in Northern Ohio, who I had believed would want to also learn the lessons Jesus’ teaches us and would want to help other people learn these lessons. This ranges from family members to people who have called themselves Christian ministers, but who were opposed to trying to understand Jesus’ true teachings. I’m sure there are many people in northern Ohio who would want to join the Church of Human weakness but these people are hard for me to find, and I will be able to help these people much more by founding the Church of Human Weakness elsewhere. The Church of Human Weakness should be founded wherever there will be the most dedicated community of people who will help this church plant itself and spread deep, strong roots. This church is now like a sapling that will grow into a strong tree able to withstand many storms if it plants strong roots now.
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Differences in our personal circumstances are superficial and transitory. Any valuable lesson is the same for all people, regardless of circumstance, race, or sex. Different people may communicate the same lesson differently, but the lesson is the same for all people.

With regard to me, personal circumstances are not only superficial and transitory, but do not even tell very much about the way I am right now. I have lived alone as a near hermit for most of my adult life. I have only had to work part-time because my expenses are low, and I have worked in jobs in which I have had little extended contact with other people. Most of my work has been as a free-lance writer who has written for small newspapers. My expenses have been low because I have always lived in small apartments, and because I have never bought many things. I have spent most of my time reading books from libraries, or sometimes watching television. Everything that I am or that I strive to be is best expressed in the essay I told you of in which I talk about lessons I have learned from Jesus. My primary goal in life is to try to live by these lessons, and to try to share these lessons with as many other people as possible.
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Jesus tells us that we will not want to follow Him, 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, & Mk 8:34). We will have to deny ourselves every day of our lives. We will never want to do what Our Creator wants us to do. Our only path to Our Creator’s favor is to see this, and to deny our desires; Every day. And Jesus tells us this again, when he says, “If any one does not hate his life, he cannot follow me” (Lk 14:26-33). We can never win Our Creator’s favor by doing what we want to do. We can only win Our Creator’s favor by taking Jesus’ yoke. A yoke is a wooden collar that binds two oxen together at their necks, and that keeps those oxen from leaving a farmer who is making them plow his field. Just as an ox will often wish to be free of a farmer’s yoke, we will often wish to be free of Jesus’ yoke. Jesus tells us, though, that “My yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Mt 11:30). When compared to the burden we would have to carry if we did what we want to do, Jesus’ yoke is very easy, and His burden very light indeed. Jesus tells us that, “Every one who sins is a slave of sin” (Jn 08:34). If we do what we want to do, we will serve the harsh master of sin, rather than the gentle master that is Jesus. Even Jesus had to deny what He wanted to do, in order to do what Our Creator wanted Him to do. Because of this, Jesus shows us the perfect example of how to deny ourselves. When Jesus was coming close to His crucifixion, He prayed to Our Creator, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will but as You will.” (Mt 26:39, 42 & 44, Mk 14:36, & Lk 22:42). Jesus did not want to die on the cross, but He did die on the cross, because Our Creator wanted Him to.
If a person wanted to do everything that Our Creator wants that person to do, then that person would be good, and then that person would not have to deny him or herself. This will never be though. Any person who tries to make him or herself want to do, what Our Creator wants him or her to do: That person will instead, make him or herself believe that what Our Creator wants him or her to do, is the same as what he or she wants to do. Such a person will not do Our Creator’s will, but will instead do his or her own will. Seeing our evil lets us see the good that Our Creator wants us to do. When we try to convince ourselves that we are good, we tell ourselves that Jesus told us to do much less than He actually told us to do, and we substitute things that are easier for us to do, for the more difficult things that Jesus actually told us to do. We will only be able to see what Jesus truly teaches, when we admit that we do not want to follow Jesus’ teachings. This is very hard for us to admit though, because each of us believes that if he or she does not want to do what Our Creator wants us to do, then he or she will be punished for this, and will be punished even more harshly for sometimes failing to do what Our Creator wants us to do. We will only admit that we do not want to do what Our Creator wants us to do, if we believe that Our Creator will not punish us for admitting this. This is why Jesus says to us, “If you forgive men their trespasses, then Your Heavenly Father will forgive you, but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, then neither will Your Father forgive you” (Mt 6:9-15, & Mk 11:25-26), “Forgive and you will be forgiven” (LK 6:37)
Knowing this is still not enough for us to forgive people who trespass against us, though. To be able to forgive people who trespass against us, we must also see that however much forgiveness any person may need from us, each of us needs more forgiveness from Our Creator. Jesus knows this about us. This is why He tells us that, “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). Whatever another person may owe us, each of us owes more to Our Creator. “Judge not, lest you be judged. For with whatever judgement you judge, you shall be judged.” (Mt 7:1-2, & Lk 6:37). If we judge by the standards of justice, then we shall be judged by the standards of justice. Justice is our enemy, and mercy our only hope. Jesus tells us what will happen to us if Our Creator shows us justice instead of mercy, when He says, “Agree with your adversary quickly; lest he deliver you to the judge, the judge deliver you to the officer, and you be cast into prison. If this happens you will not come out until you have paid the last cent.” (Mt 5:25-26 & Lk 12:58-59). When Jesus sees people who are about to stone a woman for adultery, He says to them, “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.” (Jn 8:7). Jesus says this to remind these people that if they punish this woman for her sins, then Our Creator will punish them for their sins. Justice is our enemy, and mercy our only hope. The good news that Jesus brings to our world is the news that we will receive mercy from Our Creator if we show mercy to our brother’s and sisters. We should all rejoice to hear this news. Because if we had to be good to receive good things from Our Creator, then none of us would ever receive good things from Our Creator. Jesus is showing us a way out of the misery we would know if Our Creator showed us justice instead of mercy. Jesus is showing us that our lives are not the hopeless tragedies they would be if Our Creator only gave good things to good people. Our Creator’s mercy allows us to get good things that we don’t deserve, and Jesus shows us how we can receive Our Creator’s mercy.
If we will learn the lessons that Jesus is teaching us, then we will be able to be good, and then we will be able to do well. If we will not learn these lessons, though, then we will remain as we currently are. Jesus is trying to teach us how we can evolve into higher beings. As I had said before, The description of humanity as “Mostly Harmless”, while it is wishful thinking is an important step toward seeing the truth about ourselves, because this description recognizes the fact that in the past the only question that any objective observer would ask about humans is the question, “How dangerous are they?” A more accurate description, though, is the description made by the author “Mark Twain”, when he said, “Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very very best he is a sort of low grade nickel-plated angel; at is worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time he is a sarcasm” If we imagine human beings remaining as they are today, and if we are honest, then our only choice is to be sickened and depressed by humanity. What we must realize, though, is that humanity is not a finished product, but is instead still in the process of being created. Compared to what we can be, no person who has yet existed, has been anything to write home about. As long as we are always getting better, though, then we will eventually come to be as we should be. The greatest quality that humanity posseses, is its ability to stick around. We may fail horribly, but at least we can keep tyrying to do better. It is often said of humans, that they will do the right thing, after they have tried every other option. This is our best hope, but of course it will take longer than we like for us to try every other option. And of course one human lifetime is not long enough for us to do this. We must learn from the failure of people who came before us. Otherwise we will just repeat their mistakes. Of course this is often what people do. That is why the best way for us to avoid the mistakes of the past, is for us to follow Jesus’ commands. All history teaches us the folly of not doing this. The times in history when people have actually tried to follow Jesus’ commands, are rare, and little is known about these people’s lives. And the vast majority of people who called themselves Christians, stopped trying to follow Jesus, as soon as they gained earthly power. This is an accurate description of the early history of Christianity. For a little bit more than 300 years after Jesus lived, it seems as if most people who called themselves Christians, tried to live as Jesus taught. This definitely ended, though, when the Christian Church condoned the violence of the Roman empire by becoming the state church of that empire, in the fourth century A.D.. And ever since that time, the vast majority of Churches that have called themselves Christian churches, have not encouraged their members to refrain from state sponsored violence, and by failing to do this, they have not even tried to follow Jesus.
“Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48). We who are alive today: we are have been given much more than our ancestors were given, and because of this much more is demanded of us than was demanded of them. Many fewer people today go without food of shelter, than in the past, and many fewer people today live in fear of going without. The fear of going without is one of the things that most often keeps us from being able to follow Jesus, and the fact that we feel less of this fear should allow us to follow Jesus much more closely than our ancestors followed Jesus. Sometimes it will not seem as if fewer people today go without food and shelter, than went without food and shelter in the past, because wealthy people today see the poorest people more often, through television and video, and because these people compare what they see to a much higher standard of living than people knew in the past. The standard most people live at today was known only by the wealthiest people in the past, what we consider extreme poverty today was much more common in the past, and the way wealthy people live today was only a fantasy in the past. Because less was expected of our ancestors, maybe Our Creator judged them favorably if they followed Jesus’ teachings once or twice in their lives. Today, though, we know that much more is demanded of us than was demanded of them.
Recognizing that Our Creator expects different amounts of goodness from each of us, helps us not judge as Jesus tells us not to judge. When Jesus tells us to forgive people who trespass against us, to give to all who ask of us and ask for nothing in return, and not to resist evil, we will be tempted to judge anyone we see not doing these things. What we must remember, though, is that none of us knows how much good Our Creator demands from any of us, or how much forgiveness any of us must show to people who trespass against us, to receive Our Creator’s forgiveness. One person may show more forgiveness, and may do more good, than another person, but may not receive Our Creator’s forgiveness while the second person may be forgiven, because more may have been given to the first person, and for this reason more may also have been demanded of the first person.
It will take many generations for us to make the changes in ourselves that will allow us to live as Jesus tells us to live. This will have to happen by each generation learning how to come a little bit closer to living as Jesus tells us to live, and that generation then passing whatever has been learned to the next generation, and by each generation encouraging people in the next generation not to imitate them but to instead improve on the way they have lived. It is often nearly as hard for us to see faults in our ancestors or parents, as it is for us to see faults in ourselves because we believe that faults bring shame on their owners and that if we do not ignore faults and weaknesses in our parents and ancestors, that our children and descendants will not ignore faults and weaknesses in us. In truth, though, there is no shame in faults or weaknesses. The only source of shame is not making progress toward reducing our faults and weaknesses, and not being a part of the intergenerational progress of our world that will allow our descendants to live as Jesus tells us to live. Jesus knows that today we cannot live as He tells us to live, and only expects each of us to help our world move toward a time when our descendants will be able to live this way. The amount of progress Jesus expects each of us to make depends on how much has been given to each of us, and while we cannot know how much progress is expected of any of us, we do know that if we try as hard as we can to live as Jesus tells us to live, we will be able to do all Our Creator expects of us, because Jesus says to us, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.” (Jn 6:35). Jesus will not return to judge our world until we have had enough time to have had a fair chance to have learned to live as He tells us to live. Maybe 2,000 years is enough time for us to do this. Maybe 2,000 years is a very short time to Jesus, and maybe the progress people have made toward living as he tells us to live, since He came to our world, is as much progress as He has expected us to make over this period. At least today most people in our world are able to read Jesus’ words, and many of us do read these words, and some of us try to understand them. Given the obstacles our ancestors have had to overcome, maybe this is as much as was expected of them. We cannot know and we should not try to know: “Judge not lest you be judged.” (Mt 7:1-2, & Lk 6:37).
When Jesus said, nearly 2,000 years ago, “I will return before this generation has passed away”, (“Mt 24:34), He was using the word generation from the perspective of eternity that He and Our Creator share, and when used in this way a generation is a much longer period of time than the generations we speak of. Jesus did not make this difference clear to us, because we should not try to know when He will come again, but should instead try to always live as he tells us to live, so we will be prepared whenever He comes again. Jesus tells us this when He says, “You know not in what hour the Son Of Man shall come. Blessed is the servant who is found doing his master’s will when that master returns.”, (Lk 12:40-43) , and when He says, “When you hear people shouting that they see me returning in one place or another, It will not be me they see, but impostors. When I return it will be so obvious to everyone that I have come, that there will be no uncertainty and no need to even say, ‘there He is.’ My coming will be as obvious as lightning that lights up the entire sky.” (Mt 24:23-27)

The full effect of Jesus’ teachings, is hard for us to see for at least two reasons. The first reason is that people have often taught lessons they have learned from Jesus, to other people, without telling those people that what they taught came from Jesus. People who have done this, have usually done this because Jesus has been given a bad reputation by other people who call themselves Christians but who ignore Jesus’ teachings. The second reason is that when people come to believe some of the things Jesus teaches us, independently of Jesus, if these people persist in these beliefs, and if these people pass these beliefs on to other people, at least in the western world these things will usually happen because Jesus also teaches these beliefs. This is so because in the short-term, actions based on altruism, pacificism, or any other belief Jesus teaches, will often not help people who perform them, and in the short-term will often do great harm to people who perform them. When this happens, if we do not have Jesus’ support and assurances, we will also come to believe that these actions will not help people who perform them, and will do harm to who perform them, in the long-term. Jesus tells us often, though, that following His teachings will help us in the long-term, in spite of the fact that following His teachings will hurt us in the short-term. Jesus tells us this when He says 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 Jesus tells us that the punishment Our Creator will give to people who do not do as much good as he expects them to do, will be much more damaging than any harm other people can do to us when He says, “Fear not those who can who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul. Fear instead He who can destroy both body and soul.” (Mt 10:28 & Lk 12:4-5)

Section 18. 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.

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, though. 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.

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). “The World hates me because I testify that its works are evil” (Jn 7:2-8)

Jesus tells us to rejoice when the world hates us when He says. “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).

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.

If I and people who 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 19. 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.
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.
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 20. Becoming One in Jesus

While we are in this world, each of us is like a molecule of flour, egg, or water that is being baked into bread. God is our baker and the world is our oven. Jesus is the heat that brings us together as one, and Jesus is the yeast that makes us rise as one. When we have become one, as flour egg and water become one in bread, we will be taken out of this oven and, for us, the world will end. This is the event that Jesus tells us of when He tells us how it will be when He comes again.
When we are close to becoming one in Jesus, all of the forces that keep us apart: war, famine, pestilence, and disasters of all kinds, will make a desperate last stand. If we persevere, though, these forces will fail, and we will know the joy and contentment that only people who are living in perfect harmony and brotherhood can know: The joy and contentment that God prepared for us at the beginning of the world: The joy and contentment that has always been waiting for us to come and receive it. We know that human unity will bring about Jesus’ return, because everything that Jesus tells us to do is something that will bring us into harmony with our fellow human beings, and because if we do all that Jesus tells us to do, then harmony, brotherhood, and unity will come to us as easily and as certainly as water flows down a mountain when snow melts on that mountain’s top.

Jesus wants all people to become one in Him
Jesus tells us this when He says, “I came that I might save the world.” (Jn 12:47) Jesus does not say that He came to save a part of the world, or that He came to save some people who are in the world. Jesus tells us that he came to save the entire world.
Jesus tells us that he has come to save that which needs to be saved, when he says, “I am come to save that which is lost.” (Lk 19:10, & Mt 18:11). Because all people are lost this tells us that Jesus has come to save all people.
And Jesus tells us how important it is to God 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 )
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).

Why we resist becoming one in Jesus
Because we only know our current existences, and because we cannot see what it will be like when we become as one, we resist the unity that Jesus tries to teach us. Instead we try to preserve our selves as they currently are. To come together as one, we will have to give up part of our individuality, we will have to give up part of our personalities. Though we resist doing this, If we can bring ourselves to give up the parts of our personalities that keep us from becoming one with all people, we will be glad that we have given them up, and we will see that these parts of our personalities, these parts of our selves, had only brought us pain and suffering.
The parts of our selves that we will have to give up to come together as one in Jesus, are the parts of our selves that make it hard for us to get along with other people: our aggressiveness and anger, our combativeness and prickliness, our defense mechanisms, and our offense mechanisms. Our fear deceives us into thinking that we need these things. If we do not have them we are afraid the world will overwhelm us. If we desire things of man, then we do need aggressiveness and anger, combativeness and prickliness, and defense mechanisms and offense mechanisms. without aggressiveness and anger, without combativeness and prickliness, and without defense mechanisms, and offense mechanisms we will not be able to get things of man. Things of man will never bring us contentment, though. When we get things of man we find that they only increase the hunger we had hoped they would sate. Only things of God will bring us contentment, because only things of God will lead us to live in harmony, brotherhood and unity with our fellow human beings. This is why Jesus tells us not to think of things of man, but to instead think of things of God. (Mt 16:23).
Currently our fear of other people, and other people’s fear of us, keeps us from living in harmony with all people. If we follow Jesus, though, we will be able to overcome our fear, and if we follow Jesus we will be able to show other people that they need not fear us by showing other people how meek we have become. Today most people try to make themselves seem powerful to other people. When we live in Jesus we will try to make ourselves seem weak and frail to other people, and we will know that we are weak and frail in God’s eyes.

Until we can become one with all people

We will not be able to become one with all people until we have given our lives to Jesus. Giving our lives to Jesus is not something that we can do quickly or easily. We can start to follow Jesus at any time, but we will not be able to give our lives to Jesus until we have followed Jesus with all of our heart, and with all of our soul, and with all of our mind, for many years. For most of us, it will take at least a lifetime of following Jesus to be able to live in harmony with all people.
Until we are able to give our lives to Jesus, the best that we can do is to live in harmony and brotherhood with certain people who we think are more like us than other people are, and who think that we are more like them than other people are. Until we can live in harmony with all people, we should live in harmony with whatever people we are able to live in harmony with. But we should always remember that doing so will only help us, and will only please God, if it prepares us to live in harmony and unity with all people.
Living in harmony with some people but not with all people is only valuable to us, and is only valuable to God, for the sake of the practice it gives us. The only value in living in harmony with some people, but not with all people, lies in the fact that living in harmony with some people, but not with all people, can serve as a rehearsal for the day when all people will be able to live as one in Jesus.

The temptation to become one with some people, but not with all people
When the day comes that all people will be able to live as one, We should be grateful for the practice we have had in living in harmony with other people as members of groups we now belong to, But on that day, we must be prepared to freely leave behind our attachment to these groups so we will be able to join with all people. Often though, we cling to groups that we belong to, when we could live in harmony with larger groups of people, and often we use groups that we belong to as a means of separating ourselves from other people, rather than using these groups as a means of preparing ourselves to become one with all people. One reason we all often do this, is that we all often doubt that God will give us things we need. When we doubt that God will give us things we need, we often turn to people in the hope that people will give us things we need. 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.
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.

In Jesus we will forget our names.
We usually feel closer to our biological relatives than we do to other people, and we also frequently feel closer to people who live near to us, to people who look like us, to people who speak the same language we speak, to people who do things that we do, and to people who do these things in the same way that we do them, than we feel to other people. And these people also frequently feel closer to us than they do to other people.
When we live in Jesus, we will see that all of the differences that now make us feel closer to some people than to other people are trivial and meaningless differences in God’s eyes. As far as God is concerned we are all equally His children.
When we see that these differences don’t matter to God we will forget them, and we will forget that they ever existed. At this time, we think of ourselves as members of a certain family, at this time, we think of ourselves as men or women, at this time, we think of ourselves as old or young, and at this time, we think of ourselves as citizens of a certain nation, and as members of certain ethnic groups and races. When we live in Jesus we will forget all of these things. We will no longer know if we are black, or white, or red, or yellow. We will no longer know if we are male or female. We will no longer know if we are old, or young. We will no longer know what nation we live in. And we will no longer even know what our names are.

Be Not You Called Master
Because dividing into groups that are at odds with each other, often leads us to reject the mercy we need God to show us, Jesus tells us not to follow other people, and Jesus tells us not to let other people to follow us. Jesus tells us instead that we should follow only Him. Jesus tells us this when he says, “Be not you 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)
Calling people rabbi, father, or master, encourages us to follow people who we call by these names. And letting people call us rabbi, father or master, encourages people who call us by these names to follow us. Calling people by these names also leads us to think that people who we call by these names are as good as Jesus is. No person will ever come close to being as good as Jesus is. Jesus denied Himself and denied His desires, so often that He did far more of God’s will than any person will ever do. We only deny ourselves infrequently and for short periods, and we only deny ourselves when it is easy for us to do so. Jesus denied Himself often, and for long periods of time, and Jesus denied Himself when it was very hard for Him to do so.
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.
Any person who sees his or her evil as Jesus wants each of us to see our evil will never want any other person to call him or her Master, Rabbi, Father, Pastor, or Reverend, and will never want any person to call him or her by any name that might encourage that person to put him or her in Jesus’ place or in God’s place. Any person who sees his or her evil as Jesus wants each of us to see our evil will know that people should never follow other people, but should instead follow only Jesus.

Until we can Follow Jesus
Though we should always follow Jesus, and though we should follow only Jesus, We will usually not be able to follow Jesus. Both our own evil, and the evil of other people will usually keep us from following Jesus. Until we are able to always follow Jesus, If we are lucky we might sometimes be able to benefit from following other people because following other people allows us to practice following someone other than ourselves, and because following other people can help us prepare to follow Jesus.
Following people is very dangerous, though. No person will ever be wholly in harmony with Jesus, and following other people will lead us away from Jesus, and following other people will often lead us to violate many of Jesus’ commands. If we follow people at all, we should try to follow people who will come closer than other people would come, to leading us to do what Jesus would lead us to do.
Not calling these people by names that we call Jesus and God by will help us remember that as soon as we are able to, we should stop following these people and should follow Jesus instead. If we sometimes follow people, we should constantly be aware that we are only following people because we are not able to always follow Jesus, we should always be hoping that we will soon be able to always follow Jesus, we should eagerly anticipate the day when we will be able to always follow Jesus, and we should always be prepared to freely and joyously stop following people as soon as we are able to follow Jesus instead.

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 21.
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). And 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)
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).

Following Jesus will help us see our evil
And Following Jesus will build our faith in Jesus
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. 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.

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.
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 22.
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.
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)

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.

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.
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.

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 23. 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 be merciful, and meek, and poor in spirit. (Mt 5:3-12 & Lk 6:36)
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.
2Have 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.
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.

Section 24.
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.

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.
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.”
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
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.

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.

Understanding what Our Creator wants us to do, helps us both by allowing us to receive rewards from Our Creator for doing what Our Creator expects of us, and by giving us the peace of mind that comes from knowing that we are not displeasing Our Creator in areas that do not matter to Our Creator.
Jesus also often tells that Our Creator cares very little about what we do in certain areas. For example Jesus tells us that Our Creator only cares about what we say to Him, about what name we call Him, or about what rituals and ceremonies we perform to please Him, if our words, rituals, or ceremonies, lead us to do what He wants us to do.

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.
Because we cannot do what Our Creator wants us to do, each of us needs more forgiveness from Our Creator than any other person will ever need from us. This is so because the Reason Our Creator has given us our lives and the abilities we possess is so we will use those lives and abilities to do what He wants us to do. Because of this we have an obligation to do what Our Creator wants us to do, and every time we refuse to do what Our Creator wants us to do we are doing greater harm to Our Creator than any other person will ever do to us. 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)
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 25. 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 …

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.
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.

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).

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.
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.
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).

We will be able to do much more of what Jesus tells us to do if we try to do all that Jesus tells us to do, than we will be able to do if we only try to do part of what Jesus tells us to do. This is so because doing any thing Jesus tells us to do, will help us do other things Jesus tells us to do. This is easiest to see when we recognize how selling what we have and giving to the poor will help us not resist evil. Selling what we have and giving to the poor will help us not resist evil by decreasing the amount of evil other people will try to do to us. When other people try to do great evil to us, and when we fear that other people will try to do great evil to us, we will all try to resist evil. The best chance we have of not resisting evil most of the time is to hope that little evil is done to us, and to try not to imagine false evil where no evil exists. This is why Jesus tells us to pray, “Lord lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.” Every time other people try to do evil to us, and every time we fear that other people will try to do evil to us, we will be tempted to resist, and if our temptation is great, we will resist and by doing so we will do evil, and the evil we will do will hurt us much more than any evil other people could do to us. This is so because 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 to us. If we hope to receive Our Creator’s forgiveness we must try to overcome the temptation to resist evil whenever we are tempted, but more importantly we must hope that we do not know great temptation, by hoping that other people seldom try to do evil to us. If we have great material riches other people will try to do much more evil to us than they would try to do otherwise, but if we sell all that we have and give to the poor, then other people will try to do less evil to us than they would try to do under any other circumstances.. They will do this because they will want to take our material riches from us. Sometimes people who have less in material goods than we have will try to do this, but more often it will be people who have more than we have, who will try to take material riches from us. Selling all that we have and distributing to the poor will also reduce the amount of evil other people will do by allowing many poor people to avoid work that would lead them to do evil. This is easiest to when we realize that most people who work in military and police forces do so in part because of their need for money, and that these people violate Jesus’ command not to resist evil during their best moments at work, and that often they initiate evil as a part of their work. If no one ever had to do violence to earn money, most of the fighting in our world would end. We would all sometimes still fight for personal reasons, but times that we fight for personal are far rarer than times we fight in order to keep jobs that we need in order to avoid material poverty. Selling all that we have and distributing to the poor will also help us in other ways. Jesus tells us this when He says, “Do not lay up treasure on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves dig through and steal. Instead, lay up treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupt, and where thieves do not dig through and steal.” (Mt 6:19-23 & Lk 12:33). And Jesus tells us this again when He tells us of a man, who had gathered great worldly wealth, and who enjoyed thinking about the things he had. “’You fool’, said God to this man, ‘Tonight your soul will be required of you, then whose will those things be.’ So it is with anyone, who lays up treasure for himself, but is not rich toward heaven” (Lk 12:15-21), and when he says to His disciple Peter, “Get behind me Satan. You are an offence to me because you do not think of things of God, but think instead of things of men.” (Mt 16:23). Selling all that we have and distributing to the poor would help us so much that if we were able to sell all we have and distribute to the poor then we would also be able to do everything else Jesus tells us to do. This is true of many of Jesus’ commands. For example if we were able to always forgive people who trespass against us, then we would also be able to do everything Jesus tells us to do, And if we were able to give to all who ask of us and ask for nothing in return this too would make us able to do all that Jesus tells us to do.
The command to “sell all that we have and distribute to the poor”, does not refer only to material possessions but also refers to every ability we possess, to every bit of energy we possess, and to our lives themselves. We are to sell every thing we have for the poor. One person may be able to help the poor most by accumulating material wealth and then selling that wealth and distributing to the poor, while another person may be able to help the poor most by dedicating his or her life to the service of the poor. Selling all that we have means that we are to develop whatever abilities in us are most valuable, and then use those abilities to help the poor. otherwise we will only have sold part of what we have. Many people can help the poor most by creating new things that will help the poor and by giving these things to the poor. For example creating a high quality free library near where poor people live, can often be the way in which a person can give the most to the poor. So also can writing a book that helps poor people learn how to live wisely and giving copies of this book or internet access to this book to the poor, or creating a work of art that helps poor people learn how to live wisely. Protecting our natural environment is another way of giving to the poor. These ways of giving to the poor will often also help people who are not poor, because the elements of a good life are the same for all people. If they do this, then this is an added benefit. They must help the poor, though, if we hope to follow Jesus’ command, and if we hope to receive rewards Jesus tells us of, and avoid punishments Jesus tells us of. Whether or not this is the way in which a particular person can give the most to the poor depends on the abilities that person has been given, and depends on the circumstances of that person’s life. Jesus says to us, “To whoever much is given. Much will be demanded of that person.” This tells us that our abilities determine what Our Creator expects of each of us.

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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 please leave a message on it, because I may be unable to answer calls at this number but may be able to get these messages and return your call. 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. 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.
The full essay, most of which I have just sent to you, can along with later sections that are not included in this email can be found at http://howwecanheal.blogspot.com . At this website these later sections are included as a separate blog entry. Please 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 shown you this essay because I hope and believe you will want to help heal our world, and because I believe we can all do more to help heal our world, and can do less to harm our world, 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. Now that you have read this essay I believe you will agree with me.

Section 26. More on Understanding Jesus
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.

Because God has created us, we can only find joy and contentment by doing what God wants us to do.

God has already given us
all we need to find joy and contentment.
Because God is our creator we can only find contentment and joy by doing what God wants us to do. Knowing this, and knowing what Jesus teaches us God wants us to do are the only things we can know about God that will help us find joy. Knowing whether or not God controls everything in our world will not help us at all. Because Jesus knows this, Jesus never tells us whether or not God controls everything in our world. Jesus only tells us that God is our lord and master and that if we do not please God we will suffer greatly: As Jesus puts it, “There will be great wailing and gnashing of teeth.” If we do not please our Heavenly Father. As Jesus said to Peter when Peter tried to judge another disciple, “What concern is it of yours if I will that he tarry till I come? You follow me. (Jn21:21-24). Jesus is telling Peter that his own actions should be his only concern. And that he should not try to judge anyone else or anything else.
The reason that it would not help us to know whether or not God controls everything in our world, is that God has already done everything we need him to do for us. There is nothing that we could want God to give us, that God has not already given us. If we have not received a thing that we need, this is so only because we have not yet learned how to receive what God has given us. The way in which we can receive gifts that God has given us, is by doing what God wants us to do. We can learn how to do what God wants us to do from Jesus.
We cannot influence what God will do, and if we are wise we will not want to influence what God will do. This is so because if we are wise, we will know that in comparison to God all people are fools. God knows what He should do far better than any person could ever know what God should do. If we do sometimes ask God to do anything for us, we should not actually hope to influence God’s actions. We should instead ask God to do things for us, so that we can better understand ourselves. Asking God to do things for us can help us see things that we are lacking, and asking God to do things for us can help us see our desires more clearly. The more clearly we can see our desires, the more accurately we can determine if our desires are sometimes the same as God’s desires for us, and the more clearly we can see how our desires differ from God’s desires for us.
Jesus tells us that God already knows what we need when He says, “Take no thought, for what you will eat, or for what you will drink, or for what you will wear. “Your heavenly father knows that you need these things.” Jesus then tells us how we can receive all of these things when He says, “First seek God’s righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Mt 6:25-33 & Lk 12:22-34).

Why it is dangerous to think we know more about God than what Jesus tells us about God
1.)
Jesus tells us very little about how God will reward us for doing His will.
Jesus does tell us that if we follow Him we will often suffer, but that God will more than make up for our suffering with rewards He will give us. Because of this we never know whether we should expect rewards or suffering at any particular time.
All that Jesus tells us about God’s rewards is that one of God’s rewards is eternal life. Jesus does not describe this life though.
One reason for this is that we will only desire the life that God will give us for eternity when we have been transformed by following Jesus. In our current state the life that we would know in the kingdom of heaven would probably not appeal to us very much.
Jesus also does not tell us that God intervenes in the world to reward people who do His will. God may not have to intervene to reward people who do His will. God may instead have created the world in such a way that people who do His will are rewarded without His needing to intervene. Just as on our planet water always flows downhill, so also do rewards always flow to people who do God’s will. Both of these things might happen without God having to intervene each time they happen.
Both the exact nature of the rewards God will give to people who follow Jesus and whether or not God intervenes in the world He has created to reward people who follow Jesus are not things that we need to know about God. Knowing these things would not help us to do God’s will. This is why Jesus does not tell us these things.
Any thing about God other than the actions that He will reward and the actions that He will punish are things that we do not need to know about God.
2.)
Believing that we know anything that we don’t know only makes it harder for us to follow Jesus. This is so because following Jesus requires that we see ourselves as we are: weak limited beings who desperately need Our Creator’s forgiveness. Imagining ourselves to be greater than we are leads to destructive pride that encourages us to do our will instead of God’s will.
Jesus tells us that to follow Him each of us must, “Deny himself and take up his cross daily.” People who think that they are greater than they are will not deny themselves, will not take up their crosses, and will not follow Jesus.

How seeing that everything Jesus tells us to do is part of forgiving other people as we need God to forgive us, will strengthen our faith.
Unless we see that all of Jesus’ commands are part of one great command, we will think that Jesus is correct when He tells us that God wants us to do some things, and that Jesus is incorrect when He tells us that God wants us to do other things. If we see that Jesus actually tells us that God wants us to do one thing that has many parts, then strong faith in any particular thing that Jesus tells us to do, will strengthen our faith in all things that Jesus tells us to do. This strengthening of faith will happen for most of us, because most of us do have strong faith in some things that Jesus tells us to do. Most of us have strong faith in some things that Jesus tells us to do, because most of us have seen some things that Jesus tells us to do help us or help people close to us, when either we, or people close to us have done those things.

The more any person has learned from Jesus, the easier it will be for that person to resist temptation.
If we sometimes follow Jesus when other people do not follow Jesus, we must realize that we are only following Jesus because we are being tempted less strongly than other people are being tempted.
Part of the reason that some people are sometimes tempted less strongly than other people are tempted, is because those people have been taught, by wise teachers, that following Jesus will lead to rewards that will be far greater than any suffering they will know because they follow Jesus, While other people have not been taught this.
The more clearly and more fully we have been taught Jesus’ truth, the easier it will be for us to follow Jesus.
This will be so because, the more clearly and more fully we understand Jesus’ teachings, the more often we will be able to see what action following Jesus would lead a person to take in different situations, And because the more often we can see what action following Jesus would lead a person to take, the more often we will be able to tell whether or not a particular person is following Jesus, and the more often we will be able to see that God truly does reward people who follow Jesus.
When we must act in situations that Jesus did not speak of, we can still know how following Jesus would lead us to act in these situations. We can know this if we have learned the general principle that lies underneath all that Jesus says to us, and that binds all of Jesus’ teachings into one great lesson. We can know this if we understand that all that Jesus tells us to do is a part of forgiving other people their evil, as we want God to forgive us our evil.

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.

Though Jesus preached only to the Jewish people, Jesus wants His light to fill the entire world.
Jesus tells us this when He says “I am sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Mt 15:29), and when He also says, “I came that I might save the world.” (Jn12:47). Jesus spoke directly only to the children of Israel, and to a few other people who were in the land of Israel when He preached, But Jesus knew that all who are lost would be able to read His words, or hear His words, and would be able to learn from His words, how they could be saved. The Jews were Jesus’ people. Jesus was a Jew, and that is how He was sent to the Jewish people.
Jesus tells us again that He came to save the entire world when He says, “I came that I might save the world.” (Jn12:47). Jesus does not say that He came to save a part of the world, or that He came to save some people who are in the world. Jesus tells us that he came to save the entire world.
Jesus tells us that he has come to save that which needs to be saved, when he says, “I am come to save that which is lost.” (Lk 19:10, & Mt 18:11),
And Jesus tells us how important it is to God 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 )

Like a Lord and His slaves (A note on translation)
Throughout this guide to following Jesus I often quote Jesus. When I do this the quotes I use are based on the interlinear translation from the nestle Greek text, directed by Alfred Marshall. For the most part the meaning of Jesus’ sayings is the same in this interlinear translation as it is in most other widely used translations. I have found only one recurring difference in meaning between these translations. Whenever most translations tell us that Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven is like a Lord and His servants or that all people are servants of God, the authoritative interlinear translation tells us that Jesus actually said that the kingdom of heaven is like a Lord and His slaves, and that all people are slaves of God.
It is easy to see at least one persuasive reason that many translators say servant where Jesus said slave. This reason is that reading that we are all slaves to God has probably encouraged many people to treat other people like slaves. Though it is good to discourage people from treating other people like slaves, It is wrong to misunderstand our true relation to God in our attempt to do this.

Jesus discourages people from treating other people like slaves in a way that is both more effective than changing His words is, and that does not misrepresent our true relation to God. Jesus does this by telling us that we should never put any person in God’s place, and by telling us that we should never treat any person as we treat God or as we treat Him. Jesus tells us these things when He says, “Be not you 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 that we are like slaves to God, but Jesus also makes it clear that no person should ever be either a slave or a master to any other person. Instead we should all treat each other as brothers and sisters. Seeing that that we are slaves to God should discourage us from trying to put ourselves in God’s place and should discourage us from trying to make other people our slaves.

We are all like slaves to God, because God has given us all that we have, including every ability we possess, and including our lives themselves. Because God has given us all that we have, we should use what God has given us, as God wants us to use wants us to use what He has given us. This is why we should be like slaves to God.
No person has given us all that we have. No person has given us every ability we possess, and no person has given us our lives. This is why no person should ever call another person slave, and this is why no person should ever call another person master.
Our earthly parents, brought together materials that God created in them, and when these materials came together God created us out of these materials. God gave us life. Our earthly parents were merely labourers who carried God’s supplies. This is God’s way of allowing people to play a small role in His creation. We must never forget that people only assist in the small details of creation, and that God is the Master and the Creator who makes creation happen.

Jesus tells us that God will punish us if we claim to have more faith than we have.
If we say that 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. If we try to follow Jesus then all that we can honestly say about our faith is that our faith can be measured by how closely we follow Jesus’ teachings.
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 widow’s 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.
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.

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 say we have faith in Jesus then we are lying. Our actions show that we all doubt Jesus greatly, when Jesus tells us what Our Creator wants us to do, because we all often do not follow Jesus’ teachings, and because when we fail to follow Jesus’ teachings, then we do not believe that following those teachings at that time will bring us rewards that will outweigh suffering that will come from following Jesus, as Jesus tells us following will do.
We will all lose faith in Jesus, whenever we are led to great temptation. This is why Jesus tells us to pray to Our Father, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Mt 6:5-15 & Lk 11:2-4). Temptation will challenge any faith we have in Jesus. The only way we can strengthen our faith is by honestly admitting the doubt that becomes obvious to all when we are tempted, before temptation comes. If we constantly challenge our faith, by constantly trying to test what new doubt, before we are tempted, then we will be better prepared when temptation comes. We must question whether Jesus is right or wrong in everything that He teaches us. We can strengthen our faith by doing this, because there is an answer to every question we can ask: both in Jesus’ words (if we understand His teachings correctly), and in the results we see in our lives when we try to follow Jesus, and the results we see when we do not try to follow Jesus.
For example we will all often doubt that Our Creator wants us to always turn the other cheek, when a person strikes us, and we will all often doubt that Our Creator will always give us rewards for turning the other cheek, that will be greater than the physical pain we will suffer from doing so. We must remember that Jesus does not tell us to only turn the other cheek once. If a person continues to strike us, then we are commanded to turn the other cheek again, and again, even if doing so leads us to be badly beaten. This experience would break the faith of most of us. If we believe Jesus’ promises that we will suffer greatly, but that if we continue to follow Jesus, we will be given rewards that will more than make up for our suffering, though. If we believe these promises then we will follow Jesus.

The Hypothesis
Human knowledge can only advance through conjecture, hypothesis, and testing. The most valuable thing in the world is a person who puts forth testable hypotheses. Many people test, few people hypothesize. Most people not only fail to put forth testable hypotheses, most people fail to put forth any hypotheses. When we find a person who does put forth hypotheses, we should treat that person as a rare jewel of great value. Especially if that person puts forth hypotheses about what moral actions will work for us: hypotheses about what moral actions will bring us things that we want and things that we need; because people who put forth moral hypotheses are especially rare.
The most detailed statement ever put forth about what moral actions will bring us things that we want and things that we need, is the statement put forth by Jesus of Nazareth. To Jesus, His statement is not a hypothesis to be tested, but is instead a fact He knows to be true. To us though Jesus’ statement, like all statements is, a hypothesis we will only believe if we test it. This is a part of our natures that Jesus’ tells us of every time He calls us “you of little faith”. Jesus tells us how much easier our lives would be if we could believe without testing our beliefs anew each time we think of them, and at the same time Jesus tells us how impossible it is for us to believe without testing our beliefs anew each time we think of them. Jesus tells us these things 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.
When we do what Jesus tells us to do. At that moment we believe what Jesus tells us. Most of the time, though, we do not do what Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus tells us that each of us needs more forgiveness from Our Creator, than any other person will ever need from us, and that Our Creator will only shield us from the punishment we deserve for evil we have done to Him, if we try to shield other people from the punishment they deserve for evil they have done to us: that Our Creator will only show us mercy instead of justice, if we show mercy instead of justice to people who do evil to us. Everything Jesus tells us to do is a part of showing mercy instead of justice to people who do evil to us.
Thankfully for us, Jesus’ statement about what moral actions will work for us, can be tested. If we show mercy instead of justice, to people who do evil to us, and if we then observe what happens in our lives, we will be testing Jesus’ statement. The complete results of this test may never come in, because Our Creator’s actions towards us may never end, but if we observe our lives closely, then we will see some of the effects of our actions very soon. Jesus tells us that this will be so when He 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). Some of Our Creator’s rewards will come to us immediately, while some of Our Creator’s rewards will take longer to develop and come to fruition.
We can only test Jesus’ teachings in our own lives because our own lives are the only lives we can observe completely. We can only observe small parts of other people’s lives. Because of this it is much harder to test all hypotheses in human affairs than it is to test hypotheses in the physical sciences. It is worth the effort though, because it is in human affairs that we will benefit most if we are able to gain accurate knowledge. Every time we act, we are forced to make decisions about what moral actions we believe will bring us things that we want and thing that we need, and we will only be able to act wisely if our beliefs about these things are correct.
Jesus encourages us to test what he teaches us, by showing us that He is so sincere in His teachings that He was willing to die so that His teachings would come to as many people as possible, and so that those people would take His teachings seriously.
If Jesus 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 things 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.
Jesus tells us to eat His body and to drink His blood, and Jesus tells us that we cannot live unless we eat his body and drink His blood. “Truly, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”
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.

We human beings are naturally vicious and cruel
We are quick to fight with each other, to war on each other, and to do harm to each other. Our belligerence comes from our fear: which is naturally great, and is made still greater when we add irrational fears to the fears that all people naturally have. Though we are naturally vicious and cruel, we should not remain this way. We should transform our cruelty and viciousness into kindness and brotherhood. Jesus tells us we should do this in everything He tells us to do, and Jesus tells us how we can do this. We can only transform cruelty and viciousness into kindness and brotherhood by following Jesus’ command to “forgive men when they trespass against you”, and we will only follow this command if we remember Jesus’ teaching that, “If you do not forgive men who trespass against you, then you father will not forgive you.” This is how the forgiveness Jesus teaches us can transform each of us into human beings, and can heal the wounds of our world.

Words that do not lead us to do God’s will are meaningless to Jesus. Jesus told us that doing the will of God is the only thing that matters to Him 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 hands to 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 brethren are these who hear the word of God and do it. (Lk 8:19-21)
Jesus tells us again that saying good things to God will not help us gain God’s favor if we do not also do God’s will 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 they should have done), but who had confessed their evil, would win God’s favor before people who tried to make God think that they were good, as the chief priests and elders had tried to make God think that they were good, would win God’s favor.
Jesus tells us that words that we say about Him and about God, words that we say to Him and to God, and rituals that we perform in churches, only matter to Him, and to God if they lead us to do God’s will. Any words and rituals only matter to Jesus, and to God if they lead people to do God’s will. If words and rituals do not lead people to do God’s will, then they are worthless to Jesus, and to God.
Jesus tells us that rituals that do not lead people to do God’s will are worthless to Him and to God, 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 show other people 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 people from seeing God’s will, and that bring people only woe.
The only way in which we can follow the law, have faith, or show mercy, is by doing what Jesus has told us to do, (by obeying Jesus’ commands).

Rituals and ceremonies are tools.
Do not make false idols of them.
Churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques are all things of man. Jesus only wants us to value things of man if they help us do God’s will. Often these things of man do help us do God’s will, but often they do not help us do God’s will. Rituals, ceremonies, and sermons in churches, often help people who take part in them do God’s will by helping those people learn what Jesus taught, But rituals, ceremonies, and sermons in churches, also often keep people who take part in them from doing God’s will by keeping those people from learning what Jesus taught.
Nearly all rituals and ceremonies, of nearly all Churches can help people learn Jesus’ teachings, and nearly all rituals and ceremonies, of nearly all churches can keep people from learning Jesus’ teachings. Which of these things they do, depends on how people in a particular church use them. For example, people in most churches sing songs that help them feel that God will do great things for them, and that help them feel happy about the things that God will do for them. If these songs are combined with sermons or with other songs that show people who hear them that they will have to do many difficult things, and that they will have to suffer greatly, to get God to do great things for them, then these songs will help people who sing them understand that their pain can lead to great joy.
Often, though, songs that make people feel happy about what Jesus will do for them, are combined only with other songs that also make people feel happy about what Jesus will do for them, And with sermons that preach that God will do great things for people who follow Jesus, but that do not tell people who hear these sermons, how they can follow Jesus, Or with sermons that tell people that all they have to do to get God to do great things for them, is to say that they believe in Jesus, Or with sermons that tell people that all they have to do to get God to do great things for them, is to perform the rituals of the church they are in. When songs and sermons are used in this way, they keep people who sing them from learning the good news that Jesus taught.
Another ritual that often helps people learn about Jesus, and that also, often keeps people from learning about Jesus, is the ritual of baptism. This is true, regardless of the age at which a person is baptized. Baptism can help us learn about Jesus by reminding us, that we need to be washed clean of our sin, And by leading us to learn what we must do to be washed clean of our sin. In the case of infant baptism, baptism can help a person by reminding his or her parents of this fact, and by leading them to become people who can help him or learn, what he or she must do to wash away his or her sins. Too often, though, people, who are baptized, are taught that the ritual of baptism itself washes away their sins. The ritual of baptism itself cannot do this. Our sins will only be washed away if forgive other people, as we need God to forgive us, And we can only forgive other people, as we need God to forgive us, by treating other people, as Jesus told us to treat them. If we do not do this, then the ritual of baptism is meaningless.

We all want to believe that we can gain God’s favor by performing certain rituals, or by saying certain words. We want to believe this because it is easier for us to do these things, than it is for us to forgive other people. If we do not follow Jesus’ teachings, though, then God will punish us for our sins.
The only way in which we can eat Jesus’ body, and drink Jesus’ blood, is by living by Jesus’ teachings. Jesus’ blood flowed down from the cross to form the words of His gospels, and Jesus’ flesh gave these words substance.” Jesus died so that we would believe His words.
If Jesus had not died on the cross, Jesus’ followers would have concluded that Jesus had not believed His own teachings, and that Jesus was asking them to do things that He was not willing to do. Because of this, these followers would have forgotten Jesus, and we, who are alive today, would never have heard Jesus’ name, or heard Jesus’ teachings.
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.