Surrounded By Lies

 

In John chapter 8 verses 30 - 36 it says, 

30 As he spake these words, many believed on him.

31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

33 ¶ They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?

34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.

35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.

36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

 

Ye shall know the truth shall make you free. It is a deeply profound truth he speaks. For without the truth that we can know from Jesus we remain in bondage for we remain in sin. 

What is sin? Sin is an archery term for missing the mark. I have been taught that Christ is the mark. What if it is also a correct understanding of things? Without a correct understanding, without truth then we miss the mark and it will and does lead us astray. 

We need to be constantly seeking truth for we live in a fallen world and the foundation of this world is lies. Lies told by the adversary as he corrupted this world and tried to set up his own kingdom. Lies which permeate every aspect of our lives. Lies which we may be repeating and not even know it. Lies so innocuous that we may  not even be able to see them until finally our eyes are opened to the truth. And our eyes can only be opened to the truth if we truly believe on him. He is after all, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Without him we are lost. 

Where then do we find this truth? Where then do we seek it? Everywhere, anywhere, the truth is there. There is truth to be found in so many places. Firstly, however, go to God. Ask him to show you the truth and he will direct thee to it. We are told to seek, ask, knock. If we fail to do this how are we to expect that he will show us the truth. The truth of our awful situation. The truth that is all around us but obscured by the workings of the adversary against us so he can have power over us. 

It is time for us to elevate our thinking. It is time for us to elevate our ways. For God says in Isaiah chapter 55:

7 Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

8 ¶ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

 We can only come to understand His ways and His thoughts by seeking the truth of all things. So, go and seek the truth, His truth, today. 

It is in knowing the truth that you are saved. It is in knowing the truth that you are free.

What Did Jesus Do?

 I am often appalled when I see that the worst among us are those that claim to be believers / followers of Jesus Christ. They are so busy using him as their reason for treating people poorly, especially those that do not live up to their standards and are considered sinful. 

How did Jesus treat the people that the self-righteous religious zealots thought were sinful? 

 What did Jesus do? 

And when you think about it, just who was it he did condemn?

The Awesome Mercy of Christ

Not too many days ago, I was going through a real crisis of the soul. I can't describe it, though I wish I could. I was stepping back from God out of fear of the future, yet was trying not to, as I poured out my heart and soul. After two or three days, it abated enough that I could talk to God "like a normal person," and I was in cognitive dissonance at how he could forgive me so readily for the things I'd been feeling, thinking, and saying (even while I was struggling to believe differently, to believe faithfully).

The mercy and understanding of Jesus Christ is incredible, indeed!

Beautiful Outlaw - video to accompany the book

 These videos are the author of the book reading chapters from the book (one chapter per video). They are very short - from 8 to 15 minutes, if I'm recalling correctly. 17 chapters in the book. A beautiful testimony of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Redemption

I was reading in a book1 and, in a list about some LDS teachings, the author wrote: “As sinners we cannot be redeemed without Jesus." She wrote this as if it was a bad thing. And I began to think about that. According to a man2 who has seen Jesus in Gethsemane, Jesus suffered two things: He suffered the horrors of those who had hurt others when they finally realized how bad their actions really were, and then he came to peace with God, thus knowing how to lead them back to God. He also suffered the physical and nonphysical pains of the victims, including their resentments and anger, and came to peace with God.

From what I understand, the redemption consists of Jesus teaching us to follow the path he trod with each of us in Gethsemane. Because he lived each of our experiences and found his way to peace with God, he can tell and show us how to do the same thing. It has nothing to do with harming us or making us subservient to any organized (or even unorganized) religion or to taking away our freedoms to choose.

(I would recommend reading Luna’s book. Honestly, though, I don’t think it’s worth owning. She has a lot of truth in there, but she also has a lot of misunderstandings about God. Like the organized churches, she conflates their doctrine with God’s. For example, we should be obedient to God, but that equates to obeying the leaders. In fact, obeying him often puts one at variance with organized religions and their prideful (and often greedy for money and power) leaders.

The point of this post, though, is that the redemption is not there to limit our freedoms, but to teach us to come to peace, in ourselves, with God. The thing she does not understand is that God loves us an incredible amount. If we listen to him and not to men, we will get farther. Yes, he does send messengers when the people as a whole have gone astray. At the same time, true messengers will teach that we need to connect with God. Also, true messengers are human and can screw up. Because of that we each need our own connection with heaven, and, like I said in an earlier post, all of us have that connection because Christ literally stepped out of time and walked our paths with us. Also, him being "in and through all things", and by him "all things were created," means that we also have that connection with him. We can ignore it. We can refuse to follow it, but it is there.

To follow our own soul’s connection to God is not slavery, but freedom.



1 Recovering Agency – Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control, by Luna Lindsey, an epub book.
2 Denver Snuffer Jr.

The Atonement and Me

The atonement and me. The atonement is me. Did you ever think of the atonement of Christ as being that personal?

I was listening to this podcast on the atonement of Christ a couple of nights ago. I'd read the words before in a book called Come, Let Us Adore Him, but something struck me that I hadn't quite thought of before. I thought on it, I pondered on it. I want to share what came to me, and I hope that I make sense. This taps into a science we don't have access to at this time.

During the atonement, Jesus stepped outside of time and felt for every human being who had ever been born on this planet and who ever would be born here (or who had their ancestry here). We don't have a science that can replicate that, as far as I know. I'm not talking about woo-woo science nor subjective experiences. I'm talking about something that can be provably replicated.

This is what I understood: Jesus stepped outside of time and essentially became one with each individual. He walked in our shoes. He lived our lives with us (whether we had been born or not). He is with us now because of that crack in time that allowed him to go into eternity and somehow merge with each of us along the timeline of the earth.

He lived our illnesses, our wounds. He lived our hurts and our hurting of others. He lived our denial that we have hurt others. He lived our anger and vengeance toward someone who had victimized us. He lived our cruel pranks (on both sides). He knows because he has lived it, right alongside us, inside us as it were.

It sounds like some sort of science that says we are all living everything at the same "time" but not the same time. (How's that for not making sense?)

As he tapped into every soul, he overcame the darkness that is in every soul. Because of this act (which we can't seem to fully comprehend) he is literally with each one of us each day of our lives. Only a heartbeat away, willing to take away our pain and sorrows because he has already done so, from our birth to our judgment. He did it and he overcame, and because he was each one of us and overcame, he can fill us with his love (which is the thing he used as the tool to overcome) so that we, also, can overcome. Anything. We can overcome anything if we are willing to do so.

But he won't force us to turn to him. He won't force us to recognize that he is always with us (always, because he stepped out of time and followed timeless a rule to do so). We can choose to ignore him, if we wish.

I am seriously thinking that the light of Christ that enlightens every human was put there when Christ paid the price for sin in the garden of Gethsemane, that it stretched backward from him and forward from him. That is why we are connected to him. That is why we can turn inward and access God.

Bottom line: The Lord is with each one of us all the time in a very real way (even if angels or "the Spirit" is grieved and leaves). He has felt our sorrows, illnesses, pains, and sins in a very real way because he became us - each one of us.

I find it an interesting bit of science, and I find that it brings me closer to Christ. It makes me trust him more. It makes me have more faith in him.

A Beautiful Read

I was given a book for my birthday, The Complete Wallace D. Wattles. Within it I found a couple of writings about Christ; A New Christ and Jesus: The Man and his Work. They present a different perspective on Christ. I did a search for these works online since they are in public domain and found one. Yea! Along with Wattles works are a couple by a Henry Drummond. Thus far I am finding them simply sublime.

I leave the link here for those that desire to investigate further.

http://trueacu.com/A_New_Christ