"A Theology of Love"

 

 

Begin with the idea that God is perfect goodness or perfect love, and make that the foundation of your religion. Do not place a single building stone upon this foundation that does not pass the test of perfect love; to do so would be to act against God’s third lovely principle of the ten given to humanity, by profaning the “GOOD” name of God. Allow for the possibility that God’s love is unconditional, and that God’s motive is that each person will find “GOOD” in life, and that each person will come to know God because the more a person knows of God’s true nature which is perfect love, the more he will love God with all of his heart, mind, strength and soul, which should be the goal of all religion. If one loves perfect goodness and love, his will is to do only good and loving things which is the same will as the will of God. He will be at-one-ment with God. The goal of Jesus was at-one-ment with God for all people, the love of God in the hearts of men.

 

In the first chapter of the Bible is a wonderful story of “The Creation.” The story ends with verse 31 when God looked over all that God had made including man, which was both male and female, and God said that everything was good. God created man with the gift of free will so that man could exercise freedom of choice and could know true love. God wanted to be loved by man, and the best quality of love is that which is freely given; man must have free will in order to genuinely love God and each other. It is the ability to choose love that makes love so special. God knew what he was doing when he gave man the gift of free will. God is not naive, gullible or stupid. God knew that man could misuse this gift.

 

In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul wrote: “Since earliest times men have seen the earth and sky and all God made, and have known of his existence and great eternal power. Yes, they knew about him all right, but they wouldn’t admit it or worship him or even thank him for all his daily care. After awhile they began to think up silly ideas of what God was like and what God wanted them to do. The result was that their foolish minds became dark and confused. Claiming themselves to be wise without God, they became utter fools instead” (Rom 1:20-22). “Instead of believing what they knew was the truth about God, they deliberately chose to believe lies” (Rom 1:25). “So it was that when they gave up God and would not even acknowledge him, God gave them up to doing everything their evil minds could think. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness and sin, of greed and hate, envy, murder, fighting, lying, bitterness and gossip. They were backbiters, haters of God, insolent, proud braggarts, always thinking of new ways of sinning and continually being disobedient to their parents. They tried to misunderstand, broke their promises, and were heartless without pity” (Rom 1:28-31).

 

Chapters 2-11 of Genesis describe some of the horrible lies that people chose to believe about God, beginning with the Pagan story of Adam and Eve and The Talking Snake. Instead of God wanting for man to know God by using the gift of the knowledge of good and evil, this story claims that man stole the knowledge of good and evil from God which caused God to become eternally enraged at humans, punishing them continually and causing them misery and death. Another horrid story is that God caused a flood to kill every single human and animal except those that got on a boat with Noah’s family. The belief that God causes all kinds of evil and misery for humans is the religion of Paganism. Instead of keeping their minds holy by looking at all of the good in God’s creation (God’s great miracles), they accused God of doing evil. They decided that death of the body was a terrible horror. Instead of practicing gratitude for the gift of life, and trusting God for their eternity, they concluded that life must be some kind of curse. The Pagans believed that people could calm God’s wrath only by sacrificing something of value to God. The most valuable thing was one’s first born son. Many Pagans killed their first born because they believed that God demanded such a terrible sacrifice.

 

Abraham was born into this Pagan culture, the religion of Babylon. Even though he was educated as a Pagan, he somehow refused to believe the orthodoxy of his culture. Abraham believed that God was good. He had a revelation of God’s love for him. God told Abraham not to kill his only son; such an act is not a godly thing to do. Abraham had to leave the land of his birth in order to live by God’s love. He trusted God’s guidance to find the best good to do in each situation one day at a time. And Abraham prospered and was very happy living God’s way by love, doing evil to no one. He thought his descendants would all follow his example, eventually forming a nation which would be a light to all the nations of the world, demonstrating what a superior way of living God had revealed to Abraham. The Pagans were afraid of God. Abraham loved God and was called a friend of God.

 

Many Bible scholars have attempted to justify everything in the Bible to the Pagan myth of Adam and Eve and the talking snake. They have accepted that myth as an actual event in history, and made it the foundation of their religion instead of God’s goodness which was the foundation of the religion of Abraham who was supposed to be the father of the Jewish religion. To be a son of Abraham means to believe as Abraham believed. Anyone who has lost sight of what Abraham believed is a “lost” son of Abraham.

 

There is only one God, who created everything in the universe. The gods of the Pagans do not exist. The story of Adam and Eve reflects Pagan thinking about Pagan gods. Abraham was an example to everyone that God is good, and that living a good life, doing no evil to anyone, is the best way to live. Abraham and his family prospered greatly under God’s good guidance.

The human mind is easily fooled; we believe what we want to believe and recognize only those facts which conform to that belief. The Jews were always justifying what they wanted to believe. The Old Testament is a history of the Jews justifying their sins by using rationalization, and then blaming God for evil that came back on them as a result of their sinning against other people, calling it punishment from God. Sometimes they even blamed God for their own evil ideas and thoughts.

 

Goodness can be trusted as a way of life. As long as Abraham kept his mind on goodness, God would show him the good thing to do in each situation. The God of Abraham showed him a new way of thinking. God gave Abraham a new attitude outside of the Pagan paradigm. It is not a good (loving) thing to kill your child and then blame it on God. Abraham was called a friend of God. They called him a Jew which means “lover of God.”

Evil and wickedness come out of the minds of men but only good comes from the mind of God. God rules the universe by the power of love not by law, wrath, and punishment. It is never God who tempts anyone to do evil. A godly spirit is a free spirit that loves good. God wants the best good for every human. The way that we get it is to trust God and goodness enough that we will practice living by love.

 

God did not choose Abraham so much as Abraham chose God, just as every human ever born may choose God. God will not force good onto anyone because God respects man’s free will which was given to humans in creation, not stolen from God against God’s will, as the Pagan story of Adam and Eve relates. God wants humans to love God, and the only love worth having is that which is freely given. Man receives God’s greatest gifts, the spiritual ones, by loving and doing good as opposed to doing evil. Loving God is trusting God enough to live God’s way, the way of goodness, which results in the most joyful life for us. If we desire to do God’s will (at-one-ment with God), then it is God who works in us for good. Without faith there is no at-one-ment because we have to believe there is God before we can desire to do God’s will.

 

Abraham passed his beliefs and way of living to his son, Isaac, who had two sons, Jacob and Esau. Instead of believing as Abraham did, Jacob believed in deceit and in stealing. He stole his brother’s birthright and his blessing, which resulted in twenty years of flight, exile and servitude for Jacob. He finally decided to go “back home” to live Abraham’s way. Jacob had to do some serious soul searching or wrestling with God over this decision. One possibility was that his brother might want to kill him. Jacob repented and made amends to his brother who graciously forgave Jacob. Jacob admitted that his way of living had been wrong. He had wrestled with God and discovered his wrong beliefs, but he won God’s blessing as a result of his struggle with God. God is always ready to forgive one’s mistakes, and point him in the right direction for goodness, which is God’s suggested way of living.

 

God has always desired to help humans by guiding them along paths of righteous living, which is the best way to live life on Earth. Each society of humans has had some kind of a “moral code” which is very similar to all others. God did not choose any one nation of people over any other as his favorite.

 

About 400 years after Abraham died, the Jews were as numerous as a nation. They all claimed to be direct descendants of Abraham, and called themselves Jews and “sons” of Abraham. But to be a real “son of Abraham” means to believe as Abraham believed, which is to trust God enough to live God’s way by love and goodness. The people called themselves Jews but they were not lovers of God. Whether or not they were in bondage in Egypt, which is Babylon, their minds were in slavery to Paganism because they had rejected the God of Abraham and let their minds go running back to Babylon's religion.

 

Moses became the leader of this nomadic nation living in the desert. He had a revelation of the God of Abraham, the true God of Creation, who is Perfect Love and Goodness. The God of Abraham gave Moses ten principles for living in the most loving way which leads to the most happiness and joy--life in its fullness: 1) Have no other God but Perfect Love and Goodness; 2) Make no idol and call that god; 3) Do not profane the good name of God (by accusing God of evil or wickedness); 4) Keep the Sabbath day holy (by contemplating God’s goodness and love, and practicing gratitude); 5) Honor your father and mother; 6) Do not kill; 7) Do not fornicate; 8) Do not steal; 9) Do not lie; 10) Do not envy. If everyone would follow these principles for living God’s way they would be able to love God and neighbors, and would be living in love, and love would be living in them, and they would be able to see God and to know God, and they would be living in the kingdom of God because God is love.

 

Moses wanted to lead his people away from Paganism back to the God of Abraham, but the vast majority rejected God’s ten principles from the moment they first heard them. This was too much “new wine” to put into the old Pagan “wineskins.” This was far too radical of a change from Paganism. No one else in the world seemed to be living by such principles. Moses was so frustrated that he tried to force God’s way of love onto the people by making it “the law.” It is impossible to force love onto anyone. The people just pretended to go along with Moses and the “laws” of God, but in their minds and hearts they were still Pagans. God gave every person the gift of free will to choose to believe whatever. God always honors man’s free will. No one can force anyone to God’s way. Every person is lord of his own heart, which must be opened from within. Each must choose God or reject God. Moses took “God’s love” and made it into “law” in order to manipulate and control people.

 

As soon as Moses died, the Jewish people attacked their neighbors attempting to kill every single one, even the babies. They tried to commit genocide in order to steal the land, and then they said that God told them to do it. They rationalized that because they were mostly successful in their wicked and ungodly endeavor, God must have wanted them to do this.

 

Everyone is born into some kind of system or culture. The culture is usually made of several systems--a religious system, political system, agricultural system, marketing system, family system, etc. Children learn how to function in all of these various systems as they grow to be adults. They are told, “This is the way we do it.” It is very difficult to break out of a system because anything different is outside of one’s paradigm. Human minds tend to get “set” as they learn the rules of a system. Anyone who thinks differently must be a slow learner who hasn’t caught on, or else is a little crazy. Jesus said this about his new way of thinking: “No one puts new wine into old wineskins, for the new wine bursts the old skins, ruining the skins and spilling the wine. New wine must be put into new wineskins. But no one after drinking the old wine seems to want the new. ‘The old ways are best,’ they say” (Luke 5:37-39). The Pagan gods do approve of envy, killing and stealing, but Pagan gods exist only in the evil minds of people. The one true God of Abraham said not to envy, kill, or steal.

 

The so called “Jews” drove away or killed or made slaves of several tribes, and settled on the stolen lands claiming that God had given them this stolen land because it was promised to Abraham for his descendants. There was a problem, however, that would not go away: the members of the tribes who were driven away or escaped death wanted back their land and wanted vengeance on the Jews who killed so many of their friends and relatives. Also, there was the problem of God’s ten principles of love which Moses had declared to be “the law” for his people, and the people were still believing their own lies that they were actually living God’s way. “The law” had to be reinterpreted and revised and amended and reinvented to fit the “more advanced” society, which was now a mini empire with a king and an army and taxes. Possibly, it never occurred to these intellectuals, the priestly lawyers and scribes who interpreted “the law,” that God actually intended for them to live by God’s ten principles of love because this is how one learns to love God with all of his heart, mind, strength and soul, finding life in its fullness. The lawyers chose instead to manipulate “the law” in order to manipulate the people and to rule the empire.

 

Over the years, the lawyers created a living hell of “situational ethics” with hundreds of laws to cover every conceivable situation to the point that they had an entire library of laws all in the name of God. They needed a whole army of lawyers (scribes) to figure out which law applied in which situation. They really did not think they had a need for God’s guidance at all because they were guided by “law.” Every “law breaker” had to go through a lawyer-priest in order to get back into the good graces of God and society.

 

The religious system was built on the Pagan tradition of sacrifice which killed hundreds of thousands of animals each year in the name of God. The gross collection of man-made laws was referred to as “the laws of Moses” which supposedly “grew” out of “God’s law” with God’s guidance. (What a tribute to man’s sick rationalizations and justifications). The Jews chose to replace Abraham’s way of righteousness to God (which was faith), with law. This was a terrible mistake, which leads away from God because breaking of laws demands punishment. Such a belief (Paganism) implies that God is a terrible tyrant who demands slavery to laws, which are impossible to follow to perfection. Legalism leads to despair. God does not have to condemn anyone to death or eternal hell. If God wants to forgive then God can forgive, because God is God. It is an insane idea to believe that God has to have punishment (vengeance) in order to forgive. God can do what God wants to do.

 

So instead of actually living by God’s principles of love, they perverted them into “law” and amended them and twisted them and corrupted them. They actually justified breaking every one of God’s principles in certain situations by making it legal to do so: stealing was good if it were taxes; killing was good if it were punishment; divorce was good if no heir was born; lying was good if it were for a good cause; envy is natural. They had totally buried God’s love under their own laws and traditions. They were “lost sons of Abraham” because his way of life had become completely unknown to them.

 

Why did they rebel against the love of God? They wanted to live by killing their enemies and stealing their land and possessions. They wanted to have an empire and rule the world. The Jews wanted to be proud and to be respected by other nations. The only thing that Pagans respected was power and strength (the bigger the empire the more respect). The Jews told themselves that God led them to “the Promised Land” and helped them slaughter these “enemies.” They profaned God’s good name continuously accusing God of evil but justifying it by arrogantly deciding that God had “chosen” them above all other people. God said not to envy, but they were filled with envy, and proclaimed that surely God had “promised” this land to them somehow; all they had to do was to kill the inhabitants and steal the land in God’s name. They convinced themselves that since God created the world and actually “ruled” the world, that God had “chosen” or “elected” them to carry out God’s instructions. God decided who won the wars and who became rulers and who became slaves. These things were God’s will. In their minds they were not coveting, killing and stealing, but actually being servants of God in carrying out God’s will for God’s glory. They rationalized that what God really desired was for every person in the world to recognize God’s power and glory to rule, and to decide who must be slaves and who must die. God had some kind of “plan” which must be served by God-fearing people or else the plan might not happen. To fear God and obey his commands was the duty of man, not to love God and follow God’s principles for the joy of man (as Abraham had done). Following all the Jewish laws and traditions did not have any effect on conquering peoples’ evil thoughts and desires; it only made them proud. Pride is counterproductive to living by love. Living by love does not develop “self esteem” (pride); it develops self respect, the kind of healthy self-love that enables one to love his neighbor as he loves himself, knowing that God loves both. Pride is an unhealthy, self centered, narcissistic love of self which breeds arrogance, and contempt for others. Pride is what makes an idol out of one’s culture.

They would not live by letting God guide them by following God’s law of love; they elected a king to lead their armies. They preferred to be guided by a man, and their laws, rather than by God’s way of love. The kings amended and perverted and redefined and reinvented the laws more and more in order to rule more “efficiently.” The clergy became lawyers for the religion of the state.

 

It is so much easier to live by law than to live by love because with law we can make sin legal thereby justifying it. There is no means for vengeance in God’s law of love, but with Jewish laws they always returned evil for evil, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. There was no such thing as forgiveness, only justice according to their laws. Jewish justice is not God’s justice. They had absolutely no interest in God or God’s will, but only wanted their sinning to be legal. If it could be justified as legal, then maybe other people would accept that God approved of it.

 

To be a Jew originally meant to be a lover of good, like Abraham was, and to follow God’s way of love, the ten principles on the stone tablets at the time of Moses. The goal of a real Jew, such as Abraham, is to love God (good) with all of his heart, mind, strength and soul. The way to love God is to obey God, which means to live by God’s ten lovely principles, keeping them in mind continuously and asking God for help in discerning the most loving thing to do in each situation that occurs one day at a time. God’s word (LOVE) was never meant to be “law.” “Law” is a wrong concept; legalism always leads to despair which is a path away from God. Law requires enforcement by punishment, which leads to the profaning of God’s “good” name by blaming the punishment on God. God does not do evil.

 

It is a bad idea to believe that God has made some kind of contract with man because man will be afraid that he has failed to keep his side of the contract good enough for God’s standards, and there is a chance that God will reject him and abandon him and destroy him because he is unworthy of God’s love. This kind of contractual or legal thinking can keep one in a kind of spiritual hell because it shuts out the possibility that God’s love might be so great as to be infinite and unconditional. God’s love is so great that it is beyond human imaginings.

 

The Jews had so many laws that it was impossible for them to follow the law to perfection. They could only pretend to be holy, which increased their hypocrisy. Their whole way of life was pretense. Their entire system was built on a misunderstanding of God’s love. The more that a person keeps his mind on God’s ten principles for living a life of love, the less likely that he will lose his direction and stray down a path that leads away from God. God’s motivation is to help keep humans on the path that leads to God’s goodness. God is for us, not against us. God is the one who delivers us into God’s goodness, the Kingdom of God.

 

For each generation of the Jewish people there was at least one religious spokesman or prophet who would meditate on the ten principles of God, and then conclude that the vast majority of the people were doing the exact opposite of what God wanted them to do. These prophets would preach to the people telling them that they must repent and follow the original meaning of God’s ten principles. But then they would say that God was extremely angry with them for breaking God’s “laws” and would punish them (a Pagan belief). Even the prophets had completely lost sight of the beliefs of Abraham; they were living “under the law” instead of in God’s love. They were truly lost sons of Abraham because they had lost THE BELIEFS of Abraham. They believed that God could not love them unless they were perfect. They believed that God could not forgive them unless they were first punished terribly by God.

 

The practice of syncretism, which is trying to mix Paganism into the beliefs of Abraham, had led the people into despair. There is no room for fear in the perfect love of God, no Paganism of any kind. We all need to trust God enough to live God’s way of love, and then we will know through our own experience that God’s way is the best way to live. We should never profane the “good name” of God by blaming God for what seems bad to us at the time, because if we believe that God causes bad things, we will not be able to fully trust God, nor will we be able to love God with all of our heart, mind, strength and soul.

 

There never was an Eden on Earth. Earth was never Heaven, but there are glimpses of heavenly things on Earth because it is God who created the world and sustains it. When compared with all of the other planets in our universe, the miracles of life are almost infinite. God has said that the experience of life is good. If we keep our minds focused on the wonders and miracles of God instead of on what seems bad, we can agree with God. God gave each of us a free will to agree with God or to disagree; we can be grateful for the gift of life or we can be bitter and resentful for the curse of life. Each person ultimately makes a judgment (decision) either for or against God. Life is good! None of us should be constantly looking for a reason to disagree with God because this practice will eventually put us into a spiritual hell, a pit of despair. If we believe that God put us in the pit, we will not know where to turn for help, and eventually we will have no hope.

 

If a person lives opposite of God’s principles, God does not withdraw all good from the person’s life, and replace the good with evil as punishment. Bad things often happen as the consequence of a person’s actions because evil tends to beget evil, but one should not blame God for it. God has said that living by good tends to beget good. This is not a legal contract or covenant, but is a statement of truth.

 

The world is a very exciting and dangerous place. Part of life is eventual death. Every living thing will eventually die. If God said that everything is good, then death is not bad. One should not believe that death is some kind of bad punishment from God. The Pagan story of Eden and the doctrine of “the fall of man” is a lie. Pagan gods exist only in sick minds of men. The God of Abraham never told him that God would punish him or kill him if he didn’t do what God suggested. God wants to guide us to the best way of life. God is good. God’s judgment is perfect wisdom in decision-making. God wants to give us his judgment so that we will make wise decisions that are always loving and for good. God wants us to know the difference between good and evil. The knowledge of good and evil is a gift from God. Whenever we ask, God will always let us know what is the most loving thing to do in each situation. God wants us to trust God enough that we will not be afraid of death. We came from God, and we will return to God, but our old bodies cannot leave Earth because they are not fit for eternity; they wear out. God will give us new bodies fit for Heaven, like the body of the resurrected Christ.

 

People in the religion business often see religion as the end instead of the means. Religion should be the means to help people find God. Religion is a vehicle. When someone finds religion, he has not necessarily found God because religions can get God’s message twisted and distorted to the point of corruption. The prophet Jeremiah said to the people, “How can you say, ‘We understand God’s laws,’ when your teachers have twisted them up to mean a thing God never said? They bend their tongues like bows to shoot their arrows of untruth. They care nothing for good, and go from bad to worse” (Jer 8:8). The prophet Malachi said, “The priests of Israel have distorted the covenant of Levi and made it into a grotesque parody causing many to stumble in sin” (Mal 2:8).

 

The Jews had plenty of religion but they did not know God or what God wanted for them. God spoke to Hosea saying, “I don’t want your sacrifices; I want your love. I don’t want your offerings; I want you to know me (Hos 6:6). Live by the principles of love and justice” (Hos 12:6). The prophet Micah said, “God has told you what he wants, and this is all it is: to be fair and just and merciful, and to walk humbly with God” (Mic 6:8). The Jewish lawyer-priests and scribes were not telling the people anything at all like what Micah said. They were telling the people that the only way to keep God from punishing them was to bring animal sacrifices to the temple, and to bring money to these lawyer-priests, and to follow to perfection a whole library of laws, which even the priests and the wealthy elite people could not follow. If the average working persons and the poor believed these lawyer-priests, they would have absolutely no hope of ever pleasing God. They would have to be condemned.

 

The Jewish clergy had totally lost sight of Abraham’s beliefs, and were so deep in denial of reality and the truth about God, that they believed themselves to be holy and righteous because they were religious; they were like beautiful mausoleums on the outside, but full of dead men’s bones, and foulness and corruption on the inside. What they did was to crush men beneath impossible religious demands. They could not accept the truth for themselves, and they prevented others from having a chance to believe it. They loved to wear the robes of the rich and scholarly, and to have everyone bow to them as they walked through the markets. They loved to sit in the best seats at synagogues and in places of honor at banquets. They pretended to be pious by praying long prayers in public. Everything they did was for show; they only acted holy. And how they enjoyed being called “Rabbi” and “Master.” They tried to look like saintly men, but underneath those pious robes were hearts besmirched with every sort of hypocrisy and sin. Their spiritual lives were nothing but pretense; they were living a lie, pretending to know God even though they had never had a personal encounter with God. Instead they had theories and doctrines that became dogmas (see Luke 11:42-52; Mark 12:38-40; Matthew 23:5-28). The sickest people are the ones most in need of a doctor or healer to save them from their terrible beliefs about God. Jesus said, “Beware of the yeast (wrong teachings) of the Pharisees and Sadducees (Matt 6:17). They hear but don’t understand; they look but do not see for their hearts are fat and heavy, and their ears dull, and they have closed their eyes so they won’t see and hear and understand and turn to God to let God heal them (Matt 13:14). Not all who sound religious are really godly people (Matthew 7:21). A good man produces good deeds from a good heart, and an evil man produces evil deeds from his hidden wickedness” (Luke 6:44).

 

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul said that he was a real Jew if there ever was one, and he had tried to obey every Jewish rule and regulation right down to the very last point, but now he had thrown all of that away considering it worthless when compared to knowing Christ. In his letter to the Galatians Paul wrote that Christ had set him free from the chains of slavery to Jewish laws and ceremonies; all we need is faith working through love; the whole law can be summed up in this one command; “Love others as you love yourself.” In his letter to the Colossians, Paul said that the Jewish rules may seem good, for rules of this kind require strong devotion and are humiliating and hard on the body, but they have no effect when it comes to conquering a person’s evil thoughts and desires; they only make him proud.

 

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus said, “Isaiah the prophet described you (Jewish religious leaders) very well when he said, ‘These people speak very prettily about the Lord, but they have no love for him at all. Their worship is a farce, for they claim that God commands the people to obey their petty rules.’ How right Isaiah was! For you ignore God’s specific orders and substitute your own traditions. You are simply rejecting God’s “laws” and trampling them under your feet for the sake of tradition (your laws). Your souls aren’t harmed by what you eat, but by what you think and say. It is the thought life that pollutes. For from within, out of men’s hearts (subconscious) come evil thoughts of lust, theft, murder, adultery, pride, and all their folly” (Mark 7:9-16).

 

It might be that it is impossible to be completely separated from God. According to the Gospel of John, “God is Spirit.” If this is true, then God can be everywhere at the same time, even in the deepest part of the ocean or the farthest part of the sky, and even inside of every human. Being spirit, God could incarnate God’s self into a human body to deliver his message to humanity. Many Christians believe that this is what God did in the body of Jesus. Most Christians refer to Jesus as the Son of God the Father. If God is Spirit then the Son would be the “Christ Spirit” which is the Saving Spirit which has always been a part of God. It is very confusing to think of God the Father and God the Son as two separate persons, and the Holy Spirit as another separate person. This doctrine of a Trinity has caused much confusion and made it very difficult for Christians to communicate with people of other religions, especially those of Judaism and Islam who know that there is only one God, not three. It is very true that people experience God in three ways: as the Father-Creator-Sustainer; as the Son-Christ (Savior); as the Holy Spirit-Guide-Comforter. But if God really is Spirit then the Holy Spirit is God the Creator and Sustainer; and God incarnated his very self into the body of Jesus. There are not three separate persons making up a kind of community of God. There is one God who is “holy” which means perfect goodness and love. Holy does not mean “set apart,” because God is always with us.

 

Just because God is Perfect Goodness does not mean that God can’t have anything to do with humans unless they are perfect. God said that his creations were good just the way they are. God wants humans to be good because that is the best way of life with the most joy and happiness, life to its fullest. When people love life they will love God and thank him for the gift of life. When people love good they will tend to find happy lives. Evil is in the world to show people the value of good. God gave humans the gift of free will because the only love really worth having is freely given. When people misuse free will, God does not have to condemn them or punish them; God can forgive anyone anytime. Perfect Love may forgive every time. People might feel like they are being punished but they are simply experiencing the consequences of their poor choice not to live God’s way of love.

 

It was not the wrath of God that the Jews experienced, but the wrath of the people from whom the Jews stole land by killing and by practicing deceit. It never was God’s job to protect the Jews from their enemies. When the Babylonians and the Assyrians conquered the Jews and killed most of them making slaves out of those remaining, the Jewish religious historians accused God of using the Babylonian and Assyrian leaders to punish the Jews, as if these leaders had no minds of their own or free wills, but were robots of God. The Jews were so self-centered that they thought themselves to be the most important thing in the universe. They convinced themselves that God had “elected” them as God’s favorite, most important people to be an example to the rest of the world, but they had failed to live up to God’s standards so God killed most of them to teach them a lesson. (Was there no evil that the Jews wouldn’t accuse God of doing?) They were totally stuck in their system of “law.” All that they could see was “law.” They would gaze at God’s system of love, but see only “law.” They were truly blind to God’s love because they had never tried to live by it. Even though it had worked for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and even though the Jews claimed Abraham as the “father” of their religion, they did not believe as Abraham had believed. To accuse God of planning an apocalypse to destroy everything that God created is the worst profanity against God’s goodness. And so is the idea that God has created an eternal hell for some people after they die. “Moses’ Laws” implies that if one does not follow them, then God will either kill him or throw him into hell for such things as not attending a worship service or failing to give money to the clergy or doing even the least amount of work, even in an emergency, on the Sabbath. If God were such a tyrannical terrorist as that, it would be impossible to love God with all of one’s heart, mind, strength and soul. One would be in constant fear of what God was going to do next to punish him. And he would forever be in dread of death.

 

The God of Abraham is available to all humans, not just Jews, because God created everything in the universe. If the ten principles for living given to Moses are really from God, then they apply to all people in all places at all times. God wants everyone to live by love and to lead a good life. The ancient Jews tried to limit God to themselves; they thought they had God in a box in the back of their temple in Jerusalem. They were so incredibly arrogant that they believed it was God’s job to exalt the Jews above all other nations.

 

The Jews misunderstood and misused the ten words of God given to Moses. They chose to live their own way, and to ignore both Abraham and Moses. Spiritually they went running back to Babylon by believing what the Babylonians believed which is Paganism. They pretended to live God’s way but they actually lived by Paganism because they did not trust God enough or love God enough to actually live God’s way, by the principles revealed to Abraham and Moses. The Jews had no integrity because the “outside person” was not the same as the “inside person.” Their pretense made their lives a lie; they were deep in denial and could not see the light of truth. They actually believed their own lies that they were living God’s way. They believed that God would protect them from their enemies no matter what they did to those people to make them enemies in the first place. God told the Jews not to kill, steal, lie, fornicate or envy, but they did all of these causing themselves to have many enemies.

 

From the beginning, God had written God’s principles for good living upon the hearts of people but they chose to believe other things. God may have been deeply saddened by the choices people made because they were ruining their lives, but this does not mean that God had to become terribly angry and vengeful to the point of withdrawing God’s love from people, and punishing them by death and eternal suffering. What a horrible thing to believe about God, that everything bad that happens is some kind of punishment from God. With an attitude like that who could possibly want anything to do with God? One would be constantly afraid of God until one hated his life and hated God. Eternal life would be a threat instead of a promise of Good. To believe that God is a tyrannical terrorist, capable of doing wicked and evil things is to greatly profane the good name of God! Such beliefs lead to despair and not to God’s goodness and life in its fullness.

 

The entire history of the ancient Jews is a history of misunderstanding God’s love in God’s ten words, a history of twisting and distorting and corrupting it into laws that could be manipulated by people so they could do any evil thing that God told them not to do. The elite ruling Jews used the law to manipulate and control the common people. They wrote their “history” justifying what they had done in the name of God. They called their history “Holy Scripture,” and said that it was “God's Holy Word.” The ancient Jewish history has practically nothing to do with God and God’s Word, but has everything to do with rationalization and self-justification that takes place in the minds of humans.

 

The same ten words of God that were revealed to Moses are written upon the hearts of every human ever born. Any culture that is built on the idea that it is good to kill, steal, lie, fornicate and envy is built on lies. These things are sins against good, but Perfect Goodness always forgives such sins, and desires always to help people toward good. The more that people sin, the farther away they go from what is truly good. God always honors human free will to choose the way of good or some other way. Wars are never God’s idea or plan, but are the result of poor choices made by humans who did their thinking without the counsel of God. God’s Holy Spirit is constantly available to help people think, but each person must ask for God’s guidance. God never forces love onto anyone; God always invites.

 

It doesn't matter how many laws the Jews wrote, if they wrote thousands or even millions; laws never do anything to change a person’s heart. In fact, laws usually make a person’s bad attitude even worse.

 

God’s love is what changes an attitude for the good. Living life by love leads to a grateful heart, an attitude of gratitude for the gift of life, which allows a person to love God with all of his heart, mind, strength and soul. Being forced to live in slavery to a bunch of laws with the constant threat of punishment hanging over one leads to bitter resentment and even hatred of God for the “curse” of life. God gave every human a free spirit to choose how to live. It doesn’t make any difference how many laws people write, because they cannot take away what God has given. It is impossible for any person to force another person to change his attitude. Each person is the lord of his own “heart” which must be opened from within. Torture, persecution, excommunication, proclamations of heresy, condemnation, and even killing people cause only to “harden their hearts.” Their attitudes become so “set” that only the miracle of God’s love can change them. They must experience God’s love somehow in their lives. Laws are of no use whatever. God rules the universe by the principles of love, not law. God wants people to live by love, not law. The whole idea of law came from the minds of humans, not from God. The idea of law was a terrible mistake which was a misunderstanding of God’s love. The final test of a religion is not religiousness, but is love.

 

The book of “Job” is a story about a fellow who held many of the same mistaken beliefs about God as were evident in ancient Judaism. Job conducted a completely thorough soul searching with the help of a few of his friends. He examined everything that he had ever heard said about God, good or bad, and every thought he had ever let into his mind concerning God. With perfect honesty Job made a fearless and relentless search for the truth about God. He searched with all his heart, mind, strength and soul, harder than he would have searched for buried treasure. His reward was that God revealed Himself to Job. Job discovered that because of his mistaken beliefs, he had become filled with pride, envy and anger. He had become enraged at God because God wasn’t doing what God was supposed to do according to the orthodoxy of Job’s religion.

 

Religion is not God because religion can be corrupted and often carries mistaken beliefs about God. Religions develop doctrines which become “law” (dogma). Religions tend to insist that they are absolutely right about everything. They never cease to defend their beliefs, and never admit the possibility of being wrong about anything. The word, “religion” means to be bound up. Job was freed from his mistaken religion by God’s very presence. To know God is to have knowledge of God which is the experience of God.

 

The experience of God is esthetical (spiritual) within one’s emotions. It results from what the mind is perceiving through the body’s senses (hearing, seeing, touching, tasting and smelling), based on what is in the subconscious as a result of all of one’s previous experiences in life (one’s attitudes and entire belief system--everything that has been let into one’s mind, the entire education of a person).

 

Job had “wrestled with God,” trying desperately to sort through all of the information and misinformation about God, to find the Truth. Finally, after hearing Elihu’s testimony, it all came together in a revelation of God’s great goodness, how God had created everything and sustains it all by His love. Job was immediately aware of God’s love for him and of Job’s sins (mistaken beliefs about God). God forgave Job, giving Job a whole new attitude about life and about God. Religion can help a person find God, as did Job’s friends help him, but each person experiences God individually in the most personal way.

 

Living by law instead of by love led to an insanely sick religion and culture. What kind of miracle could possibly unscramble this tangled web of insanity? Would God actually incarnate God’s Self into a human body to come into the world to demonstrate how to live by God’s way of love, and to destroy the Satanical lies that God cannot love humans unless they are perfect, that God punishes people and abandons them and destroys them by death? The message of Jesus is that God loves people and never abandons us even if we are not perfect. God is always with us. God forgives our mistakes. God wants what is best for us. God wants for us to experience life in its fullness. And best of all there is hope, a future with God after the human body dies; death is not the end, but only a passage to eternal life.

 

Jesus healed every kind of illness; mental, spiritual and physical. Jesus lived a life of good, and preached only of God’s goodness. God is like the father of the prodigal son. When the son realized his terrible mistake and returned to the father to ask forgiveness, the father did not lock the gate or demand punishment. The father did not condemn the son, but forgave him and welcomed him back to his love. He even threw a party. God’s love is so good that it is beyond human understanding; it is perfect love. God’s love is available to us through God’s Holy Spirit which is in each of us. We have free will to choose to live by it or by some other way. If we choose God’s way then we will be following the same ten principles of love given to Moses that are written upon our hearts. These principles are God’s prescription for joy and happiness. The only way to find if they work is to live by them.

 

The reason Jesus died was to be resurrected from death, thereby destroying Satan’s most powerful weapon, the threat of punishment by death. The resurrection proved that there is life after the death of the body. The idea that death is the final end is a lie. Now we have a hope and a future.

 

The reason Jesus chose crucifixion as the way to die is that it was considered to be the worst possible way to die, with the most suffering. The resurrection proved that no matter how bad the suffering is, even to the point that a human feels that God has forsaken him, God never abandons us even through the worst of suffering and even through death, but delivers us into eternal life with God. Not only that, but now we know that God knows what it is to suffer and die as a human. When we know that God knows, it gives us comfort. God is with us and will not abandon us. The Pagans and the Jews had a saying that any man who is hung on a tree is cursed by God. The Romans hung Jesus on a tree and God raised him from the dead, disproving that lie.

 

To be freed from slavery to the law has everything to do with attitude. If one believes that he must do something under threat of the law with its punishment for non-compliance, he feels a natural rebelliousness because this threat is an affront to his free will which is God-given. But if he chooses to do the same thing because he wants to do it, his attitude is entirely different. He is totally free to do God’s will because he wants to do it. If the only thing a person wants to do is God’s will, then he is free to do what he wants to do all of the time. All he has to do is to trust God’s will. A person who is living by God’s Holy Spirit will not be going around sinning.

 

God’s will is for good. It has always been. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. God never ever told a single human to kill, steal, lie, fornicate or envy. What changes is not God, but people’s opinions of God. God’s love is unchanging, a sure anchor for our souls. No matter how insane human thoughts become about God, they do not change God. People can profane God’s goodness constantly and believe whatever they choose to believe, even that there is no God, but God is still God. God continues to sustain life even when people destroy it. God’s love is infinite and goes on eternally. God’s love is so good that humans cannot even begin to understand it. We just need to believe in it and have the same faith in it that Abraham had, to live our lives by love and goodness.

 

Consider the possibility that God’s Holy Spirit is in each human being when he is born. Wherever there is life there is Spirit. What happens in childhood is that the Spirit is not fed, but the ego is fed until the ego is so massive that the Spirit is dwarfed to the point that the Spirit seems non-existent while the ego seems like all that there is. What is needed is for the Spirit to be awakened or discovered. A child thinks like a child, which is by Ego, but a mature person is supposed to transcend the ego to live by the Spirit. Such a thing is accomplished only by a “struggle” with God in order to overcome the ego. Each person must make his own spiritual quest. The larger the ego, the more difficult will be the struggle, but the reward is a personal revelation of God, the experience of God. When a mature adult becomes aware of God’s Holy Spirit within him, then he has a choice to live by the childish ego (the worldly way), or by the Spirit, which is God’s way. The decision always depends upon whether or not the person has enough faith, or trust, in God’s way. If God is Perfect Goodness, then what could possibly be better than God’s way? But if one has fear of God as in the religion of Paganism, then how could he trust God? If God is Perfect Goodness and Love, then a personal revelation of God’s love for one would be the best possible thing that there is. What a reward for struggling with God, the most valuable treasure in the universe, which cannot rust or be stolen away, but will last for eternity in heaven!

 

God’s word is LOVE. Abraham and Jesus had personal “knowledge” of this truth. Jesus lived his earthly life, suffered and died for love. Jesus is God’s word made flesh. Jesus said, “The one who loves me is the one who obeys me.” All of the prophets said, “Obey God.” To obey God is to live one’s life by love by following the ten principles for living which were revealed to Moses. If a person lives this way he will be in God, and God will be in him, and he will be growing in God each day, and God’s Holy Spirit will be guiding his life and he will be living his life in God’s will. The more that he personally knows of God’s love, the more he will be able to love God with all of his heart, mind, strength and soul. He will become a true “lover of God,” which is what a “Jew” is supposed to be, like Abraham was.

 

There is no fear in perfect love. Unfortunately the ancient Jews always went “running back to Babylon” in their beliefs about God; they practiced syncretism, which is mixing the fear in Paganism with the love that is the word of God revealed to Abraham and Moses. They tried to put the “new wine” of love into the “old wineskins” of fear. It cannot be done because it is impossible to mix fear with Perfect Love. The Jews wanted God to be a terrible killer who would kill all of their enemies, and make the Jews the emperors of the world. They wanted to believe that God decides which nations win the wars, and even who the rulers will be. But if God does these things then God does not respect human free will. And if God is a killer, then God is not Perfect Love. The Jews tried to mold God into what they wanted God to be. As a result they were living with an insanely sick religion, but they had hundreds of pages of “scripture” which they had written to justify their beliefs. They had a “book” and they had “law.”

 

Let us try to remember to thank God every day that “God’s Word” became flesh, which is infinitely superior to either book or law. Now we know what real love is, and we have hope for our future after the death of our bodies. The worst untruths or lies in the world are that God won't have anything to do with us because we aren’t perfect, and that God wants to punish us with suffering and eternal hell or death. The life and resurrection of Jesus destroyed these lies. God is always ready to forgive and to help us to live by love whenever we ask. In the Apostle Paul’s first recorded sermon he said, “Brothers! Listen! In this man Jesus, there is forgiveness for your sins! Everyone who trusts in him is freed from all guilt and declared righteous--something the Jewish law could never do” (Acts 13:38-39).

 

When Paul and Barnabas healed a crippled man at the city of Lystra, the people thought that Paul and Barnabas were gods. Paul exclaimed, “We are merely human beings like yourselves! We have come to bring the Good News that you are invited to turn from the worship of foolish things and to pray instead to the living God who made heaven and earth and sea and everything in them. In bygone days God permitted the nations to go their own ways, but he never left himself without a witness--his reminders--the kind things he did such as sending you rain and good crops and giving you food and gladness” (Acts 14:14-17).

There was conflict among the Christians as to whether or not the Gentile converts must be circumcised and follow all of the Jewish customs, traditions, and ceremonies. The Apostle Peter said, “God, who knows men’s hearts, confirmed the fact that he accepts Gentiles by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he gave to us. God made no distinction between Gentiles and Jews for he cleansed their lives through faith, just as he did ours. All are saved the same way by the free gift of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 15:8-11).

 

When Paul testified in front of King Agrippa, he quoted what Jesus had said to him on the road to Damascus. Jesus said, “I am going to send you to the Gentiles to open their eyes to their true condition so that they may repent and live in the light of God instead of in Satan’s darkness, so that they may receive forgiveness for their sins and God’s inheritance along with all people everywhere whose sins are cleansed away” (Acts 26:17-18).

 

“Salvation” is to find God’s love, to realize that one is a member of God’s family, to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God. In his letter to the Romans, Paul wrote, “It is by believing in his heart that a man becomes right with God; and with his mouth he tells others of his faith, confirming his salvation. For the Scriptures tell us that no one who believes the Christ will ever be disappointed” (10:10-11). The person who adopts the system of religion in which he goes to a church (temple) worship service where a professional clergyman does all of the speaking, and during the week he silently reads Scripture, is not participating in the manner suggested by the Apostle Paul. In such a system, the only one having his salvation confirmed is the clergyman. A better system would be small discussion groups in which each person could state his beliefs and his spiritual experiences, and ask questions, and try to find answers for the questions of others. In such a system genuine sharing can take place, where confession of one’s mistaken beliefs (sins) can be healed by God working through others. This is true spirituality! Although it seems to be convenient and time-saving to hire a professional to take care of the spiritual needs of a congregation, it is a lie to believe that it can be done because no one can live another’s spiritual life in his stead. It is simply impossible! Each person is responsible for the condition of his own spiritual life; each one is the guardian of the door to his own heart which must be opened from within. Each person chooses God or not. Each makes his judgment for God or against. No clergyman can make another person’s choice for him. Can a clergyman order God’s Holy Spirit to make God’s love known inside of another person against that person’s will? God respects each person’s free will enough that God will not force love onto anyone. Each person must ask for himself; and God never refuses to send his Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “Only those who give up ‘their lives’ (ego) for my sake and for the sake of the Good News (God’s love) will ever know what it means to ‘really live’” (by the Spirit) (Mark 8:34).

 

Jesus came to three conclusions when he was “tempted” in the desert: God’s word is what men really need; no one is to put God to a foolish test; worship only God, and do only godly things. When Jesus began to preach he said, “Turn from sin and turn to God. God is ready to give blessings to all who come to him. I have come to preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God. My purpose is to invite sinners to turn from their sins” (Matt 4:1-10).

 

Jesus said that people will be acting as true “sons” of their Father in heaven when they love their enemies, because God sends sunlight and gentle rain to the unjust as well as to the just (Matt 5:45). “God is kind to the ungrateful and even to those who are very wicked (Luke 6:36). All who listen to my instructions and follow them are wise (Matt 7:24). And be sure to put into practice what you hear; the more you do this, the more you will understand what I tell you” (Mark 4:23-24).

 

Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matt 11:28). Your attitude must be like my own, for I did not come to be served, but to serve (Matt 20:28). My nourishment comes from doing the will of God (John 4:34). You are truly my disciples if you live as I tell you; then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32).

 

Jesus said, “Everyone who asks receives; all who seek find; and the door is opened to everyone who knocks. And even if sinful persons like yourselves give children what they need, don’t you realize that your heavenly Father will do at least as much, and give the Holy Spirit to those who ask of him? (Luke 11:10-13). Men can only reproduce human life, but the Holy Spirit gives men life from heaven (John 3:6). It is not where we worship that matters, but how we worship. Is our worship spiritual and real? Do we have the Holy Spirit’s help? For God is Spirit, and we must have his help to worship as we should” (John 4:22-24).

 

When Jesus spoke of Zacchaeus he said, “This man was one of the lost sons of Abraham, and I, the Messiah, have come to search for and to save such souls as his” (Luke 19:9). Jesus said, “I have come into the world to give sight to those who are spiritually blind. If you trust me you are really trusting God. I have come as a Light to shine in this dark world so that all who put their trust in me will no longer wander in darkness. If anyone hears me and doesn’t obey me, I am not his judge, for I have come to save the world and not to judge it (John 12:44-47). I say emphatically that anyone who listens to my message and believes in God who sent me, has eternal life and will never be damned for his sins (John 5:24). There are many homes up there where my Father lives, and I am going there to prepare them for your coming. When everything is ready, then I will come and get you so that you can always be with me where I am” (John 14:2-3).

 

Jesus said to his disciples, “If you love me, obey me; and I will ask the Father and he will give another comforter, and he will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who leads into all truth. The world at large cannot receive him, for it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you do, for he lives with you now and some day you will know he is in you. No, I will not abandon you or leave you as orphans in the storm--I will come to you. In just a little while I will be gone from the world, but I will still be present with you. For I will live again, and you will too. When I come back to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you (John 14:15-20). Whoever lives in me and I in him shall produce a large crop of fruit (good). I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Live within my love! When you obey me, you are living in my love, just as I obey my Father and live in his love. I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy! Yes, your cup of joy will overflow (John 15:9-11). And I came to bring truth to the world; all who love the truth are my followers (John 18:38). Your strong love of each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples” (John 13:35).

 

God was in Jesus reconciling man to God, not God to man, because God never needed to be reconciled. God does not need to have his attitude changed. It has always been man who needed the change of attitude toward God.

 

It is written in the first letter of John, “God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in him. As we live with Christ, our love grows more perfect and complete. We need have NO FEAR of someone who loves us perfectly; his perfect love for us eliminates all dread of what he might do to us. If we are afraid, it is for fear of what he might do to us, and shows that we are not fully convinced that he really loves us. So you see, our love for him comes as a result of his loving us first” (1John 4:16-19). The more that one loves God, the more he will feel (have knowledge of) God’s love for him.