Sunday, June 2, 2013

Finally - The Gospel according to Jesus

Ok folks. That last post must have riled at least some of you. I do not apologize. I cannot. Because if I do, I will compromise my Lord Jesus Christ and I will never do that. However, do take note of the fact that riling up people never was and never will be the reason why I think, speak, act ... or write. If you got het-up, well, look within yourself for the reason because people mostly get angry at people they are forced to lie to. If you were riled up, you certainly were not the first. In fact, most Christians I did air my thoughts to from time to time got um... rather heated ... to put it mildly. Their best argument was that I was a "Buddhist" (I never was a religionist so I cannot have possibly been a "ist" anything but anyway). I was, to them, an outsider looking in. What could I do? Zilch. As time wore on and age mellowed me, I spoke less and acted more. Until a couple of days ago when I posted my testimony of sorts. Now, why did I suddenly become brave enough to do that?

Because an insider, a follower of Jesus, has come forward, speaking and acting in precisely that way. A set of videos of some sessions he had in Sri Lanka made their way into my hands a day after Vesak day - very significant ... and ... thanks be to Jesus and his follower Indira.

Here are snippets from the words of this most remarkable man (The yay-haloos of course are mine): 

I want unity among denominations and I do not come pre-loaded with messages. You see, Jesus didn't go through all that he went through on the cross just so we could do church. He paid too high a price for us to engage in churches which are nothing more than social clubs.

Now, the church has created a theology to justify the lack of power they walk in and compromised their belief system to fit their experiences. Why? Well, we have created a justification for the lack of power that we walk in, because surely the problem can't be us, so we begin to shift the emphasis of the Gospel, we begin to to fit it to our experience as opposed to what The Word of the Lord said and in doing so, we have compromised The Word of the Lord and the standard that he has set for us.

I do not apologize for preaching an uncompromized gospel. One thing that I refuse to do is adjust my belief system based upon my experience. Instead, I will lift my experience and keep my experience as to what the word of the lord said. Due to lack of results of what we see, we pull the word of God to our experience and now we wonder why we do not see the power of God displayed throughout our lives.

woo-BINGO! 

Jesus came to reveal the exact nature of the Father and he uses every situation but he doesn't create every situation. He did not ever give us sickness in order to build our character. Jesus never blessed sickness either. If I treated my children the way the church thinks God treats us, I would be arrested and locked up. The image of a cruel father is what is promoted by the church today.

However, every storm he walked into, Jesus calmed. Jesus Christ is perfect theology. He clears up all the misunderstandings of the old testament and reveals the true nature and the heart of the father.

He said, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and preach the gospel of the kingdom (Matthew 10). Yet, o much of the church says "pray for the sick". It says "heal the sick". And it says, preach the gospel of the kingdom. Yet we think it says, "preach the gospel of salvation". Salvation is encompassed within the Kingdom. The gospel of salvation emphasizes "us going up". But the gospel of the Kingdom emphasizes bringing heaven down.

Our destiny is heaven. But are assignment is to bring it down to earth.

Attaboy! 

As long as we are crying out to him to come back and save us from the mess that the world is in, he won't come. We have this mentality that God is in control. God is in charge, certainly, but we are in control. I don't want to get to heaven and find that I could have had me a little heaven on earth.

In Matthew 5:16 he says "I am the light of the world". However, when he left he said, you are the light of the world, now, go do something with it.

I refuse to compromise for a powerless Christianity or adjust my theology because of my powerlessness. God is sovereign, but in his sovereignty he put us in control. And yet, because we do not see a manifestation of the kingdom on earth, I refuse to live of life where I am going to pick up the carpet of God's sovereignty, sweep it under and say "well I guess god is sovereign at the end of the day" and put the carpet back down. That is not the model that Jesus actually set for us. Arise, shine. For your light has come.

We cannot wait for God to show up or  try to find god. God is here, because you are here. He is trapped in the lives of unbelieving believers. And he wants out. I am not sitting waiting for his return. To pray for that is one of the most selfish prayers we can have.

Heaven is in us. We should not command the darkness to leave. Instead, we should turn on the light.

wow! oh... just ... WOW! 

Turn the "Kingdom not yet" to the "Kingdom now". In Luke 17:21 he says "the kingdom of  god is at hand". It is within... not in the stratosphere.

Ok folks... finally, the untrammeled message of the basis for clear sighted faith. Lets GO. lets DO IT. For ourselves and our planet.

11 comments:

  1. So he impregnated a virgin to come tho his own creation and kill him self as a sacrifice to him self to save people from him .....its amazing how we still have people as takers of this nonsense ....

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    1. Hi, Ras, thanks for your comment. A slight problem on the extent of your knowledge of events that occurred 20 centuries ago friend.

      1) Your sentence seems to assume that the God entity and the Jesus entity are one. If this is so, then you are wrong.

      2) If this indeed something you have concluded through some sort of pseudo-fact(s), rumor, populist theory or religious dogma, then you must surely recognize non-rigorous thinking on your part.

      3) Further, friend, if your base premise of the mutual non-exclusiveness of those two entities is compromised, then your sentence makes neither logical nor semantic sense. I am not silly enough to call anything "nonsense" nor anyone "nonsensical" in their view since obviously, your sentence seems to make sense to at least ONE human being - yourself, so, scientifically, contextually and very subjectively, you are justified in your conclusion to a factor of 1 out of 7,126,534,405 at precisely 2:43 GMT *smiles*

      3) However, it would be good if you could take the time to get the historic facts straighter in your mind (after all, we are quite good at concluding, re-concluding, rejecting, rebutting, qualifying, clarifying and dropping the various "truths" about even something as mundane as the evolution of life on earth over a time span much longer than a mere 2000 years through a method commonly known as scientific confusion) and I do look forward to a response from you. As a mathematician, an ICT scientist, risk manager and socio-anthropological researcher, at the physical level I except a coherent, consistent counter from you. On the metaphysical level, I warmly thank you for your response.

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    3. ok before we get in to word mumbo jumbo lets get few things clear, "Your sentence seems to assume that the God entity and the Jesus entity are one. If this is so, then you are wrong. " please clarify..
      firs, what is Jesus?
      second, what evidence do you have to think that such person/god ever existed?
      third...if you believe such thing as god exist? define GOD first for me

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    4. Sorry for the Tardy reply ras, and thank you for your response. I was otherwise occupied. The words are neither mumbo nor jumbo *smiles*. That you think them to be so only indicates a hurried mind and perhaps an impatient one.

      You ask "What is Jesus?". Then you ask me about evidence of existence and to define God for you. Let me take the first of those questions and then couple the responses to the second and third because they both seem to stem from the same framework of reason or should I say, in mumbo-jumboese, "identification with a specific cosmology" *winks*

      I am sure that If I asked you "What is Einstein" you would have to take a few books to give me an answer to that question because the "what" of a human being cannot be disposed of by four word phrases such as "Einstein was a mathematician" or "Jesus was a messiah". The what of a person has to be determined by understanding the full spectrum of the total number of facets that make up that individual. Not by a populist phrase that can relegate that individual into a pigeonhole you feel comfortable with. That you can even ask such a question again, in the form that it was presented, only proves that you seem quite eager to get from here to nowhere as fast as you possibly can.

      You ask me for evidence of the existence of such people/entities and to define God. The historicity of Jesus is established so its silly to go into that. However, definition of anything is a scientific exercise ras, not a spiritual one. If you wish to define God, please, be my guest and define him/herself for yourself in whatever way you feel comfortable to do so, and slot that entity into any pigeonhole you think fit. The burden of "Evidence", "definitions", "proofs", "doubt" and so forth are part of the lexicon of scientific effort and physics, not the lexicon of spiritual effort and metaphysics.

      Who God is, what his/her operational parameters are, what are his/her values, when does he/she use the toilet etc. are for the individual to determine in an individual sense not for a group to decide in a collective sense. You may give him/her whatever definition you want. I really don't have anything much to say about your definitions except, you are welcome to them friend, and if you wish to tell the world your definition of him/her, that's your prerogative. If you do so, however, that is solely because you are engaged in identities based on a blind belief that only those things that you touch, hear, taste, smell, see or feel is real (yes, it is a blind belief since you haven't an iota of scientific proof that what you can't touch, hear, taste, smell, see or feel is false except for the highly contested dialectic one which is not a proof at all but merely a rejection of that which science cannot encompass within the framework of its own limitations).

      My practice of metaphysics only shows me that I will hold what I know of any entity called God to myself and to those who have practiced a metaphysical path similar to that which I have practiced. You, on the other hand, can giggle and share your definition with those who have practiced a physical path similar to the one you have practiced. I am sure that you will find a lot of people patting your back and you are welcome to that.

      *cheers*

      Oh, by the way ras, please check out my new blog post that deals precisely with this subject:
      http://arjunareflections.blogspot.com/2013/07/this-silly-science-vs-religion-non.html

      and, if you have the time, take a look at this, from the documentary "I AM" by Tom Shadyac
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzsUnK4KhMo

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    5. You know what, when some body can't give you a precise and simple answer, its a good indication that he has no clue what he is talking about in the first place...
      but i will try point out few things..
      first of all, we know what Einstein was, since we have enough evidence of him and his work ...and as for Jesus, he is not a proven historical figure as you claim, if so give a single second hand evidence for his existence or for any claim in your fairytale book ....
      it seems you are quite reluctant to establish your real claims about jesus or his big dady in the sky..as for the burden of proof, asking me to proof what i think of GOD is like asking me of what i think of Santa Claus......
      you are entitled practice any metaphysical path, that doesn't differentiate you from any crazy person or any other hallucinated person who believe other crazy things in life..at least they are open about them...

      i asked you few simple questions, since it is better to establish claims before discussing them, it seems you have no such concrete positions, rather just wasting words and space...

      since you are so sure about historical jesus, try to debunk at least this then
      http://youtu.be/MvleOBYTrDE

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    6. Thank you for your response friend. The answer I gave you was precise. Simple it is as far as simplicity is possible for such questions as you choose to ask. The questions are simple enough but the answers are not so.

      a) You may have a vague idea *who* Einstein was, but if you have read the post I pointed you to, you would know he was pretty confused himself as to who God was *winks* so, no, I don't buy into "we all know *what* Einstein was about. Actually, I value his insights into and the practice of music and his observation to his fellow scientists that the best jobs for scientists were as lighthouse keepers and game wardens. The mathematical "what" of that man is fairly well known and already under question.

      b) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_Jesus (The wiki entry should "prove" since you seem so hung up on that word of the the reality of the individual named Jesus). In case you do not wish to check it out, just as you didn't check out the post on the "burden of proof" argument in the blog post I mentioned, "Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed,and although there is little agreement on the historicity of gospel narratives and their theological assertions of his divinity, biblical scholars and classical historians regard theories of his non-existence as effectively refuted" so Fitzgerald's arguments hold no water in terms of the larger body of the people who study such things. Sure, he can claim what he wishes to but they shall remain claims against the congruence of agreement among the rest. His claims are quite similar to 10 scientists who "believe" climate change is a myth despite the very large body of evidence to the contrary and all of the rest of the scientists agreeing to that evidence.

      c) My position on this matter is concretely established. Indeed, if you read the post I pointed you to, you would know how that position is both possible and valid.

      d) Crazy is a word generally used by people who cannot/will no/don't wish to, clearly understand something, someone or some idea. A person of that nature is generally known as a fool. Should I, distasteful as it is, call you one since you fit the "framework of proof" that validates such a position?

      e) Since you do not come across as a careful thinker in any sense of that word, let me give you a segment of that post to trigger a few thoughts if that is at all possible

      *cheers*

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    7. This so-called debate has been going nowhere for a very long time. In fact, it’s not a debate at all. It’s simply two very strongly opinionated groups sticking to their specific brand of vodka or personal side arm. Never, then, shall the twain meet. This is foolish. If people can conjure up multiple explanations, rationales or models for the sum total of existential experiences, I really do not see any reason why they cannot co-exist without each attempting to debunk, subsume, marginalize, ignore, hate or wish-away every other.

      "Proof", is a scientific requisite, not a spiritual one. "Faith" is mostly a spiritual requisite, not always a scientific one. Therefore, on your question, "Do I not have faith in evolution which presents a ton of evidence”? The answer is no. I have no faith in evolution. I will only either affirm or reject evolution of man from animals once proof is available scientifically since evolution as a mechanism to explain the progression of life on earth is a scientific idea and subject to whatever framework of rigor that it defines for itself systemically. So far, that proof has not been forthcoming. So far, therefore, as I have mentioned in earlier posts, I will be neutral to such claims.

      Faith is an outcome of the congruence of personal experience of the effectiveness a teacher's word from an individual perspective through personal practice of that word and the agreement between the outcome of that which one practiced and the teacher's promise of that outcome. This is true for all teachers, not only spiritual ones.

      However, spiritual experiences are, in their very nature, only available to each individual through practice and not to a collective who do not practice. If a practitioner were to try to tell others about his/her experiences, obviously, that individual will come across as either a) stupid or b) smoking something serious :) All that a practitioner can rightfully tell a collective is this: "Look guys, I practiced such and such a path, and through that practice, I arrived at such and such states of existence, understanding of creation, modes of ensuing a confident and contented existence on earth and ensuring contented existence after the breakup of this body. Now, if you guys want to experience what I have, then practice in accordance with the word of the teacher I followed".

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    8. Again, seems we are not going no where...one thing i want to make it clear, it is absurd to claim that moderns historians accept the claim that Jesus existed..and to sight wiki as your proof shows the extent of your knowledge about the subject ..if you can point out a one second hand evidence for existence of historical jesus, the atleast we can talk about it(closest you will find for any proof for it is the roman historian Josephus, but many historians agree that the part about the jesus was a later fabrication by the likes of you who desperately seek evidence for your fairy tail)....
      Rather than writing meaningless paragraphs of words, i will kindly ask you to clarify your believes in simple answers, other wise this is a waste of time...please clarify, whether do u believe in a god, and if so define that god and also whether you believe jesus is god? (please answer those simple questions in precise answers, if not this will be my last reply)

      Also faith is not a tool to distinguish fantasy from reality. Anybody can believe any nonsense based on just "faith", just like you who believe in supernatural fairy tails which have no evidence and reject established scientific facts like evolution since it doesn't tally with your myths.
      Rational people do not pick and choose evidence to justify their absurd claims, they follow evidence with a open mind and make their conclusions based on that.
      Same time your personal experiences is not a justification for anything, judging by your claims so far, you may very well have been hallucinating ..

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    9. Thank you for your response friend. Whether you choose to keep responding or not is your prerogative and whatever reasons you give yourself for it are your reasons as an individual and that's perfectly fine by me *smiles*

      "we are not going no where" is a double negative which means we *are* getting somewhere. Just kidding. I know what you meant, however, a bit more care in the use of words would be greatly appreciated. The reason for the use of paragraphs of words it to ensure that the meaning of what is stated is not mistaken or compromised. Read my blog post "the short and the unsweet" for further clarification. Perhaps we are not getting anywhere but I at least am hugely enjoying this little discussion. Thank you for engaging me.

      You use the phrase "clarify your believes" and no, I do not believe anything about anything so there is nothing to clarify since the word "belief" is not applicable to me.

      If something is said within the framework of science then I would need proof of it since that is the basis of obtaining truth within that specific system. If it is something whose existence cannot be proved or disproved within the limits of scientific inquiry then such knowledge would need to be obtained through practice in an individual sense and that knowledge is not based on proof a la science, but personal experience a la the individual. If you have not practiced a system such as the ones outlined by Jesus, Buddha et al then you will not know it - ever. Not from me. Not from science. Not from anyone. Jumping up and down crying foul and talking of fairy tales because such knowledge doesn't come from your belief system won't get you any closer to those forms of truth. Sorry - its not going to happen.

      You will be limited in your personal knowledge landscape by whatever you choose to "believe" of whatever truths your six cognitive senses tell you (and the rest of the planet) in a general sense and those that are "proven" for you by a system whose very system is highly questionable and in fact, *is* questioned by its own practitioners. What you need to be careful of is the common mistake of "blindly believing" that the "proof" element of science is a) the only element that will yield truth or b) any other form of internalized knowledge is refutable purely on the basis that it doesn't fit into the cosmology frameworked by science. Kuhn, Capra et al have proved this and so also, have others such as those involved in the noetic sciences and those involved in cognitive sciences such as Rodin and Chomsky.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzsUnK4KhMo

      I completely agree with you that faith (in the conventional meaning of that term which implies a "blindness" component) is not a tool to distinguish fantasy from reality and my earlier reference material points to inquiries into the elements of faith displayed in science that is parallel and comparable to those commonly found in religion where that said faith is not rational but blind. If you read my previous post to this one, (testament to the truth of Jesus) you will get a clarification of the types of faith there are and the equal part they play in science and religion.

      On the matter of the historicity of Jesus the Grant reference from that wiki entry should be adequate. On the matter of whether or not the God entity and the Jesus entity are one and the same, my personal experience of both tells me that that is not so. They are two entirely different entities. However, can I prove it to you within your limiting framework of science? As stated earlier, sorry friend, that is not possible. If you want to know what is at the end of the path of practicing a metaphysical/a-physical system for understanding the cosmos, you will just have to walk the path. Asking about it or questioning it or trying to use the tools of some other system to get answers to phenomena that system cannot even fathom let alone cognize just won't work.

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