May 16, 2016

God is Love (19)
1 John 4:8

Love rejoices with the truth (3)
1 Corinthians 13

The glory that You have given me
I have given them,
That they may be one even as we are one.
                             John 17:22

We are one with God, as clearly defined by the saying purported to be by Jesus in the gospel of John, vs. 17. Yet we constantly flagellate ourselves, blaming ourselves for all kinds of faults, constantly deriding who we are as children of God, not seeing that we are perfect in all that we are. Yes, we are one, one with each other as science has proven, and one with God as Jesus has stated. Almost all religions, when looking at their founders statements, emphasize that we are one being, one source, one creation.
But our religions, especially Christianity and Islam, have gone out of their way to point out our deficiencies, that we are sinners all, doomed to hell unless we to this or that, depending on the religion. Early Christianity taught otherwise, emphasizing that, as the quote from John above, that we are one with God, that together we make the body of Christ (Romans 8), that we had the “Kingdom of God within”, (Luke 17-20).
So, what happened?
The Roman Empire is what happened. When Christianity became the official religion of the empire in the fourth century, the church leaders wanted to make sure that things would go smoothly (they wanted to keep their heads, and they saw the instant opportunity to become the elite), and being smooth in the Roman Empire meant that there would be no civil disruption. Thus the status quo of the empire became the driving force of the new teachings, and that meant that the people, the ordinary persons on the street, had to accept the status quo: 80% of the population were slaves; the empire ruled everything, the leaders would still be the leaders. So somehow, the official teachings 0f the church had to shift. And the easiest way was to make the people feel “unworthy”, to concentrate on the “evil” of the individual, to make the individual happy with their slavery and low life that the majority lived. This made it easy when the emperor made the decree that all would join the new official religion. No problem; life went on as before, most bowed their head as required, just as before, but to a new alter, and life went on. Not as Jesus had taught, but as the Roman empire had lived.
They could not really change the gospels, as they had been written in the first century and were the beloved books by the masses, but they could change the emphasis on what was taught, and so that was what occurred. The teaching shifted from our oneness of our very being, not just individuals, but the single Body of Christ, united in Love and our very Being, to being single individuals who were unfit for God’s Love except through the forgiveness of Jesus. “I am not worthy” became the byword of the masses, and is still central in how we relate to our God. The teachings said that no longer were we united with God in our very Being, but we were separate desperate souls unfit for anything except through a narrow way; we were less than unfit, we were damned as we were created by God (what a strange thought: that God would deliberately create beings who were automatically condemned to everlasting pain; not a nice God indeed).
It is time we recognize we are the beloved child of God who is the God of Love; one with God as our very nature, to go back to the comforting words of Jesus that our Father welcomes us with silken robes, that we have the Kingdom of God within us waiting only for us to open the gate to let that Kingdom emerge.
Let us live the truth of Jesus: we are one with him and the Creator of all, that there are no differences between any Image of God, that indeed, All is One, not just the 7 billion humans, but all creation sings if the wonders of our God as One.

Neither shall they say
Behold it here, or
Behold it there!
For behold
The Kingdom of God is within you.
                                 Luke 17:21

Meditation

My Eternal Wisdom, how wonderful is this eye-opening statement You have put into our hands. It has been there for millennia, but only now can it be expressed openly. Some of our mystics have through the centuries have spoken out like this, but they have been ignored in the haste of the official church to maintain control. But the Spirit has ways of speaking, and it has abided its time. I am truly grateful to be in this time when the Spirit has more of a chance to he heard, and I bow my head as I receive the Loving words that have always been waiting to be heard. I ask only that I be one with you in my heart, as my heart sings in joy and happiness upon reflecting in this Truth that is aching to be revealed.

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