Category Archives: Jesus

February 20, 2016 · 11:08 am

Love’s Bigger Picture

2016-02-20_ripples-1455224-637x285The life of Jesus provides revelation to humanity in a twofold way. Firstly, He made known the legal standing that all humans have with God. Secondly, the Son of Man provided the revelation of what is possible in human, bodily form. In both cases, love is the common function to activate and make these revelations a reality in the life of any human.  Any person can become a disciple of Jesus for the purpose of study and training in these two areas of revelation.

The search for love is a quest that every person makes and God alone can provide the answer to that quest. Legally, all humans are heirs and are children of God, the One who is the source of all life in the universe. However, if you are like me, you may be well into your fiftieth year of living before you begin to accept the fact that we are truly loved by God. Until then we search for peace and fulfillment in objects, substances, and relationships.

What we accomplished in bodily form is a function of our understanding of the revelation of our inheritance. Thus far, cultural segments of humanity have tended to only show love to other members of their cultural group and those alone do they view as inheritors of the blessings from the God they worship. In other words each cultural group appropriates God exclusively and maintains that they alone are the inheritors of that God.  However, God’s inheritance, which is love, is bigger than the current imagination of most humans.

For example sharing the Love of God has mostly been reduced to a corporate endeavor. In society groups of people band together to feed the poor, care for the homeless, provide clothing, and care for the sick. While this is good, God’s love is also available to empower any and every  individual to fulfill the need of the many. Nevertheless, we as individuals tend to become overwhelmed in the face of humanity’s need. We tend to lose our awareness of God’s presence inside of us and become more aware of the external material need.

The feeling of helplessness in the face of others need is designed by God to encourage us to look for His Presence within ourselves.  Instead of taking that feeling to prayer and meditation, we organize to alleviate and push-off these feelings onto some other person. The saying “I gave at the office” was a popular defense mechanism until we erected social laws to stop people from making direct appeals. How can one justify perusing the American dream while others are starving? Not a problem if one gave at the office.

Yet, Jesus demonstrates that within all humans God provides a resource that is more than capable to solve any human need. The Kingdom of God is commonly thought of something that is only accessed in our next life. However, Jesus clearly demonstrates that if we could love at a different level these supernatural resources are available to all humans today. Something simple as turning water to wine or turning stone into bread is a demonstrable and practical reality for any human.

Material reality requires that we love ourselves above all others in order to survive. In our capitalistic culture it has been proven time and again, that the person with the greatest ego has the most resources to share. In every sector of society including political, business, entertainment, and even religious, the winners possess characteristics that are envied by the rest.

However, the real Jesus held a different view of the world and even some revisionist of history try to conform his teachings into the capitalistic model of reality. Jesus spoke openly and in parables of the inheritance, the every human has within. He also spoke of the love that is required to access that which is within every person.

Many have mistakenly interpreted prayer and meditation as the method to access God’s Presence. Jesus may have used these methods but they were not the means. Love of God and love for others as equals to self are the truth and the way. Luke 6:40 clearly states that we all can be trained in the ways of Jesus to the point in which we become like Him.

Providing health from cancer, healing eyes blind since birth and even restoring life to the dead are all within the realm of possibility for disciples that have completed their training. These are not popular beliefs in the materialistic culture we live in today, but they are nevertheless true.

I encourage any human looking for love in all the wrong places to look for the love that is closer than your breath. God has promised through the revelation presented by Jesus that God will never leave us or forsake us and that there is nothing that can separate us from God’s Love. We just need a little faith and believe that God has already rewarded us with an inheritance of His Presence if we seek that Presence within.

Luke 17:20-21 (NKJV)  Now when He (Jesus) was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21 nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”

 

 

 

 

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January 1, 2016 · 5:49 pm

Love Is Simply Seeing Others as Self

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We live in a highly competitive world and yet it teaches us that we need the subjective thoughts of others to survive. This means that our subjective thoughts have a powerful effect on the survival of our fellow humans. If we were to map these thoughts to basic neurological functions, they could be grouped as thoughts of love or thoughts of fear. Thoughts of love search for solutions for the survival of the many and thoughts of fear look for the survival of the few.

Many humans believe that there is an ultimate and universal source for all life on planet earth. From this source stems true objective thought. For this discussion, I will call that source or point of view, God. True objective thought contains no fear, because from its point of view there is no separation of objects from itself. There is only one category of thought and that is of love and the nourishment of all life forms it created. Below is a scriptural account of creation, which is normally interpreted from a human point of view, and presents the world as a multiplicity of separated objects.

Genesis 1:27-31 (NLT) So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.” 29 Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. 30 And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened. 31 Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!

Ultimately, thoughts of love motivate us to maximize the survival of all life forms including the human population and thus we attempt to developed equitable systems to deliver resources to the various human sub-cultures. However, when it appears, that resources are limited, fearful thoughts arise and we humans begin to manipulate and tinker with those delivery systems or go to war for the necessary resources to ensure the survival of a few. In other words, love sees resources as unlimited and seeks the survival of all, while fear, ultimately seeks the survival for the separate self.

The love that extends from God’s point of view is unlimited in thoughts of good for all and is also unlimited in resources that are needed for life to exist perpetually. In so-called “good times” humans are willing to contemplate a point of view that is good for all. However, human perception of world is in constant flux and it requires us to tune our point of view towards the source of life. Fear however, views resources as limited and creates a dissonant point of view with the source of life, which gives rise to philosophies that exalt concepts like “survival of the fittest”.

God designed and set in motion a universe that is always expanding. God also provides the resources that are needed to support an expanding universe. All life forms will experience multiple birth and death events as a function of an ever-expanding creation. Human perception of the world will produce thoughts and actions of love and fear that vary with the ebb and flow of the universe as it expands and contracts as part of its growth process.

Matthew 5:43-45 (NLT) “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy. 44 But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! 45 In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.

Matthew 24:6 (NKJV) And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.

So the question becomes, how do we shift or tune our point of view, to be in harmony with the source of all life?  We all identify with our perspective cultures and their competitive distributive systems. Some are socialist, some are market driven, and even human religious systems can be hierarchical when it comes to dispensing spiritual blessing. These systems unintentionally create beliefs that the supply of resources is becoming scarce.

Love knows no limits and fear only perceives lack, as it relates to resources. The human population is approaching 7.5 billion and already lacks the imagination for a population that is twice as large.  Even more, we humans prepare for war more than we reorganize for harmonious living. The threat of war has become a normal state of mind in these days and yet thoughts and action of love are supposed to be the characteristics of God’s children.

There are those of us that recognize that if we give into thoughts of fear, human life will de-evolve into dystopian sub-cultures. Today many segments of our popular culture echo or create visions of humanity living and coping with dysfunction. However, children of God should hold the belief that heaven is now on earth. Again, the questions haunts us, how do we love more than we fear and how do we align our point of view with the ultimate source of life?

My encouragement, is for each of us to contemplate and discover our unified relationship with the universal source of life. Somehow, many of us have become convinced that we are all separate and the only tactic available to survive is of “dog-eat-dog”. If we would define love as the dissolution of separateness between people, then maybe we could begin to envision a human community made from every tribe, tongue, and nation.

All life is an offspring of the original source and we all inherit the traits from that source. As children of the source, our Creator continues to look on us and say, “It is good”. My hope is that each of us, realize that the objective point of view, is simply love. The source of all life calls us, it’s very own and provides us unconditional love and unlimited resources. In many ways, the point of view of true love, is to, simply see others as self.

John 13:34-35 (NLT) So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. 35 Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

Mark 12:31 (NLT) The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”

Ephesians 5:29 (NKJV) For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.

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October 25, 2015 · 4:26 pm

Non-Local (Infinite) Love

One of the qualities of being human is our ability to exist simultaneously in the realm of the infinite (non-local; spiritual) and the realm of the finite (local; material; 3 dimensions + time). Western thought traditionally separates these realms and relegates mystical and supernatural events to the spiritual realm. This perspective has given rise to a culture that has a preference towards a rational and scientific approach to life.  Or does it?

Fundamentally and traditionally we westerners still dream of a love that never dies and we blindly enter marriage relationships with a fantasy like expectation of a love that will last beyond our human lifetime. Even today, when gifts are exchanged as token of marriage they are forged with materials such as diamonds, gold and titanium. These materials are used because they symbolize our hope for relationships to last beyond our physical lives.

Western civilization rests its stability on the foundations of these marriages that produce families, which in turn produce communities, which in turn produce the nations of the earth. These fundamental relationships of love are expected to transcend the current generation and leave an inheritance, which is an expression of love, for the next generation. Institutions that memorialize persons who have moved into the next phase of existence provide expressions of love that transcend and strengthen the foundation for future generations.

Even though love is eternal or non-local it requires an expression in the real-time. Any husband that forgets a birthday, anniversary or valentine’s day is quickly reminded just how long-term a relationship can be. When the spark of love begins there is a hope that it will never die and there is an expectation that each love will be continually expressed to reinforce its existence. The fact that God created the universe as an act of love, or a proposal for marriage however unique or grand the gesture holds very little meaning as we proceed in time without subsequent expression.

So what happens when the chain of love is broken?

We humans create and imaginary timeline that began with the big bang and it stretches towards the infinite (non-local) future. This current moment of “Now” is where we reside. This universally agreed slice of time has no standard duration but is imagined to be moving along the timeline towards the future. For each of us there was a spark of love that created our being. The big question is what person, what culture or what religious or secular institution is responsible to express love to us as individuals?

Before I answer that question, let me inject 2 points. The first has to do with language and the way we describe the reality in which we exist. Albert Einstein documented the principles of relativity and its language continues to dominated the context of western thought. An example would be the way you would describe the relationships and interactions of pool balls on a pool table. During the cold war nations and cultures related in a paradigm of the pool table and the ball with the greatest momentum had the greatest political influence. Religious thought also operates in this paradigm. However, Einstein also discovered the principles  for quantum physics providing us with another language context with term like entanglement, non-locality and de-coherence. This posting uses the term non-locality to describe love as an object in hopes that we can discover its operations outside of our dimensions of time and space.

The second point is a real-time example of a broken timeline. If you are in relationship with a person suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, you are as witness to someone who experiences non-locality.  People with Alzheimer’s are unable to communicate in-synch with you and our universal concept of the timeline. Short term memory storage areas of the brain is where each human correlates space and time and when we lose access to this we become separated from others that are bound to these universal dimensional constructs. These constructs vary for every individual, every culture and every religious and secular institution.

Today we are living in inter-national global societies and regardless of where you find yourself on this planet at any moment technology is making that place a nexus of multi-cultures and institutions. It used to be that home was where our heart was, that singular place of time and space, where we left behind and sent the expressions of our love.  That collapse of distance and awareness, creates an entanglement between individuals cultures that were once isolated. For many people today home no longer has a fixed location, in other words home has become non-local as it relates to time and space.

What’s love got to do with this?

So right where we stand in this moment, who or what culture or what religious or secular institution is responsible to express love to us as individuals? If “God” is not the answer to that question you have just discovered why there are problems in the world. Simply put the definition of being lost is the inability to see God and His love for us in the moment and in that space. Traditionally we humans look to people and objects to generate the forces that influence feelings of love. However, in the quantum state all things are entangled and all things are possible and all things that exist, are from God.

As disciples of Jesus we are authorized to love everyone. Yet, we live on a planet of 7.5 billion people who are looking for love in all the wrong places. The thing that is supposed to set followers of Jesus apart from the crowd is their ability to love and reveal the true source of love. God is the source and for persons that understand their connectedness to God’s love should flow easily. If I could encourage anything it would be for every person to discover that they are linked to God as either His daughter or son. Like the air we breathe His love flows through each of us. Understanding God and His love of all is a privilege and honor I hope each human experiences God’s love the local and the non-local realm of reality.

Gen 1:27, 31 (NLT)

27So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

31 Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!

John 3:16 (NLT) “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

Romans 8:31-39 (NLT)

Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love

31 What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? 32 Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? 33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. 35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us. 38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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