Tag Archives: Equality

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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Celebrity-ism Leads to Cultures of Religious and Secular Hierarchy

2015-08-09_small_rippleAs members of society, we are part of both spiritual and secular cultures and hopefully our desire is for every person to reach their maximum human potential. If that statement is true then you are doing your part to help human evolution. However, I sense  a negative reverberation flowing contrary to the progressive evolutionary process taking place in human society today. I could be wrong, but  I am perceiving in my global connections that there is an ever-increasing part of our human population that are feeling marginalized, losing hope, having low expectation of evolving forward and worse they have an even lower expectation for their children and the generations that will follow. I believe this reverberation is a direct reflection of the value systems with in our various cultures.

We have reached a point in America’s history where its secular and spiritual cultures are beginning to recite a mantra of thought that says to 99% of its citizens that only 1% of it people have a chance to live out the American dream. But the crazy thing is how this 1% is worshiped by the 99% and thus cultural hierarchy is formed.  In other words, 1% of our human brothers and sisters have achieved celebrity status. Our cultural systems have become so perverted  that it only values, the best actor, best musician, largest net worth, the prettiest looks, the fastest runner, the team with the most wins, the pastor with the most followers, the guy with the best job, or the coolest car, or the family with medical benefits.

Phil 2:7-8 (NLT)  Instead he gave up his privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

The original purpose of competition was to bring out the best in everyone. However the effects of over honoring the success of winners creates what I call celebrity-ism and results in hierarchical structures in our secular and spiritual cultures. Examples of this can be seen in reality TV and in the Mega Churches.

If the goal is to convince every human that they are in fact a Child of God then an evaluation of the outcomes needs another review. Well-meaning television shows that try to help people lose weight, dress better or fix their business, in the end only help a few and quickly move their focus to the star of the show for ratings. The same is true for ministries. Likewise, the goal of helping everyone walking through the door of the church quickly becomes all about the tithe to keep the ministry afloat.

Jesus had a way of empowering everyone He met. He was always trying to get each person to look at their life situations from the spiritual perspective as opposed to the material perspective. In Luke 15 Jesus tells three parables about the rejoicing that takes place when something that is lost becomes found. This is the true celebrating that is needed today.

The truth that every person is loved by God, is the heart of what Jesus came to reveal. Humanity perceives itself to be separated from God and so it lavishes affection on the so-called best and brightest among us. We create our celebrity’s or demigods among ourselves so we can create a feeling that we are winners.  Even our electoral process causes us to reveal our feelings openly to the point we feel we must destroy the opponents of our choice. Fixing the competition with the focus on winning and losing is missing the point. Regardless of the last victory or lost we need to recreate our cultures so that everyone enjoys trying to overcome tougher and tougher challenges as a way of life.

Celebrity-ism has become the default perspective of the materialist. Even worst the spiritual perspective that elevates the totality of humanity to a place of equality is lost to many of our spiritual cultures. In the end these hierarchical and celebrity oriented cultures can only motivate out a sense of  jealously.  Today the children of America and the world are spiraling in their need to feel love (like winners) within their own cultures. For most cultures the only way to create this feeling of love is to impart shame and ridicule on others not in their sub-culture. If ever, any love was showed to another by one’s own culture, it would be treated as an act of betrayal.

Therefore competition has become a tool for choosing of winners and losers by many secular and spiritual sub-cultures to express love on its membership.  Our spiritual and secular cultures today desperately need a renewed vision if we are to make winners of all in humanity. Our definition of winning must not remain defaulted to “not losing”, but instead the fulfillment of overcoming the obstacles set before us. Jesus rightly brings out this point in the last part of the parable of the lost son.

Luke 15:31-32  “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found’”

So let us go forth and celebrate everyone equally.

 

 

 

 

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