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| Copyright © 1987 - 2000, W. H. Lee Ministries, All rights reserved. |
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| There are those that go absolutely ballistic when anyone so much as questions anything in the Bible. Then there are those such as I was who discounted Religion all together. I came to an epiphany. There is a difference between religion and spirituality. Spirituality is the relationship between God and self. Religion is the organization of spiritual beliefs for any specific group of people. Literal and spiritual observance of those beliefs.
What differs Jesus from most other religious or spiritual leaders is that His faith was so strong that He died for His beliefs. Others like Mohammed, Buddha, Confucius, and the great philosophers shaped much of the world's spiritual beliefs, but only Jesus actually was willing to die for what he believed Jesus had His trials, as all of us do, but His clear vision of the Love of God always carried Him. So where do I now stand? I believe that Christ was born, lived, died, and rose again in the disciples work as they spread his works and teachings. I believe that Jesus tried to teach us the love of God and what God wants for us. I also believe that Jesus was a man, flesh and blood, and as a man, faced many of the same things that we do on a daily basis. I find many of Jesus' teachings in other texts than the Bible. Some were written long before He was born and others after, but in areas that never heard of Jesus Christ; these truths seem to be universal. I believe that man has twisted the teachings of Jesus into their own agendas, and many so-called "ministries" are nothing more than a scam to fleece the faithful. I think that Jesus would seek truth in all spiritual matters and He would also renounce most of those anointed few that say they have a direct line to God and God says that we should keep the ministry coffers full. Truth can become very convoluted in two thousand years. After being translated into every major language on Earth, the Bible is the most read document in history. This very fact has me suspect of some of the writings in the Gospel. What is truth and what is fabrication? There is no way to know what actually happened during those days. I must take those accounts of Mark, Luke, Matthew, Timothy, Peter, Jude, and John as factual…to a point. But there are other texts, that of Phillip, and Mary Magdalene herself are among those that were suppressed by the church. There are other beliefs as well… beliefs suppressed by the Church and those believers forced into submission or killed in God’s name. I know that God is one of many facets of the whole. I have learned that Spiritual enlightenment is revealed to us in a way that each of us may understand, so Deity is seen and understood as many different things to many people. God or Goddess? Which one is right? One? The Other? Both? Or none? Spirit leads, I follow. My path may be different from the mainstream, but it is where Spirit leads me. I believe that I have been allowed to think and decide for myself. My path is to help others to do so as well. Next Page |
| Jesus n' me (Concluded) |
| I also learned that man has sometimes trifled with the gospel to suit his own purposes. This has happened in other faiths too. Still, even at its worst dilution, the Bible's truth has always outweighed the tampering. |
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