How to get blessings and still reject Jesus

Ok my friends, we're back to our Gospel study of (the real) Jesus, outside of how He's been re-defined by those who most loudly call themselves "Christian".

As always, you can find all our previous posts in this series, going through the Gospels chronologically to find the real Jesus, here.

And as always you'll find the scriptures for today are here. (Note that you can change the human-translation version on this scripture page, as suits you. I have NO theological or other tie to the online-bible site I use for this blog – it just lists many human translations to choose from, including the NASB, KJV, The Message, and the NRSV, which are the ones mentioned by those I chat and email with.)

So today's scripture tells the story of the lame man at the healing pool. The ancient world thought there were a lot of these healing pools, and this particular one had been used by pagans before some Jews decided they could use it, as well – though that would irk other Jews who understood that trying to get a good thing from an ungodly thing is never a good thing after all.

Scripture tells us this guy had been unable to use his legs for thirty eight years, which, due to economic and political oppression of that time and culture, was longer than many poor and disadvantaged people even lived.

Jesus picks him out of the crowd of disabled people there, and asks him a very interesting question: "Do you want to get well?"

It's an interesting question because it seems to have an obvious answer. We can imagine that if our legs didn't work for thirty eight years we'd be answering, "Yes! Of course!" Right now, please!" But this guy doesn't say that. Instead, his answer gives his "justification" or excuse for why he's been "broken" for so long, and why he can't be well now.

We do that all the time, to greater or lesser extents, in our lives. God comes to us and says, "Do you want to get rid of that evil heart? That smoking habit? That false 'Christianity'? That love of money?" And so on. And we answer, "Well, Lord, I just can't, see, because I had a crappy childhood and it's made it impossible for me to be whole." Or, "Well, Lord, I've tried to quit, see, but I have a chemical imbalance in my brain that's made it impossible for me to quit smoking." Or, "Well, Lord, I've tried to live Your way instead of the False Church way, but I have family and friends there, see, and it would just be too hard on them if I stopped clinging to them instead of You." And so on.

• Years ago, I was a big smoker, and I was finding it impossible to quit. Then one day I realized that all that time I thought I'd wanted to quit, I hadn't REALLY wanted to quit. I just wanted the bad things of smoking to go away, while I kept the "good" things. That's not really wanting to quit :) But it is exactly what we do far too often. We believe we want to get rid of an addiction, or our false "Christianity", or our ungodly lives – but what we really want is for the bad parts to go away (the damage to our bodies, for example, or the damage to our relationship with God), while we keep the "good" parts (the friends who share our addiction, for example, or our ability to continue believing God's cool with us as we are). What ways are you, like this guy in scripture, like me, like billions of others on this planet, only thinking you want to get rid of something anti-Jesus in your life, but you really only want the bad parts of being anti-Jesus to go away, while you keep the "good" parts? 
• What will it take for you to be willing to let those "good" parts go, as well, so you truly can be as free as Jesus wants you to be?

Jesus' answer to this guy was to ignore all his excuses (which were far more broken than his body was), and tell him to pick up his stuff and move. And instantly, despite the guy's previous failure to take responsibility for God's ability to heal him, his body is healed. And when our body is hurt or broken, that's what we focus on almost exclusively. But was that really the guy's root problem, though? We find out in a moment.

First, not surprisingly, we see that the Good Religious People had a cow, seeing the now-healed guy doing what Jesus told him to do: take his stuff and go home. It was the Sabbath, and here's this guy carrying stuff on the day that's supposed to be do-nothing day. So what's the guy's response? He's just been healed by Jesus. Does he stand up for what Jesus just did for him?

Absolutely not. Jesus healed his body, but his character remained unhealed. Just like the guy previously made up excuses for why he was still broken after all those years, now he made up excuses for why he was doing what the Good Religious People didn't like. "Not MY fault," he said. "It was that guy that healed my legs. HE made me do this!" Apparently the guy even tried to point Jesus out to the Good Religious People, knowing that would get Jesus in trouble, because the scripture tells us he couldn't because Jesus had already slipped away in the crowd.

• Jesus healed the guy's body, which is what he and most of us would assume was the real problem he had. But it really wasn't, was it? God's given us a great illustration here that it's entirely possible to ask God for what we think is our biggest problem, and yet completely refuse the real, deep healing we actually need. What healing are you praying for, right now? Is that truly the core healing you really need? Is there something deeper you need healed, not just so your body can be better but also so your soul and character can be healed?

Later, scripture tells us, Jesus found the guy at the temple, and tried to teach him. "Look at God's power in your life!" Jesus told him. "Stop living outside God's expectations for you or something worse than a broken body will happen to you."

And what was the guy's response? Did he realize his ingratitude? Did he start taking responsibility for himself and the consequences of his bad decisions? Did he abandon his ties to the hell-bound Good Religious People and risk all for God and heaven? Nope. He went off and turned Jesus in to the Good Religious People.

What a sad story! Imagine meeting the Creator of the Universe and He heals you, despite your ridiculousness and refusal to take responsibility for yourself. Then later He even comes back and tries to get you to see how much spiritual peril you're in – and all you can do is continue being a jerk and run off to try to get Him in big trouble with those who claim to be His people but really hate who and what He really is. I can't imagine a worse scenario!

• Jesus warns us again and again when we're caught in being in or siding with "Christianity" rather than Him. He gives us healing and counsel, offers us freedom from our emotional, physical, and spiritual pains – and still too often we prefer the human version of "Christianity" that Good Religious People have created, maintain, and promote. Are there ways you are still turning Jesus in to the Good Religious People, preferring their ways to His ways, their healing to His healing? In what ways are you still living outside Jesus' expectations for you? What can you do today to start fixing that? 
• Since we see today that the Bible tells us it's entirely possible to receive healing and other blessings from Jesus, yet still be completely rejecting of who He is and what He wants, how should we understand those in "churches" today who show off their healings and such as if they are "proof" of how right they are with God, and yet don't show the real Jesus in their hearts and lives?

Next study, we'll see Jesus getting more blunt with the Good Religious People, and their reaction to that. Does it help, when God pushes more trying to get people to understand how dangerous their wrong religious-thinking is? Or do Good Religious People continue to reject Him anyway?

Until next time!

Lynne
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This article written by Lynne at http://NoJunkJustJesus.blogspot.com/. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

Yes, your 'church' is about you - not Jesus

Ok – back to our chronological walk through the Gospels. We're seeking and finding the real Jesus as He presented Himself to us – and not in the sinful human ways those who've so long called themselves His "Church" have reinvented Him (as He warned us they would). 

As always, you can find all our previous posts in this series, going through the Gospels chronologically to find the real Jesus, here.

And as always you'll find the scriptures for today are here. (Note that you can change the human-translation version on this scripture page, as suits you. I have NO theological or other tie to the online-bible site I use for this blog – it just lists many human translations to choose from, including the NASB, KJV, The Message, and the NRSV, which are the ones mentioned by those I chat and email with.)

This week, we see Jesus back among those He grew up with – and we find them so ignorant of God's truth they not only refused to recognize God standing right in front of them, but also refused His blessing and healing. If we look, we can easily see the same thing in ourselves, and in what's most loudly called itself "The Church" through the centuries.

Now, at least partly we can understand their failure to really see who Jesus is. They had known Him when He was just a boy, watched Him grow up, known Him as part of His biological family and the social culture of this town. In some ways, it may have been harder for them to recognize who He really was and could do because they'd grown accustomed to understanding Him within a certain mold: son of Mary and Joseph, brother to His brothers and sisters, a craftsman low in social and financial status who made and sold simple, practical things of metal and wood with His family.

Indeed, when Jesus came back He was anything but the guy who used to sit in the dirt and repair plows for the local farmers. Now Jesus was a miracle worker and a wise man, far different from how they wanted to keep understanding Him. And they didn't just ignore or write Him off – they actually got offended. And as we learned last Gospel study, Jesus' healings and blessings matched what people were willing to believe about Him. Therefore, those who should have been closest to Him got almost nothing from Him at all.

Today we make huge mistakes like this all the time, with all sorts of people. We often continue to understand people in the awful ways they were before, ignoring or getting crappy if they seem to be above and beyond that now. In some ways, it's offensive to us when someone stops boozing it up, or backbiting, or stepping on others to get ahead, or rejects living the materialistic lifestyle we're taught to see as "success" (and even as "God's blessing"), if that's the thing we still want to keep doing. Like, how dare someone prove what a life of falsehood and crud I'm choosing, by choosing what's better than that!

But there's another way we do this, a way easily far more dangerous to our souls, if we've been raised in what calls itself "The Church".

For those of us who've grown up in "The Church", or who came to it later and have embraced it long enough to absorb its way of interpreting Jesus, the message of the real Jesus can seem incredibly foreign – and even threatening. We've grown up in the "hometown" of what most loudly calls itself "His Church", and we rest our whole identity on our "hometown" understanding of Jesus, certain beyond certainty that OF COURSE we understand Him better than anyone else – WE GREW UP WITH HIM!

But that understanding is just as flawed as was the understanding the people of Jesus' physical hometown had 2,000 years ago. And when we're confronted with the huge difference between the Jesus we think we know better than anyone and the real Jesus of power and wisdom, oh boy can we get offended! People of "The Church" have turned their backs on, kicked out, born false witness against, attacked, tortured, and even slaughtered people for centuries, all because these other people challenged their "hometown" understanding of Jesus Christ. Sometimes that's just been "hometown" people fighting other "hometown" people over some stupid theological doctrine that means nothing to God. But sometimes it's been "hometown" people just simply refusing to allow Jesus to be who He really is.

Why? Why would "hometown" people refuse to accept Jesus for who He really is?  

• Sometimes we refuse because we like the gilded dirt hole we've committed years of our lives and our egos to. We like the human hierarchy, the remakes of the old covenant temple, the live-in-a-box spirituality that tells us we're doing God's work even though we're not doing it, or we're passionately doing it for all the wrong reasons (which Jesus says doesn't count). Those things make us "feel spiritual" and "connected to God" – even though they are exactly opposite anything Jesus and the rest of the New Testament said to do or live. We forget or ignore that all religions make their members "feel spiritual" and "connected" – so it isn't the feeling that saves us, but following the real Jesus and doing what He says, that actually makes us real Christians.

• Sometimes we refuse because our "hometown" "church" has taught us to fear any thinking that would challenge its authority over our minds and hearts. We shake our heads when we hear of cults that have lead their members even to death – but then we follow, just like the people of 2,000 years ago, our "church" when it leads us even to spiritual death. 

• Sometimes we refuse because if we accepted the real Jesus, and did what He really said, then we'd have to give up pretending to live godly lives, while our hearts were just full of ourselves. So-called "ministers" are most guilty of this. "If I actually accept the real Jesus, then I'll have to give up the position, authority, money, retirement fund, extra-respect, and extra-honor I went to minister-school to get!" But others do this as well, "If I actually accept the real Jesus, then I'd have to give up my pride of position in church, and I'd have to stop chasing money, and I'd have to do more than just kick in a few bucks in the collection plate to be right with God." In this case, we don't "get" the real Jesus, and we even get hugely offended by Him, because our worldly goodies depend on our not "getting" Him.

This is all just another reason it is SO dangerous to just join or stay in a "church", if what we want is the real Jesus. The "Church" we see most easily around us, with its "sanctuaries" and seminary-educated "ministers" and centuries of accumulated and trumpeted doo-dads, is simply a pagan remake of the old – and by Jesus' death on the Cross cancelled – Jewish temple. So it doesn't even have the real authority and God-connection the Jewish temple had!

Instead, the "Church" we see most easily around us, and which we may have spent many years growing up in, is a purely human reinvention of God's real plan. It uses Jesus' face, and pretends to do His work with His heart, but points those who live in its "hometown" to the Jesus IT knows, and the Jesus IT isn't offended by. If you want to understand why "The Church" so easily supports and participates in war, economic oppression, sexism, racism, homophobia, materialism, and more, the answer is here: that "Church" is not and never has been about the real Jesus. Instead, it's primary function has been to enjoy, pass on, and protect its own limited and sinful understanding of Jesus.

So it's no wonder this "Church" only gets and falls for "miracles" from the devil, if it gets "miracles" at all. It's no wonder its members feel so comfortable in a "faith" no different in real substance than any other pagan faith, full of good religious feelings but completely devoid of the real Jesus Christ. "The Church" today, whether it calls itself "Roman Catholic", or "Methodist", or "Baptist", or "Nondenominational", or whatever, is no less God-rejecting and pagan than is polytheistic "Mormonism", Jesus-denying "Jehovah's Witness", Bible-twisting "Christian Science", or New Age "Ascended Masters".

The real Jesus Christ offends these "Churches" – and so the real Jesus has nothing to give them.

What about you? Where are you in moving out of the limited and sinful "hometown" mentality that finds the real Jesus something to ignore at best, and offensive at worst?

In my own life, I spent a lot of years in that "hometown". I soaked in all the teachings of the False Church, in its various manifestations in Roman Catholicism and its Protestant daughters.

First, I didn't even know enough to realize I'd been duped. I was quite comfortable in what my human elders preserved for and taught me. Sure I was living the godly life, I was most in danger of hellfire at this time – not because God wanted me there, but because, despite my insistence to the contrary, I wasn't really choosing God. I was like someone who claims to be going to Boston, but keeps insisting on traveling a road that only goes to Sacramento.

Later, God blessed me with a growing dissatisfaction with "The Church". Something was wrong, though I couldn't figure out why. Something was "missing". I wasn't as "fulfilled" any more. At first, as you might guess, I thought the answer was to become MORE in and about "The Church". I didn't just do the learning, I learned it all. I didn't just do the Roman or Protestant rituals, I did them ten times over. I didn't just pray, I prayed all day. And at first, it seemed to work – but it would always fail again and that nagging dissatisfaction came back into my heart. I prayed for God to make it go away, even to restore my "faith" - but He proved His love for me by making it grow worse and even more nagging, with each passing day and year.

It was that blessed irritation, that sanctified dissatisfaction, that slowly began to make me realize my spiritual life and heart was full of human junk – not Jesus. It was God's gift of stamina, and my willingness to go it alone at times, that helped me wander out of the gilded dirt hole of what most loudly calls itself "Christianity" so that I could seek and find the real Jesus Christ.

What about you? Are you still in the gilded dirt hole, or wishing you could be? I'd guess that if you're here, reading this blog, then you at least have a tiny bit of that blessed irritation, that sanctified dissatisfaction, that God's using to get you up out of the dirt and into Jesus' (real) arms. Otherwise, you'd be too offended by my "disrespect" for what claims most loudly to be "The Church" and its "ministers" to stay.

Are you afraid of going it alone? Of being without "a church"? Jesus said He would be with you always. He also said His real followers would have to give up even their closest relationships if those relationships block His followers from Him. Trust Jesus! And look for those others who are also wanting to be just about Jesus. They are His real church – they are your real family.

Are you still craving the religious doo-dads and goodies you get from only-faking-Jesus "Christianity"? Are you TRULY willing to trade eternal heaven with God because you like the pride, the trancing out, the rituals and do-goods you could get from participation in ANY religion (which means all your "godly" feeling is actually nothing special at all)? Jesus isn't kidding around – and neither is the devil. Drop those religious things and titles and so on like the hot hell-rocks they are, and fill yourself with the real Jesus!
If you'd like to talk more or pray about this, and you don't have a local no-junk-just-Jesus sister or brother to fellowship with, email me and let's talk. Going after the real Jesus can be a shorter walk when you don't have to find the whole way yourself without others who've already made more of the trip and can help you with the signposts along the way.

Jesus didn't come to earth and die so that we'd be stuck in fake temples and wearing Jesus-masks. He came to earth to completely shake things up – to heal people others don't believe worth healing, to put first people others think should be last, and to cancel religion and its inevitable path to forever-death.

Find and keep the real Jesus Christ.

He's waiting for you! 
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This article written by Lynne at http://NoJunkJustJesus.blogspot.com/. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

Are you so smart you're stupid?

We're continuing on with our chronological walk through the Gospels, seeking – and finding – the (real) Jesus Christ, as He presented Himself to us (and not in the ways He's misrepresented even today by those who most loudly call themselves "Christian").

As always, you can find all our previous posts in this series, going through the Gospels chronologically to find the real Jesus, here.

And as always you'll find the scriptures for today are here.
(Note that you can change the human-translation version on this scripture page, as suits you. I have NO theological or other tie to the online-bible site I use for this blog – it just lists many human translations to choose from, including the NASB, KJV, The Message, and the NRSV, which are the ones mentioned by those I chat and email with.)

This week's scripture should be a warning to those who discount Jesus' ability to do miracles beyond what we normally expect from the standard "physics" of this world – and that's almost all of what calls itself "Liberal" or "Progressive" Christianity today. It also gives warning to those "Good Religious People" we've come to see so often in the Bible now, as well. 

In this week's scripture, two guys who are blind are following Jesus (and we assume the crowd of disciples, God-seekers, gawkers, etc also following Him), hollering out for help. Note that they call Jesus "Son of David", which meant they understood Him to be the Messiah promised to Israel (and the world).

They followed Him all the way into somebody's home (or other indoor place), still clamoring for Him heal their blindness supernaturally. They aren't asking Him for a pill, or a better doctor, or a good hospital, after all. They've heard from others that He can raise the recently-dead, throw demons out of people, heal disabilities, and more – and they want the same kind of miracle for themselves.

Jesus gives them what they want – but He first asks them if they truly believe He can do it.

If these men had been like many "Liberal" or "Progressive" Christians, though, they would have had to tell Him something like, "Well, Lord, since I'm a modern-believer, with science and reason at my disposal, I've risen above superstition and mythology. No, I don't believe you've actually done anything supernatural. But I do give you greatest honor as an awesome teacher whose teachings inspire me to live a loving, moral life. I also appreciate the lessons to be learned from the metaphorical or figurative 'miracle' stories told about you by well-meaning but backward human beings who lived in a pre-science culture. I suppose if my blindness is actually being caused by some psychosomatic distress, then you might be able to 'cure' it with what's really a spiritual 'sugar pill'. But if my blindness isn't purely psychosomatic, like I'm sure the so-called 'demon possession' of the guy behind me is, then, no, Lord. I know better than to believe you can cure me."

And, since Jesus healed the blind men in our scripture to the extent they believed He could, the literal-miracle-rejecting "Liberal"/"Progressive" Christian would get – what? Nothing.

Now, does this mean that every time someone prays for a blind person (or anyone with any kind of illness, disability, trouble, etc) Jesus will automatically heal them? No. The Bible itself shows us that Jesus walked all over Israel, and only a tiny number of the many, many who suffered there received healing. We might be tempted to say that people get healing depending on how close they are to Jesus Himself or to His praying-people, but the Bible never shows us 100% healing even of every believing-person. Timothy, for example, had gut and other problems that apparently were accepted as just a part of life to deal with. Paul, for another example, had some kind of ailment God simply wouldn't heal because otherwise Paul risked becoming as worthless to God as most "ministers" are today.

The Bible does show us that God acts supernaturally in this world when it works for His plan. Jesus acted supernaturally (in healing and more) 2,000 years ago – just as He does today – when that supernatural action illustrates God's power, His nature, or His intentions for our future, or when that supernatural action freed a "trapped" worker who was unable to continue working towards God's plan as s/he was. So, even if we do have big ailments or disabilities and don't get healing in this life, we know God has the power to heal, and that our healing will come – when Jesus returns for us, if not before.

If, that is, we are willing to believe He can and will.

• Nothing in the Bible says science or reason should be thrown out - but everything in the Bible says that God isn't limited by anything we can understand. Are you able to appreciate and use science and reason in ways that benefit yourself and others, without denying that God can act outside the rules He created for this world when He created it? 
• Have you had times of refusing miracles in your life because it didn't seem "reasonable" to expect them? What would it take for you to open up to God's ability to show His power, nature, and future intentions through your life, as fits His plan for the world? 
• Since even Timothy and Paul (who were great workers of wonders in Jesus' Name) had ailments and other physical problems that were apparently never healed while they lived on this earth - and yet never believed that meant Jesus couldn't do supernatural things or that God didn't love them beyond measure anyway, why do we?

The scripture story today ends as they often do – with the Good Religious People accusing Jesus of using demonic power to accomplish what doesn't elevate and sanctify their way of being "godly". If you've been following along in our study, you can easily shake your head and say, "Same stuff, different day!" And truly, Good Religious People never change. Through the Old Testament, the New Testament, the centuries since, and even today, they proclaim themselves as God's People even as they reject living the way God has said His people must live. They also claim to be the one's He's using in His plan, even as they act against Him at work in the world when it doesn't please their own religiosity. An easy example today is the Holy Spirit action in the lives of Gay people today, as God heals more and more of them of the spiritually alienating and deeply wounding false-witness and intentional Bible-mistranslation Good Religious People have bludgeoned them with. Just as God called the Gentiles, even when it torqued off the Jews, God calls Gay people, even when it torques off straight people. And witnessing God at work, all Good Religious People today can do is screech "Satan's power at work! Satan's power at work!"

They truly never change.

• What lessons has the Bible taught you so far about Good Religious People and the mistakes they make (intentional and otherwise)?
• What dangers do we face when we do follow along with or let ourselves be guided by Good Religious People? 
• Have Good Religious People spiritually injured you or someone you love? Are you more able now to understand their attack as part of Satan's work, and not God's? What help can you find today to get you the additional spiritual healing you still need, so you're no longer a trapped and inured worker who can't help in God's plan?

Until next week, and in His love!

Lynne
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This article written by Lynne at http://NoJunkJustJesus.blogspot.com/. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

To hell with anyone who blocks your way to Jesus

A few posts away (I'm feeling much better with my allergies, btw – thanks for your prayers!) but now we're back to exploring who Jesus really is, outside how He's been so long defined by what most loudly calls itself "The Church".

As always, you can find all our previous posts in this series, going through the Gospels chronologically to find the real Jesus, here.

And as always you'll find the scriptures for today are here. (Note that you can change the human-translation version on this scripture page, as suits you. I have NO theological or other tie to the online-bible site I use for this blog – it just lists many human translations to choose from, including the NASB, KJV, The Message, and the NRSV, which are the ones mentioned by those I chat and email with.)

So far, we've seen from the Bible itself, without having to do any kind of monkey-plays or pompous theological arguments, that, despite how Jesus is interpreted even today by "Good Religious People" and Big-Words Theologians:

• Jesus was always on the side of those who were abused, mistreated, and oppressed – never on the side of those who do the abusing, mistreating, and oppressing. 
• Jesus was always on the side of the spiritual rejects and the sinners – and never on the side of those who make sure others know they are spiritual rejects, or the side of the Good Religious People. 
• Jesus requires His followers to be so strong they refuse to do violence or hurt back, even if attacked to death – not so weak they worship violence, war, and domination. 
• Jesus warned us repeatedly that most of those who claim to be His people will be spiritual liars and cheats, fooling even themselves all the way to hell – and He commands us to realize their error and not get caught up in it ourselves. 
• Jesus never presented anything of God as requiring a seminary education or a "pastor" to understand (study, yes, using our brains, yes – but "church" related stuff? No). In fact, the Bible shows us that to truly understand what Jesus means has always required NOT having human theological ideas in the way of God's simple message. Jesus (and others in the Old and New Testament) show us again and again that – despite our belief that more theological ideas and degrees and titles means more understanding of Jesus – more theological ideas and degrees and titles means LESS understanding of the real Jesus. 
• And more!

This week, our chronological Bible tells us about Jesus illustrating that death isn't how we usually imagine death at all, and, healing a woman who was sick in more ways that we can even imagine today. What do you learn about Jesus from these stories? Here's what I see:

When people – even people who normally refuse to believe in God – are desperate and hurting, there is always that tendency to turn to God and plead for help. The Bible doesn't tell us if Jairus and his family already believed in Jesus. Yet we can see that, even if he wasn't yet a believer, Jairus was desperate enough to reach out to Jesus – and isn't that how many of us come or come back to Jesus in the first place? 

• Have you reached out to God in desperation even in times you didn't believe in Him? What happened? How (or did) it change your relationship with Him? 
• The Bible doesn't tell us if Jairus came to Jesus for help because he believed He was a miracle worker, or if he actually understood He was God. If Jairus got through this whole event and only ever understood Jesus as a worker of supernatural things, he would have missed completely that God is on his side even through death. Have you or others you care about understood that Jesus could do supernatural things, but missed that Jesus is also God on your side?

Jairus thought he was going to lose his little girl – and, in fact, before he got Jesus back to her, she did, in fact, die. The people telling Jairus that his daughter was now actually dead told him not to bother Jesus any longer. "Death", they would have told us, "is the end. Miracle healings might happen here and there. But death is never undone."

• What are the things you believe are just the end – never to be undone? Does God have power even other those things? In what circumstances might He change them?

On the news that his daughter was dead, Jesus told Jairus not to be afraid, but to believe, instead. After we've lost someone to death, we might understand the fear of having to live the rest of one's life without this loved one. We might also understand the fear that comes from being reminded of our own mortality. Jesus, though, offered comfort in belief. Like He could have also said, "No need to fear death – the answer to death is standing right here. So just trust that answer to apply, even now!"

• Many of us have heard that the antidote to fear is to believe – but what does that look like in your own life? Does it mean letting go your natural fear of death? Does it mean giving over your worries over money or job? What are all the ways Jesus' comforting command to believe instead of fear might or does impact your own life?

When Jesus told the gathered crowd of mourning that the little girl wasn't dead but asleep, they laughed at Him. And I'd have to say that if some guy I'd never seen before walked into a funeral and told everyone there that the only person in the room not breathing any longer was just asleep and not dead at all, laughter would be the nicest reaction I might have. Yet I can't imagine how my reaction would change if the dead person suddenly woke up and got something to eat!

• The Bible tells us that even Satan and those who work for him can do miracles at times, so it's not always safe to assume that because something miraculous is happening that means it's from God. What specific things can or do you do in your own life to keep from being fooled into following after lying signs and false wonders?

This scripture passage also talks about a woman Jesus healed while on his way to Jairus' daughter. If we don't know enough about the ancient Mosaic Law the Jews lived under, we won't realize that this woman's problems were threefold. Not only was this woman's health terrible (she's been having menstrual bleeding for twelve solid years), and not only had she wiped out her financial resources trying unsuccessfully to get healing from medical doctors, but also according to the religious law she lived under she was "unclean" because of her bleeding. All men and women were made religiously unclean at certain times and under certain circumstances (check out Leviticus 15, for example). If this woman had been having normal periods, she could have gotten "clean" again after a certain passage of time without bleeding. Since she never stopped bleeding, though, she never had that opportunity. That meant she wasn't allowed to touch anyone or anything, or they too would become "unclean" and also have to undergo purification time and rituals to keep from spreading "uncleanness" even further. Imagine living your life sick as a dog, being wiped out financially by doctors, and not being allowed to touch anything (not a person, not even the railings on the city bus) without possibly enraging people so much they might kill you for it. Now imagine living that way for twelve, long years, with no end in sight.

Until this miracle-guy shows up.

• Since the Bible shows us that Good Religious People of all kinds have always followed or ignored parts of the law God gave them however they wished, should we be at all surprised that Good Religious People today also pompously bellow one part of God's law but explain away and hide others? For example, Good Religious People like to quote the Mosaic Law as if it condemns Gay people – but they explain away the parts that condemn their failure to follow the rest of the Mosaic Law (like men and women both needing to do ritual purification after having any kind of voluntary or involuntary "discharges"). What does that tell you about whether you should be getting your information about what God wants from you from Good Religious People? 
• For centuries, "Christians" have been telling women they were "unclean" because they have periods, even telling them at some times in history that they wouldn't go to heaven if they died while on their periods! Yet all these centuries, no one ever told a man he couldn't get into heaven if he died while having a "nocturnal emission", or that men weren't fit for ministry because they become unclean by nocturnal emissions. Since so much human B.S. has always coated what most loudly calls itself "The Church", should we be surprised when that same "Church" continues today to trumpet its own highly intellectual and theologically "proven" versions of B.S. regarding God's supposed condemnation of Gay people, God's supposed support of war, God's supposed shoving women into the back of the church, and so on? 
• Most Gay Christians can empathize with the woman in this scripture, having been exiled as "unclean" in a different way from their communities and being unable to perform any "purification" that would make them OK in the bigoted eyes of their straight spiritual "fellows". But others can also relate – even if their only "uncleanness" is a refusal to play the shallow Sunday-Dress-Up required to attend most "churches" even today. In what ways can you empathize with the woman in this scripture? But in what ways are you more like those who condemned or looked down on her, refusing to give her the basics of human touch and love because you didn't want to be "unclean" yourself?

One thing that can be said of this woman: she had guts. Unlike many who might undergo even less than she had, and who might have just given up and died, she clung to life. She clung to hope. She kept trying, and trying, and trying, even when trying just seemed to bury her deeper into trouble. This is yet another time when the New Testament Bible broke tradition by showing us strong women in a culture that ignored and even attacked strong woman.

• Whether you are male or female, do you have this woman's guts in the face of trial and pain? Is she a great example to you, when you need to see that it is possible to keep going and keep trying even when all seems to have failed?

This woman not only had guts – she had gall. Maybe that gall, that bold, shameless behavior, was also born of desperation. Doesn't matter. This woman pressed her unclean self not only through a crowd, immediately "polluting" everyone she touched (who then immediately polluted everyone they touched, who then immediately polluted everyone they touched, and so on) – which could have started a riot and gotten her stoned – but she also crept up on Jesus, intending to touch Him in a way He wouldn't notice, even though it would also make HIM ritually unclean. All that in hope of being rid of her sickness and isolating shame.

• Have you had this kind of gall with God? Have you ever pushed your way to Him, and to hell with anyone who gets in your way? If not – why not?

The woman felt herself instantly healed upon touching the edge of Jesus' cloak. Imagine her elation – and then imagine it turning instantly to horror when Jesus turned around and demanded to know who had touched Him. She knew she'd just made Him ritually unclean – even healed, the religious law she lived under still required time to pass and a ritual to be performed before she would no longer be "polluting" others. She must have believed her life at great risk when He and the crowd figured out what she'd done. All she could do was what all people in those days did when confronted by the power of one or more people who could hurt or kill if they only just chose to do so: terrified, she fell on her face and confessed, hoping for mercy in even the tiniest form.

But the violence – rage, fists, rocks – she could expect in her religious culture didn't come. Instead, Jesus congratulated her on her faith in His ability to heal her, and sent her off in peace, free from more suffering.

• The Good Religious People of that day often stoned "unclean" women who touched others. In the centuries of what most loudly calls itself "Christianity", Good Religious People have burned people at the stake and otherwise tortured and murdered them, taught them to feel shame over who they are, and made war in "God's" name against people who weren't like them in one way or another. Not one bit of that is like Jesus anywhere in the Bible. Yet we too often continue being fooled by this false "Christianity". Why? 
• Imagine being Gay and with shameless gall pressing through a crowd of "Christian" bigots to get to Jesus, sure that He can heal the hurt false Christians have done to your heart. Imagine fearing Jesus will turn on you like false "Christians" have – only to find He instead congratulates you for your faith and sends you off in His peace. Now read Revelation 3:7-13 and know that that's exactly what you're going to hear from Jesus, in the End.

Today we got to see Jesus' power at work – not just in healing death and sickness, but also in reorienting our religious thinking so that we can see past the religious nonsense we live under and even pass on to our children, thinking we're doing them a good thing.

• What ways do you need to reorient your thinking about Jesus? Is Jesus like the supporter of war, supporter of sexism, supporter of homophobia, supporter of economic oppression, and so on that "The Church" has reinterpreted Him as all these centuries? 
• Was Jesus at all prevented from being who He really is by all the Good Religious People and their dumb ideas while He moved around, doing His work? Why should we assume, then, that we can't find the real-Jesus today because "The Church" has done so much Bible-twisting over the centuries? 
• What needs to change in your life this week? What can Jesus heal for you today, that you never imagined could be gotten rid of before?

Take care until next week!

In His love,

Lynne

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This article written by Lynne at http://NoJunkJustJesus.blogspot.com/. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

5,000 demons: 0. Jesus: 1

I'm posting a little early this week, as I'll be in an all-day training tomorrow. But we're still going through the chronological Gospels, taking a look at who the Bible says Jesus is, outside the ways we're traditionally taught to understand Him by "Good Religious People".

As always, you can find all our previous posts in this series, going through the Gospels chronologically to find the real Jesus, here.

And as always you'll find the scriptures for today are here.
(Note that you can change the human-translation version on this scripture page, as suits you. I have NO theological or other tie to the online-bible site I use for this blog – it just lists many human translations to choose from, including the NASB, KJV, The Message, and the NRSV, which are the ones mentioned by those I chat and email with.)

We're looking at another famous story from the Gospels this week: Jesus healing the man possessed by a "Legion" of demons.

As usual, there's a lot going on in this story! And to get the full understanding, we have to see the story the way the original ancient-hearers would have, or we can miss important points (and that's true of the whole Bible, of course). Why is that so important? Well, imagine someone 2,000 years from now reading an ancient text from the year 2011 that talked about the "Golden Arches". How far off in understanding would they end up if they didn't know what (most of us today) know: the "Golden Arches" mean a popular fast food restaurant chain?

• Have you understood yet how absolutely necessary it is to understand the Bible as the original writers and hearers would have, or risk getting a wrong meaning from it? How has not understanding the Bible as the original writers and hearers would have steered you wrong in your past?

So, Jesus and His disciples have entered a region where there are a lot of Gentiles (non-Jews). We can tell that because these people were raising pigs – an animal abhorrent to Jewish religious law. They met a man (or two men, if you go by what Matthew remembered) who showed all the classic ancient signs of being controlled by a demon:

• He lived in a tomb – which the Jews would have thought made him beyond religiously unclean 
• He couldn't be bound, but seemed to have an unnatural strength, able to break even chains and leg irons used to subdue him 
• He ran night and day through the cemetery, howling and cutting himself 
• He accosted anyone and everyone who tried to pass that way 
• He refused to wear clothes

Scary dude! Today, a guy acting like that would be hauled off to a psych ward and heavily medicated (probably never to emerge), or simply shot if he ran up to the police like that. But Jesus had a different way to handle him. Jesus went right to the source of the problem: He confronted the demons inside him.

• Do you believe that some or all of people who act like this today are demon-possessed? How does that affect what you might do for them? 
• Have you been so much in torment and pain that you acted "crazy" in one way or another? If Jesus could heal this guy of this kind of hell-on-earth, do you imagine He could heal yours?

Note that the demons inside this guy knew exactly who Jesus was, but they couldn't figure out why He was there. They apparently expected not to see Jesus until The End, when all demons will be cast into the torment they've chosen to deserve – but not now, in the middle of Gerasenes. Next time someone tries to convince you demons see-all and know-all, remember that!

• Has your religious background, programs you watch, etc., convinced you that demons are all-knowing and able to do anything they want? How has that wrong-teaching affected your life and sense of God's power in your life?

Jesus asked the guy what his name was. Ancient people in those days believed that knowing a demon's name gave you power over it. Apparently the demons thought so too, because they tried to outsmart Jesus by just giving Him like the clever nickname they've come up with for themselves: "Legion". The listeners back then would have known "legion" meant a division of between 3,000 and 6,000 oppressor-soldiers. Something deadly, overpowering, and terrifying, in other words. Jesus isn't impressed, though.Despite their attempt to outmaneuver or intimidate Jesus, He simply tells them to get out. They beg to go into a nearby herd of pigs, and Jesus lets them. We read then that the pigs drowned in the lake. It's quite possible the demons were being like people are sometimes, destroying something to "get back at" an authority figure that's made them do something they don't want to do.

• Since Jesus didn't need to know the demons' names to have power over them (obviously), do you think it's possible He asked just so people would understand how bad this problem really was (meaning, several thousand demons infesting this guy, and not just one)? How might this have all looked different if those watching the scene didn't know? 
• People often feel sorry for the pigs, and indeed, they got a raw deal! But knowing Jesus' character, and how He said that God keeps track of even every little bird in the world, was it likely Jesus or the demons who were responsible for the pigs' death?

Now, the Jews following along would have been incredibly impressed at what Jesus had just done, tossing out several thousand demons with a single command and with total control. But the non-Jews of that place and time, who wouldn't have understand what Jesus had done as a "miracle" but as the act of a "sorcerer", told Him to shove off. They were amazed that He'd healed this maniac that had been such a pain to them for so long – but the loss of the pigs and the healing of the demon-possessed guy was just too much for their brains to take in.

• We see people even today who can look a miracle right in the eye – and still absolutely reject any hand of God in it. I've certainly done that at times in my life. Have you, as well? Why do you think we do that? What's stopping us from dropping that and just taking in God's good work in the world, as we run into it?

The guy who'd been healed "got it", though. He begged to go with Jesus. Jesus instead made him another evangelist to the Gentiles. He told him to go be a witness to his people of God's power and kindness. And the man went far and wide in his area to do just that. Another "reject" made into one of God's greatest ambassadors to the world!

• If this guy could be so spiritually filthy thousands of demons could live inside him, yet still be cleansed and healed by God, what does that say about what God can do to cleanse and heal us? 
• What should be our response to God's healing and freeing action in our lives?

See you next week!
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This article written by Lynne at http://NoJunkJustJesus.blogspot.com/. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

Big storms in life: 0. Jesus: 1

When we begin to understand that the bible itself says that those who most loudly call themselves "The Church" aren't actually Jesus' church, who is Jesus really? That's the question we're still answering in our (chronological) study of what Jesus did and said – and what He didn't do and say.

As always, you can find all our previous posts in this series, going through the Gospels chronologically to find the real Jesus, here.

And as always you'll find the scriptures for today are here. (Note that you can change the human-translation version on this scripture page, as suits you. I have NO theological or other tie to the online-bible site I use for this blog – it just lists many human translations to choose from, including the NASB, KJV, The Message, and the NRSV, which are the ones mentioned by those I chat and email with.)
Today, the scripture talks about when Jesus calmed a storm. Apparently it was evening or late evening, and they all decided to travel across the huge lake. Jesus was tired and fell asleep in the boat, once they were underway.

A huge storm came up – probably fast and furious, as storms on that lake did and still do – and was about to swamp the boat. Everyone was terrified for their lives – except Jesus, who still slept in the boat. Finally, they decided to wake Him up and point out to Him what they thought He was missing: "Hey, man, don't you care we're all about to die???"

Jesus first act was to tell the storm to knock it off – and it did. Just quieted right down.

His second act was to tell the disciples to knock off being afraid. Their fear, He told them, indicated a lack of faith.

The Bible tells us that disciples were stunned. Who in the world was this guy that even the natural world obeyed Him?

There's a lot going on in this little story. What kinds of things do you note? Here's what I see:

• That Jesus was both God and a human being is demonstrated in this story. He was able to command the forces of nature, but He also got tired and needed to sleep. God, who is a Spirit, doesn't need to sleep. But when God took on human form to be among us, He took on all the needs and frailties that our human bodies endure, as well. What does that mean for your own needs and frailties? Can you imagine that God doesn't understand them all?

• When bad or scary things happen, it might just be because that's how the natural world functions (until Jesus comes again, that is). Nothing in the Bible says that there was any purpose or big meaning to this storm. It just came up, as hundreds of storms came up every year on that lake. Those who like to claim that God is behind such things as Hurricane Katrina to "punish" the people they don't like, are, as the lawyers would say, "assuming facts not in evidence" (they also make a mockery of themselves, when such natural calamities strike their own communities, but they don't then say God is punishing them!) Have you assumed that some bad or scary event was God sending you or someone else punishment or a "message"? How could you realistically determine when He really is, and when something is just a natural event or function of this world?  

• The disciples couldn't sleep through the storm because they had no faith – which meant they didn't really trust that God was taking care of them always, and wouldn't let them die until it was ok in His plan for that to happen. Jesus knew God's plan, and knew it wasn't His time to die, so He slept like a baby, even with a terrible, gut-wrenching storm threatening to send them all to the bottom of the lake. The disciples assumed they were being realistic about what was going on, but in truth, it was Jesus who was actually being realistic. Are you realistic in your own life, regarding the time of your death? Are you putting your faith / trust in God's plan and your part in it? Or are you still unrealistically assuming that you can save yourself by fearful struggling? 

• Imagine how absolutely stunned the disciples must have been, when Jesus stood up and told the storm to quit and it instantly did. Imagine witnessing that kind of Almighty Power that could alter the physics of the natural world with a word! Can you close your eyes and imagine yourself in that boat, fearing the storm, and then perhaps even more fearing the Man who could make that storm disappear in a heartbeat? Imagine yourself that protected, even when you have little faith, even when you have garbage for true understanding, just because you stick with Jesus. Now, know that you ARE that protected, even right now!

Take care until next week!
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This article written by Lynne at http://NoJunkJustJesus.blogspot.com/. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

Just how DOES God act in the world?

We're still in our (chronological) study of the real Jesus of the Gospels, which we're finding is far outside how He's always portrayed by the Good Religious People of the world and their "Church".

Today, Jesus talks about how God works in the world, but also how we hit or miss the mark in our search for a relationship with God, and – just like we saw last week – He delivers His message in parables.

As always, you can find all our previous posts in this series, going through the Gospels chronologically to find the real Jesus, here.

And as always you'll find the scriptures for today are here. (Note that you can change the human-translation version on this scripture page, as suits you. I have NO theological or other tie to the online-bible site I use for this blog – it just lists many human translations to choose from, including the NASB, KJV, The Message, and the NRSV, which are the ones mentioned by those I chat and email with.)

First, Jesus tells the parable of the mustard seed. I'll only quickly note that the scholars and other "Big Thinkers" of the world have long debated over this tiny mustard seed Jesus referred to, pointing out that mustard seed was not the smallest seed known to Jesus' listeners, and the mustard plant – even when it reached its biggest height of about ten feet – was never big enough to be called a tree or for (most) birds to perch in it.

Such big-thinker-ism is a good example of why relying only on one's intellectual resources to understand God – and therefore falling into literalism and what we can measure and deduce – means a big, fat failure. It's an example of why we shouldn't be pegging our salvation on what the smart people of the world can figure out, because they too often get so tangled up in "explaining" things that they miss the whole point of the message. They're like people who hear, "It's as hot as the sun in here!", but because they're too busy arguing and preaching and lording over what their thermometers find and under what circumstances anything on earth could truly be as hot as the sun and so on and so forth – they burn up in the fire everyone else fled.

This does NOT mean: "God doesn't mean for you to use your brains." Obviously, He does. But part of using our brains is figuring out when a message or point is being made with what's called hyperbole, or exaggerating for effect. That's certainly a story technique that Jesus uses sometimes, and it's one He uses here.

The second thing to realize as we go through this and other parables, is that we have the benefit of "seeing the answers", because we can read even what the disciples had to have explained to them later. But when Jesus was speaking these parables, no one had a "cheat sheet" called the Bible, and so people then had to rely on how much of God's Spirit they had in their hearts to help them understand what Jesus was showing them. That means many people – Good Religious People who did every Religious thing they knew to go – never understood a word Jesus had said. To them, even though they counted themselves as God's People, Jesus might as well of been speaking on gibberish: they never "got it", because they never "got" Jesus.

However, the fact that we can claim to "get" what Jesus' point was in these parables because we know what these parables mean doesn't mean we actually "get it" any more than most people 2,000 years ago did. As we've said, WE have the "cheat sheet". So we are actually in more danger of never "getting it" than the Good Religious People Jesus was originally speaking to, because we can know the words intellectually, but not spiritually, as measured in our lives. In that case, we're like people in an algebra class, who, when test day come assume we've learned all there is to know from it – but who have only memorized the answer sheet for the final, and therefore can't actually do algebra at all.

Once again, what matters to Jesus isn't what we can show with our mouths and what we can memorize and even teach others, but what we can live with our hearts and minds and spirits.

• The people listening to Jesus heard His words – but only a tiny, tiny few ever understood His point. yet these were highly religious people, well-schooled in God's rules and ways. How dangerous is it to just assume that, because we go to church to hear the Bible preached, we are getting Jesus' point? 
• It doesn't take a Bible scholar to realize that the vast majority of those who call themselves "Christian" don't even come close to living like Jesus (though they're really good at living like what they call "Christian"). Even God-rejecters can see that. In what ways do you call yourself "Christian", but have actually only memorized the Bible answer-sheet and not really learned Jesus' lessons? Are you ready to turn away from your "answer sheet Christianity"?

Ok – so what is Jesus talking about with the parable of the mustard seed? He tells us that the kingdom of heaven – God's way, in other words – is like a tiny, tiny thing that grows unexpectedly, astoundingly, even "abnormally", huge. So huge, in fact, that even those not expected to find shelter in it can and do.

Another parable. Jesus says God's way is like yeast – another tiny, tiny thing – that gets mixed all through everything, so that in time it's everywhere.

• God starts with a lot of tiny things, and then grows or mixes them everywhere. He started with one little human being, and grew us into billions. He started with one Man from a tiny, backwater part of the world, and mixed that Man's message all through the world. Is God planting something tiny in your life, working to grow that something all through who you are so that you also become a resource for others to shelter in?

Then we come to Jesus' parable of the weeds – a parable that we should find great comfort in, when we wonder why God allows evil and evil people in the world. Through this parable, Jesus tells us that God "planted" good, but that the devil came along later and planted bad among God's good. But if God were to rip out the bad people from among us now, others who are good might be destroyed also – something He won't allow. Instead, He tells us, both good and bad people will inhabit the world – until, that is, Jesus comes again to sort us out for good.

• There are many people – either because they've been turned off of Jesus because of the crappy example of "Christian" Good Religious People, or simply because their hearts haven't opened to God yet – who would count even right now as "bad" people. Yet because God hasn't chosen to "harvest" yet, they aren't sent off to hell with the people who simply will always reject God because they love evil. Have you in your own life been a "bad" person that God has allowed to stay mixed in with the good people until you could heal into the good person God created you to be? 
• Does this give you comfort, understanding that God is still in control, His plan hasn't "failed", and He still cares deeply for us, even when our lives are impacted by the "bad" people of the world? Are there others you could share this comfort-message with in your life, today?
• Jesus speaks more than anyone else in the Bible about the reality of hell as a place where good-rejecters end up. But He also speaks (as do many others in the Old and New Testaments) about God's continued attempts to save people from hell by inviting them to the real good they can only achieve through God. How should knowing this affect our lives? How does it currently affect your own life?

Jesus said God's way is like a buyer of fine goods who's seeking for something really special. When he finds it, he gives up everything he has to buy it.

• The buyer could be us. Have you discovered in the Gospel THE treasure you've been searching for? Have you given up everything to be part of it? 
• The buyer could be God. Have you considered that Jesus searches everywhere for you, and that He gave up everything to make you part of His People?

Jesus said God's way catches up everyone – every kind of person there is – and in the end the angels separate the good from the bad, gathering up the good to keep, and tossing the bad into hell.

• Jesus said God chooses good people over bad – not straight over Gay, or white over Black, or male over female, or rich over poor. What do you imagine a heaven full of God's people will look like? Does it look partly like you?

See you next week, when we'll take a look at how God's supernatural power can act in the world, and what that means for our lives today.

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This article written by Lynne at http://NoJunkJustJesus.blogspot.com/. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

Who's condemned by the Parable of the Sower?

Ok – back on track with our (chronological) Gospel study. Sorry to have missed everyone last week! Just too much to do, and got way too far behind, and way too exhausted trying to keep up :-) Times like that are always a reminder to me that God worked the need for rest and downtime into Creation, as well – and we only suffer for it when we don't go along with His plan for the world, OR for our bodies.

In any event, we are indeed continuing through the Gospels, specifically to discover who Jesus really was and is, outside how we've been taught for centuries to view and understand Him by what most loudly calls itself "The Church".

As always, you can find all our previous posts in this series, going through the Gospels chronologically to find the real Jesus, here. 

And as always you'll find the scriptures for today are here. (Note that you can change the human-translation version on this scripture page, as suits you. I have NO theological or other tie to the online-bible site I use for this blog – it just lists many human translations to choose from, including the NASB, KJV, The Message, and the NRSV, which are the ones mentioned by those I chat and email with.)

Today's scripture passage covers a well-known parable: "the parable of the sower":

A farmer goes out sowing seed like all farmers did back then, and like non-industrial farmers do even today: walking along and tossing out handfuls of seed along his/her path. But different things happen to different seeds, depending on the environment they land in. Jesus wants us to understand why different things happen to people's faith (or lack thereof), depending on the spiritual environment we're in. He gives us four groups to consider.

Group 1: All the folks who hear God's Good News – but really, they couldn't care less. Here's a today's-world example. It doesn't matter how often I see advertisements or hear friend recommendations about how great western movies are – I simply don't give a hoot about westerns. So when I hear about them, it just goes in one ear and out the other. I might as well have not heard the western-movie information at all, because I'm just not interested in even knowing that western movies even exist, much less in learning more about them or going to see one. That's how these folks feel about the Gospel: "Don't bother me – I'm busy with more important things!"

Group 2: The people who hear the Good News – and they love it! Love it, that is, until someone makes fun of or hurts them for being a Jesus-follower, or until some other kind of hard time comes. Then, because their faith has no real root, it just dies.

Group 3: Those who also hear the Good News, and also love it – at first. But then their faith gets choked out by what the world has to offer and the crapola it makes us deal with. Note that Jesus doesn't say they become nonbelievers at that point, but that they then wither and fail to mature, or remain unfruitful (meaning, they don't produce what God wants).

Group 4: Those with a noble and good heart who not only hear the Good News, but then grow in and from it, sticking with it no matter what happens, and thereby produce God-plan results God's interested in.

• Usually the first thing people do when they hear this parable is ask themselves which group they fall in. So – which group do you fall in, today? Have you been in different groups at different times in your life? Is it possible you could shift to a different group in your future, if something does or doesn't happen? 
• At what point do you believe Christians should stop expending evangelism energies on people in Group 1? How should we decide who falls into a Group 1? DO we get to decide who's in Group 1 and who's not, since God tells us not to judge and that only He knows people's real hearts? 
• "Christians" often "assign" certain kinds of people they don't like to Group 1, as if simply being Gay, or divorced, or pagan, or registered Democrat/Republican, or whatever means one will never come to know or want Jesus. What would you call an attitude that believes "Not being like me" is the same as "Forever rejecting Jesus"? What do you imagine God thinks of such attitudes? 
• Many of us could count ourselves in Group 2 at various times in our lives, until we get a firm grip on the real Gospel. When we're convinced that the shallow spirituality of "Church Christianity" is the Gospel, then, of course, when we need the deep roots of (real) Jesus to sustain and ground us through hard spiritual times we just don't have it. Have you had times of shallow spirituality that left you defenseless against religious or world attacks on your faith? What helped you move out of the "rocky soil"? 
• Though they never see it, almost all those who call themselves "Christians" are actually not in Group 4, but in Group 3. They stay Bible-babies most/all of their lives, because they are part of "church" communities that make worrying and hoarding money and other wealth, enjoying nice houses and cars, wearing their religious clothes and titles, prettying up their "church" buildings, and so on all part of what they believe is "normal" "faith". But a life in Jesus has nothing to do with those things – even when the "pastor", "priest", or "pope" assures us it can and does. Just like Jesus said we can't have God's stuff in our heart AND money's stuff in our heart, we can't have God's stuff in our heart AND world's stuff in our heart. Have you been taught that God's way includes money's or the world's way, in your contacts with the immature "Christians" who dominate "tradition", "seminaries", "churches", and so on? Have you considered how much it blocks you from true maturity in Jesus Christ? 
• Group 4, of course, is where we want to be. Jesus tells us that people who belong to Group 4 got there – how? By (1) having a noble and good heart (unlike the people in Group 1), and so not being already stuck in evil and refusing to get out, and (2) hearing THE Good News, which means the real Good News of Jesus Christ, and not just the false Sounds-Good News of Church Jesus (unlike Group 3), and (3) keep the real deal even when things get really ugly (unlike the people in Group 2) -- and, because they have all three, therefore are able to produce abundantly what God actually planted them to produce. Has anything moved you around in your life, between groups? What has kept, or keeps you even now, from moving into Group 4 and accomplishing the things God's planned out for you to do? 
• Did you notice here that Jesus only talked about people who'd actually heard the Gospel? Notice He never says that people who truly haven't heard it aren't condemned. Who today really, truly, could be said to have never heard the Gospel? Many today have heard A gospel - but not the real Gospel. If they have a good heart but angrily reject God because they haven't yet understood that He has nothing to do with the false gospel, do you think God condemns them? Do you think they could count as among those who truly haven't heard the Gospel yet?

There's another question in all this, though – a question about why Jesus used parables like this in the first place. Why be so cryptic? Didn't Jesus want everyone to hear and be saved?

Here's where we can get confused, if it hurts our hearts to imagine that anyone has to go to hell or not be saved. We know God is love, and we know God wants to save everyone – the Bible itself tells us that. However, the Bible also says (and Jesus along with it) that some people themselves choose not to be saved. They prefer things other than God, want to walk a path that doesn't lead to God, and they won't be turned from it. This isn't just meaning those who understand themselves as God-rejecters. No, this hell-bound group also includes those who imagine themselves God's Finest, but who are in fact ALSO God-rejecters because they simply create and live a version of "God" and "God's" way that pleases them more, and then expect all the same (if not better) rewards from God as those who actually accept Him.

Jesus told His disciples that He was sharing God's real kingdom information with them, and not with the Group 3 / Good Religious People, because the disciples' interest and want of God was real, not faked – and that just wasn't true of the Group 3 / Good Religious People.

In fact, the Group 3 / Good Religious People had never been truly interested in God and His way – ever. Jesus quotes an Old Testament condemnation of Good Religious People when God said they would never get it because they refused to get it, and that therefore God was going to let them hang with the rope they insisted on putting around their own necks. God could heal them, but He wouldn't, because they refused Him and what He could do.

• "Christians" today – especially "conservative" ones – LOVE LOVE LOVE to consider just how much more "godly" they are than others who aren't like them. They claim to follow, represent, and work for Jesus Christ – and yet they don't do what He said, live like He said, or accomplish the things He said. And if anything points out how far they actually are from the real Jesus Christ? They absolutely refuse to even consider it. In fact, the farther they are from the real Jesus, the harsher they become towards those who might challenge their smiling, blind, hard-heartedness. Since these folks are among those most hell-bound for their Jesus-rejection, does it make more sense why – even though they cause HUGE amounts of suffering in bearing false witness against Gay people, re-writing the Gospel so it "justifies" war, and so on – we should be praying for them earnestly? 
• When we finally begin to see how much Good Religious People actually reject the true God – and why He therefore has to reject them – we start to stand on a safer spiritual foundation. The Bible tells us that there are anti-Christs and False Prophets all over (and will be big ones, in the end), and though Good Religious People always try to point the finger at others, they themselves uniquely qualify as being both anti-Jesus, and, claiming to speak for God but actually speaking falsely. Do you continue to listen to or follow along with Good Religious People? How can you start moving yourself away from them, wasting less of your spiritual energies on them, as well as keeping your understanding of Jesus safe from them?

See you next week!
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This article written by Lynne at http://NoJunkJustJesus.blogspot.com/. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.

Who is (really) part of God's family?

Yep! We're still going through the (chronological) Gospels, seeking and therefore finding the real Jesus – the one that not only doesn't require any church or "clergy" or "denomination" to know, but who can't be known if those are the spiritual "tools" we're using to discover and follow him.

As always, you can find all our previous posts in this series, going through the Gospels chronologically to find the real Jesus, here.

And as always you'll find the scriptures for today are here. (Note that you can change the human-translation version on this scripture page as suits you. I default to the NASB to get the more literal translation, but do use the one that works for you. Note also that I have no theological or other tie to the bible site I list above – it's just one that lists the NASB, KJV, and The Message, and most folks I've corresponded with seem to use one of those. However, another brother likes the NRSV human translation, and says you can find that at bible.oremus.org. Send me yours, if it isn't already listed!)

Today we're looking at: Who does God (not "church", not "denomination", not "minister") define as His family, and what are the requirements for being part of it?

In the very short scripture for today, we see Jesus is once again surrounded by a big, pressing crowd of people. So big, so pressing, in fact, that when His biological mother and brothers (and possibly His sisters, as well) show up, they can't push through to get to Him.

In that culture 2,000 years ago, so fiercely obsessed with biological ties and the unending power of the biological family over the lives of those in it, of course people in the crowd passed on the message to Jesus that His mother and brothers were here and trying to get through to Him. And of course the people in this crowd (and His biological family) would have had no doubt whatsoever that Jesus would have immediately dropped everything else to tend to His biological family. In Israel 2,000 years ago, to not obey and fail to put one's family before everything else meant risking one's place in the family – and that could cost someone a huge economic and social downfall (that's why women who were divorced by their husbands were at such risk, and why Jesus spoke against such divorce).

Yet, once again we see Jesus stunning the crowd with His very different response. Jesus, we see, redefined who He belonged to, and who belonged to Him. He changed that relationship from something defined by people, to something defined by God. "MY family," He said, "is made up of those who do what God wants."

In our culture, we can't even imagine how that would have shocked the people who heard it. Their mouths would have dropped open, their faces curled up in offense, their tongues wagged in agitation. Obviously (to them), once again He was being a "bad" guy!

But first of all,was Jesus poo-pooing His biological family? In some way, yes, He was. He stayed connected with the crowd of seekers, and didn't do anything that made those who felt they had the biggest ties to and hold on Him any special treatment whatsoever. Does that mean His biological family had no place with Him whatsoever? Oh, no – they had the same place in God's family everyone else does. His biological family was just also invited to be part of the seeker-crowd, no better, no worse, no more or less special than everyone else who was seeking after Jesus and doing what God says to do.

This shines a big God-spotlight on those "Christian" practices that hold some "Christians" as "higher", "more special", "more holy", "more worthy", etc than others. The Roman "church" and its centuries of elevating human beings in "saint" worship – especially of Jesus' biological mother – is an absolute rejection of how God's defined our relationship with our fellow believers (both present and past). But just as big a God-rejection is the Protestant and Roman "church" elevation of some human beings as "clergy" (the pastor/priest/pope syndrome). Jesus didn't give even the tiniest hint of special treatment even to the woman who gave birth to Him. Yet Good Religious People just LOVE LOVE LOVE to give special education, special seating, special housing, special deference, special attention, special titles, special clothing, and innumerable other special honors to those who are truly no more than anyone else (and who, in fact, make themselves Jesus-rejecters and LESS than any in God's true family, because of their acceptance and love of being "special").

Once again, Good Religious People – for all their centuries of self-congratulation regarding their "special" place with God, and with all their centuries of "Christian" scholarship, and with all the years and years each of their "clergy" people spend memorizing and regurgitating all that "scholarship" – prove by their lives that they have once again completely missed Jesus' point. Once again, they have absolutely nothing of real-God value to share with anyone!

Of course, there's nothing wrong with looking up to someone who's a (real) elder in the faith, or gaining wisdom and strength from someone who's going through trials we relate to or are spiritually impressed or humbled by. But there is a problem with thinking we find those things within Good Religious Churches or Good Religious Denominations and their centuries of saint and clergy worship, so that they become somehow "more holy" or "closer to God" or someone we should follow with little/no question. Then we're putting human beings in the place only Jesus is supposed to occupy.

Does your heart crave looking up to and venerating a human being? Then look up to and venerate the Only One worthy of your praise and respect: Jesus!

• Many Good Religious Christians today are almost as obsessed with their biological families today as were Good Religious Jews of 2,000 years ago. They spout off all the time about being "Family" oriented, don't they? They make it seem as if the biological family is THE most important thing about being a "Good Christian". Does that even make sense, when we look over Jesus' life and His relationships? 
• While Jesus never put human family above God's (real) family, He also never told us to reject or not take care of those of our biological families, either. What does this say to you about the various priorities you have in your day-to-day life? How can you satisfy the requirements of being a real part of God's family, and also taking care of those who depend on you, as well?
• What human beings have you elevated above yourself or others in your life? Did you learn to do so from "church" or other Good Religious Sources? What prevents you from putting only Jesus in that high place? 
• When we try to be part of God's Family by belonging to some church, we misunderstand Jesus' whole point just as badly as the Good Religious People do – and that's the most spiritually dangerous position we can be in! Have there been times in your life (perhaps now?) when you've missed Jesus' point, as well? Who taught you the wrong way? Are you letting Jesus teach you His right way? 
• We've already seen that Jesus says no one can accomplish good through evil – and putting oneself or someone else in Jesus' place IS evil. Yet Good Religious People continue to believe fiercely that elevating some of their people above others (making them "clergy") is a good, Godly thing – even though it puts them on the level only Jesus is supposed to be at, among His (real) people. Were you infected with "clergy"-worship at some time in your life? Did you at some point decide to step up into being "clergy" yourself? Are you ready to repent of those blasphemies? 
• It's not surprising that it only took three years for Good Religious People to murder Jesus (it's probably more surprising it took them that long!). Every way He lived, and everything He said, was a constant irritation and rebuttal to the true-God rejecting way Good Religious People lived. He refused to elevate them to the spiritual heights they imagined they inhabited. He never stop illuminating just how empty of God and how full of themselves and demons they actually were. And so they tortured and killed Him. After Jesus went back up into heaven, though, His rejection of them remained – but He was no longer around to murder. Is it hard to figure out why Jesus' TRUE message, then, would be "murdered" by the Good Religious People over the next twenty centuries? Is it hard to imagine why Good Religious People work so hard to re-write (through "translation" and interpretation) the parts of the Bible they want to say something different than what God intended? Is it even surprising that they would ignore, fight against, and bury the hugely simple and Good-Religious-People-Condemning message of Jesus Christ under their centuries of "theology", "scholarship", "tradition", "hierarchy", and "clergyhood", and then train people through their "seminaries" and "Bible studies" to memorize and push forward the complex mass of sewage they call "Christianity"?

A final thought for today.

If you've been following along with our Gospel study, have you noticed how often the message is that human ways of being religious are not only completely opposite how God wants us to be, but are actually dangerous, because they entice us to believe we've got the right answer (after all, it's the same answer the "educated" people believe, and it's the same answer Good Religious People have believed for centuries!), when actually we couldn't be more wrong?

There's a reason we're given the Bible – but just reading it, just absorbing the "official" Good Religious People message of what it means, and just accepting the translations and interpretations "The Church" gives us, means we're following sinful God-rejecters, and conforming our lives to what pleases the sinful nature of human beings, and not what pleases God.

• Today, come up with three ways you can squeeze the Good Religious Slime from your and others' eyes, so that the real Jesus and His real saving message becomes visible.

• Repent of your desires for those pretty Good Religious ways of being "Christian" or part of the "Christian Church", and ask Jesus to help you and your heart to find and live in the true beauty of a life in Jesus Christ.

• Look around and see what you can do to join or create fellowship that doesn't settle for "church" buildings and "clergy" and "tithes", but instead reaches out for the true treasure Jesus came to make sure we can have – if we'll only choose it.

Take care until next week! :-)
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This article written by Lynne at http://NoJunkJustJesus.blogspot.com/. You can contact Lynne at NoJunkJustJesus@gmail.com.