The Love Of Jesus

[FiddlingAround]

Where is Abi anyway?

 

Phanta, End, have you heard anything from him?

 

I hope he's okay.

[Skankboy]

basics of Christianity are being preached and teached

That's the trick though isn't? What are the "basics" and which are required for salvation? There's a LOT of disagreement on when someone is actually "saved". To me, this isn't a minor point...

[Guest end3]

Where is Abi anyway?

 

Phanta, End, have you heard anything from him?

 

I hope he's okay.

 

Phanta is your best bet....I haven't heard

[FiddlingAround]

I just discovered that his email address is in his profile, so I shot him a quick note. I'll let you know if I hear anything.

[FiddlingAround]

Where is Abi anyway?

 

Phanta, End, have you heard anything from him?

 

I hope he's okay.

 

Phanta is your best bet....I haven't heard

 

I sent out a ping Monday. Nothing back yet. Last seen posting on the 22nd.

 

Phanta

 

Well...we'll wait and see then.

[Guest end3]

I see the title as "The Love of Jesus". This seems very specific in scope and mechanism unless one believes Jesus not to be God.

end, you are God.

 

No, really.

 

If we can understand that Jesus wasn't the only God, then "The Love of Jesus" becomes specific in another manner...specific to all of humanity. I can still believe Jesus to be God, but without exception to anyone else. He was just more enlightened to this "knowledge" than most are. IMO...

 

Maybe so, and I repectfully see your point, but I honestly know no one that holds this view. (I am though, thinking of traveling outside the county this year, so maybe).

 

I am just saying that loading Larry up with peer pressure.....is just trying to force an uncomfortable heresy on him that I have never seen posed. I am certainly limited in knowledge, but I haven't heard of Jesus being more of one that is ultimately connected, but still only human.

 

Maybe, but...

[NotBlinded]

I see the title as "The Love of Jesus". This seems very specific in scope and mechanism unless one believes Jesus not to be God.

end, you are God.

 

No, really.

 

If we can understand that Jesus wasn't the only God, then "The Love of Jesus" becomes specific in another manner...specific to all of humanity. I can still believe Jesus to be God, but without exception to anyone else. He was just more enlightened to this "knowledge" than most are. IMO...

 

Why are you saying this? Are you trying to get us tried and convicted as heretics???

 

I can picture the scene now: "What need have we of further witnesses? We have heard this blasphemy from her own lips?"

 

No wonder your lampstand has been pulled with this kind of heresy! Witch! Witch!

 

(Don't let AM see me telling you this, but I don't get the lampstand reference...I'm slow sometimes...shhh...he'll make fun of me.)

[Guest end3]

I see the title as "The Love of Jesus". This seems very specific in scope and mechanism unless one believes Jesus not to be God.

end, you are God.

 

No, really.

 

If we can understand that Jesus wasn't the only God, then "The Love of Jesus" becomes specific in another manner...specific to all of humanity. I can still believe Jesus to be God, but without exception to anyone else. He was just more enlightened to this "knowledge" than most are. IMO...

 

Why are you saying this? Are you trying to get us tried and convicted as heretics???

 

I can picture the scene now: "What need have we of further witnesses? We have heard this blasphemy from her own lips?"

 

No wonder your lampstand has been pulled with this kind of heresy! Witch! Witch!

 

(Don't let AM see me telling you this, but I don't get the lampstand reference...I'm slow sometimes...shhh...he'll make fun of me.)

 

In Rev. Jesus walks through the 7 churches, each a lampstand. He tells them good things and bad about their church. If I am not mistaken, He threatens to pull their lampstand if they can't get it right.

[NotBlinded]

I see the title as "The Love of Jesus". This seems very specific in scope and mechanism unless one believes Jesus not to be God.

end, you are God.

 

No, really.

 

If we can understand that Jesus wasn't the only God, then "The Love of Jesus" becomes specific in another manner...specific to all of humanity. I can still believe Jesus to be God, but without exception to anyone else. He was just more enlightened to this "knowledge" than most are. IMO...

 

Maybe so, and I repectfully see your point, but I honestly know no one that holds this view. (I am though, thinking of traveling outside the county this year, so maybe).

 

I am just saying that loading Larry up with peer pressure.....is just trying to force an uncomfortable heresy on him that I have never seen posed. I am certainly limited in knowledge, but I haven't heard of Jesus being more of one that is ultimately connected, but still only human.

 

Maybe, but...

You don't get out much do you?

 

This is Christian Mysticism. This is the Good News (IMO).

 

Meister Eckhart:

 

"Jesus might have said, "I became man for you. If you do not become God for me, you wrong me.""

 

"To seek God by rituals is to get the ritual and lose God in the process, for he hides behind it. On the other hand, to seek God without artifice, is to take him as he is, and so doing, a person 'lives by the Son,' and is the Life itself."

 

"We shall find God in everything alike, and find God always alike in everything."

 

"Being is God...God and being are the same. ...There is nothing prior to being...in being, mere being, lies all that is."

 

"...I am my own first cause, both of my eternal being and of my temporal being. To this end I was born, and by virtue of my birth being eternal, I shall never die. It is of the nature of this eternal birth that I have been eternally, that I am now, and shall be forever. What I am as a temporal creature is to die and come to nothingness, for it came with time and so with time will pass away. In my eternal birth, however, everything was begotten. I was my own first cause as well as the first cause of everything else."

 

"...all time is contained in the present Now-moment. ...It is the real Now-moment which...is eternity's day, on which the Father begets his only begotten Son and the soul is reborn in God. ...To talk about the world as being made by God tomorrow, yesterday, would be talking nonsense. God makes the world and all things in this present now. ...The soul who is in this present now, in her the Father bears his one-begotten Son, and in that same birth the soul is born back into God. It is one birth; as fast as she is reborn into God, the Father is begetting his only Son in her. ...God the Father and the Son have nothing to do with time."

 

"In eternity, the Father begets the Son in his own likeness. ...Furthermore, I say that God has begotten him in my soul. ...The Father ceaselessly begets his Son and, what is more, he begets me, not only as his son, but as himself, and himself as myself, begetting me in his own nature, his own being. At that inmost source, I spring from the Holy Spirit and there is one life, one being, one action. All God's works are one and therefore he begets me as he does his Son and without distinction."

 

There really isn't a dividing line between being connected and being human. It's a matter of realization, not distinction.

[Guest end3]

There really isn't a dividing line between being connected and being human. It's a matter of realization, not distinction.

 

You will be surprised to know that I agree on some levels.

[NotBlinded]

In Rev. Jesus walks through the 7 churches, each a lampstand. He tells them good things and bad about their church. If I am not mistaken, He threatens to pull their lampstand if they can't get it right.

OH! Okay. I've read that a few times and I still didn't get it.

[NotBlinded]

There really isn't a dividing line between being connected and being human. It's a matter of realization, not distinction.

 

You will be surprised to know that I agree on some levels.

I'm not really too surprised because, well, I read your posts and I remember you saying that someone in your own church has called you a mystic and then you asked if that was good or bad. Also, I don't find you very much of a fundamentalist.

[Shyone]

I think the rhetoric of "Jesus Love" is just that - rhetoric without substance. People may subjectively feel something, but when it comes to actions, the actual Love expressed is conditional, exclusive and manipulative.

 

Here is one example from a "testimony":

 

I really believed in God and Jesus and everything. I'd gone to a church and quickly got out of it due to my natural tendency to question everything. At first it's all cake and ice-cream, then the veil is slowly pulled back and you realize it's all about what you are doing for them. God wants me to bring my mom and brother to church, dump my "pagan" girlfriend, (any non-believer is a pagan), and hand out some literature at the malls. Also, they don't like gays. All in all it was a bad vibe and I only stuck around for the "fellowship" - which for some reason magically vanished once I stopped going!

 

And here is another:

 

How about my mom standing up in church and saying she only loved me becasue god was forcing her to love me. She said this in an attempt to depress me into adult baptisim.

The minister told me later that if I wanted to get my mother's "real love" I would have to let him take me down to this scumy pond and be dunked.

 

Perhaps a Christian reading this would say, "These are exceptions!" "These examples are from congregations and ministers that have gone astray!"

 

I only see that this is the result of Christian love. It may feel good, but it stops at the boundary defined by belief. Of course a Christian would claim to love better, more, differently, "Ultimately". That's how I feel about my "family" - including the members of this group - including those with whom I have political differences.

 

Of course, we fight tooth and nail over politics, but we LOVE each other.

[Shyone]

Where is Abi anyway?

 

Phanta, End, have you heard anything from him?

 

I hope he's okay.

I miss him. I too hope he's ok.

[Antlerman]

Today I was at a meeting of local ministers and all we did was talk about how ministry was going and really just caught up with each others lives. At the end of our meeting we gathered together, joined hands and prayed. Now I know that most of you are probably trying to keep from gagging, but there is a point here. Today I saw what truly unites people as Christians... Christ (duh, right?). I cannot say that I agree with most of the doctrines that were sitting around that table today, as a matter of fact I strongly disagree with some of them. Yet, I did not care. As I looked around that table today I saw fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and I truly loved them. Christian Churches may differ on a lot, but we all agree on one simple thing: Jesus Christ died on the cross and raised from the dead.

What unities you is a spirit of coming together. It is your desire to connect with others, using a common shared experience or belief as the means to that end. It is not the belief that unites, it's the desire to connect that brings you together.

 

You can say in your context that Christ unites you, but that it externalizing it, symbolizing it. The same could be said of coming together under the flag to connect with each other as Americans. Why do you think you saw such a rise in patriotism and the flying of the flag after 9/11? We desired to come together in the aftermath of something that shook our lives, and the use of the symbol connected us.

 

But what I'm getting is that the Will, that Spirit, is our connection with each other, and we just externalize that in a symbol for the sake of communication. And if it is that Will or Spirit, then it transcends symbols everywhere. It exists in all humans everywhere, and moreover in everything everywhere.

 

Now I come to my experience here and this is what God has shown me: Love is not expressed through words on a page in a book (A book by the way that I hold to be infallible, inerrant, and one of the ways we access God), nor is it expressed in the doctrines that I hold close to my heart (even though I still think that those are essential for my faith), love is expressed through how we treat our fellow human: Christian or not. Jesus Christ tells us that true love is when we lay down our life for one another, when we truly come with a heart of compassion to those who need it the most.

 

Thus the crux of this whole post: What is meant by the Love of Jesus? Just what I've been saying, the Love of Jesus is found when His followers do exactly what He has commanded them to do: Love others as you Love yourselves. When I love someone else I am truly showing them the Love of Christ.

In part. I mentioned this before but want to come back to it as it's critical to understanding. As a child you learn what is considered right and wrong by being told. You are told that you 'should' do this, or you 'shouldn't' do that. And all that has a value to help the guide the child into being a responsible adult, and to cause as little disruption to the social order for others as possible (lashing out and throwing rocks through a neighbors window is 'not good'). But as an adult, as we develop independence from the guidance of a parent figure and become relatively autonomous, we integrate those values into our personality and exhibit them as part of ourselves, moreover, we even become those and share help others develop that within themselves as well.

 

So when I hear some say that they need to follow the commandments of Jesus, doing "exactly what he commands", and that in doing that they experience that Love, what I hear someone who hasn't integrated it into themselves yet, where they don't need to 'follow' any commandments and the systems used to support those, but simply just exhibit them naturally as part of their Nature. And if there are those who exhibit the 'fulfillment of the Law', through the Realization of Love inside, then for the child who has yet to realize it for themselves, who defines himself by the structure still, and points to those who deviate from their parental structures as 'outside God', so to speak, not recognizing the Spirit common within his structure is in fact being manifest beyond it, is in fact not truly apprehending it yet. "Judge not, lest you be judged", takes on a special meaning in this context. Hearing that only this group here has the True Answer, is like hearing the adolescent who thinks adults just 'don't get it', that they don't have the revelatory 'Truth" that they see.

 

It flows out of us naturally as we mature in Spirit. The only "commandments" to follow are those of the Heart. "By their fruits you shall know them". Not by their systems.

 

 

Yet this is only half the story:

 

The Love of Jesus is meant by how Jesus loves us: We love because God first loved us. Tonight a girl put her trust in Jesus Christ and accepted Him as her personal Lord and Savior. She had questions, but at the end of the night all she wanted to hear was that God loved her and cared for her. You might think this is crap, but this is why many of us come to Christianity because we realize the truth of God's love for us and His call to love Him back (Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength).

I don't think its crap. I see value in trying to develop the Spirit within. However, it's a beginning, not the End. It's a tool, not the Answer. The Answer is beyond all religion, and its Light is within everything.

 

This is also the big difference between Christians and Non-Christians. Not the fact that we cannot love one another just as much as the other (and yes, I'll admit I was wrong on that account even in this forum). It's how we love God that differs and makes the most difference.

And how do we define loving God? Loving the set of doctrines about Jesus and his death for sin? Or by acting in Love, and thus honoring that higher Being? Does manifesting Spirit and Love in the name of a religion or a named deity, such as Jesus or YHWH, make the difference? Or does manifesting Love in the name of Love in fact "serve God"? The only difference I can see is manifesting Love, or not manifesting Love. Not the proclaiming of the name of this god or that one. Is not even the atheist 'loving God' by serving Love?

 

I'm trying to show you that you fuse together the name of a deity with the Spirit beyond it. You have difficulty separating them, seeing beyond it. It's like not understanding the sky is not blue itself, but is the sky, and we see it as blue. Blue and sky are identical. You may have a red sky, or an orange one, or a green one, or Jesus, or Krisha, or Buddha, etc.

 

God has set up for us a way to truly Love Him, that is by putting our trust and faith in Jesus Christ.

Jesus himself said the two commandments that every single thing in the entire "law of God" depended on was loving God, and as a result, manifesting love to others. It's not about "loving Jesus", it's about the Source - Spirit. Loving a manifestation of that, may bring you closer to understanding the Source, but it comes from Source, not the symbol of it. Just as I said about that its not Christ that brought you and your minister friends together, but the Will inside you. It that which goes beyond all of those symbols.

 

You never addressed my explanation of the Logos from earlier. That ties in here.

 

You differ from me because you reject that view. You think you can find God's love some other way (if you even believe in God), I simply do not. There is one way, as I've said time and time again, and that is through Jesus Christ.

You are saying that there is only one system that works to find God. Then explain why Love is in fact manifest in others that are not Christian. Why spiritual depth and maturity is found embraced, realized, manifest, and enjoyed everywhere in the world within other religions? Are you going to deny the reality of it?

 

And if so, on what basis? A lack of genuine fruits, genuine manifestation? Or on the basis of theological interpretations?? This is my point I am trying to make here.

 

Can you love just as much as I can? yes. My question is this: Where are you placing that Love? It can't just be our fellow humans, we must return the love that God has given us and love Him back through Jesus Christ.

We are placing that Love not in humans, but in something greater - Existence. The Universe. Being. All. Manifestation. It comes from inside of us, as us being part of something beyond us. The Realization of It, is ONENESS.

 

Doesn't Jesus say you come through him to God?

[Guest end3]

What unities you is a spirit of coming together. It is your desire to connect with others, using a common shared experience or belief as the means to that end. It is not the belief that unites, it's the desire to connect that brings you together.

 

You can say in your context that Christ unites you, but that it externalizing it, symbolizing it. The same could be said of coming together under the flag to connect with each other as Americans. Why do you think you saw such a rise in patriotism and the flying of the flag after 9/11? We desired to come together in the aftermath of something that shook our lives, and the use of the symbol connected us.

 

But what I'm getting is that the Will, that Spirit, is our connection with each other, and we just externalize that in a symbol for the sake of communication. And if it is that Will or Spirit, then it transcends symbols everywhere. It exists in all humans everywhere, and moreover in everything everywhere.

 

I agree with what you've written here, Antlerman. A symbol can be a focal point for agreement. Along similar lines, group action can stir up an intense sense of oneness (the dark side of this is mob mentality and manipulation toward groupthink). People are validated when they are genuinely in agreement about a belief, an idea, a direction.

 

Pastor, if you are willing to test this assertion, consider seeking out a community in meeting for Kirtan chant and social time. Observe their experience of coming together, of prayer, of communion. Do they agree on everything? Do they disagree on some things? Is there a common thread--a belief or idea or leader-- that binds them? If so, notice how it is different from your group's thread, if it is. If so, notice how it is similar to your group's thread, if it is. How do these people seem to feel about their experience? About each other? If there is a similar thread, does the importance of that commonality outshine significant differences?

 

With all due respect, I still believe the conversation is missing the point altogether. The issue is not Christ as a symbol. The issue is, do you acknowledge Christ as the Lord God. This is the very thing that God is drawing a line in the sand. You are either with Him or against Him....binary.

 

Otherwise, it is not Christianity.

[Snakefoot]

With all due respect, I still believe the conversation is missing the point altogether. The issue is not Christ as a symbol. The issue is, do you acknowledge Christ as the Lord God. This is the very thing that God is drawing a line in the sand. You are either with Him or against Him....binary.

 

Count me in the "against" category.

[Snakefoot]

What unities you is a spirit of coming together. It is your desire to connect with others, using a common shared experience or belief as the means to that end. It is not the belief that unites, it's the desire to connect that brings you together.

 

Sort of like this discussion board and ex-xtians?

[Deva]

With all due respect, I still believe the conversation is missing the point altogether. The issue is not Christ as a symbol. The issue is, do you acknowledge Christ as the Lord God. This is the very thing that God is drawing a line in the sand. You are either with Him or against Him....binary.

 

Otherwise, it is not Christianity.

 

End3, Christ is a concept.

[Guest end3]

With all due respect, I still believe the conversation is missing the point altogether. The issue is not Christ as a symbol. The issue is, do you acknowledge Christ as the Lord God. This is the very thing that God is drawing a line in the sand. You are either with Him or against Him....binary.

 

Otherwise, it is not Christianity.

 

End3, Christ is a concept.

 

You can put your boots in the oven, but that don't make 'em bisquits.

[Shyone]

With all due respect, I still believe the conversation is missing the point altogether. The issue is not Christ as a symbol. The issue is, do you acknowledge Christ as the Lord God. This is the very thing that God is drawing a line in the sand. You are either with Him or against Him....binary.

 

Otherwise, it is not Christianity.

 

End3, Christ is a concept.

 

You can put your boots in the oven, but that don't make 'em bisquits.

I'm not sure I get the binary part of this. Are you saying that if you don't believe in Jesus then there is no love - or no love of Christ as an ideal?

 

When Jesus first started out, he didn't love many people if he only loved the ones that believed he was the messiah. Those people he helped... some weren't believers (although they may have become believers). Remember the lady they were going to stone? She didn't know him. The children didn't believe he was god. Lots of others. Was that like the introductory salvation rate, and now it costs a lot more?

 

Why isn't the idea of love more important than who delivers the message, and why does it become exclusive? That sounds like the exact opposite of what religions are supposed to do.

[Guest end3]

Why isn't the idea of love more important than who delivers the message, and why does it become exclusive? That sounds like the exact opposite of what religions are supposed to do.

 

It's a belief that the Messinger is the idea. Exclusive, Shyone, in what aspect please?

[NotBlinded]

With all due respect, I still believe the conversation is missing the point altogether. The issue is not Christ as a symbol. The issue is, do you acknowledge Christ as the Lord God. This is the very thing that God is drawing a line in the sand. You are either with Him or against Him....binary.

 

Otherwise, it is not Christianity.

No End...it's not a black and white issue. Yes, maybe Jesus was the Lord God but so is everyone/everything else. This is the meaning of omnipresence. God can't draw a line in the sand and pull "himself" away from "himself". Jesus talked about unity with God and his desire for others to experience this unity. What happened?

 

This is a dichotomy that just doesn't exist. He can be God, we can be God too, he may not be God, he leads us to God, he tells us we are Gods too, he may be 1/3 of God, God is external, God is internal, God is both. There are too many variables to set up a dichotomy here. This either or attitude is what stops people from garnering greater insights. God didn't draw any line, humans did by their lack of understanding and called it Christianity. Jesus may have never meant this at all.

 

You understand a little about mysticism. Are you going to say that those early mystics weren't Christians? Was John a mystic?

[Legion]

I think that loving Jesus is not only loving an ideal, it's loving an impossible ideal.

 

But then Jesus forgives you for missing the mark. And you get back on the horse, and do it again.

 

It's insidious.

[NotBlinded]

I think that loving Jesus is not only loving an ideal, it's loving an impossible ideal.

 

But then Jesus forgives you for missing the mark. And you get back on the horse, and do it again.

 

It's insidious.

It keeps them relying on the saddle straps.

 

It's impossible because Christians don't equate themselves as being of the nature of God as Jesus was. He was perfect they aren't. The church throws the saddle straps over the horse, but they are rigged to rip off once in awhile and you fall on your ass. Out comes another saddle...