Forgiveness

HOW DO YOU KNOW
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HOW DO YOU KNOW

HOW DO YOU KNOW

I have listened to, watched on TV, blogged and much more as I have heard the words of people and clergy and various churches from so many different Christian denominations throughout many years over my time in life. I must be a Christian as I decided many years ago that I just could not pin down one group and say to myself “These folks are RIGHT ON”.

HOW DO I KNOW HOW GOD WILL REACT TO ME?

So on 8-04-02 , as the internet developed, I believed in UNORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY and established my own internet theology. It has grown tremendously as the questions developed from all over. Yes, NO, Maybe?

Initially I looked at my website and ran across a few readers until one day my website developed a surprise. Instead of a few readers the number overnight was 45,000 instead of 5 or 6 and the website was frozen. I had to move beyond my original hosting service and the site became a WordPress host. I still owned the original domain as well as a WordPress domain for Unorthodox-Christianity since I moved beyond my original host. In the last 20 plus years the whole discussion on the internet expanded into different versions of Unorthodox Christian whatever as well as what does Unorthodox mean?

As one listens more and more to a great variety of denominations building themselves over the internet the variety that started 20 plus years ago has become a thundering debate about what Christianity is about. I do not have the time or experience to cover the 45,000 denominations that are known about in the entire world. I can guess that there are many doorsteps that question and debate their own beliefs which go on and on to claim themselves THE RIGHT ONE.

“THE RIGHT ONE” idea developed immediately apart of the original message of GOD and the legends of the victories or the losers in a single culture over thousands of years. The stories and the debates have not existed in agreement since the beginning of the stories.

I have mentioned before the story of my question to my 2nd grade Methodist teacher in the fifties about how GOD dealt with people. She asked if anyone was questioning how GOD dealt with people. I raised my hand. “What Dennis” she asked.

“Why didn’t GOD just make good people?” I asked. It seemed like a logical question to me. History was just too full of war and death and it did not seem to be getting any better as we went on and on with war. As I got older in the 50’s and 60’s no one could answer my question? FREE WILL was the answer I got most of the time.

In the original book that many churches handed out to their children when they graduated from Sunday School (and the still do, throughout the world) the book I received started with Genesis 1 when GOD explained in verse 1 – 26 GOD said: “Let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves”.

And then in verse 27: “GOD created man in the image of himself, in the image of GOD he created him and female he created them”.

I guess that is what UNORTHODOX may have been meant to mean.

Today there are many versions of Orthodox Christians. Most tell different stories and different legends. And there were wars and there were winners and losers. There are pages of excuses as to why and where “Like us” went away, or “Us” was different than what we know of GOD.

The story of Jesus developed lots of debates in the corners of his conversations. I have come to be very simple about GOD and Jesus. Father, Son, all in ONE, it makes no difference to UNORTHODOX. The message has been simple and strait forward,

LOVE ONE ANOTHER

LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF

DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU.

That is my story of UNORTHODOX in it’s simplicity.  The NEW TESTAMENT can exist with these few words of peace and one more.

FATHER FORGIVE THEM FOR THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO.

AND FROM UNORTHODOX:

HOW DO YOU KNOW HOW GOD WILL TREAT HIS CHILDREN MADE IN HIS OWN IMAGE?

HOW DO YOU KNOW?

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY
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WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY

Unorthodox Christianity is getting more pronounced as time moves on.

What was once a beginning of one culture is now 30,000 individual denominations of Christians, in churches around the world and wanting to decide the lives of others from their pulpits. How many churches wave a banner that says “WE ARE THE “REAL CHURCH”. “WE KNOW WHAT GOD WILL DO TO YOU”. “IT WAS WRITTEN IN A BOOK FROM 2,000 PLUS YEARS AGO FROM A CULTURE IN JERUSALEM ABOUT A CULTURE THAT NEVER ACCEPTED A CHRIST ON THEIR OWN GROUND”. That culture fell in love with with an itinerant preacher whose beliefs resulted in him being crucified by many of those leaders who are clueless about JESUS, a good Samaritan who was born in Bethlehem in what today is Israel.

And you wonder why I called it UNORTHODOX.

I may comment on my dogs, or my help from those who have helped me for so many years that when I hear of an Orthodox debate about just what GOD is going to do to someone else, I wonder how they figured that out. Or the result of some situation that shakes your head and a life decision is expected to be made by someone that you will never know who that person is. You will never know, and that you are basing your judgment on a religious or political decision from a Church or a judge or a Supreme Court that is going to allow many to decide a decision based on how someone who GOD has known their entire life, every day every hour and who GOD will be with every day and moment for the rest of their lives vs. any judge or church or politic whose knowledge of this person is unknown to them and yet fully known to GOD. That person from birth has thought about that decision and every day has asked GOD for help. GOD gives GOD’s reasons and GOD’s Reason alone. If GOD enters your sphere and says LOVE ONE ANOTHER and an Itinerant Rabbi says “FORGIVE THEM FATHER THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO” How do you know what GOD is thinking?

WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY?

GOD KNOWS.

GOD IS
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GOD IS

Originally From 4-16-2005: Now 9-6-2022

GOD IS

I remember the story of Jim (James as he grew to prefer), my best buddy growing up. James was taking a philosophy class in college and the topic of the term paper was to be “What is Life”. James pondered this during the class and when the time came he turned in his paper. Not long after, the papers were graded and handed back to the students. James had received an “A” on his paper. What was it? It was quite simple actually, on the cover was written

“What is Life by James XXXXX”,

On the next page it said:

What is Life?

Life is.

That was it. It said it all.

I have read so much that has been handed down ‘by GOD’, the Sabbaoth, the Zeus, the Mars, the Erik, the Allah, the HIM, the HER, the great I AM, Sophia, the great colloquial (depends on the era), the Buddha, the Tao, the whatever.

In the same terms that James expressed life, I see GOD.

GOD IS.

Jesus tells us “GOD is love”, others tell us “GOD is a Great Spirit”, and others “GOD is judgmental, vengeful and retributive”. Still others that “GOD is all knowing, yet uncompromising or non-understanding of personal circumstance.” For many GOD is forgiving in that He sent Jesus to tell us that we are forgiven, yet the same people would say we can’t be forgiven if we don’t accept Jesus as our personal GOD. Did Jesus come as GOD or merely a reflection of what GOD is like?

To many, GOD is just a really big guy in the sky. We die, we go to a gate, in or out is the judgment and then off you go, there or there, door number 1 or door number 2.

GOD created all, yet what created GOD? GOD cannot be within itself, yet being the all. GOD is more than we can comprehend. For the sake of discussion, let us say we could.

If we knew, for sure, who or what GOD was, would that then cause us to act any different than we act now?

We so seek to discover who or what GOD is so that the new knowledge will be the catalyst for change in our life or circumstance. Why?

If our lives or circumstance needs to change why must we somehow authenticate GOD to change it? Why do we need to hear “THE WORD”, or see “THE HOLY SCRIPTURE” to become a ‘better’ person, or find peace within ourselves where we are currently at war with ourselves.

ALL RELIGION HOLDS THEIR WRITINGS TO BE AUTHENTIC, HOLY, INSPIRED, AND THE TRUTH. HAS THIS CREATED ANY MORE LOVE, PEACE, CARING, UNDERSTANDING OR HAPPINESS IN THE WORLD.

The Christian in America, as an example, while preaching the gospel of LOVE ONE ANOTHER, risks other Americans lives to believe as we choose to, at the cost of what we have been given by GOD to satisfy ourselves not other Americans as though our freedom to worship GOD (however we construct GOD) could be taken away by other Americans. Our teacher freely allowed himself to be crucified, yet we, disciples, justify murder (or war) to protect our right to believe what we couldn’t take away from the black by enslaving them, or the Native American Indian by stealing their land, or the Muslim by invading their country or another. We are apparently so weak in our faith that it can be taken from us by any conqueror in any guise and with any promise.

GOD IS.

We can not abide by our own laws, of our own country, in our own land, in our day to day, under our own form of government, with our own chosen leaders, freely elected to represent us. We can’t pick up our own trash, take care of our own property, respect our neighbors’ privacy, quiet, property, safety or security. What makes us believe we can create a better government for anyone else’s country with our own soldiers, on their land, in their country, against their religion or their culture? This led by leaders that fly the flag of Christianity in their personal lives yet cast it aside in their professional lives.

In His time, I believe, that Jesus referred to these as Pharisees.

For a people who believe in an all powerful GOD, certainly GOD must seem to be powerfully weak when we feel that what we believe to be GOD’S HOLY CHARGE to LOVE ONE ANOTHER is weak and inadequate and can not be improved upon by us.

We have a nation that knows how to help each other. We know how to help others throughout the world. We have been challenged as a nation to care for each other, to respect each other and their needs and their choices and not make everyone elses . The morals of years behind us have been replaced by social media and lost souls. We are losing our faith and have become scared to enjoy life and just what it represents in our day to day.

I guess that is just too complicated for us to truly embrace, “LOVE ONE ANOTHER”. We have pushed the envelope to see suicide as a choice to make life easier instead of finding the gifts that we have been given by GOD and people GOD has approached for you. Because it has been so complicated we have yet to implement it where it is most needed. As a result, the Earth we live in is hardly to be confused with the Kingdom of Jesus’ promise. On Earth as it is in Heaven will truly elude us for quite some time to come.

What good is our ‘religion’ if we fail to implement it? Not much, I dare say. IF we are to bring people to CHRIST by our example, perhaps we need to reexamine what our example was and is. Certainly we don’t need the world to be one big East LA with 200+ gangs and more murders each year than most foreign countries experience. Even our small towns and rural communities are challenged. What can we do?

GOD IS.

Let us build our own houses first and people will flock to the kingdom to experience its fullness. Not take advantage of it. Maybe, just maybe, the world would reflect LOVE ONE ANOTHER freely, if they could just see it in action in one place, in its fullness, and all its glory. Just maybe.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
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ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Accomplished

As I was sitting down the other evening, and thinking about just what “Life Is” some 70 years into “Life Is”. Some things came to my attention. I found myself thinking about just what have I accomplished so far in my life?

I thought about my debt to asset ratio after all these years. I have seen many of the retirement preparations shows on the TV and how I have made it to this point. I am in the Social Security part of my life. I still work and probably will for the rest of of my life. The question rambled throughout my head just what have I accomplished?

I explain it to people that I am independently poor.

That word ACCOMPLISHED seemed to jump out at me like I had just entered into a boxing ring. Just what have I accomplished in my life? I have a long list of what I have wanted to accomplish. What I wanted in elementary school, or high school, or college. How about that first job, or the last one.

In the world of religion and GOD and JESUS and BUDDHA, and many more different religious groups and beliefs is UNORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY.

WHAT HAVE I ACCOMPLISHED?

How many of us ask ourselves what have we accomplished so far in this Life? People I have talked to in my life have asked me, religiously, in different ways, what have I accomplished in my life? So I asked GOD for a clarification.

“Just what, GOD, have I ACCOMPLISHED in 70+ years so far?”

As though it was written by an ancient prophet from somewhere, GOD wrote it like this:

“Life is not about all the things you may have wanted to do. Life is about all of the things that you have done. The people that you have met. The opportunities that you have had a chance to help of or be a part of something important or just fun.

Life is not about what I may feel that I have missed in life. Life is about the journey that I and you have been on as individuals. That is what started on the day I was born and won’t end until I have the opportunity to start over again, and again, and again. That has been called eternal life. It is a thief sharing a cross with JESUS that recognized that JESUS should not have been punished for being good, and Jesus’s response was “Today you will be with me in Paradise”. For a thief, It was recognizing that it was not for accomplishing the great things that he may have wanted, It was now about what he had ACCOMPLISHED in the journey. “Today I will be with Him in Paradise”.

The journey starts every day. It is all you have done and enjoyed and what has become your journey. It is about where you may have crossed the path with someone you will forever remember. The smile someone else brought to you face. The bottle of water that came over to you when you were working to help someone next door. It was watching a baseball game of the kids playing next door and the smiles on their faces. It was opening that first box of girl scout cookies.

It is not about me, it is whatever you have done and what it has become. It has become your life, your friends, your challenges. Your decisions. It is your story and your history for you. You have accomplished more than you recognize. You have worked on LIFE since day one. You can sit in your easy chair and smile at the things that have come your way and made you smile, or changed a disaster and met a friend you will only meet once and forever remember.

Unorthodox Christianity is rooted in an opportunity to take a tremendous journey through Life in what has been and is your world. Just what have you accomplished? You are on your way there, everyday.

DO UNTO MEN AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO WOMEN.
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DO UNTO MEN AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO WOMEN.

FOR WOMEN ONLY: IT TAKES A MAN TO MAKE A BABY

I have been back and forth on politics through the years. It is unlikly that Unorthodox Christianity would not have an opinion.

The Roe vs Wade Supreme Court leak has brought me back to politics.

Let me figure this out for you. It takes a man to make a baby. I have done a lot of research and without sperm nothing happens.

5 Supreme Court males are looking at doing away with abortion. No man has ever had to abort a baby. They may have assisted to pay for it for their convenience, after all, they created the baby.

In the world of the Bible and GOD there is a precept. DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEN DO UNTO YOU. It takes a man to make a baby. And yet we have to assume that a man should bear the brunt of the responsibility of making a baby. Many of the abortions I have heard of are centered about the cost of raising the baby created by the man and yet of the five men voting on the existing law and all of the new non-abortion laws coming in the states, signed by men, are justifying the laws against abortion do not require that the men that make the babies in the first place do not seem to have to pay for them. No male who creates the baby is going to be fined $10,000 if the baby he creates results in the abortion. They simple do not pay. They can’t pay with money they refuse to have. Unemployment, or no money is no money.

I do not see where the emphasis is being placed among the men who create the babies in the first place. The decisions are made by men. Both in the Supreme Court and in the creation of babies. These legal decisions are being made by men. The Judicial Courts haven’t passed a simple law that would require the baby maker male would be required to pay for that child forever. The baby isn’t free. It doesn’t come free for the women whose baby was created by the male. Why? Because men want life to be free. Fun has to be free for men, but not for women whose baby was created by a man, irregardless of your argument.

DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU is a GOD law. Every church in the country believes in this doctrine from GOD and yet men are not held responsible to pay for the child for the life of that child. But women? They pay the freight for the child that would not be here if it were not for the man. The men are not accountable to pay for the child for life. The men aren’t held accountable for creating the baby.

Are there any dormitories in any college who have a woman raped in a hazing incident that are required to pay for that child for the rest of that child’s life.

If you claim Christianity as your belief, the men who create the child must be fathers that wanted the baby of the resultant child AS THEY WOULD WANT THEM DONE UNTO YOU. And yet the male justices are not focusing on the creater of the child in the first place. The males want to be off scott free. They do not pay for the baby. If they don’t work they leave their creation to the expense of a woman that the male simply doesn’t pay for child and the woman can’t afford it but, remember, the woman did not create the baby in the first place. The true culprit in the program was the male and GOD created all of them in the first place. When you want to measure your life by your religion you must accept the responsibility of being GOD by creating the child in the first place. GOD impregnated Mary who had a baby JESUS who was assisted by a carpenter to pay the bills for the life of the child to a point of adulthood. No bailing out. THE BABIES ARE CREATED BY MEN. Then men should be responsible for all that they create.

Where are the creators $10,000 fines from the state of Texas, or Oklahoma, or any other state that has as yet to learn the knowledge that the male is the creator, the female is a carrier. Make no mistake: THE BABIES ARE CREATED BY MEN. NO MEN, NO BABIES.

DO UNTO MEN AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO WOMEN. This is the example that GOD made by providing for Mary a provider for His Son Jesus.

DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU

WHAT WORKS FOR YOU
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WHAT WORKS FOR YOU

What Works For You? 

I have been writing for many years now. The notes that have become Unorthodox Christianity. They go quite a ways back. Why did I even begin with the writing. It seems I need to remind myself to write more articles. Why?

It largely began with the conversation with a Sunday school teacher I have referenced before. In second grade Sunday School, in the midst of teaching about GOD creating the world and GOOD and EVIL, the teacher asked an open door, “Do you have any questions?”

“Yes”. I responded. “If GOD created everything, why didn’t GOD just make GOOD PEOPLE?”

That was the end of my religious question and answer period. I was embarking on a life where I asked questions and I looked for answers.

First question became IS GOD JUST A REALLY BIG GUY IN THE SKY? Then I touched on JESUS. Should I simply ask the questions to the BIG GUY AT THE TOP? Why Work around the middle man. My dad had worked with professional sales representatives. I guess I got it from him.

I looked up at the sky one evening when I was about 13-14 years old. I began asking GOD questions, with help from the middle man. I could not imagine a BIG GUY IN THE SKY. Too Big. Too many planets. Too many people, too many questions. Too fixed.

So here is God, a spirit that envelopes all created order, galaxies and universes we may never see. There are spiritual dimensions that we can’t even imagine and entities that even Hollywood can’t conjure up. Is GOD a celestial humanoid that only speaks one language and favors one race. A spirit (Whatever that is) that came before all physical creation, affects every single human on Earth to some extent. I have no problem believing in God (whatever a GOD is), but a God with limits on just what [HE] can or can not do?

Then you have the question of the power of Christianity, which is removed from the culture of the legend of Jesus a Messiah for what became a completely different culture that didn’t exist before Jesus? A Messiah that has yet to be accepted by the culture that refuses to accept Jesus as its own Messiah. The CHRIST of Christian is very much a separate entity from the culture Jesus came from and built around converts and Gentiles. In fact the Christian culture of early Christianity created power around an individual who preached LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

It is a wonder that a child in Bethlehem was chosen to carry the spirit and message of God to these people? When these people didn’t listen to Jesus, Jesus sent his insight for LOVE ONE ANOTHER through others who did believe in the life and story of Jesus into other cultures that didn’t speak Jesus’ language or have Jesus’ customs. Groups of other believers that translated Jesus story into their own and patterned their own beliefs along with Jesus. Could there be unconditional love in the midst of all religions without respect of culture, origin, skin tone? We have created racial preferences on EARTH which was created by a single entity to be made in “Our image”.

In the midst of it all GOD has already created that entity to be among us.

It comes in the framework of our pets, our animals, our disenfranchised friends that have a language of their own yet understand our emotions more than we understand our own. They understand our behavior and love us in spite of ourselves. They forgive us more quickly than we can respond. And there have been many millions and billions of followers that have moved forward into Jesus’ message of LOVE ONE ANOTHER, plain and simple.

GOD IS CAPABLE and HAS CREATED GOOD PEOPLE. The truth is that even the GOOD PEOPLE have been around since the beginning.

When we strip away the pious posturing and self beneficial exclusionary doctrines of certain elements of mankind that have made religious structures that make no sense in the in light of a loving GOD that created everyone to made in “HIS IMAGE”. A disciple of JESUS put it this way, GOD IS LOVE. GOD is a force of energy that too many people have refused to participate in. Look around you. Let us not forget an evil side of Succes AT Anothers Expense within the creation of the energy of LOVE that GOD has to compete with for individual attention.

And eventually UNORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY became a bit more than a question and answer period of a Second Grade United Methodist Sunday School student who asked a simple question. Why?

Because just CHRISTIANITY didn’t fit what I discovered. It didn’t fit the answers I heard of on TV. It didn’t match with JESUS.

LOVE ONE ANOTHER seemed much simpler than what I heard on Sunday mornings in church discussions. AND TOO MANY THREATS. If you do this, your off to hell. You will never go to heaven. Initially there was only HEAVEN in the first place. In the followers from different cultures who embraced the Jesus of LOVE ONE ANOTHER there was a different outlook. A LIFE IS OUTLOOK.

I discovered other things. They were shocking things. LIFE IS TEMPORARY.

Not only that, YOU CAN NOT CHANGE THAT. The opportunity you have been given ON EARTH comes with no time frame. GOOD, BAD, INDIFFERENT, a car accident, a war, a flood, a pandemic, a tornado, a world war. For many A diagnosis at birth, or in the middle of it. This life, with all of its challenges, is here and it is TEMPORARY in this format. We may follow the adherents from other cultures who believe in reincarnation, or do it over until you get it right. There are others who believe that you need to get it right and that is it. I, personally, have never imaged a day I do not get up to enjoy the journey over and over again.

UNORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY IS LIFE IS MEANT FOR LIVING, TAKE YOUR FAITH OFF OF THE SHELF.

LIVE IN THE DARK or LIVE IN THE LIGHT. YOU CHOOSE.

The variety of what you can choose is beyond my scope.

But I have always remembered one thing. “WHY DIDN’T GOD MAKE ALL PEOPLE GOOD ?”

BECAUSE THAT IS OUR JOB.

By the way we act, FORGIVE ME MY TRESPASSES (easy enough) AS I FORGIVE THOSE WHO HAVE TRESPASSED AGAINST ME (real tough).

LOVE ONE ANOTHER.

DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU

(Way Complicated in it’s depth).

To me, the purpose of living is to participate in the adventure of life.

How you do that is what you choose. You do the best you can while you are here. I have always wanted UNORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY to give you a place where you can MAKE JESUS AND GOD WORK FOR YOU. If you so wish, have a conversation with an entity most of us call GOD. Or a carpenters son named JESUS. Wisdom is not exclusive to just these two. You will meet the wisest people at the most opportune times in your life. It will not happen by coincidence. It will happen for you by asking and recognizing it. It may be your lifelong adventure or at your last breath. You will be forgiven for what you know not what you do. And you may enjoy every moment of the journey. GOD has made all people good, it is just a matter of time.

GOD BLESS and I pray you can make your best life work for you.

It is your gift from GOD and a carpenters SON named JESUS.

COINCIDENCE
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COINCIDENCE

GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING ALL

What an appropriate Word for today. Prayers can be singled out for all of us for different reasons today and we can help each other with a simple enough prayer to remind us that GOD watches out for each one of us. Even when our prayer concerns overlap each other our prayers are each addressed individually. It may be a response from within our spirits. It may be a call from a co-worker, or a neighbor, or a relative or friend. It may come from a stranger we do not know with the right thing to say, and I am sure each of us has had that day when a TV show causes us to say “I sure did need that message today”. Coincidence is GOD’s norm. That said, enjoy today, the gifts it offers, and the opportunities it represents.

Our CARES and PRAYERS.

ME, Mack and Jake

THE MIRROR THAT THE WORLD SEES
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THE MIRROR THAT THE WORLD SEES

THE MIRROR THAT THAT THE WORLD SEES

(John 13:35.)…

“And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. . … Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”

This verse has been heard many times in the lives of so many Christian church members that it qualifies as a memory piece. More often then not it is a personal assessment that focuses on Jesus. That the point is a study of Jesus and the disciples is in the box. I see a bit more.

The more I watch the news the more it tells me about the world. The sheer numbers of people in the world are hard to grasp. The power of the number and the people that it represents is much more than just a reflection of a statement in the Bible, that sheer number in the world reflects us all. It is a mirror of who we are and how we behave.

We are people in the midst of circumstance. We reflect our circumstances. Far too many suffer from day to day to have food to eat and a safe place to sleep. Whether in the the richest of nations or the poorest.

We often look at the world and pick and choose which of us are GOD’S chosen. The truth is that the world is GOD’S chosen. From ants to Elephants to whales GOD made this for the all. The same sun rises and sets for all of them as well as all mankind.

In Matthew 25 : 35-40

“For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made me welcome; naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me; in prison and you came to see me.”

Then the virtuous will say to him in reply, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you; or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you welcome; naked and clothe you; sick or in prison go to see you?”

Jesus replied “I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brethren of mine, you did it to me.”

The world reflects US. The world has become a mirror of who we are and how we have come to behave as a creation of GOD. When I watch the news I wonder what GOD sees. Do you appreciate the gift GOD has given to all of us that creation is, or do we look to find the ways to use that gift to benefit us personally at the expense of that gift to others.

Is the creation played back to us on the evening news a mirror of our pride, does it reflect GOD’S gift to us in the mirror of our behavior? With all of our gifts given to us do we show compassion for the least of these GOD’S children? Is it as important to share our gifts with others or is the mirror that the world sees of greed and more proud of personal wealth than our equality? We talk politically of boo bad socialism as an evil while we legislate bigger dollars for a very few very wealthy at the expense of the others.

One can only pray that someday there are full plates of food and safe places to live, and dreams in every heart to share the gifts of this world so that the mirror of the world is one we can all be proud of and enjoy.

Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another”

Will the day come that People will seek out Heaven on Earth and not have to talk in terms of how great Heaven will be when we die? I believe that the goal for the spirit has never been to leave Earth. The goal should be to be able to share the gifts that were created for us over and over again, with a smile on your face and every neighbor is your friend. It will forever start with:

THE MIRROR THAT WE SEE.

NEW EXPECTATIONS 2-14-21
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NEW EXPECTATIONS 2-14-21

NEW Expectations

It is Sunday Morning. A pretty traditional Church day for me. It is on the internet thanks to the pandemic. Before the Internet it was called Church and Family day. There isn’t Church at the building day. The pre-pandemic church day started with a coffee and rolls get together. One then went to the sanctuary for the Message and when done we all went to our favorite Sunday lunch or brunch day.

I got up today and felt lost. The world is changing. What are my expectations when the word PRAYER comes up? What do I plan on doing with that prayer box when I take it off the shelf and remind myself that my faith has a home of sorts. Unorthodox Christianity? My conversation with GOD is centered around something called prayer. When Jesus talked to the disciples it was conversation. When someone wanted healing for a friend or family member, or a neighbor one sought out Jesus to be the healer. A miracle now and then. But this is me, this is now. My prayer box has expectations that come with it. The social club doesn’t need me. What is the purpose of Unorthodox Christianity?

Every day I pray. It may be a breakfast prayer or a dinner prayer. I may have received a special prayer to pray for a member of a church family, a co-worker, it may be a TV prayer as the messenger for any or all of the thousands that have had to confront the Pandemic. I may have a family member challenged by cancer or covid, or health issues whose name surprises me. It may come as an obituary to tell me I am getting older.

It may be for someone whose name I do not know or recognize. We all get the message somehow. For someone. For some purpose. What is it all about?

The world has many tribes. Groups of people who believe alike, in something. There are groups who profess non-belief. Who do they pray to, from whom do they request a loving heart and caring thought?

There are Bibles, there are Sutra’s, there are classes on religion and thousands of churches with billions of believers, believing in something. There are judges to judge right and there are judges to judge wrongs. Who do you pray for, and who do you pray to. You ask for forgiveness and for absolution. I think I admit my wrongs, and I ask for peace.

I may speak in tongues. I ask in long messages or short messages. I have many names for GOD and which Name must I use for which prayer? There are billions of prayers every moment. I ask myself, what do I expect from the prayer? What do I expect GOD to say? What do I expect GOD to do in response. What if I disagree? Will my prayer take precedence over someone elses? Is my prayer honest enough? Is it correct enough? What do I expect from it?

Is my prayer Politically correct enough? Will others who hear my prayer agree with me or not? What if their prayer challenges mine, or disagrees with what I was taught the prayer should be about. Is my prayer like a snowball rolling down a hillside getting bigger as it goes? Does my prayer find me shaking my head back and forth wondering if GOD agrees with me, or not? Are my prayers realistic or are they unrealistic. Do they truly have meaning, or wishes or desires. Are they lost in a cavern of thousands of years ago that sounds like “this person or “That” person wrote it down. Have the conversations become fragments of great thoughts, or confusion?

Just what am I trying to accomplish during my prayer time?

On and on and on. I may take hours and say nothing meaningful, I could be wasting GOD’s time. Is GOD on my side? What do I want to take away from my prayer? Do I want peace, do I want to WIN? What is it I am praying for? Do I want the temperature to be warm for a few days or `below zero’. Is such a prayer frivolous?

Now that I have written a bunch of stuff down, what do I do with it?

I have expectations, don’t I. Do I have any power to have it My Way? Do I even know what my way is? How would GOD hear my prayer? How would GOD accept it or answer it. What are my prayer Expectations?

I want to listen first and pray second. GOD has ways of talking to me when I have questions. Does GOD disagree? Maybe. Does GOD want you to say something specific to come from you? Do you agree?

The conversation you have with GOD is the beginning of your teaching and the door that GOD will open. It is between you and GOD. The challenge is to seek out your answers. Not someone else’s. You have already set your own challenge. That challenge becomes your expectation. Listen to your questions, listen for GOD’s answers.

Life is very much like an old saying, walk a mile in another mans shoes. Your expectations should include your learning. You have to ask to learn. The conversation you begin will last a lifetime. And we call it LIVING. And it starts with expectations.

The internet has created all kinds of questions and presents all kinds of answers. When you punch up Unorthodox Christianity on the Internet what do you expect to find? What sort of a question do you have to answer? The questions and the answers lie within you. They lie within conversations that you may have long forgotten, pictures you may have drawn, music you may have sung. If you are lost will you become found? You and GOD can discover the found. Your Expectations become your challenges. Your challenges become your answers. Your answers become your journey.

Life is meant for living, take your faith off of the shelf.

WE OR ME
by

WE OR ME

WE or ME

Not too many writings ago I utilized a commonly (among Christians) used prayer in response to His disciples:

Luke 11: 1-5: Now once HE (Jesus) was in a certain place praying, and when He was finished one of his disciples said, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples.”

He (Jesus) said to them, “Say this when you pray:
“Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who have trespassed against us.…………..

I was thinking about that the other day and have recited it in my life almost as many times as I have lived every day. Not to be holy, but because I memorized it in Sunday Schools and prayer services as me the adult, and it just never left my mind. As I wrote utilizing it the other day I recognized something that I had never considered.

I Can’t see the forest for the trees came to mind.

The disciple prefaced it this way: “Lord, teach us to pray…..”

In Unorthodox Christianity looking outside the box can teach.

FORGIVE US Our TRESPASSES AS WE FORGIVE THOSE….. … It didn’t wring true to me for someone who struggled up to Golgotha and was Crucified on behalf of everyone else in the world. What did He say: “Forgive them Father, they know not what the do”.

I read it again, and again. FORGIVE US? What about me? I trespassed, not US. The universal group did not trespass against the bully. The universal group did not talk about someone else. I DID. It is too easy to blame the US, it is much closer to home to blame the ME. Pass the buck is followed by THE BUCK STOPS HERE.

Forgiving yourself of a trespass is as important as asking GOD to forgive you.

It is hard to forgive those who trespass against you, very hard in certain situations, but it is always harder to forgive the person in the mirror. Love Your neighbor as yourself, depends on you being able to forgive yourself first. GOD will always recognize the whats and the whys , but you have to forgive yourself so that you know Love your neighbor as yourself and to know what it looks and feels like.

See beyond the forest. THE BUCK STOPS HERE. Whether talking Christian or anything else, life for you becomes your responsibility.

“FATHER FORGIVE ME AS I FORGIVE THOSE……”