Christian
LOVE ONE ANOTHER
From 1-25-02
‘Their GOD is not our GOD.’ So many times have I heard this come out of the mouths of Christians that I am reminded of what Jesus said, “It is not what goes into your mouth that defiles you, but what comes out.”
I was involved in a discussion once with a Christian acquaintance and the topic came up of whom GOD loves more.
Who are the true chosen?
I asked him to list the people on Earth whom GOD did not create. You see we are ALL the children of GOD.
I related a story: when my mother baked cookies for me she always made more oatmeal raisin cookies than chocolate chip cookies. Why? Because I liked oatmeal raisin cookies more than chocolate chip cookies. If we believe that GOD shows some sort of preference for one group over another, certainly the chosen people of GOD are Asian, for there are many more of them than anyone else.
I believe GOD is big enough, intelligent enough, and loving enough to speak to all people in their own language and in their own culture. I believe there is a measure of truth intertwined within all the religions of the world and that we are missing the entire message of GOD when we exclude one faith journey vs another because of our tribalistic propensity to hold our own ritualistic faith as the entire truth of GOD’s teaching. How much wisdom has been lost in such ignorance.
Jesus taught, ”Love One Another”, No caveats, No claims of exclusivity of membership. “By this [love] will they know that you are disciples of mine”, is a common destination that leads to peace. In fact, it is the only destination that leads toward peace.
Until we can embrace our diversity of culture, religion, and faith with the understanding that GOD speaks through many tongues, our destination will be one of division. Until we learn to focus our energies on a common destination of loving one another, our world will never find peace.
I believe that:
GOD WILL NEVER DENY HEAVEN TO ONE WHO LOVES.
THIS IS OUR PROMISE, IT IS OUR HERITAGE,
IT IS OUR TEACHING, AND IT IS OUR GIFT.
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.
The Gift of Every Day
So I am moving forward from therapy and rehabilitation and now preparing to head back to work. I have been blessed by doctors and nurses and house cleaners and my dog watchers and on and on. GOD reserved more than one person to help me. Every day the neighbors were saying how have I been doing. How are the dogs? How have I been motivated by so many nearby. I have had more smiles from people I share walking the dogs with.
Many people ask “Where is GOD” because of Unorthodox Christianity. They can’t find GOD, or Jesus in their every day and I am supposed to know all about it. As I get a smile for the dog “Liberty” or give a treat to “Daisy” or have “Harry and Chloe” run up to me to share a treat that I get called the Candy Man can. It is the smile on a 3 year old when Mack or Jake smile with them. It is the smile of a mom and dad playing with their kids at the park. There isn’t enough space to write down all the smiles, all the concern, all the friends who started as neighbors and have become friends.
And then someone asks, “Just where is GOD”.
Times get tough. Tragedy stands at doors, in the weather, in the floods. “Where is GOD”. Of all the things we have happen in our lives to say, “Where is GOD”. I watch the news and can not see where GOD isn’t.
My surgeon, I found out, came to work on me on His Birthday, to be sure that the procedure was done in a timely manner rather than run a risk for having to wait until the surgery fit the schedule. It would have been very risky over a wait until the schedule was in my schedule. Every day the news reflects GOD in motion. Every day people are helping others, rescuing people through the floods, fires, and they wrap their arms around the ones whose family, friends, or neighbors to not make it here. Not for the sake of GOD or JESUS not being there at the right time. For the sake of GOD and JESUS are there helping the helpers. Not just a few who come home.GOD and JESUS are busy every day, and every where and every moment in every place are the helpers of GOD and JESUS.
A cohort at rehab asked me the other day just what will I do when rehab is over. I put it this way:
“For right now, for me, it is better to make some progress daily, then have no daily to experience at all.”
GOD and JESUS are everywhere. All the time. Some days life starts over for some in a new experience. Some days life is a gift of the every day. GOD and JESUS know what life is. Don’t miss those who’s job it it is to care. NO one should question where GOD is or where JESUS just might be.They are so far beyond your capabilities do not measure them by who we think they are. Just look at the every day no matter where you are. GOD and JESUS are there. And they are doing just what they do always.
AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE, WE ALL CAN SHARE THE GIFT OF THE EVERY DAY.
THE BOOKS ARE NEVER FINISHED
“ORDINARY PEOPLE” Click on music if it doesn’t start by itself.
CONFIDENCE
So on July 15th, 2022 GOD stopped by while I had Open Heart Surgery at GOD’s own bequest. GOD didn’t want me to do this just with the help of some excellent doctors and nurses. GOD always prepares and never gives up on a project. The first thing GOD did was prepare the project with GOD’s gift in the hands of the people that the above song is all about. Not just me, not just a few. Once GOD had put all the pieces of this project together over a period of a year and a half. GOD got so many people to help me, to watch the dogs, to drive me here and there, and a whole team of encouragement givers appeared. As I was talking with a couple of the encouragers the other night they asked me a question. “You have done all of this so well with your surgery, and your positiveness. Just how did you do it?”
I thought about the question for a few minutes and the word came to me. “CONFIDENCE”. I was getting ready to be off to bed and I found myself remembering with a group of people from a song I had written years ago. The song at the beginning of this writing. “Ordinary People.” I talked to my encouragers. “Confidence is not just a gift. If you do not mind me sharing. Confidence is not born of one event. It is born of a lifetime of events of “Ordinary People” who have shared their “Confidence” in hundreds of events in my life. ORDINARY PEOPLE who have shared my lifetime in so many situations”. I shortly left for bed. But I was not done with this note for this lesson.
You see we often make a huge mistake when we miss the values of Unorthodox Christianity. We think that the Bible’s have all the stories. We write them down and memorize them from Bible school to Bible College to Sunday School and all kinds of Bible Studies. There are all kinds of Churches and stories about what will happen if you don’t believe this story, or that story. The truth of GOD is this:
THE BOOKS ARE NEVER FINISHED. THE “ORDINARY PEOPLE” ARE NEVER DONE. GOD has provided us with enough encourgers and personal stories of so many events over lifetimes of stories that they have become libraries that have filled the ages of writings, and stories, and songs for you to share with and lives to learn from. They surpass the few books that we ascribe to our Bibles and we miss the thousands of books that have become thousands of years of events throughout the world. GOD knows that the few books we attribute to the “Bibles” are such a small volume of the works of GOD and “ORDINARY PEOPLE” that telling people what GOD has in mind for our lives doesn’t scratch the surface of just one ORDINARY PERSON, let alone thousands, let alone billions that have become just who we are.
Just what are people looking for when they seek out GOD for their own relationship with GOD? What do the “Ordinary People” ask of GOD? More and more people have a harder time with a GOD who criticizes everything from a journey that GOD will sort out and that GOD will see lifetimes of challenges and changes. GOD will send ORDINARY PEOPLE to encourage so many encourgers over so many lifetimes to support so many. And suddenly it becomes lifetimes of forever lifetimes of “Life after Death”.
One thing I have gotten out of Unorthodox Christianity over all these years is pretty simple. ” Lifetimes of CONFIDENCE”.
THE BOOKS ARE NEVER FINISHED. THE BOOKS WILL ALWAYS EXIST. THE BOOKS WILL ALWAYS BE FOUND NO MATTER WHERE THEY MAY BE HIDING. THAT IS WHAT CREATES CONFIDENCE. AND CONFIDENCE IS WHAT CREATES FAITH. AND FAITH IS THE HALLMARK OF GOD.
“HE CHOSE ORDINARY PEOPLE TO BE FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST.”
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.
FOR LOVE
GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING ALL
I have learned so much being back in Iowa. An appreciation for Ethanol, a whole new world of doctors and excellent nurses, as well as Wind Chill, and now “Snain”. I discovered it during this morning’s walk with the dogs. As we were walking it suddenly got colder. The Wind Chill had raised its ugly head instantly. I pulled the built- in hood of my winter work coat over my light weight ball cap. I could hear something falling onto my hood. I looked around and could see nothing. I saw no birds flying overhead and no squirrels were about. No bugs or gnats. And then, I saw it. “SNAIN”. An almost invisible drip combination of RAIN droplets becoming SNOW drops before my very eyes. It didn’t create the little drops of rain that creates a wet spot on my cap or jacket, it was “SNAIN”. I am amazed at all that Iowa has to offer. I shook my head and went inside and got a cup of coffee. Who knows what a day will bring? First Wind Chill and now SNAIN. Where is Tony Randall when you need him? (This last piece is a test of your overall knowledge of word development).
Enjoy your day and be careful should the SNAIN start falling in your world. OUR CARES AND PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU.
ME, Mack and Jake
FOR LOVE
It is Easter this week. A prayerful time and a thankful time. It is also an every day time. I looked at the news this morning. For sure this day’s response above was light headed. I did so because the day is still with me and all of us. Each day is a gift from GOD to approach each day with thanks giving in spite of what the lead news is on TV. Others who choose to live in the negative and harm the innocent for whatever reason they choose. Be it greed or power or in spite of we have a world of difficulties every morning. It makes me often wonder if my dad was correct in his assessment that Earth is Hell.
And then I see something. I watch the news and find so many people helping so many others. They are not responding to a rule of law. They are not helping their family, relatives, or neighbors. They are helping people. More people that they do not know and they will never meet. Each one they help will say thank you without even knowing their name. These helpers may change their regular day, in their regular location. They start off their Normal day. A joke at work. A funny story remembered from some book or word or picture or nice day. In today’s technology they are helping people in nations around the world. They are LOVING ONE ANOTHER. Not because they have to, but because they want to. They are not all Christians. They are not all Buddhists, or Hindu, or Tao or even unattached to religion of any nature. Somewhat hidden in the day, the day came about. Life has been done however it has happened. How we approach it is how we become. Approach it FOR LOVE.
LOVE ONE ANOTHER and appreciate the opportunities the day has brought with it.
WHERE DOES HEAVEN ON EARTH HANG OUT
GOOD MORNING ALL
An interesting day so far. Running a bit late for today but slept in late with the dogs and it changed my pace for my day off. I kept watching “OLD” TV and with laundry in the background I became enhanced with the “OLD” TV that I watched while growing up vs the “NOW” TV and what it has become.
Life has really changed over the years and TV is no different than what politics has become. Technology as well as culture has changed considerably. From no TV to the INTERNET and SOCIAL MEDIA, life has changed considerably in a very short period of time.
I am becoming more comfortable with my old favorite, instrumental music only, that the dogs get to listen to when I am off to work. I am kind of like back from outer space and resuming my day off. I feel young watching “OLD TV” and old while watching how it has all changed.
One question that entered my mind is how GOD and JESUS and HEAVEN ON EARTH have changed. Between HEAVEN and HELL and SIN and REVELATIONS on the doorstep, the Christian religion has out paced HEAVEN ON EARTH. Just what kind of EARTH is HEAVEN supposed to be like by now? What changes would GOD present EARTH to be like since the FLOOD. Then JESUS was supposed to reset our mindset about HEAVEN ON EARTH.
The books of BIBLE, or REVELATIONS, as an example, is a huge business for the religion of JESUS the CHRISTIAN. It is hard to determine just what they are trying to accomplish with book after book after book about the end. The book people are happy, and there seems to be a Christian religious book for everyone irregardless of the different opinions of over 30,000 denominations of “Christians” ON EARTH. JUST AS IT IS IN HEAVEN? How does one decide just which book to read and what do I want to take away from the book I am reading. Where does HEAVEN on EARTH hang out? How are we to grasp which image is the future image or the past image.
I want to offer a very simple NEW IMAGE from an OLD, OLD LEGEND:
LOVE ONE ANOTHER. PERIOD.
NO SPECIAL BOOKS. NO special chapters. NO BIBLES and NO ANYTHING ELSE. Easy to remember. Covers all the grounds. DEALS WITH ALL CULTURES AND ALL COUNTRIES. One just makes it work themselves. Maybe even HEAVEN can’t be this difficult to make it work.
The weather is nice today and it is due to rain tomorrow. Have a wonderful day and enjoy all the opportunities that the day presents. OUR CARES AND PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU ALL.
ME, Mack and Jake
THE LITTLE THINGS COUNT
GOOD WEDNESDAY MORNING ALL
I have done lots of music in my life from my own music to worship music in churches, on retreats, in Barbershop settings, and on and on. When I think that my memory is fading the WORD for today pops up. One of my favorite retreat songs for kids goes: I’ve got the JOY, JOY, JOY, JOY deep in my heart, deep in my heart…….I’ve got the LOVE OF JESUS, LOVE OF JESUS deep in my heart…..and so on.
As soon as I looked at today’s word “JOY” The whole song bounced into my mind and the pictures of dozens of smiling kids filled my memory. The smile went from left to right and north to south and east to west. Sometimes I feel forgetful and that is when GOD shines a light onto a music folder and the smile appears. Too often we feel that GOD has gone on vacation and forgot to tell us where GOD has been off to. We feel that GOD doesn’t care, or GOD doesn’t exist or GOD is too busy. Then, seeming-lee without paying any attention, GOD drops a little GOD-SHELL to make sure we do not miss all that GOD is doing. We expect great things from GOD, or we do not have any belief in GOD. Great things are too often subtle and we do not recognize all the activity that GOD involves ourselves in. When you find yourself down and out there becomes a song in the background, or a memory to remind you, that GOD is so active that you think that GOD is too GREAT to deal with “just me”? Wrong again.
GOD is more a master of THE LITTLE THINGS THAT COUNT.
I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, joy …..Have a wonderful day. OUR CARES AND PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU.
ME, Mack and Jake
Heaven, Hereafter, or hereNOW
Heaven, Hereafter, or hereNOW
From 5-30-2006
I have heard a great many sermons in my life that are to tell me what heaven and the hereafter are like. I have heard so many that I now know one thing for certain; no one has a clue.
Hereafter
I do know that if I do not choose Jesus as my Lord and savior I am doomed to eternal damnation and life in Sheol (whatever that is). I do know that I cannot be saved if I am not Baptist, (or Mormon, or Methodist, or Presbyterian, Evangelical or Episcopalian and certainly I don’t have a prayer of heaven if I am not Catholic). This causes a substantial dilemma since I cannot be all of the above at the time of my death. Of course, I will also spend a life in eternal damnation if I am not Jewish, or Sunni or Sikh, or Moslem or Hindu or Buddhist or any of dozens of other religions that inhabit the Earth.
I guess that means that I may resign myself to the “bad” place.
Then again:
ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN
Jesus, as a teacher or Rabbi or preacher or philosopher or son of GOD, holds forth in his hand the ultimate carrot, “Why wait?”
I do not believe that Jesus came and sacrificed himself on a cross to merely extend promises of a fancy divine hereafter. Most religions seem to offer up Nirvana in some shape or form.
What Jesus did was to come and offer us insights as to how we can positively impact the here and now. Jesus taught us how to impact the heaven that lies within our grasp right now, daily, not the after.
Whether Heaven has mansions or refers to new bodies in different times as the Hindu believe (reincarnation) is irrelevant to me. Whether we sing in a divine chorus 24/7 (or whatever time-frame is the physics of heaven) is not as relevant to my living as the promise that I can experience heaven now, as Dennis, as me. It is equally important that you can live it as you.
Is it no wonder that Jesus’ teaching was so radical that most, not even those closest to him, could comprehend His meaning? The Heaven that Jesus prayed for is within our grasp daily. ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN, what a radical and impossible dream. LOVE ONE ANOTHER, another impossible dream.
Daily? A fantasy for sure. Jesus has been the object of great debate since the beginning. Those who do not wish to change much look forward to the end of their lives firm in the knowledge (or belief) that the hereafter has the mansion they couldn’t charge here. They look toward a magic place where grace takes them and places upon them a robe of authority or position and extends divine preference based on the sign in front of the building they visited on Sunday morning or Saturday afternoon for an hour or two out their week.
And yet no one can tell me what they will do all day, every day, for eternity. More than that, they wish me to believe that they can perform this function for eternity when they get fidgity now after 60 minutes out of each week in GOD’S own house, which they built with their own money. How do they expect to be satisfied with that heavenly life when a half hour of prayer daily is a challenge. How will they adore GOD every day, all day when they can not accept the Muslim on their knees 5 times daily when they are reluctant to extend thanks at the dinner table with GOD’S blessing of food to eat before them daily.
I do not believe Jesus was about hereafter. All kinds of religion handle the hereafter. What was unique about Jesus was his preaching about the hereNOW.
Jesus did not say to the blind man, “Your sight will be restored in the hereafter”.
Jesus did not say to the lame man, “You will walk on the heavenly shore”.
Jesus did not say, “Kill your neighbor and you will be great in heaven”.
Jesus did not stand before the tomb of Lazarus and yell “Lazarus, have a great time.”
Jesus did ask of his spiritual father, “On Earth as it is in heaven”.
Jesus was about the hereNOW.
The great teachers teach us how to live the here and now. They teach us how to make the best of who we are, appreciate what we’ve been given, share the blessings of our wealth be it physical or spiritual, and enjoy the journey of our living. Jesus says to me, appreciate, share, and enjoy for the Father has tomorrow handled. Whether I play a harp for eternity, or return to this place again and again and again is GOD’S venue, what Dennis Wheeler does with His appointed days is mine. I can live an example of a Jesus or Jimmy Hoffa. I can appreciate all I’ve been given or be driven to power and it’s ultimate corruption. I can share what I’ve been given or horde it until that day when it lies in a yard sale weeks after my passing, or worse yet, is tossed into a dumpster and becomes buried with countless other lives under tons of dirt fill.
The reality of life is the hereNOW, the speculation is the hereAfter.
If GOD was less concerned for us He would not have utilized Jesus to promote a better hereNow. GOD would have left us to the Jewish law, or paganism, or mythology. We would be eternal passers by, the bad Samaritan, the righteous priest or the self focused CEO or CFO.
What if I’m in Heaven now? Do I help its dream, or hinder it? Am I promoter of it, or a thief? Am I an encourager of living or a prospector of dying? What do I feel that Jesus would have me do? If I call myself a Christian, to be true to my Jesus and myself, I should be living the best hereNOW I am capable of. I should appreciate it, share it, and enjoy it as the gift that it is.
Amen.