Is Jesus Real to You? Sunday Thoughts

I normally do not comment upon religious or spiritual things except to promote spiritual health. I'm not one to rock boats. Today's question, however, comes with a few caveats.

Is Jesus real to you?

This question was posed to early Methodists, Lutherans, and Wesleyans by John Wesley. He wants your honesty deep within yourself. Yes or no?

Firstly, in a culture that knows ABOUT Him through stories from the Bible - the ark, the apple and the serpent, parting the waters, and the death and resurrection of Jesus - we have a stunted relationship WITH Him.

Many people grow up 'in the church' and never understand in their hearts what it is they hear. They don't feel it. Then all the questions are hedged and routines done just to keep people thinking you are a follower. My little nieces could tell you at two years old "Jesus!" or "God!" as the answer to every question in church. Some feel this is indoctrination, and it is. This practice, whether you find it foul or devout, is common. Yet you can recite, be indoctrinated, and STILL not believe.

Why? Because it takes a fall from pride, admitting you have failed, and allowing yourself to be subservient and lowly to accept that you need God. People have a lot of pride.  They cannot open themselves up to scrutiny. If it's a test, how will it feel to fail?

It feels like taking a pre-test over information you haven't learned yet and then feeling dumb. You come completely unprepared. You feel defeated when you come seeking answers and get questions in response. There is a lot of mystery and vaguely worded scriptures do not always soothe.

Then there are some tough situations we find ourselves in before we seek spiritual guidance. When you bring a belief to the altar and find that others shun you for it, or that you don't get the answer you want, you stop wanting to know more. That feels like having sex before dating. You tried it but it didn't work. You met up, felt some desire, some need, but afterwards you left unfulfilled and full of regrets.

The Church, as a body of people, of sinners, invites you to take a pretty big step - to make a decision to believe and have a relationship with an omnipotent being. No one wants to do that after a let down. Neither do we want to do that without knowing what the reward will be. Is there instant gratification?

So they date their religion, never committing. Yes, a religion is like a marriage. You do have to commit. That is daunting. So you listen and participate, sing and volunteer, ask questions and try to find answers. Sometimes you date forever and people ask you if you are ever going to get married. Sometimes you leave and get back together and leave and get back together.

The second part of this is: How can the world know unless someone explains it to them?

We all learn through teachers. Watching someone take communion and hearing the language isn't enough to understand it. Reading the Bible may help you know the stories, but not enough to understand the meaning in the message.

In the old days, the days of the book of Acts, the early Christians did not have access to books. Having a scroll meant you were rich. Stories were passed by word of mouth. They didn't know ABOUT many things. When a new story came along, they had one chance, while the church leader was still there before he moved on to another village, to make a decision. Someone explained it all to them and they either got it or they didn't.

We are similar, except we are bombarded with information. We have to sift through it daily. We hear lots of stories, opinions, most of them contradictory. How do we know what is true and right? Who do you listen to?

For those who choose to believe that life ends at death, I hope you are able to be spiritually healthy enjoying nature, quiet time, or self-reflection. When you stop believing in Santa, you still get gifts, you just lose that innocent magical wonder. Perhaps the world is just a cynical place and you are one of the few bright spots - be kind, do good, and love others even if they seem unlovable.

Lastly, if Jesus is Real to You, and you have the Holy Spirit, it guides you through scriptures to the answers. You just KNOW things, intents, interpretations, by feeling them. How can I describe it? Your conscious feels similar, and your heart or gut instinct, to the Spirit. There is no other way to put it but it allows you to assimilate the information and just know what is meant. This is not a gift that Santa can give, nor is it instant gratification after accepting and believing. If you believe in alternate dimensions or realms, think about the Spirit as permeating your being. It's around you and in you like air and water vapor. It's just there. It's a 4-D thing in a 3-D world.

It also feels clean, fresh, and new. Like pure happiness, there is a cool breath that enters your lungs and sweeps out the bad and leaves behind the good. It's almost like being in love. If you can accept that as instant gratification, then that's what it is. A fleeting feeling. It's like the high of doing good things to help others. It's not pride in yourself, it's knowing you were a good person.

Coexist: Shift Your Thinking

I was behind a car with the Coexist bumper sticker, you know, where every letter is a religious symbol? Yesterday as I sat there, I realized that it's not saying that we should all change and become a Giant Cult.

The sticker is saying we should be peaceful.

There is a push for peace out there. I think there always has been, but why hasn't it happened?

In order to truly live and coexist with your neighbor in peace, you have to be willing to do two things: Love, and Forgive.

Now, first of all, when I say love I do not mean that you are bubbling over with affection and care, I mean that you have to not hate them with a passion.

This takes Like, Teamwork, and Cooperation.

Liking someone means you have to put aside your differences, find common ground, work as a Team, and Cooperate when necessary. If you put this in the perspective of a community, there is no gate, but there is a Housing Authority and it's rule is: whatever your neighbor does, accept it, forgive them, and help them if they allow you to.

It begins by understanding that not all people are out there to hate you.

It begins by knowing that people of other religions are mostly peaceful. Just because they worship a different God doesn't make them evil.

Religion is a big part of being healthy, because it makes you think outside of yourself. No matter what God you pray to, you open up to something bigger; you hope, you thank, you count your blessings; and then you begin to think about your family, your loved ones, the problem with your neighbors; and then you think about what you can do to fix that problem, and maybe the solution is for you to stop hating them.

They need to make a Coexist bumper sticker with people of different skin tones and nationalities using their bodies to make the letters, because racism is still epicly abundant.

You can't love others, in a general, you-would-serve-the-homeless-soup kind of way, if you are afraid of someone because they have skin of a different color.

Or if they are lesbian, gay, or transgender.

I am supposed to love everyone. We are supposed to leave the judgment for Judgement Day. I don't truly know what is in someone's heart until they tell me, and to do that, I'd have to have a relationship with them that includes opening up, sharing, and trust. Faces, attire, hairdos can all hide the true feelings inside a person and show the world only what the person wants you to see. I can dress up fancy to feel fancy, but inside, I may hold hurts, hate, and fear.

The way to accept others is to get to know others and begin to see them as PEOPLE instead of as a stereotype. It's easy to love an imperfect person with feelings and things in common with other people. It's hard to love a religion, a color, or a lifestyle. Those are inanimate things.

Shift your thinking.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

The Futility of Man vs A Doctrine of Love: A Memoire

Day 4: Your views on religion

Oh what a giant can of worms this topic opens! Now what angle to come at this from?

I started going to a little christian church when I was in 2nd grade. We had moved to our family farm, having cleared acreage and bought a single-wide trailer to live in while we built our house. Going to church was a symbol of our settling into this new farm community. My mother went to church as a child and wanted her children to be raised similarly.

This particular chapel wasn't for us when they began to split, some following the pastor who left to shepherd others. I was too young to understand why he left, but I did understand snobs and I felt some of the people there thought they knew better than others. I was upset about leaving. That was the church where I learned about Jesus and where I gave my heart to him.

The new church was friendly and I soon wanted to go to Sunday school with my peers. I had the most wonderful high school sunday school teacher and my sophomore year brought me to youth group with a new leader who was also fantastic. I did a study on Revelation, underlined and highlighted my Bible, and switched to Christian music, which I still commit to to this day.

My personal experiences shaped me into who I am today and religion plays a huge role in my makeup. Especially the teachings of Jesus who preaches and leads by an example of love.

Is religion tearing the world apart? Yep. There's been spiritual warfare since the fall of an angel, and human warfare since one tribe saw another from a distance. Make that, since one brother became jealous of the other.

Who is right? Only God knows. If you don't believe in Him, then no one knows.

Do you have to pick a side? Even agnosticism is a side.

Can't we all just get along? We are all sinful, with pride and jealousy, so um, as humans, no, we can't.

Can we try? Yep, but it requires daily discipline to keep our minds and bodies in check. Even best friends fight sometimes. Feelings get hurt, even between lovers. And if lovers can spat, then think about whole countries trying to get along with each other!

So is it futile to love? No, love is the only way to overcome our sinful natures, always wanting to pick fights. Love is the only way we ever get any happiness. Kindness comes from love. Kindness, even its most basic form, tolerance, or self-restraint even, cannot come from hate. If we lack even that, we will kill ourselves.

So my view of religion is basically to love. Were it not for my church, my parents, and my own study, I'd be loveless.

Someone who says it better: Alexys Fairfield (link to a post)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. anyway, because it was all I knew. Self-restraint comes from self-love.