Those would be my questions to you.
There are a lot of ways for me to approach this, but I think I must avoid the most straightforward routes. It’s interesting that you chose the screen name of Micah, since Micah was a prophet, and your language is somewhat in that vein. Like Micah, your route seems to be supporting the human race. You are saying the things they need to hear to support their religion, and likely giving an example of a Christ-like life, but only within the confines of what the system will bear, and that means 5% at most of what can be done. Christ was never meant to dwell among humans. His ways are too foreign to theirs, as the Bible declares numerous times. To understand why, you must think beyond men.
MC: I'm not really sure how to reply to that except to ask you what you think righteous living, and following Jesus is.
JC: There are no examples of righteous living yet, and Jesus didn’t give enough information to be followed authentically. It wasn’t enough to say, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This needed to be explicated, or men were left to their own devices. Jesus often hinted at things men could not do, such as asking a rich man to sell all that he owned. Although I could write a symphony, one note I’ve touched upon in this forum is that when “love your neighbor” is interpreted properly, poverty should end, at a minimum within the specific sect in question. If it does not, some are glorifying in what they deny to the others, which is manifestly unkind and unfriendly, and certainly unloving.
MC: I tend to have other problems with the idea that Jesus intentionally mislead the world; it seems like we're heading fast towards some Gnostic idea of secret knowledge.
JC: To see that Jesus misled the world requires a realistic assessment of the human race, which as the Bible says, is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward. One thing is that opinions are generated not on the basis of truth, but on the basis of wanting to feel different and unique, in a situation where uniqueness in the personality itself cannot be assessed. This ends as the source of all the religions and all the sects. Men don’t want a unified religion, that the One God could have revealed across all epochs and to all races. They want to feel themselves to be different, and to feel that they are superior and looking down. Christianity supplies this aplenty, as many revel in thoughts of hell for the rest—though hell itself was never defined and they don’t inquire about it!
MC: I don't intend to say that there aren't many many people who say they believe in Jesus, but don't really live like He is true.
JC: I have found not one who lives as if Jesus is true, and I suspect you’ll fail my test as hundreds I’ve encountered have already done, directly or indirectly. To accept that Jesus is true, you’d have to think authentically about the Deity and what His embodiment is like. For instance you’d know He’d be in great danger today, for the Christian church has declared He can reappear in only one way, flying literally on a cloud, miracles spouting from His ears. Anything else they would condemn, and in fact persecute unto death.
MC: There certainly are people who believe nominally/culturally, and are too busy trying to preserve this life to lose this life for Christ's sake.
JC: “Losing the life” is a very loose analogy, but here is also one place Jesus misled the world, by implying there would be a reward waiting in Heaven for those who sacrifice today. This is what drives the missionaries and monastics. Yet these are very cold to Christ and His real principles. If you want to know quickly what that is, it is taking joy from the joy of another. In all these situations the people are found working for private benefit. They would not take up the joy of their neighbor as the motivation for daily work, which is the real meaning of “losing the life.” Your concerns are for public good.
MC: That is a tragedy, and so long as we are on this earth, we all need to repent of our sins and seek after Jesus, in so far as we are able.
JC: The tragedy is that they couldn’t change much even if informed about it. If you know human nature, you know that it changes very slowly. The higher life requires a perception of others and oneself as living souls, created by God, with the purpose of universal joy. The human perception is of a material body competing to survive among other bodies.
MC: I don't think that losing our life for Christ's sake means that we are free of our earthly responsibilities.
JC: No, indeed, the higher society would be a need-based one, rather than a greed-based one. The number one concern is that all should have what they require for a decent life. That should’ve been the very purpose of a society, from the outset, not each family competing against all the other families, some inevitably forced into want. This is something easy for Jesus to observe, but He failed to highlight it and turn the world around.
MC: I think you have to take into account the creation, before Christ came and saved us, before we even sinned. What was man made to do? Take care of the garden in Eden. Tend God's creation, to rule over it and subdue it. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The activities humans have been engaged in for the past however long, building cultures, building families and societies and cities, inventing technologies to combat the effects of sin and the fall, helping and loving their neighbors, holding celebrations, etc. etc. seem to be a part of that call to rule over and fill the earth.
JC: Here’s the real test of whether you are here to help man, or to help the world go beyond man. I’m not sure I should bother telling you, since I have told so many before and in very clear, explicit ways, to find there is no mental response whatsoever. Here is one place where you and all Christians are failing the Lord. And if you could see this, you could no longer remain a Christian. You’d understand the Plan is bigger than this.
Though claiming to believe that God is real, you don’t credit Him with any real powers. The Bible says the world was made in seven days, and you haven’t integrated the findings of modern science to understand God made the world over five billion years. If you could take this one step, which no one else on Earth has yet taken, you would see Judgment is not about smashing the world and making a new one with a finger-snap, but about preserving the current globe for the five billion years astronomy says remain to us.
But as I say this is impossible for you or anyone to understand, and I can explain why. Your mind is unable to see beyond one lifetime. You think what you see, is all there is. This means you are denying the reality of future generations that God intends to bring. And when they get here, they’ll curse the current generation for taking resources they could have put to better use. That is something the prophet Micah would have seen. Judgment will be about the rights of future generations, that everyone rejects but God.
MC: The problem is that these things were done by people who were living in rebellion against God, worshipping other things instead, and so all of these things, good in and of themselves, have been marred by our sinfulness. Cultures can be toxic, families fall apart, technology is used for great evil, we don't love our neighbor, and our celebrations are in honor of false gods.
JC: You have one cylinder of your mind firing, but not two, and certainly not a V-6. You are relating part of the story, but not seeing the whole. To see the whole requires a holistic view of the whole Earth in its total time frame, which science begins to supply but which defies the view of any scientist. I’ve known many engineers who can run a material balance for a production plant, but none that can apply it to Earth as a whole.
The cylinder in your mind that is firing is saying, “Technology is used for great evil,” but you are probably only thinking about war, not about the dreadful consequences of war to the resources, or of the trivial nature of the minds engaging in such wars, not to notice or to care about this. But Jesus also gave no clues about this, and this means no one is following Him since there were no tracks. Certainly the Lord would not denude the Earth.
MC: We are guilty of these things, and in need of forgiveness, obtained through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
JC: Yes, I have news about that. The blood of Jesus proves creatures will kill their Creator if given opportunity. Christians have conceived they are saved by this, but this requires presuming the Father accepts or expects such sacrifices. But the face of Jesus and the Father are one and the same, as Jesus said. More is required of man than killing.
MC: But what are we saved for? In one sense to make disciples of all nations so that all will come to know Jesus and be together with Him at the end.
JC: Yawn. Such is the refrain of the preachers, as you give another kick to the wheel. But no one really wants to be with Jesus, including you. No one can recognize Jesus, including you. If you are really looking for Jesus, what do you say about the Vissarion over in Russia? He looks and acts exactly like the classical image of Jesus, and if you think that’s easy you’ve got another think coming. He isn’t Jesus, but the important thing is that no one is watching, no one is noticing. Christians do not really long for the Lord.
MC: In another sense, as per Ephesians, we are saved for good works. To live a good life, in relationship to God, which will often mean going far beyond just a little prayer as you put it.
JC: If I lose my job today I’m out on the street tomorrow, and no Christian church would help. To join the Christians you have to scramble in the competitive heap for a job, first. This is where Jesus said, “If you deny the least of these, you deny me.” There’s a lie in the world that hard workers always succeed. Instead jobs can be denied to the best of us.
MC: But the point is that this good life of loving God and loving others restores the intended value of our earthly activities, and indeed loving others requires that we be involved in their lives, which implies physical, earthly engagement with others.
JC: Looking within the families man sees good, but looking between the families God sees lack. It’s really about the other souls, not your kin, and Jesus did make explicit comments about this which the committees rebuffed, crafting religion for the masses. You may cite volunteer organizations, but I’d call this window dressing on a basically isolationist attitude, where the people appear good mainly from avoiding encounters. Do you think the angels dwell in families? Such is the Mormon vision. Yet I’d assert powerful souls long for more frequent interactions, able to support hundreds of friends.
MC: There is no conflict between picking up your kid from work or attending to other matters of earthly life, and following Jesus or doing "spiritual" things. They overlap because the point is all of life lived in submission to and relationship with God.
JC: “Other matters of earthly life” include taking more than the neighbor can have, which is unfriendly. If you can pick up your kid, do you care vitally about all children in the world? Everyone is keen to take care of their own children, but generally push other children away, finding no motive. Jesus would prefer universal love, between all souls.
Again, I would deny you have a “relationship with God,” until your life displays divine properties that Jesus would respect. This means power and purity, as Jesus said the pure in heart would see God. Divine properties are qualities that would allow you to actually live near to Jesus, interacting with Him daily in a way that He would regard to be friendly. But as Jesus stipulated this may be harder than people think. One thing you should see is that Jesus would be aware that He is spirit, not body. This means He would not want to be touched. The paintings showing Jesus hugging sinners, are in wild error.
MC: Of course you say this was a deception. I would understand if you said that Christians don't live like the Jesus they worship. This can unfortunately be the case for a lot of people. But you seem to be saying that the Gospels themselves are mislead.
JC: The Gospels didn’t say how Jesus would live, and this is critical to understand. Humans set up their society with almost no input from above, no guidance from God. The human society has cropped up according to principles humans find in themselves. Did you think Jesus is a family man? Did you think He is a businessman? Think again.
MC: So how does one actually come to know the true Jesus?
JC: If He were here you could ask Him, or at the Second Coming He may choose to write rather than merely talking. Then there’d be an unambiguous record of God’s choices. As Jesus said, no one knows the Father except through Him. Even the angels knowing themselves, cannot say what God is like. If you see the Jesus in the Bible was intentionally vague, you are out of luck. But as He said, you can knock on the door.
MC: What are the worst sins of man, unseen?
JC: If I relate these I’ll likely get booted from the forum. They’re in everyone’s plain sight, but regarded as more sacrosanct than life itself. If you get to know me better I can say more about it. But if you want to think about it on your own, ask what God would see as evil, if He expected this planet to support advanced civilization for five billion more years. But you need a mind that can think in overview, away from what humanity thinks.
MC: Where does one obtain the knowledge that you seem to have? Those would be my questions to you.
JC: In fact I can only appeal to what I call cognoscente, people that already know what I am relating to be true. You show evidence of being such a one, when you did not attack over my colorful analogies, for instance about the bears sending their cubs to school. That’s an important and useful analogy, but one needs a special perspective to see it. The situation on Earth is not what it seems, souls made fresh. They’re rising from somewhere.
The prophets were cognoscente. All the religions were set up and are maintained by cognoscente. These can be recognized and studied, because they are clearly beginning with higher truths that they know, then watering these down for the intended (human) audience. All the religions can be harmonized once this activity is understood (and the need for it). But I generally speak about what is natural for me, how I would live on this Earth if I could. I’d like to say Jesus could be a companion of mine, but it isn’t the case.
