Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Sowing and Reaping...?

The sum total of the collective consciousness of man seems to declare this: God is constantly judging us, and we keep failing; God's standards ore impossible to attain."

This is another way of saying we're under the law of "cause and effect", or "sowing and reaping".

We get this from scripture, which says:

Gal 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.


[NOTE: This is in the new testament -- after the Atonement.]

So ... what if, rather than seeing this as God punishing us for what we do, it's God telling us that the way we perceive, is the way we'll experience? Whatever we hold as "truth" in our minds, that is what we'll see and experience? What we'll reap...?

What if, rather than seeing God as the one who is giving us the diseases we've earned, He's instead revealing to us the fulfillment of a basic human law? What if we, by our choices, our beliefs and our resulting actions, are bringing about the very disease and suffering we blame on God?

Then we think we have to beg God to remove this affliction He's "caused or allowed" ... or we try to repent and appease Him for our failures. When God doesn't change the results of our own thinking, we figure that He's abandoned us ... He's either unABLE (less than Omnipotent), or unWILLing (less than all loving) or else we figure we're spiritually inept, or have maybe committed the unforgiveable sin ... thus plunging in to the abyss of self-condemnation (and then imagining that it's GOD who's condemning us!). IF we are able, by our extreme self-effort, to adhere to our own standards of correct behavior, then we congratulate ourselves for our self-righteousness ... proud of our ability to be better than the other poor scums, whom we condemn as having failed.

Such ugliness ... and all blamed on God!

Not to mention utterly exhausting and demoralizing!

It seems to me that the entire purpose of the Law was to show us that it's pointless to try to achieve our own goodness ... that it was impossible for us to achieve perfection on our own efforts. Some of us never try, and others of us nearly kill ourselves in trying. Many of us have to give up in utter defeat ... admitting failure.

And God smiles.

He says to us, "Yes, you've come to the end of your own efforts -- I'm so glad you see that this won't work. It was never meant to. But, you had to see it for yourself, in order to believe it. I created you to experience, in order to learn."

And then He begins to show us how HE feels about us, how HE sees us ... we learn, to our absolute amazement, that He LIKES us ... just as we are! Flaws and all. Wow! We come to see how He loves us, not blindly, but with complete knowledge of us, inside and out. It's in that realization, of His love, that we can respond to Him with love of our own (which He puts in us)... we love Him because He first loved us (while we were still "enemies in our own minds" BTW!). We then start to respond to God out of love, rather than out of fear (which never worked, if you were paying attention). We then notice that we begin to change, out of that atmosphere and awareness of how we are loved and accepted -- whereas before we thought we had to change in order to *earn* His love and acceptance! Whew! What relief!

It just takes a shift of understanding ... not effort, not striving, not earning, not even "believing the right doctrine" (such as: God had to sacrifice God in order to appease God) (which is just another "good work") ...

Since this shift started happening in my own understanding, I am shocked to discover how many things have *always* been in scripture ... right under my nose (though it seems as if God keeps sneaking new stuff into my Bible!).

Try this on for size:
Psalm 32:2 Blessed are those
whose sin the LORD does not count against them


And:
Psalm 103:10 He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor punished us according to our iniquities.


[NOTE: These are in the "old testament" -- prior to the Atonement.]

How have the traditions of man nullified the word of God (which is not the Bible, but that which He is continuously telling us, as He leads us into all truth)...?

Shalom, Dena

3 comments:

Perdrop said...

Hi Dena,
You said at the end of the blog - The bible is not the word of God - hence, are you saying the word is Jesus? Referring to - As it is written, "The word became flesh". Shoot, I read these blogs and always forget I can voice my opin's/questions. Thanks for continuing to challenge my IC thought process still inbedded.
Per

Dena said...

thanks for the question, Per ... and while I don't have all answers, I'll be happy to share how I'm currently seeing it.

AISI, John (the gospel) says that in the beginning (i.e., before anything *was*), was the Word - the Word was with God, and is God. Now, this cannot be the Bible ... it didn't exist "in the beginning". The Word created all that is. The Word then (later) became flesh, and lived among us, here on earth.

Now, Jesus was the human aspect of the Word, but Jesus the person didn't yet exist ... but the Spirit of Jesus, the Christ, the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world, DID exist -- always existed, is not created.

IOW, Jesus was a manifestion of The Christ, who is eternal.

The Word is far more vast than anything we can fathom ... The Word is that which created, which sustains and fills all life, which is manifesting as you, as me, as all life, all things. God as all in all ... Omnipresent, without limit.

This Word continues to speak ... in each of us, out of the very depths of us. It is THIS Word which is sharper than any two-edged sword, able to divide soul (ego) and spirit (God). It is THIS Word which speaks continuously to us, leading us from withn, saying "go here, go there, see this, watch that" ...

And yes, of course, God the Word also speaks through scripture ... but not solely through scripture, but in and through all things, if we would but have (spiritual) eyes to see and ears to hear.

When we believe that God's Word is ONLY the Bible, then we have limited God, at least in our own minds, and in our own experiences. In fact, we have then created a "graven image" of God in our minds, and we have created a god in our own image, and we are in idolatry ... at least, that's how I've come to see it. YMMV (your mileage may vary).

God is all good - God is in all - all is good. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it (awaiting further revelation, LOL!).

Shalom, Dena

Perdrop said...

Hi Dena,

Thanks for the immediate feedback. I really appreciate it.

As the bible states; the word was with God. How would we have known this if it wasn't written first in the bible or rather the NT. OT persons had the scrolls to read, correct. In the NT in Romans I think - states that only God is good; referring to when someone called out to Jesus, saying He was good.

BTW, I have been on this freebeliever trip working my third year away from normal IC mentality. I have really gotten away from taking the bible as all in all and allowing Christ in me to be a voice more.

Thanks again,
Per