Seeing God For The First Time
References are great things, but nothing beats actually meeting
a person, as compared to what others may have said about the
person. Our own conclusions of right and wrong, good and bad,
ideologies and standards, will have a great impact on how we
might describe an individual and this description might be
totally inaccurate or only partially true. This does not make
the description wrong...it only makes the description a
description that one person provided of another.
We often see others in much the same way as we see ourselves.
For example, if you are a selfish person, you are very likely to
assume this trait exists in others. Since you think selfishly
about yourself, you can't imagine others do not do the same. You
might not have an actual thought that you are selfish, but if
you are, you will often attach that trait to others and assume
they are selfish whether they are or not. You will deduce things
that they have said or done, based upon what you think it means
and not based upon why they really did it or said it. You will
create the situation and memory to fit the image you have given
them and this might have little or nothing to do with who they
really are.
In ancient times, our perspective of God or gods was based upon
extreme fears we had of a world we did not even begin to
understand or fathom. Much of what became our religion was based
upon fears that we must do certain things to please God, because
otherwise, he will punish us. Our fall from God, no matter how
you might like to deduce it occurred, created a major rift
between us and God and we put ourselves in a position where we
believed God was looking to punish us and we had written history
to mimic that method of thinking.
Just imagine that you could to go back 4000 years in time for
just one moment. Upon entering a small village, you sit at the
well and start showing people things from the future.
When you press a button and a flame instantly appears on your
butane lighter, what is their response? They assume it is magic
and that perhaps you are a god, an angel or even an evil spirit.
They have responded the way they did because they did not have
the history of related facts to help them understand what this
object was. This has little to do with their level of
intelligence, but it has a lot to do with them just not having
had enough experience to understand things. The world was
primitive and the thinking was primitive as well.
Knowing they can't even begin to comprehend this simple butane
lighter, are you going to believe the perception they have of
you and the lighter or are you going to believe what history and
knowledge has taught you to be true about yourself? It's easy to
see that just because they believe something to be true, doesn't
make it true, it just makes it what they believed was true,
based upon the knowledge they had at the time.
If you are not going to believe what they think of a simple
butane lighter, why would you even begin to believe their
conclusions about God? Most of us understand that a butane
lighter is something that contains a fuel of some sort and a
lighting mechanism. There is no magic...it's just science and
mechanics. We understand this because of what we are learning
today and because of what we have evolved to understand over
thousands of years of history.
If we apply this same method of thinking to God, we would not
put so much stock in what an ancient tribe told us God was.
Instead, we would use our evolved knowledge and awareness of all
we have learned through thousands of years to help us be open
and willing to see things more clearly. Otherwise, we must
always and forever conclude the butane lighter is magical and
holy, or evil, no matter all the other evidence time and history
provides us with, because that's what they believed it was 4000
years ago and we are not allowed to disagree.
By not blindly accepting an ancient version of God, we instantly
become willing to see things more truthfully and more openly. On
the other hand, to accept an ancient point of view as being
solid and unchangeable, we have eliminated the possibility of
seeing things clearly today and we will then have to create
religions and rules and concepts to explain away all the things
that really don't make sense.
If you step back from the Bible for a moment, you can begin to
see the non-spiritual human duality that the writers have given
our unchangeable God. It was not possible for the writers to
assume God would be any different than they were, had they the
immense power he had. For example:
- He created us through perfect love, but he chooses to punish
us...(the garden of Eden).
- He can do things when he's angry and then feel sorry about it
later...(the flood of Noah).
- He can make a decision and then make compromises...(Lot and
the story of Sodom).
- He's a spiritual being, yet he requires physical blood to be
shed to help him look past things you might have done...(all
concepts of sacrifice).
- He'll destroy even his most loved if they fail to follow a
simple rule...(the story of the passover).
- He tells you that you must forgive everyone automatically, no
matter what they have done, yet he won't forgive you unless you
meet his qualifications...(Christ's story of forgiving somebody
7 times 70).
- He created an entire universe and provided us with vast
intelligence, yet he feared us and became paranoid when we chose
to build a tall structure...(the tower of babel).
If many of these same Bible stories were written by a Roman or
Greek and the gods name was changed from YHWH to Zeus, we would
so easily see how unlikely they are to be true. We would not be
compelled in any way to justify them and make them a part of how
we should live because we would so clearly see that this was
simply an ancient and ignorant attempt to understand why things
were the way they were. Consider this question from an ancient
Greek child:
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Father, why are the people in that village so big?
There was a time when we were all the same size, but then many
of Zeus's servants became jealous of the luxuries and pleasures
of man and they came down and mated with the people in that
village and when their children were born, they were like
giants. Giants come from the mating of gods and humans. This is
also why Hercules, son of Zeus is so strong and large as well.
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Do you believe this explanation to be true...that giants were
the results of gods and humans mating and that Hercules may have
actually existed as a result of the gods mating with a human? If
not, why then believe where the Bible uses this same idea to
explain giants in the Old Testament?
Gen 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also
after that, when the sons of God (angels or demons) came in unto
the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same
became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
All over the world, in centuries gone by and even today, folk
tales are written and told in an effort to help explain the
unexplainable. These stories were necessary to help provide
comfort and understanding when no other explanation can be
fathomed, but they are generally based upon the lack of
knowledge, not God's inspired knowledge.
On a more practical note, if the stories of God's retribution
throughout ancient history were all true, why would anyone want
to spend an eternity with such an angry and vengeful god? You
would never be at peace because the Bible teaches us that no
matter how strict you followed God, he'll take everything off of
you and make your life miserable, the moment you tap a stone
twice instead of once (the story of Abraham). Perhaps he'll even
upset your whole life, bring disease and poverty to you and
allow your family to be killed as part of a wager to prove a
point (the story of Job). He might even condemn an entire city
to death and destruction and require you perform certain tasks
to prevent it from happening (a story of Lot...oops, this really
was a Greek story about Perseus). Are we talking about our
loving God or a human manufactured story about a manipulating
Zeus?
So, if you would like to see God for the first time, there are a
few ancient perceptions that you need to let go. Once you do
this, you will begin to see everything in a whole new light.
GOD IS A GOD OF PERFECT LOVE Drop the human perception of love
that requires conditions to be met. God's love does not require
conditions. God's love is perfectly equal for all, at every
point in history, for every individual that ever existed. God's
love is unconditional. There is nothing we need to do to earn it
and there is nothing we can do to lose it. God cannot change how
he sees us and cannot change how he loves us.
- Basically, no sacrifices of any kind are desired or required.
Nothing needs to be sold or given away to earn God's love or
attention.
GOD DOES NOT HAVE FAVORITES If God loves unconditionally, there
can be no favorites. There is no chosen race. There is no damned
race. There is no right religion. There are no chosen people.
There is no single religion or philosophy that entitles you to
salvation over another being. There is nobody less worthy than
you. There is nobody more worthy than you. God loves Napoleon
and Mother Theresa equally.
- God never destroyed nor endorsed the destruction of a single
life. None of the battles recorded in the Old Testament ended up
as they did because God blessed one side or damned the other.
When the Israelites won a battle, it was later written how God
blessed them. When they lost a battle, it was later written how
God punished them. These actual events have nothing at all to do
with what God did, but only with how events were perceived by an
ancient people that would stand in awe of a butane lighter if
given the opportunity.
- Jesus actually demonstrated there are no favorites when he was
asked for healing by a Gentile. He basically concluded that the
blessings of God were not for the Jewish race only, but for all
races. Since we consider God to be changeless, there never could
have been a time when only the Jewish race was blessed. This
wasn't a moment where Jesus changed his or God's mind about
blessing other races. It was simply a correction by stating how
it always was and always will be. Unconditional love cannot have
a favorite.
SACRIFICE WAS NEVER REQUIRED If God loves unconditionally and
never favored any one person more than another, then we have
always been blessed by God and were never required to ask God's
forgiveness because he never saw us as being at fault. God was
never upset with us. God was never angry with us. God was never
jealous or vengeful because of us. These are all human traits
given to God by ancient writers, but they have nothing to do
with who God really is.
- Most ancient civilizations believed they were unworthy of
their god and the concept of sacrifice was part of every ancient
belief, whether it be Aztec, Mayan, Jewish or Roman
ANYTHING THAT TEACHES THROUGH FEAR OR USES FEAR IN ANY WAY, IS
NOT INSPIRED BY GOD If perfect love casts out all fear, God
cannot use fear or be associated with it in any way and still
love unconditionally. You must choose to see God as either a God
of Love or a God of fear. He cannot be both. One of these traits
cannot exist while the other exits.
- All prophecy of doom...all concepts of hell...all forms of
sickness...any and all reasons to fear retribution from God were
created from the minds of men and not from the mind of God.
GOD HAS NEVER CHANGED God does not make deals or reconsider
things. God does not feel sorry for something he has done. God
does not barter or compromise. God does not hold back his anger
for now. God is not happy one moment and then upset the next.
People are often unsure of who they are and are therefore apt to
think differently about things over time. God does not have
these insecurities. The only reason we compromise is because we
are unsure of ourselves. God knows who he is and only ever does
and says once that which is perfect.
- Lot never bartered for the lives at Sodom, and Sodom was not
destroyed by Gods anger. Nobody ever deserves to die in Gods
eyes. Nobody ever deserves any pain or discomfort in Gods eyes.
Lot could not compromise with God because God does one thing
only...love, and nothing we do or say will ever change that.
- The story of Job never happened. God does not make deals or
peddle flesh to prove a point. God has nothing to prove because
he knows perfectly well who he is and who we are. God would not
agree to anyone suffering to make a point. All life is precious
to God and he would never accept the death of some to make a
point. When you are perfect and when you know all there is to
know, it doesn't matter to you what anyone thinks or says
because you know it doesn't matter. There is nothing to defend.
There is no reason to attack.
- God is not holding back his anger from the world because of
anything Jesus did. This would assume that God compromises and
therefore is not changeless. Jesus did not come here as a
sacrifice to appease God. Jesus came here as a door to help open
our eyes to see God differently.
Rea
d Conclusion...