Chapter 10
Churches, temples, synagogues, and mosques, are all things of man.
Many people go to churches that they call “Christian” churches, to try to convince themselves that they are good, instead of going to these churches to learn from Jesus that they cannot be good. These people ignore Jesus’ teachings whenever Jesus’ teachings make their evil clear.
All people who claim to follow Jesus, often ignore Jesus’ teachings because all people fear that God will show them justice, instead of mercy. Some people, who claim to follow Jesus, ignore Jesus’ teachings so often that they wholly depart, from the path of following Jesus. Jesus is speaking of these people, when he says,
“Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. On the day of judgement, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?, and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them, “I never knew you, leave me, you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46)
We all want to believe that we can follow Jesus by doing things that are easy and enjoyable. Usually, people who claim to follow Jesus, like to imagine they can follow Jesus by going to church regularly, and by talking about how great God’s gifts are.
God’s gifts are great, and Jesus does want us to praise God by talking about His gifts, but Jesus also tells us that we must do much more than talk about God’s gifts, in order to receive God’s gifts.
When Jesus tells us that if we follow Him we will be persecuted, Jesus knows that if we follow Him, we will be persecuted, both by people who openly disbelieve Him, and by people who follow His name, but ignore His teachings. A person can commit just as much evil in the name of Jesus, as he or she can commit against the name of Jesus. This is why Jesus says, “Whoever speaks against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Ghost will not be forgiven.”(Mt 12:32 & Lk 12:10)
The Holy Ghost is Jesus’ teachings, and the help that God gives to people who follow Jesus’ teachings. Jesus cares much more about what we say about His teachings, than He cares, about what we say about Him. This is so because Jesus knows that following His teachings, will save us from great suffering, but that saying good things about Him, will not help us at all, if we do not also follow His teachings. Jesus only cares about what we say about him, or what we think about him, if what we say about Him, or think about Him leads us do the will of his Father.
Only in the name of a disciple
It can take a long time for any person to learn that Jesus truly does teach God’s will, and to learn that he or she needs to follow Jesus’ teachings.
We all enter this world not knowing what God wants us to do and not knowing how we can learn what God wants us to do. We all start trying to learn what God wants us to do from people who are close to us and most of us continue trying to learn what God wants us to do from people who are close to us, throughout our lives. If people who are close to us do not follow Jesus then it may be a long time before we even hear Jesus’ teachings, and even when we do hear Jesus’ teachings we will probably not hear them taught in Jesus’ name.
This does not matter to Jesus, though, and it also does not matter to God. Jesus tells us this when He tells us that if a person does God’s will that person’s, reward will “In no way be less because he does so only in the name of a disciple.” (Mt 10:42)
And Jesus tells us this again when he says, “Whoever speaks against the Son of Man, will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Ghost, will not be forgiven.”(Mt 12:32 & Lk 12:10)
The Holy Ghost is Jesus’ teachings, and the help that God gives to people who follow Jesus’ teachings. Jesus cares much more about what we say about His teachings, than He cares, about what we say about Him. If we learn how to forgive people who do us evil, and if we do forgive people who do us evil, then Jesus doesn’t care whether we learn how to do these things in His name, or in someone else’s name.
Jesus only wants us to follow Him if following Him leads us to do the will of His father.
Jesus only wants us to follow Him because following Him is the best way we have of learning How to do the will of His father.
Why some people follow Jesus’ teachings more closely than other people follow Jesus’ teachings.
Jesus tells us that we all do evil when we are led into temptation, and that we only do good when God gives us gifts that allow us to do good. The greatest of the gifts that God gives is the understanding of the true value of Jesus’ teachings.
Some people follow Jesus more closely than other people follow Jesus because those people understand that Jesus truly does teach us what God wants us to do, and truly does teach us what actions God will reward. If all people understood this about Jesus, then all people would be equally eager to follow Jesus’ teachings.
If we were all led to the same temptations, and if we were all given the same strengths and abilities by God, then we would all follow Jesus equally closely.
Jesus shows us we cannot be good, by showing us we cannot do everything God wants us to do.
Jesus shows us this by telling us what God wants us to do, and by telling us that God will give us great rewards if we do what He wants us to do.
This shows us that we cannot do all that God wants us to do, because, after we hear this, we will try to do all that God wants us to do so that we will receive the rewards Jesus promises, and we will often fail to do what God wants us to do.
Though we will often fail to do what God wants us to do, we will also sometimes succeed in doing what God wants us to do. If we do not do some of what God wants us to do, then God will know that we are not trying to follow Jesus.
When we can do what Jesus tells us to do, God wants us to do what Jesus commands, And when we cannot do what Jesus tells us to do, God wants us to try to do what Jesus commands and, when we fail, to learn from our failure that we cannot be good.
Until we have tried to be good with all our might and failed, we will think that we can be good, no matter what else we have seen or heard. All words, even Jesus’ words, will not convince us that we cannot be good, until we have tried to be good, and failed.
2.)
Jesus says, “When you make a dinner, don’t invite your friends, or your brothers, or your relatives, or rich neighbours; lest they invite you to their dinners in return. If this happens you will have been paid back.
Instead, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind; and you will be blessed, because they cannot pay you back. For inviting these people you will be paid back at the resurrection of the just.” (Lk 14:12-14).
Jesus says, “Give to every one who asks of you, and do not ask one who takes from you to give anything back. If you lend to people who you hope will pay you back, what thanks have you? Even sinners lend to receive as much again. Do good, hoping for nothing in return. And your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Highest: because He is kind to the unthankful, and the evil, And He makes His sun rise on evil men, and good, And He rains on just men, and unjust. Be you compassionate, as your father is compassionate.” (Lk 6:30 & 34-36, & Mt 5: 42-45).
Jesus says, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow will take thought for itself. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.” (Mt 6:25-34 & Lk 12:22-34). And Jesus says, “Sell all that you have and give to the poor. (Mt 19:21 & Lk 18:22). Sell your possessions and give alms. Provide yourself with wealth that will not grow old, an unfailing treasure that no thief will come near to and that no moth will corrupt.” (Lk 12:33)
These are some of the things that Jesus tells us God wants us to do. None of us will be able to do these things, though. We all take thought for our life. We all worry about how we will get food, and drink, and clothes. Because of this, we do give, hoping for something in return. And because of this, we do not sell all that we have and give to the poor.
If we try to do these things, we will see that we cannot do them.
If we try to do these things, we will also see that we only try to help other people when we think that helping other people will help us. If we see this, then we will be able to stop thinking that we are being good when we try to help other people, and we will be able to start thinking more clearly about how we can best help ourselves when we try to help other people. If we do this, we will see that we help ourselves most when we help people who give us nothing in return. This is so because if we help people who give us nothing in return, then God will give us greater things than people could ever give us.
3.)
Jesus also tells us, “Not to resist evil” (Mt 5:39),
And Jesus says to us, “If a man strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him your left. If a man wishes to judge you and to take away your coat, offer him your cloak also. Whoever compels you to go a mile, go with him two. Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. If you love those who love you, what thanks have you. Sinners also love those who love them.” (Mt 5:39-48 & Lk 6:27-38).
These are also things that Jesus tells us God wants us to do, that we will not be able to do.
We will only start to do these things, when we see that we do evil to God, just as other people do evil to us, and when we see that if we resist the evil other people do to us, then God will resist the evil we do to Him.
The reason we cannot be good, is that our faith in Jesus cannot be strong enough for us to always do what Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus tells us that if we follow Him, God will give us rewards that will more than make up for any suffering we will know. Because we want to receive the rewards Jesus tells us of, when we believe Jesus we will do what Jesus tells us to do, so that we will receive these rewards. If we could always believe Jesus, then we would always do what Jesus tells us to do. When we do not do what Jesus tells us to do, then, at that moment, we do not believe that following Jesus will bring us rewards that will more than make up for the suffering we believe will come to us from following Jesus at that moment.
Of course none of us always follows Jesus, because none of us is strong enough in our faith to always believe Jesus. The best we can hope to do is to sometimes follow Jesus because we sometimes believe what Jesus tells us.
This weakness in faith is a part of our natures that we cannot escape. Jesus knows that we all are weak in our faith and Jesus tells us this. Jesus tells us that our faith is small each time He says to us, “O you of little faith” (Mt 6:30, Mt 8:26, Mt 14:31, Mt 16:8, & Lk 12:28), And Jesus tells us that we will only be able to have a small amount of faith, when He says to His disciples, “If your faith were as a grain of mustard seed, you could tell that mountain to move, and it would move.” (Mt 17:20). This tells us that unless a person can make a mountain move by telling it to move, that person does not have enough faith to fill the smallest seed Jesus knew of.
Saying that we have faith in Jesus, is just another way of saying that we are good, and saying that we are sinners, is just another way of saying that we have little faith.
The main thing that Jesus wants all of us to do is to admit that we are sinners. Jesus wants us to admit this because if we admit that we are sinners, and if we remember how great our sin is, then we will forgive other people as we need God to forgive us. Jesus does not want us to claim to have more faith than we have.
If we try to follow Jesus, we will never say that we have faith in Jesus. If we try to follow Jesus, we will say instead,
“Jesus, I will try to follow all of your teachings, so that I will be able to forgive people who do evil to me, because I want God to forgive me for evil that I do to Him. Will I be able to forgive people who do evil to me often enough to get God to forgive me for evil I do to Him? As you tell me to ‘Judge not’, I will try not judge myself as I try not to judge other people. I will try to leave all judgement to You, and to God. And I will fervently hope that I do forgive people who do evil to me, often enough to get God to forgive me for evil I do to Him.”
2.)
Because Jesus knows that our faith will be small, He knows that we will not believe all that He tells us. All that Jesus cares about is that we believe enough of what he tells us, to be able to do His Father’s will. All that Jesus expects of us, is that we believe Him when He tells us that we have done great evil to God, and that God will only show us forgiveness if we show forgiveness to people who have done great evil to us. If we believe this, then we will do what Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus tells us that all He expects us to do, is to believe enough of what He says to do His Father’s will, when he says, “Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. On the day of judgement, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?, and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them, “I never knew you, leave me, you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46)
People who say ‘lord lord’ most loudly, will be the people who will do the will of Jesus’ Father least often. People who claim to have the greatest faith in Jesus, will be the people who will do the will of Jesus’ father least often. This will be so because people who claim to have faith in Jesus, are saying that they are good, and because people who believe they are good will not believe that they need God’s forgiveness, and will not forgive people who do evil to them, in order to receive God’s forgiveness.
Jesus told us that He only cares that we have enough faith to do His Father’s will, when, as He stood at a podium before a large crowd, He was told that His mother and brothers were outside the building He was speaking in, and wished to see Him. Jesus then asked the crowd of people who waited to hear Him speak, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?”, then Jesus stretched forth his hand toward his disciples and said, “Behold my mother and my brothers. Whoever shall do the will of my Father in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother. (Mt 12:46-50), My mother and brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it. (Lk 8:19-21)
Our Creator may have expected less of people whom the Old Testament tells us of, than He expects of us today, because people whom the Old Testament tells us of, had not had the opportunity to learn from Jesus, that we have had. Jesus tells us often that people who have been given advantages will be held to a higher standard than other people will be held to. Jesus tells us this most clearly on two occasions. The first is when Jesus says to us, “Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48), and the second is when Jesus says to the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida, “Woe to You Chorazin and Bethsaida. If the mighty works that have been done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, Tyre and Sidon would have repented long ago. It will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you at the judgement: and also for Capernaum.” (Lk 10:10-16)
We should never wish that we did not have the opportunity to learn from Jesus, so that we would be held to a lower standard. Without Jesus we would have less of a chance to learn what Our Creator wants us to do, and without Jesus we would have less of a chance of winning Our Creator’s favor. Some people may learn to forgive as they need be forgiven, without Jesus’ teachings, but if they do so, it will be harder for them to learn forgiveness without Jesus than it would be with Jesus, because only Jesus teaches us that we will only get things that we want and things that we need, if we forgive other people as we need Our Creator to forgive us, and that each of us needs more forgiveness from Our Creator than any other person will ever need from us. Jesus also teaches us how we can forgive other people when they do evil to us.
Even if we did wish that we had not had the opportunity to learn from Jesus, so that we would be held to a lower standard of behavior, our wishing would not change a thing. We are the fortunate people who have the advantage of being able to learn from Jesus, and because of this advantage Our Creator expects us to forgive our brothers and sisters if we want Him to forgive us.
Our judgments have no influence on God’s Judgment. The only thing our judgments have an influence on is our ability to follow Jesus. And our judgments make it harder for us to follow Jesus. Our judgements do this because when we judge we tell ourselves that if we are careful our judgments can be correct. When we do this we are telling ourselves that if we are careful we can be good. If we believe that we can be good, then we will believe that we do not need to forgive other people to gain God’s favor, because we will believe that if we are good, then God, in His justice, will reward our goodness.
Understanding statements that seem to contradict each other is the key to understanding Jesus
1.)
Jesus often says things that seem to contradict each other.
Jesus never does contradict himself, though.
Sayings of Jesus that seem to contradict each other show us two parts of the message Jesus is teaching, and the fact that they seem to us to contradict each other, shows us two ways in which Jesus’ message can easily be misunderstood.
To avoid misunderstanding Jesus’ message we must consider all of Jesus’ sayings together and we must see how they are all parts of one great teaching.
We can see this most clearly when we consider that Jesus said, “Forgive if you would be forgiven”, and that Jesus said, “Ask and you shall receive.”
If we imagine a person who asked, but who would not forgive as he or she needs to be forgiven, then for that person one of these statements would have to be false. We know this because we know that God will only give a person all that person asks for, if that person forgives other people.
A person who would “Ask”, but who would not forgive other people, could not exist, though.
The reason for this is that when Jesus says, “Ask and you shall receive”,
Jesus is telling us that if we ask for forgiveness, we shall receive forgiveness.
If a person asks God for forgiveness, then that person has seen that he or she is evil and that he or she needs to be forgiven, and that person will forgive other people their evil, as he or she asks God to forgive him or her, his or her evil.
2.)
Jesus statements only seem to contradict each other if we imagine things that are impossible. The only true contradiction is the contradiction between reality and such imaginings.
So long as different things that Jesus said seem to contradict each other, we know that we are not understanding Jesus. If we can discover what makes us think that different things Jesus says are incompatible with each other we will also have discovered how we are misunderstanding Jesus.
Many of the most destructive errors people have ever made have come from trying to follow some of Jesus’ sayings without considering all of Jesus’ sayings.
When Jesus tells us what Our Creator wants us to do, Jesus shows us that we cannot do what Our Creator wants us to do, because each of us will fail to do many things Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus also tells us often that we will often not be able to do what Our Creator wants us to do. Jesus tells us this when He says to His disciples, “Pray that you know no temptation Indeed the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Mt 26:41 & LK 22:46). Jesus tells us this when He tells us to pray to Our Heavenly Father, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Mt 6:5-15 & Lk 11:2-4). Jesus is telling us to pray that we be delivered from the evil we would do if we were led into temptation. It is this evil we truly need to be delivered from. Evil that is done to us does us little harm, compared to evil we do; which does us great harm. When we do evil, we harden our hearts against the victims of our evil, and against all people we might want to do evil to in the future. By doing this we make it harder for ourselves to forgive other people when they do evil to us, and we make ourselves less likely to receive Our Creator’s forgiveness. Not receiving Our Creator’s forgiveness would do far greater harm to us than any evil other people could ever do. And Jesus tells us all to expect to do evil, and to plan on doing evil, when He says, “Use unrighteous mammon to make friends, so that when it fails, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” (Luke 16:9). Jesus is telling us that we will try to live by unrighteous mammon, that when we try to live by unrighteous mammon, unrighteous mammon will fail us, and that we will only be received into everlasting habitations if we have used the fruits of our unrighteousness to make other people our friends; If, instead of trying to avoid other people because we fear their evil would corrupt our goodness, we see that we are evil, as they are evil, and we befriend them because their evil, like our evil, causes them to need help, as we need help.
If we forgive people their trespasses against us, when we do this we will be able to do what Our Creator wants us to do. Whenever we forgive another person, then we will do all for that person that Jesus tells us to do for that person.
This is why Jesus’ teaching that we will only be forgiven if we forgive, is the greatest part of the wisdom Jesus gives to people he has chosen to follow Him. While not all people have been given the wisdom to understand this teaching and the strength to follow this teaching, none of us, however strong or wise we may be, will be able to do what Our Creator wants us to do in any other way than by forgiving people who trespass against us, and none of us will forgive people who trespass against us, unless we see that we need greater forgiveness from Our Creator, than any other person will ever need from us. While people may learn forgiveness from sources other than Jesus, Jesus teaches us directly and clearly that we must forgive people who trespass against us to receive Our Creator’s forgiveness (“If you forgive men their trespasses, then your Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, then Your Father will not forgive you” (Mt 6:9-15)), and Jesus shows us how we can forgive people who trespass against us.
The reason we will only forgive people who trespass against us if we see that need more forgiveness from Our Creator than any other person will ever need from us, is that before we see this we will all believe that we deserve good things from Our Creator even if we do not forgive people who trespass against us, and because we all believe that Our Creator will be fair, and will give each of us what we deserve. Jesus is showing us that what we deserve is severe punishment and that if we do not forgive people who trespass against us, then Our Creator will give us what we deserve. The good news Jesus, brings us, though, is that we can escape the punishment we deserve by forgiving people who trespass against us. If we do this we will receive Our Creator’s forgiveness, and as a part of this we will receive many good things we do not deserve. Once we hear this of course we will all say we forgive people who trespass against us, and because Jesus says, “Judge not, lest you be judged. For with whatever judgement you judge, you shall be judged.” (Mt 7:1-2, & Lk 6:37), we should not try to judge whether or not a person who says this truly has forgiven people who have trespassed against him or her. Jesus tells us, though, that “There is one who judges.” Jn 8:50. This one is Our Creator, and he will judge us by our hearts and by our actions. Whenever we forgive a person we will do all that Jesus tells us to do for that person. This is how our actions will show if our forgiveness is sincere.
We know that none of us will forgive all people who trespass against us, because we know that none of us will always do what Jesus tells us to do for other people. How often must we forgive people who trespass against us to receive Our Creator’s forgiveness. No person knows the answer to this question. We do know, though, that different amounts of forgiveness will be required from different people. We know this because Jesus says to us, “Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48), and when He says to the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida, “Woe to You Chorazin and Bethsaida. If the mighty works that have been done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, Tyre and Sidon would have repented long ago. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you at the judgement: and also for Capernaum.” (Lk 10:10-16). The people of Chorazin and Bethsaida had been given the gift of hearing Jesus speak and of watching Jesus work. The more any person is able to learn from Jesus, the more Our Creator expects of that person.
Our words, and religious rituals we may perform will only help us if they help us forgive people who trespass against us. If they do not do this, then they do not help us at all.
Chapter 11 Judge Not
a.) When we forgive other people, as we need God to forgive us, then we will treat other people as Jesus tells us to treat them.
b.) How often will we forgive, as we need be forgiven? How often will we treat other people as Jesus tells us to treat them? How much of what God wants us to do, will we do?
We can never know the answer to this question. We don’t need to know the answer to this question, though. And Jesus tells us not to try to know the answer to this question.
Jesus tells us this when He tells us to “Judge not” (Mt 7:1, & Lk 6:37).
When Jesus tells us to judge not, He is telling us both not to judge other people, and not to judge ourselves.
God will judge us. God will know if we have truly tried to follow Jesus. And God will know if we have truly tried to forgive other people, as we need Him to forgive us.
Our judgments have no influence on God’s Judgment. The only thing our judgments have an influence on is our ability to follow Jesus. And our judgments make it harder for us to follow Jesus. Our judgements do this because when we judge we tell ourselves that if we are careful our judgments can be correct. When we do this we are telling ourselves that if we are careful we can be good. If we believe that we can be good, then we will believe that we do not need to forgive other people to gain God’s favor, because we will believe that if we are good, then God, in His justice, will reward our goodness.
In order to judge not we must …
a.) In order not to judge other people, and not to judge ourselves, we must assume that any differences between what we do and what other people do, are due wholly to differences between temptations we have been led to and temptations they have been led to. If we see a person do whatever is most reprehensible to us, we must realize that if we had been led to the temptation they had been led to, then we would either have done what they did, or we would have done something else that was just as evil as what they did.
b.) Jesus tells us that when we do good, or when we refrain from doing evil we only do these things because God has led us away from temptation and because God has given us the ability to do His will.
Jesus tells us that our ability to do God’s will depends on whether or not we are led into temptation, when He tells us to pray,
”Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” (Mt 6:5-15 & Lk 11:2-4)
Jesus is telling us to pray that we be delivered from the evil we would do, if we were led into temptation.
Jesus tells us that we will only be able to do what God wants us to do, if God gives us the strength and the knowledge we will need to have to be able to do His will, and if God gives us the good fortune to avoid temptation. Jesus tells us this when He says, “Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48).
By saying this, Jesus tells us that God expects people, who have been given more, to do more of what He wants them to do.
Jesus tells us again that God expects people who have been given more, to do more of His will, when He says to the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida, “Woe to You Chorazin and Bethsaida. If the mighty works that have been done in you, had been done Tyre and Sidon, Tyre and Sidon would have repented long ago. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you at the judgement: and also for Capernaum.” (Lk 10:10-16)
The people of Chorazin and Bethsaida had been given the gift of hearing Jesus speak and of watching Jesus work. The more any person learns about Jesus, the more God expects of that person.
Jesus tells us that people who have been given more will be able to do more of His will when He says, “Whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever has not, even what he seems to have, will be taken away from him.” (Lk 8:18, Lk 19:26, Mt 13:12 & Mt 25:29).
This will be so because only people who have been given the ability to do what God wants them to do, and who have been led away from temptation, will be able to follow Jesus, and because only these people will receive rewards that God will give for following Jesus.
c.) We will only be able to do God’s will, if we believe Jesus when He tells us we are evil, weak and frail.
The less good we think we can to do, The more good we will be able to do.
One reason this will be so, will be that the less good we think we can do, the more help we will seek outside of ourselves.
Another reason this will be so, will be that the less good we think we can do, the more time and effort we will spend trying to transform ourselves into people who can do some good.
Truly, people who put themselves last, will be first in God’s judgement,
And truly, people who put themselves first, will be last in God’s judgement.
(Mt 20:16).
Truly, people who exalt themselves will be humbled,
And truly, people who humble themselves will be exalted.
(Mt 23:12, Lk 14:11, Lk 18:14).
d.) When we do God’s will, we do good.
Jesus tells us, though, that when we do God’s will, we do not do God’s will because we are good, but instead, that when we do God’s will, we do God’s will because God is good. If God had put us in different circumstances, we would not have done God’s will, but would instead have done great evil.
If we sometimes follow Jesus, Jesus does not want us to think that we have earned a reward from God. Instead, Jesus wants us to see that we sometimes follow Him because we sometimes use gifts that God has given us.
Jesus says to us, “When you do all that you are commanded to do, do not expect thanks, but say instead, ‘we are unprofitable slaves. We have only done what we ought to have done.’” (Lk 17:9-10)
Why Jesus tells us to judge not.
a.) One reason that Jesus tells us to, “Judge not” (Mt 7:1 & Lk 6:37), is that judging often leads us to think we are better than other people are, and that thinking that one’s self is better than other people’s selves, is one of the most common ways in which people come to believe they are good.
If we do not judge other people, and do not judge ourselves, then we will not think we are better than other people are.
b.) Another reason that Jesus tells us not to judge is that our judgement is very poor.
Jesus tells how poor our judgement is when He says, “The stone that the builders refuse, will be the head cornerstone.” (Lk 20:17).
Jesus tells us of our poor judgement, again, when he asks,
“Why do you see the mote in your brother’s eye, but ignore the beam in your own? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me pull the mote out of your eye’, when you have a beam in your own? You hypocrite, first pull the beam out of your eye, then you will see clearly to take the mote out of your brothers eye.” (Mt 7:3-5, & Lk 6:41-42)
Jesus tells us that our judgement will not be the same as God’s judgement, when He says, “The last will be first, and the first last.” (Mt 20:16).
This tells us that people whom we would put last, are people whom God will put first, and that people whom we would put first, are people whom God will put last.
Often we judge that God favors people who have what we think is ‘good fortune’, and that God opposes people who have what we think is ‘bad fortune’.
Jesus told us that when we do this, we will not judge as God judges. Jesus told us this when His disciples saw a man who had been blind from birth, and asked Jesus, “Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus then answered, “Neither this man sinned, nor his parents. He is blind so that the works of God may be made manifest in him.” (Jn 9:1-3).
What Jesus’ disciples had thought was a punishment, was actually a preparation for a reward.
Jesus also tells us that even when we are correct in thinking a certain thing is bad, we will still be in error if we judge that people who have ‘bad fortune’, have done more evil than people who have good fortune.
Jesus tells us this when He says to people who had told him about some Galileans whom the Roman government had killed,
“Do you suppose that these Galileans were sinners above all other Galileans, because they suffered these things? I tell you they were not; Unless you repent, you will all perish as they perished.
Or do you suppose that those eighteen people in Siloam who died when a tower fell on them, were debtors above all men who dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you they were not; Unless you repent, you will all perish as they perished.” (Lk 13:1-5).
Jesus shows us how different Our Creator’s judgment is from our judgment, when He tells us of a Pharisee and a Publican who both went to a temple to pray.
The Pharisee stood, and silently prayed, “God, thank you that I am not as other men are: rapacious, unjust, adulterers, or even as this Publican. I fast twice a week, and give tithes of all I posses.” The Publican stood, in the back of the temple, beat on his chest, and would not even look up, as he said, “God, be merciful to me, the sinner.”
“I tell you”, said Jesus, “This man went to his house justified, rather than the other. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.” (Lk 18:10-14).
Though this Pharisee may have been rapacious and unjust, in spite of his claim that he was not, This Pharisee truly had avoided doing at least one very evil thing that this Publican had done. A Pharisee was a priest of Jesus’ church, and a Publican was a worker for a foreign government that had stolen the land of Israel (a Publican was a worker for the Roman empire). So a Publican, like many government workers, was a thief. By not taking part in the theft of a nation this Pharisee had avoided doing evil that this Publican had done. By refraining from adultery this Pharisee had also avoided at least one other evil act he had seen men perform. And this Pharisee had probably done some good when he gave tithes.
All of these things would lead people to judge this Pharisee favorably, and to judge this Publican unfavorably. None of these things justify this Pharisee in Our Creator’s eyes, though. The only thing that will justify any person in Our Creator’s eyes, is for that person to say that he or she is a sinner and to ask for mercy, and for that person to believe that he or she is a sinner. This is so because even when we do good, we do very little good by Our Creator’s standards, and because a person who believes that he or she is a sinner and who asks for mercy, will forgive other people, as he or she needs to be forgiven.
Jesus tells us that God will reward us if we are humble and that God will punish us if we are proud.
Jesus tells us this when He says, “Whoever shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. (Mt 18:4)
Jesus tells us this again, when He says to His disciples, “The greater of you shall be your servant. (Mt 20:26-27, Mt 23:11, Lk 22:25-27), Whoever wishes to be great among you, he will be your servant. And whoever wishes to be first among you, he will be you slave.” and when He says to His disciples, “He who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and He who is chief, let him be your servant. For who is greater the servant or the one who is served. Isn’t the person who is served greater? But I am with you as a servant. (Lk 22:26-27).
Jesus tells us again that God will reward humble people and will punish proud people when He says, “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted (Mt 23:12, Lk 14:11, Lk 18:14).
If we always try to forgive as we need be forgiven, then we will ask for very different things than we would ask for if we did not always try to forgive as we need be forgiven. This will be so because people who always try to forgive people who trespass against them, will seldom ask out of anger or hate.
We can learn some wisdom from all religions and we can learn all wisdom from Jesus. (Though no person has ever learned all Jesus teaches, and though most of those of us who call ourselves Christians learn very little of what Jesus teaches).
We can all do more to improve our lives and our world by trying to follow Jesus’ teachings than we can do in any other way.
Most of us, though, do not try to follow Jesus’ teachings, because most of us do not know or understand Jesus’ teachings. (including most of those of us who call ourselves Christians).
Jesus knows we have these fears. This is why He says to us, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Take no thought for the morrow: for the morrow will take thought for itself. Sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.” (Mt 6:25-34 & Lk 12:22-34). This is also why Jesus tells us that though following Him will do us great harm in the short run, in the long run following Him will bring us rewards that will more than make up for our suffering. Jesus tells us this when He says to his disciples, “Beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake. And brother will deliver brother up to death, and the father the child: and the children will rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all men for my name’s sake: but he who endures to the end will be saved.” (Mt 10:17-18 & 21-22) Jesus tells us this again when He says to all of us, “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, the daughter against the mother, the daughter in law against the mother in law. He who loves father more than me, is not worthy of me. he who loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. he who takes not his cross and follows me, is not worthy of me. he who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life, for my sake, will find it.” (Mt 10:35-39, Mt 16:24-26, & Lk 9;23-25). And Jesus tells us this yet again when He says, “Blessed are you when men will hate you, and when they will separate you from their company, and will reproach you, and cast out your name as evil for the son of man’s sake. Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy: for behold your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did likewise to the prophets.” (Lk 6:22-23)
If we want to increase the good in our world, then we must do more of what Jesus tells us to do (even if we learn to how do what Jesus tells us to do, from someone other than Jesus).
Appendix A
Why it will be hard to follow Jesus
and Why it will be easy to follow Jesus
1.)
The reason we will all have to suffer greatly, and will all have to make great sacrifices, to receive rewards that God will give to Jesus’ followers, is that it is very hard for us to ask God to forgive us. It is hard for us to ask God to forgive us because it is hard for us to admit that we need to be forgiven: We are afraid to admit that we need to be forgiven, because we are afraid to admit that we are evil, And we are afraid to admit that we are evil, because we are afraid that God will give us our just rewards, and will punish us for our evil.
If we do not ask God to forgive us, this is exactly what God will do. And as our evil is great, so also will our punishment, also, be great.
If we do ask God to forgive us, though, Then God will show us mercy, Then God will forgive us our evil, Then God will give us all that we ask of Him.
If we ask God to forgive us, then following Jesus will become easy for us.
Jesus tells us this, when He says, “Ask, and it will be given you, seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, it will be opened. (Lk 11:9-10 & Mt 7:7-8).
If we ask for God’s forgiveness, we will receive it, and once God has forgiven us, God will give us all that we desire.
2.)
Often, though, we won’t ask for God’s forgiveness. And if we do not ask for God’s forgiveness, we will not receive God’s forgiveness.
One reason we often won’t ask for God’s forgiveness, is that we fear that God will only give us good things if we are good. The good news that Jesus tells us, sounds too good, to us, to be true.
Another reason we refuse to ask for God’s forgiveness is that we do not want to forgive other people who have hurt us. It seems easier to us, to pretend that we are good, and to imagine that God will reward our goodness.
Jesus tells us, clearly, and often that we are not good, And because Jesus tells us this, we know that if God shows us justice, then justice will lead God to punish us all severely. When we do not want to forgive other people, though, we will try to forget what Jesus has told us, and we will try to forget what Jesus has taught us.
3.)
Jesus knows that often we won’t be able to ask God to forgive us.
Jesus tells us this when he says, “The World hates me, because I testify that its works are evil.” (Jn 7:6-8).
And Jesus tells us this, again, when He says,
“The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness, rather than light, because their works were evil. Everyone who does evil, hates the light, and stays away from the light, for fear his works will be reproved. But one who is doing the truth comes to the light that the works of God may be manifested in him” (Jn 3:19-21).
When we are doing good we will come to Jesus’ light, but when we are not doing good, we will fear and hate Jesus’ light.
Because Jesus has told us that all people do evil, we know that Jesus is saying that all people will hate the light He brings to our world, and that all people will stay away from that light. Even the most faithful follower of Jesus, will seldom come to Jesus’ light, because even the most faithful follower of Jesus, will fear that his or her deeds will be reproved. People who follow Jesus, hate Jesus when Jesus testifies that their works are evil, just as all people hate Jesus when Jesus testifies that their works are evil.
4.)
Though we will all fear God and hate Jesus, If we dare to hope that Jesus is correct when He tells us that God will show us mercy if we see our evil, and if we show mercy to other people who are evil, as we are evil, Then we will sometimes come to God, in spite of our fear and hate, And then we will sometimes ask God for mercy.
Only if we do this, will we receive good things from God
If we can sometimes make ourselves come to Jesus’ light, we will learn that its heat will warm us, not burn us. If we can overcome our fear, we will see that God truly will show us mercy, instead of justice, And all we desire will be ours.
When we are willing to admit that we are evil, and When we are willing to forgive other people the evil they have done us, Then we will ask God to forgive us the evil we have done Him.
5.)
Everything that is hard for us for us to do in following Jesus, is something that we must do to make ourselves the sort of people who will ask God to forgive us. If we can ask for God’s forgiveness, then following Jesus will become easy for us. This is why Jesus says, “My yoke is easy, and my burden light.” (Mt 11:30)
How we will treat other people if we have forgiven them.
1.)
Each of us will often say that he or she forgives people who have done him or her harm, when he or she has not truly forgiven those people. Jesus helps us guard against doing this by telling us how we will treat other people if we have truly forgiven them.
Everything that Jesus tells us to do is part of forgiving other people, as we need God to forgive us. And everything that Jesus tells us to do is one of the ways we will treat other people if we have truly forgiven them.
2.)
Jesus also teaches us how we will treat other people if we have truly forgiven them, by telling us how God will treat us when He has forgiven us.
When God has forgiven us, He will give us all that we ask Him for. In the same way, If we forgive other people, then we will give them all that they ask us for, whenever we are able to do so.
3.)
Asking for God’s forgiveness is not something that we can do once, It is something that we must do always.
If we are doing what Jesus tells us to do, at any moment, Then we are asking for God’s forgiveness, at that moment, And If we are not doing what Jesus tells us to do, at any moment, then we are not asking for God’s forgiveness, at that moment.
If we have asked God to forgive us, then we will not ask God to make other people stop doing evil to us,
because if we have asked God to forgive us, then we will forgive other people for the evil they do to us.
1.)
Jesus tells us again, that if we ask for forgiveness we will receive it, when He says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, you will ask what you will, and it will be done to you.” (Jn 15:7), And Jesus also tells us that if we ask for forgiveness we will receive it, when He says, “All things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive. (Mt 21:22)
While God will give us all that we desire, if we ask for His forgiveness.
Even after we ask for God’s forgiveness and receive God’s forgiveness, other people may continue to do evil to us. The reason for this is, that if we have asked God to forgive us, then we will not ask God to force other people to stop doing evil to us.
If we have asked God to forgive us the evil we do Him, then we will forgive other people the evil they do us.
If we have forgiven other people the evil they do us, then we will try to help other people whenever we are able to do so.
And if we have asked God to forgive us the evil we do Him, then we will see that we only asked God to forgive us because we had seen some of the evil we had done.
If God had forced us to stop doing evil before we had seen that evil, we might never have asked for God’s forgiveness. And if we had not asked for God’s forgiveness, we would not have received God’s forgiveness.
If God were to force people who do evil to us, to stop doing that evil, before they see that evil, then the same thing might happen to them. If we have truly forgiven people who have done us evil, we will want to keep this from happening to them.
2.)
God lets us all do evil so we will be able to see our evil, and so we will be able to then ask Him to forgive us the evil we do.
If we do not ask God to forgive us our evil, then we will not forgive other people their evil, and God will not forgive us our evil.
If we do not forgive other people their evil we will also not be able to become one with all people as God and Jesus want us to become one with all people.
If we have truly forgiven another person, then we will be compassionate as God is compassionate, and like God, we will not want a person to stop doing any evil thing until that person has seen that evil thing, and until that person has learned to ask for God’s forgiveness for that evil with all of his or her actions.
3.)
Evil that another person does to us, may cause us great suffering by human standards, and we will always hope that other people will stop doing evil to us. Still, we will never want a person, who is hurting us, to stop hurting us, until that person sees the evil that he or she does to us, and then asks for God’s forgiveness.
One reason we will never want this, is that we know that any suffering that another person’s actions may cause us, will be small in comparison to the rewards that God will give us if we forgive, as we need be forgiven, and will be small in comparison to the suffering that God will shield us from if we forgive, as we need be forgiven.
4.)
If a person did ask God, to force another person to stop doing evil to him or her, that person would be trying to resist evil by asking God to stop it.
Because we want people we have forgiven to see the evil they do, to repent the evil they do, and to ask God to forgive them the evil they do, We will not try to resist evil, that people we have forgiven do to us, either by asking God to stop this evil, or by trying to stop this evil through our own actions.
We might try to show people we have forgiven the evil they do to us, And we might try to show people we have forgiven how it would benefit them to stop doing evil to us, and to ask God to forgive them, But we would never want a person we had forgiven, to stop doing evil to us, unless he or she had seen that evil, and unless he of she had asked for God’s forgiveness.
We will also remember that if we resist another person’s evil, then God will resist our evil, And that we would be doomed by God’s resistance.
God wants evil to continue until it is transformed into good.
God gave each of us life and God continuously chooses to sustain our lives. God wants each of us to be alive and who are we to question God.
Though we seldom do God’s will, God never wants us to doubt that we should go forward with our lives. By going forward we may be transformed into what god wants us to be. If we stop going forward, if we give up on our lives (on our selves) then we will never become what God wants us to be.
Even if we never do become what God wants us to be, maybe by going forward we will help someone else become what God wants him or her to be.
True, if we fail to become what God wants us to be we will pay the consequences for this failure, but we will pay more painful consequences if we give up on our lives (on our selves) than the consequences we would pay for any evil that we might commit as we go forward.
God does not want a world that is free of evil. If God wanted such a world He would not have given us free will. Instead God wants a world in which evil continues until it is transformed into good.
If evil is killed then that evil can never become good, and if all evil were killed then there would be no good. There would then be nothing. Good must come from evil that has been transformed. Good is transformed evil.
Our world is an oven in which ingredients that are not good in themselves (our individual selves) are combined (baked) into something that is good. Our greater self in which we are all parts of a whole.
There may be macro certainty in this process: (God may know that something good will come of it), but there is no micro certainty in this process (no individual person knows whether or not he or she will become a part of the good thing that is being created. Our evil may hold us back from doing this.)
If we join with other people in becoming something greater than ourselves, then we will know joy. But our evil may keep us from doing this.
I have wanted to kill evil when I have seen it, instead of wanting to transform it into good. Because of this I have wanted to kill myself.
2.)
Good can only come from evil. Good is transformed evil. If there were no evil there could be no good. All that is good was once evil.
Evil is a stage that we must all pass through. It is the infant that can grow into good. As a stage evil is natural, and there is nothing wrong with it. Evil only becomes evil when it continues beyond its proper time: when it does not transform itself into good.
We all begin our lives as beings who pursue only our self-interest, and who live in competition with other people. In this stage we see our world in terms of confect, and we seek out conflict. We believe that we can only get what we want if we keep other people from getting what they want. We think that for us to win everyone else must lose.
This is simply how we are when we start our lives. There is nothing good or bad about this. It just is.
The only way in which we can eliminate all the evil that is in us at once is by killing ourselves. If we go on with our lives, then we will do great evil.
The best that we can hope to do is to transform parts of ourselves from evil to good, while as a whole we continue to do great amounts of evil.
We cannot immediately become good. Becoming good is a long process, and it will take us a long time.
If we want to kill evil when we see it, then we will want to kill ourselves, and we will never be able to continue to try to become good anywhere close to long enough, to actually become good.
There are two ways in which a person who feels like this will stop trying to be good. The first way is by simply ending his or her life. The second, and much more common way is by telling him or herself that he or she has become good and is no longer evil. While less dramatic, this way of giving up on the attempt to become good is just as destructive to our selves, and is often more destructive to other people. This is so because only people who think that they are good can commit truly great acts of evil.
To receive all that we ask for we must truly follow Jesus
Jesus tells us again, that if we ask for forgiveness we will receive it, when He says to people who follow Him, “If any two of you agree on anything, and ask for it, It will be done by my Father in heaven.” (Mt 18:19). Jesus also says, “If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, keep my commandments.” (Jn 14:14-15), And Jesus says, “Truly, whatever you ask the Father, He will give to you in my name.” (Jn 16:23)
Of course, God will only do whatever people who ask in Jesus’ name, ask Him to do, if those people truly follow Jesus. Jesus tells us about people who say they follow Him, but who do not truly follow Him, when he says,
“Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. Many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name?, and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them,
“I never knew you, leave me you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46)
Jesus tells us, that He cares much more, about what we say about His teachings, than He cares, about what we say about Him, when He says, that
“Whoever speaks against the Son of Man, will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Ghost, will not be forgiven.” (Mt 12:32 & Lk 12:10).
The Holy Ghost is Jesus’ teachings, and the help that God will give to people who follow Jesus’ teachings. Jesus cares much more about what we say about His teachings, than He cares about what we say about Him. This is so because Jesus knows that following His teachings will save us from great suffering, but that saying good things about Him will not help us at all, if we do not also follow His teachings. Jesus only cares about what we say about him, or what we think about him, if what we say or think about him leads us do the will of his Father.
Appendix B Our Faith
Jesus tells us of a businessman whose business had done well and had earned him a great deal of money and many possessions. This man then sat back and thought about all the money he had, and about how long that money would support him and about how happy all of his possessions would make him. God then said to this man, ‘You fool! Today your soul shall be required of you. Then whose shall all of those things be?”
So it is with all people who are rich in things of man but who are not rich towards God. Sell all that you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven: treasure that will not grow old and that moth and rust shall not corrupt, and that no thief shall come near to. (Lk 12:16-21 & Lk 12:33)
….. Why do you think we do not do as Jesus says and sell all that we have and give to the poor? …….
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Jesus tells us often that if we do what God wants us to do, we will receive great rewards. Because we want to receive the rewards that Jesus tells us of, when we believe Jesus, we will do what Jesus tells us to do. If we could always believe Jesus, then we would always do what Jesus tells us to do.
Our human nature keeps us from doing this, and our inability to have faith is the part of our human nature that keeps us from doing this.
The main thing that Jesus wants all of us to do is to admit that we are sinners. Jesus wants us to admit this because if we admit that we are sinners, and always remember how great our sin is, then we will forgive other people as we need God to forgive us.
If we admit that we are sinners then we will not say that we have faith in Jesus.
Saying that we have faith is just another way of saying that we are good, and saying that we are sinners is just another way of saying that we are faithless.
Jesus often calls us “You of little faith.” When the phrase “You of little faith” is translated from Greek to English the literal translation is “little-faiths”. Jesus calls us little-faiths because the smallness of our faith is a part of our human nature. The smallness of our faith is the part our human nature that most saddened Jesus, and is the part of our human nature that most set us apart from Jesus. It is Jesus’ faith that leads to all that He is able to do, and it is our lack of faith that leads to all that we are unable to do.
When Jesus’ disciples asked why they had not been able to heal a man who was only healed when they asked Jesus to help, Jesus answered, “because your faith is too small. If your faith were as a grain of mustard seed you would be able to tell that mountain to move and it would move.”
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It is important for us to understand our faith, and for us to learn what faith we are capable of, and what faith is beyond our ability. It is important for us to learn these things because it is important for us to see ourselves as we truly are, so that we will see how much we need God’s forgiveness, and so that we will forgive all people who trespass against us, as we need God to forgive us our trespasses against him.
In order to understand these things we must ask ourselves questions about our faith, and we must try to answer these questions. The first question we must ask is, “what leads us to believe that Jesus is correct when He tells us what God wants us to do.”
There are many good reasons for us have faith in Jesus. These reasons should give us great faith in Jesus. Because we are not capable of great faith, though, we will all often doubt Jesus.
The strongest reason that we should have faith in Jesus is the evidence that we see in our lives whenever we do what Jesus tells us to do.
Whenever we do what Jesus tells us to do we see that we are rewarded, and whenever we do not do what Jesus tells us to do we see that we are punished.
Another reason that we should have faith in Jesus is that Jesus tells us that we will have to do things that are often hard for us to do to gain God’s favor. If anyone tells that we can gain God’s favor by doing things that are easy for us to do, then we know that, that person is lying to us: because we know that nothing worth having comes easily.
Jesus tells that in order to gain God’s favor we must receive God’s forgiveness, and Jesus tells us that God will only forgive us if we forgive our brothers and sisters who trespass against us. Often this will be hard for us to do. Still, when we have faith in Jesus we will be eager to forgive people who trespass against us because we want God to forgive us our trespasses against Him.
Rewards Jesus promises to people who will follow Him
1.)
While Jesus tells us that God will give us great rewards if we follow Him, Jesus also tells us that if we follow Him we will know great suffering, and that we will have to make great sacrifices to follow Him. Jesus assures us, though, that the rewards God will give us if we follow Him, will more than make up for the suffering we will have to endure, and the sacrifices we will have to make to follow Him.
Jesus tells us this when He says to his disciples, “Beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you will be brought before governors and kings for my sake.” “And brother will deliver brother up to death, and the father the child: and the children will rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all men for my name’s sake: but he who endures to the end, will be saved.” (Mt 10:17-18 & 21-22),
and when He says, “I am come to set a man at variance against his father, the daughter against the mother, the daughter in law against the mother in law. he who loves father more than me, is not worthy of me. he who loves son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. he who takes not his cross and follows me, is not worthy of me. he who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake, will find it.” (Mt 10:35-39, Mt 16:24-26, & Lk 9;23-25).
Jesus tells us that if we follow Him, God will give us all that we need when He says, “Whoever drinks of this water shall thirst again. But whoever drinks of the water I shall give shall never thirst. The water that I shall give shall spring into everlasting life.”(Jn 04:13-14), and when He says, “I am the light of the world. One who follows me will in no way walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (Jn 08:12).
Jesus tells us again that if we follow Him, God will give us all that we need when He says, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Mt 6:25-33 & Lk 12:22-34).
Jesus tells us that if we suffer now, we will receive rewards later, and that if we receive rewards now, we will suffer later when He says to his disciples, “Blessed be you poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now: for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now: for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men will hate you, and when they will separate you from their company, and will reproach you, and cast out your name as evil for the son of man’s sake.
Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy: for behold your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did Likewise to the prophets.
But woe to you who are rich: for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full: for you will hunger. Woe to you who laugh now: for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men will speak well of you: for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” (Lk 6:20-26, see also Mt 5:3-12).
2.)
Jesus says, “There is no man, who has left house or parents, or wife or children for the kingdom of God’s sake, who will not receive many times more in the present time, and in the world to come, life everlasting” (Lk 18:29-30).
This tells us that God will give people who follow Jesus, rewards that will more than make up for their suffering and their sacrifices, both in this life, and after this life ends.
Jesus tells us this because He knows that our faith is so weak that most of us cannot believe that God will give rewards that will more than make up for the suffering, that Jesus’ followers will know, and for the sacrifices that Jesus’ followers will make, both in the present time, and in the world to come. Many people, though, can believe that God will give rewards that will do this, either in the present time, or in the world to come.
Jesus tells us about both rewards in the present time, and rewards in the world to come, so that each of us will believe in whatever rewards he or she is able to believe in.
All that matters to Jesus and to God, is that we do what Jesus tells us to do. If we do what Jesus tells us to do, then Jesus and God don’t care what rewards we believe we will receive.
Jesus told us this when, while He was speaking to a crowd, He was told that His mother and His brothers waited outside, seeking to speak to Him, And He responded by asking the person who had told Him this,
“Who is my mother? and who are my brothers?”, and by then stretching His hand out toward His disciples and saying, “Behold my mother and my brothers:
For whoever shall do the will of my Father, who is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mt 12:50, & Lk 8:21).
3.)
Some people can believe only in rewards in a life after this life, because, though they cannot believe that anything in this world could more than make up for the suffering they see, they can believe that rewards in a world to come could more than make up for the suffering they see.
While other people can believe only in rewards in this world, because, though they cannot believe in things for which they cannot see evidence, they can sometimes see evidence of rewards in this world, and when they see a person who they think is following Jesus suffer, but do not see evidence of rewards that more than make up for the suffering they see, they can believe, either that they are failing to see rewards that exist in this world, or that the person who they see, is not truly following Jesus.
Just as Jesus says to us, “O you of little faith” (Mt 6:30, Mt 8:26, Mt 14:31, Mt 16:8, & Lk 12:28), and just as Jesus tells us that unless we can make a mountain move by telling it to move, we do not have enough faith to fill a grain of mustard seed (Mt 17:20), Jesus also knows that we will never be able to have faith in more than a small portion of what He tells us.
Jesus does not want us to claim to have more faith than we have.
1.)
When we cannot believe something He has told us, Jesus wants us to freely admit this. If we say we have faith in more than a small portion of what Jesus tells us, then Jesus will know we are lying. A person who lies about his or her faith in Jesus, will offend Jesus, because this person will be making Jesus the cause of an evil lie.
When we say that we have more faith than we actually have, we do so because we are trying to make ourselves look good.
Jesus never wants us to try to make ourselves look good.
Jesus never wants us to do this because people who try to make themselves look good, often come to believe that they are good, and then often reject God’s mercy, because they think that they don’t need God’s mercy.
People who try to make themselves look good, will also commit acts of great evil in order to silence anyone who shows that they are not good: Just as the scribes and pharisees of Jerusalem had Jesus killed because Jesus showed that they were not good.
Jesus tells us that God will punish people who try to make themselves look good, when he says to the Pharisees of the temple of Jerusalem,
“You devour widows houses, and make pretence of long prayer. For this you will receive greater damnation.” (Mt 23:14 & Lk 20:47).
These Pharisees said long prayers to try to make themselves look good to people who heard these prayers, and to try to make themselves look good to God. And by doing this, they increased the punishment that God gave them.
2.)
Jesus doesn’t want us to talk or think at all, about how much or how little faith we have, and Jesus doesn’t want us to talk or think at all, about how much good or how much evil we will do.
Jesus tells us this when He tells us to “Judge not.” (Mt 7:1, Lk 6:37).
When Jesus tells us to “Judge not”, He is telling us both not to judge other people, and not to judge ourselves.
Instead, Jesus wants us to see that however much faith we have, our faith will always be small, that however much good we do, we will always do little good, and, that however much evil we do, we will always do great evil.
Jesus wants us to see these things so we will ask for God’s mercy, and so we will forgive as we need be forgiven.
Though God does not force us to do what He wants us to do, God does encourage us to do what He wants us to do by giving more to people who forgive as they need be forgiven, and by taking what he has given, away from people who do not forgive as they need be forgiven.
Jesus tells us that God will do this when He says that, “Whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever has not, even what he seems to have, will be taken away from him.” (Lk 8:18, Lk 19:26, Mt 13:12 & Mt 25:29).
Our Creator will give more to whoever has, because people who have been given the ability to do what Our Creator wants us to do, will forgive their brothers and sisters, as they need Their Creator to forgive them, and Our creator will take what they seem to have away from people who have not, because people who have not been given the ability to do what God wants us to do, will not forgive their brothers and sisters, as they need God to forgive them.
God will take into account what we have been given if He judges us. Jesus tells us this when He says, “Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48).
God’s rewards can be hard for us to see.
1.)
What is truly a reward, will often seem to us to be a punishment, and what is truly a punishment, will often seem to us to be a reward.
Jesus told us this when His disciples saw a man who had been blind from birth and asked Jesus, “Who sinned? This man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus then answered, “Neither this man sinned, nor his parents. He is blind so that the works of God may be made manifest in him.” (Jn 9:1-3).
What Jesus’ disciples had thought was a punishment, was actually a preparation for a reward.
2.)
The greatest rewards, that God gives, are things that help a person do His will. People who do not live by Jesus’ teachings, will not see that these things are rewards, at all.
The more often we forgive people who do us evil, the easier it will be for us to forgive people who do us evil even more often.
This is the greatest reward that God gives to people who forgive other people who do them evil.
Though none of us will ever be able to do more than a small part of God’s will, just as none of us will ever be able to have more than a small amount of faith, God sometimes gives, some people the ability to do some of His will.
One way in which God does this, is by leading people away from temptation, to deliver them from the evil they would do if they were tempted. (Mt 6:5-15 & Lk 1:2-4).
God also sometimes, gives some people the knowledge, and the strength they need to have to be able to do His will. Jesus tells us that God expects people who have been given more, to be able to do more of His will, when He says, “Whoever has been given much, much will be demanded of him.” (Lk 12:48).
Jesus tells us again that God expects people who have been given more, to do more of His will, when He says to the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida, “Woe to You Chorazin and Bethsaida. If the mighty works that have been done in you, had been done Tyre and Sidon, Tyre and Sidon would have repented long ago. It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon than for you at the judgement: and also for Capernaum.” (Lk 10:10-16). The people of Chorazin and Bethsaida had been given the gift of hearing Jesus speak and of watching Jesus work. The more any person learns about Jesus, the more God expects of that person.
Jesus also tells us that, because only people who have been given the good fortune to avoid temptation, and who have been given the ability to do what God wants them to do, will be able to follow Jesus, Only these people will receive the rewards that God will give for following Jesus. Jesus tells us this when He says, “Whoever has, more will be given to him; and whoever has not, even what he seems to have will be taken away from him.” (Lk 8:18, Lk 9:26, Mt 13:12 & Mt 25:29).
Jesus tells us these things so that if we follow Him, we will not think we have earned a reward from God. Instead, Jesus wants us to see that we sometimes follow Him because we sometimes use gifts that God has given us.
Jesus says to us, “When you do all that you are commanded to do, do not expect thanks, but say instead, “we are unprofitable slaves. We have only done what we ought to have done.” (Lk 17:9-10)
Rewards that Jesus promises to people who believe in Him
JN 03:14-15 Whoever believes in the Son of man shall not perish but shall have eternal life.
Jn 6:27-35 Labour not for the meat that perishes but for the meat that endures into everlasting life that the Son of man will give you.
… I am the bread of life, he who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.
What it means to believe in Jesus.
When we believe in Jesus we will do everything that Jesus tells us to do.
Jesus tells us that God will give us rewards if we follow His teachings that will more than make up for any suffering that following Jesus will bring us. When we believe Jesus we will follow Him because we will want to receive the rewards that Jesus tells us of.
If we could always believe Jesus, we would always do what Jesus tells us to do: to ensure that we would receive these rewards.
When we do what Jesus tells us to do. Then we believe Jesus, And when we do not do what Jesus tells us to do. Then we do not believe Jesus.
Jesus tells us that our faith is small each time He says to us, “O you of little faith” (Mt 6:30, Mt 8:26, Mt 14:31, Mt 16:8, & Lk 12:28).
And Jesus tells us that we will only be able to have a small amount of faith when He says to His disciples, “If your faith were as a grain of mustard seed, you could tell that mountain to move, and it would move.” (Mt 17:20).
This tells us that unless a person can make a mountain move by telling it to move, that person does not have enough faith to fill the smallest seed that Jesus knew of. (Mt 13:31-32)
Appendix C Why Atheism is logically impossible
While all people are sometimes agnostic, it is logically impossible for any person to be an atheist.
This is so because we can only understand our world in terms of cause and effect, and because every effect must have a cause.
Everything that happens must have a cause, including the fact that life exists at all, and the fact that our world exists at all. What caused life to come into existence? What caused our world to come into existence? What keeps living things alive?, and what keeps our world in existence?
If we are very agnostic we will say that we don’t know much about the force that causes these things, but it is simply nonsense to say that there is no force that makes these things happen.
2.)
In its most basic sense the word God is simply the name that we give to the force that created life, and that created our world.
While every person who thinks about God believes different things about God, everyone who uses the word God uses the word God to mean the force of creation. These people all use the word God because the using the word God allows us to speak efficiently about a force that is very important to all of us.
Even people who say that separate Gods created different parts of our world, believe that these separate Gods have enough in common with each other that calling them separate Gods really means the same thing as saying that they are different parts of one God. Whether we call God one or many does not matter very much. What matters is what we think God is like.
What we can decide and what we must learn
God has made us in such a way that certain actions will bring us joy, and certain actions will bring us sorrow. If we want to know joy instead of sorrow we must learn what these actions are, and we must then perform these actions.
1.)
God has made our bodies so they will function best when we feed them the nutrients they most need, when we give them the ideal amount of exercise, and when we give them bodies medicines that they need.
We can often decide what we will eat, we can often decide what exercises we will perform, and we can often decide what medicines we will take, but we cannot decide what foods, what exercises, and what medicines will make our bodies function best. The foods, exercises, and medicines that will make our bodies function best have already been determined. We can only try to learn what these foods, exercises, and medicines are.
In the same way God has made us so that our entire selves will function best when we are guided by the thoughts and emotions that are best for us.
We can often decide what thoughts and emotions we will be guided by, and we can often decide what actions they will lead us to take, but we cannot decide what thoughts, emotions, and actions will make us happy.
We can only try to learn what thoughts, emotions and actions will make us happy.
2.)
Both health and happiness are very hard for people to talk about because people will often say that they are healthy or happy when they are not healthy or happy, and because people will sometimes say that they are ill or sad when they are not ill or sad.
Though a person may say that he or she is healthy, If his or her body is not functioning as it should function then that person is not healthy.
In the same way, though a person may say that he or she is happy, if his or her intellect, emotions, and will are not functioning as they should function then that person is not happy.
Though we can often not tell if a person is happy, just as we can often not tell if a person is healthy, both health and happiness are real, and both health and happiness can be measured, if we know what to look for, and if we are able to observe a person closely enough to measure these things.
Of course it is much harder to measure happiness than it is to measure health because happiness is much more complicated than health is. It is also much harder for us to learn what thoughts, emotions, and actions will bring us happiness, than it is for us to learn what foods, exercises, and medicines will bring us health.
3.)
The more strongly we believe that we know what actions will bring us happiness, the more confident we are that we know what thoughts, emotions, and actions God has determined will bring us happiness, and the less agnostic we are.
No person is wholly agnostic, because all people believe that certain actions are more likely to bring them happiness than other actions are. If any person did not believe that certain actions were more likely than other actions to bring him or her happiness, then that person would never choose any action over any other action, and then that person would never act at all.
Our actions show what we believe God will reward.
Jesus can teach us how we can be happy.
God created us so that the thoughts, emotions, and actions He wants us to think feel and do will bring us joy and contentment. This is how God rewards us if we do His will.
Jesus tells us what God wants us to do. Because of this, if we do what Jesus tells us to do then we will know happiness.
We can see the joy and contentment that following Jesus will bring us most clearly in our own lives. In our lives, we can see that whenever we have done what Jesus teaches we have received great rewards from God (though we have also often known great resistance from people who are opposed to God) and we can see that whenever we have not done what Jesus teaches we have received great punishment from God (though people who are opposed to God have often helped us defy Jesus commands).
Over time the rewards that God will give us for doing what Jesus teaches will be greater than the resistance that other people show us for doing what Jesus teaches, And the longer we persist in following Jesus patiently and in living in the spirit of His love the more often the resistance that other people show us, will be transformed into love for us and into love for Jesus. If we forgive our brother seven times seventy times, as Jesus tells us to do, then our brother’s hatred will become love.
If some people patiently and persistently follow Jesus’ true teachings, then over a long enough time the resistance of all people who are opposed to God will be transformed into love and all people will become as one in Jesus. We cannot know how long this will take to happen, and to us it will seem to take a very long time. If we are constant in our love for Jesus, though, and if we faithfully follow Jesus teachings, then eventually all people will become as one in Jesus.
Physical sciences describe part of God’s creation, but physical sciences tell us little about even that part of creation.
Physical sciences describe some of the ways in which God develops parts of His creation. But the physical sciences tell us very little even about the physical aspects of God’s creation, and the physical sciences tell us even less about God’s desire for His creation. To learn about God’s desire for His creation we must search in places other than the physical sciences.
For example the theory of evolution describes some tools that God sometimes uses to develop parts of His creation. These tools are ‘genetic mutation’ and ‘natural selection’. The theory of evolution describes how lower life forms can change physically when a genetic mutation that helps an individual survive is passed on to future generations in greater numbers than other genes are passed on.
We see how little this theory tells us even about our physical world, though, when we see that it does not describe how beings that can change in this way first came into existence, and when we see that it describes very little of the physical change that occurs in human beings, and describes none of the spiritual or moral change that can occur in human beings.
This is so because ever since people have lived in societies, genetic differences between different people have had very little to do with determining which people will be most likely to survive and to have children.
What does determine these things is how well different people learn to live in harmony and cooperation with other people.
Genetic differences are important in animals because animals cannot cooperate to build societies. Among people it is behavior that allows one to live in harmony with other people that is important. This is so because if people work together then people can build societies that will help people in that society much more than a genetic difference ever could help those people.
The fact that God rewards people for living in greater harmony with each other tells us much more about God’s desire for our universe, than any description of the role of genetics in changes in lower life forms could ever tell us.
Appendix D
More on not thinking of things of Man
1.)
Jesus makes great efforts to teach us not to think of things of man, and to teach us not to seek the favor of men. Jesus does this, because pursuing things of man, seeking the favor of men, will keep us from learning how we can get things of God.
Most of us spend most of our lives pursuing things of man, and seeking the favor of men. And by doing this, most of us keep ourselves from learning things of God.
Most of the things that we buy, are things of man that do nothing to help us learn how we can get things of God. These things keep us from seeing God, both while we are paying attention to them, rather than paying attention to things of God, and while we are working at jobs, to earn money to buy them.
In the rare instances in which working at a job helps us learn how to get things of God, the time we spend at that job is not wholly wasted. Very few jobs help a person learn this, though. Instead, working at most jobs causes a person to become more and more caught up in things of man: things that pull that person further and further away from God.
Some jobs help people learn things of God indirectly, by helping those people stay alive, or by helping those people maintain good health, so they will have more time and energy, that they can use to study things of God, if they choose to do so.
2.)
We spend far too much time working to get things of men, and we spend far too little time working to get things of God. People who see this will try to avoid working forty hours a week. If most people in our society saw this, then most jobs in our society would become part-time jobs.
Only a very small fraction of all jobs in our society today help people learn about God. Even if jobs that only help people maintain abilities, such as life and health, are counted as jobs that help people learn about God, far fewer than one fifth of all jobs in our society today could be counted as jobs that help people learn about God. If we saw the worthlessness of all other jobs, and if we eliminated all other jobs, then the remaining jobs could easily be completed by people working one day a week, and these remaining jobs would still be done much better than they are done today.
Time that most people now spend at jobs that teach them, and that teach people they work with, to pursue things of men. Most people would be able to spend that time doing things that could help them, and that could help other people learn to pursue things of God, and doing things that help them, and that help other people learn to get things of God, If they did not have to spend that time at jobs that pulled them away from God.
Today though, because most people in our society do not see this, most jobs in our society are full-time jobs (especially most good jobs). In this situation, it is hard for anyone to avoid working full-time because it seems to most of us that we need to work at full-time jobs in order to survive.
Jesus tells us not to concern ourselves with getting things we need to have to survive, when He says, “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear; Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Mt 6:25-33 & Lk 12:22-34).
3.)
Though Jesus tells us this, Most of us will not be able to take no thought for our lives: because if we cannot see how we will get things that we need to have to survive, then all of us will fear that we will not be able to get these things at all (even if we seek for God’s righteousness, as Jesus told us to do). When we cannot see where our next meal will come from, we will doubt Jesus, and we will be strongly tempted abandon his teachings.
Jesus is far away from us, and we can only be certain that we are learning his teachings, when we read those teachings in the Bible.
Though Jesus may speak to us in voices and signs, we can never be sure that voices we hear, or that signs we see truly come from Jesus. These voices, and signs might also come to us from powers other than Jesus: from powers that want us to mistake them for Jesus.
People, on the other hand, are often close to us, and we can often speak to people and be certain that we know who we are talking to. This makes it seem as if we can know people we are close to, better than we can know Jesus (and maybe we can know people we are close to better than we can know Jesus).
Whether or not this is true, though, Because this often seems to be true, we all want to believe that men can give us things that only Jesus can give us.
This is why we pursue things of men, instead of pursuing things of God, And this is why we all try to please men, instead of trying to please God. We will only stop doing this when we see that Jesus is telling us the truth when He says that pleasing men will bring us woe, and that only pleasing God can bring us joy.
We cannot do what God wants us to do and because God created us we should do what God wants us to do.
God has given us every ability we have. Every time we use what God has given us to do things that God doesn’t want us to do we are stealing from God.
God will only forgive us for the evil we do to Him when we refuse to do what He wants us to do, if we forgive other people for evil they do to us.
2.)
We cannot always forgive other people who do evil to us. Often we cannot even forgive people who have done us no evil but who instead make us feel afraid that we will not receive God’s favor. This fear can be good for us if it does not drive us mad, but still we hate people who make us feel it.
When we can forgive people who do us evil, then God will forgive us.
When we cannot forgive people who do us evil, then God will not forgive us.
The more often we forgive people who do us evil, the more often we will be forgiven.
The more often we forgive people who do us evil, the easier it will be for us to forgive people who do us evil even more often.
This is the greatest reward that God gives to people who forgive other people who do them evil.
Could we ever be able to forgive all people who do us evil? In this life the answer is no. Every time we feel anger towards another person we have failed to forgive that person.
In another life maybe we could forgive all people who do us evil.
Almost 1/6th of all people in our world live in India, and most people in India never eat meat. The only way we can imagine how we appear to these people is to imagine a society in which nearly every person did something that is morally repugnant to us. For example to imagine a society in which nearly every adult had sex with children, or to imagine a society in which nearly every person ate other people. Some one from India must be horrified by our society in a similar way to the way that we would be horrified by these two societies. (A person from India is probably more horrified by us than we would be by a society of adults who had sex with children, but is probably less horrified by us than we would be by a society of people who ate other people.)
Just as our emotions tell us to do every thing in our power to stop cannibalism, and tell most of us to do everything in our power to stop adults from having sex with children. So must the emotions of a person from India who does not eat meat tell that person to do everything in his or her power to stop people from eating animals.
We can all agree, though, that treating people well is more important than how we treat animals. Keeping this thought in mind might allow a person from India who does not eat animals to see past this issue, and to become friends with people who eat animals. If this happened people from India who do not eat animals, and people who do eat animals might work together to make our world a place in which all people treat each other better.
We should all often use this way of thinking to allow ourselves to work together with people who do something that we believe is wrong.
We may never stop feeling horrified by what certain people do, just as a person from India may never stop being horrified by us. We must ask ourselves, though, “Is the thing that horrifies me a violation of the value that is most important to me?” If it is then trying to stop this action will be more important to us than working with a person who performs this action to achieve any other goal. If it is not a violation of our highest value, though, then it will be more important for us to work with another person to attain our highest value than it will be for us to try to stop the actions this person performs.
If we do not think in this way then we will never achieve the goals that are most important to us, because we will seldom work together with other people to achieve these goals. Just as people from India who do not eat meat would refuse to work together with meat eaters, so also would many people from outside India refuse to work with any person from India who perpetuates the caste distinctions that have great force in India and that seem to violate the principle of judging people on the basis of their own actions that is cherished by many people (especially by many people in western societies.)
Whenever any of us feels horror at any other person’s actions we must remember that each of us does many things that horrify many other people.
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I support what you have done. I see it as an attempt to bring about changes that are needed in our world. If I am correct in this, then you will want to join your work to my work by supporting The Church of Human Weakness. If we all work together then we can bring about the changes that our world needs. If we work apart, our efforts will bear little fruit.
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I can be reached at gpelly.bosela@gmail.com. I may also be able to be reached at (440) 647-5182. If you get an answering machine try leaving a message. I may get it, but I may not be able to get it. I may also have to go for weeks at a time without getting to a computer to check my email, but I will probably be able to check my email every day or every few days. One way or another I will probably receive all emails sent to this address within a few weeks.
Refer everyone you know who might want to help heal our world, to this web page.
When you want to print this speech you may have to press the paper feed button on your printer periodically. By
I have recently become aware of some of your work and that work leads me to believe that you may want to help heal the wounds of our world. For this reason I am sending you the first part of a speech I have written, that talks about how we can do this.
Our world is being torn apart by greed, violence, and self-righteousness, and each one of us is being torn apart by greed, violence, and self-righteousness (both by greed, violence, and self-righteousness in ourselves, and by the effects of other people’s greed, violence, and self-righteousness). Our world will only be healed if a large number of people try as hard as they can, to live as Jesus tells us to live, and any one of us will only be healed if we try as hard as we can, to live as Jesus tells us to live. (Even if we learn how to live as Jesus tells us to live, from someone other than Jesus, who does not talk about Jesus, and who does not try to follow Jesus, and even if we do not say we follow Jesus.) At least for those of us raised in western cultures though, and probably for all of us, Jesus’ teachings give us our best chance to learn how to do this. We know that following Jesus will heal the wounds of our world, because we see that the more we try to live as Jesus tells us to live, the more healing we experience in our lives, and the more healing we see in the world around us.
Jesus tells us that what matters to Him is that we live as He tells us to live, not that we say we follow Him, when He says, “Not all who say, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father. On the day of judgement, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name? and in your name cast out demons?, and in your name done many wonderful works? And I will say to them, “I never knew you. Leave me, you workers of iniquity.” (Mt 7:21-23: see also Lk 6:46).
Everything Jesus tells us to do is something that will bring us together with other people. If we do all that Jesus tells us to do, then we will come together as one with all people as certainly as water flows down a mountain when snow melts on that mountain’s top. And then all people will live in harmony and brotherhood. We can all do more to improve our lives and our world by trying to follow Jesus’ teachings than we can do in any other way. Most of us, though, do not try to follow Jesus’ teachings, because most of us do not know or understand Jesus’ teachings. (Including most of those of us who call ourselves Christians).
The first part of the speech that talks about how we can heal our world, that I am sending you, is an attachment to this email. This speech and the ideas outlined in it will be at the heart of a movement that will help heal our world. Some ideas may have to be added to this speech for it to be able to do this, and some modifications in its presentation may have to be made. If either or both of these things are needed, I believe you may be able to help do them. Whether or not these changes are needed, the movement this speech must lead to, is desperately needed by our world, and our world needs you to be a part of this movement. Read this speech, think about how you can best help heal the wounds of our world, and contact me as soon as possible. I can be reached at gpelly.bosela@gmail.com. I may also be able to be reached at (440) 647-5182. If you get an answering machine with my voice on it, try leaving a message. I may get it, but I may not be able to get it. I may also have to go for weeks at a time without getting to a computer to check my email, but I will probably be able to check my email every day or every few days. One way or another I will probably receive all emails sent to this address within a few weeks. The full speech that I am sending you the beginning of, can be found at http://churchofhumanweakness.blogspot.com, or at http://humanweaknessblog.blogspot.com). Also forward this email and the first part of the speech attached to it to everyone you know who might also want to help heal our world. When you want to print this speech, it is better to print the attachment I sent you than to print from the web page that has this speech on it, because the attachment I have sent you includes print formatting I was unable to put on the web page. To print this attachment you may have to press the paper feed button on your printer periodically.
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The words, “God, Gott, Bog, Chuv, Dieu, Domine, Theo, Yaweh, Allah, Brahman, Omazd, Ekam, Shang Ti, Ameratsu, Molongo, Tangaroa, Taiowa, and Adanvdo
Parsee, Tamil, Chinese, Japanese, a Bantu language, Tahitian, Hopi, Cherokee
Jesus says to us “Take no thought for your life, for what you will eat or drink, or for what clothes you will wear. Your heavenly father knows you need these things. Instead, seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” (Mt 6:25-33 & Lk 12:22-34), and Jesus says to his disciples, “Do not put gold or silver, or copper in your belts. Nor a bag for the way, nor two tunics, nor sandals or staves, for the workman is worthy of his food. In whatever city you enter, find those who are worthy and stay with them until you leave.” (Mt 10:9-10).
These commands give Jesus’ teachings a great deal of the strength they have, because they allow us focus on what is important to us, learning how to forgive people who trespass against us, when without these teachings we would otherwise almost certainly be distracted by material concerns. My life is a perfect example of this. I have had to spend a great deal of time and energy learning what I have learned about Jesus and about how to follow Him, because the ideas I learned when I was young were hostile and antithetical to all Jesus’ teaches. I have had to change all of my habits ands tendencies and have had to fundamentally reprogram my personality to be able to live well at all. These commands, along with the rest of Jesus’ teachings have allowed me to do this. Not without effort, though. This effort has required so much time and energy and concentration that
I have been unable to earn much money or establish a career. This, along with the fact that I have been betrayed by people I thought I could rely on, has led me to a state of extreme poverty in which I have not been able to feed myself adequately and as a consequence I am now suffering from malnutrition and from general poor health. Still I am better of for doing this, because now I have learned what I must do to live wisely from Jesus, and because now I have learned to do some of the things he has taught me. One of the things I know I must do is help other people learn from Him without having to make the sacrifices I have made. This is now the overarching goal of my life. Because of my poor health, though, I am now in dire need of help to b able to do this. If I can eat well, sleep well, and get a little exercise, I will be able to become healthy enough to spread Jesus’ teachings. I now need help to be able to do this. Once I put the speech I have sent you on a web page will show up on search engines, and get traffic for word of mouth, and that will allow me to take donations to the church I will establish over the internet, I will probably be able to eat well enough to improve my health. Right now I cannot do these things, though. In other words I need both intellectual and financial aid to be able to establish the church of human weakness. I also need to move to a new place and probably establish the headquarters of the church of human weakness there. Because I have devoted my energy to personal transformation rather than earning money I am now so poor, that I am forced to live with people who hate me, hate Jesus, and persecute me for trying to follow Jesus. I could have earned a great deal of money in my life, but doing this would have required me to live with the personality I was given in my youth, and I would have become a part of the evil that is tearing our world apart. This is probably true of many people, and these are the people I most want to help. Many of these people have probably tried what I have tried, and many of these people have failed because they have become so poor that their health has suffered more than mine (especially if they have become homeless and because of this have become malnourished and have not been able to sleep well.) When these things happen to a person, that person’s productivity declines greatly, especially if that productivity is dependent on writing. I know because this has happened to me. For this reason, this letter is not written nearly as well as the speech I have sent you, (most of which was written when my health was better), and that speech is not written nearly as well as it would have been had my health been better. To a point my malnutrition may have helped me gain focus as fasting sometimes helps people gain focus, but I passed that point long ago, and any gains in focus have been more than outweighed by losses in energy in recent times. When we think of the causes of evil in our world it is easy to see that people who find themselves in this predicament, (the predicament of having learned evil at a young age, and having to earn money instead of reprogramming themselves, is the primary cause of evil in our world. Most of us want to be good, but have not learned how to be good, but have only learned how to be evil. The only way to change this fact is to help people learn how to be good. We can do that by helping people understand Jesus’ true teachings. That is why I sent you the beginning of the speech I have written, and that is why I am writing to you again now. I just want to let you know that while this church will be able to help great numbers of people understand Jesus, right now it I\s in danger of not being started because of my health problems and residential problems. This is when it is especially important to remember Jesus’ command to his disciples, “seek out whoever is worthy and stay with them for the workman is worthy of his food. I have not tried very hard to seek out whoever is worthy in the past. Now that has changed.
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Even those of us who are not following twisted and perverted versions of what Jesus taught us, usually do not focus nearly as much as we should on understanding and following Jesus’ true teachings. This is the weakness I see in many churches that call themselves Christian churches. Helping people focus more clearly on the teachings that will bring us happiness if we follow them, is the aim of the Church of Human Weakness,
and is what I want to help all people do. I see a great desire to learn how we can be happy, in all people, but most people make great errors that prevent them from doing this. From what I have seen, you and most people in your church seem to have avoided many of the greatest errors that many people make, and seem to have a strong desire to learn about and avoid other errors that prevent you from finding happiness.
I am sending you this essay because I hope and believe you will want to help heal our world and will want to help spread the knowledge of what actions will hurt us and what actions will help us, and because I believe we can all do more to help accomplish these goals by living as Jesus teaches us to live, and by helping to spread Jesus’ true teachings by joining or supporting a church of human weakness, than we can do in any other way, (even if we learn how to live as Jesus teaches us to live, from someone other than Jesus, who does not talk about Jesus, and who does not try to follow Jesus, and even if we do not say we follow Jesus. Other teachers often teach some of the same lessons Jesus teaches, and people who follow other teachers often learn and do more of what Jesus teaches us, than do those of us who say we follow Jesus. This includes teachers we call religious teachers.) I tell why I believe these things in the essay I have attached to this email. I believe that after you read this essay you will agree with me.
When you have read enough of this essay to understand a good part of the meaning of the church of human weakness, and when you want to either join this church, help this church, or learn more about this church, please email me at gpelly.bosela@gmail.com, or telephone me at (440) 647-5182. I will probably be at this number when you call, though for reasons beyond my control I may not be, but I will almost certainly be able to receive all emails sent to this address shortly after they are sent, and I will try to be at this telephone number because I especially look forward to telephone calls from anyone who is interested in the church of human weakness.
I have sent this essay to you as an attachment to this email. This attachment contains many formatting commands that make this essay easier to read, that would have been lost if I had copied this essay into the main text of this email. Many of you may be reluctant to open this attachment for fear of viruses. Let me assure you that this attachment has been checked for viruses by a highly respected anti-virus security program that google mail uses to check all attachments that are sent with it’s mail service. If this program finds any cause for concern in any attachment it simply won’t send that attachment, so there is no reason to fear that there might be a virus in the attachment I have sent you.
This essay can also be found along with later sections that are not included in this email at http://churchofhumanweakness.blogspot.com. At this website these later sections are included as a separate blog entry. Refer everyone you know who might want to help heal our world, to this web page. When you want to print this essay either from this attachment or from this website you may have to press the paper feed button on your printer periodically. Again the attachment has formatting commands that the website version does not have and will print in a way that will be easier to read.
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