We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father [the only-begotten; that is, of the essence of the Father, God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;
By whom all things were made [both in heaven and on earth];
Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate and was made man;
He suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into heaven;
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
And in the Holy Ghost.
[But those who say: 'There was a time when he was not;' and 'He was not before he was made;' and 'He was made out of nothing,' or 'He is of another substance' or 'essence,' or 'The Son of God is created,' or 'changeable,' or 'alterable'—they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.]
I'll alter it a little to fit my personal Faith:
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible, regardless of what Name you wish to put on Him/Her.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, because He is the only one who ever Claimed to be God given the form of the Human Body, Light of Light, True God of True God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;
By whom all things were made on every Quantum of this Multiverse;
Who for us men, and for our salvation, came to our Quantum and was incarnate and was made man;
He suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into the higher Quantum we call Heaven;
From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
And in the Holy Spirit.
I respect the other religions and I do not worship their lower-case g gods, but I acknowledge the truth of those Faiths, that those entities, some of them benign and some not, that they actually have the power given to them by the Same Father I worship.
So mostly I try to respect the Faiths other people have, when I was a teenager, it was "All Christian or Nothing" and I would cram Bible down people's throats with a cramming stick. I still use the Bible for my own reference, but now I do not discard other writings, including the several thousand Tomes of Krishna, or all of the Hebrew canon including the Kaballa.
I try to keep all of these things on a level playing field, but mostly, people searching for God usually have several things in common, their Worship follows the same format. God is not a God of strict formats, he can be Worshipped in all kinds of ways, whereas I originally thought I had to do it only one way. But in my investigations into other worship practices, we find that there are some forms that are common, I believe that this happens naturally, no one religion is copying the forms of another, intimate Worship especially in the form of Music, if you listen to recordings you will find that what you think is Christian Worship, may be another Faith.
The great Christian Apologist CS Lewis makes a statement in his last Narnia book "The Last Battle" where a person who thought they were Worshipping one god in that book, was so sincere in his Faith that Aslan[God] accounted this person's worship of that god as Worship of Him. Even in the earlier books, Aslan, the Christ figure, states "I have other names on other worlds". This can be seen as Lewis embracing the idea of Multiple Universes, some of which exist in the same space as ours. Lewis created a fictional means for people from this world to visit those worlds - "The Wood Between the Worlds" in "The Magician's Nephew". Other Cosmologists like Tipler and Hawking have only recently come up with these ideas, but as you see Lewis had some inkling of these ideas, even though they had not been formulated by the cosmologists of his day.
But there are other commonalities between people of different Faiths: And I have to make a side-note here, if a Faith does NOT have common elements to other Faiths, for instance- if a basic tenet of a faith is the word "Infidel" - Meaning, that people of other Faiths are not acceptable - Then the word APOSTATE can be applied to that Religion. This is the difference between a true FAITH and a "Religion" - A Religion is basically a set of rules, but if those rules exclude other religions, then it is an Apostate Religion. But Normally, people of different Faiths can get along quite well with each other, if they are TRUE Faiths.
A person on a spiritual quest just does not get angry at every given moment, not including regular anger which is normal, and which is desigined to Dissipate after being expressed - A person on a Spiritual Quest, does not get Angry and KEEP ON Getting angry about the same issue - Meaning, they do not "Stew on it" - Normal Anger is LET GO and the issue surrounding that anger is normally NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN, not after being dealt with ONCE. If that person KEEPS BRINGING IT Up, the issue being worse and worse each time they bring it up, then they are not allowing that anger to be released and "LET GO". A person on a spiritual quest is NOT easily irritated. Spirituality is not the seeking of spiritual experiences, true spirituality means you put yourself OUT. It means, that your +self+ is not the most important thing in your life, it means that your preferences and comforts are to be set to one side, this is the only way it works. Spirituality and Selfishness do not combine, Spirituality and SelfLESSness is the basic rule. Spirituality means inviting personal DISCOMFORT into your well-ordered existence. It does not mean you PAY MONEY to go to religious conferences, bible studies, kurton meetings, AA Groups, Amazon Tribal Rituals or even Yoga sessions or other alternate forms of meditation, just for the exhilaration of those experiences, although it is not wrong to search out those experiences... But Spirituality is more than religious *Experiences*, Spirituality requires that you absolutely DO NOT insist on your own way all the time, it means that sometimes, you have to do something the way SOMEONE ELSE wants to do it. Eh? A Spiritually motivated person has attributes that are the same as another persons attributes, regardless of which Faith they embrace. The Bible calls this the Fruit of the Spirit, which is called in Hebrews 11 the "Evidence of Things Not Seen".
To make special effort to SEEK OUT spiritual experiences in the form of these paid conferences, is a form of Lack of Faith. It is not wrong to GO to these things, but it is wrong for that to be the only source of Spiritual Input. Because a true epiphany can happen while shopping, or getting gas, it can happen when you are alone, or if you are in a crowded room of people. And, these esperinces are for the most part UNEXPECTED. You just never know when the hammer will fall down and then you are speaking in toungues or maybe even seeing a vision.
Of all the gifts, toungues is probably the cheapest and most common gift, and even that can fall on you at any time. It says in 1 Corinthians 14, if a person really wants to have a gift, then to ask for Prophecy, which is the ability to speak out the Word of God, which usually results in something coming into being, and not about seeing the future. A Prophet Calls Forth the Future, makes it happen, does not actually FORSEE it. So I'd rather have that than any other gift, and it is wholly uncontrollable, it happens when it happens.
You can't just go out and "Buy" the gift of Prophecy, there was this magician in the book of Acts, who tried to BUY the gift of healing from Peter, and that guy got a pretty good rebuking for asking. Because Faith is, and this is the best part of Faith: FREE. Faith does have it's costs and consequences, but Money os not one of the costs of Faith. Any person running around from conference to seminar to conference, is a Fake.
But I am not trying to state that *my* Spiritual Status is perfect - Far From it - The Spiritual Quest is a search for perfection, we never achieve it on the planet Earth, only when we stand in the presence of God will we achieve that state, But on Earth, we try to do simply the best we can witt eh limited tools we got..
I know a person, who has a fairly defined gift of Healing, but due to some of the things I mention above, they can impart that gift, sometimes, but usually only when they WANT to, but they cannot accept it for themselves. I think this is the source of their constant ANGER. If they could let that go, they would be a lot more effective. A healer absolutely has the ability to impart Healing to themselves. But they never look for this ability, they tru to buy it for themselves, and I never saw any improvement... Unless I was just being told lies abd excuses: Because I've been around healings for over 12 years now, and I've seen some incredible recoveries and drastic changes. But this person, can cause a drastic healing in someone else, but their state never changes. So, if in fact they had been given healing, then the infirmity which was always given to me as an excuse, if n fact it had been dealt with, the person continued to say they HAD this infirmity asa a "way out" - In other words, as a Lie.
Any person can learn the language of religion and use all the coined phrases used by people pf true Faith which they use as Shorthand for each other, but if they are not living these things they say inside themselves day by day, minute by minute, then they are FAKE. Which is harsh, but this is not me saying it, that's how it is - I didn't just make up these rules, they existed before I was born.
A person on a spiritual quest, pretty much does not INSULT their friends. Maybe they insult other people, but to do crap to a FRIEND: To say mean crap to a FRIEND and especially a person who has shared intimacy with them: is not evidence of any kind of spirtuality... Not of the good kind, there is dark spirituality, but I have NO interest in any of that. And if anyone saying they have Faith goes after dark crap, that's not Faith.
CS Lewis also said, "The two mistakes people make about devils is first, to NOT believe in them, second, to give them ANY more attention then they deserve." And this is my basic philosophy as well, when it comes to devilsor any other evil entity fron ANY Faith, I'm not interested.
Which brings me to my favourite story about Martin Luther:
Upon being awoken at night by the devil, the great Martin Luther saw who it was and said "Oh, it's just YOU" - And proceeded to go back to sleep.
5-17-2011
No comments:
Post a Comment