So You Think You are a Christian?

There is a plethora of Religions in the world today. One might say many flavors stemming from the same Original Spiritual Source. I actually have to say, from the definition of Religious, I may not be what one would call a true Religious person, since I don't really follow only one particular creed, labeling all others flawed in some way.

Now, the particular Religion that one espouses is usually based on the area of the world, where he or she had been born. For instance, had you been born in Iraq or Iran or one of the many Eastern countries, chances are that you would be Islamic today. Had you been born in India, you would most likely be Hindu. If you had been raised in in other areas of Asia, you might be a Buddhist. In our Western European based culture, which is where we are a part of, our main Religion is what is called Christianity.

For the vast majority of people, who attended Christian churches, Christianity was probably not their educated choice. It was usually some practice inherited from our immediate family or our local neighborhood. We might have looked at other Religions than the one that we had been born into; but mostly, we had been taught that Christianity had the right answer and everyone else was wrong.

Still many of us got interested in the strange and different things that others believed. You might say that we strayed from the fold. For example, we perhaps, noticed the statues and paintings of the Hindu deities, the blue ones and the other ones, and we wondered about the complexity of it all.

I've personally looked at Islam but I found that the rigid structure and requirements of that particular Religion, though wonderful for some of my close friends, was just too rigid and hard for me. For example, fasting for long periods of time from sunup to sundown was too difficult for me. And for me the violence that erupts from the hearts of the followers of the mainstream version of Islam, not the Sufi branch, as my friends are, but; the mainstream version of many of these Religions, not just Islam, but others as well, to me are a total opposite of the original teachings of the Religion itself.

In our own land, it seems most often that the hatred and violence promoted by those, who carry a Christian Bible and have a mouth spouting scripture, also are carrying a gun and going after someone, who doesn't follow their particular set of rules.

I find it ironic that those, who murder Doctors at Abortion Clinics are often the same people, who stand outside a prison execution chamber, and cheer at the death of the person, who is being executed, decreeing the righteousness of the killing. In spite of the very clear teachings of Jesus or Joshuah Bar Joseph that we just completed studying in the Metaphysical 10 Commandment Series, where Jesus stated quite clearly, “Thou Shalt not Kill.” I just don't understand all that.

Clearly something is off base with mainstream Christianity, so this morning I'd like to look at Christianity and the teachings of Jesus, supposedly they are the same, but as we learned in “The Metaphysical 10 Commandments”, they are not; in fact, they are quite dissimilar.

In traditional Christianity. Here I am speaking about the Baptists, The Catholics, The 7th Day Adventists, The Episcopalians, and those kinds of churches. I could go on and on with all the different flavors of Christianity like a Baskin Robbins,but I won't. You get the point.

In traditional Christianity the attention is focused on a civilization that existed 2000 years ago. Historically, we probably know more about Jesus' time in history than about any other comparable period. I looked at the Internet to see what these little towns looked like, where Jesus may have passed through that are mentioned. There are all kinds of great pictures about them; but, I can't find the same thing about 1492. Remember what happened then? Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue.

The Christianity that most of us had been taught, when we were quite young, is this religion about Jesus and the worshiping of him. So the question is one that I ask a lot. Is a Christian a person, who accepts and agrees with statements about Jesus and worships him; or, is a Christian someone, who seeks to obey his teachings, his command,”Follow Me and apply my teachings to everyday living”?Again, did Jesus set out to organize a Religion, put the whole thing together? Did he set out to start a Religion that sets up the worship of himself, as being the one and only God? Did he place himself apart from others and tell people that they must bow down to him; and when they did, they would be saved?Do you think he did that? That is not what my Bible readings tell me. In Matthew Chapter 19, we find this: “then a man drew near to him and said, “Oh Good Teacher, what is the best thing that I should do to have life eternal?” And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me Good? There is no one who is Good except the One God.” That tells me something. In his own time Jesus was called Rabbi or Teacher and he came to his own form of Spirituality; for example, how to live, how to love unconditionally, etc. The message of Jesus, Joshua Bar Joseph, boils down to love and forgiveness, but mostly love.

Remember the Last Supper, when he washed the feet of his followers? Does that sound like someone, who wants to be worshiped? He did not want to be worshiped or glorified. And, in the 14th Chapter of John, you find this line: “ Truly, truly I say to you, ye who believes in me, shall do the things that I do and even greater things shall you do.” He didn't say “He who worships me...”, he said “He who does what I do and who follows what I teach.; for, these are the keys to the kingdom.”

Really if worshiping Jesus as the only son of God was enough to make us Saints, we'd be neck deep in Saints. And, for me over time Christianity, as we know it today, is really “Paulianity”, the teachings of Paul or “Jesusanity” but certainly not Christianity. Christianity should really be the teachings of the Christ, The “Christ Consciousness” in each and every one of us.

Someone once asked me what is the difference between Jesus and Christ? There is a great difference between the two. Jesus was the man named Joshua Bar Joseph, son of the carpenter Joseph. He was a tremendous teacher. As far as “The Christ” or “The Christ Consciousness”, you and I each have a Christ pattern inside of us. It is inherent within our very being; it is the Divine Pattern in every person, “Joshua put it this way, “ It is as close as breathing, as close as hands and feet.” We may not always be expressing it; but, it is there. Once in a while, we think about it, meditate on it, and move closer to it; but, it takes work, a lot of work.

As many of you know by now, and I have alluded to it often in this talk, Christ was not Jesus' last name like Smith or Jones. Jesus was not even his first name. The name Jesus came from the Greek language and the man that we know as Jesus was not Greek. He was a Jew and spoke Aramaic. A Hebrew most likely called Joshua Bar Joseph or Joshua son of Joseph, the carpenter. Joshua Bar Joseph was a person, the same as you and me. He ate, he drank, he had friends, he laughed, he probably cried a lot. We know he even got angry, when he turned over the tables of the money changers in the Temple. In short, he was a human being.

Christ is something quite different. Christ or “the Christ Consciousness” is not a person. Christ is not a proper last name. The word itself came from the Greek language meaning Christos that came from the Aramaic word, Masha ( pronounced Mishka), which means to anoint. It meant “the anointed one”, loosely translated as “The Messiah”. You're walking around each day doing all the silly things that you do; yet, you are potentially “The Messiah”. Every one of us is “The Messiah”.

So we have, Joshua Bar Joseph, the anointed one, shortened by the Greeks to Jesus the Christ and by the English language to Jesus Christ. The word “Christ” is a title. Like “king”, “President”, or “Senator”. It is a word that means “son of God”.

Now here is the part that a lot of you may have trouble with, a lot of you may not agree with me; but, I want you to just have an open mind. I want to make you think. There is only one “Son of God” and We are it. You are it, I am it, all of us together are it. We, all of us together, are created in the image and likeness of the One God, we are the children of God, the son of God, extensions of his Divine Mind. Right now, for many of us, this is a very difficult concept to grasp and that is O.K. You can disagree with me; push the entire idea away. I don't care. I am simply telling you what happened with Jesus. Jesus, the man who obtained his “Christ Hood”, is our way shower, our teacher, our guide. The man who has already made the journey. He has shown us the path, given us the blueprint to realize our Oneness with Spirit and our Oneness with each other. When we follow his teachings, when we do as he taught, as he did, we also will know, and do know our Oneness with Spirit and with all of life. It's just our fear that stops us.

It's like a key and you turn the lock and the door opens and you can open the door. But maybe, you don't have a key, or you do have a key but you don't put it in the lock, or you put it in, but you don't turn it, and the door does not open. These are all a metaphor for parts of the lessons that we choose to learn. We don't have to suffer. We choose to suffer. We don't have to work at being the “Christ”. We simply have to let go and let it happen. Let go and realize our “Christ hood”, our true connection to our God and to all of Life. That's all we have to do. We have to let go of our fear of the unknown and replace it with faith. Jesus said over and over in one way or another, “Your faith has made you whole...your faith has healed you.” That is all it takes.

To me Christianity has and is still doing us a great disservice. It has placed God way out in space somewhere; and told us to get there, we have to die and then we will get our just rewards. What an absurd idea and how many millions of people has that idea chained to the earth? In the very Bible that Christians traditionally have called the word of God, it is written that “The kingdom of Heaven is within you, as close as hands and feet, as close as breathing.”Those are the very words of Jesus from that very book. The Bible. How then can Heaven be out in space somewhere? Was Jesus a liar or did he tell the truth? Never did Jesus say that Spirit, or God, was apart from you or that Heaven was a place that you go to, when you die. That is all Christian theology made up by a group of learned men at the Council of Nicea, who needed to protect their money and their cushy jobs. It is sorta like those guys in Wall Street today; I'll bet they are the same reincarnated guys, making up new rules to keep their money coming in and secure their cushy jobs, just as before.

Outside of Christianity and probably Islam, the other faiths knew God to be present everywhere and in all things. Native peoples have always taught that God or Spirit is everywhere and in all things. You and I know that at the core of our being, whether we want to see it or not. If you talk with a small child, he'll teach you that. So do as Jesus said, “Be like a little child..”...”a little child shall lead them.” Have that kind of faith.

Traditional Christianity has depicted man as the dominant life force on this Planet instead of the caretaker of this Planet. A dominant life force can do whatever it wants and it does and unfortunately we have. Caretakers have a responsibility for the Planet, the creatures, and the Earth itself. We're slowly beginning to learn that now.

We only have one problem in our lives. We only have one problem in the world. We have not recognized it. Jesus recognized it. He solved it and he gave us the guidelines to do the same. By solving the problem for himself, he became “The Christ”. Now when you and I recognize the problem and solve it for ourselves we also will become “The Christ or Christ Consciousness”, the son of God in expression. And what's our problem? It's very, very simple. It is our very strong belief that we are separate from our God and from each other. We listen to our 5 senses instead of our heart. We didn't think that we knew what God wanted us to do: but, we did. All God, or Spirit, ever wanted us to do was to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. It's the message from the Gospel, “Love God above all else and love your neighbor as yourself.” Recognize the problem and you will recognize the solution that Jesus taught. Look at the teachings of Jesus closely in the four main Gospels. You will find the answer again and again and again. The message is love, the message is nonresistance, the message is oneness, the brotherhood of mankind, the fatherhood of God, the son ship of us all. That is the message in the Bible that Jesus taught, “Those who have eyes to see will see and those who have ears to hear, will hear.”

Namaste,

Barbara