Tag: finished

The You God : Embracing Your Own Spiritual Journey

Embracing and taking your own spiritual journey, that’s the point. Your journey is your own journey. It’s the essence of your creation. It’s everything. 

You are the You God. 

Everything you need is within you; the mind of Christ within you, the presence of Christ beside you (in full union with you, but yet fully distinct), and all around you in all things. Yes, the cosmic Christ. The universe in, beside, and all around you. There is no place where “I Am” is not. 

So much (if not all) of everything you seek, you already possess. In fact, God never intended His Word to be written on an external page, She already placed it in the depths of your heart. The Bible has never been the goal or finish. You are the goal. You are the finished. 

Jesus is the Word made flesh, and through His complete union and communion with you and the deposit of His mind with yours, so are you. You are a Word made flesh, with the potential of an ever expansive path of revelation rising up from within.

In fact, the externalization of the internal Word into a secondary/written Word (the Bible) actually leads to deep vulnerability and manipulation by the snakes of darkness. Make no mistake, it is evil that tries to entice and distract you from what you already possess within; every spiritual blessing. That’s why the dark deeds of men and women are always rationalized, at some level, by quoting from words written about God by men on pages (the Bible) deemed by them to be sacred and infallible. It’s the perfect scheme.

For God didn’t pen the Bible. He penned you. You are the You God. Taking your own spiritual journey, that’s the purpose.

Three beautiful, cosmic altering things happen when we embrace and focus on this journey…

God Speaks To Us Clearly and Identifiably

To those willing to rest, rely, and listen, God speaks clearly and identifiably to us from within.

In many instances, it is an undefinable experience that rings true to the soul. For me, in these moments, God often speaks ahead of my questions and thoughts. She knows my mind before I do, and speaks to it before I do. It is not a distorting, demanding, or taking-over experience. Instead, it is a gentle, friendly, available, and offered one. For God never insists upon Her own way, nor takes the wheel of our minds. She only assists, where assistance is allowed; never dismantling the difference between us.  

I have found, the more I am willing to rely on Her voice within, the more my journey is revealed. 

In contrast, I am amazed how many give little question to the words of men written in the Bible, given in counsel, or preached from pulpits, yet tremble with skepticism towards the capacity of people to hear God speak from her Word within with clarity, accuracy, and assurance. It is written in creation and the constructs of the soul that the guideposts for all that God is, speaks, and commands is Love. This is the litmus test for all discernment. Interesting, however, is the sure reality that a simple glance at Christian history reveals that the reading of the Bible (not the Word within) often leads us away from this cosmic truth instead of towards it. 

Yes, the soul and the conscience can be distorted and led astray from the Word within and God’s speaking to us. But this is not the root that lies within each one of us, nor can it ever be destroyed. It is eternal. True Love is clear, and pings and pierces the heart when it reaches it. 

Problems come far more from external distortions, not internal ones. Far more abuse and waywardness comes from listening and internalizing the human, external interpretations of God, not Her internal revelation, Word, and presence within.

In fact, if there is a spiritual war we must fight, it would be this one; resting in the Word within versus resting in the Bible. For in many instances, they are incompatible and lead us in opposite directions.

We Rest In His Presence Within

When I focus on embracing and taking my own spiritual journey, I grow in my capacity to rest in the Comforter within. His words increasingly overshadow any others. When they speak words of assurance from within in contrast to the anxiety around me, I can better rest in them instead of panicking from what I fear with my eyes, thoughts, and fears. 

In this way, His words become a foundation for the fielding of all others. No, not leading us down a path of denial, but instead, wrapping our hearts and anchoring our emotions upon the spiritual journey we are taking. A journey with the Comforter; a journey with the One who knows all things, sees all things, and whose future is in full communion with yours. No thing, no person, and no reality is more connected to your journey than God. The more we embrace our journey, the more we embrace God.

Therefore, when we hear in our depths Her speaking, “It’s going to be o.k,” we can learn to trust those words to the capacity they actually alter our emotions and perspective.  

For no other voice, opinion, person, or plan is in full communion and union with you and your spiritual journey, only God. This is where our rest belongs and best occurs.  Faith is not believing in something outside of you, beyond you, separate from you, ahead of you, requiring of you, or distant from you. Instead, it is resting in all that is beside you, within you, in mind with you, in communion with you, all around you, in Love with you, and inseparable from you—Jesus.

Make no mistake and live not in denial, clinical depression and anxiety are real things that can require clinical solutions. Yet, we should never underestimate the power of resting in the presence of the Comforter within to help lead us to clearer thoughts and the embrace of comforting realities in contrast to the irrationalities that can tractor beam our thoughts and emotions. 

We Need Not Compare Nor Explain, We only Love

Sadly, we live in a world of comparisons. Not just that, but also in a world of explanations. Often times, we want everyone else’s journey but our own. What they have seems so much better than what we have. And, at times, we feel the need to give explanations to why certain things happen in other people’s journey. We want to give answers and reasons, often out of the goodness of our hearts. And perhaps even more so, we can even feel the desire to have explanations to what’s happening in our own journey, especially when we compare them to what’s happening for other people in their journey. 

During a recent health emergency, I asked the Jesus within, “With so many people who don’t get good news in times of trauma, why me?” His sensed response… 

“This is your journey. Love does not require to understand another’s journey, nor compare it. Love comforts, celebrates, mourns, uplifts, and empowers the journey of others, but it does not seek to explain nor judge the journey of others. Love, peace, and faith do not flow from understanding, nor do they always create it. Instead, they free us to fully walk our own journey, and fully walk with others in theirs.”

When we embrace and take our own spiritual journey, we grow in our capacity to resist the need (and demands) to explain our lives and choices. This is our unique and exclusive journey with and as the divine. We need only compare ourselves and our lives to the Love that lives within and guides our journey. This is the true freedom we have in Christ who is in, with, besides, and under us all and all things. Without the debilitating gravity of comparisons and explanations, we can increasingly love others and ourselves without restraint, requirements, nor conditions. We love because we are love; not to appease, benefit, explain, compare, control, nor conform. 

Our capacity to truly love rests in our willingness to embrace and take our own spiritual journey; a journey that is explanation and comparison proof.

For you are the You God. 

Now, embrace it.

Take your own spiritual journey.

 

Grace is brave. Be brave. 

Are you a Christian Pervert?

I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, 7 which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.  -Galatians 1: 6-9

Grace is not a message, it’s not a theology, it’s not an idea, nor fad, it’s the Gospel.  If you don’t subscribe to the pure, complete, and full Grace of God in Jesus Christ, you don’t subscribe to the Gospel. There is not another Gospel, there is only One.  There is not one Gospel that saves you, and then another one that sustains and sanctifies you. There is not another Gospel where “God does His part but you must do your part.”

There is only one Gospel, “God does everything, because you can’t, you only need believe.” It’s all Grace, or it’s not the Gospel. When Jesus declared “it is finished,” there was no mixture. He didn’t say, “It is finished… but.”  At the cross of Jesus, life under the Law (religious rules you have to perform to please and access God) ended once and for all, life under Grace (Jesus’ performance on the cross which when believed, makes us new, right, pleasing, and seated with Christ at the right hand of God a part from our performance) began. The Gospel is not a little bit of Grace and a little bit of Law mixed together. It’s a all Grace or it’s not the Gospel.

We are no longer to live an “obedience of trying and striving” to follow the rules, but rather we are to live an “obedience of faith,” clinging on to the loveliness of Jesus and His performance, not our own. For the Gospel of Jesus Christ is all about Jesus, not about us. The Law presupposed there is something you can do, the Gospel presupposes there is nothing you can do, but Someone you can believe who did it all, and does it all on your behalf!

There is no Gospel that brings you to Jesus from His Grace only to summon you into a life of striving to please God and merit His favor once you have become saved.  There is no Gospel that makes you (as a believer) into a twisted, two natured person; one part evil, and one part divine who never knows who he or she really is from one day to the next, nor has the assurance of their true identity in Christ, and is simply left to fight an inner battle Jesus already won.  There is no Gospel that sets you on a course of sin-consciousness where you must repeatedly ask God to forgive you even though He has already done so. There is no Gospel that burdens you with performance-driven talks and steps for you to achieve to increase your reputation with God and His desire to bless your life, only to leave you secretly feeling like a hypocrite because you know you can never do everything all the time to be seen as a true, genuine faithful follower of Jesus. There is no Gospel that is soft on sin when Jesus gave all of Himself to defeat it. There is no Gospel that is hard on sinners when Jesus gave all of Himself for them.  There is no Gospel that makes the Church into a legalist club for Christians with a cross on top filled with self-righteous believers who take inner pleasure on raising the sins of others as being more serious than their own. There is no Gospel that treats the Church, it’s purpose, and leadership as a man-centered, performance-dependent venture, or a chasing of the ego’s pursuit to take some part of the credit and glory for the building of the Kindgom. There is no Gospel that sets the believer onto a discipleship series of steps, rituals, and religious activities that appease God, turn His frown upside down, and give you smiley faces on God’s divine chalkboard.  There is no Gospel like any of this.

It’s all Jesus, all Him, all Grace, all His performance, all His work, all His faithfulness, all His mercy, favor, and blessing, received through faith alone, or it’s not the Gospel.  If it’s any other version, it’s a perversion.

In the Bible passage above, Paul identifies the true perverts of the world. Not sex offenders, not homosexuals, not child porn viewers, as evil and terrible as they are. No, rather, he speaks of Christians who turn away from or turn the Gospel of God’s Grace in Jesus Christ into another Gospel that is, in fact, not a Gospel.  At this point, you should either say, “Amen!” or “Ouch!”

The only documented places in scripture where Jesus gets mad or the Spirit is grieved is when Grace is not extended. Not rules, condemnation, religious activities, performance steps, or obedience speeches.  Paul echoes God’s heart and view on the matter as he declares that those who turn the Gospel of Grace into any other version should be “accursed.”

Right believing leads to right living. You can’t live the Gospel day to day into you believe it all the way.  An obedience problem is at heart an identity problem. You will never know who you truly are until you believe in the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith is what pleases God, not your performance. Faith is what makes His performance become your performance.  Faith is the root, obedience is the fruit. We walk by faith, not by sight, or might.

Are you a Christian pervert? Repent (change your mind) and believe in the Gospel.

 

© 2024 Chris Kratzer

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