Over the centuries and starting in the time of Jesus, the world of man has gone out of it's way to twist what our concept of Jesus and salvation should be. After all, who when confronted with an alternate lifestyle and system will the world and it's mentor the Adversary defend, if not itself? The world defends it's own. Keep that in mind.
Did the Pharisees believe in a Messiah and a Kingdom to come? Yes.
Did they want to believe it was Jesus? No.
Were there motives behind their beliefs? Yes.
Did they want a Messiah to actually show up? No.
Would it have diminished their authority over the people? Yes.
Did they want to give up their rule, and although free of the Romans, wish to again work along side and subordinate to another ruler as they had done with the Romans? No.
Such are the ways of mankind. It is easy to fall among the thorns and go back to the traditional selfish ways when one has had a taste of power.
From the time of Jesus, though they were all Jewish in the start, there was division between His followers and the priests along with their supporters. One group had sworn allegiance to the Kingdom while the other one remained loyal to the system and traditional will of man. Yet as time progressed, division also occurred within Jesus' followers as a religion began to develop. They focused their new religion on the fact Jesus was the Messiah but not on His Kingdom as commanded, thus ignoring why He said that He was sent. They spoke of salvation. Yes, but not how. Ignore the Kingdom and believe. Just take it on faith folks. We have our own kingdom we want to build. Mistake!
The original church of the Way fell by the wayside as a struggle ensued to build a hierarchy within this new religious institution. The ways of the Kingdom gradually fell victim to the older traditional ways of man that not only modelled the Roman Empire, but empires that went before. Once again the will of man overtook the will of God and man went back to constructing institutions like those they had built previously. They reverted from selfless back to self.
Never mind the example Jesus set for all of us of putting the will of God before man and loving all including enemy as self. The growing (and now mainly Gentile church) in an act of self preservation, claimed we were incapable of following that path and we should stick to the old ways and say sorry instead. Repentance means change, not 'I'm sorry'. Forgiveness as a result became profitable.
The path that the original followers of Jesus had taken was repentance. They changed. Yet at the hands of the Gentile's, these sects were all but wiped out or forced to join the Gentile branch of the Hebrew tree. Why forced? Because in following the Kingdom, they dared to step outside the realm of mankind's traditional system of power and authority which scripture said that the Gentile's had always been heavily into. Luke 22: 25 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.
There were however those of a minority within the gentile religion who took Jesus at His word, who followed His example as time went by. Rather than condemn those that the people admired as Saul had once done, rather than chastise them for rebelling against the system of self serving man that institutions must follow, the church simply gave them the status of saints. Saints were special and their ways the people were told, were beyond the reach of the masses who could never achieve such a position of saintliness. Those rarities were God's chosen (or so it was said). Venerate them, don't emulate them.
Forget about doing what the saints did in simply putting the will of God before the will of man thus loving all as self. The masses must continue to follow the leadership and authority of the governing religion that controlled them. The governance of God was once again replaced by the governance of man.
Although completely in harmony with the secular governments which follow the same methods of operation, they passed themselves off as different, as spiritual, not secular leaders. Just as the Pharisees had done, while running the same types of institutions.
Ironically, just as the Romans had done with the Pharisees, these spiritual institutions were also commandeered by the secular governments as a tool and means of keeping the people under control. Legal now, the new church partnered with the secular world and became a world power itself. The spiritual leaders, under the guise of spirituality, kept the masses locked in the flesh. These shepherds did lead their flocks... but away from the Kingdom and back into the realms of man. Little has changed today.
Why? Because the ideals of the various churches of today are for the most part all based on this early diversion from the Christ's teachings, reverting back into the traditional ways of man. The blind have lead the blind for centuries and today their path is accepted as gospel fact yet often merely based on theological tradition.
How is this religion then off track? One simply has to do as Jesus said and look towards Him and towards the example that He set. Religion will tell you to see a Messiah and that we must believe in Him, (simply as often taught) because the Pharisees didn't. We can be saved by doing what the Jewish people didn't do in their rejection of Him. Him, not His teachings. Yay Gentiles. Boo Jews. Sigh. They tell us nothing about rejecting the ideals of man as Jesus taught, but rather that we need only accept the Saviour.
Realistically, Jesus set the example for us to follow. He said that we were all capable of following that example also. This seems to conflict with many church teachings that condemn us as being unchangeable and locked in adversity. Primarily what He told us for three years was to reject the traditional ways of man and follow the ideals of the Kingdom to come. How many sermons emulate that? Woe unto you scribes and theologians who redefine good and evil to suit your doctrines.
What He was saying in reality is that in the beginning, after rejecting the Kingdom and governance of the Father, we were turned out of the Garden and into the world. Tough love. Learn from your mistakes. Now Jesus said it was time to offer a reversal of misfortune, for the Kingdom was once again available to those who rejected these age old traditions of mankind's self serving ideals and for those who understood why (thus solidifying that rejection).
The end result? Resurrection. By showing their faith in the alternate ways of the upside down Kingdom as it was called and not the governance of man, we would find the entrance to the Kingdom. An entrance which would only be through Him by following His ideals. Those ideals being only of the Kingdom, and believing what He had said about them and their power to counteract the evils of mankind. No back-door entrance by claiming to believe in God or the Messiah, yet not doing as He commanded. Satan already does that, so no prize there.
JOHN 14: 6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
When Jesus said this, He wasn't being vague. Taken in context with His Gospel of the Kingdom, He was saying not only was He the Messiah but just as important (Messenger AND message) what He said about the Kingdom was about the way to salvation (hence The Way being the name of the first followers). Not only His good news of the Kingdom being a reality, that the permanent death penalty would be lifted when His work here was finished, but more so that the Kingdom was with you and within you. That the ideals of the Kingdom as an alternative to man's ideals, was truth or He wouldn't have told us so. Jesus was with us and set the example, and as God was likewise within us, we are given the ability for us to do likewise and love all as self.
Yet the scoffers would call that works. It is agreed, there is no works that man can do that will give us what God gave, and what Jesus sacrificed Himself for (the Kingdom). But we still have to play by God's rules and reject those self serving ideals/rules of mankind of which we are a part of.
The worldly of course, don't want to have to take it quite that far, preferring to call belief good enough. Easier in their minds for them to have allegiance to both those worlds, especially for the rich or politically oriented Christians already deeply rooted in the world of man.
These are they who are rich in the ideals of man, rather than those, the poor in spirit who have few or no ideals of man. These are the Lord Lords who use God to justify their actions but refuse to change themselves to suit Him rather than suit fellow man. They come to God but fail to do His works, His commands. They reject the Kingdom's ways in order to build their own empires. What empire of man has ever been built upon loving all as self?
No man will come to the Father without first understanding what Jesus is telling us, His Gospel of the Kingdom.
Here lies the key to the great cover up over the centuries by a religion that has whored itself back to the world of man to become a world power identical to those who gave it legality and as a partner in crime in the first place. Not a new Jerusalem but the same old Jerusalem as that of the Pharisees.
The Gospel of the Kingdom, even though it is plainly written in scripture, is glossed over by doctrines of the church. This diversion has the masses skimming over truth in order to defend what the blind have taught the blind for centuries. Like displaying allegiance to a nation, it became more important for the church to defend the doctrines of the church than defend the teachings of the Man which their institution was built upon. The world defends it's own. Did you keep that in mind?
© ...timothyu
Did the Pharisees believe in a Messiah and a Kingdom to come? Yes.
Did they want to believe it was Jesus? No.
Were there motives behind their beliefs? Yes.
Did they want a Messiah to actually show up? No.
Would it have diminished their authority over the people? Yes.
Did they want to give up their rule, and although free of the Romans, wish to again work along side and subordinate to another ruler as they had done with the Romans? No.
Such are the ways of mankind. It is easy to fall among the thorns and go back to the traditional selfish ways when one has had a taste of power.
From the time of Jesus, though they were all Jewish in the start, there was division between His followers and the priests along with their supporters. One group had sworn allegiance to the Kingdom while the other one remained loyal to the system and traditional will of man. Yet as time progressed, division also occurred within Jesus' followers as a religion began to develop. They focused their new religion on the fact Jesus was the Messiah but not on His Kingdom as commanded, thus ignoring why He said that He was sent. They spoke of salvation. Yes, but not how. Ignore the Kingdom and believe. Just take it on faith folks. We have our own kingdom we want to build. Mistake!
The original church of the Way fell by the wayside as a struggle ensued to build a hierarchy within this new religious institution. The ways of the Kingdom gradually fell victim to the older traditional ways of man that not only modelled the Roman Empire, but empires that went before. Once again the will of man overtook the will of God and man went back to constructing institutions like those they had built previously. They reverted from selfless back to self.
Never mind the example Jesus set for all of us of putting the will of God before man and loving all including enemy as self. The growing (and now mainly Gentile church) in an act of self preservation, claimed we were incapable of following that path and we should stick to the old ways and say sorry instead. Repentance means change, not 'I'm sorry'. Forgiveness as a result became profitable.
The path that the original followers of Jesus had taken was repentance. They changed. Yet at the hands of the Gentile's, these sects were all but wiped out or forced to join the Gentile branch of the Hebrew tree. Why forced? Because in following the Kingdom, they dared to step outside the realm of mankind's traditional system of power and authority which scripture said that the Gentile's had always been heavily into. Luke 22: 25 And he said unto them, The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and they that exercise authority upon them are called benefactors.
There were however those of a minority within the gentile religion who took Jesus at His word, who followed His example as time went by. Rather than condemn those that the people admired as Saul had once done, rather than chastise them for rebelling against the system of self serving man that institutions must follow, the church simply gave them the status of saints. Saints were special and their ways the people were told, were beyond the reach of the masses who could never achieve such a position of saintliness. Those rarities were God's chosen (or so it was said). Venerate them, don't emulate them.
Forget about doing what the saints did in simply putting the will of God before the will of man thus loving all as self. The masses must continue to follow the leadership and authority of the governing religion that controlled them. The governance of God was once again replaced by the governance of man.
Although completely in harmony with the secular governments which follow the same methods of operation, they passed themselves off as different, as spiritual, not secular leaders. Just as the Pharisees had done, while running the same types of institutions.
Ironically, just as the Romans had done with the Pharisees, these spiritual institutions were also commandeered by the secular governments as a tool and means of keeping the people under control. Legal now, the new church partnered with the secular world and became a world power itself. The spiritual leaders, under the guise of spirituality, kept the masses locked in the flesh. These shepherds did lead their flocks... but away from the Kingdom and back into the realms of man. Little has changed today.
Why? Because the ideals of the various churches of today are for the most part all based on this early diversion from the Christ's teachings, reverting back into the traditional ways of man. The blind have lead the blind for centuries and today their path is accepted as gospel fact yet often merely based on theological tradition.
How is this religion then off track? One simply has to do as Jesus said and look towards Him and towards the example that He set. Religion will tell you to see a Messiah and that we must believe in Him, (simply as often taught) because the Pharisees didn't. We can be saved by doing what the Jewish people didn't do in their rejection of Him. Him, not His teachings. Yay Gentiles. Boo Jews. Sigh. They tell us nothing about rejecting the ideals of man as Jesus taught, but rather that we need only accept the Saviour.
Realistically, Jesus set the example for us to follow. He said that we were all capable of following that example also. This seems to conflict with many church teachings that condemn us as being unchangeable and locked in adversity. Primarily what He told us for three years was to reject the traditional ways of man and follow the ideals of the Kingdom to come. How many sermons emulate that? Woe unto you scribes and theologians who redefine good and evil to suit your doctrines.
What He was saying in reality is that in the beginning, after rejecting the Kingdom and governance of the Father, we were turned out of the Garden and into the world. Tough love. Learn from your mistakes. Now Jesus said it was time to offer a reversal of misfortune, for the Kingdom was once again available to those who rejected these age old traditions of mankind's self serving ideals and for those who understood why (thus solidifying that rejection).
The end result? Resurrection. By showing their faith in the alternate ways of the upside down Kingdom as it was called and not the governance of man, we would find the entrance to the Kingdom. An entrance which would only be through Him by following His ideals. Those ideals being only of the Kingdom, and believing what He had said about them and their power to counteract the evils of mankind. No back-door entrance by claiming to believe in God or the Messiah, yet not doing as He commanded. Satan already does that, so no prize there.
JOHN 14: 6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
When Jesus said this, He wasn't being vague. Taken in context with His Gospel of the Kingdom, He was saying not only was He the Messiah but just as important (Messenger AND message) what He said about the Kingdom was about the way to salvation (hence The Way being the name of the first followers). Not only His good news of the Kingdom being a reality, that the permanent death penalty would be lifted when His work here was finished, but more so that the Kingdom was with you and within you. That the ideals of the Kingdom as an alternative to man's ideals, was truth or He wouldn't have told us so. Jesus was with us and set the example, and as God was likewise within us, we are given the ability for us to do likewise and love all as self.
Yet the scoffers would call that works. It is agreed, there is no works that man can do that will give us what God gave, and what Jesus sacrificed Himself for (the Kingdom). But we still have to play by God's rules and reject those self serving ideals/rules of mankind of which we are a part of.
The worldly of course, don't want to have to take it quite that far, preferring to call belief good enough. Easier in their minds for them to have allegiance to both those worlds, especially for the rich or politically oriented Christians already deeply rooted in the world of man.
These are they who are rich in the ideals of man, rather than those, the poor in spirit who have few or no ideals of man. These are the Lord Lords who use God to justify their actions but refuse to change themselves to suit Him rather than suit fellow man. They come to God but fail to do His works, His commands. They reject the Kingdom's ways in order to build their own empires. What empire of man has ever been built upon loving all as self?
No man will come to the Father without first understanding what Jesus is telling us, His Gospel of the Kingdom.
Here lies the key to the great cover up over the centuries by a religion that has whored itself back to the world of man to become a world power identical to those who gave it legality and as a partner in crime in the first place. Not a new Jerusalem but the same old Jerusalem as that of the Pharisees.
The Gospel of the Kingdom, even though it is plainly written in scripture, is glossed over by doctrines of the church. This diversion has the masses skimming over truth in order to defend what the blind have taught the blind for centuries. Like displaying allegiance to a nation, it became more important for the church to defend the doctrines of the church than defend the teachings of the Man which their institution was built upon. The world defends it's own. Did you keep that in mind?
© ...timothyu
