Are you a Fan or a Follower of Jesus?

[ChristineES]

I guess I am a typical true Christian.........a new creature in Christ....

May your life be a bundle of joy!

Hi. Welcome to the RF. I wouldn't really worry. They really are nice people once you get to know them (and no, I am not being sarcastic). I hope you stick around for awhile.

 

[blackout]

Hi. Welcome to the RF. I wouldn't really worry. They really are nice people once you get to know them (and no, I am not being sarcastic). I hope you stick around for awhile.

Do you feel I have come off as "not nice" Christine?

 

[ChristineES]

Do you feel I have come off as "not nice" Christine?

You are one of the nicest people on the RF.

 

[blackout]

You are one of the nicest people on the RF.

Thank you honey. :hug:
And that coming from THE nicest person on the RF.
Well, perhaps it's a three way with Mystic and Gentoo.

They did give me that heart medal. lol!

I almost fell off my chair.

I do try to be ... purposeful ... anyway,
in what I say.
There USUALLY is no meaningful purpose served
in attacking... people.
Usually. :bat:

 

[no-body]

The statement is not really about Jesus at all but about control, no matter what most Christians hem and haw about God and the bible it is all about satisfying the ego by proxy ("MY version is the true version" but the mind blocks out the MY and substitutes God)

I find great value in Jesus teachings from a secular and mystical level, but what he is saying at the core is no different than any other Bodhisattva so I can see why some are not enamored with his teachings.

I do not care about the baggage Christianity has, I can enjoy Jesus words for themselves. The Jefferson bible in this regards is one of the best things to read, separating out the supernatural demon Christ from the great philosopher is essential.

 

[ChristineES]

Thank you honey. :hug:
And that coming from THE nicest person on the RF.
Well, perhaps it's a three way with Mystic and Gentoo.

They did give me that heart medal. lol!

I almost fell off my chair.

I do try to be ... purposeful ... anyway,
in what I say.
There USUALLY is no meaningful purpose served
in attacking... people.
Usually. :bat:

I think your heart medal is deserved. I don't think I have ever seen you attack anyone personally. We all have our reservations about certain things and we all know that some people do commit evil in the name of religion (amongst other things). It is a very sad truth. But you have never been anything but kind to other people.

 

[Eagle]

I was once a typical "true Christian" too.

It's funny how my greatest epiphany and joy,
as a christian too true even for any church,
is what led me right out of christianity itself.

My 'true baptism' was in my inground swimming pool.
And WHY was it my "true" one?
Because it is the one that TRULY CHANGED Me.
I dove in head first after many years,
then swam the entire length of the pool.
There was no one there to "officiate".
Just Me and gOd.
It was a thing of ACTUAL(Ized) courage, and ACTUAL depth.
Symbolic Actualization.
It was in the midst of a Heightened Reality experience/
paradigm shift that lasted many months.
My life became a total Wonderland,
in every way.
You can't live between assemblage points forever though.
At some point your feet need to touch the ground again,
and you need to grasp the feeling of "measured" time... passing.
Though there's nothing like floating.

Oh, and as a 'True Christian', I called Jesus "Y'shua" also.
Spelled just like that. Also, Yahushua.

I don't know why I bother with all this. really.

It has nothing to do with the OP anyway.
Carry on.

There is a reason why you are mentioning it, something went horrible wrong, if you truly know Jesus, you would know that He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords........a forum is not a place to discuss these type of issues, but I would love to hear your testimony in private.

True Christians gave their lives to Him and He is their first love, it is written that we are not our own anymore, if you moved away from the Lord you did not give your spirit, soul and body to Him and you did not know that He is truly your Savior.

It could be that the church you were in had their own doctrines, did not explain to you what it means to be baptized and what it symbolizes.

The Holy Spirit is the one who changes our hearts and guide us to know Jesus....

This is some of my views and understanding....

May you have peace.

 

[blackout]

There is a reason why you are mentioning it, something went horrible wrong, if you truly know Jesus, you would know that He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords........a forum is not a place to discuss these type of issues, but I would love to hear your testimony in private.

True Christians gave their lives to Him and He is their first love, it is written that we are not our own anymore, if you moved away from the Lord you did not give your spirit, soul and body to Him and you did not know that He is truly your Savior.

It could be that the church you were in had their own doctrines, did not explain to you what it means to be baptized and what it symbolizes.

The Holy Spirit is the one who changes our hearts and guide us to know Jesus....

This is some of my views and understanding....

May you have peace.

Honey. Nothing went "horribly wrong".
Why do you assume I don't have peace,
when I just TOLD YOU I have inner peace.

There is no one I need, to "explain" gOd to me.

I'm truly sorry I got into this.
I shall try to remember not to do so again.

True Christians gave their lives to Him and He is their first love, it is written that we are not our own anymore, if you moved away from the Lord you did not give your spirit, soul and body to Him and you did not know that He is truly your Savior.

Your "assurity" about me,
regarding what I did, and didn't do,
leads you into ignorant judgementalism of me.

And yes,
his words, HIS Kingdom teachings,
did Save me from the standard christian church interpretations
that were literally killing me.

I'm done. This is a waste of my time.
Sorry to have wasted yours.

 

[Eagle]

Honey. Nothing went "horribly wrong".
Why do you assume I don't have peace,
when I just TOLD YOU I have inner peace.

There is no one I need, to "explain" gOd to me.

I'm truly sorry I got into this.
I shall try to remember not to do so again.

Your "assurity" about me,
regarding what I did, and didn't do,
leads you into ignorant judgementalism of me.

And yes,
his words, HIS Kingdom teachings,
did Save me from the standard christian church interpretations
that were literally killing me.

I'm done. This is a waste of my time.
Sorry to have wasted yours.

You did not waste my time,
I always am interested to hear the testimonies of people who walk away from the Faith, so I will truly appreciate your testimony.

If you have inner peace I am very happy for you.

Shalom

 

[blackout]

You did not waste my time,
I always am interested to hear the testimonies of people who walk away from the Faith, so I will truly appreciate your testimony.

If you have inner peace I am very happy for you.

Shalom

I did not walk away from "the Faith".

I walked into a more Wonderful View.

Shalom.

 

[Eagle]

I did not walk away from "the Faith".

I walked into a more Wonderful View.

Shalom.

Does it compare to the Word, or is your view a contradiction to the Word?

 

[Sententia]

Much of Jesus' teachings require an actual God to exist and be as he describes for them to be moral:

- don't stand up to injustice yourself; trust that God will ensure justice is done.
- don't worry about your needs; God will provide.

And some of Jesus' words and actions in the Bible are just nuts: cursing the fig tree?

What of his greatest commandments? (In his words...)

Matthew 22:36-39 (King James Version)
36Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

38This is the first and great commandment.

39And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

The first is clearly dependent on there being a god. His second one is love thy neighbor as thyself.

If your love is only for god with your whole heart and mind and soul is there any love left for yourself? And if not I feel bad for your neighbor.

There is a commentary

The substance of the commandments.

An interpreter of the law asked our Lord a question, to try, not so much his knowledge, as his judgment. The love of God is the first and great commandment, and the sum of all the commands of the first table. Our love of God must be sincere, not in word and tongue only. All our love is too little to bestow upon him, therefore all the powers of the soul must be engaged for him, and carried out toward him. To love our neighbour as ourselves, is the second great commandment. There is a self-love which is corrupt, and the root of the greatest sins, and it must be put off and mortified; but there is a self-love which is the rule of the greatest duty: we must have a due concern for the welfare of our own souls and bodies. And we must love our neighbour as truly and sincerely as we love ourselves; in many cases we must deny ourselves for the good of others. By these two commandments let our hearts be formed as by a mould. (Mt 22:41-46)

So we must be as concerned for our neighbors welfare and their souls and their bodies as we are concerned about our own welfare, souls and bodies.

So rich people can't be rich if poor people exist and say they are following the words of Jesus? You can't shoot anyone, ever. But wait is it just neighbors and how do you qualify as a neighbor?

Matthew 5:43-44 (King James Version)

43Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

44But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

So also love your enemy and bless them. So how does that work exactly... how do people justify living without hunger and go and pay in order to see a movie or to have cable TV when there are those still suffering with hunger? Are they loving their neighbors and enemies as Jesus did command?

 

[sky dancer]

Always???? Is that how you really see every single Christian? Why is it wrong to stereotype everyone else but OK to stereotype all Christians? Not all Christians support crusades and didn't back when they happened and so on. I have mentioned all this before again and again and still all the generalizing of us. Someone said that The Crusades are against Jesus' teachings, and they are. Jesus taught to leave people alone if they reject His word. OK, rant done.

Yes, that is how I see many Christians. It's been my experience. That's why it's so delightful and rare when a Christian says to me, I understand that Buddhism for you is as important as Jesus is to me as a Christian.

When I find that in a Christian, I cherish it.

 

[sky dancer]

I did not walk away from "the Faith".

I walked into a more Wonderful View.

Shalom.

I don't think you'll get this fellow, Eagle, to understand that.

 

[3Cheers4Lilith]

I'm not a Christian, but I'm a fan of Jesus the man. Not a fan of Christianity, and not a follower of Jesus.

 

[Sultan Of Swing]

What of his greatest commandments? (In his words...)



The first is clearly dependent on there being a god. His second one is love thy neighbor as thyself.

If your love is only for god with your whole heart and mind and soul is there any love left for yourself? And if not I feel bad for your neighbor.

These are the ideals by which we should live by. It is not telling us specific "amounts" of love to give, but instead telling us what we should do with it. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind." It is an ideal for us to live by, and what we should be doing with our love. It does not say "use all your love with no room for others".

So we must be as concerned for our neighbors welfare and their souls and their bodies as we are concerned about our own welfare, souls and bodies.

So rich people can't be rich if poor people exist and say they are following the words of Jesus? You can't shoot anyone, ever.

Once again, it is an ideal to live by and strive for. No one can follow it perfectly.

But wait is it just neighbors and how do you qualify as a neighbor?

Anyone and everyone is your neighbour.

So also love your enemy and bless them. So how does that work exactly... how do people justify living without hunger and go and pay in order to see a movie or to have cable TV when there are those still suffering with hunger? Are they loving their neighbors and enemies as Jesus did command?

Once again, it's an ideal. We should try to live by it, but none of us are perfect. These are all ideals that will lead us to perfection.

The chapter you mentioned is ended with the verse: (Matthew 5:48)
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."
No one can be perfect. The "therefore" implies that by doing all of these things, you will be very close to perfection. But no one can be perfect, and thus what is stated beforehand are ideals and what we should live by. No one can follow them exactly, and the Lord does not expect of us things we cannot do.

For example, you see a homeless man on the street. In an act of love, you then decide to let them stay with you for a couple of nights or give them a fairly large sum of money. While you haven't equally divided your wealth or tried to make the man as wealthy as you are, you are still following the ideals by which Jesus laid down.

 

[bhaktajan]

Yes, Jesus was an Avatar and/or a Boddhisattva preching "according to time an place" . . . teaching, by example, the first elementary Rule of Spiritual Life:
"You are not the (material) Body; you are Spirit Soul".

This "primary lesson of Spiritual Life" was taught at ta time of great existential angst.
And I was taught and understood with little more than one simple act: Jesus Died on the Cross and Rose from the dead and went to the father in heaven ---in such a way that all levels of society were privy to this affirmation that, "We are not the Body; we are Spirit Soul".

And Jesus's "Lord's Prayer" is universally appealing to basic logic.

 

[Wombat]

My 'true baptism' was in my inground swimming pool.
And WHY was it my "true" one?
Because it is the one that TRULY CHANGED Me.
I dove in head first after many years,
then swam the entire length of the pool way down at the bottom.
There was no one there to "officiate".
Just Me and gOd.

Hey UltraViolet

Thanks for that insight.

It took me back twenty years. I used to know a wonderful Christian poet, slightly eccentric, who would write love poems to God about his love of swimming.
For him swimming was the most public and private spiritual act, semi naked and vulnerable in a none too buff body in a public pool, he felt exposed and enclosed/enveloped, boyant and at risk....swimming was, for him, a Divine experience.

The last time I saw him he had just come back from the pool...twenty laps doing Butterfly...in the zone, flying, feeling like a dolphin, singing Gods praise as he went.

Climbed out of the pool extatic to overhear one young woman remark to another- "Bloody Macho fanatic".....and was gobsmacked at the disparity between his internal experience and her external assesment.

Thanks for the reminder....enjoy the pool.

"Ohhhhh the water...."

[youtube]hX8nAZftZL4[/youtube]
YouTube - ‪Van Morrison - And It Stoned Me‬‏

 

[Caladan]

You can generalise Christians with the Crusades if you wish to, but that does not make it true. It cannot represent Christianity, because it is the result of selfishness and using religion as a justification for horrible acts for a personal agenda.

hahaha. this is really funny.
and I do mean it with good humour. christianity has been used for selfish reasons all through history.
it is still the same christianity.
selfish and colonialist.

British colonialism is not the result of Christianity.
What happens in Iraq and Afghanistan is not the result of Christianity.

most of the troops and commanders taking part in these two episodes are and were fierce believers.
the politics of europe, has remained christian. and will remain christian.
it is puritanical, decayed, old men politics, with a very low sperm count.

 

[Wombat]

What happens in Iraq and Afghanistan is not the result of Christianity.
.

Nothing to do with it?

Jesus killed Mohammed: The crusade for a Christian military.

"Humphrey had been in Samarra for a month, and until that day his stay had been a quiet respite in one of the world’s oldest cities. Not long before, though, there had been a hint of trouble: a briefing in which his squad was warned that any soldier caught desecrating Islamic sites—Samarra is considered a holy city—would fall under “extreme penalty,” a category that can include a general court-martial and prison time. “I heard some guys were vandalizing mosques,” Humphrey says. “Spray-painting ’em with crosses.”
The rest of that Easter was spent under siege. Insurgents held off Bravo Company, which was called in to rescue the men in the compound. Ammunition ran low. A helicopter tried to drop more but missed. As dusk fell, the men prepared four Bradley Fighting Vehicles for a “run and gun” to draw fire away from the compound. Humphrey headed down from the roof to get a briefing. He found his lieutenant, John D. DeGiulio, with a couple of sergeants. They were snickering like schoolboys. They had commissioned the Special Forces interpreter, an Iraqi from Texas, to paint a legend across their Bradley’s armor, in giant red Arabic script.
“What’s it mean?” asked Humphrey.

“Jesus killed Mohammed,” one of the men told him. The soldiers guffawed.

JESUS KILLED MOHAMMED was about to cruise into the Iraqi night."

Jesus killed Mohammed: The crusade for a Christian military?By Jeff Sharlet (Harper's Magazine)

Tell it to the Iraqi's.