Loving God

Jesus stated that the greatest commandment was to Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. I believe this means that we are to love God with everything within us, with everything that we are, nothing held back. So why is it so difficult for us to consistently love God this way?

I believe it has to do with our perception of who God is. Most of us were raised to fear God, that God was just waiting for us to do something “bad” so he could punish us in some way. That God was an angry, punitive, judgmental God. And if this is your view of God, it makes sense that you would struggle to love God for you would always be fearful of doing something that could cause him to pull his love away from you. When you are being “good” you believe he approves of you so you can love God, but when you are being “bad” you believe he disapproves of you so you pull away from God.

Humans have a way of projecting God into their image. Because we are shown conditional love on earth, we assume God is the same way with his love. Then we make the mistake of assuming that God is a person, a man, a human like us, therefore thinks and feels like we do. Reality is God is a spirit, an energy of love and is nothing like a human being/body. God is the highest form of love, the Bible states that there is no fear in God. And if there is no fear in God, God is incapable of doing something to instill fear in you. Fear does not exist in the higher realms, it is a man made feeling relegated to planet earth. God has given us free will, the ability to make whatever choices we want. And while there is no punishment from God for our choices, there are natural consequences that come from our choices. If you choose not to study for a test, there is a good chance you may not pass it. If you choose to be mean to people, you may have a difficult time keeping good friends. If you invest your money wisely, you will receive more money. If you drive drunk, you could cause harm to yourself or others. God’s love for you is the same regardless of whether your choices are good or bad. God’s love is continuously shining on you, it is impossible to turn it off but you can choose to refuse to receive it.

The only fear we are to have toward God is one of reverence, awe and gratitude for who God is and his great love for us. When you have this kind of reverential fear toward God you want to be in his presence because you understand his unconditional love is just that, unconditional. There is nothing you could ever say or do to cause him to love you any less or more than he does right now. Therefore, you feel safe in his presence and can relax and allow a loving relationship to develop and flourish between the two of you every day, regardless of what is going on in your life. And when you have this kind of a loving relationship between the two of you, the desire to do evil, bad, selfish, harmful things to yourself or others, fades away. When you are living from love, these things lose their appeal. Therefore, you choose to do good, not because you fear God’s punishment if you do not, but because you are so filled with God’s love, you have no desire for ‘bad” anymore.

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Oh, to be Free…

How many rules/laws does a society need?  And why do we need so many? In our American society we have so many rules/laws it is impossible to obey or enforce them all. While we do need some basic ones to ensure safety such as traffic laws, and some so people know what is expected of them in different situations, many of our rules/laws stem from fear and keep people in a place of opression.

We are taught that we need these rules/laws because we are born with a sin nature. Left on our own, we will naturally gravitate toward harming others to insure our own survival. We can look around our own society and through history to see how this manifests on a global scale and on a personal scale between individual people. However, I would disagree with the reason behind this need for rules/laws. I believe we need these rules/laws because of the beliefs we have about each other that are rooted in fear. When we see ourselves as separate from each other, when we believe we must compete against each other, when the only love we know is conditional, we live from a fear based survival mode, protecting self above all others. If I believe you can hurt me, I need laws to protect me from you. If I believe in lack, I need laws to insure my needs get met.

God created us with free will because he wanted us to be free. And yet all these rules/laws prevent us from being free. We have all these other people/agencies/ governments telling us what we can or cannot do, attempting to legislate a moral code. God is limitless and without restriction of any kind. We were created in God’s image to be free. When limitations are placed on us we naturally rebel against them. Intuitively we know we were created to be free.

But what would happen if we changed our beliefs and believed that we all come from the same source, God. That we are all interconnected, all brothers and sisters. That nature, animals and everything else God created was an expression of God.  That what I do to someone else, I am doing to me and I am doing to God. Now we are living from the law of love Jesus taught, and manmade rules/laws are no longer necessary. I do what is right, not because a law tells me to or I fear punishment if I do not obey the law. I do what is right because I love God, self and others and know that when I harm you, I am harming myself and the greater society in which we all live.

I believe as a human species we are designed to evolve from fear based beings to love based beings. From fear based beliefs to love based beliefs. From the need to live by man-made laws/rules to live by the higher spiritual Truths of God I blogged about last week.

I believe we are in a place where we are ready to make this leap. There is so much fear and control in the world today, people are feeling fearful, defeated and disempowered. But the way to be free and empowered is not by enacting more rules/laws. It happens when each one of us as individuals choose to move from fear to love in what we believe and in how we choose to treat each other. It happens through a divine spiritual connection to the one who created and loves us, the Source of all that is. Do not look to governments or religions to save you. The root of all the problems in our society is a spiritual one. When enough of us individuals choose to reconnect to God/Source/Love, the society around us will slowly begin to shift in a more positive direction.

 

 

 

Truth

A truth is an understanding about something that never changes. It is a constant that we can always depend upon to guide us through life. It is true for everyone regardless of gender, nationality, religion, age, social status, etc. It is not created by man. It was put into place when God created life. It is true not just for life on earth but for everything God created in the multi-universe. It is something that you discover as you journey through life and it resonates deep within your being. You cannot discredit truth. Truth is truth, and it can neither be proven nor disproved. It simply is. Truth is often referred to as Universal Law or Higher Spiritual Law or Truth, and supersedes any man-made belief systems we create. Following are some of these Truths:

There is only one God: The existence of a creator, source, being from which, everything is created from and held together by.

God is Everywhere: Since God created everything, the presence of God resides in everything. That which is far away in distant galaxies and in the soul of every human.

God is Love: Therefore, there is no reason to fear God, there is no judgement or condemnation from God.

The Law of Love: Love is who we are at our core, and when we operate from love rather than fear, everyone benefits. Love God and love others as you love yourself.

The Soul is Eternal: Humans are eternal spirits who have always been and always will be. On planet earth your sprit lives in a human body but will continue to live beyond this earthly existence in a soul body.

The Law of One: Because everything was created by God, we are all interconnected to each other and what we do, say, think and feel affects everything within us and beyond us. Do unto others as you would want them to do onto you.

The Law of Vibration or Attraction: Everything is vibrating energy and what you put out is what you will attract back into your life. You reap what you sow.

The Law of Abundance: There is no lack in God and when we live by this law everyone’s needs will be met. The earth was created with plenty of resources for everyone. The problem is man lives in fear so hoards things rather than living from love and sharing things.

Every Truth is based on love because love is who God is
Love is all there is
Love is the ultimate reality
Choose love

Beliefs

A belief is a man originated idea about how something works or what something means based on observation, knowledge and experience. And we need these beliefs to help us understand ourselves and the world around us. They determine the choices we make in life. They help hold a society together. But we can get into trouble when we refuse to revisit beliefs to see if they need to change. When we have been living with certain beliefs for so long, it is scary to consider letting them go or changing them when they no longer serve us. They have become part of our identity and give us a sense of security. They are the box in which we live.

Scientists used to believe that by the time you were an adult, your brain was set and could not change. We now understand that the brain is constantly changing as we go through life.
We used to believe women could not vote or work, now they do both.
We used to believe the world was flat but now believe it is round.
Some of you were told you were stupid, not worth much and you believed these things about yourself because they came from authority figures. But as an adult, you can choose to change them and believe you are a smart, capable person.

But there is one area we are usually told where beliefs are not allowed to change and that is religious beliefs. Even though there is plenty of evidence that some of these beliefs are wrong and no longer serve us, we continue to hang onto them because we have elevated them to Truth. We have built institutions around these beliefs so to change a few of them could cause too much controversy and disruption. We have associated these beliefs with God and so believe that if we change them, God is going to be displeased with us and punish us in some way. We are told not to question these beliefs because wise men from thousands of years ago received these beliefs from God so they cannot be changed. However, what we fail to understand is that beliefs are associated with the culture and historical time of when they originate. This is one of the reasons why beliefs need to change as the human civilization continues to advance in our knowledge and understanding of who we are, what our purpose is, who God is, and how we impact each other and the world around us. It is easy to confuse a belief with Truth, especially with religious beliefs, which is another reason why we refuse to change them.  A belief can be revisited and changed to adapt to new knowledge and experience. Truth, however, remains the same and next week I will write about how Truth differs from belief.

An old belief is like an old shoe. We so value its comfort that we fail to notice the hole in it.” Robert Brault

 

 

 

The Root of Shame

Shame is a feeling and belief that there is something inherently wrong with you. It is not that you did something bad, it is that you are bad at the core of who you are. I used to believe that shame came out of the relationships people had with parents or other adults while growing up who failed to love them and spoke negative, hurtful words over them. And while I still believe that to be true, I now realize that there is an even deeper root for shame. It is the belief religion teaches us that we are born sinners, we come out of the womb with a sin nature. My belief about this started to change when I witnessed the birth of my grandchildren and realized that they were born in perfection. Beautiful beings of love. We are all created in the image of Creator God who is the source of all life. If we say we are born with a sin nature, it would mean that God is sin, not love. What we believe about ourselves will determine everything about us. I want to show you the following comparison about these two beliefs, born in sin versus born in love.

Looking outside of self for answers because no good thing resides in me, I need some type of a savior figure to save me from myself.
I am perfect and complete just as I am, created in the image of God which is love. I am “saved” when I realize and embrace this Truth and begin to live it out.

I am unable to love myself because I am not worthy of love due to my sin nature
I can freely love myself because as God’s child, I am worthy of love.

Sin is my identity, so this is what I am conscious of all the time, perpetuating my shame
Love is my identity, so this is what I am conscious of all the time, extending love to myself and others

I live with feelings of hopelessness, stuck in this condition of sin
I live with feelings of hopefulness, free to experience and enjoy my life

I continuously beat myself up when I do something I deem sinful
I love myself even when I make mistakes, it is an opportunity to learn and grow from the experience into a better person

We are often very fearful about giving up beliefs that we were raised in as being truth. In fact, the church and fellow Christians may attempt to shame you if you consider changing the beliefs you were taught. But I am at the place in my life where I realize, if a belief is not based in love, it cannot be from God and I need to have the courage to release it and embrace what resonates as Truth deep within my being.

 

 

A Season of Change

Now that I have completed the Course of Miracles blog series, I had to decide what I would blog on next. I decided to start off with this first blog with something personal. God has had me on a journey of change and transformation for several years now. Initially it was on the macro scale, changing my beliefs about so many different things that led to my book, God is Love. But two years ago, he asked me to leave Illinois where I had lived for the past 20 years. Leaving my home, business, children, grand-kids, church, friends and marriage behind to being a new life in California. Some days it felt overwhelming and I can honestly say I have shed more tears in the past two years than over my entire life. I have had to die to just about everything but through the process God is showing me who he created me to be and who He is within me.

Today I wanted to answer questions people have had about the divorce. I was married for 38 years and like most marriages it was a mixture of good and bad times. My husband has borderline personality disorder. I felt like I was living with 2 very different men. The good Dan was a loving, caring person, it was the one the public saw and the one I loved. The bad Dan  was a verbally and emotionally abusive person, the one I feared. I never knew when the switch would occur or what had precipitated it. People ask me why I did not leave sooner so here are my reasons:

1. I believed that if I just prayed and believed enough God would heal our marriage. We are told to never give up on our marriage. We are told that God hates divorce and we need to obey God. I played the role of good Christian wife very well.
2. I did not want my children growing up in a divorced family
3. I feared what people would think about me
4. I did not want to disrespect my husband in public so few people knew what the marriage was really like.
5. Over the years I had accepted my situation, learned how to minimize things, make excuses, and justify things. Easier to remain with what I knew than to venture out into something new.
6. Dan had always been the main financial provider, I did not know how I could financially survive on my own.

I am forever grateful for the friends and family who gave me the courage to admit the truth and file for divorce. I have never regretted the decision. I feel like a new person and am excited about the future God has planned for me. He has given me a supportive church family here, new friendships and is blessing my business. My divorce will be final on October 5, and I will be celebrating.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Course in Miracles Chapter 31: The Final Vision

The title for chapter 31 is The Final Vision. Within this chapter are the following sub-titles: The Simplicity of Salvation, Walking with Christ, The Self-Accused, The Real Alternative, Self-Concept versus Self, Recognizing the Spirit, The Savior’s Vision, and Choose Once Again.

This is the last chapter of the Course of Miracles and summarizes what has been taught throughout this book. It brings us to the beginning of when people first came to earth and forgot who they were and the God who loved and created them. “The world began with one strange lesson, powerful enough to render God forgotten, and His Son an alien to himself, in exile from the home where God Himself established him.” People were then given a choice.
1.  Continue living in the illusion that they are alone and separated from God, living a life led by fear and the ego.
2. Remember and believe the Truth that they are not alone and choose to reconnect with God, living a life led by love and the Holy Spirit.
The choice you make, will create the world you live in each day.

And yet, for many people, it is a difficult choice to make. When you have lived a life where everything is based in fear; beliefs, relationships, religions, governments, an entire society based in fear, it becomes very normal to you and you no longer see it as an illusion but as truth.  And so even though there is a part of you that yearns for love and knows there must be something better than what you now have, your security has been placed in the fear based systems of which you live. To surrender the life you know is a very scary prospect. People would rather live with what is predictable and safe, than risk change or what they perceive as the unknown. “Let us be still an instant, and forget all things we ever learned, all thoughts we had, and every preconception that we hold of what things mean and what their purpose is. Let us remember not our own ideas of what the world is for. We do not know. Let every image held of everyone be loosened from our minds and swept away.” This statement is the path that will lead you out of fear and into love. The willingness to surrender all and deny yourself of everything you thought was truth, so you can clearly see the face of Christ within you.  It is the journey God took me on that I wrote about in my book, God is Love, A Spiritual Journey from Fear to Love.

We are taught to look for God outside of ourselves. Find him in religion, beliefs, rituals, nature, gurus or spiritual experiences. And you will learn about God in many of these. However, there is a difference between having knowledge about God and having a relationship with God. This course teaches that Jesus taught us that a relationship with God is found within, the Kingdom of God is within you.  We are also taught to look for ourselves outside of ourselves. That our identity is in what we do, the roles we play in life. This book states that we find ourselves in who God says we are. You are a child of God, an eternal spiritual being, forever connected to God and this is your true identity. ACIM teaches that you both find God within yourself and find yourself within God. “Seek not another signpost in the world that seems to point to still another road. The search for different pathways in the world is but the search for different forms of truth. And this would keep the truth from being reached. But you forgot His Presence and remembered not His Love. All roads that lead away from what you are will lead you to confusion and despair. You cannot escape from what you are. Nowhere but where He is can you be found.”

“In joyous welcome is my hand (Jesus) outstretched to every brother who would join with me in reaching past temptation, and who looks with fixed determination toward the light that shines beyond in perfect constancy. I give You thanks for what my brothers are. And as each one elects to join with me, the song of thanks from earth to Heaven grows from tiny scattered threads of melody to one inclusive chorus from a world redeemed from hell, and giving thanks to you. And now we say Amen. For Christ has come to dwell in the abode You set for Him before time was, in calm eternity. The journey closes, ending at the place where it began. Not one illusion is accorded faith, and not one spot of darkness still remains to hide the face of Christ from anyone. Thy Will is done, compete and perfectly, and all creation recognized You, and knows You as the only Source it has. Clear in Your likeness does the light shine forth from everything that lives and moves in You. For we have reached where all of us are one, and we are home, where You would have us be.”

A Course in Miracles Chapter 30: The New Beginning

The title for chapter 30 is The New Beginning. Within this chapter are the following sub-titles: Rules for Decision, Freedom of Will, Beyond All Idols, The Truth Behind Illusions, The Only Purpose, The Justification for Forgiveness, The New Interpretation, and Changeless Reality.

Throughout your day you are making decisions. Some you are conscious of and some you are not. And every decision you make, no matter how small or large, is going to affect you and those around you. This chapter talks about the importance of being aware of every decision you make so you can create the kind of life you really want to live. “Throughout the day, at any time you think of it and have a quiet moment for reflection, tell yourself again the kind of day you want; the feelings you would have, the things you want to happen to you, and the things you would experience.”

“You will not make decisions by yourself whatever you decide. For they are made with idols or with God.” An idol is anything that puts a limitation on yourself or on God. It can be a belief, law, rule, an illusion you believe to be true, etc. You are taught that limitations and boundaries are important because they protect you. However, when they come from man rather than God, they become idols and keep you bound as you become fearful of living without them. “All idols are the false ideas you made to fill the gap you think arose between yourself and what is true. The wearying, dissatisfying gods you made are blown-up children’s toys. A child is frightened when a wooden head springs up as a closed box is opened suddenly, or when a soft and silent wooly bear begins to squeak as he takes hold of it. The rules he made for boxes and for bears have failed him, and have broken this “control” of what surrounds him. And he is afraid, because he thought the rules protected him. Now must he learn the boxes and the bears did not deceive him, broke no rules, nor mean his world is made chaotic and unsafe. He was mistaken. He misunderstood what made him safe, and thought that it had left. Reality observes the laws of God, and not the rules you set. It is His laws that guarantee your safety. You do not want whatever you believe an idol gives.”

When making decisions people put limitations on what they think they can do or what they believe God can do. Your will and God’s are one, as God lives his life through you. When you unite your will with God’s you no longer struggle over decision making because you are now led by the Holy Spirit. “God would not have His Son made prisoner to what he does not want.  And to oppose Him is to make a choice against yourself and choose that you be bound. For what is done to him whom God so loves is done to God Himself. Think not He wills to bind you, who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him.  He would but keep your will forever and forever limitless.”

People put more faith in their idols than in their relationship with God. You believe you are missing something, you are flawed, and so you look for people or things to fill this perceived emptiness inside which become your idols. Reality is there is nothing wrong with you other than your misunderstanding of who you really are. You are a beloved child of God. And because God is limitless, so are you. “Idols are limits. Decide for idols and you ask for loss. Behind the search for every idol lies the yearning for completion. To seek a special person or a thing to add to you to make yourself complete, can only mean that you believe some form is missing. It is not form you seek. What form can be a substitute for God the Fathers Love? What form can take the place of all the love in the Divinity of God the Son?”

May your love for God and your relationship with God make you complete and be the reason behind every decision you make.

Next week will be the final blog from the Course of Miracles.

 

 

 

 

A Course in Miracles Chapter 29: The Awakening

The title for chapter 29 is The Awakening. Within this chapter are the following sub-titles: The Closing of the Gap, The Coming of the Guest, God’s Witnesses, Dream Roles, The Changeless Dwelling Place, Forgiveness and the End of Time, Seek Not Outside Yourself, The Anti-Christ, and The Forgiving Dream. This chapter is about our awakening from being led by people, fears, and beliefs that no longer serve us, to being led by God through the Holy Spirit.

“There is no time, no place, no state where God is absent. There is nothing to be feared.” I found this an interesting verse to contemplate. Because God is love and God is everywhere, there is no reason to fear. And yet, humans continue to live with fear. I believe our greatest fear is that we fear being loved by God. We do not feel we deserve God’s extravagant love. We want to know there is a way out, just in case we need it, in case we do something that could turn God against us. This is based in the false teaching that we are to fear God, that God is a judgmental, angry being. “Be wary, then let Him not come too close, and leave a gap between you and His Love, through which you can escape if there be need for you to flee. Think you the Father lost Himself when He created you? Was He made weak because He shared His Love?  See how eagerly He comes, and steps aside from heavy shadows that have hidden Him, and shines on you in gratitude and love.” There is no fear in God for God is love.

This chapter talks about how you are to seek truth within, rather than outside of yourself, because the presence of God is within. Too many people rely on others to tell them what to do, what to believe, and are led astray because they lack discernment and the confidence to hear God for themselves. When you seek for it outside of yourself it refers to this as an idol. “All idols of this world were made to keep the truth within from being known to you, and to maintain allegiance to the dream that you must find what is outside yourself to be complete and happy. It is vain to worship idols in the hope of peace. God dwells within, and your completion lies in Him. No idol takes His place. Look not to idols. An idol is a false impression or a false belief, some form of anti-Christ, that constitutes a gap between the Christ and what you see.  Whenever you feel fear in any form, and you are fearful if you do not feel a deep content, a certainty of help, a calm assurance Heaven goes with you; be sure you made an idol, and believe it will betray you. An idol is established by belief, and when it is withdrawn the idol “dies.” You are taught to live your life by man made beliefs whether they come from society, religion, media or other sources. But a belief is not truth, therefore it is an idol. Truth comes from the higher spiritual laws of God that govern life. They are received through the Spirit, have no fear associated with them, and will resonate deep within you.