The Way

Jesus is The Way....

Relation before Religion

God is not religious and Jesus is not a Christian....

The Faith Wheel

This wheel spins clockwise by God’s power:

Romans 15:5 GWT May God, who gives you this endurance and encouragement, allow you to live in harmony with each other by following the example of Christ Jesus.

Romans 15:13 GWT May God, the source of hope, fill you with joy and peace through your faith in him. Then you will overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

1 John 1:4 GWT We are writing this so that we can be completely filled with joy.

1 John 2:5 GWT But whoever obeys what Christ says is the kind of person in whom God’s love is perfected. That’s how we know we are in Christ.

Relationship Over Religion

Religion is organizational. Religion boils down to people doing things to get to God (or gods). It is not necessarily a good or bad thing, but can be either. Motivations, good or bad, can include trying to please God, help God, know God, etc., or even evolve oneself into a god.

Relationship is personal. Person to person. The Living God and Creator made himself known from the beginning and even came into the world as a man named Jesus. The Bible says that God is love. The word love is translated as agape (unconditional) love. The evidence in people around the world and through the ages says that God comes at us with love. (The religious notions about man-made God may say many different things.) God desires a relationship with us, but our free will and resulting sin got in the way. God is the way-maker and He is Holy. He made a way for it be restored. Jesus is the way that He provided for each person ever born.

What about your deepest beliefs and convictions? Are they based on a religious core or a relational core? It is a simple question. But you may protest the question itself. After all, a loving God who makes a way for us by sending us his only son and allowing him to be slaughtered is a truly scandalous thing. But it doesn't end there as this son Jesus was raised to life and lives today as King of Kings over the universe and everything in it. He will live inside you too if you accept him and believe in him to forgive you of sin.

God is not religious. He is God.

Jesus is not a Christian. He is the Christ, the Savior of the world, and you, and me.

Relationship Words:

Romans 5:1 GWT Now that we have God’s approval by faith, we have peace with God because of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done.

Romans 6:23 GWT The payment for sin is death, but the gift that God freely gives is everlasting life found in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1 John 4:19 GWT We love because God loved us first.

Philippians 3:8-9 GWT I consider everything else worthless because I’m much better off knowing Christ Jesus my Lord….I threw it all away in order to gain Christ and to have a relationship with him. This means that I didn’t receive God’s approval by obeying his laws. The opposite is true! I have God’s approval through faith in Christ.

Help!

Sending leads to preaching.

Preaching leads to hearing.

Hearing leads to believing.

Believing leads to Calling on the Name of the Lord.

Romans 10

12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile--the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." 14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15 And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!" 16 But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our message?" 

About me

I'm a pool cleaner and I keep busy with a lot of other work to earn money for my family. 

I have found the answer to question that you don't even want to ask unless you already know it. 

There is a God, God is love, and God makes the way for us know God. 

I was blind but now I see. See what? The answer of course. It is rooted in love. 

Stop pretending that you want to know truth when you really want to justify yourself. 

Read the book of John in the Bible. Just read it, the whole thing, like the short book that it is. The answer you crave to the question you don't want to ask is there. 

Peace and love to you.

Thanks for visiting. 

Some Misconceptions

There are always misconceptions that each one of us has to deal with. Here are two for you to consider:

God is religious. 

Jesus is a Christian. 

God is not religious and Jesus is not a Christian. These concepts are true whether or not you are a believer. The most obvious things are apparently not obvious when we are at first surprised at the hearing of them. 

So Real. Surreal.

This morning I almost saw the Sun rise in the west. Here in Florida, at precisely 6:15 am, it was still dark. I was just up and looked out the bathroom window to the west. It was the Moon, lit up like the fire of a sun of another planet. It was so real, it was surreal. The atmosphere was cold and crystal clear. (Cold for us this time of year is 48 degF.) At the elevation of the Moon while the eastern sky was still dark, the Sun was beating on the Moon like crazy. The Moon burned like fire for three more minutes as it began to be hidden by the distant pine trees. Then it was over. 

Now the Sun is up and the Moon is down. It is day. Back to normal. But normal is not normal at all: this big blue marble spinning in the precise right balance in all space, energy, and time, teeming with life powered by the Sun. 

Sometime things don't appear as they really are. Sometimes things appear as they really aren't. Our Creator is never surprised and yet He delights in His creation. He delights in you, the crown jewel of his creation, and comes at you through love. 

God comes at you through Jesus, the Son of God. I understand a lot of things but this is not one of them. Why does God come at us through love? I don't know, but I do know it is not religion. Religion is usually the opposite: people trying to come at God, or gods, through all kind of different ways that people can invent. 

The love of God may seem surreal but it is real. It was demonstrated and it has a name. Jesus.