Jeffs-Site

Well, to talk about misunderstandings regarding who taught what, and what is what, is just wanted to start by addressing this issue of sometimes unintentional slander and misunderstanding. When people talk about Christ, or Christians or you attempt to address someones ideas about beliefs, sometimes this word comes into play, which is pretty lame. It’s interesting to me when you usually confront smeone on this, they’ll say something to the effect of “well, my neighbor was this guy, or my sister is so , or ” and I’ll always have to say no, I’m not talking about your neighbor, I’m talking about Christ, what exactly did he teach and how do you feel that this disagrees with it.. ” and usually 80% or more of the time they cannot cite to me a single scripture, or teaching or word, it is a mindless conditioning, a socially learned behaviour, due to a lack of effort to read and confront their accuser sometimes just trying to be polite..

And this is why.. Christ didn’t preach or teach instantaneous perfection in the eyes of God and man. If you read that somewhere in his teachings I’d really like to have you point it out to me because so far I’ve missed it. What Christ taught was that we all fall short of the glory of God. That under the law, which is what God defined and used as what we should aim for prior to Christ’s teachings, and what was not ok, from his own mouth, that we all blow it in God’s eyes, not one of us can uphold the law 100%. The image of perfection we were made in, corrupted by the fall of adam and eve through the deception of information from the enemy(Enemy of God, and Enemy of Man) is now a fallen nature, and we are even attempting to strive to be in that image and conduct ourselves in a way that is closest to that as we can, as it was before the fall. Unfortunately, we have these things at work: Goals of things we aim for, both in our selves, and in the way we interact with others, and the way we behave in the eyes of God, and our fallen natures, which are the cause of our bad decisions, for those things that make no sense, for our blindness, for our blaming of God for things which we actually do, and so forth. He taught the forgiveness of all sins. And for those well versed in Jewish practice up until that time, that he was the end of sacrifices, and the beginning of a new covenant between God and man. No more impersonal sacrifices of rams and lambs offered up for sins, which still sets a precedent, but that his death (hence the name Lamb of God) on the cross as a blameless and sinless man, and as the Son of God as fortold by the scriptures for hundreds and thousands of years ahead of the fact, was the end all and all and be all of all sacrifices, and that from that point forward, no one comes to God except through him, as stated by God at Christ’s baptism.

Paul who was one of the twelve, and an apostle, and disciple said it like this and said it well expressing what we all experience and go through “that which I wish I did do, this I do not, and that which I wish I did not do, this I do. For when I want to do good, sin is right there beside me. I see this war at work within my flesh”

This is actually the message that was preached, and is the correct teaching. So for someone to accuse us of being hypocrites what they’re really saying is that “from what I understand, I think you should be aiming to act, behave, etc. in this way, and from what I can tell you’re doing something that’s falling short of it” or maybe another way to say that is to say that we are missing the mark, or the goal. Which interestingly enough is where the word “Sin” comes from. It is an old archery term meaning literally “to miss the mark” or the Bullseye, or in this case the goal, the desired behaviour. Sometimes they’re right and we shoud just say “yeah you’re right , I’m not doing well with that I’m trying but today, I’m just not doing so hot on that, sorry”.Adn this is the very notion of forbearance and grace, and forgiveness, which is the true message, and the Truth. The goal stays the same, and even when we fall short it will stay there. But hypocracy is not taking place, hypocracy would be taking place if Christ preached instantaneous perfection, and by acceptance of him as Lord and Saviour we had attained it, and he doesn’t, he teaches forgiveness. We obtain access to God through forgiveness, and grace. So we are Sinning, and falling short when we are not being perfect, but we are not being hypocrites. The goal is still the same, and the message is not contradictory.

Unfortunately, it seems, people can lose sight of the big stuff, and somehow being loving, having self control, and compassion, in essence “to love your neighbor as you love yourself” isn’t paid attention to, and depending how it’s said, sometimes we should thank peole for pointing out something that we might need to work on if it is a legitimate complaint, or if it makes them stumble in their walk with God, and especially if it does both if we can do so without compromising our walk with God and make an illegitimate complaint seem justified which we do not want to do. Ignorant complaints shoudl be ignored so that the person will continue to think about what’s really going on, and maybe come to realisation of their false accusation, but we should always try to be considerate and loving if we know something bothers someone and it’s a legitimate grey zone in our walk with God. Even though, pointing someone elses faults is a fantastic way to avoid focusing on yourself, and usually the person saying it has plenty to work on themselves. I always told people “I’ll tell you what, when you you reach perfection please feel free to criticize me about anything you want, until then, please try to focus on yourself, and what you need to do, and I’ll try to do the same”.

On this same note, we do not have to conform, nor did Christ, to what others said he should or should not be, they are not the ones in charge, for they are not God. We need to be concerned with what God want’s above all else, and “Love him with all of our Heart, all of our Mind, and all of our Soul.” Fulfilling all of the teachings of the prophets and of the Law. To do both of these things I mentioned fulfills it all.(Love your neighbor as you love yourself) and “Love him with all of our Heart, all of our Mind, and all of our Soul.”

I hope this helped.

Love,

Jeff