Orthodoxy

 Isa 42:9 “Behold, the former things have come to pass, Now I declare new things; Before they spring forth, I proclaim them to you.” God has never changed but if we engage Him intimately, He will reveal Himself continually in new surprising and sometimes shocking ways

As we experienced the true reality of who God is Father, Son and Spirit false doctrines and theologies will get exposed as lies, distortions and misrepresentations when compared with the truth who is Jesus. Jesus is the exact representation of the Father, Seen Me seen the Father.

 2 Cor 10:5 … The dynamic of our strategy is revealed in God’s ability to disengage mindsets and perceptions that have held people captive in pseudo fortresses for centuries! 6 Every lofty idea and argument positioned against the knowledge of God is cast down and exposed to be a mere invention of our own imagination. 

 Some of the doctrines we are going to re-examine in the light of new experiential truth. The nature of God – orthodoxy. Hell, Wrath, Anger, Eternal Judgement, Punishment, Eternal Conscious Torment, Separation or Inclusion?  Is death the end?

We are called to trust God relationally not try to please or appease Him that trust comes from knowing God loves us unconditionally. A love relationship is not performance based and cannot be fear based. God is love and wants us to experience Him relationally not religiously

Love that is forced, coerced or demanded is not love at all.  God is love and loves us freely because we are His children. We don’t have to try to earn God’s love, favor or blessing because of the fear that God is angry with us.

Where do we get our knowledge and understanding about God from? Childhood and home life? R.E. lessons at school?  Society, TV shows like the stereotypes shown in the Vicar of Dibley or the Simpsons?

 Perhaps we get our knowledge and understanding about God from: Sunday School? Church, Bible, Theology or Christian books? Through the truth of a relationship with Jesus and the Holy Spirit by personal experience?

I guarantee that everything other than knowing God personally through Jesus and the Holy Spirit will give us a warped and distorted image of God – “GOD”. Even our personal experiences can be filtered through our preconceived ideas, and religious programming unless they renew our minds by the truth.

Can we really know what is God actually like? Some say we can only know God through the bible but that is intellectual information about Him. Others say we can find out what God is like through books, testimonies, sermons, YouTube videos, podcasts but they are only hearsay.

They can all be inspirational and encourage us to pursue God for ourselves but are not sufficient on their own to enable us to know God. We can hear God’s voice and meet with Him face to face

How? By daily choosing to open our first love gate and engage with God inwardly and by accepting His invitation to daily step into the realms of heaven and meet with Him there.

Christianity as a religion has limited us to the bible and secondhand information. Christian theology is simply then an attempt to understand God as He is revealed in the Bible. What does the bible tell us about God?

That depends on whose opinion that you listen to. Catholic opinion. Orthodox opinion. Protestant opinion. Reformed opinion. Evangelical opinion. Charismatic opinion. 

What bible do we use? Whose interpretation of those bible translations are we to trust? There are many different translations, and all will have been translated with a bias. Is the theology and doctrine of others reliable evidence about God?

Maybe some of it is true but it is still not my personal experience. We do need personal revelation of the bible by the Holy Spirit but that is still not personal knowledge of God. Where did we get our understanding about God from? Who and what shaped that understanding?

Where did our beliefs come from? Is our knowledge of God just random chance of birth? Does it just depend on where and when we were born? Does it just depend on what religious tradition that we have been introduced to first?

Religious indoctrination through our childhood and upbringing can make our belief just an accident of birth. Parents of believers of a particular religion, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Christians etc. Or unbelievers agnostics or atheists.

Difficult life experiences can create an image of God that projects a distant uncaring hard-hearted God etc. He took a parent, sibling or friend when we were to young to understand. Religion creates a legalistic punishing image through Catholic or Anglican boarding school beatings.

God can be a DIY projection of our own image; God is like us but a bigger and nicer and better version of us. Distorted images of God cause us to become like the God we worship. We can become agents of that image like ISIS jihadists or Christendom crusaders or prolife bombers. 

There are so many distorted views of God created by religion or society. God as a harsh tyrant king. God the punishing judge. God the abusive step-parent. God the mighty avenger. God the absent father who is unsupportive and uncaring. 

God who wasn’t there when I needed him when I was abused, rejected or beaten. God the Santa hybrid. You better not cry … because Santa is coming to town because you earn your presents by being good and not being emotional.

Fairy Godmother in the sky who pops up sometimes but is not reliable or constant or with us. Sugar daddy in the sky where we are the gold diggers just after His stuff. Dead beat dad doesn’t care for the family.

God who is holy, legalistic, angry and demanding that you must please or appease or else. God who we try to manipulate like a cosmic grandparent to spoil us. God the genie in a lantern rub it right to get your 3 wishes.  

Doubt raises a question and when doubt appears it can be because we have outgrown our incomplete idea and imperfect knowledge about God – Brad Jersak. God says you can learn all this but now look at Me I’m bigger than anything you can learn.

We cannot be satisfied by the picture painted by others or ourselves because we do not have the intelligence or education to grasp who God is intellectually. It is only through experience that the nature of God can be known. Love will always be our plumb line.

I have had many experiences that have revealed God’s love at a new level. They have challenged and unraveled most of my theology and doctrine. I am not trying to create a new theology or convince you to change your doctrines but to be open to engage God’s love for yourself and see where that takes you.

I had a number of encounters with God that created cognitive dissonance within me, but they also expanded my reality of God and myself. I had a choice, fight to hold onto what I thought to be true or allow the Truth Jesus to renew my mind. 

Cognitive dissonance is the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to personal experience. Cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time.

Son reveal the Truth, unveil for people your testimony of who I am.  The lover of humanity is to be known face to face not at a fearful distance. Yes it is true that I am, has revealed Himself in a mystic union.

Now you can know that I am in the Father and He is in Me, and we are in you as you are in us. Son as you have turned your face towards us now help others come face to face with Me true pure unadulterated love. 

Son the greatest scandal of the age is about to be exposed. Many will not believe it but the truth of who I am and therefore who you are as My sons will be revealed. The lies of religion will be exposed by the pure light of truth.

The great I am is about to reveal Himself as the lover of your souls in what will amount to a whole new reality. True sons are to be revealed to be the song and dance of light to show off love to a deprived creation. You will be able to see clearly when the constructs of the knowledge of good and evil are removed from your minds.

Son reveal Me the true Me, let the Joshua generation know the true Me, unfettered by the old orders of the theology of intellectual information.  I am that I am is a lover available to know through the intimacy of a love affair that has been has been hidden through the ages and scandalized by religion. 

I have been wooing My people from before the foundation of the world now come experience true love.  The age of reason and enlightenment has covered My people in darkness so they could not see the real Me but only a veiled shadow of who I truly am.

I had engaged God’s heart many times with my spirit outside the limitations of time and space where my unrenewed mind could not function rationally. Then one day God said let me show you My mind – I am not going to describe it visually.

It was like being in the midst of a conversation. I got a brief glimpse of God’s reality. God was connected to everyone that had ever lived is living or will live all at once 108 Billion and counting. He was connected to everyone in the now knowing every choice and every decision made every micro second.

His loving desire was to bring good out of every choice to redeem even the most stupid decisions of every person. Rom 8:28 And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Rom 8:28 Meanwhile we know that the love of God causes everything to mutually contribute to our advantage. Wow what amazing love. That love is not limited to a select group of people who love God but is extended to everyone.

Son sink deeper and deeper into Me let the conversation of love surround you and immerse you and fill you.  Son let the truth that love reveals define you let it unveil your true image in Me. This why we need to be restored and renewed to God’s image of us.

Son you are along with the whole of mankind included in Me. So, open the eyes of all your faculties to truly know who you are by reconnecting with who you have been. He is referring to knowing our eternal spirit not a reincarnation of our soul.

In Me see your true image framed in love’s conversation revealed in love’s true expression.  Son be from love’s deepest well and let the spring become a fountain overflowing with love’s energizing power.

Open your mind and pose the questions what other answers may there be? Do not be afraid I will not be insulted by your questions because they are about your notions about Me.

God wants to renew our minds by deconstructing the frameworks that have restricted us and limited our ability to known Him and ourselves. God wants to challenge our preconceived programmed ideas about who He is.

Challenging doctrinal presumptions and assumption about God always causes accusations. I and many others have been accused of being on the slippery slope away from orthodoxy! Is that such a bad thing if it exposes orthodoxy as not always being correct?

Orthodoxy – authorized or generally accepted theory, doctrine, or practice. Who determines the parameters of orthodoxy anyway?  Are those parameters limited to being biblical parameters only? When were the parameters of orthodoxy set?

Webster defines orthodox as, “conforming to established doctrine, especially in religion. doctrine, belief, conviction, creed, dogma, credo, theory, view, idea, tenet, teaching, practice, received wisdom, article of faith.

How much of what we believe has been infiltrated by the leaven of religious and political spirit Jesus warned of? A little leaven or yeast eventually pollutes the whole lump of dough. It is time for a whole new lump, wineskin, relationship.

 In Church history since about the second century, the term “orthodox Christianity” really becomes an oxymoron.  Orthodox suggests that there are certain truths and doctrines that have always been peacefully and consensually agreed upon, accepted by the majority of “people like us”

Throughout church history those who have had new revelation that challenges the status quo by opposing the current orthodox beliefs or who question too persistently the status quo are usually labelled as liberal or heretical. 

Mainstream Christianity alludes to idea that there has always been a harmonious theological consensus over the last 2,000 years. Therefore those who are in the right and who are following the Spirit of God have always believed and accepted those things as truth!

There are 20,000+ denominations that use their orthodox version of the truth to defend and protect their turf and often suppress valid questions and ideas. Much of Western Christian orthodoxy has been preserved and strongly implemented out of fear and control. 

Modern Protestant Evangelical Church would like you to think their orthodox teachings are very different from the Roman Catholic Church, the truth is much of today’s orthodox theology comes directly out of the councils, doctrines, and creeds established by the early Roman Catholic and Latin Church.

God wants us to allow our personal encounters with Him to challenge our religious assumptions and presumption. Those who are doing so are often accused of being on a slippery slope that can only end in loss of faith or backsliding

We are encouraging you to doubt what you have believed and been told so you can pursue God for face to face answers. Don’t believe what I say be inspired to go to God for yourselves. A relationship with God requires desire and discipline to becomes a delight. Are we willing to pay the cost it takes for such an intimate relationship?

The slippery slope started around the end of the 3rd century AD through Tertullian and his angry retributive view of God and continued into the dark ages. Constantine unified church and state at the Council of Nicea 325 AD, the political and religious spirit in union.

The canonisation of the bible at the Council of Carthage 397 AD where they bartered over what books were included was more politically than divinely inspired. This was a key factor in the idea that God only now speaks through the bible.

Augustine was influenced by Plotinus a follower of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle and he mixed Greek philosophy with Latin religion. This created a dualist view of a GOD with an angry dark side. The pillars of the belief system in my mind were heavily influenced by Augustinian Protestant doctrines.

Augustine’s Bishop of Hippo (Algeria) (354–430 AD) was influenced by Plotinus a follower of Plato, Socrates and Aristotle and he mixed Greek philosophy with Latin religion. This created a dualist view of a GOD with an angry dark side.

There were six theological schools in Tertullian’s day and beyond (170– 430 A.D.), the only school that taught the doctrine of an angry retributive punishing God and “hell” to its students was the Latin (Roman) school in Carthage, Africa.  Augustine was heavily influenced by the Latin language and schools.

Augustine did not know Greek; it is his misunderstanding of Greek that cemented the wrong concepts about God in the Western Church. Augustine was the main person responsible for making “hell” eternal in the Western Church and many of His ideas still negatively influence what is seen as orthodox beliefs.

The angry violent retributive image of God has been the excuse for bigotry, slavery, genocides and many wars. Augustine’s principles led to many atrocities: crusades, the inquisition, burnings at the stake, wars and conquests etc.

The Protestant reformation of the church was meant to reform it from the religious errors of Roman Catholic doctrines. Luther’s 95 thesis 1517 established a return to justification by faith but most of the theology was just repackaged under different names. 

 The chief theologian of the reformation was Calvin in 1536 he wrote “The institutes of Christian Religion”. He was heavily influenced by Augustine and repackaged the same errors within protestant Calvinistic theology. God Immutable, Impassable, Timeless. Nothing but anger seems to move an emotionless non-relational fatalistic GOD. 

I joyfully got off the slippery slope that has been taking us away from a relational loving God towards religion’s distorted image. I encourage you to do the same to discover the truth nature and character of God who is love.

I joyfully jump onto the slope that goes from the pinnacle of modern theology and doctrine back to the beliefs of the apostles and early church fathers who were relationally discipled by Jesus and His disciples in love, I encourage you to jump onto the same slope and enjoy the ride.

The full deepest truth that God is love is often called heretical by the religious institution because of a warped theological image. Definition of a heretic… Happy Enlightened Righteous Exploring Truth in Christ – Chuck Crisco

Our view of God influences how we see ourselves and the world that we live in. God desires us to know Him (LOVE) by personal experience so we can know ourselves as His children and bring His kingdom of love to the world.

Any fear-based relationship has to be sustained by fear and removes all possibility for romance! God is not mad at you; he is mad about you! The simplicity of this statement puts religion out of business! – Francois Du Toit

Let’s engage God who is Father, Son and Spirit and allow Him to reveal the truth about His love, peace and joy. Let Him reveal the truth about His loving character and nature. Let God unravel your religious tapestry so you can see Him face to face as He truly is LOVE.

Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. 

You can meet the Father Son and Spirit in heaven. Step through the veil they are waiting for you. Feel their welcome and embrace and embrace your destiny as a son. Let them take you somewhere new and reveal themselves to you.

Open that door and invite God to come in. Let Father embrace you with His arms of love. Let Him reveal His true character and nature to you. Feel His deep love for you. Let Him heal and restore you. 

Let Jesus Him embrace you with His arms of love. Let the Prince of Peace surround you and fill you with real peace. Let Him reveal His true loving character and nature to you. Feel His peace deeply filling you. Let Him heal and restore you.

Let Holy Spirit Him embrace you with the joy of life. Let Him reveal His true loving character and nature to you. Feel His deep joy filling you.Let Him heal and restore you.

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