Christian History… And Me

THURS., APR. 3, 1997, 8:09 PM
FARM, STUDY

You come to hear from Me late in the week, but… you are here. I know you can’t really stay away beyond our agreed upon “limit”. The church newsletter took the morning, and you felt the need to clean up your office somewhat in the early afternoon. So you are with Me this evening… and on through the weekend. You are Mine, and I am not “soft” in asking for your time and attention. For you, free will is always subject to My Will… but it’s not a “burden”. Trust Me.

The insert in your church’s bulletin for Sunday (and was it prepared and ready a day early just for you?) told of struggles in the early Christian church, with eyes being gouged out and tendons cut for presumably heretical beliefs. How do I feel about such actions, seemingly necessary to establish a faith without too much diversity?

I could feel angry at My people for such disagreements and atrocities, but, you could ask, which were “My people”? I could be frustrated or sad that there were such actions in relation to faith in Me, or… I could be smiling at how immature humans could be so cruel in “defending” Me. Yet it did aid in establishing the Church, and that was good. But your “spiritual ancestors” set about to “reform” that church… which produced the church of which you are now a part… and a somewhat less powerful and dominant church, called Catholic.

All of that was necessary for the Church, My Body, to have the strength, through diversity, that it now has. Men stood up for their faith, and suffered for it. Some who had perceptions more like those I have encouraged in you were declared anathema, and their perceptions were lost to the majority of you Christians. It could have gone differently, but this was the way I wanted it.

I have told you before that the whole Easter story also could have been different. I could have continued My ministry, as Jesus, reinforcing the truths that I preached and lived. I still could have given grace with My death, at an older age. The way it was, and the way the Church has remembered it, was fairly accurate… and was the way it was to be. But never hold Me to only One Way.

As you observe, by reading and by experience, the diversity in those who profess some aspect of your faith, you wonder why such early cruelty was deemed necessary… in the name of “purity”. It seemed necessary to establish a firm, definable base, for some to hold to and for others to move away from. I was quite aware of this happening, and I called it good.

The news dwindles about those Heaven’s Gate folk who wanted to come closer to Me. I seldom reject those who truly desire to come closer and understand more My ways. History suggests that everything that now is accepted… and even considered too conservative and established… was once a threat to what was then accepted as final truth and way.

There is much exaggeration of My supposed desire that no one should take his or her own physical life. I am almost completely interested in the dominant motivation in situations. The end of a bodily life is of little concern to Me. The notion that I am aghast… angry… frustrated… sad when anyone stops bodily functioning is… well… silly. The essence of life is spirit. The length of a life, in the body, is of much less importance than the growth of spirit. A short life can be very worthwhile. Mine, as Jesus, certainly was.

Conversely, there are folk whose body is alive for decades, but spiritual growth is minimal. Death is sadder for such than for those who die younger… after a spiritually productive earth life.