The Story: Long And Short

TUES., MAR. 26, 1991, 6:04 AM
FARM, STUDY

“The Story” is, of course, that one of Me, the Triune God, and human persons in the earth – My creations. The “longest” story is one that commences with creation, and the Bible has two of these. The shortest is a story like unto yours, with Me coming to you personally and establishing a relationship, as the Christian Holy Spirit but without the longer story being necessary.

The long story can be made compatible with present science by asserting that I allowed the body and mind of the human to evolve and then symbolically “blew in” the breath of “life” – the spirit. Then that spirit, in the early human, began to communicate with Me. Thus, human life was “off and running.” The long story can focus on sin developing or it can admit that I had purposely created the earth as a special realm of encouragement to spiritual growth… and some humans did better than others. One story says you only have one chance in the earth. Another says that some may return repeatedly while others come only once. Still another tells that all must keep coming back until there is enlightenment.

The Christian story, in its long form, commences with My encountering Abraham. I called on him to be faithful to Me, and I gave him some difficult tests. I told him he would be the father of a chosen people. In human form the fulfillment became the Hebrew people. Abraham had two sons… one was rejected and one accepted. Isaac, the accepted one had two sons… one was chosen and one was not. Out of Jacob came twelve sons, who headed the twelve tribes of Israel. Thence goes the Old Testament story. The Jews were sometimes faithful and sometimes not. There was reward and punishment. And there was the promise of a Messiah.

That story branches. One branch affirms that the Jewish people, still faithful to Abraham’s covenant with Yahweh, the One God, still carry on the old traditions and await the Messiah. The other is the Christian story, wherein I, God, came to earth as a Jewish baby, lived a short life as a Jewish man, preaching, teaching, and healing in some miraculous ways. The Jews rejected Me as the Messiah and put Me to death as a danger to the great traditions. But I was resurrected, taking on the sins of any who accepted Me. And thus came the religion of acceptance, grace, and forgiveness, developing quite apart from the Jewish heritage.

The shorter story can commence with the story of My birth… or even the story of My baptism, as Jesus, and the beginning of a unique ministry. In this story I had a particular antipathy toward the most orthodox of the Jews, the Pharisees. My most remembered discourses were with those who were not on the “inside” of Jewry. My disciples were not rabbis or other learned men, but fisherman, a tax collector, and “who knows what else.” I told parables that did not fit with Jewish practice. I gave My life willingly. I raised up Paul to take My message to the Gentiles, and Christianity became a faith and religion quite apart from Judaism. Its Jewish heritage was really unnecessary.

Then there are many short stories. I, the Holy Spirit, a functioning aspect of the Living God and the Eternal Christ, came into people’s lives in a wild variety of ways. Some are Pentecostal and remain thus. Some are Methodist, some Episcopal, some Orthodox. Some know Me apart from the Church and even Christian traditions. In your case, I urge you to remain a Presbyterian Christians, but all of that “heritage” is really not necessary to Our relationship. I can each you in relation to present wars, television, humor, eternal life, and what you should do on this Farm today with no necessary connection to either the Old or the New Testament.