God being Jeaolous

Exodus 34:14 says that God is jealous. However what does this mean? If you were listening to the first session of Oprah Winfrey's webcast on Eckhart Tolle's New Earth, you'll remember that one of the things that caused her to start searching for something was when she was in church and that pastor said that God is jealous. Her take of this was that God was jealous of her.

This view is off the mark of what that passage says. If you take into context the whole passage, God is telling Moses to destroy the idols that the Hebrews had been worshiping. He wanted to enter into a covenant with the Hebrews, but wanted their loyalty and faithfulness, much like a husband or wife wants loyalty and faithfulness from their spouse. So God told Moses that He is a jealous God, meaning he doesn't want His people to run after other so-called gods.

Again, it's important to take things in context of what's being communicated. If I just said "Cut her open", that sound absurd and violent. But taken into context of a surgery, now it makes sense. As you read and hear of things, I pray that you'll be wise enough to actually explore what's going on, to look at the context of things people quote, and be fully informed.

Misquotes of Jesus

Have you ever quoted someone and then found out you misquoted them? It drives me nuts when people purposely do this. Eckhart Tolle did just that in session 1 of Oprah Winfrey's new webcast on his book New Earth.

During this conversation, Oprah asked Tolle about why he uses flowers in his book as a relevant analogy. He said that the flower is less dense than other things, which is true, and therefore is more ethereal, which makes them a link to the spiritual world. He then references Jesus from Matthew 6 and says that even Jesus pointed to this. This is simply not true.

In Matthew 6: 28-34, Jesus is talking to people about worrying. He then points to both the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, and points out how neither one of these worries about what it's going to eat or what it'll wear. He continues on to say that if God provides so much for these, how much more will He provide us.

Let's get the quotes right, and put things into proper context, not just fly off by the seat of our pants to make what seems like a good point.

Listening for Life's purpose

In session 1, Tolle was telling Oprah how we have to have times of stillness in our lives in order to hear life's purpose for us. I've already discussed my unease with asking 'life' for my purpose. However, Tolle went on to discuss it even further.

It seems that when we're listening to 'life', we have to be careful and not act on all of our impulses. They can be wrong based on our mental noise and other such things. However, when told he needed to move to the west coast of North America, Tolle apparently was able to discern that this was truly 'the consciousness' talking to him.

So here's today's question. If we have to be able to discern what is truly life telling us to do something, and what is not, how are we to know? Where does the discernment come from? In Christianity we know. When we sense that God is leading us to do something, we check it against scripture and against Godly counsel. If the thing we're being asked to do doesn't line up with what's laid out for us in scripture, than it cannot be God telling us that.

So who are you going to listen to? Something you don't know and hope you're hearing it correctly, or the Creator of all that we know, who wrote the book on how to live?

Who’s Consciousness?

During the first webcast, Oprah asked Tolle where the inspiration for his book came from. He responded that “the consciousness” had inspired it, or that life had inspired it. I must ask the same question I asked in the last post, do we trust something from a source we don’t know?

Let’s look at another example. The Ouija Board is a good one to examine. When you sit down to use the Ouija board, you’re supposed to clear your mind of “all mental noise”, and really start communing with the “spirit world”. Ok, no problem. However, when the little planchette starts moving, and you start getting a message, who’s really doing the communicating?

If I receive a call at home that says “Josh, you have better opportunity in Tahiti, you should move there now” I’m not going to trust that person calling unless I know who it is and where the information is coming from.

The Spirit world is alive and active. Ephesians 6:12 says. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces in the heavenly realms.” What this means is that that yes, the ‘spirit world’ is very real. We can’t see it, but we know it’s there, and it is very active in the world we can see. Therefore, we must be very guarded and make absolutely sure we know what forces are at work, and which are not before we trust what we’re hearing.

Even people who are listening to God do not simply trust what they think they’re hearing. Rather, they balance what they’re hearing against scripture, which is the True Word of God, and against the character of God to see if it is in fact reliable.

Eckhart, you are pointed in the right direction, but going down the wrong path

Tolle and stillness

One of the things Tolle’s teachings is that we need to set time aside to be still, and to quite the “mental noise” so we can hear what it is that ‘life’ wants us to do. This is similar to a Christian teaching. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God….” In order to listen, either to life, to God, or to our spouses, we must stop the talking.

The difference between what Tolle is teaching and what Christianity teaches is who the communication is coming from. For a Christian, the Holy Spirit, or part of God, actually comes and lives within us. When we still ourselves, the Holy Spirit will communicate with us. For Tolle, he doesn’t know who he’s listening to, or where the things ‘life’ is asking him to do are coming from. He just knows he must do them. For me, I don’t trust a communication if I don’t know it’s origin. Do you?

New Earth Begins

The bulk of the posts moving forward will be in response to Eckhart Tolle and Oprah Winfrey's new "web event" regarding his book, New Earth: Awakening to your life's purpose. Let me preface all posts with I have not actually read this book. However, I have been listening to the webcasts, and the responses here will be based on those.

We all face the question of "What is the purpose of life?". I think this is an especially important question. We go go through life merely eking out an existence, just living the monotonous one day to the next. Or, as I think most of us would prefer, we would rather have a greater purpose we all strive for.

In his teaching, Tolle says that we need to ask Life what would purpose is. The problem here is that your asking for a purpose from something you don't know what it is. Like Paul in Athens (Acts 17:22-31), Tolle is worshiping what he does not know. Let's introduce him to the Living God. You see, God wants to be involved in your life. However, there is only one way to God, and that is through Jesus Christ.

The thing that all other religions outside of Christianity teach is that you can be good enough. The truth is that we can't. The standard is perfection, and we will never achieve it. That is where the grace of God comes into play. It's not about living good enough, but about living in relationship with the Know God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and letting him have control over your life.

The problem with sin

It needs to be understood that we all live in sin, and in fact were born into it. You see, the world we live in is broken, it is not the way it was intended to be. The reason for this is because of Sin, with a capital “s”. Sin refers to the problem of being separated from God. This separation started when Adam and Eve decided to rebel against the edict God gave them of not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 3). With this decision, we all have the knowledge now, and therefore and born into Sin.

Also, with this knowledge we commit sins, or acts that are contrary to the will of God. For instance, it is generally accepted that we should lie, and God even put that into his law. When we lie, which we all have at one point or another, we commit a sin. So we are doubly guilty here, both by association and by commission.

The wonderful part of this is that God wasn’t satisfied with us being separated from him. So, he came and showed us what life should be like. However, the example he gave wasn’t a life riddled with rules. Rather, it was a life being lived in deep relationship with God, and through that relationship all other things happened.

If you think the Christian life is about living by a bunch of rules, I hope you’ll take a few minutes to reconsider. I would invite you to read the book of John. If you don’t have a Bible, you can read it at www.biblegateway.com. The life Jesus invited us to is one that has a meaningful, in fact the most meaningful, relationship…one with God. All it takes to start it is to stop for a moment, and pray. You might start with something like this:

God, I believe that you’re there, and I believe that you want to have a relationship with me. Will You come and invade my life and start to show me how a life in relationship with You can truly be?

What we'll discuss

Now that we've covered a bit of what it is I believe, let's discuss the purpose of this blog. We will look at events and movements in the modern day, and I will attempt to defend the faith I have posted previously in relation to these.

I would invite all readers, whether Christian or otherwise, to participate in this discussion. I would like to hear why people believe in things I cannot, and if there are things in what I post that seem to be unbelievable or false.

The first topic we'll discuss is the nature of Sin. After we've covered this, I would like to move into a discussion of a new movement that's gaining strength. We've all heard of Oprah. She is helping propagate a new wave of the New Age movement from a few years ago. This movement is based on a book from Ekhart Tolle called New Earth: Awaken to Your Life's Purpose.

First, it is my firm belief this book and what both Tolle and Oprah are teaching is full of lies and designed to lead us (either intentionally or unintentionally) away from the relationship God desires to have with us. In the series of posts that will follow, we'll look at some of what is being taught, including some "quotes" from Jesus and the Christian faith, and examine their legitimacy and value.

Again, let me invite you to be part of this conversation, not merely a passive reader.

In the Beginning

I have decided to publish this blog in a defense of a faith that seems to become less popular every day. I do not want to discuss my religion, because religion is not what we should really focus on. Rather, let us discuss what is belief, and why it is I have chosen to believe what I do.

I am a follower of Jesus Christ. This said, I am not merely a Christian by the stereotype. I do not always vote Republican, I do not thing I am perfect, and I believe that God has a plan for every person.

More importantly, I believe that we each have an innate desire to have a relationship with God Almighty. I believe that we were born into Sin (will discuss later), that we all have sinned, and these separate us from God.

However, God was not satisfied to be separated from His creation. So He came to live among us as Jesus Christ. He was born of the virgin Mary, lived a perfect life, was executed without having committed a crime, and then three days rose from the dead. By doing this, He paid for our sin, and made a way for us to have a living relationship with God.

Now you know what I believe, let's have some conversation....