People are reluctant to accept anything that threatens their faith. Religions, regardless of the labels we use to define them, are about faith and people will steadfastly believe in only that religion where their own faith is based. People need and adhere to what they can believe will work when all else fails, so they put faith and trust into their chosen religion. That chosen religion is the one that works for them; it is their truth. In this mindset, all other religions are perceived as false, threaten them, might be based on lies, and therefore are unacceptable. It is our nature to want to share with others the truths that we find whether through religion or something else, especially when our lives improve because of those avenues where we find comfort and peace. We fail to remember that others also find safety and comfort in the religions and belief systems that work for them.
Because our faith and where we place it is so vital to our sense of security, we resist anything that threatens it. We fear having our faith shattered. We reject hearing, accepting or believing anything beyond our present point of trust because we fear losing what we have found and count on for our lives to run smoothly. Many of us simply shut the door to hearing or accepting that other roads to God are possible. What is so amazing here is that all religions established by man are only separated by labels and their relative rituals. People seek creator source, the energy we call God, through every one of them. They all provide an avenue through which to travel and learn. The energy we call God always existed, as it does now, in and through all of His creation and only became confounded when man's manipulative nature divided it into good and bad categories. Of course, what is good in the mind of one person might be perceived as bad in the mind of another.
We argue and fight over how others should believe and which religion they should embrace, while others do the same thing to us. We have forever fought and continue to fight wars over faith and we all think we're right. We're all busy conjuring up ways to convert each other to our belief systems and then harshly condemning those who won't follow our leads. Hypocrites! We will ever be embracing or rejecting all of our man made religions and their institutions, that is, until we all turn to the church within where the indwelling God, or Christ level of reality resides. Religions teach us, as do all things in the physical world of condensed energy, and what we learn through them, we reveal to ourselves in order to survive and move forward. We all seek to find the energy we call God in our own unique ways; in ways we can feel safe.
The kingdom of heaven is within us; Luke 17(KJV) And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation; Neither shall they say, Lo here! Or, lo there! For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Our bodies are temples that house the energy we call God, and the dimension of mind called Christ vibrates on the highest level of energy within human consciousness. This level of mind is our inherent right and by faith in it, can be realized and demonstrated. It is a level of mind that delivers us up to intelligence beyond the mind of man, empowering us to demonstrate the highest of ourselves, like Jesus who walked in the reality of it, proving that by faith, we could too.
Regardless of what we attach our faith to, it is still only the labels and relative rituals within different religions that we fight over and can't find acceptance for. If we all just practiced the Ten Commandments and never went into a church, we might discover our oneness in God, find acceptance for each other, and focus on living in peace. We should worry less about how others believe about God and more about our ability to accept and love people just as they are. We should let the energy we call God be in control of His creation and focus on what we need to work on in ourselves in order to manifest more of the attributes of God. This, we are all capable of doing. Faith keeps man secure and to what he attaches that faith determines what he is, or is not, willing to accept. We can release judgment about religions outside of our own, when we understand that God is being sought through all of them, and trust that whatever path man chooses to travel, truth and the energy we call God prevails in the end.
| Rev. Linda Joy Crutcher http://listenwithlinda.com Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Linda_Crutcher | |
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