Even though I have been a very active Christian for many years, I did not realize the importance of the essentials that Jesus taught and lived. It was only when I faced the failure of my marriage and my Christianity, that I sought God from the depths of my soul and experienced his love and an active relationship with him like never before. In the following years, I deeply studied Jesus’ life and teachings and realized that I had neglected the essentials. It is apparent to me that many Christians have been distracted or led astray from the essentials. We have 200 denominations in the U.S. and many thousands of beliefs that emphasize other scriptures or things which may be important, but not as much as growing in the essentials, which are so often neglected. Some other things are even interpreted in a contrary way to them, or are traditions that are not even part of Jesus’ teachings. If we all truly emphasized the key things we would be far more unified and less bothered by the less-key differences. Jesus made very clear the essentials in his commandments, teachings, and life. These themes are talked about repeatedly in scripture. 1. Love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. (Jesus in Matthew 22:37). I read or heard this many times, but didn’t realize the profound implications. To do this, God has to be the very center of your life, not a ‘part’ of it. Jesus also says that "the entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments [loving God and loving others].” 2. Love others as yourself. (Matthew 22:39). Jesus also makes clear the equal importance of the 2nd commandment to love others. Why is it 'equal'? 1 John 4:20-21 says “But if we say we love God and don't love each other, we are liars.” We can do lip service towards this but practically speaking, how many of us show loving others – as ourselves - as a practical priority in our life? In the good Samaritan story (Luke 10:25-37), Jesus makes it clear that it’s not just for your friends and fellow believers, it also includes those whom you or your group see as ‘enemies.’ 3. Be so deeply connected to Jesus that you are always growing and producing fruit. (John 15:1-11). In his teaching on the requirement to be connected to his ‘vine,’ Jesus emphasizes the need for a deep and growing personal connection with him that yields more and more fruit. He makes it clear that if, after a period of time, this doesn’t happen, we may be cut off from the vine and ‘put in the fire.’ 4. Don't be inauthentic or distracted like the Pharisees. One of the most repeated themes of Jesus' life is his many confrontations with the Pharisees and religious leaders. While sticklers about most of the Jewish rules, they were also hypocritical, arrogant, superficial, and lacked loving God and others, which is why they couldn’t recognize Jesus as the long-prophesied messiah. I realized some years ago that this isn’t just those bad guys in Jesus’ day, but we all, myself included, tend to look down on others (especially those we judge as sinners) in a superior way like the Pharisee who thanked God that he wasn’t like the sinner praying (who had a truly humble and repentant heart). This superiority or legalism is what can happen when we get distracted from the core things that Jesus taught. Don’t take my (or anyone’s) word for your beliefs. Study the scripture (especially the gospels) deeply to the point where you begin to see ‘the big picture.’
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Updated: Apr 6, 2024

Jesus’s parable about the religious person and the sinner is very telling: “Then Jesus told this story to some who had great confidence in their own righteousness and scorned everyone else: "Two men went to the Temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, and the other was a despised tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: 'I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don't cheat, I don't sin, and I don't commit adultery. I'm certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income.' "But the tax collector stood at a distance and dared not even lift his eyes to heaven as he prayed. Instead, he beat his chest in sorrow, saying, 'O God, be merciful to me, for I am a sinner.' I tell you, this sinner, not the Pharisee, returned home justified before God. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted." (Luke 18:9-14)
There was a time when I was leaving a store that, like often before, I saw people that were homeless, disabled, obese, or very unkempt. I thought, ‘Thank you God, for the blessings that you have given me (and that I am not like them).’ I immediately sensed God say in my spirit, “Don’t you dare see yourself as superior to them! Everyone has their own lot in life. You do not know what they have been through. Would you be any better if you had to deal with what they have had to deal with? I love them just as much.” I had spent a lot of effort helping a participant in our divorce ministry to not go homeless and got to know how many terrible situations some people have had in life. I had to admit that I would have probably done worse if I had gone through what they had gone through. I realized later, that I have been in some ways like the Pharisee in the scripture. I tended to look down on others that weren’t as well off as I was. The Pharisee strictly kept religious rules and traditions, and didn’t consider himself a sinner “like everyone else.” He looked down on 'sinners.' Do you see that in other Christians and even yourself? I think most Christians don’t realize that sin is sin and even though they go to church to some degree or another, they are not any less sinners. Scripture tells us to be truly humble and not to think we are superior to others. To many of us, church is sort of a nice ‘club,’ where the good people go and do the Christian show, while in truth, we should think of it more like AA or Celebrate Recovery, where everyone is a sinner that is aware of their need for help. The only difference between us and other sinners is that we recognize our need for help to this spiritual disease and that there is a spiritual answer. Like an alcoholic who has embraced the AA approach, we know that we will always have inclinations to sin and we need God and fellowship with other Christians to help us resist sin and to grow. What the Bible says and what Jesus said repeatedly must be taken seriously. One of the the biggest themes of Jesus' life and teachings was his dealing with the religious leaders of the day, particularly the Pharisees. In over two dozen occasions he had interactions with them, including in John 5, 7, and 8, starting with anger that he healed on the Sabbath and a series of other confrontations. Even a lot of believers ultimately wanted to stone him.
His main theme in his interactions with the Pharisees was condemnation for them for legalism, pride, hypocrisy, and so forth and their lack of truly knowing God and recognizing him as God's son. After many hours studying the Pharissees and the other religious leaders who were against Jesus, the simplest way I can describe them is that they were focused on Jewish rules , including those things they had added to the rules, but they completely lost the spirit of the law by ignoring the most important things. What were the most important things? Love God/Jesus, justice (which in the Bible usually meant justice for the marginalized people), mercy (which is 'forgiveness, withholding judgement, and compassion for those who have come up short in some way') and have faithfulness (steady following of God/Jesus). It wasn't a mistake that God had the amount of times those interactions and how long Jesus talked about them in the Bible. He meant to send a message for that generation and all generations to come. That is a message that would resonate from their day right up, through the hypocritical and sometimes corrupt formal Catholic days, to our day. It's a mistake to dismiss the scriptures about the Pharisees as "oh that's something that was just in their day and doesn't really have much impact on us." I believe that Jesus was showing love and justice when he rebuked the religious leaders. Most of all he was showing love to the people and to us by making clear the danger of not having the God's love in them. Also, like God, he hated the evil that they represented. In John 5:42, he says: “Your approval means nothing to me, because I know you don’t have God’s love within you." We need to seriously consider what God saying through this theme. In summary, a key message for us from these scriptures is Love God and having the God's love in you, practice mercy, be for justice, and have faithfulness. Finally, in midst of all the hatefulness and hate in from the Pharisees, his direct message to them was:
"Jesus said to the people who believed in him, You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:31-32
PROBLEMS WITH JEWISH LEADERS: John 8:12-30, John 8::31-59, Luke 11:42, Matthew 12:38-42, Matthew 19:3-9, Mark 12:13-17, Matthew 22:34-40, Luke 7:30-33, Luke 7:36-50, Luke 19:37-40, Luke 20:1-8, Luke 20:19-26, John 8:1-10, Mathew 22:41-46, Mark 12:38-40, Mark 12:41-44, Matthew 12:1-8, Matthew 12:9-14, Luke 14:1-14, Mark 7:1-13, Luke 13:10-17, Luke 13:31-33, Luke 12:1-3, Matthew 5:20, Matthew 16:6-12, Matthew 21:33-47, Matthew 23:1-35, Luke 16:1-15, Luke 18:9-14, Matthew 9:2-7, Matthew 10:9-13, Matthew 9:32-34, John 5:31-32, Mark 12:18-24
Updated: Apr 6, 2024
We naturally tend to base our happiness on our circumstances. But most of us will face tragedies in our life and very ‘bad’ circumstances as we get towards the end of it. Scripture says that we can face bad circumstances with joy (James 1:2). It sounds crazy! Is it really possible? It can only happen when your life is centered on God, not circumstances or other gods. It is not easy. No one is instantly a fully mature Christian. It takes time to get in sync with God, leave pseudo gods and mistaken beliefs and pursue/grow to love him wholeheartedly and others as yourself. But Jesus promises it to be ‘a rich and satisfying (abundant) life’ (John 10:10).
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