Month: March 2025

The Million Dollar Question

YouTube: The Million Dollar Question; Does God Require Sacrifice?

One of the most popular summaries of the Christian message comes from John 3:16:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

This passage raises two important questions concerning the nature of God. Is the love of God conditional? Did God require the sacrifice of His only Son?

According to John, one must believe Jesus died for our sins to gain eternal life. The implication is that whoever does not believe in him will perish and will not have eternal life.

Then we’re told that God “gave his only Son”. We understand this to mean that God gave his Son to be put to death as a sacrifice for our sins. How can such a human sacrifice be a requirement with a God who loves the world? The unconditional love of God would be better expressed in this way:

For God so loved the world that he ensured none would perish but all would have eternal life.

This is certainly more in keeping with the lesson of the prodigal son. The father so loved his son that he welcomed him home, no questions asked, no conditions imposed.

We cringe when we read of cultures that practiced human sacrifice to appease the gods. However, as Christians, we’ve become so accustomed to Jesus as a human sacrifice that we have somehow disconnected pagan barbarism from Christian theology. The principle, however, is the same. A life is given to change the behavior and attitude of God.

From a spiritual perspective, one of the most important issues we must sort out is our understanding of God. A God that requires sacrificial appeasement cannot be considered a God of unconditional love.

The Map Is Not The Territory

YouTube: The Map is Not the Territory

Think of a religious symbol as part of a map used to help you navigate through life.

A few weeks ago, I told of how Myrtle Fillmore imagined Jesus in an empty chair offering her guidance through her healing journey. It did not matter that this Jesus was imaginary. To her, he represented a focal point for healing energy that proved to be helpful to her.

Any critical thinker would recognize this Jesus as a figment of her imagination. To simply pass it off as an irrelevant fantasy, however, would be to ignore the millions of people who found inspiration and guidance in Myrtle’s visualizing technique and healing.

Google Maps has opened a new understanding of this realization by providing us with a two-dimensional map and an accompanying three-dimensional street view. We can zoom in and instantly see the difference between the map and the territory.  

What has become clear to me is that it was not my study of the teachings of Jesus that led to a mystical experience. Like most people, I began with the map of Christian doctrine that I was taught was synonymous with the territory. It was an actual mystical experience that led to my understanding of Jesus as a mystic. The experience, not the symbolism, is the territory.

In my own spiritual quest, I have utilized five different maps. The first is 1) mainstream Christianity, the second is 2) metaphysical Christianity, the third is 3) Christian mysticism, the fourth is 4) critical scholarship, the fifth is 5) near-death research. I put them in present tense because they all continue to play a role in my study.

I have drawn important insights from each of these “maps” knowing that beneath each one is the “territory” of experience that is most meaningful. In our continued quest for spiritual understanding, we’ll each have our different maps, but we should always keep in mind, the map is not the territory.

The Jesus Question

YouTube: The Jesus Question

Most of us in this country have a Christian background, which prompts us to look to the sayings of Jesus for guidance on spiritual matters. How we think of Jesus makes all the difference on what we hope to find. The mainstream Christian thinks of Jesus as the Savior who offered the only way to eternal salvation. The American New Thought movement, which flourished in the nineteenth century, saw Jesus as the Wayshower, one who understood and expressed fully his Christhood, and invited all people to do the same.

Charles Fillmore, an American mystic that became Unity’s co-founder, adopted this view as the cornerstone of his teachings. Assuming Jesus attained immortality in the body, he believed that anyone who aligned with his Jesus Christ standard could also lift this fleshly clothing to such a high vibratory level that we would no longer age or experience physical death. His model placed the soul in a state of evolution, traveling through multiple incarnations with the goal of reaching the ultimate prize of immortality. In his book, The Spiritual Journey of Charles Fillmore, Neal Vahle includes this quote:

“This question is often asked by Unity readers. Some of them seem to think that I am either a fanatic or a joker if I take myself seriously in the hope that I shall with Jesus attain eternal life in the body. But the fact is that I am very serious about the matter.”

As I point out in my book, The Complete Soul, I find this interpretation of Jesus places him impossibly out of our reach. The basic premise of the mystic is that God, as omnipresent Spirit, is centered as the soul of every person. As such, the soul is complete. What evolves is our understanding of who and what we are as spiritual beings. Our objective is not to overcome the death of the body, but to understand that the soul is already immortal. The spiritual journey is all about moving from the body-based self-image most of us operate from, to the understanding that we are spiritual beings going through this human experience. The condition of the body is not the barometer of the soul.

The truth that comes through our current near-death research is, I believe, closer to the ideal that Jesus taught. This research reveals the immortal nature of the soul, not at the end of a very long evolutionary process, but now, at this very moment. Getting a true glimpse of our divine Self is the truth that sets us free.

The Defining Factor

YouTube: The Defining Factor

Now as they went on their way, he entered a village; and a woman named Martha received him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving; and she went to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:38-42

While the Bible often gives God a distinct and commanding voice, sometimes through a heavenly messenger, I think our best conceptualization is the still small voice given to Elijah.

But what is a still small voice? It’s not really a voice at all. We should think of it more as an impulse than a voice speaking words. It is the impulse to be free. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus opens his ministry by quoting from the book of Isaiah. When we go back to the Hebrew scripture, here’s what we find:

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6).

By this account, it is clear that the focus of his ministry is to “let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.” He also says that those who have learned from the Father will come to him. In other words, those who have learned to listen to the still small voice of God will understand what he is talking about.

Why do we crave freedom? Because the soul is already free. At the spiritual level, there are no restrictions. We encounter restrictions at the physical and material levels. Jesus is teaching people how to work with these seeming contradictory conditions. While most were waiting for a messiah to appear and set them free, Jesus was teaching that freedom begins as a perceptual shift. If you seek first the kingdom of God, that is, if you learn to heed the quiet voice of God, it will help clarify your vision and make straight your path.

Though we may not have thought of the inner impulse to be free as the voice of God, doing so will help us realize that we desire freedom because our soul is free already. We are being prompted at all times to claim our inherent freedom.

The Voice of God

YouTube: The Voice of God

When we think of God’s voice, we might imagine a booming sound echoing across the universe, one that would coincide with the muscular figure depicted in so many classical paintings. In Unity, we are most familiar with Elijah’s still small voice that comes after the mighty winds and earthquakes.

While the Bible often gives God a distinct and commanding voice, sometimes through a heavenly messenger, I think our best conceptualization is the still small voice given to Elijah.

But what is a still small voice? It’s not really a voice at all. We should think of it more as an impulse than a voice speaking words. It is the impulse to be free. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus opens his ministry by quoting from the book of Isaiah. When we go back to the Hebrew scripture, here’s what we find:

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?” (Isaiah 58:6).

By this account, it is clear that the focus of his ministry is to “let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.” He also says that those who have learned from the Father will come to him. In other words, those who have learned to listen to the still small voice of God will understand what he is talking about.

Why do we crave freedom? Because the soul is already free. At the spiritual level, there are no restrictions. We encounter restrictions at the physical and material levels. Jesus is teaching people how to work with these seeming contradictory conditions. While most were waiting for a messiah to appear and set them free, Jesus was teaching that freedom begins as a perceptual shift. If you seek first the kingdom of God, that is, if you learn to heed the quiet voice of God, it will help clarify your vision and make straight your path.

Though we may not have thought of the inner impulse to be free as the voice of God, doing so will help us realize that we desire freedom because our soul is free already. We are being prompted at all times to claim our inherent freedom.