Tying Everything Together
What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also, faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
—James 2:14-17
If you have a problem with the words God or Jesus, please believe me when I say that it’s because you have a problem with men who say they represent God or Jesus, and not with God or Jesus themselves.
The words God and Jesus have gotten a smear job by people, which I can explain if you give me a chance, for I, too, once had problems with those words.
If you would prefer, you can replace those words with Creator, Spirit of the Universe, or Higher Power—especially if the gender references to Father and He bother you.
As is stated in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
God’s nature is loving and forgiving, but man’s nature is unloving and unforgiving.
Our main goals in life should be:
1. To give unconditionally to others out of love.
2. To forgive others unconditionally.
3. To overcome our fears by realizing that God is real and guides, provides for, and protects us.
When I am focused on getting more wealth, pleasure, and distractions for myself, I never find true happiness, peace, or joy.
Those feelings only come from unconditionally giving and forgiving out of love.
Instinctive fears tell me that I will feel better if I only get more.
That is a lie.
Attaining spiritual enlightenment means being enabled to fully love and forgive others.
There are two types of spiritual enlightenment: sudden and gradual.
Sudden enlightenment can come from God’s grace or from using entheogens.
Gradual enlightenment can come from participating in an Expert Giver Group, whose main purpose is to achieve that end.
When individuals are spiritually enlightened, they turn away from selfish instinctual pursuits and start to contribute to those around them.
They ignore people who say, “You lose by giving,” and instead give out of love, with no expectation of money, sex, or control in return.
Once individuals give to others unconditionally, to help them with no expectation of anything in return, that is giving out of love.
Giving unconditionally is love in action.
And that is God giving through us.
Even if you don’t understand or believe in God, the primary goals for human evolution are to enable love and forgiveness and to overcome fear.
When we help others unconditionally, we experience new feelings—the good ones we have always wanted but never found, which are happiness, peace, and joy.
When we forgive people we resent, we get high levels of happiness, peace, and joy.
When we start to love and forgive others, magic begins to happen.
Jesus was around 30 years old when He started his ministry and became a complete vessel for God.
Jesus was a man who became a perfect vessel for God to express love and forgiveness through Him.
Jesus was a perfect example of a man who completely surrendered His will to the will of God.
He did that to demonstrate love and forgiveness at the highest level ever achieved by a man, so others could witness what God looks like as a man.
Jesus was a perfect example of God as man, since he unconditionally loved everyone He encountered and forgave all His enemies.
Jesus’ essential message was to teach us how to love and forgive each other.
For the last three years of His life, Jesus loved everyone unconditionally, with no expectation of anything in return.
He also showed His love by healing people.
Jesus’ death on the cross taught us forgiveness by example.
When Jesus cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” He was acknowledging that forgiveness comes from the Father through Him.
Our goal is to overcome our selfish nature and to allow God’s unconditionally loving nature to express itself through us.
How beautiful!
Jesus dying on the cross showed us that we are to forgive our enemies no matter what they have done to us.
Jesus overcame His instinctual desire for revenge, and instead forgave out of love.
Those are the most difficult behaviors for human beings, but Jesus showed us that they are possible.
Since our enemies are unlikely to have done anything to us that remotely resembles nailing us to a cross, we should be able to forgive them.
If the religious leaders who persecuted Jesus had learned from Him instead of having Him killed, they would have found a happiness, peace, and joy that their wealth and power could never provide.
God allowed Jesus to die horrifically to reveal His unconditional love for us.
God forgave us after we killed His son, who had done no wrong.
For three years before He was crucified, Jesus knew that He was going to have to die, but He followed through anyway.
That taught us by example that we are to forgive our enemies and love our neighbors as ourselves in all circumstances.
We needed an extreme example of love and forgiveness to see that they are possible for us.
Actions speak louder than words.
What a powerful lesson for mankind.
Jesus’ example set the course for mankind with love and forgiveness as our ultimate goals.
Jesus did not debate, argue, fight, or encourage any type of violence.
Jesus said that after He left, we would do greater works than He did.
In John 14:12, Jesus states: “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father” (English Standard Version).
Jesus washed the feet of his disciples to show His humility.
He was demonstrating that it wasn’t Him the man who was loving, forgiving, and healing, but God working through Him.
Thus, His disciples and others could surrender their will to God, too.
Jesus was saying that it was God doing the good works, not Him.
This can be seen in the following quotations:
“Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” (John 5:19)
“I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.” (John 5:30)
Jesus showed us how to love and forgive, so that when enough of us followed His example, allowing God into our lives as He did, that would bring Heaven here on Earth.
If we perform love and forgiveness as Jesus showed us, we have enabled God to work through us.
Then we will be in union with God and will not perish.
If we never perform unconditional love and forgiveness here, which is to unite with God, we will be in pain throughout this life.
If we connect with God here by unconditionally forgiving others, which enables us to love them, we will discover Heaven in this life.
We need to remove the blocks to giving to others out of love.
Those blocks include hatred, fear, anger, undone amends, and bad drugs.
We also need to ignore the instincts that say that getting “more” is what we need.
The real answer that leads to Heaven is to give freely, not to get more of what I don’t need.
Giving with no conditions is key.
That is love in action.
We have to practice forgiving everyone we hate or dislike, including ourselves.
How do we forgive others and ourselves?
The only thing we need is the willingness to do it.
The greatest first step is to become open to forgiving others.
Then, when a thought comes into your head about individuals whom you dislike, hate, or resent, say to them in your mind, “I completely forgive you (mention their name); I break the chain of hate that links me to you; may peace and love be with you; you are free; and I am free.”
When thoughts of those people come up again, say in your mind, “I have forgiven you; bless you; and may peace and love be with you.”
If you repeat that last sentence every time the people come up in your mind in the future, you will find that all your hatred, resentment, and dislike have disappeared completely, and your forgiveness of them is total.
Next, forgive yourself for harming yourself in any way.
Repeat to yourself, “I forgive you (say your full name); may peace and love be with me; I am free.”
Afterward, if thoughts of past guilt come up again, say, “I have forgiven myself for that; may peace and love be with me; I am free.”
You will find that you have forgiven yourself, and no longer sabotage or punish yourself, or create limitations in your life.
You have set others and yourself free.
The truth has set you free.
In addition to forgiving the behavior of others and yourself, to completely be free you must forgive the debts of everyone who owes you money.
After you have overcome your fears about giving and forgiving, you are free to love others unconditionally.
Fear tells you never to give, and that when you give you are losing, and that there is no God to replenish you.
But when you give to others cheerfully out of love, with no expectation of anything in return, you are allowing God to give through you, and He will repay you later.
To give unconditionally, you must ignore your fear, which says that you don’t have enough to give, and to keep what you have because you need more.
Even when you have plenty, fear says to selfishly keep it all.
You could be giving some of that plenty to help others now, which would be allowing God to give through you unconditionally.
By giving unconditionally, you will unlock the feelings of happiness, peace, and joy that you have always wanted, but have never gotten by keeping more for yourself.
No church should build up wealth that could be used to help people in need.
My life since my full revelation of God’s presence, love, and power on November 23, 2022, has been incredible.
When I ever impatiently try to force something to happen before I receive direction from God, I experience difficulty or pain.
I cannot blame the painful consequences of my impatience on God.
I spend much of my days in gratitude to Him.
For the first time in my life, I am completely certain that God is love, and love is the goal in this life and into eternity.
Being loving and forgiving is not natural to human beings.
God’s love is seen in human babies and young wild animals before their innocence is removed at puberty, which is when God’s love leaves them because their survival instincts, including fear, take over.
Once that happens, adults become unloving and unforgiving.
Life becomes about survival, with fear running the show.
Post-puberty life is driven by selfish instinctual survival goals regarding sex and resources.
Wild adult animals will kill others in order to have the right to mate or to protect their food territory.
In a life without love, it’s kill or be killed, revenge, an eye for an eye, survival of the fittest, all based on fear.
Fear keeps both human beings and wild animals alive.
That’s how we are designed.
Wild animals live on this fear-based survival path until they die.
That is part of what separates them from human beings, who have the choice to overcome their selfish instinctual nature by loving and forgiving others.
That human choice is a return to innocence.
Self-awareness also separates human beings from animals, which gives human beings the ability to have faith that God is protecting them, which enables them to overcome their fear.
Ten thousand years ago, two tribes living near each other probably fought and killed each other over food and women in their area.
The fight for resources is still happening in today’s world.
Human beings were created with tribal instincts—that is, “us” against “them” for survival.
For humans to evolve, we need to bring love and forgiveness into our unloving and unforgiving lives—which means to bring God’s spirit into our lives.
To do this, humans must ignore their fears.
There are eight blocks to becoming unconditionally loving and forgiving—that is, to becoming expert givers—along with ways to remove those blocks:
1. Hatred: We need to forgive people who have hurt us. (See my book Expert Giver—No Strings Attached, pp. 198–200.)
2. Anger and resentments: We must completely rid ourselves of those. (See Expert Giver—No Strings Attached, pp. 192–199.)
3. Our character defects: We must examine which ones we have and remove them. (See Expert Giver—No Strings Attached, pp. 203–206.)
4. Our fears: We must ignore those fears that say we lose when we give, and that there is no God to protect us. (See Expert Giver—No Strings Attached, pp. 202–203.)
5. Harms we have done to others: We need to make amends for those. (See Expert Giver—No Strings Attached, p. 211.)
6. Our selfishness, inconsideration, dishonesty, and jealousy: We must determine where these exist and remove them from our intimate relationships. (See Expert Giver—No Strings Attached, pp. 200–202.)
7. Arrogance: We must promptly admit when we are wrong. (See Expert Giver—No Strings Attached, p. 212.)
8. “Bad” drugs: We have to abstain from those.1 (See my essay “Good Drugs and Bad Drugs—Don’t Mix Them.”)
I am hoping that Christianity opens its doors to Expert Giver Groups, to allow these methods of removing the blocks in the way of unconditionally loving and forgiving others to become widespread.
That will enable people to become expert givers, expressing unconditional love and forgiveness as Jesus demonstrated.
When we remove the blocks to unconditional love and forgiveness, we experience a gradual spiritual awakening of coming to know how God works through us.
The lie we tell ourselves is that we need “bad” drugs to treat our pain.
“Bad” drugs actually keep us from becoming expert givers, which is the only thing that will relieve our pain.
In fact, expert giving not only relieves our pain, but replaces it with happiness, joy, and peace that we have never known.
I developed the 7 steps of Expert Giver Groups from the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, making a condensed version of the process for removing the blocks in the way of individuals becoming expert givers.
Rhonda Byrne’s book The Secret, explains2 that belief without doubt manifests things and outcomes.
However, she focuses on using this power for getting instead of giving.
In other words, she teaches her readers how to use the power for selfish purposes.
Jesus often spoke about beliefs without doubts manifesting themselves.
Specifically, He showed how it was people’s faiths and beliefs that healed them.
The stories of three healings in the New Testament reveal this truth:
A Roman officer came up to Jesus and said, “Lord, my young servant lies in bed, paralyzed and in terrible pain.” Jesus said, “I will come heal him.” The officer replied, “Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed….” Jesus replied, “Go back home. Because you believed, it has happened.” And the young servant was healed that same hour. (Matthew 8:6-13, NLT version)3
A woman who had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding came up behind him. She touched the fringe of his robe, for she thought, “If I can touch his robe, I will be healed.” Jesus turned around, and when he saw her he said, “Daughter, be encouraged! Your faith has made you well.” And the woman was healed at that moment. (Matthew 9: 20-22, NLT version)
Two blind men went into the house where Jesus was staying, and Jesus asked them, “Do you believe I can make you see?” “Yes, Lord,” they told him, “we do.” Then he touched their eyes and said, “Because of your faith, it will happen.” Then their eyes were opened, and they could see! (Matthew 10: 28-30, NLT version)
Jesus was teaching others that it was due to their own total faith and belief that they were healed.
In a different context, when Jesus asked Peter to walk to Him on water, Peter did so successfully for a few steps, but when he doubted, he sank:
Peter called to him, “Lord, if it’s really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water.” “Yes, come,” Jesus said. So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus. But when he saw the strong winds and the waves, he was terrified, and began to sink. “Save me, Lord,” he shouted. Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him. “You have so little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt me?” (Matthew 14: 28-31, NLT version)
It is by unconditionally loving others, giving to them with no strings attached, and by forgiving our enemies who trespass against us, that we finally obtain true happiness, peace, and joy.
Be patient. Trust the timing.
You are not alone in protecting yourself and figuring everything out, because God is real and does all the heavy lifting for you, providing the wisdom, resources, protection, and people you need.
All you have to do is be a patient vessel, not forcing your will on others, and keep the blocks from creeping back in. (See Expert Giver—No Strings Attached, p. 212.)
You have to check and ignore your fear, not allowing it to tell you that there is no God to protect you and provide for your needs.
However, you cannot do that until you have loved and forgiven others unconditionally with no strings attached, which over time will reveal that God is protecting you and providing for you.
Until then, as they say in AA, “Fake it till you make it.”
For twenty-two years, I owned a gun store and supported the Second Amendment right for people to bear arms to protect themselves.
I still support that right, believing that it is up to all individuals to decide for themselves if they want to exercise that right or not.
I understand that fear is a powerful force to overcome.
God made human beings with fear so they would survive until they enable love and forgiveness to come into their lives, which allows God into their lives, so He can reveal Himself to them.
Until, through their belief and faith, they know that God is real, fear will be their protector.
If you believe others’ fears and doubts about your safety, something bad could happen to you.
But that wouldn’t be God’s fault; it would be caused by the wavering of your beliefs.
When fear comes, you must rebuke it, stop it, ignore it, and turn it off.
Do you need a gun to protect yourself?
If you believe you do, then you do.
If you believe that you don’t need a gun to protect yourself, then you won’t.
If you waver with doubts about your belief that God will protect you, you are doubting that there is a God to protect you.
That is why believing without doubt that God is protecting you requires both faith and courage.
Romans 12:21 states, “Don’t let evil conquer you, but conquer evil by doing good” (NLT version).
Anger and violence beget more anger and violence, and only love can break this vicious cycle.
Love begets love.
There is no defense against love.
People don’t want to fight others who tell them they love them and refuse to fight back.
As it is written in Matthew 5:38–41:
You have heard the law that says the punishment must match the injury: “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say, do not resist an evil person! If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also. If you are sued in court and your shirt is taken from you, give your coat, too. If a soldier demands that you carry his gear for a mile, carry it two miles. (NLT version)
Jesus does not say that we should resist evil or turn the other cheek sometimes.
To resist evil is to fight; to turn the other cheek is not to fight.
Jesus is very clear here that we can never justify violence.
Lacking faith and courage, people have ignored this passage, justifying violence and war in God’s name.
But according to Jesus, unlike what is often described in the Old Testament, God does not approve of violence and war between human beings.
On the night that Jesus was arrested, Peter drew his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s slave (John 18:10).
Jesus responded to this violent act by stating, “Put away your sword. Those who use the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26:52, NLT version).
This passage is black-and-white; there is nothing to misinterpret.
We cannot misinterpret Jesus’ words; we can only ignore them.
Either we take His advice, or we don’t.
Do you ignore His words?
Would Jesus carry a gun and use it to protect Himself or others?
According to everything that Jesus said in the Bible, I would have to answer with a firm “No!”
Most Christians who support gun rights are ignoring what Jesus said.
But there are more than 30,000 versions of Christianity.
That means that there are over 30,000 different interpretations of the Bible.
Baptists disagree with Catholics.
Catholics disagree with Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Jehovah’s Witnesses disagree with Mormons.
Etc., etc.
I tend to focus solely on Jesus’ actual words in the Bible.
Sometimes Jesus spoke figuratively in parables, and at other times He spoke directly and literally.
The passages above about not resisting evil, turning the other cheek, and dying by the sword if you live by the sword are all direct and literal, without any room for misinterpretation.
Parables, on the other hand, can be interpreted in multiple ways.
But some individuals who lack faith that God will protect them ignore Jesus’ direct instructions.
Total faith and courage are required to know and believe that God can and always will protect you.
As is stated in Psalm 23:4, “Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me” (NLT version).
Psalm 91:1-16, states:
Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This I declare about the LORD: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; he is my God, and I trust him. For he will rescue you from every trap and protect you from deadly disease. He will cover you with his feathers. He will shelter you with his wings. His faithful promises are your armor and protection. Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night, nor the arrow that flies in the day. Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness, nor the disaster that strikes at midday. Though a thousand fall at your side, though ten thousand are dying around you, these evils will not touch you. Just open your eyes, and see how the wicked are punished. If you make the LORD your refuge, if you make the Most High your shelter, no evil will conquer you; no plague will come near your home. For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone. You will trample upon lions and cobras; you will crush fierce lions and serpents under your feet! The LORD says, “I will rescue those who love me. I will protect those who trust in my name. When they call on me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue and honor them. I will reward them with a long life and give them my salvation.” (NLT version)
It’s really backwards that the majority of the “faithful” Christians are the ones who are fighting for the right to carry guns.
Please read the quotes above again.
Do not resist evil, but turn the other cheek and walk through the valley of death fearing no evil.
There is no room in those declarations of truth from Jesus for a “little revenge.”
There is no room in those declarations for you to need to protect yourself in the valley of death.
Remember, fear is the Devil, the liar, who tells you that there is no God to protect you, so you must protect yourself.
You must overcome your fear.
That is the only way for God to win here.
God is love.
You must overcome fear in order to love and forgive, which is to bring God into your life.
If fear is writing your stories, and you believe them, they will come true.
If you are fearful, you will likely manifest your fears.
Fear is a liar.
Overcome it.
Ignore it.
Rebuke it.
Acknowledge and believe that God has all power and protects you.
If you do, that will be true.
You will no longer need fear to protect you.
God will protect you.
When this truth is fully realized and acknowledged, then the phrase “The truth will set you free” will have a completely new meaning.
What you believe without doubts will come true.
Your power lies in what you choose to believe.
What is the future you want?
Until you understand that there is a God, and He will provide for and protect you, you will obey your fears.
God’s will is for us to surrender our selfish natures to His loving and forgiving spirit, which will create Heaven on Earth.
Our unloving and unforgiving natures are responsible for the Hell we experience on this planet.
My Vision for the Future of Earth
More and more people will stop using alcohol, marijuana, methamphetamines, cocaine, opiates/narcotics, and Western medications for depression and anxiety, because those drugs partially or completely block love and forgiveness.
Good drugs will become available for people to detox from these bad drugs without withdrawal symptoms. (See my essay “Good Drugs and Bad Drugs—Don’t Mix Them.”)
Expert Giver Groups will enable people to examine their resentments and anger, practice how to forgive others who have hurt them, and make amends for the past harms they themselves have caused.
By doing these things with the help of a mentor, they will become free to have love and forgiveness as their primary objectives in life.
People will start to look for others they can help, instead of what they can get from them.
People will turn away from selfishness, which only keeps them in a life of loneliness and pain.
Instead, people will start loving others unconditionally with no expectations of anything in return.
By doing so, they will be truly happy, peaceful, joyous, and connected with others, which they have been seeking all their lives.
They will maintain the newfound Heaven on Earth that they are a part of.
The end of the Book of Revelations in the Bible speaks of seven plagues.
However, I believe that those plagues are now all in the past.
The end times are here, but that’s good news, because it’s the end of fear ruling people, which has caused so much pain on Earth.
Chapter 20 of the Book of Revelations describes Satan being thrown into a bottomless pit.
That is telling us that the time is coming soon when most of us will be enabled to overcome and ignore our fears, since the lying Devil tells us that there is no God to protect us and provide for us.
We are now close to the last chapter in the Book of Revelations, in which love and forgiveness reign here on Earth.
The Second Coming refers to a massive wave of the coming of God the Father’s spirit of love and forgiveness, the same spirit that flowed through Jesus, to finally flow through the majority of human beings on Earth, which will bring Heaven here.
Expert Giver Groups can provide the means by which Christianity can remove the blocks in the way of love and forgiveness, enabling God’s spirit to flow through the majority of humans on the planet.
People can start the process without understanding God or believing in Him.
Once people are enabled to love and forgive, God will reveal Himself to them.
Expert Giver Groups will provide the way for people to have a gradual spiritual awakening, which will enable love and forgiveness.
Also, medical science will approve “good drugs” for therapeutic use in professionally approved settings, which can cause sudden spiritual awakenings that enable love and forgiveness.
The “good drugs” I refer to all promote love and forgiveness. (See my essay “Good Drugs and Bad Drugs—Don’t Mix Them.”)
Both sudden and gradual spiritual experiences will accelerate the breakthrough of God’s loving spirit coming into this world to act in union with us.
As a result of more and more humans evolving in this way, war, nuclear warheads, guns, division, tribalism, arguing, fighting, and conditional giving will start to diminish and ultimately disappear from the world.
Our species will evolve to a place where the majority of us are living a life focused on continually forgiving and giving to each other unconditionally, which will create and maintain Heaven on Earth.
We will stop polluting the planet and allow it to heal.
We will attain true unity forged from love and forgiveness.
God will be revealed to most people, which will finally bring Heaven to Earth.
God is love.
As is stated in 1 John 4:8: “Anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love” (NLT).
1 Corinthians 13: 4-7 states:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (NIV)