The greatest obstacle I discover in people who are “seeking spirituality”, God, or however one defines it, is the attempt to overcome the walls constructed by those who claim to follow Jesus, or who call themselves Christian.

I am not sure how the message of God’s love of creation has gotten so distorted that often those who claim to follow Jesus are sometimes the greatest obstacles to others having an encounter with God.

I spend a great deal of time reminding folks of the good that has been done in the name of God and by those who follow Jesus, for it seems that many folks only see and hear the bad. They hear messages of exclusion, hatred, judgement and violence against their enemies; the very things that Jesus seemed so opposed and attempted to overcome. It seems that often folks only hear the loud “law quoters” who think they are speaking for God, just like in the days of Jesus. Jesus ran into oppostion from those who we hellbent on following the law as they understood it. It is the very folks who claimed to have possessed the “correct doctrine” that struggled with Jesus’ deeper message of love. The one’s who “got it right” are the very ones who killed the WORD MADE FLESH– Jesus. Something tells me that if Jesus showed-up on Sunday, that many congregations who claim to follow him are the very ones who would send him to the cross, and sadly most likely wouldn’t recognize the very one they claim as their God.

READ JESUS: his life and actions. Read Jesus’ Heart. Read his way. Read the truth of his nature and message. Read his LIFE. If Jesus’ life was not defined first by God’s love for him and then his love of God, self and others, then I have missed Jesus completely. Jesus’ message of love streched his contemporaries beyond the well-defined comfortable context, and if Jesus’ message of love does not stretch me beyond my safety zone of my well-defined religious laws then there’s a good chance that I have not encountered the WORD MADE FLESH. When I stare into the eyes of the wounded, bleeding, loving one, I experience profound love staring back at me; perhaps that is just too much for me to comprehend; too much to absorb. Can Love love me that much? I think by his way, truth, and life Jesus would answer, “yes.” It’s when I truly believe in the way, truth, and life of God’s love or WORD MADE FLESH– that I am saved– made whole. The law will never save me; being a religious believer will never save me; only love can save; only love can heal; and only love can resurrect life.

It’s when I READ JESUS, the WORD MADE FLESH, that I realize how short I fall, not because of my inability or unwillingness to follow the law, but my inability to love.