God Will Punish
God is wanting me to get more aggressive with these entries. I know what He wants but I think it is still too early to do that. But, as occurs so often, He will get His way so I should just start doing it and get it over with. But I continue to resist. I think I know why he wants me to get more content out there but I am afraid of the answer and I choose not to listen until He makes me. Probably won't be too long from now. Anyway.
What God wants me to talk about is this insistence by most religious leaders, and I include most religions in this, the insistence that God is going to punish you if you do not do His bidding or follow what the religious leaders have determined is the best way to follow God. They seem to say in one breath that you have all these gifts and love and acceptance by God but in the next breath you can in some way do things that this will no longer be true and He will punish you for it. I know I have spoken to this on many occasions but I can't help but try to get the point across in as many ways as I can. God loves you and He did not create you so that He could then punish you. It is not true. It cannot happen and those that insist that you need to live in fear that God is going to get you if you step out of line are, in very simple terms, wrong.
This is where a lot of people will turn off and once again proclaim me to be a horrible person (I save myself from what they will really call me) and that I do not speak the words of God or that I do not represent what God is all about.
I do not claim to be the speaker for God, nor do I claim to be the final end all be all of what God is trying to tell us. I relate what he is telling me. If it speaks to you then we have found a common place. If it does not, then find your way to God in whatever method you can find. Listen to whatever voices that are telling you what to do and assume they are from God. I cannot say one way or the other. I can only tell you what God tells me and not really what God tells me but I can only try to relate in whatever way I can through this written language what it is God is trying to tell me. It is my interpretation and my understanding that I am writing about. It is not meant to be yours. But I will continue to try because God insists and no amount of my procrastination or ignoring or not following what He wants will change that fact that He wants me to try. I might get it wrong and I might look back someday and wonder how I could have ever come to that conclusion or spouted those words, but for now, this is what I can do and I have committed to doing it the best way I can. I didn't know I was going to go down that path but there it is and now I will get back the message I am trying to write about today.
When someone tells you that God is going to punish you if you are not good, they are wrong. They do not speak the words of God and they are trying to bend you to their will and not God's. In most cases, it is them trying to make themselves the arbitrator of what God is and what God wants and they have taken the words they have read, the power those words might contain, and are using them to escalate themselves. To make it seem they are more important in God's eyes than you are. That God only tells them the truth and you are mere vassals for them to control and manipulate to making them greater, not God.
Now you might say, what about me. Isn't that exactly what I am doing. Am I not trying to make it seem that I am greater because I say that God speaks to me. You could be right. I might be doing that and not even realise it or I might be doing it and actually I do realise it. To be honest, that is why I have fought this my whole life. I do not want to be the point of this conversation. I do not want to be speaking the words of God as if I have some inner knowledge that others do not. But that is just an excuse. That may or may not be true. My message is, and always will be, You are the only one who can say what God is telling you. Not me, not the preacher, not even the Bible can say what God is speaking to you. Your relationship with God is just that, your relationship with God. If it helps for you to listen to someone else, to try to get others opinions, to try to get someone to interpret what God might be saying, then I cannot say what is right and what is wrong. The only thing I am trying to convey is this.
GOD IS TALKING TO YOU RIGHT NOW.
No one can take that away from you and no one can tell you what it means. I am totally, completely, and absolutely believing that God is within us and he is talking to us and we know right from wrong. God has told me that everyone has that within them. Everyone, everyone, everyone, has God within them and they know right from wrong and they can follow what God has to say. Free will allows us to ignore it, or to choose something else or to make excuses or choices that are not what He is saying but it does not change that the words of God are there and He is telling us what the right thing is. He is there.
Again, I strolled off into something that I did not intend to talk about in this entry. In fact, I have kind of lost the point about what I thought God wanted me to say. But, I think He led me there and wanted me to write more about that. I think it is part of His demand that I get more aggressive and speak His words more forcibly. So I leave it here and try to get back to the topic I started with.
At one point, I said that not even the Bible can tell you what God is telling you. I have a whole sermon or entry or several entries that I will make that will address what God is telling me about the Bible. In order that you do not immediately turn this off and never come back, I believe that everything we need to learn and know is in the Bible. I do not have a problem with the Bible. I just do not think that people who use the Bible as a club to harass and harangue people into doing what they think is the right thing to do are not using the Bible as it was meant to be used. But, again, I will not go off into another loop about that here. I will leave it for later, unless as I write about this, God takes me off topic again, but I want to say what I came here to say today and not tangent off into other topics.
People will tell me that it says that God does punish people, that it says so in the Bible. That is has to be true because that is what God does. He rewards those that are good and punishes those that are bad. That is wrong. God did not create you so He can punish you. It simply is not true of God. You have the love of God. You have the gifts of God. You have everything that God has provided for you. You cannot do anything to change that. If you think you can, or more importantly someone tells you that if you do wrong God will do something about it, they are lying. I didn't expect to type that word but God insisted that I do. They are lying.
Now I will give them an out. I will backpedal and allow them some form or way to justify what they are saying. If they are saying that, then it is an interpretation of the Bible or what they have been taught. It is how they came to understand what God is telling them. It is their interpretation. Maybe it is right for them. Maybe it allows them to follow God more closely. Maybe it is right for you. I cannot tell you what God is saying or what is right for you. I can't and no one else can.
When you read the Bible or someone is preaching to you or just talking to you about anything, you have to ask yourself, what is God saying to me. What is God telling me, at this moment, about what I am reading or what I am hearing and how can I interpret it so it makes sense to me. We always have the answer. We don't really have to ask, the answer is there. We can ignore it or listen to it but it is there, God is always talking to you and He is talking to you right now as you read this.
So to wrap this up and I think if I don't I will go on forever and begin to lose my way in what God wants me to get across, I will say these final things.
When people tell you that God is going to punish you if you do not do the right thing, do not fall into that trap. Do not allow whomever is telling you that to create that power over you. Do not allow someone or something to make you bow to their will. It is God you must ask and God you must follow and it is God that will tell you what is right and what is wrong and there is no one who can say otherwise.
And if you do not follow what God has told you is right? What happens? I don't know. I can tell you what I think or what God has tried to make me understand but I don't know if that has any meaning to you. You have to interpret or decide what will happen if you do not do what is right. But whatever happens, God loves you. He wants to be with you and He wants you to do the right thing. Because in the end, that is the only thing that matters. Do you do the right thing or do you not. Does God care. I think so, but he gave you free will. He said, you are free to choose. He does not punish you for making the wrong choice. It is your choice to make, regardless of what God is telling you or anyone else. It is up to you.
I am about to go off on another tangent. Maybe I should just sit here and type out everything God is trying to make me say. I choose not to. God understands. He will get his way in the end, but for now, I choose not to go off on any more tangents. At some point, I will have to dedicate my life to this, but not now. It is my choice.
The gist of it is, God is not here to punish you. You cannot do something to make him angry at you. You cannot lose the love of God. Punishment is a concept of Man. It is not what God has intended and we need to stop letting other men use God as a club to beat us into submission with. God does not want that.
And I say I cannot tell you what God is telling you but I can say, when you read this that you know it to be true. God is there, He is talking to you, and He is telling you that what I have said about Him punishing you is true. God is Love.
