Dec 13
18
How Can I know I’m Right With God?
Do you think you have to sell your beliefs?
(Part One of Two Parts)
Is there one simple, basic answer to the question in the above title? How many of us think we know where to get the answer and scurry about, knocking on doors, handing out pamphlets presenting the religion or church or, perhaps, just a passage from the sacred writings of that one religion we believe is the place where we can get the answer.
Is there any question other than the one in the title that really gets us to the “bottom line” as quickly? I promised last time that I would see you next with Brad’s Tools for Gaining Access …I am not saying that these tools are for you, but what I am saying is that if you want the experience of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that you are connected with and operating in the presence and power of our (your and my) SPIRIT-PARENT you may want to consider doing something different (not the same thing differently which leads only to getting the same results).
If you sense you may have been sent here to read this, you may want to open your mind to doing something completely different than whatever you have been doing that has left you feeling devoid of that presence and power.
Think of the foregoing sentence – are there periods during which you knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that you were living in the presence and power of our SPIRIT-PARENT? Are you there right now? What I’m offering, freely I might add, because I received it freely, are some tools I use to continually keep me in that space of knowing intellectually and feeling emotionally that I’m connected to the very SOURCE Who/Which created/creates everything right NOW.
Sometimes you need help to find all the clues...ask Source.
I do not want to persuade you to leave a path that is already working for you, but if you cannot look in the mirror and tell yourself HONESTLY that everything is working exactly the way you want it to work for you and that you are overwhelmingly grateful and joyful for your life the way it is right now – as one of my grown sons still expresses it, “Well, duh, what other clue do you want?”
Some folks accuse me of being oriented, exclusively, to Spiritual healing, healing power and other manifestations of SPIRIT, or UNIVERSE, or INFINITE INTELLIGENCE, or whatever term you prefer for that which is beyond our ability to fully comprehend and Who is working supernaturally in and though individuals.
If you haven’t had or aren’t currently having that experience and you want to argue with me, I would ask you a simple question …can you recall anything else that is beyond your own ability to do, but you did it; and yet you knew it was our SPIRIT-PARENT, by whatever other title or name, Who/Which did it through you?
If you have such a memory, then you have an event that was verified by SPIRIT! …watching someone be healed of an “incurable” disease is like that – so you see, my thinking is not limited to manifesting Spiritual healing and healing power as the only evidence, but I am saying that it is certainly ONE way – particularly when the results are sustained, meaning they have staying power.
Did you enjoy the climb? Why not?
We all have times of incredibly good feelings some might express as being “mountaintop” and certainly some of those come from knowing that we are connected to our SPIRIT-PARENT…but we all experience the other end of the of the emotional spectrum too, that’s the human experience.
We can get high on alcohol and drugs – many of us have been there and done that, but when we have had the high of knowing SPIRIT is operating full bore in and through us – that’s a far superior high, as even those who have been on the hard stuff like heroin, but have ALSO experienced the high on SPIRIT can attest that the latter is supremely and significantly better because the former lets you down HARD.
I’m being nudged to emphasize that the difference, again, is whether any experience has a sustained or lasting effect – or requires a “fix.” Whether a Mountaintop experience stems from being present at a highly charged motivational gathering or a religious one – we’re soon back in the valley of reality and in order to get back the emotional high requires a repeat performance of the external stimuli that brought it on in the first place.
There is one Salvation, expressed in many ways, so you can easily find it.
The tools I’m sharing are not artificial “fixes” in that sense, but rather equipment of maintenance. Whether your upbringing is religiously neutral, or actively pro or con, that is, if you were raised in an atmosphere permeated by some active form of Judeo-Christian, Hindu, or Muslim activity or by parents who are openly rebelling against their own childhood memories of any of those cultures, I am feeling the need to bring our attention solidly to one issue.
The word “Salvation” is deeply rooted in Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Islamic literature and culture. The word, in all the original languages from which that literature and those cultures receive their impetus – means “joined together again with the Creator as in the beginning;” in other words, re-paired to the point of a sustained relationship not just a quick fix.
Now then, I am not going to pose any intellectual arguments – I’m sure I’ll get e-mail taking issue with the following …PLEASE – these are tools that have been given me to overcome the “downers,” when I feel disconnected and am focused on garbage instead of being joined together with SPIRIT as in the beginning.
When you come to the end, you may have to find your own way.
I’m sharing these tools because I’ve been instructed to share them, if they’re not for you, that’s all right, but I do urge you to get your own, per usual, DIRECTLY from our SPIRIT-PARENT …in other words, these are tools to take you back beyond whatever religious culture in which you are enmeshed or rebelling against (neither matters other than it is most likely an obstacle to getting permanently RE-PAIRED), so that quick fixes are no longer attractive.
You certainly don’t need Brad Cullen or any other human teacher, but and, again, if you can’t honestly look at yourself in the mirror and say that you are on the path you are meant to be on – perhaps this is for you. How will you know? STOP!
Ask if you are supposed to read any further – don’t waste another moment – don’t stop asking – DEMANDING, to know whether what follows is for you UNTIL you get the answer that is right for you!
_______
Now then let’s deal with the title question; How Can I know I’m Right with God? …or in the parlance of being permanently joined together again, meaning that I have allowed myself to get separated from God and want to be joined together again …Here is the first tool and it is the most powerful of all power tools in the entire kit.
Is Brad selling you Jesus? He can't Jesus has already been sold.
PLEASE STOP to consider that I’m about to use a name which has an emotional impact on millions of people, but I am not using that term, most likely, in the way you interpret it – this is the reason that this article is in two parts …I’ll explain EXACTLY what I believe and provide the reasons for these beliefs in Part Two. For now, put please put the gear shift lever in neutral, or to use a more modern metaphor, please cool your jets. I guarantee that whoever you are and whatever you believe about the name I’m about to use I do not put the same meaning on it, that you put on it – the name will cause a reaction in you and that’s guaranteed whether consciously or subliminally, you cannot escape the emotional impact. There now, ready?
This first tool was given to me over fifty years ago. Now, I must tell you that I have shared this tool with literally hundreds of people in the darnedest places – some of these people have told me that they don’t believe in [CAREFUL BEFORE PROCEEDING …HERE COMES THE NAME] . . .
Jesus.
I was in a bar one night with a business client, waiting for our table for dinner, who said those exact words, that is, “I don’t believe in Jesus.” I asked him what he meant …and he said: “I don’t believe all that stuff about Jesus being God.”
Come on Brad, isn't that everyone's "Jesus" story...?
I laughed and told him that Jesus wasn’t offended in the least. “This isn’t about what you believe or don’t believe about Jesus,” I told him …and then I shared my own experience with Jesus and which is quite simple:
“I was at the end of my rope …physically, emotionally and mentally,” I continued, “okay, so I admit that I had a horrific hangover and I was trying to counteract it with several cups of coffee and some Benzedrine tablets …I not only became hyper, it quickly turned into my being paranoid and I was terrified that I was going to lose my mind – I cried out, “Jesus, if you are real, take over my life, I need help.”
I may still do that in this present day, when I feel desperate and my mind is fogged up and nothing seems to be working – Jesus never fails me. What I’d said had, for whatever reason, gotten my client’s attention …he told me that he was impressed and interested and asked me several questions – I went on to assure him that, in my experience, it wasn’t necessary to have an intellectual belief about Jesus being anything – I sure didn’t the first time I made the call, I had the very same intellectual arguments that he was using and what I learned was they don’t matter.
“The only thing I believe now, about Jesus,” I told him, “is that he is alive and real” (period).
This man later told me that he actually tried it and told me, “I see what you meant about that it doesn’t matter what I believe. I have peace with God, now – I still don’t know about all that religious stuff about Jesus, but I don’t feel the need to argue about it.”
The answers are not contained in the pencil or book...look within.
Okay, that’s on an emotional level, but what about the intellectual level that hits later? After my experience, I felt the need to attend church where I became loaded down with more intellectual baggage than anyone can imagine.
Bible study and teachers talking about what it takes to be “right with God.” They talked about “righteousness” and living in a “Godly manner” and so on. After several years of that I was back to a state of confusion, but putting on a great act of personal integrity and calling myself a Christian.
Tool #2 …I stumbled on a passage from the New Testament one night and I recognized that Jesus was teaching the only prayer I’ve ever read about how to be righteous in GOD’s eyes, not other human beings. I needed to forget my Christian act of righteousness, which was purely phony because I knew in my heart and mind that I wasn’t “right with God” – I was being dishonest on many levels.
The passage had such a powerful effect upon me, as I began to practice this short prayer …and I do mean SHORT, that I later even made it into a poem. This is going to take a bit of explanation so that, if you consider using this tool, you need to see the reason it is effective for me.
You can only hide for so long. Then you will find you.
I had done a word study on the meaning of the word “sin” in the original languages. Most people think the word means to break one of the commandments of God. I found out that “sin” was an old English word that was developed sometime around the thirteenth or fourteenth century C.E. (or A.D. if you’re more comfortable with that) as an archery term somewhat akin to “foul” in other, modern day, sports.
If you have ever seen the dart target that is now prevalent all over the world, but was birthed in British pubs, the target is sectioned off with numeric values – the center or “bulls-eye” providing the highest number of points.
England, as of course, everyone is well aware, is known for having periods of dense fog in various areas throughout the country. Archery was a popular sport at the time.
At an archery meet, with the numbered target several yards downfield and difficult to see, an official would stand behind a tree or manufactured shield so he wouldn’t be struck by an arrow, but would have a clear view of what the points were and would shout the number of points back up-field to the scoring table and where the archers were also standing. If the arrow missed the target completely he would yell, “SIN!”
Along come the translators of the King James or “Authorized Version” of the Bible in the 1600s. They had been commissioned to put the Bible into the everyday language of the common man. “Sin” was a common and quite popular expression – everybody knew it meant “missed the target.”
What the word means in the original language is to miss the best that God has for you and me. I realize that opens the door to subjective, individual perspective, but I don’t think I’m supposed to be in an emotional funk. I don’t think that’s God’s best at all. I don’t think I should be operating devoid of all the wonderment that comes with operating in the presence and power of our SPIRIT-PARENT …that’s not God’s best for me or for anyone else, in my humble view. It has nothing to do with being “salvation” and knowing you can go to heaven after you die, or any number of other religious tenets that different folks have attached to that word.
Yes it's true, that was a bible study...more to come....
When I’m not operating in the presence and power of SPIRIT, and either emotionally “down” or focused on any number of issues that have me frustrated, angry or any of the other “natural” emotions these body bags we occupy can be experiencing …for me, that’s not God’s best and therefore misses the mark of HER/HIS/ITS best for me. “Sin,” got it?
Some of the above referenced intellectual baggage which I had absorbed quite well, were quotes from both John, one of Jesus’ disciples and James, Jesus’ half-brother: Both basically saying that if we don’t deny our sin, but freely admit that we are less than perfect, the normal effects of whatever that “sin” is will lose all power over us – and a far different concept than I had been led to believe from all the programming I’d received in church.
Here’s where the short prayer Jesus taught comes in. The passage is worth reading, but Jesus told a story comparing two men – one was very religious and did everything right in the eyes of those who also tend to measure things as “good” by religious standards. The other man was a Roman tax collector, one of a breed that were notorious for cheating, taking advantage of poor widows who were unable to pay their taxes and other unsavory kind of behavior.
The religious one said, “I thank you God that you made me better than other men …I don’t lie steal or cheat, I give ten percent of all I have to charity and I fast twice every week and I thank you especially for being better than that man over there.”
It's easy to pretend to be a Christian, you just have to show up at church.
This sounded exactly like my own phony version of how good I was since becoming a Christian and got my attention …because that is what I had been learning for several years in the church I attended – so, at the time, it sounded okay to me, so far so good.
The fellow “over there,” to whom the religious one was comparing himself, was overcome by his guilt over all his above-mentioned shortcomings and couldn’t even lift his head and he cried out, “God be merciful to a sinner such as I.”
Then Jesus got my attention with what he said next. It was this latter guy, the Roman tax collector, the scum of the earth in anybody’s views, who went home righteous in God’s eyes …INSTEAD of the religious guy who looked and acted “good” and was even thanking God for it.
I saw my phoniness for exactly what it was: MISSING GOD, “SIN!” …and the antidote was simply admitting it.
It comes from inside out.
So, here’s the tool I use and it works for me when all else fails, when I wake up to the fact that things aren’t going the way I know they’re supposed to be going, according to the purpose I’ve been given by which to live my life on this planet, I literally beat on my chest and say: “Be merciful to me, a sinner” – now then, because of all the intellectual baggage I had absorbed, I know this is truth, for me, and for whatever reason I also know, AND FEEL, almost immediately, that the presence and power of our SPIRIT-PARENT is all over me.
Is this tool for you? I don’t know, I simply know that it works for me. A perfect example is that I’ve been spending the last hour or so writing this and the piece just didn’t feel right to me – instead of owning up to the fact that I was missing SPIRIT …I just kept plowing on – my use of another tool wasn’t getting any results either – that tool is to ask “What now?” – a tool which Ryan Bruce and I have termed a “pattern interrupt” to get us out of operating on the basis of some of our past judgments and habits …I was getting nothing and the piece didn’t feel right. “What’s wrong?” I asked – and knew I was missing what I was supposed to be writing and had gotten off onto some old habits. Yep – tool #2 – I beat on my chest and said “God be merciful to me – I feel I’m missing what you have for me” and it worked!
Tool #2, give it a try
Does this mean that this article is now pleasing you? That is totally unimportant to me, I’m not writing it for you. My purpose is to stay connected, which may mean different things to me than it does to you. I am supposed to share out of that connection …and that is exactly what I’ve been doing since becoming righteous in God’s eyes by using tool #2 …and knowing and feeling it when I used this tool a few times during writing this article – you do what you are led to do.
When it is working for you …THEN share it with others – if that’s what SPIRIT leads you to do.
The point of all this …is the way, for me, to get right with God (by whatever other title or name) is to be directed by God …not other human beings. The best we can do for one another is for each of us to live and operate in the power of God …the way I express this is to have our SPIRIT-PARENT live and operate in and through me. Then I’m not caught in the trap of “trying” to do anything. Doing God’s work is not Brad Cullen’s job …knowing and feeling that God is operating in and through me is my job – and for that, sometimes I just have to admit that I’ve been trying too hard to impress you, my brothers and sisters, with how righteous I am.
BE MERCIFUL UNTO ME FOR MISSING YOU (while beating on my chest) works wonders for me – RE-PAIRED with our SPIRIT-PARENT.
Admittedly somebody could and will argue that HE/IT/SHE was there all along, and I believe that too – but since my emotions weren’t in alignment with my intellectual belief, the affect was that I wasn’t on the same frequency may be one way to express it meaningfully.
I hope to hear from you when the time is right for you,
b
Publishers note: Podcast 85, parts 1,2 and 3 accompany this article. 85 – How can I know I’m right with God part 1 85 – How can I know I’m right with God part 2 85 – How can I know I’m right with God part 3