‍

‍

Faith in God is faith in God.

Not those who stand on his shoulders to attract attention to themselves and the things they have to say about God.

If I believe in God, then I believe in God.

I believe in the things God reveals about himself through his own Word and testimony.

If I believe anything another source has to say about him – even if that source is myself – then I believe in and trust that source.

My faith, trust and ultimately my love belongs to that source and the misrepresentative information and ideas about God that source vomits into collective thought.

When it comes to how our world knows and understands God, only one source offers testimony that is fixed, reliable and true.

Only one voice can be trusted.

And that voice is God's.

Doubt begins where God's voice ends.

As does the misrepresentation and exploitation of God.

Faith or trust in an alternative source can never be considered faith or trust in God.

Just as doubt in God is not the same as having doubt in something an alternative source has offered about God.

When an atheist refutes the existence of the incorporeal God that is worshipped and praised by the Abrahamic religions, they are not refuting the existence of the one true God as he knows himself and has revealed himself.

The idea of an incorporeal God is an image of God that was not revealed through God’s own testimony.

God never said, ‘I am an incorporeal God!'

This idea of God was created by sources who offered themselves and the things they had to say about God as an alternative to God and the Truth he promised to reveal about himself when the time came to reveal himself.

Now if God’s own Word and testimony reveals a different Truth to the one offered by these religions, then what they have created, worshipped, loved and honoured is reduced to nothing more than a false god.

They will have broken the first and most essential commandment.

They will have honoured a false image of God.

But misrepresented, exploited and violated the one true God to do so.

They will have turned God into something he never was.

God was clear – we are to place no other ‘gods’ before him.

This includes all ideas, images, definitions, concepts, guesses, speculations and anything else offered about him that does not come from God.

If God promises to reveal the Truth about himself, and asks us to remain watchful for that revelation, then nothing is more important than that revelation and the watchfulness designed to prepare us for it.

This was God’s prayer to us.

‘Trust me and no other! Watch for me and no other! For I will reveal the Truth!

Anyone who offers their own take on God makes themselves and the things they have to say about God more important than God and the Truth he promised to reveal.

If our faith and trust belong to God alone and reside solely in the things he has to say about himself - and our love for him is unconditional - then we are practising that watchfulness.

We are rejecting any voice that attempts to violate or infringe upon God’s right to sole custody and control over how he is known by our world.

When we embrace any idea of God that does not come from God, and the person or institution sharing it, then we have made that person or institution and the idea they offer – idea, not Truth – more important than God.

And if we are the one offering it we have made ourselves more important than God and the Truth as he experiences it.

We have asked the world to turn its attention toward us.

Perhaps the sickest and most disrespectful aspect of any such betrayal of God is that what is being offered is both unsolicited and speculative.

People, without knowing God and without hearing from him, are choosing to explain him as they want him explained.

They reject, and act in opposition to, God’s promise to reveal the Truth

They reject God’s call to watchfulness.

And then try to get in before him to establish their idea of God as the one our world should follow.

They play ‘god’ over God.

And yet all they do is offer themselves as a substitute for God.

Not with God’s blessing.

And not under God’s authority.

What they do is done under their own authority – or under the authority of the institution they belong to.

Central to any discussion about this behaviour is consent.

By asking the world to watch for his revelation of Truth, God makes it clear he does not want us to invest in any other.

He does not consent to any other source explaining him.

And he does not consent to us embracing or trusting those who offer themselves and the things they have to say as an alternative to him.

God promised to reveal the Truth.

And he asked us to watch for that Truth.

These are things God said.

What God has never been documented as saying is this:

‘Explain me to the world as you want me explained. Define me as you want me defined. And worship any idea of me that suits you. Reduce me to whatever image, nature or form you wish me to have. And then worship your fetishization of me and call it ‘god’.

No!

God never said these things.

But this is what our world has done to him.

Without consent.

And without his blessing.

And it is those who call themselves ‘faithful’ who did it.

What God said was, ‘I Am Who I Am!’

Meaning he can only ever be who he is.

He also promised to reveal the Truth of who that was.

Perhaps that’s why Jesus asked his followers to remain watchful for the revelation of Truth that would come from God.

I refer here to his true followers of course, as opposed to those who have instead chosen to trust the 'word' on God that is offered by religious leaders and others - philosophers and theologians included - who thought they would place knowing God in their own hands.

People offering their own personal or institutional take on God does not provide clarity on God.

It does not offer a gateway into Truth.

And it does not honour God or hold him sacred.

By nature, what they do is misrepresentative, misleading and exploitative.

God has not asked those who do this to him to share the things they say.

And they do ‘do it’ to him as it is an act against him.

Any information that comes into our world about God that has not come into our world through God, is information God did consent to existing.

For one who loves and trusts God, and has faith in God, this information is not to be trusted.

Nor is the person offering it.

We should all be very careful how it is we come to ‘know’ God.

If it’s not through God and his own direct Word and testimony, then we do not know God through God.

And we do not know God as he knows himself.

Making whatever idea of God we claim to ‘know’ a false one.

We know God through someone who has chosen to explain or define something they themselves do not understand.

We know God through someone's misrepresentation, exploitation and abuse of him.

And we know God through someone who has made themselves more important than God and his right to sole custody over all knowledge that is made known about him to the world.

The only source who will not mislead the world about God is God.

And one person who hedged his whole reputation on this fact is Jesus.

Just as those who misrepresent God by offering themselves as an alternative to him, hedge their reputation and credibility on being right about a God they do not know and who did not consent to them doing what they do to him in the first place.

And they hedge their reputation on Jesus being wrong.

If God reveals the Truth as Jesus promised, then anyone who competes or competed with God and that Truth, will have established themselves as one who competes or competed with God for custody over how he is known by our world.

For any definition of God that predates his own, stands in opposition to his.

And those who brought them, in opposition to the Word and instructions of Jesus.

Be sure that our world is full of people who sing the praises of Jesus, who claim to love and trust him and who boast of their great faith in him, but who act in complete contradiction to the things he asked of us on behalf of God.

Loving God can only be made real by grounding our understanding of him, and our actions and behaviour, on the knowledge he shares about himself.

And not on the things shared by others.

Critically, Jesus told the world he was not speaking on his own behalf.

He said the ONE who held authority over the things he said was God.

He was nothing.

Because he was everything.  

He wasn’t speculating about God or sharing things he wanted to share about God.

He wasn’t trying to steer the world towards his own personal understanding of God.

He claimed the things he said represented God speaking for himself.

He claimed he was God’s living Word.

If anything Jesus said or predicted about God ever proves to be wrong, then - at least when it comes to the Word of Jesus - this would mean God was wrong about himself.

Or that Jesus was an imposter – just as those who speculate about God and misrepresent him are imposters.

God cannot be wrong about himself.

So, if God does not deliver on the things Jesus said, then he has rendered Jesus a liar and false prophet.

But if God does deliver on the things Jesus said, then he validates Jesus.

And by validating Jesus he dismisses any ‘faith’ that did not accept and then ground itself in the life and teachings of Jesus, the living Word of God.

If God validates Jesus, then any faith that renounces him, rejects him or reduces his significance, renounces and rejects God.

And denies God his right to reveal himself in whatever way he chooses to reveal himself.

But God validating Jesus does not validate all who claim to believe in Jesus.

If Jesus represented the voice of God, then it was God who asked us to remain watchful for the Truth that would come from him.

So, anyone offering their personal or institutional perspectives on God has already rejected the Word of God - in its living form - to do what they are doing.

If someone is offering their preferred take on God to the world then what they offer is an alternative to the Truth God and Jesus promised would come.

Faith in Jesus - as is the case with God - can only be embodied and expressed when one has faith in Jesus.

And when they trust entirely in the things he has to say.

Faith and trust in God and Jesus trusts in the things they say, and respond to them.

Faith and trust in God and Jesus do not place knowing them in the hands of anyone else.

When someone offers the things they have to say about God and Jesus to the world, they are not asking others to trust in God and Jesus.

They are asking the world to trust in them.

Trust in Jesus requires one to believe that when Jesus spoke, God was speaking.

Any ‘follower’ of Jesus who offers themselves and the things they have to say about either Jesus or God as an alternative to that promised truth, has knowingly and willingly competed with God.

They have chosen to offer themselves as an alternative to God’s promised revelation of Truth and invited the world to look to them.

They have chosen to steer the world away from the watchfulness Jesus asked for, and to instead cast its eyes and ears in their direction.

They have surrendered trust in the Word of Jesus and God to do what they do -  and then invite others to participate in their infidelity.

Should God decide to validate Jesus by revealing the Truth as Jesus promised, then he renders every alternative that ever existed, treacherous, misleading and false.

Not to mention exploitative, negligent and cruel.

Even those who claim to follow Jesus, and who wear their faith like a badge of honour.

It’s a huge call by someone to declare to the world, ‘know God as I want God to be known, even though I do not know him, and even though I am sharing things he never asked to be shared.’

If anyone should be doubted or rejected by our world when it comes to how we might know God, it is those who would dare be so arrogant and bold as to do this.

Don’t for one minute believe anyone reducing God or Jesus to their speculative thoughts and opinions is humble or inspiring.

There is no act more arrogant and proud - nor dismissive of God - than for one to do such a thing.

What could be more disrespectful to God than reducing him to our own thinking, and then asking the world to trust in that, despite him promising to deliver his own Truth?

As soon as anyone says, ‘this is what I think about God’, or ‘this is who I say God is’, an alternative is born.

A source of information on God that is not God has forced itself – non-consensually - upon the world.

And when it comes to the things they have to say, should anyone be fool enough to embrace them, then they come to know God through things God has not said about himself.

Someone sharing information about God that God did not consent to being shared, does not reveal anything about God.

What is revealed is their lack of trust, their lack of faith, their lack of respect and their lack of love.

And what they also reveal is their unsolicited and non-consensual misrepresentation and exploitation of God.

Along with their betrayal.

This applies to atheists as well.

How wrong or right anyone has been, or is about God - including Jesus and God themselves - rests on God’s revelation of Truth.

Everything that has ever been said about God, including the things said by God, will be measured against this revelation.

And the ‘faith’ of those who robbed God of custody over how he was known and understood by our world, will also be held up in lights.

And just how negligent they were in actioning these thefts will also be measured.

If God does not reveal himself as Jesus promised he would, then Jesus is wrong.

God will have hung Jesus out to dry.

And anyone who trusted him.

But if God does deliver his Truth as Jesus promised, then anyone who did not remain watchful for his own revelation of Truth, and anyone who offered themselves and the things they had to say as an alternative to this definitive and ultimate Truth, has been hung out to dry.

If God speaks his Truth as Jesus promised he would, then even the Christian idea of God - which was established in opposition to the Word of Jesus and God - will be rendered misleading and false.

The ‘incorporeal god’ of Christianity will be deemed never to have existed.

And will be found to have been created in complete contradiction to the explicit instructions of God and Jesus.

The same fate awaits any idea about God offered to the world that did not come from God.

And those who offered them will forever be known as those who exploited, violated and misrepresented God without consent - and were wrong.

What a dilemma for institutions such as the one that has made its headquarters at the Vatican.

If Jesus and God are right, then the Pope and his Catholic Church – and the other Abrahamic religions along with them - are exploitative, negligent and wrong.

That said, when God reveals his Truth, it can be no other way.

For this will be the time that God offers himself and the things he has to say to the world as an alternative to every other voice that attempted to place knowing him under its own authority before his time arrived.

God will offer himself in competition to every other voice vying for custody over how he is known.

If anyone truly believed God himself would reveal the Truth, why would they establish in collective thought the lies and falsehoods he would have to compete with?

And why would they offer themselves as an alternative to him?

Be certain anyone who has done this does not act for God.

To explain or define God as we want him explained and defined is to act against God.

It defies his call to watchfulness and embodies a lack of faith, and a lack of trust.

What sort of faith establishes itself and the things it believes about God, in a source that lacks knowledge, Truth and consent?

And in the creation of - and belief in - ‘truths’ that do not come from God?

In God, there can be only one faith.

One trust.

And one love.

And that is when the faith and trust being expressed reside only in the things God says directly about himself.

And when the love is reserved for God, and is unconditional.

An unconditional love for God does not put conditions or limitations on God by explaining him.

The one true faith, trust and love will reject any alternative source of information on God.

With so many voices in our world vying for custody and control over how we might come to know and understand God, it is only natural that people will be drawn to them.

But to turn to an alternative we must turn away from God.

God will forgive these infidelities and betrayals if we return to the Truth that comes from him and honour God as he has revealed himself.

But he will not forgive those who have led or continue to lead the eyes and ears of the world away from him and the things he has to say about himself.

When Jesus and God asked the world to watch for the Truth that would come from God, they knew there would be alternatives.

In asking for our watchfulness, God was separating the things both he and Jesus knew he was going to say, from all the information that was going to come into our world through those offering themselves as substitutes for God and the Truth as he experiences it.

God did not ask anyone to make guesses about him.

He asked those who loved and trusted him to watch and wait for him.

And to prepare themselves for the revelation that would be God finally revealing himself as he truly exists.

God’s Truth has come.

He has delivered on the promise he made through Jesus, and validated Jesus in the process.

And in doing so he has rendered all other definitions and explanations of himself - and anyone who offered them - as false and misleading.

To offer an alternative idea of God to the one he promised he would deliver himself, one had to act against God.

And because this promise was made by Jesus, they had to act against Christ.

They had to offer themselves and the things they had to say as an alternative to Jesus.

In this way they oppose God and Christ.

Which makes them anti-God.

And anti-Christ.

Even though they present themselves as bastions of faith, love and trust, they are nothing of the kind.

What they bring is treachery, lies and deceit.

They wanted the world to bear witness to them and their unsolicited takes on God, as an alternative to God and the Truth as he understands it.

Unconditional love for God is unconditional.

Unconditional love for God moulds itself to the things God says about himself.

And an unconditional love for God places no limitations, conditions or restrictions on God.

An unconditional love for God would not dare define or explain God as it wanted God defined or explained.

In the eyes of one who loves, trusts and respects God only one source has the right to explain or define God.

And that is God.

The one true God whom Jesus served delivered on his promise.

This God can be known and understood as he knows himself.

And this understanding is available to those who once described themselves as faithful, and to atheists.

God delivered on his promise and has forever established Jesus as his Living Word.

God did not fail anyone who truly loved him, or those who trusted in his Word alone.

And he did not fail those who truly believed in Jesus.

But those who embodied and expressed a worldly faith, the ones that stole authority from God over how he would be known and understood by the world that has violated and raped him, and the ones who stood on God’s shoulders to be seen and adored by that world, failed God.

While the worldly faiths cashed in on their misrepresentations and exploitations of God and Jesus, the God whom Jesus served revealed himself to the world.

And his story is one of exploitation, betrayal and abuse.

Instead of looking to those who offered themselves and the things they had to say about God as alternatives to him, anyone who trusted Jesus could have been looking to God and the Truth he promised would come.

Or remained watchful for it as Jesus asked.

Those using God to draw attention to themselves have only ever been drawing the world's attention away from God.

And while they were doing this, God became more and more misunderstood.

‘God’ became something he wasn’t.

He became something he never was.

And while the world worshipped and debated an idea of God that did not come from God, and an idea of God that God’s own revelation and testimony has proved never existed, the One True God who asked the world to watch for his Truth, suffered.

All anyone who truly trusted God ever had to say was, ‘God, through Jesus, promised to reveal the Truth to the world. When that comes you will know. You will all know!’

But those with a worldly faith did not trust in God.

They wanted control of God.

They wanted custody over how God was known and understood by the world.

And so, they became the worldly authorities on God who steered the eyes and ears of the world away from God.

Faith in God does not speculate about God.

It relies on God’s Word alone when it comes to understanding him.

Anyone can know the nature and form of the God Jesus served.

All they need to do is eliminate every word ever spoken or written about him that did not come from him.

Those things being the things he never asked to be said in the first place.

When one has done that, what remains is the Word of God.

The only source of information on God that will not lie, and will not mislead.

In a world that truly loved and trusted God, no definition of God would have existed before his own.

But God knew what our world would become.

He knew people would try to assume power and authority over him.

And he knew he would be exploited by those desperate for attention and by those who needed to be seen as wise and inspiring by the world.

In an exploitative and abusive world, and in a world where people are desperate for power and influence, God knew he would become no more than another thing to exploit.

So, he had Jesus tell those who trusted him to watch for his Truth.

Dedicating our lives to God means dedicating our hearts, souls and minds to God.

Not dedicating our lives to being seen as someone who is an expert or authority on a God we do not know or understand.

God promised to reveal himself to the world.

But those with a worldly faith wanted God known as they wanted him known.

And in doing this they placed God under their custody, instead of placing themselves under his.

One who chooses to explain God can never be known as one who has faith in God.

Nor as one who trusts God.

No one who ever offered their opinions on God, or their own explanations and definitions of God to the world will ever be remembered for honouring God.

They are the ones who offered themselves and the things they had to say as an alternative to God.

They are the ones who asked the world to look to them to know God.

They exploited God.

And they exploited Jesus.

They did not know God.

And they honoured themselves.

They will be remembered for their decision to misrepresent God.

And for steering the world’s attention away from God and the Truth he promised would come, toward themselves and their unsolicited speculations.

And while they vied for custody over how we might know God, God was suffering.

God has not been cruel to our world.

Our world has been cruel to God.

And none more so than those with a worldly faith who called upon the world to ‘know’ God through them – against God’s wishes and without his consent.

And so it is.

Amen.

‍

‍

Note: Today, when it comes to how our world knows and understands God, it is 'God against the World'. Or God 'Contra Mundum'.

‍

And that is the title of a book I published last year - Contra Mundum - God Against the World'. In this book God's own testimony is measured against that of His Holiness, Pope Francis, the atheists who reject his existence and those with a worldly faith who misrepresent and exploit God on the Medium publishing platform.

Clic Here, or on the image, to access Contra Mundum - God Against the World.

‍