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As we conclude this series, I’d offer a few considerations. First, if this series didn’t make sense to you, then you might be over-identified with one or more institutional authorities in your life. Confusion occurs when a person either lacks categories for understanding, or possesses a malware script that works against them. I don’t say this to be insulting our sound condescending, I know personally how long and hard my journey to freedom has been, so I offer this only in solidarity with those who seek spiritual sight. Take the time with this content or reach out, so I can help.

This series is a biblical roadmap of Christ following, not a religious power play, or some tribal game of red-rover. The light pollution of two-thousand years of church history is a dense shellack that has to be deconstructed to fully experience the liberation that the Gospel promises. Between now and Easter, I hope to make this journey easier for all comers, and hopefully more obvious. So stick with this long form content, I’m building something in you.

In thousands of hours of un-coaching and counseling my very diverse audience, I’ve framed up some very common watersheds, which I will offer today. These considerations are fundamental beliefs which cause our faith to grow in one way or the other, like a drop of water on the apex of a roof flowing to the front or back of the house. My intention is to make you aware of these considerations. Religious and irreligious people both tend to end up on one side of these frameworks. This reveals to us that the predominant epistemology (way of knowing) is malformed in our shared cosmology and anthropology. Once we are shown the differences and discover the deficiency in our worldview, the true spiritual awakening can take hold, and our lives really transform. But it’ll take some effort on your part to follow the questions that emerge. If we have no questions, spiritual progress is largely an egoic illusion.

1. Binary vs Ternary

The most common watershed in our spiritual transformation is learning to see the “third way”. We learn “either-or, black or white, hot or cold, on or off” as children and few ever evolve into the nuances of variation. The ternary (third) or trinitarian world view is shared at the higher levels of all religions. Our prideful surface level self, gains power, and gets lazy, when approaching the world in binaries, when very few things function at that low level of consciousness. Gaining a ternary worldview ends “otherness”, ends our certainty as we remain a student (disciple) of everything, and sets us on a course for immense discovery.

2. Bible vs Word

“Sacred text” are not just old books that religions use to control people. I hold that all sacred texts possess a measure of revelation, but the Bible offers the most comprehensive and historically accurate record of Divine revelation. Not all sacred texts are created equal, they are not all sacred to people in th same way. The big watershed, is when we get behind the words, the stories, the history, and definitely the religions and traditions that are built on top of these books, and discover the “Everlasting Word” the Logos, the Sophia, the Alethia that lives and speaks in and through and beyond the pages. Once a person realizes that this “Word” which was with God in the beginning of all time, is a subject, not an object, and is awakening us through the text, then the game of religion is over, and a person can finally be free. If instead, we become lured by the elixir of religion to idolize our tradition’s book, we become more confused and unknown as we war over “jot and riddles, dogmas and the rules of man.”

3. Retributive vs Restorative Justice

This is very simple, but it opens up our unwillingness to leave religion because this watershed unravels 2000 years of Church history and that scares people. If the Bible is true, God’s basis of justice is not retribution (getting even) with humanity for our offenses, but instead is based upon restoration (making all things right). Jesus said “It is accomplished.” If Jesus is who scripture says He is, then ALL the retribution of God was poured out on Him. As I’ve explored this, I have discovered over 130 verses in every book of the Bible that prove not only has God always had a plan of restoration, but that retribution is a pagan misrepresentation of the God of the Bible. You can learn more HERE .

4. Objective vs. Subjective God

This seems obvious once it’s pointed out, but until we catch ourselves in this error, our spiritual lives are largely an illusion. This is what Atheists observe in religious people and it turns them off…understandably so. People treat God as an “object” and lack the interpersonal dynamic of God as a Subject. God is “up there, over-there, out there, in there” or the invisible “Other.” Gaining a Subjective understanding means that we move from a spectator or observer based knowledge to a participant or loving experiential knowledge. This is the difference of the true depth dimension.

5. Static vs Dynamic

This goes in tandem with the previous watershed. Religious ritual and tradition create a static, controlled and muted faith. Trying to do things the way we always have assumes God (who never changes) is locked into a fixed framework of operation. Dynamism and flow are superior understanding of God (who never rests) and is intimately active in every particle of the universe, and we join this dynamism as we gain spiritual sight. This is a fun change to watch unfold in people’s life.

6. Wrath vs. Grace

This debate will never end because people cannot reconcile their assumptions about justice, love, and other people (1 and 3). As a result, the doctrine of grace is tragically truncated and too small for most people. Most religious people prefer a system of fear to one based on love. And even if they accept a system based in love, they still want the fear of an angry, hostile, or oppositional God. This is simple paganism that has coopted the scripture, its gospel, and the multi-billion dollar religious industrial complex. Until we truly understand grace, we do not have a spiritual awakening, but instead a religious prison.

7. Belief vs. Faith

While the words for belief and faith are essentially the same, functionally they are different. I like to consider belief to be the noun and faith to be the verb. The two always go together in a linked linear flow. Whatever a person believes to be true, becomes the faith by which they live and act. People profess faith all the time, but their lives say otherwise. A tree is known by its fruit. A belief is known by its faith. We cannot grow in faith, if our belief is not something that is actually true. That is what these watersheds help us to become free. We can look at our lives (the fruit) and discover our true beliefs. Then we can change them in conformity to what is actually true.

8. Kingdom come vs. Kingdom now

When it comes to heaven, the business of religion requires that heaven be relegated exclusively to the afterlife, and that entrance is entirely up to the CEO’s and religious leaders discretion. Each “company” establishes their stairway to heaven for us to purchase. Jesus taught otherwise. He showed that heaven is within us, in the midst of us, and here now. This means that the work of religion as the Ferryman who will deliver us to the other side is seen for manipulation which it is. No one who has experienced the kingdom of heaven here and now, and who knows how to access it here and now, need to be the least bit concerned about “where they are going when they die.” We access it by faith, or how we live.

9. Religion vs. Practice

This goes without saying, but no religion has ever saved a single soul in human history. There has never been “the right or best religion” because one does not exist. Jesus didn’t come to start a new alternative religion. The Christian religion would never have become what it is had it stayed true to the instructions of its Founder. What religion does offer is the opportunity to participate in practices which may or may not open us up to the depth dimension of God. These are not required, nor are they consistent. Find our own practice is a far superior and freer way to grow in our faith. Many of us would do far better on a run, or in nature on the weekend, than sitting in a religious ceremony. It’s sad how few people can trust this. we of little faith.

10. Escape vs. Rebuild

This eschatological wart won’t dissolve. Modern religion and particularly Evangelicalism and Christian offshoots are absolutely obsessed with the idea that the “end of the world” is drawing near. Instead of learning the scripture and history, religious leaders have latched on to fictional narratives whereby they interpret the Bible as true based on the evening news. This biblical error grows in the soil of all the other watersheds where the water rolled down the wrong side of the house. Now nearly 70% of Christians believe the Rapture will occur in their lifetime and the end of the world is near. Jesus offered something else. He offered to come back in the flesh, in and as his people, where he is the head. Instead of retribution, wrath, and destruction, he is rebuilding this world from the inside out. Religion offers an evacuation from this world, Christ offers to restore all things in himself since heaven is already here.

I hope you will sit with each of these a let them germinate in your thinking. Begin toying with the idea of “if this is true, then….” Discover what is next for you. Lean into the next question, and this is how we will begin to fix our faith. Let me know how I can support you.