Monthly Archives: September 2014

The Most Ignored Commandment

Lev19_15The Most Ignored Commandment

“in justice shall you judge your fellow man” (Lev. 19:15 – Heb) Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour. (Lev. 19:15- KJV) You must do no injustice in a case, neither showing partiality to the poor nor deferring to the powerful, but judging your fellow fairly (Lev. 19:15 – AAT)

Many read this commandment and automatically assume it only applies to magistrates. In making this assumption, people fail to realize this commandment requires everyone to be fair in their judgment of others. There is no room for prejudice within the scope of this command. Everyone, no matter their economic status, their educational background, their sex, or their religion, must be treated equally and fairly. In today’s society, such a thing as fair treatment has been lost in the attempt for control, power, or revenge.

In order to be fair, we are not allowed to listen to the side of one person without the other person being present. It is wrong to talk about someone to people and make them look bad when they are not there to defend themselves.

“You shall not go about spreading slander among your kinsmen; nor shall you stand by idly when your neighbor’s life is at stake . . . (Lev. 19:16 – NAB) “Don’t gossip. Don’t falsely accuse your neighbor of some crime . . . (Lev. 19:16 – Tay) “Do not whisper calumnies in the public ear, and swear away thy neighbor’s life . . . (Lev. 19:16 Knox)

We are also not allowed to judge a person based on the one-sided information. Sadly, most people today, ignore this command regarding justice. Instead, what we find are countless individuals who are harsh and unfair. While this is true in all of society, I have found this especially true among God’s people and this should not be so. Let me explain.

There are many of God’s people (doesn’t matter the religious affiliation) who have a higher regard for their own character than of those they judge. Let that statement sink in for a moment. Not only do people regard their own character above others, but many also believe religiosity determines character.  Religiosity does not establish character! Yet, religious people have a belief that the non-religious lack character and/or ethics.  This is very sad.

Also, many religious people judge themselves based on their good intentions and others by their actions. For example, if we don’t visit a friend or relative in the hospital, we usually rationalize in our mind that it’s okay. After all, I “wanted to go visit them, but didn’t have the time.” My intentions were good! Yet, when we are in the hospital and others don’t visit us, we don’t spend the time rationalizing excuses for the non-visitors. Instead, we judge them by their actions and become offended because they did not take the time to visit us.

Many people also judge themselves by their intentions when their actions are bad. If they are being rude, callous, hateful, condescending, hurtful, etc., they rationalize in their mind that their behavior is justified because they are doing so in righteous anger on God’s behalf toward the offending soul. Hurting and/or judging others because they don’t believe or act like you is wrong. Hurting others because they sin differently than you is also wrong. Just because your intentions are good, does not justify unethical treatment and bad attitude toward others.

Have you ever been wronged by a person who saw nothing hurtful about their attitude or behavior toward you? I have – too many times to count. And, sadly, I have dished out the same and rationalized in my mind the deplorable attitude I meted out. Oh, how I wish I could go back and retract my words!

When I was in the fundamentalist Baptist religion, we were taught by example how to mete out judgment and condemnation to the point that we even dished it out upon those who were dealing with tragedy in their lives. Why would we do such a thing? Because we were taught, for non-believers, that tragedy was God’s hand of judgment for sin in their life. This belief affected our thoughts and behaviors toward that individual and caused us to judge them unfairly. I say this with much sadness. We condemned and judged those who did not believe or act as we did while being compassionate and understanding toward those who DID believe and act as we did. We had a double standard! The same tragedy on an unbeliever was dealt with differently than that of a believer! Thus, we stood guilty of breaking God’s commandments.   And to top it off, we had no facts to base our assumptions on, only the “word” of our religious leaders. Sadly, this realization brings me much sorrow as I reflect on the negative talk many of my preachers said about so many good people. As a result of this gossip, these precious people were shunned and the attitudes of the rest of their church family toward them inflicted much hurt. To the hurting, this is secondary abuse and many do not realize it.

How sad when we hurt the people we love most and rationalize our behavior; and, when we are confronted by our harsh treatment, we make excuses. What is even sadder is when we hurt the already hurting by violating this commandment; even worse, is when we do psychological and bodily harm to those we judge because they act or believe differently than we do! We are quick to judge, we are quick to reach a negative conclusion about others, and we are quick to condemn.

It only takes one negative action on the part of a good person and we rush to crush them. Wow. Have we deteriorated to such an extent in our humanity that we rush so quickly to condemnation? Where is the compassion and love that causes us to be longsuffering toward others? If we truly followed God’s command to “love our neighbor as ourselves,” we would not be passing judgment on others so quickly. Instead, we would be seeking out excuses for their behavior in the same way we do for ourselves. In doing so, it would cause us to be more compassionate, longsuffering, and forgiving.

If we are not in a position to know both sides and the facts of a situation involving two people, don’t make a judgment about either!  NEVER believe someone else’s negative words aimed at discrediting another! In most instances, guaranteed, they will be slanted to the accuser’s agenda! ALWAYS stand back and wait if you are not privy to the side of both parties and the facts!  To believe a one-sided view, will cause us to automatically gravitate to a hostile standpoint. Once our mind becomes hostile toward and individual, there is nothing too cruel that they deserve and we will gladly dish out that cruelty. It breaks my heart to see God’s people dishing out cruelty in his name.

Of course there are instances where we will find ulterior motives too. While many may be subtle, still there are others that are hard to ignore. For example, there are religious organizations and people that provide aid or benefits to the less fortunate in order to build a following or recruit members. An example of this would be a church bus route that uses candy and prizes to entice children to church in order to get to the parents. The ultimate goal is to get the parents as members so they can give money to the church. Some organizations also provide aid in order to sexually exploit women and children. In these instances, we should not judge favorably until restitution is made to the victims. There are even some that extend aid to the less fortunate for murder. An example of this would be terrorist organizations. Hamas provides clothing, food, and other forms of aid to the poor in order to gain a following that will enable them to recruit suicide bombers. These suicide bombers are used to hurt and murder those whom Hamas hates.  Also, beware of those individuals that extend to you their aid and then call in the ‘favor’ later.

We should never condemn a person based on hearsay. We should always check out both sides of the matter before assuming the worst about a person or attacking them. To do otherwise is not only foolish, it is unethical and, makes you complicit in the sin! “You shall not nurse hatred against your brother. You shall reprove your fellow-countryman frankly and so you will have no share in his guilt (Lev. 19:17 – NEB) Beware of those who gossip! Don’t believe what you hear! Always give the other person the benefit of the doubt until you have both sides of a story as well as the facts. I cannot express how often I hear bad things about good people. I cannot express adequately the pain this brings me.  I remember one time where I was discarded as a friend because I refused to believe what I was told about another friend of mine and continued friendship with the accused.  I had both sides of the story and the facts showed the accusation against this person to be false.  Sadly, this is the risk we take for judging fairly by those who do not. We may lose friends.

I have made a choice that I intend to live by. I will not believe gossip and slander. I will patiently wait and assess the facts for myself and make a decision based on those facts. Sadly, many don’t understand why I do this and criticize me because of it.  What I have found is that in almost every instance to date, with a little patience and some digging, I was told wrong information with the intent to create animosity or, the accuser made big assumptions based on someone else’s opinion! In other instances, it was a matter of a poor decision that hurt others and the individual was literally crucified for it, even after apologizing and making restitution for the mistake made. When gossip is believed, it can incite people to violence against the victim. I have witnessed this first hand with many religious abuse survivors. Usually, when this has happened, the gossip was being spread in order to silence truth. This incitement breaks another commandment: “Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am the Lord” (Lev. 19:18 – KJV).

This leads me to another area of concern – that of passing on negative or defamatory information to those who don’t need to know it. Usually, this is done to destroy a person’s character so that no one will believe what they have to say. Many institutions utilize character assassination in order to silence truth; especially if the truth exposes their wrongdoings. Those who judge others unfairly and spread gossip, commit a far greater sin than the wrong for which they are condemning in someone else. Usually, the religious, will disguise their slander and gossip under the mantle of “pray for so-and-so because . . .” Beware of those people who do such things. Don’t believe what they say!

“If you do not judge others fairly, how can you be judged fairly in your time of need? The Talmud promises a divine reward to those who judge in a merciful manner: “He who judges his fellow man favorably is himself judged favorably [by God]” (Shabbat 127b). On the other hand, those who judge harshly will be judged similarly: “In the measure with which a man measures, so is he measured” (Sotah 8b)” [A Code of Jewish Ethics]. We must be careful about passing judgment on others because, in reality, it will really be ourselves we may be judging.

Since the Bible teaches that “There is no person on earth so righteous, who will do only good and not sin” (Ecclesiastes 7:20), we should not set standards for others that neither they nor we can meet. All of us occasionally stray off path. It would be wrong to attack, label, gossip or shun such a one because of a sin committed (unless it’s a wrong of huge proportions or is a deliberate attempt at destroying another), or because they have done something we don’t like.  Usually, in this category of sins of ‘huge proportion,’  would fall rape, murder, slander, sexual assault, physical assault and those attempts at destroying the life and liveliness of others.  Any others I would assess less harshly.

In order to judge fairly, it often involves overlooking insignificant matters. On the other hand, if someone is repeatedly mistreating you, then it is probably a good idea to break ties with that individual. It is not a good idea to tell everyone you know about their behavior toward you. There may be a valid reason why this person treats you so unfairly. Just because they treat you this way does not automatically mean they will treat others the same way.  Also, if we are going to criticize flaws in others that we ourselves have, we should first acknowledge the flaws in ourselves so that we will be less harsh in our criticism.

What is best? To not judge at all. We should avoid having strong feelings and views on too many subjects. Those who are quick to condemn and judge usually believe that there is only one right way and one wrong way. They do not understand that there are many right ways and many wrong ways. How something is done is based on preference.  So before passing unfair judgment on others, or spreading that gossip about them, remember this: You are not as good as you think you are, and the world is not as bad as you think it is. Don’t judge others unfairly and don’t let other’s opinions influence you to judge unfairly no matter what position that person holds. Treat everyone with dignity, compassion, honesty, respect, and love.

 

Candidly Speaking

realitycheckaheadCandidly Speaking

For over 18 years, my life revolved around ‘serving God’ in a fundamentalist religious sect. I never dreamed or considered that it might be a cult. After all, who sets out to join a cult? Time and time again, my husband and I ignored the many ‘red flags of abuse’ to follow and please Christ. After all, pleasing God is the most important thing in life, right? We all want God’s hand of protection and blessing in our lives. We sincerely believed there was nothing more important than being ‘right with God.’ And of course, this is something that is hammered home in every sermon preached. But what does ‘being right with God’ mean? Think about it. If Jesus died to take away the sin of the WORLD, then we are all “right with God” through Christ — There is therefore now no condemnation. Christ is not the Savior of a few, but Savior of ALL. He said so himself. So what does “right with God” mean if Jesus already made us ‘right.’ This is a thought to be considered.

And, WHY do we need to be ‘right with God?’  We don’t have to be ‘right with God’ to go to heaven.  God does not require perfection to please him.  So, is it to gain his hand of protection and blessing?  And if this is the case, then who is it that determines our wrongness to the extent we need to ‘get right?’ Religion would have us to believe we are wrong with God because we are sinful. Does this mean our sins cause us to forfeit God’s hand of protection and blessing?  We all know unsaved people who are quite blessed.  Many of us were blessed BEFORE we believed. So this can’t be the reason.

I was taught by religion we were all born into sin and needed forgiveness of those sins.  Well of course religion would say that! But God says we, and our sins, were bought and paid for thousands of years ago and our sins are not held against us. Because of Christ, we are forgiven. So, how can we be wrong with God if our sins are no longer held against us from birth? And does God treat certain people differently based on this ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness?’ Is God partial? After all, some do teach he blesses those who are right with him and troubles those who are not.  If this was true, then God would be partial and He himself says he is not partial.  So who on this planet determines what makes us right or what makes us wrong with God? Who determines the rules and beliefs we need to adhere to in order to please him? Well, of course, religion does that, right?

But what does God say pleases him? Faith. That’s it plus nothing.

So, all we have to do to please God is believe and trust in Him? Yep.

God has already told us we are right with him through Christ but religion just wants to make double sure we are? Or, could it be that religion is out for itself? Could money, power, control, prestige, and sexual dominance be influencing religion? One certainly has to wonder this.

What many of us fail to understand is that we already have God’s hand of protection and blessing regardless of what we do. He rains trial and blessing on the just and the un-just the same way. He is not partial or biased. He is not prejudiced. He is no respecter of persons. He treats everyone as equal. He does not practice sexual discrimination. He does not practice ethnic discrimination. He does not practice religious discrimination. He only bases his decisions on one thing and one thing only – HIS UNCONDITIONAL LOVE toward us. God chooses love over everything else because God IS love. Love gives freely, shows compassion, edifies; is merciful, patient, longsuffering, kind and humble. God exercises all these things with us freely regardless of what we do. We just have to partake of the treasure of his love for ourselves to live in fullness. There is not one single sin that can separate us from the love of God – not one! The price for sin has been paid and the work for the salvation of the world is finished. Sadly, there are many who don’t believe his work is finished; or worse, that he really didn’t mean it when he says he died once, for ALL. Some even believe he did not pay the penalty for ALL sins and live their lives exercising their prejudice and animosity against those who commit  certains sins. They actually judge people who sin differently than they do, not realizing sin is sin and they are sinners too! There is none perfect, no not one.

Please notice that I said “salvation of the world” and not salvation of those who believe. Christ died for all sin and all sinners. There are no exceptions. He is the savior of all and “especially of those that believe.” He didn’t say he is only the savior of those who believe! Non-belief does not null and void this free gift to ALL. It is a gift to all and we must remember that. EVERY knee shall bow and EVERY tongue shall confess Jesus as Lord (This happens AFTER physical death.).  Religion would have us believe we need to accept the free gift – that this gift is not yours unless you accept it here and now. Here we go again putting conditions on God’s UNCONDITIONAL and all-inclusive love!  Religion teaches it cannot be accepted after death, the teaching of which, is nowhere stated in scripture – interesting.  Isn’t it amazing how man continually wants to limit God?  By teaching this, religion is effectively saying salvation is exclusive. Really? What part of “all” does religion not understand, I wonder? God’s gift is ALL-inclusive while man’s teaching about him and his gift is exclusive.

The reality is that Jesus died whether we like it or not to pay our sin debt whether we believe it or not. Jesus died for my sin before I ever heard of him. I was already a child of his before I knew him and before I believed he was the Savior. But religion will argue this point, of course.

Religion also wants me to believe in hell so strongly that it instills fear and ascribes to God a merciless character trait. Religion wants me to believe God is cruel, heartless, torturous, vengeful and full of uncontrollable wrath – all of this disquised by the term ‘Justice.’  hmmm…  I believe Hell is a masterful tool used to manipulate and control others through fear (Read my book on this topic.).

Religion also hates those who oppose its doctrines and rules. It will slander and harass you until you concede and conform to its beliefs. If you don’t concede, it will hurt you and incite its members to violence against you. Sadly, some religions will even try to murder you if you don’t come around to their way of thinking and believing. Ever heard of “convert or die?” It’s taking place right now with ISIS and, it took place during the Reformation and Inquisition.

Religion would also have us believe its particular BRAND of Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, Islam, Buddhist, must be followed to enjoy God’s hand of blessing. Religion teaches us to adhere to its many rules and restrictions. Religion proliferates and teaches inequality. Religion teaches us we can never be good enough in God’s eyes because we are just that sinful. Religion is biased. Religion is prejudiced. Religion propagates hate and harm toward those who disagree or live differently. Religion is racist. Religion is a separatist. Religion corrupts scripture. Religion is a murderer. Religion is abusive. Religion dehumanizes. Religion divides. Religion slanders. Religion is operated and controlled by human beings for personal gain, not God.  Religion is not patient, compassionate, merciful, or kind unless you are a part of its MEMBERSHIP; and even then, you may not be extended these things!

Religion teaches people how to exercise CONDITIONAL love. Therefore, multitudes do not truly know God even though they spend their lives trying to serve him with all they have. Let that sink in for a moment. To only love those who love and believe as you do is conditional love. That’s not God. While we were yet sinners Christ died. While we were sinners, he loved us. Religion is responsible for so many evil attitudes, behaviors and beliefs! Remember that more people have been murdered, tortured, maimed and killed because of religion than in war. Look at what is taking place in Syria and Iraq! RELIGION is the reason these men are raping and murdering women, crucifying the men, and beheading and starving the children! God has no part in that, yet they are doing it in the name of God and their religion. These terrorists are taught that human beings who are not of their BRAND are worthless and worthy of sexual abuse, torture and murder (dehumanization)?  Really?  I would not want to associate with a God who condones such things. I would not want to spend eternity in the presence of such an EVIL entity. Would you? Think about it? If you have to commit atrocities in his name and harm others to please him, why would anyone want to associate with Him or you? We have to remind ourselves that God is no respecter of persons. God is no respecter of religion. God does not care what BRAND you are because he loves you unconditionally.  BUT, religion IS a respecter of persons, brand, and religious affiliation. RELIGION wants you to believe that God is a hating, murderous, vindictive entity that will ‘get you’ if you don’t follow religion’s rules, beliefs, dogmas, precepts and commands;  or, if you don’t convert to their BRAND.

What we fail to consider is that religion is man-made. It is not God made.  When Jesus walked the earth, were there Catholics? Were there Methodists? Were there Baptists? Were there Pentecostals? Were there Mormons?  Religion is a tool used by people to control others and to extract personal gain. If you don’t think it is, think again! Religion wants to dictate your life.  For example: There is nothing wrong with meeting together to worship. There is everything wrong in telling people WHEN and HOW they can worship. Religion has everyone successfully brainwashed into believing they can only worship God in religious buildings. Religion teaches that unless you go to church, you are not a good Christian. Your character is determined by whether or not you attend a church or other religious building? What rubbish! God says no such thing! I would suggest you read my book, Religion’s Cell: Doctrines of the Church that Lead to Bondage and Abuse, on this issue. It is man’s teaching that you must attend an actual church building to be considered a good Christian, not God’s. Church buildings allow men an avenue to gather people together in one place in order to control them for personal gain. We really don’t need church to have a relationship with God. We don’t need over-seers to have a relationship with God, either. The God I now know has a personal one-on-one relationship with me. We have each other’s full attention and affections without any distractions or interferences from others or religion.  God will show me what he wants me to see. He will teach me what he wants me to learn. God doesn’t need men to teach me anything!  He is fully capable of taking care of his own.  Think about this.   Religion has spent the majority of my life interfering with my relationship with God and preventing me from doing what God wanted me to do! Religion used abusive and deceitful tactics to deceive me into believing I needed to do what IT wanted me to do in order to be ‘right’ with God – all at the cost of my family!

Because society as a whole naturally trusts religion to be honest, helpful, and fulfilling, we allow ourselves to get sucked into some very abusive situations. This is especially true with religion because we walk right into the abuse trusting those who have leadership over us. As a result, countless multitudes are walking themselves right into abuses they never bargained for. Abusive religions instill in us that we are NOT worthy, that our faith is NOT good enough, that we DESERVE hell, that we can NEVER be pleasing to God because we can never live up to the standard set by religion and its leaders. And because our faith is not good enough, we are not good enough. Religion will gladly make up rules in order to help us be good enough while it reaps the gain.

The degradation, the labeling, the shunning, the psychological games all aimed at innocent people in order to force conformity to religion and its rules, is astounding. These psychological games are some of the most destructive instruments religion uses to gain control over the masses. Using FEAR to force conformity is one of the most treasured weapons of choice of religious institutions. If you don’t believe this, then maybe you should take a look at the history of Islam and Christianity. These religions used, and still use, fear tactics (inlcuding murder) to prevent anyone from going against them. It works very well, I would say.

The truth is that other religions use fear the same way! As a result, these fears do some major damage emotionally and spiritually to vulnerable, unsuspecting people. There is an ever increasing number of people who have become fed up with being abused and are walking not only away from religion, but God. They have had enough! They are broken, bruised, slandered, hated, despised, and ill-treated because they have decided to break the yoke of bondage to the religion and its leaders who continue to destroy them and their families. Good news, though! Though they walk away, God STILL loves them and will be compassionate and merciful to them. He will continue to BLESS them!  He will wait patiently for their return as he continues to guide their lives.  Religion wants us to believe otherwise! Shame on religion!

Marriages are being destroyed and families are being divided due to religious belief all over the world. Women and children are being physically and sexually abused due to the teachings of some of these religions. The atrocities committed by religious zealots are innumerable and the reality regarding these atrocities is at the forefront of news media all over the world right at this very moment. The world sits in shock as ISIS slaughters thousands of innocent people who refuse to convert to their brand of Islam. Sadly, man-made religions can produce some pretty mean, controlling, and merciless people. The tentacle of destruction these mean-spirited, controlling people inject into our life is shocking, destructive, and far reaching. The religious attitudes alone that degrade women and children have birthed a full generation of mysoginistic men, pedophiles, and sexual deviants. It has created cold and heartless women and men. The fruit of this mindset across the world is sex trafficking, pornography, rape, physical violence, murder and victim blaming.

Using religion to control and manipulate people has to be the most effective, yet destructive, invention of man ever created. Using religion to instill in people they are not good enough for God is tragic! Yet, this is happening everywhere. Religion tells you that if you do not do what it says,  you are not good enough or worthy enough for God’s love and, you DESERVE Hell.

Religion and its followers use God and his name to force others to conform to THEIR will, wants, and desires, not God’s. To the abused, God is abusive and God’s people are controlling and abusive. Abusive religions destroy self-esteem and self-confidence. Many of them devalue women and children making them feel worthless and setting them up for abuse (dehumanization). They instill in you that you are not worthy of God’s love, you are only worthy of going to hell. And if you are not worthy of God’s love, how can you be worthy of anyone elses love?  You are not allowed to have friends outside the sect you serve and you certainly cannot fellowship with ‘the world.’ The isolationism abusive religions teach is not only for maintaining control, it is used as a means to punish those who stray outside of their rules and precepts.

Religion is very good at telling people what to do. It has had thousands of years of practice in learning how to manipulate people and scripture. I give religion an A+ in these areas. Religion is the master of deception and deceit. The façade it wears is beautiful and magnificent.  However, that façade is a lie. The sooner we realize this, the better.

Don’t believe religion! Study to show yourself approved unto God. Follow Him, not man. When we get religion out of our lives, our true CHARACTER reveals itself. Religion has become a mask for poor character, evil, hatred, envy, strife, murder, sexual abuse and more. Take it off! Draw close to God and he will draw close to you. Let God help you fix yourself while enjoying a truly intimate and loving relationship with him. He will treat you better than religion and its followers ever will! Your failures and imperfections don’t bother him at all! He doesn’t expect you to be anything but yourself with him. How refreshing! Because of Christ you are “right with God.” Your sins are remembered no more. Stop beating yourself up and stop using Religion’s MEASURING STICK to determine how good or bad your relationship with God is. God is ready and waiting for an awesome relationship with with you if you will get the interference out from between you and him – RELIGION.