By not blindly accepting an ancient version of God, we become willing to see things more truthfully, otherwise, we will have to create religions, rules and concepts to explain away all the things that really don't make sense.

References are great things, but nothing beats actually meeting a person, as compared to what others may have said about the person. Our own conclusions of right and wrong, good and bad, ideologies and standards, will have a great impact on how we might describe an individual and this description might be totally inaccurate or only partially true. This does not make the description wrong...it only makes the description a description that one person provided of another.

We often see others in much the same way as we see ourselves. For example, if you are a selfish person, you are very likely to assume this trait exists in others. Since you think selfishly about yourself, you can't imagine others do not do the same. You might not have an actual thought that you are selfish, but if you are, you will often attach that trait to others and assume they are selfish whether they are or not. You will deduce things that they have said or done, based upon what you think it means and not based upon why they really did it or said it. You will create the situation and memory to fit the image you have given them and this might have little or nothing to do with who they really are.

In ancient times, our perspective of God or gods was based upon extreme fears we had of a world we did not even begin to understand or fathom. Much of what became our religion was based upon fears that we must do certain things to please God, because otherwise, he will punish us. Our fall from God, no matter how you might like to deduce it occurred, created a major rift between us and God and we put ourselves in a position where we believed God was looking to punish us and we had written history to mimic that method of thinking.

Just imagine that you could to go back 4000 years in time for just one moment. Upon entering a small village, you sit at the well and start showing people things from the future.

When you press a button and a flame instantly appears on your butane lighter, what is their response? They assume it is magic and that perhaps you are a god, an angel or even an evil spirit. They have responded the way they did because they did not have the history of related facts to help them understand what this object was. This has little to do with their level of intelligence, but it has a lot to do with them just not having had enough experience to understand things. The world was primitive and the thinking was primitive as well.

Knowing they can't even begin to comprehend this simple butane lighter, are you going to believe the perception they have of you and the lighter or are you going to believe what history and knowledge has taught you to be true about yourself? It's easy to see that just because they believe something to be true, doesn't make it true, it just makes it what they believed was true, based upon the knowledge they had at the time.

If you are not going to believe what they think of a simple butane lighter, why would you even begin to believe their conclusions about God? Most of us understand that a butane lighter is something that contains a fuel of some sort and a lighting mechanism. There is no magic...it's just science and mechanics. We understand this because of what we are learning today and because of what we have evolved to understand over thousands of years of history.

If we apply this same method of thinking to God, we would not put so much stock in what an ancient tribe told us God was. Instead, we would use our evolved knowledge and awareness of all we have learned through thousands of years to help us be open and willing to see things more clearly. Otherwise, we must always and forever conclude the butane lighter is magical and holy, or evil, no matter all the other evidence time and history provides us with, because that's what they believed it was 4000 years ago and we are not allowed to disagree.

By not blindly accepting an ancient version of God, we instantly become willing to see things more truthfully and more openly. On the other hand, to accept an ancient point of view as being solid and unchangeable, we have eliminated the possibility of seeing things clearly today and we will then have to create religions and rules and concepts to explain away all the things that really don't make sense.

If you step back from the Bible for a moment, you can begin to see the non-spiritual human duality that the writers have given our unchangeable God. It was not possible for the writers to assume God would be any different than they were, had they the immense power he had. For example:

• He created us through perfect love, but he chooses to punish us...(the garden of Eden).
• He can do things when he's angry and then feel sorry about it later...(the flood of Noah).
• He can make a decision and then make compromises...(Lot and the story of Sodom).
• He's a spiritual being, yet he requires physical blood to be shed to help him look past things you might have done...(all concepts of sacrifice).
• He'll destroy even his most loved if they fail to follow a simple rule...(the story of the passover).
• He tells you that you must forgive everyone automatically, no matter what they have done, yet he won't forgive you unless you meet his qualifications...(Christ's story of forgiving somebody 7 times 70).
• He created an entire universe and provided us with vast intelligence, yet he feared us and became paranoid when we chose to build a tall structure...(the tower of babel).

If many of these same Bible stories were written by a Roman or Greek and the gods name was changed from YHWH to Zeus, we would so easily see how unlikely they are to be true. We would not be compelled in any way to justify them and make them a part of how we should live because we would so clearly see that this was simply an ancient and ignorant attempt to understand why things were the way they were. Consider this question from an ancient Greek child:

Do you believe this explanation to be true...that giants were the results of gods and humans mating and that Hercules may have actually existed as a result of the gods mating with a human? If not, why then believe where the Bible uses this same idea to explain giants in the Old Testament?

Gen 6:4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God (angels or demons) came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

All over the world, in centuries gone by and even today, folk tales are written and told in an effort to help explain the unexplainable. These stories were necessary to help provide comfort and understanding when no other explanation can be fathomed, but they are generally based upon the lack of knowledge, not God's inspired knowledge.

On a more practical note, if the stories of God's retribution throughout ancient history were all true, why would anyone want to spend an eternity with such an angry and vengeful god? You would never be at peace because the Bible teaches us that no matter how strict you followed God, he'll take everything off of you and make your life miserable, the moment you tap a stone twice instead of once (the story of Abraham). Perhaps he'll even upset your whole life, bring disease and poverty to you and allow your family to be killed as part of a wager to prove a point (the story of Job). He might even condemn an entire city to death and destruction and require you perform certain tasks to prevent it from happening (a story of Lot...oops, this really was a Greek story about Perseus). Are we talking about our loving God or a human manufactured story about a manipulating Zeus?

So, if you would like to see God for the first time, there are a few ancient perceptions that you need to let go. Once you do this, you will begin to see everything in a whole new light.

1. God is a God of Perfect Love
   Drop the human perception of love that requires conditions to be met. God's love does not require conditions. God's love is perfectly equal for all, at every point in history, for every individual that ever existed. God's love is unconditional. There is nothing we need to do to earn it and there is nothing we can do to lose it. God cannot change how he sees us and cannot change how he loves us.
   • Basically, no sacrifices of any kind are desired or required. Nothing needs to be sold or given away to earn God's love or attention.
2. God Does Not Have Favorites
   If God loves unconditionally, there can be no favorites. There is no chosen race. There is no damned race. There is no right religion. There are no chosen people. There is no single religion or philosophy that entitles you to salvation over another being. There is nobody less worthy than you. There is nobody more worthy than you. God loves Napoleon and Mother Theresa equally.
   • God never destroyed nor endorsed the destruction of a single life. None of the battles recorded in the Old Testament ended up as they did because God blessed one side or damned the other. When the Israelites won a battle, it was later written how God blessed them. When they lost a battle, it was later written how God punished them. These actual events have nothing at all to do with what God did, but only with how events were perceived by an ancient people that would stand in awe of a butane lighter if given the opportunity.
   • Jesus actually demonstrated there are no favorites when he was asked for healing by a Gentile. He basically concluded that the blessings of God were not for the Jewish race only, but for all races. Since we consider God to be changeless, there never could have been a time when only the Jewish race was blessed. This wasn't a moment where Jesus changed his or God's mind about blessing other races. It was simply a correction by stating how it always was and always will be. Unconditional love cannot have a favorite.
3. Sacrifice Was Never Required
   If God loves unconditionally and never favored any one person more than another, then we have always been blessed by God and were never required to ask God's forgiveness because he never saw us as being at fault. God was never upset with us. God was never angry with us. God was never jealous or vengeful because of us. These are all human traits given to God by ancient writers, but they have nothing to do with who God really is.
   • Most ancient civilizations believed they were unworthy of their god and the concept of sacrifice was part of every ancient belief, whether it be Aztec, Mayan, Jewish or Roman
4. Anything That Teaches Through Fear Or Uses Fear In Any Way, Is Not Inspired By God
   If perfect love casts out all fear, God cannot use fear or be associated with it in any way and still love unconditionally. You must choose to see God as either a God of Love or a God of fear. He cannot be both. One of these traits cannot exist while the other exists.
   • All prophecy of doom...all concepts of hell...all forms of sickness...any and all reasons to fear retribution from God were created from the minds of men and not from the mind of God.
5. God Has Never Changed
   God does not make deals or reconsider things. God does not feel sorry for something he has done. God does not barter or compromise. God does not hold back his anger for now. God is not happy one moment and then upset the next. People are often unsure of who they are and are therefore apt to think differently about things over time. God does not have these insecurities. The only reason we compromise is because we are unsure of ourselves. God knows who he is and only ever does and says once that which is perfect.
   • Lot never bartered for the lives at Sodom, and Sodom was not destroyed by Gods anger. Nobody ever deserves to die in Gods eyes. Nobody ever deserves any pain or discomfort in Gods eyes. Lot could not compromise with God because God does one thing only...love, and nothing we do or say will ever change that.
   • The story of Job never happened. God does not make deals or peddle flesh to prove a point. God has nothing to prove because he knows perfectly well who he is and who we are. God would not agree to anyone suffering to make a point. All life is precious to God and he would never accept the death of some to make a point. When you are perfect and when you know all there is to know, it doesn't matter to you what anyone thinks or says because you know it doesn't matter. There is nothing to defend. There is no reason to attack.
   • God is not holding back his anger from the world because of anything Jesus did. This would assume that God compromises and therefore is not changeless. Jesus did not come here as a sacrifice to appease God. Jesus came here as a door to help open our eyes to see God differently.
6. God Neither Desires Nor Requires Anything From This Physical World
   God is a spirit, as are all our true selves. There is nothing on this earth...nothing in this entire universe that God requires or desires from you. There is nothing you can physically do or give that matters to him. God is a spirit and the physical things of this world can not affect him or our own spirits. This physical world is something of our own making ( we'll discuss that in greater detail later). Allow yourself to see that the confusion of believing God is interwoven into the fabric of this physical world is what gave birth to the concepts of sacrifice, religion, favorites and judgments.
   • The thought that this physical world is what God values is what lead to the belief that Jesus was going to come to rule as a king for the Israelites. Jesus didn't come to set up a physical kingdom, but to help us see that the spiritual kingdom is all that matters.
   • The thought that Jesus will again return to set up a physical kingdom is a Christian variation and continuation of what the ancient people watching for the Messiah, thought he would do. Jesus's final message to us when he was resurrected is that "Nothing that anyone does to you here on earth matters". "Nothing physical matters." This physical experience is a temporary place we are interacting, but there is nothing here than can harm our true selves.

These perceptions of God are vastly different than what the Bible and many ancient texts teach us. The only reason things appear so different is because we had chosen to use these references in a way that created bondage and stunted our spiritual growth, instead of using them as stepping stones. There are truths in the Bible, but the Bible itself was never meant to be taken word for word...for thousands of years.

Imagine if you were still reading the book about 'Spot'. Your vocabulary and writing skills would be limited to things such as "See Spot run". All that you knew and were capable of understanding would be limited to that one book. If you believed that was the only book to reference and only the words in that book mattered, you would have grown to a certain level and just stopped...not growing for ages...so determined that only that book was the book to follow. To defend your book, you would have to denounce all other books that were different than yours. Things that did not make sense in your book would be rationalized over and over again as the ages went by...in attempts to preserve what you believe is the only source of truth. You would have to purposely not allow any other truth into your life because it was not allowed to show anything different than your book.

Now, let's take a look at the Bible. This book was vital and necessary to bring order and a sense of God to a world that had multiple gods. The information in this book was perfect for the people of its time, but this information was never supposed to be set aside as the "end all be all" words of God. God never stopped communicating and God never just communicated through a single book. What you are reading now are words from God...no more or less valuable than any words in the Bible or any other text inspired by God.

In the Bible, God is communicating to the authors, but how the authors perceive what God is saying and how they think God is interacting in their lives, creates a huge gap in what they are inspired to say and what they believe they are inspired to say. This also includes what I am writing at this moment. Every moment of every day, all of us are learning and being drawn towards a greater understanding of the truth. None of us have ever experienced real truth, but we are much closer than we were 4000 years ago and we will continue to draw closer and closer to God as we continue to be more and more open to hear his truths and apply them to our lives.

God is on your side...no matter what your race...no matter what your religion...no matter who you are...no matter what you have done...no matter where you live...no matter what you eat...no matter what physical laws you have broken...no matter what you think of God...no matter whether you are seeking him or not...no matter whether you believe in him or not...no matter what. There is no condition God has set to love you. You can't earn it or lose it....it's just there.

Be open and be willing to hear what God is saying to you today and for every day to come. In time, you will see that God's answer to any problem is not to judge a person and punish them as the Bible teaches, but to love that person and join with them to help them get past the problem. God wants to help you resolve your problems, so he's not going to punish you for needing help any more than a good parent would punish an infant because they fell when attempting to walk. As much as we can provide moments of unconditional love and forgiveness to our own children, God already does this for all of us at every moment.

Sit back, close your eyes and be still for a moment. Be willing to see the truth and be willing to let go of what this world has taught you about God, our creator. Be still and say hello to your loving and forgiving God...perhaps for the first time.