I Tried That ~ Removing Filters

Greetings Dear Reader, 

Ponder with me what you know about following Christ.  I still encounter many who hold beliefs that cannot be verified through the Bible.  We turn tradition and practice into a form of faith that is not reflective of how Jesus wishes us to treat each other. 

This has resulted in Christians being seen as aligned with things that are not based on love or grace.  You know, Dear Reader that I do not call myself Christian.  It was a good word for 2000 years but has become diluted by the bad acts of those who take the name of God for their own purposes.  Rather, I attempt to follow Christ.  I attempt to remove the filters through which we seek, view, and follow him. 

If we are going to try to find the Father, we must strip away all of the inherited practices of the church and instead see the Gospel for what it is in its clearest form.  If we are going to seek God with all that we are, we must ignore the practices that distract from that.  Not all of them are bad but inherited practices are not what Jesus calls us to observe.  

Jesus asks us to love the Father. He asks that we love, respect, and serve each other.  He insists that we set ourselves apart through humility, kindness, and grace.  This means that taking up condemnation, judgment, and hatred become filters that block out showing the love of the Father to others. 

As we strip away the filters we have put into place to define us as Christians, we often may find that what we had in place prevented others from seeing Christ.  I ask that we try again to see Jesus through the filter-free clarity of what the Gospels say about him.  

It is a chore to be certain that I adopt things of faith and not tradition.  Even prayer and praise can be tradition-centered and, therefore, faithless.  Rote repetition or dancing in the aisle are worthless if they are not steeped in faith and love.  Flowing from our love of the Father, however, they are beautiful and strong. 

If you are attempting to seek the Father with all your heart, I suggest that you set aside all the traditional practices and take them up one at a time for the purposes of examining their relationship to following Christ.  Removing all the filters will allow us to see Jesus as he is and to better follow him home.  If you have questions about practices that are a concern to you, feel free to ask.   What I must do is seek to see Jesus as he is and adopt behaviors that draw me closer to him.  

Wishing you joy in the journey, 

Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a homeowner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store.”
(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 

Every human story is part of the great story that leads to the Father getting everything back to Good. 

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Camera lens filters cause us to see things differently than they are.