PYRAMID OF GIZA

A SPECULATIVE INTERPRETATION FOR FOLLOWERS OF JESUS

        Like many, I've been intrigued by the Great Pyramid at Giza, south of Cairo in Egypt. Many authors tried to explain or interpret the meaning of this giant structure. Many believe that it really does have some message coded into it. One theory that seems most valid is that of Peter Lemesurier who wrote THE GREAT PYRAMID DECODED, 1977. Based on extremely accurate surveys, he found that a timeline of history is indicated by measures of one inch per year. His interpretation is fascinating as it clearly shows Christ to be significant along the path.

        Path? If we are going to permit the pyramid to symbolize something, one of the first and most obvious is that a passageway/tunnel represents a Path. I want to discuss my theory, not as a timeline of history, which is probably valid, but simply as a diagram of the Path available to God's own Family, the white European Christian race of Israel. Here is the way I see it. The second illustration below is a diagram of the passageways. The entrance to the tunnels is on the far right end, part way up the north side of the pyramid.

        My theory is that this pyramid was built during the last age of the previous Heaven kingdom, being built during the age of Virgo by the Adamic Family of God which had fallen from Grace and was descending from its heavenly state downward into the kingdom of World. The first illustration below is a linear diagram of history which shows the cyclic pattern of God's pageant. Notice that our Family descended/crossed from Heaven into World at about 10,000BC. One complete cycle represents one precession of equinoxes, an astronomical term (NOT astrology) meaning a 24,000 (+or-) year period in which the sun traverses an apparent circuit around the sky. Of the 88 named constellations, 12 of them are usually used to represent 30 degree segments of the circuit, namely the 12 zodiac names. Countless cycles constitute a WORD of God; Christ is the result.

Credit for the Pyramid diagram:  

http://funsocialstudies.learninghaven.com/articles/great_pyramid_at_giza_2.htm

DESCENT INTO WORLD

        Entrance to the passageways is from the north face, at the far right end of the illustration. That the entryway was not found for thousands of years indicates that these passageway paths are not for everyone, but only for the spirit-being children of God. We are really spirit offspring of our Father, in a great Mind-Play where we believe, like in a dream, that we have flesh bodies. Physical race people could not enter the pathways because they are not spirit-beings. It is as a spirit that one travels a pathway of life, the body is not the real person. That is what makes us different from animals and other human races. Jesus tried to explain to Nicodemus that one must be born from above with both flesh and spirit in order to see the kingdom of God. At another time, He said that the flesh is nothing, the spirit is everything.

        It was as spirit-beings that we rebelled against our Source and eventually assumed phenomenal bodies which appear to be physical. We, as members of the anointed Christ, participate in the creative Word by our beliefs; we perceive only what we believe to be "real." When Satan tempted us to become gods, we did exactly that; he was telling the truth. We became the gods of a Mind Play Reality, but we forgot that we are the ones who create it by believing it to be whatever Satan deceives us into believing; consequently, we created an apparently material reality and then believed the lie that it is greater than we are. Now, the only path to Liberation is to leave that lie behind us along with our phantasm bodies. Death is the exit door from World stage and entry into God's kingdom. That is what Jesus came to teach us, and then said to follow Him. Now, after 12,000 years of World, it is God's grand Design that this whole phantasm World will perish. Each of us can claim that glorious victory, or resist it and go to the place the prophet Ezra calls "Torments."

        Our present cycle of history began at our entry into World about 12,000 years ago. The world was already populated with non-Adamic races, as it had been for many, many 24,000 year cycles past. Our Family was also present in the human population, but we had given up our spiritual natures at that time of entering World and our spirits would not be re-awakened for another 4,500 years when the Adam story takes place in the age of Gemini. We spirit-beings Family of our Father are the Christ-Family, anointed with the oil of spirit, and we have lived since the beginning of Creation. We have experienced countless cycles prior to this one, just as King Solomon attested. During the previous Heaven kingdom, we had risen above our previous material reality (ages of Leo thru Pisces) to the Heaven era of Aquarius thru Sagittarius (actually thru Ophiuchus, then the 13th/Christ sign), where we had union with God, had disobeyed Him (in Scorpio, the Serpent) and then descended again toward World (Scorpio thru Virgo) for another negative 12,000 year World experience, starting with Leo.

        Upon the Family's entry into World at about 10,000BC, (this paradigm is also meaningful to a single man's entry at birth) the Path immediately descends. See the diagram of pyramid, entry into the descending passageway. I think this pyramid entry point represents that time on the sine wave diagram when the Family entered World into the age of Leo from the age of Virgo at about 10,000BC. The nearby Sphinx attests to this date, being half Virgo and half Leo.  We had just left the positive energy Heaven to enter the negative energy World, which would be our home for the next half-cycle period of 12,000 years. The Path is a descending path for us. God's Family, having left its first estate, would once again experience the nightmare of a limited, material reality, something quite different from the paradise we had known. During the first portion of the descent, there was no active spiritual nature in our Family.

         For an individual spirit-being son of our Father, one enters the World at birth to be instructed in its ways by parents and society. The innocent child quickly learns the pain and cold of his new physical home. His youth and puberty years (till 18?) are a descent into World.

SPIRIT RE-AWAKENING - LOOK UP!

        For the Family: According to the cyclic long-term history shown on the sine wave diagram above, it was near the bottom of their descent, during the age of Gemini (twins: Cain and Abel) (LXX dating: Adam appeared at 5508BC) that the indwelling spiritual nature of God's Family was reawakened. The Bible tells us about this event as the story of Adam and Eve, an event ever recurring at this time during Gemini in every cycle; which represents an awakening of our spiritual natures by the Holy Spirit of our Father. Suddenly, after about 4,500 years of spirit death we felt a powerful yearning to be Godly again, to climb toward our Father, and as prodigals, to return Home.

        For an individual, that awakening time arrives, perhaps between puberty and adulthood, when one begins to think for himself, becomes self-responsible, ponders his existence, and questions why and for what purpose. We might call it "self-realization." Having already been introduced to our sacred writings; some youngsters will look upward with some kind of inner-knowingness that God really is there and wants to be approached. By looking upward spiritually, he will see an ascending Path but, lo, a quartz-crystal/granite block is preventing access to him because his human nature cannot pass through the stone; in order to get past that blockage he must make a spiritual commitment to abandon the descending human-nature path and to follow Christ in spirit. For those who don't look upward or commit themselves to the ascent, each continues the descending slippery-slope path, where temptations lure him on, and perhaps because his lusts are more real to him than the stirring of his spirit. Sadly, many who had the indwelling spirit let their physical and emotional lusts direct their lives all the way down to the bottomless pit, where they cease to exist.

        It is interesting that over many thousands of years after the Great Pyramid was built, even after the north-face entrance had been found along with exploration of the descending passage, the races of people who occupied that region (anciently known as Ethiopia, later Egypt) of the world never recognized the overhead granite stone to be blocking an ascending passage. They copied the great structure into many other pyramids during the age of Taurus, but their copies all contained only a descending passage. They knew nothing of the upward Path which was available to God's offspring who have indwelling spirit natures which never die. Eternal Life was something unknown to non-Adamic races, animals, and other creatures. It seems pertinent to point out that this pyramid Plan does not apply to those earthly races because they did not enter World from above as spirit-beings who take on physical bodies in order to perform an experience of God in this arena of material reality. Other races are born, like all animals, to live one short life with nothing beyond it, just like flowers in the field, one day blooming and the next day gone. Jesus tried to explain to Nicodemus, in John 3, the difference between flesh and spirit people by telling him that only those who have both flesh and spirit are "born from above"  hence able to return to there. Nicodemus mistakenly thought Jesus was suggesting one must be "born again," but that wasn't it at all. Even Bible translators have perpetuated Nicodemus' mistake by translating the Greek words for "born from above" into English as "born again." And the sheep have made a religion of that mistake!! Fatal error.

ASCENDING PASSAGE - YOUR MOUNTAIN

        Committed to a return to our Source, the Family begins an upward climb.

        For the Family, a great Flood destroyed all those who had mixed with non-spirit races, leaving very few to struggle up the great hill toward Home, which we see depicted on the sine-wave diagram from Taurus upward to Sagittarius. Noah and his family had gotten past the granite block by committing themselves to God's Will, and then the Flood acted as a blockage which prevented any return to their old lives. From the Tarim Pendi Basin flood, Noah's people migrated westward to the northern region of what is now India, but was known in ancient times by the names of the Great Bharat family (Mahabharata), particularly by the names of the two cousin-families who were at war with each other (paradigm of Cain vs Adam, Esau vs Jacob, and Satan vs Christ), the Kauravas and the Pandavas in their kingdoms of Kuru and Panchala. The Bhagavad Gita tells the story of Arjuna and Krishna prior to the war on the Plains of Kuru (Kurukshetra). These two families were, of course, the descendants of Cain/Kurus and of Adam/Pandavas. Arjuna and Krishna were Pandavas. The same general Plan of God which the pyramid reveals was told by our ancestors in that great epic of Mahabharata. Eventually, it was from that northwestern India region that Heber led our Family to Mesopotamia where Cain's Kuru people had already settled. That Fertile Crescent was then lush with plants, trees, and water, a glorious and fruitful land similar to America where our Father would later bring our Family. It was in Mesopotamia that the Family's native Sanskrit language melded with Akkadian (anAfro-Asian dialect) to become the Phoenician language. That language which we now call "Hebrew" didn't develop until later captivities when our ancestors' Phoenician melded with Aramaic as a spoken language. There was no Hebrew alphabet until the Herodian Script, just prior to Jesus' birth.

        The Family's ascent was a difficult trek. It led them into a period of slavery in Egypt, then to a desert-wilderness period in which an entire generation died, then to a land of their own where they were governed by Godly Judges, of which they soon tired, then to an era of apostate kings and a divorce from God, then into terrible captivities under foreign kings, and finally to a return to Judea where their Messiah would appear to show them the Path God wished for them. From Abraam and Moses they had learned a religion of Sacrifice upon an altar, and the Lamb of God would make clear to them that such sacrifice was the only means of Liberation from World as He demonstrated it on a cross, commanding them to follow Him. Notice that nearly halfway up the Ascending Passage, the Path forks. On Lemesurier's timeline, the date of 33AD makes this point the "Messianic Triangle," a significant milestone for the prodigals who struggle homeward.

        For an individual on the ascending Path once he has dedicated his life to the Lord who came to show the way, he must then struggle toward his difficult and unpopular quest. He was born for a purpose, to be the mouth and hands of his Creator. If he thinks for himself, accepts self-responsibility, chooses to value higher things, such as integrity, honesty, morality, Godliness, the Commandments, and the Golden Rule, he will find himself rejected by earthly races and by his own people who have chosen easier paths. He will be subtly ostracized and manipulated by those masses who enjoy being part of a crowd, cities, shopping malls, and the good-life. His walk will see a lot of loneliness. But, like St. Francis, he will keep his focus on Jesus as his Lord and Guide; he will try to represent his Father in all his doings, and he will keep on trekking upward until he reaches a fork in the path with an obstacle in front of him which might be too difficult to climb.

A TOUGH CHOICE: WHICH WAY TO GO?

        At this point on the Ascent, the trekker sees a level path ahead which gets easier; it levels out and the good life is offered to anyone who wants it. It is this path which Christian preachers point to.  An alternate choice also confronts him, but it is a vertical wall. a Great Step which must be surmounted if he would continue upward into the Grand Gallery and toward his coffin. Few try to surmount this wall and even fewer succeed. One has reached that point of the Messianic Triangle where a path forward levels out and leads to what is commonly called the "Queen's Chamber." On the history timeline, the Christ Family has reached the end of the age of Aries (Lamb) at which time the Lamb of God appears. Jesus attracts many of His own Israelite family to grasp at Him for help but after they hear His words, most turn away because His words are too hard. He isn't promising any good life which they want from a Savior, rather He is demanding a sacrifice of themselves which leads to a death. Given the two choices, most people select the easy level path.

        The easy path ahead is visible, tangible, and seemingly Real, while that upward challenge is not visible or touchable; it is an unknown, just a promise written about in scriptures but not proven. People who choose such fantasies, in lieu of the tangible, are often certifiable and put into institutions. Why should one reject the good life to take such a risk? Only a rare few try to follow Jesus upward, and they stumble and falter, often slipping back a little. A commitment to this challenge is far more than the shallow religion demands, for here one is committing his very life, to the death; he becomes an Initiate, separated from all other values. Jesus made clear that anyone who would follow Him must leave his family, friends, and everything of this world behind; he must die to the world and to his own flesh body.  He must not take that easy path to the good life which preachers promise. Then Jesus went on to show the way, saying "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except by Me."

        The vast majority who choose the level path to prosperity, family, home, security, career, and contentment with worldly values have scorned the Way of Jesus, that extreme anti-social action of wrenching-free from others in order to climb up the vertical step alone. Instead, they go on to enjoy the satisfying pleasure of material things and worldly wonders. They feel proud of nice homes and cars and successful careers. They go to church on Sundays and they make a show of public praying before meals; they might even tithe. They use such phrases as "Praise Jesus," "Thank you, Jesus," "Hallelujah," often in the day. They are commonly called "good Christians." They practice a religion which has some comforting rituals and hymns and a KJV to worship on their altars. Actually, they really are GOOD people, sincerely doing the best they can to live by Godly values. They are confident of their paths because their shepherds assure them (profitably) that nothing else is necessary to earn  Heaven when they die. Keywords to their religion are Peace, Love, Joy, Brotherhood, and Humility.

        They scorn Jesus' teachings that He did not come to bring peace, but a sword; and that one must hate his parents, siblings, and his own life if he would be a disciple; and that He did not come to save ALL people of the world but ONLY the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Some Christians make a religious stand against alcohol even though Jesus said that wine was His blood. Lukewarm Christians don't realize that a dynamic spirituality requires that great gift from God which results from fermentation.  No, Jesus' hard teachings are not for the good life Christian trekkers; hard lessons are valued only by those who, as solitaires, would claw their way up that vertical step to follow their Lord to the death. The prophet, Ezra, in II Esdras 7, tells what happens to those who scorned our Lord's teachings; they didn't enter God's presence but went to a different place. But, what the heck, that book of II Esdras isn't in our Bibles anymore since the Catholics removed it at their Council of Trent about 1546AD. So, preachers can sell the people whatever prosperity gospel the people want, as their pacific parade heads for that place which is called Queen's Chamber in the pyramid, but which Ezra calls "Torments."

        Truly, it is difficult to understand the seeming conflict between the two paths of Peace/Joy/Love and that of Jesus' Sword/Hate/Israel-only.   Peace, Joy, and Love are fruits of the Spirit; they are the essence of our own Spirit-selves; they are the kind of life we all desire; they are Godly values. BUT, while we live in Satan's World, they are only possible in a storybook fantasy. We can and should express Godly virtues in our lives, but we will seldom see them in response. If, during World, we were able to have lives of Peace, Joy, and Love, we would be very content and happy here. God will not permit that because He wants us to leave this place; His Liberation from World is only possible by a person's hateful rejection of it, by a very real separation from it and from everyone who loves us. World is NOT our home and God wants us to leave it behind like a Prodigal slams the PigPen gate behind him when he heads for his Palace Home. Jesus can laud the Godliness of Peace, Joy, and Love, but we must never think that we can have it in this World; such a wonderful Life is what awaits us AFTER we leave our flesh bodies behind and go Home in Spirit. Those people who attempt to claim such a life in World are simply trying to make Satan's kingdom into a heavenly home where they are content; and hear this clearly: those who try to create a heavenly home in Satan's kingdom will surely be assisted by him because he is this world's lord and he can offer peace, joy, and love to those who desire it here! The path to the Queen's Chamber can appear very enticing to people who want to be "good Christians" and while they are thanking Jesus for their blessings, it was Jesus' opponent who really provided them in order to keep "good Christians" happily captive. There will be no Liberation for Christians who scorn Jesus' command to Follow Him up the difficult path to a sacrificial death.

        While on this subject, I'd like to mention the Christian's prayers for healing. All ailments result from spiritual failings, weakness, or errors which are the fault of the person or his parents. A person who prays for miraculous healing is really asking the Holy Spirit to cure the consequence of his sin so that he can continue on the same path. Most such healings are gifts from this world's lord because he doesn't want any correction of the sinner's path. Yet, it is true that God does work healings in individuals who yield to a correction in their beliefs. Yielding to our Lord's Will can heal nearly anything, but it is one's belief (faith) which makes him whole. It might seem miraculous, but God doesn't intervene between one's false belief and its consequences.

        IT IS A TOUGH CHOICE! Which way to go? The path of good-life or Jesus' Path of physical sacrifice up the Ascending Passage, a very real Way-of-Sorrows. It is a powerful argument that because God is Love and Peace, that we should have that in our lives. Prosperity preachers actually say things like "Because God loves you He wants you to have all the wonderful things of His world."  NO, HE DOES NOT! He wants you to reject all the things of this World; this is Satan's kingdom; you made a mistake by coming here and your Father wants you to leave it. And, unless you have already committed your soul to Satan's path, your Father will do everything possible to make you hate this World. His angels will make this life a hellish nightmare for you if that is what it takes to convince you to hate it and choose the difficult Ascending Path toward your own death, a solitaire's own Via Dolorosa.

        I should add a note here, that those who do take the level path to Torments will get another chance to stand up for Truth, after the church-age of Ephesus, about 1,700 years into the kingdom of Heaven. They will then rejoin God's Family at that second resurrection, and if they are not yet willing to obey Jesus' commands, they will suffer the second death, to cease existence. What Ezra wrote about this was later confirmed in John's Revelation, which I have explained in my commentary on that book.

THE GRAND GALLERY - FOR HIGHER INITIATES

        During the next couple centuries after Jesus, there were many who did conquer that vertical step in the pyramid, as they stood boldly for the Truths which the Holy Spirit revealed to them after Pentecost. The apostles left their homes and trekked through white race Israelite lands of Greece and Europe and Britain to tell their scattered Family that the Breach of Old Covenant had been repaired by Jesus, and that they were once again free to work out their salvations with fear and trembling. Many Followers represented our Lord boldly, offering their lives to crosses, lions, swords, and flames. They actually believed Him who said that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of Heaven, so they left their bodies behind in order to follow Him. In other words, they successfully climbed the Great Step into the Grand Gallery, some of them even making the grand leap to the top where a coffin (sarcophagus) awaits each successful climber. In later centuries of the medieval ages, millions of true Christians witnessed of their Lord by willingly giving their lives to the Catholic Inquisition's stakes and torturers. I think they leapt to the end-goal which is that coffin in the Kings Chamber. Commitment, Action, Yielding, Sacrifice: those are the keys to Victory.

        My opinion is that there are many solitaires today who sincerely devote their lives to climb that vertical step and to leave all relatives and world-stuff behind. We strive to do it because of some spiritual compulsion, some uncurable homesickness, striving alone with much questioning and confusion. We have no preachers to tell us the way which Jesus taught, so each must do it from his own instincts as he looks to the spirit within him for answers. Eventually one realizes that he really is being directed from within, that he never was really alone, that the struggle itself is God's purpose for his life, and that the ultimate goal is God's to decide while he simply yields his life to his Father's will. This higher initiate does not live on the good life path, but walks uprightly in the Grand Gallery where dimensions of Elders and Living Beings and Angels and Powers of God surround him and encourage him along his Path. For most of us, this is a long Process rather than the short term capture and death the martyrs experienced.

        Our Lord has shown us that His cross was His Liberation from the world nightmare; now, we Follow Him.

THE GREAT STEP - ALTAR OF SACRIFICE

AND ANTECHAMBER OF HUMILIATION

        At the top of the Grand Gallery is another Great Step, but it is only about three feet high. I think it is an altar of sacrifice onto which one can climb by himself; think of Jesus carrying His own cross up the hill. If the initiate has made it this far, he can here offer himself as a living sacrifice, to be killed just as so many have already been killed over the centuries. If he has seriously prepared himself by rejecting all worldly things and values, then he can hope God will accept his offering while he awaits the blessed angel of death to have him killed. Oh, there are so many ways that God gathers such flowers for His Bouquet: wars, thugs, accidents, criminals, modern medicine, despot governments, unjust courts, etc. It doesn't matter how He calls you home, but it does matter whether you have prepared your gift and WANT to make the offering! Jesus said, "He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for life eternal. Anyone who serves Me must follow Me, and where I am, there will My servant be."  (John 12:25)

    For myself, I think that preparation of one's offering is so very important. Am I unblemished, or at least in the very best condition possible? Have I treated my body as a temple of God in which He dwells, or have I abused it with gluttony, poisoned supermarket foods, debauchery, promiscuity, pornography, gutter language, dishonesty, hatefulness, and the like? If I have been bad in past years, I can leave all that behind and begin to prepare my offering in earnest, confident that all that past is not remembered, as promised in the New Covenant of Hebrews 8. I can apply myself to the preparation with great joy, knowing that finally, at this ending of the world ages, I am being prompted by the Holy Spirit to do the greatest act of my life. I believe that whenever my preparation meets my Father's approval and my purpose accomplished, that He will then send the death angel to take me Home. I'm so impatient!

    Let's assume that you are a successful initiate, totally committed to this Path of Jesus, and that God will accept your offering. The altar stone onto which you climbed, continues level to the rear, through a very low entry door into an antechamber which I think represents the humiliation and death. Even though you have contemplated this terrible moment and prepared your offering, still the anticipation of the coming humiliation, estrangement from everyone, mockery, scourging, and perhaps a torturous death becomes a terrible anguish in itself. During His anticipation, Jesus sweated blood as He expressed a hesitation, but then said, "Nevertheless, not mine but Thy will be done." And soon the soldiers arrived.

        For the Family, Lemesurier has a date of 1985 at the entrance to the Antechamber. By that date in our history it was pretty clear that white-race Christian Israelites had been captured and were being prepared for slaughter. We have seen little but mockery and persecution of ourselves and our religion during recent years. It is a natural part of God's Design that our entire Family perishes at the end of the World kingdom in order to get Liberated from it. God is permitting Satan to marshall his merciless forces and non-white races against us. It is appropriate that God has appointed a dark man of unknown origin and name whose motivation is pure demonic hatred of our race and our Lord. Our real time of trials has begun. I have read that the Chicago church which Obama attended has a basic doctrine that they will believe only in a god who will help the black race to destroy the white race. Well, that will be our Liberation, won't it?

        For the Individual who has committed to his Liberation, the Humiliation might be very traumatic, perhaps similar to that of Jesus with mockery, scourging, tortures, and abandonment by friends. It is this process which completes one's estrangement from World, leaving you totally forsaken and alone, humiliated and desolate beyond what words can describe. Even Jesus cried out a question of why God had forsaken Him. It is this process which completes your Release from World, your Liberation. You must leave all behind, and NOT look back. Rather, look ahead to that door which opens into the Glory and Presence of the Father who awaits you.

        "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad for great is your reward in the Heavens, for they did so to the prophets before you." Just prior to those words, Jesus had said, "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called the sons of God." While Jesus' followers cannot expect a life of Love, Joy, and Peace in this world, it is important to remember that we are to express those Godly attributes in our daily lives, even toward our oppressors, persecutors, liars, and other enemies. We can afford to give kindness in return for evil because we know our Path to Victory. You can see that Jesus isn't  calling you to passive weakness, but to a more difficult challenge of repaying good for evil. The Path isn't easy; it requires all you've got - and that with a smile. Life is short, the suffering is brief, and the reward will make your moment of pain like that of a mother in labor, quickly forgotten as it is completed in great Joy.

THE VICTORY CHAMBER

        The Goal, at last! Compared to the Life ahead, your past World life has been a nightmare. If you made it this far, you did the best you could during your years to represent your Lord and God. You were a foreignor in a hostile land. The Principalities and Powers and forces of Darkness tried to claim you for the world's lord, but you persevered and have earned your release from that physical body which has been your prison. That body needs to be killed; liberty for the captive. So, look up, for your reclamation is at hand. As a spirit-being offspring of your Father, the Almighty God, you are about to leave the Pig-Pen behind and enter the Palace prepared for you from time eternal. Think of the martyrs at the stakes who sang hymns until flames filled their mouths.

        This so-called Kings Chamber has the sarcophagus which gets your physical nature while you, as a spirit, rise aloft through crystal/granite ceilings to levels of dimensions above. Jesus has been here 12,000 years ago; you can see the stone rolled away, the tomb couldn't hold Him, and you are now following Him. That Antechamber was tough because you were forsaken and alone, but now, in this Chamber, Jesus takes your hand and leads you Home.

Jesus said, "If anyone desires to follow me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life on account of Me will find it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?"  (Matthew 16:24)

Jesus said,   "He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for life eternal. Anyone who serves Me must follow Me, and where I am, there will My servant be."  (John 12:25)

Jesus said, "Go sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me." (Matthew 19:21)

Jesus said, take nothing for the journey, neither staffs nor purse nor bread nor money." (Luke 9:3)

Jesus said, "Verily, I say unto you, none will be saved unless they believe in my cross. But those who have believed in my cross, their is the kingdom of God. Therefore, become seekers for death, like the dead who seek for life; for that which they seek is revealed to them. And what is there to trouble them? As for you, when you examine death, it will teach you election. Verily, I say unto you, none of those who fear death will be saved; for the kingdom of God belongs to those who put themselves to death. Become better than I; make yourselves like the son of the Holy Spirit."  (from the Nag Hammadi Gospel: Apocryphon of James)

Jesus' brother, James, also said, "Do you know that friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whoever wants to be a friend of the world has made himself an enemy of God." (James 4:4)

St. Paul understood Jesus' words, as he wrote to those at Corinth, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor will corruption inherit incorruption."  (I Cor 15:50)

        I have spent more days involved in this subject, revising and editing this article, than perhaps any other. The subject has become ever more real to me. And I also think about how it must be perceived by readers because it exalts death as a high goal. No other religion does that, nor has Christianity done that. Yet, if you read Jesus' words, printed just above, death to this world is exactly what Jesus calls you to. Even though I rebelled against "religion" many years ago, still I have been reluctant to state so boldly and clearly that it is Death which is the key to one's Victory and Liberation from this world. The mansions of God are reserved for those who deliberately, enthusiastically, impatiently, and desperately dedicate themselves to be Living Sacrifices, by welcoming estrangement from world, and Humiliation, and Death. This concept is so radically different from Christian evangelism and from anything we've ever learned that it slams our hearts and minds; it tears at one's gut because it is contrary to all our human instincts of survival. Now, each of you who has read this piece might ponder what you, personally, will do about that passage of James 4:4. (it is among the selection of verses above)

        I don't have to pray that God will bless and be with you who reads this; if you decide to Follow your Lord, He will claim you with the same desperation by which you come to Him. You can have confident Faith in that!

by Roger Hathaway, December 2011               Return to Index