Does Jesus Really Love Everyone?

Many times I have heard people tell strangers "Jesus loves you."

I accepted the statement without really checking it out. It turns out that whereas the Father loves the whole world, the love of Jesus comes with an "if".

“Jesus answered and said to him, If a man loves me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our abode with him. (Jn.14:23)

“If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love.” (John 15:10)

“He that has my commandments, and keeps them, he it is that loves me: and he that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” (Jn.14:21)

So Jesus only loves you If you obey his teachings and love him.

Ekhart Tolle and Jesus and Oprah

Ekhart Tolle quotes Jesus often and implies that he and Jesus are teaching the same message that all spiritual masters have taught.

Tolle certainly is in the stream of Hindu and Buddhist masters and even 1960s hippie masters. Tolle says consciousness is awakening (he admits to having used LSD) and that the secret to the awakening is to live in the Now.

It was the California Hippie Baba Ram Dass who wrote the book "BE HERE NOW" in the 60s that should get the credit for that idea.

Jesus did teach that anxiety comes from worrying about the future, but he told us to seek the future coming kingdom, and to remain faithful unto the end and to look out for false prophets who would come speaking well of him. Jesus (Yahshuah) was future-centered and told us to go into all the world and when the Gospel was preached to every tribe, he would return.

Tolle denies that the future exists and says every inner voice is an enemy. In fact he recommends what the Buddhists call mindlessness or non-thinking, and just being. "Only when you become fully present are you truly spiritual".

Jesus (Yahshuah) however taught us to listen to the Inner voice of the angel/spirit of Truth who would take up residence in the bodies of the all pure in heart who asked for him.

For Tolle there is no sin. There is nothing that we can do or that can be done to us that can affect our eternal conscious self. Once we realize that the eternal consciousness lies behind or below, our thought life (the enemy), we realize that we are eternal for consciousness (Tolle's God) is eternal and that's who we really are. We are collectively God. Classic Hinduism teaches that we are only drops that collectively make up the ocean called God.

Tolle is a pantheist for he sees God (Consciousness) in everything. Hello Krishna Consciuosness . The Krishnas see Krishna in everything. Everything is Krishna.

Tolle goes so far as to say that the goal of evolution is the expansion of consciousness (a great 60's phrase) and that we actually do not exist. We are only forms that consciousness uses to awaken itself.

For a man who teaches that the future does not exist Tolle is fearful that we are at an evolutionary crisis and if enough of us do not awake to our Consciousness, we will be wiped out as a species. He says that Consciousness will not be wiped out, but may have to find other forms to keep growing.

I must admit the first tapes I heard by Tolle a few years ago, were mesmerizing. He speaks like a dragon. But his idea of spirituality is to not believe in anything. The goal is to be still and silence any voice in your head by living in the mindless now. This is classic Krisnamurti another Hindu writer from the 70s whom I studied in great depth. He used to say for the real to exist we must only learn to observe the present without judging and become aware that we are the unseen observer who is forever at peace and one with everything.

In his Gospel Yahshuah taught that there is a king and a kingdom to be sought with every ounce of our being and we seek it by loving the king and his son and everyone including enemies. It is a narrow, difficult path to walk and by believing that Yahshuah alone is the only source of truth and zealously putting into practice his words, we will find eternal life. We are told to overcome sin in a fight to the death. We are to let our light shine, do good deeds, and teach his Gospel which leads to a spiritual rebirth.

To Tolle spiritual rebirth is when you silence any inner voices and realize you are one with eternal consciousness. Then he says the fate of humanity depends on teaching others to do the same, before it is too late.

Oprah who calls herself a free-thinking Christian who believes there are many paths to God besides Christianity ( a good major tenet of Hindu thought) is promoting Tolle as her latest spiritual hero.

She and Tolle are co-teaching a ten week internet class to millions. She says she sees nothing incompatible with Tolle's Gospel and Yahshuah's which tells me Opra does not understand Yahshuah's Gospel.

Yahshuah did not teach multiple paths to the father. He said I am the true vine and you are the branches. You must abide only in me. You have only one master-me. You cannot reach the Father by following Opra and Tolle into mindless consciousness. Yahshuah said no one can come to the father except through me.

Tolle had his awakening while contemplating suicide. The voice in his head said, “I cannot live with myself any longer”. He said, "Wait a minute who is it that cannot live with whom? Are there two of me?" Tolle was reborn when he had that schizophrenic awakening. He discovered there was a good Tolle and a bad Tolle living in his body. The bad Tolle was his mind, memories, fears, ambitions- The inner voice (he calls it the ego) that wanted to commit suicide.

The Good Tolle was eternal consciousness, his true self listening to his mind speaking. When he became aware of the bad voice -his mind, he went into a state of just consciousness and the bad Tolle - his mind dissolved. The bad Tolle fled away like mist. The mind (Bad Tolle) continues to try to revive itself, but just by living in the moment and becoming aware of the mind, you can turn it off, quiet it into silence and then you are the good you. The goal is to live longer and longer in the silence of just breathing, touching , seeing eating and viewing all things without passing judgment, that's how you reach the place that he calls the awakening.

He says if everyone awakes, there will be no more wars and the earth will become a utopian paradise.

Quaking for Easter

I've been visiting a quaker group for about 6 weeks.

They have no leaders, no preachers, no collections, no rituals, or sacred ground, objects,or sacraments. They sit in silence mediating for about an hour. If someone feels inspired to speak, they share what's on their heart. Then they have a finger foods lunch together.

It's very nice to be in silence with a group for an hour. Usually every group I've been in, some loud mouth is up front telling us how to live.

This Easter (I prefer to call it Resurrection Day because Easter was a pagan goddess) after the lunch they had a Bible Study.



I don't like Bible Studies.

I have rarely been in one that didn't have arguments (usually they were arguing with me).

It started off badly as the leader said he was going to assume dominance and when he raised his hand, we had to stop the discussion and move on. Phil objected immediately to this heavy handed approach.

I should have left then, but I didn't.

We were studying Exodus.

The first conflict came when they read the part where Yahweh is mistranslated as saying "I Am what I am". I tried to explain that it was a mistranslation and that Yah's name was Yah or Yahweh and not "I am".

The leaders wife got angry and said you can call him anything you want, and that his name was not important. You can call him love if you want.

Then they read what the world calls the Ten Commandments, I read Deut 10:4 which lists what the Bible calls the "Ten commandments". It ends with number 10 "thou shalt not boil a kid in his mother's milk". The leader and his wife both became unglued and refused to admit that what they were calling the ten commandments is not what the Bible calls the ten commandments.

I left feeling somewhat wounded. So now I am resolved to avoid Bible Studies.

That doesn't mean I will stop studying the Bible. I will just study it alone.

St. Patrick's Day 2008

I loved St. Patrick when I was a child. When I was in college it became a day when all we Catholic students got falling-down-puking-drunk. I'm not sure when it dawned on me that St.Patrick would be embarrassed and ashamed to see that his day was set aside for drunkenness and debauchery.

I think that was one of the things that started turning me away from the Catholic church.

I used to love St. Patrick's Day as a child, but now that I am an old man, it only fills me with melancholy and shame.

I'm ashamed to have been born Irish and ashamed to have been born a Catholic. There's not much I could do about my biological birth, but I left the Catholic church many years ago. I think Patrick and Jesus would have done the same.

What is the Father Like?

Spring Bike Week 2008 Daytona Beach FL

Biker week is always a dangerous time and Daytona Beach is always a dangerous place to go witnessing. The biggest danger is driving among drunks on motorcycles. The second danger is drunks (and druggies) trying to walk on packed sidewalks.

The bikes are like bling on parade and people come from all over the country to show off their jewels and the latest biker fashions.

I tried out the angel costume for the first time and it was a great ice breaker. I carried a sign that asked R U Lost?

Surprisingly several people said "No I'm not lost. I'm going straight to hell.
One said "I am lost but as soon as I enter that bar over there I'll be found."
Some said, "We are all lost."

They all looked lost to me dressed in their black leather with chains and skulls.

Several said they were Christians and when I asked them why they were at Bike week (implying that that was not a Christian thing to do), they all said "just to have fun." One Christian said, "You only live once and you gotta get the most out of life."

A elderly biker in a wheel chair asked me if I was dressed as an angel to mock. And I explained that it was a street witnessing tool to break the ice.

It was definitely an ice breaker based on the number of people that wanted to be photographed with me. The photo op is a great way to get about a 20 second witness. First total strangers come over, put their arms around you and you are so close you can ask them questions or make comments. One said, Yes I am lost how can I be found?" A typical answer was "Jesus is the way. Follow his words and you will never see death."

It was really difficult to have a conversation because of the roar of the bikes.

I only had two drunks get really angry when they saw me. They were in a bar I was passing and they started yelling "You are lost, not us." One stood on his chair and street unzipping his pants as if he was going to flash me.


Leaving Daytona going north on Highway one I saw a motorcycle lying in the street and the rider about 40 yards away laying in the middle of the road and two of his friends picking him up.

Based on the look of those expensive bikes and the size of people's cameras it doesn't look like the U.S. is in economic hard times.

My family

The Vine

To be united to the one vine of Yahshuah means you cannot unite with other vines.

King David

More than any prophet King David describes the Messiah with words that undeniably describe Jesus. But the point of this video is not his prophecies.


What if David returned to life for 7 minutes, what might he say?