I was all screwed up on drugs until I found Jesus -now I'm all screwed up on him

Well it's started. I am getting all sorts of mail telling me that to be saved the only thing I can do is give myself over to Jesus. Not only that, but nothing else can or will do it. All I have to do is belive, and that's the only thing I can do.

Here I am thinking the logical thing- what Jesus taught was a way to live. By following that way the "Kingdom of God" was not some far off thing that was a reward at the "end time." Rather it was a "state of grace" that was to be given to us in the present.

(Remember these Jews thought the "end time" would come while they were still alive. In some aspects they were a dooms-day cult.)

Whatever you think the church is telling you, - salvation and its reward in the afterlife was not the intention of Jesus. Rather he preached a way of living that afforded us the "kingdom of God" here and now.

Please don't tell me that the only way to live is to blindly follow YOUR way of thinking. As I said earlier, the Human Race needs to grow-up and start taking responsibility for its actions.

Remember, living and showing by example leads to a "state of grace" while trying to convert others to your way of thinking, (Do as I say, not as I do!) could be called the proverbial "devils work."

This means evangelism is not the way, and to travel down that road is self- defeating from a spiritual point of view.

To try and convert the "unbelievers" or the "infidels" is only the religious heirarchy telling us what to do. Believe me - anything they tell you is self-serving.

Even to this day the official doctorine of the Catholic church is "No Salvation outside the Catholic Church!"

If you want to find God, look inward, not outward. This is the real message of Jesus, -not the Pauline thought that morphed into the modern church.

Your humble servant
Allan W Janssen