Born from a Higher Place: Never Too Late

``So hold that in your mind as I tell you this story. A friend of mine shared this story with me some time ago. It's a story of two babies, twins together in their mother's womb. One asked the other, do you believe in life after delivery? The other replied, well of course there has to be something after delivery, maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what will be later. First one said, oh nonsense, there is no life after delivery, what kind of life would that be? The second said, I don't know, but I think there will be more light than here. Maybe we'll walk with these legs and and eat with these mouths, maybe we will have other senses we can't even understand now. [00:24:49] (51 seconds)  #LifeAfterDelivery

Jesus came not to condemn. I think I wanna put a period at the end of that. And yet, so many faith leaders and so many traditions and so many churches right now, this very moment in the in the Eastern Standard Time of The United States and Canada perhaps, are saying that you have to believe this certain thing or you're gonna burn in hell forever. That's the tradition I grew up in. How about you? Anybody else grow up in that? I want us to think about that for just a second. There are over 8,000,000,000 people on planet earth. [00:37:01] (37 seconds)  #JesusCameToSave

8,000,000,000. That's more than I have on my Facebook friends list. 8,000,000,000 people. There are about 2.3 of those 8,000,000,000 are Christian. If you do the math, that's over what? 5.7 that aren't Christian, and in that framework, that world view in which I was taught the faith that if you're not a Christian, you're going to go to hell, and this is the system designed by our God, 5,700,000,000 people God will condemn to hell. [00:37:40] (38 seconds)  #QuestionHellDoctrine

I wanna say this pretty strongly. If that's who God is, I want nothing to do with that God. Spoiler alert, that's not who God is. We can change our thinking. We can believe that God so loved the world that he did not send his son to condemn, but to what? Save. [00:38:18] (30 seconds)  #GodDidNotCondemn

I want us to look at that word. That's a word that I've had to think about from the tradition in which I was raised. That word saved is I'm giving you a lot of Greek today. That word saved is from the Greek word sozo, s o z o, if you transliterate it. S o z o can be translated saved or it can be translated made whole. Here's how I would translate that again because so many people are clamoring for my translations. God did not send the son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be made whole through him. [00:38:47] (44 seconds)  #SozoMadeWhole

See how loving that is if if we can get past this idea that God condemns people to hell because they don't have a certain belief system? It's never too late to change our minds to grow in our understanding of a God that religions have put in a box for as long as religions have been around. [00:39:32] (22 seconds)  #RethinkCondemnation

Nicodemus, back to our friend, his whole life, he saw the faith as one way, and he struggled to understand what Jesus was saying to him, and yet, he kept showing up. [00:39:53] (15 seconds)  #NicodemusTransformed

Friends, the truth is that truth often lives just outside the boundary of our comfort. To be born again is simply to be born from a higher place, a place of greater understanding, a place of greater connection with divinity, awakening to God's presence all around us. We're swimming in that amniotic fluid to believe that God's salvation is not just for the Jews and not just for the Christians, but for all people. God so loved. [00:41:55] (33 seconds)  #BornFromAHigherPlace