Zion – John144

Manifesto

I wrote the following on January 3, 2018.

In July, 2019, I discovered a movement of remnant saints, making covenants with Christ, preparing themselves as individuals, as families, and as a people to come a people of one heart and one mind, and when Lords commands it, to rebuild the waste places of Zion.

I think I found the answer to everything I wrote below. I will be posting more about it in the future.

Of course, all religion is man-made. It begins with one person’s authentic, individual search for truth and reality. Then, somebody else comes along and tries to systematize and codify that search so that, instead of following their own path, people blindly tread in the true seeker’s footsteps, Then, somebody sees a potential to control these blind followers and creates a religion.

We see this pattern repeated over and over throughout history. You can pick your own religion and plug in your own names — different story, same plot.

I see myself as one of those authentic and original seekers. I am not a follower, and I am not looking for followers. I am looking for other leaders who want to change the world. And by change the world, I don’t mean remake the Mormon Church in my own liberal image. I am pushing for a total change in paradigm — how we see reality, how we organize ourselves, how we see ourselves.

Immersing ourselves in man-made religions is not a solution. Atheism is a natural reaction to this madness, but it is a reaction, not a solution. Blind faith and blind doubt are not solutions.

We need to approach all of truth and reality on the spiritual, mental, emotional planes, the same as we use science to approach the physical plane. We need to objectively study and experiment, and we need to share our findings with others. We need to build a body of knowledge that we can pass on. Not so we can create blind followers, but so we can build on that platform and create even more enlightened seekers and researchers, remodel society, and remake the world.

This is not an identity. I don’t need an identity. I’m not looking for an identity. An identity is static. An identity locates you in space and time, and in a fixed mindset. I am constantly changing my viewpoint, seeing things from a new viewpoint, from any and all viewpoints, and from no viewpoint. It’s dynamic.

I’m talking about Christian churches and organized religion in general. And what I’m about to say applies less to the Community of Christ than another church I can think of, so please don’t think I am directing this at you because I am not.

The original meaning of “church” in New Testament times was a gathering of the out-called (ecclesia), but in English and the other languages derived from German is it called “kirsche” (Origin of church: Middle English chirche, from Old English cirice, ultimately from Late Greek kyriakon, from Greek, neuter of kyriakos of the lord, from kyrios lord, master; akin to Sanskrit sura hero, warrior)

Churches have become our masters, not our servants. Instead of gatherings of the faithful, they have become seats of power and influence.

Some churches teach that the only way to get to God is through them, and they claim to have a monopoly on power and authority. In this way, they have modeled themselves after civil governments.

Churches have also followed the military in their hierarchy of graded rankings. This works for the military because an army is supposed to be authoritarian, strong, unyielding, impenetrable, merciless, and monolithic. And, at times, secretive. This is a great pattern for a military unit, but not for a body of believers, not for the elect who have been called out.

Military units have rank. Followers of Christ should not. Like the military, in churches, some people are regarded as being better than others. Some people have more access to special communication, or special contact or special access to God that others don’t have. Some peoples’ thoughts and opinions are more highly regarded than others.

Peoples’ personal righteousness is evaluated in terms of their loyalty to the church, not by how well they follow the commandments of Christ, and the “doctrine of Christ”, as taught in the Book of Mormon.

Church members are not encouraged to learn and grow at their own pace. Instead, their leaders hold them back. The members are not allowed to seek for a deeper understanding of the so-called “mysteries”, whether it be learning, by study, or by faith. The Book of Mormon says that this life is the time to prepare to meet God. How many understand this, let alone follow this? How many people expect to meet God in this lifetime. How many people are preparing to meet God in this lifetime?

Another term for holding back a person’s progress is damnation. Self-appointed leaders attract followers and then damn them.

And, while we’re at it, the Book of Mormon teaches that faith is an active, dynamic process by which we obtain knowledge. But, churches teach faith as a static belief in church leaders.

There, have I gone far enough?

We need to re-think this whole concept, and while we are tossing out whole institutions, wholesale. We ought to consider the good purposes they did serve, use that as a foundation, and build something better, that serves us better.

We need to each think of ourselves as stewards, not spectators, and in this role, consider our institutions and their leaders as not our masters, but our servants, as we serve Christ.

I believe a lot of what those dubbed “Restorationists” believe. But, I don’t believe that the early church had it all right. I believe it was just a step in an ongoing journey of restoration that is continuing to this day.

I was involved in the formation of what some envisioned as a “gay Mormon church”. I came to see us are another step in a long succession of restorations. Others wanted to cling to the old model. They prevailed, and we quickly went the same way that I think the LDS church is going to go.

I would love to talk to John Dr. John Dehlin about this because this is a “Mormon Story”, but I guess if you don’t turn into an atheist or progressive liberal, or famous as an ex-church leader, or infamous for blowing up cars, there’s no interest.

I don’t want to go back to polygamy. But, I do want to prepare people to live “The New and Everlasting Covenant”, of which polygamy was an uninformed aberration. I also want to prepare people to receive ALL the ordinances of the temple, make sure they understand and live all the covenants therein, and receive the Second Anointing and the Second Comforter, the public and the private portions of this ordinance. I want them to understand that this is conditioned not on their faithfulness and service to the church, but on their faithfulness and service to the cause of Christ, and to their fellow humans. And I want to give them opportunities to grow and learn and perform faithful service to one another.

I see no conflict between keeping one’s covenants and the sex or gender of the person with whom you are making that covenant. And, by revelation, neither does the Lord.

I also believe that no one group or person has a monopoly on the continuing progress of the Restoration. We all have something to contribute, and we need to include more viewpoints (including this one) and stop fighting one another.

As for the church, at the core, it is like the branch that has been severed from the Vine. Cut off from its source, it is dead and brittle, and will soon turn rotten and become food for the much-needed new life, which will hopefully reattach itself to the Vine.

What’s my religion?

For me, it’s not that simple. Sorry to go on for so long, but this is who I am, and a one-word label would not suffice. I don’t want to give it a name, because when you name it, you define it, you stagnate it, and it ceases to be a living, growing part of you.

I was raised LDS, but I have synthesized for myself a number of things that I have found to be workable and true in my life. I don’t believe anything that I can’t demonstrate for myself. I prefer faith to belief. Belief is passive. Faith is that great active experiment described in the Book of Mormon, where you hold onto a proposition or hypothesis until it is proven true or false. At that point, that thing is no longer faith, but knowledge.

I pick up ideas to test everywhere I go, and in everything I explore. For me, I have found much grist for thought, practical tools for living, and keys to a knowledge of God in Evangelical Christianity, some New Age thought, A Course in Miracles, Kaballah, Sufi, Buddhism, Scientology (Yes, you read that right. I am Clear.), early Mormon writings, the teachings of Joseph Smith, and the writings of JJ Dewey. I don’t follow anybody blindly. I don’t agree with everything these people say, but I take what I can use, and put the rest back on the shelf. I am constantly growing and learning. Nothing is so sacred that is can’t be set aside in order to embrace even greater truth.

For me, a “higher law” isn’t a more restrictive law, it’s a more general law; it covers more ground; it explains more; it places more responsibility on the individual and depends less on external micro-management and policing. In this respect, the two great commandments is a higher law than all the law and the prophets.

For me, spirituality is all about the acquisition of knowledge and the development of our god-like potential, which lies within each of us. This is in contrast to religion, which is a series of exercises designed to force obedience in followers in order to appease an angry God in the hopes that if we do enough, or believe enough, he will overlook our sins and some day endow us with abilities we haven’t developed, and kingdoms we haven’t won, and that in some magical way that being whom we never knew will suddenly become our best friend.

“Someone today making the same claims would be seen as a candidate for the asylum or a fundamentalist, but the actual prophets of today would be saying far different things, things that resonate with people and start social movements. That’s really the primary criterion–that they identify a pressing need and articulate it in a way that deeply resonates with others.”

By this definition the leaders of the LDS church are not true prophets, and they are not even good imitations of the real thing. And yet, today as you said there are people who have identified a pressing need, but have yet to articulate a solution in a way that deeply resonates with enough people to accomplish anything, as of yet.

My experience with the LDS church, and with ending up co-founding another Restoration church taught me that this authoritarian “church” paradigm no longer works. It doesn’t resonate with people. We need a completely new model.

The church I was involved with began as a study group, not a church. It provided the opportunity for disenfranchised LGBT Mormon to continue to serve God by exercising their Priesthood, serving in callings, and receiving all the essential ordinances including the ordinances of the temple. Many of us received revelations. Sometimes the revelations would come to several of us at the same time. We even had our own Day of Pentecost experience when we dedicated our little tabernacle as a temple. We received authority by revelation to do all that we did.

But, we failed to listen and went off on our own and started a church. Not content with that, some members were upset that we were not following the exact pattern of the LDS church, and they steered the church in that direction.

Long story short. We failed. We failed in our mission, and we failed to help the people who needed help. After pondering this for years, I came to the realization that we were good people with good intentions, but were blindly following a failed paradigm. We didn’t need a church with traditional apostles and prophets. We needed something else. What that is I don’t know. And, maybe I’m not supposed to know. One thing I do know is it’s going to be a group effort. There won’t be “one mighty and strong”, leading a bunch of blind followers around. There will be many leaders, and they will have a shared vision, and they will do something that will resonate with the people. That’s all I know. I like to think that when we are ready, the Lord will touch a lot of people, and when that happens, I will get behind them and support them all I can.

Building Zion – Notes from my Journal

The following came from my journal entries written back in 2003. I have recently learned from the D&C the importance of taking the Lord at his word, not only to say, but to do.

And your minds in times past have been darkened because of unbelief, and because you have treated lightly the things you have received–
Which vanity and unbelief have brought the whole church under condemnation.
And this condemnation resteth upon the children of Zion, even all.
And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon and the former commandments which I have given them, not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written–
That they may bring forth fruit meet for their Father’s kingdom; otherwise there remaineth a scourge and judgment to be poured out upon the children of Zion. D&C 84:54-58

I have also learned how important it is to listen to the whisperings and promptings that the Lord sends you, and to act on them. I was directed to find this entry from my journal from way back in 2003. I wanted to publish it now because, looking back in retrospect, it seemed to foreshadow what is happening today.

This is all about not sitting around waiting to be commanded in all things, but stepping out in faith, taking that next step, and as you obey what you receive, the Lord will reveal your mission to you as it unfolds. This was certainly something I needed to know, then as well as now, though, I haven’t truly realized the importance of acting on it until now.

Now Melchizedek was a man of faith who wrought righteousness. And when a child, he feared God, and stopped the mouths of lions, and quenched the violence of fire. And thus, having been approved of God, he was ordained a high priest after the Order of the covenant which God made with Enoch, it being after the Order of the Son of God, which Order came not by man, nor the will of man, neither by father nor mother, neither by beginning of days nor end of years, but of God. And it was delivered unto men by the calling of his own voice, according to his own will, unto as many as believed on his name. Gen. 7:18 OC

Melchizedek demonstrated faith first. He received Priesthood later.

I need to add some explanation to this because people who take this at face value in light of their LDS traditions. I need to explain the usage of “you”, “prophet”, and “followers”. The traditional LDS viewpoint is of a strong authoritative leader who they call a “prophet”, whom they believe is the exclusive channel for God upon the earth, and whom them follow unquestioningly.

Here, “you” is the general “you”. It’s not speaking to me or any one particular person, but to all of us in general. “Prophet” simply refers to anyone who is a servant of God, coming with a message from God, and “followers” are anybody who receives the message as coming from God. It is true that when somebody comes with a message from God, if people receive that message and act on it, God will then use that channel to provide more truth and light. The channel becomes a more useful tool under the hand of Christ, but the messenger is never above the message, nor the servant above the master,

10/22/2003 8:57 PM (written that evening as an explanation to what I received earlier)

A couple of nights ago, I was praying about what I was supposed to be doing. Christ said: “I want you to … write. Don’t worry about what you will write about. Just sit down and write I will tell you what to write about.” Here is what has come out of this effort.

10/22/2003 3:16 AM (written that morning)

Here are some principles to keep in mind:
If ye have desires, ye are called to the work.
You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.
A servant of God can only function as a messenger for God to a people, to the degree that those who follow the message give heed and diligence to act on the light and truth given them.
Where is there room to sit around and wait for a prophet to appear? Do the work you feel called to do now. Be your own prophet. Follow the light that is given you. And it may be that God will show you a greater vision of the work you could perform, and the vision he shows you will be according to your desires and your faith. Jesus said: “You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” Another translation of this is “You have not chosen me SAVE I have chosen you.” In other words, he is saying that we could not be able to choose him unless he chose you first.
If God gives you a vision of a great undertaking or work, and if you begin to serve and perform the work which God has shown you, and if you perform it under the influence of the Holy Spirit, you will become what you have been waiting for and God will place as much power and authority in your hands as is necessary in order to accomplish the work you are called to do. When you have exhausted your personal reserves of knowledge and your personal mental capacity, and if you seek God in humility, you will have the added endowment of light which you need in order to accomplish the task.
The day will come when one or more people have such an overwhelming desire to establish Zion and such a sense of mission that they will have the desire above all else to see it accomplished and presented to the Lord as his Bride that they will work to that end, and God will bless them jointly with a greater vision of the work and provide whatever authority they need to accomplish the task. And the light which they generate will attract other lights. And the lights which are gathered will sustain each other in their endeavors. And because of their desires they will have the ability to call down the resources of heaven and obtain whatever revelation is necessary to complete and perfect the work.
God already has people in mind who will perform this work. But they need first to choose themselves and to find themselves. Then God will take over and supply whatever else is lacking. And all this will happen because God has already ordained and set in place a covenant which will allow this to happen. This is the covenant which God made with our fathers when he told them that when men look upward, then will the Kingdom of Heaven look downward, and the day will come that those of the Kingdom of Heaven, Enoch and his family will come down and dwell in our midst.
It is well-said that Zion cannot be built up on any other principles but those of the Celestial Kingdom, and the Celestial principle which rules in this case is this: If we are willing to consecrate all that we have to the building of up Zion, then God is willing to consecrate all that He has to the same effort. We have the opportunity, even in this life, to enter into the same Celestial order which God belongs to. It’s an order of equals, each giving their all for the good of all.
The questions we need to answer are these: Is the time right? Are enough people prepared? Are we prepared to sacrifice all that we have in order to obtain something better? Until we can answer yes to all of these questions, then more preparation is in order.
11/30/2003 7:10PM
God does not have to wait for Zion to be established. If one or two people are ready now, he will abide with them, and they will have a little Zion.

The Vision of All

When we were directed by revelation to organize the Priesthood in the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ, I was called to be Second Counselor in the “Temporary Presidency”, and as a Patriarch. Eventually, I was ordained a Patriarch, given the Sealing Power, and was eventually sustained as Presiding Patriarch/Evangelist to the church.

I had a rough idea of the duties of a Patriarch, as every member of the LDS church does, but it never dawned to me to ever think I would become a Patriarch. In the blessing I was given, the Lord instructed me, through the person acting as voice, to study the revelations in the Doctrine & Covenants pertaining to Oliver Cowdery and Hyrum Smith. So, I studied and prayed to receive the spirit of the calling, as well as receive the Lord’s confirmation that He approved. And, as Evangelist, a calling that was completely unfamiliar to me, I prayed for an understanding of the duties of an Evangelist. It is one thing to have an office conferred upon you, but quite another to receive the Lords ratification and to connect with the “powers of heaven”.

I found out the Lord really knows what He is doing when He calls somebody to a position. I asked for confirmation, and received it many times in many miraculous ways, which I won’t go into now. Sometimes, when you ask the Lord if a calling is right, He doesn’t say “yes” or “no”, He just starts in with “Here’s how I want you to do.” If you ask for His approval, then just go ahead and act in faith and perform your duties, the approval comes in a way that you cannot deny.

I was amazed at how the calling rested so naturally upon me, and the doctrine of this, the Patriarchal Priesthood, literally distilled upon me as promised in D&C 121, and the Lord taught me of and about the covenants he made with mankind, as explained in D&C 84.

The Patriarch to the LDS church, and the Community of Christ is traditionally somebody who is a direct descendant of Hyrum Smith. (However, the LDS church released its Patriarch, Eldred G. Smith, and never called anybody in his stead. That office no longer exists in that church.)

I am not a direct descendant of anybody in the Smith family. I don’t have any great or illustrious ancestors going back in the church. The closest thing I had was a great great great uncle who was a farmer and school teacher living near Palmyra, New York. When Joseph Smith showed him the Book of Mormon characters, my uncle told him he was crazy and to forget about the whole thing.

Still, even after I had a testimony of my calling, I also know about the ancestry requirement. I had to know Why Me? So, I once asked the Lord, how come he wanted me to be the Patriarch, seeing as how I was not of the proper lineage, etc. The answer I got was this: “Because you are filled with the Holy Ghost”. The Lord can call whoever he wants, whenever He wants, to do whatever he wants.

If I didn’t have an incentive before, I had one then. I was directed by the Spirit about what to read, and given additional insights about what to teach the members. The impressions I received were that I was supposed to teach about family and relationships. And I use the term “relationships” with the broadest possible meaning. Not just relationships within a couple, or family, but the human relationships that make up societies. My constant emphasis was on preparing people to establish Zion. This became my obsession.

What I learned became the basis for what I taught in the church, and for what follows in this post.

Although we in the Restoration Church saw ourselves as a home for all displaced, disaffected, and disenfranchised Mormons, our primary membership was individual Gay and Lesbian people, who had no families or had been cut off from their own immediate families. I was impressed to teach about getting into steady, committed relationships. Marriage was on nobody’s radar at the time. We met not as congregations, wards, or branches, but as small ad hoc “families”, as the basic unit of the church. We were each others’ families. Zion, when it is established, will be gathered from all God’s creations and it will function as one big family.

What better group for the Lord to instruct about the true basis for families and relations than those who were ripped from their families and told their relationships were “abominations”? Who could be more open to learning about the reordering of the world, the coming Kingdom of God, and the establishment of Zion, than those who had been cast out of the religions and societies of men? It just seemed to be the right people, in the right place, at the right time. It’s time for the “weak things of the world” to step up. The so-called wise and noble didn’t bother to show up at the party when the Lord sent out the wedding invitations, so He went out into the streets and gathered in all the homeless and outcasts — people who could understand and appreciate what he had to offer.

I felt impressed to study what was called the “Patriarchal Order”. In the Pearl of Great Price, in the Books of Moses and Abraham, we read about the ancient Patriarchs, whom Abraham refers to as “the fathers”: Adam, Seth, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham. In the modern world, these men get a bad reputation as feminists decry “the patriarchy”. Knowing these men as I do, it’s painful to hear this, because they were benevolent leaders and mentors to their posterity. They were fathers, and in a day where there are so few decent role models for fathers and males in general, this might be hard for us to visualize anything other than an angry old man with a beard and long hair. And though we know little of their wives, except for an occasional name, these men would necessarily have strong women at their side. Mormons most familiar with Eve, and view her as just as noble a character as Adam.

These men were preachers of righteousness; they were evangelists, to use the modern term. They taught their posterity the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Adam and Eve, even after being cast out of the Garden of Eden, by obedience to the Gospel, and by keeping their covenants, and by teaching their posterity to keep their covenants, eventually obtained righteousness and were redeemed from the Fall. Some of their children believe their first parents and were righteous; most did not. God called Enoch to leave his righteous community and go out and preach among the more wicked part of the people. He and his people built a city that was so righteous that Christ came down to earth to join them. In the process of time, Enoch and his city were taken up to heaven. How did they do it?

If we are to have a Restoration of all things going back to the beginning of the world, if we are supposed to be building Zion which will eventually join with the Zion of Enoch, and if the last days are supposed to be like the days of Noah, then how come we still know so little about these people? What did Enoch do to succeed in establishing a Zion, when mankind has failed to do so ever since? How are we ever supposed to have Zion here on earth, and have the Heavenly Jerusalem descend and join us? When will Jesus return? What responsibility does mankind have in determining WHEN and exactly HOW he will return?

The Bible, is a collection of books which appears to modern people to be lot of isolated and sometimes unrelated bits and pieces of mythology and history. Modern scripture sheds additional light on the Bible, but behind it all, there are some very important, common elements. We have misunderstood the scriptures and have failed to see the grand thread that sweeps down throughout all history. And that grand thread is the covenants that God makes with us to join us back into his family. Everything that we learn in the Gospel is a part of this thread, and once we understand this, the Gospel takes on a new simplicity. You might call this “The Vision of ALL” because it takes in the grand view of the history of God’s dealing with man throughout all of history. And, when we can connect with our past history, as a race, when our hearts are turned to the “fathers”, when the promises made to the fathers are planted in our hearts — the children, then we can continue this journey which our fathers began, and see it through to completion.

The Gospel is not merely a prescription for individual righteousness; the “fullness of the Gospel”, is also a description of perfected human relationships. It could be called an “order”, and is often referred to as “The Patriarchal Order”.

The design of the great God in sending us into this world, and organizing us to prepare us for the eternal worlds, I shall keep in my own bosom at present. (Joseph Smith DHC, Vol. 5, p. 403)

What Joseph Smith kept close to his bosom will be gradually unfolded to us, as we follow the instructions we are given, step by step. One of the most profound clues is given out right in plain sight in the Lord’s prayer. “The kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. This is why the Kingdom of God must go forth, that the Kingdom of Heaven may come. (D&C 65:6)

If we are gods-in-training and destined to become like God, we must also learn to think like God thinks, and work like God works.

We need to organize the human family on earth such that it matches and corresponds to the way things operate in heaven. This affects everything that a society of people engage in. All their “covenants, contracts, bonds, obligations, oaths, vows, performances, connections, associations, or expectations” will be affected. In other words, our human relationships. What better defines a human relationship, whether it be a marriage, a family, a group, or a society better than the set of mutual agreements or expectations we have between ourselves, as enumerated above and in D&C 132:7.

But we are going to need a lot detail to go on this. Where do we go from here?

As latter-day saints, we say we believe in revelation, but who is receiving this revelation, and shouldn’t they start preparing? But we also know that Zion will be gathered from all of God’s creations, not just Mormons. So, God will have to speak to a lot of different people. In fact, everybody who gathers to Zion will have to have their own vision. This program is as big as the world.

Do we not believe in the prophecy of Joel that young and old alike will dream dreams and see visions (Joel 2:28), or the prophecy of Habakkuk that the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord (Hab. 2:14), or the prophecy in Hebrews that says no one will need to teach their neighbor, for all shall know the Lord from the greatest to the least (Heb. 8:11)?

Moses wanted all of Israel to be prophets. Christ wanted all his disciples to enjoy eternal life by coming to know him. Joseph Smith wanted all the saints to know for themselves. But, in every case, the people rebelled or apostatized and demanded a single “strong man” to lead them and tell them what to think and believe. Joseph Smith felt that the minds of the saints had been darkened because they were depending too much on him.

How else can a people share one heart and one mind if they don’t share a single vision?

I had a vision or an idea or a conception that a lot of people in diverse places and diverse cultures would independently come to more or less the same vision, back about 10 years, and this is why I put up this blog in the first place. But this is a vision that one person cannot and must not impose upon anybody else. Each person must see and understand it for themselves. And not just to know, but to act as the Lord directs them. The day of the “strong man” is over. We each need to take responsibility for ourselves, our families, our knowledge, our salvation, for building Zion, and for preparing for the return of Christ.

I was hoping to catch the attention of like-minded people, but I am not very good at promoting my website, and attracted very little attention. But, this hasn’t stopped me from looking to see what else is out there. I was surprised to find out that a lot of other people, isolated and unbeknownst to each other have the same idea, too. I believe this is how Zion is going to be built: from the grass roots, from the bottom up.

So, it seems to be individuals coming together with the same vision, gathering in small groups, and then coming together in ever larger groups.

But what about “the One Mighty and Strong”, the “Davidic servant”, and other prominent individuals prophesied to some forth in the latter days? Joseph Smith talked about angels and some of the noble souls from the past who could come and assist in the work from time to time.

These men are in heaven, but their children are on the, earth. Their bowels yearn over us. God sends down men for this reason. And the Son of Man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that give offense and them that do iniquity. All these authoritative characters will come down and join hand in hand in bringing about this work. (Joseph Smith, TPJS p. 159)

There may still be a parade of these “authoritative characters” sent to assist in this work, but we will know them more because of what they will accomplish behind the scenes, rather than who they as personalities. Christ said he will come “as a thief in the night”. People don’t usually recognize that a “thief in the night” has been there, until he has come, done his work, and left.

These are pretty big dreams, and a far cry from the narrow-minded misogyny, prejudice, jealousy, and arrogance we see all around us today. Churches are built up to get gain, fighting one another, each claiming to be the Lord’s. We need to rise above that, learn the scriptures for ourselves, and see what they say to us, not how we have been taught. Then, we need to lift up our eyes and see the big picture. I am hoping and praying that even more people will see the picture, catch fire, pray for revelation, and do what the Lord directs them to do. I have faith in people. Maybe too much faith. But, “I’m not the only one”.

I wrote this the following post back in 2011, and recently re-posted to my blog.

The Foundation of Zion, Volume II