Being glory vs. Giving glory

What if true salvation is realizing that I am the glory of God?  Isn't that what Paul is hinting at in Romans: "...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"?  Or in other words: Everyone has missed the mark (to sin) on what it means to be truly human, everyone is lacking the glory of God.  It seems our predicament is/was not our inability to give God glory, but our inability to relax and 'just' be God's glory.
What if all my attempts to give God the glory (through singing worship songs and serving him and stuff) are actually keeping me away from this deep unity/oneness the Father desires with his child?  
What if God doesn't want/need me to give him the glory?  What if he just longs for the day in which I realize that I am his glory?
And what if that is not pride, but true humility?

Being in Christ vs. Being in Christianity

What if it is very difficult for a modern day Christian to experience what it really means to be "in Christ"?  What if the reason for all those books and teachings about who a Christian is in Christ is that we just don't experience it?  I mean what if we need all these reminders just because it's not a reality in our lives?  What if the reason that it's not a reality in our lives is that we traded being "in Christ" for being in Christianity?  What if being "in Christ" means to be outside of or free from religion/Christianity (and it's nagging thought: "I'm not good enough for God.  I have to change.")?  What if the freedom that Christ wants to bring is at odds with Christianity?   What if religion has to make way for something new?  "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!" 2.Cor.5:17

New Religion vs. New Creation

What if Jesus never intended to found Christianity?  What if he didn't want another religion?  What if what Jesus taught was freedom from religion?  What if Christianity became exactly that which Jesus critisized in Judaism, a religion seperating people from the love of the Father?  What if Jesus' gospel is so much higher and deeper and wider than what Christianity could hold?  What if Jesus really is the firstborn of a new creation, instead of the founding father of a new religion?

Hell & Manipulation

What if the Pharasees in Jesus' day taught the idea of hell (borrowing it from other religions - Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Zoroastrian and Greek) in order to manipulate people to be good, so that the Messiah could come?  What if Christians started to do the same thing, causing a seperation between people who go to heaven and people who go to hell?  What if Jesus is all about breaking down this seperation, by hanging out with the 'sinful' people and turning the idea of hell onto the religious establishment?  What if Jesus was only ever warning religious people about hell?

A bigger God

Jim Palmer wrote on his blog "Shedding Religion to find God":

"What if God isn’t a belief system? What if God is bigger than any theology that religion can produce? What if God is bigger than self, bigger than family, bigger than church, bigger than tribe, bigger than nation, and bigger than any creed or set of doctrines we might wrap around him? Could the vision of a bigger God cause us to place higher value on expanding our circles of care and compassion, and working toward a more peaceful world? What if God is love? What if God is peace? What if God is unconditional acceptance? What if God is empathy and compassion?"

Freedom from fear & shame

What if we, in western Christianity, don't understand anymore what it really means for Jesus to forgive our sins?  What if it's not just about a 'Ticket to Heaven' or a 'Hell-Free Card'?  What if for Jesus, when he walked this earth, forgiving people their sins used to be all about freeing them from the bondage of shame which seperated them from Father (ie. the paralyzed man in Luke 5)?  What if "Do not be afraid" and "your sins are forgiven" were some of the most spoken words of our big brother?  What if it really is fear and shame that keep us away from a loving relationship with Father?  What if sin is this seperation caused by fear and shame?  What if, trying to manage our own sin, we get sucked deeper and deeper into it by fear and shame?  Would it be enough to just deal with the sin?  Or do we need to allow Jesus to deal with the root of it: fear and shame?  What if religion is just using fear and shame for its advantage, instead of, like Jesus, removing the burden of it?  What if I can live in a loving relationship with Father without fear and shame?

One IV

What if the existence of approximately 38000 Christian denominations in the world today is kinda opposite to what Jesus had in mind when he prayed: "...that all of them may be one, Father, ...so that the world may believe that you have sent me."? (John 17)

Sin Management

What if living as a child of God is not about not sinning anymore?  What if for God it has never been about us not sinning?  What if, by trying to manage our sin, we're really worshipping sin, sacrificing good deeds on the altar to sin?  What if we're really "free from the law of sin and death" (Romans 8)?  What if there really is "no condemnation" anymore (Did God ever condemn us, or was it our shame that condemned us?)?  What if life is 'just' about enjoying being one with Father?

The word of God

What if a large number of Christians throughout history didn't have the ability to read the bible, nor have any deep biblical/theological knowledge?  What if these brothers and sisters didn't miss out on hearing and living by the word of God?  What if owning your own copy (or several) of the bible and calling it "the Word of God" is a relatively new thing, only a couple of hundred years old?  What if we search the scriptures, learn them, teach them, and all the while miss the one thing that, Jesus taught, really counts?  What if all these Christians, without the ability to read, or without the means of purchasing a copy of the Bible, or simply living before the age of the printing press, got this one thing right?  What if the word of God simply is LOVE?

The Lord's Prayer

What if we made the 'Lord's prayer' to be the total opposite of what Jesus was trying to teach?  What if Jesus' main point was to show the closeness of relationship that we can have with our Father, by saying: "Abba, papa, daddy, I love who you are and what you are doing." (my version)?  Instead of: "Our Father who art in heaven, up there, far, far away..."

The king & his kingdom

What if Jesus' kingdom is really, as he says, not of this world?  What if the type of 'second coming' that most Christians are waiting for, is totally contrary to Jesus' heart and words?  What if he is not the kinda king that most denominations make him out to be?  What if he is not going to come ahead of a massive army, overthrowing all other kingdoms by force of the sword (or atom bomb)?  What if he hasn't changed his plan nor his ways?  What if he continues in the way of love and humility?  Isn't that powerful?  Doesn't that overpower superpowers? 

Love & Evangelism

What if love is really the only way to spread Jesus' beautiful news of the Fathers' love (to evangelise)?  What if there is some measure of love, some measure of the Father's image,  hidden in every person, burried under all that other junk, like hurt, shame and rejection?  What if real evangelism is like going on a treasure hunt, seeking that measure of love in someone, and calling it forth with the love that I receive from Father?  What if any other agenda (like winning souls for Christ etc.) is only doing injustice to the pure motive of love building up love?

"The true lover always believes that love is present; precisely in this way he builds up.  In this way he only entices forth the good; he 'loves up' love; he builds up what is already there.  For love can and will be treated in only one way - by being loved forth."       -Kierkegaard-

OT Hell

What if there is no mention of eternal punishment in the whole of the Old Testament?  What if the word Hades (the only word sometimes translated hell in the OT) was never meant to convey the meaning of eternal punishment?  Wouldn't God, when He talked to Moses on the mountain, have told him of such a place, if such a place existed? (Something like:  Oh, by the way, if you don't keep my commandments you'll end up in a place of eternal punishment.  And the people you'll be killing on the way to the promised land, they'll end up there, too.)

Born again

What if being 'born again' (or 'born from above') is only mentioned twice in the bible?  Yet it has become the central doctrine of modern day Christianity. 
What if Jesus was using this term to show Nicodemus that he had to die to his religious ways and become spiritually alive?  What if this term is no where used in the bible for a heathen repenting of their sin?
What if today Jesus would talk most likely to a 'born again Christian' about the need of really being born again?

Law vs. Love

What if we're doing the same thing to the New Testament (NT), as the Jews did to the Tanakh by writing the Talmud, trying to keep the law plus thousands of other extra rules. What I mean is that we take the NT (but also the OT) and read it as the law, something to live our lives by as good Christians.  And because it's not that easy to understand what the different authors really want us to do, we come up with commentaries that we need to study and adhere to as closely as possible.  What is the difference between a good study bible with footnotes and commentary (not to mention Christian book stores filled with advice and rules to live the Christian life succesfully, based on scripture), and the hundreds of intricate laws that the God fearing Jews put on themselves?  Have we really come away from living under the burden of the law?
What if Jesus is really right, and it all can be broken down to... LOVE?

Blood sacrifice...God or Shame?

What if God wasn't the one who demanded a blood sacrifice from us?
(What if Genesis 3:21 doesn't talk about God killing animals and clothing Adam and Eve with the fur?  What if He 'clothed' them in skin, their own human skin?)
What if it was our shame that first drove people to sacrifice animals?
What if all of Israel had gone up Mt. Sinai, instead of fearing the fire and asking Moses to mediate?
Wasn't it human shame that asked for the law?  Wasn't it the law that demanded sacrifices?
What if Jesus gave his life not to appease an angry God, but to appease (fulfill) the law that was put into place by popular demand?
What if that sacrifice really did once and for all deal with ALL our shame?

The Good News

What if the Good News (the gospel) is not: "Repent, become a Christian, then your sins will be forgiven and you'll get a ticket to (assurance of) heaven."?
But: "Don't be afraid.  Your sins are forgiven.  Your Father loves you.  You don't have to try to manage your shame anymore, it's been dealt with.  Come now from death into life."?
What if differentiating between 'christian' and 'non-christian' is just putting people into a box again, playing a stupid 'us vs. them' game, that is keeping people from experiencing the Father's love?  What if that's not God's heart at all?
What if He really is the Father of all who with outstretched arms is running towards all of us?
What if His outstretched arms even reach into the place of the dead (Hades/Sheol), to which, by the way, Jesus is supposed to hold the keys?