Everyone has a desire to see things more clearly and more truthfully...even if they are not aware of it. We all have a drive to grow and learn and discover who we are and who created us. Like our creator, we are also creators, thus we are creative and love to build things and express our true image, which is God. We are created in his likeness, spiritually, and all our aspirations to embrace love, peace, kindness and compassion are direct results of our true nature...our God-like nature.

"Truth will set you free" (John 8:32). It will not bind you, punish you or threaten you. Truth will set you free. Anything that binds, punishes, inflicts pain or takes advantage of suffering....is not a truth and will not set you free.
To take a closer look at what a truth really is, imagine you had the capacity to build a giant castle. This castle would have walls higher than any weapon could cross over, walls thicker than any weapon could penetrate and a foundation deeper than any miner could tunnel under. Inside this castle you would have all the fresh water and food needed for several lifetimes and all the services necessary to live life to its fullest.

If and when a person or country decided to attack your castle, you wouldn't have to give it a thought. You are safe beyond safe and your happiness cannot be thwarted. There is even no need to keep watch on who is approaching since it wouldn't matter anyway. There is nothing they could do to damage your castle. It is solid, sure and true.

Truth...real truth is exactly like that castle. Real truth does not need a defense. Real truth does not have any need to show or explain how or why it is so, simply because it is flawless, perfect and without blemish.

When Jesus stood before Pilate and was being persecuted, he didn't stand silent just to portray an image of a ignorant lamb about to be slaughtered. This is a picture man painted. Jesus was silent because there was nothing for him to defend. There was no reason for him to try to prove he was right. His truths were solid ...unbreakable ...impossible to attack, harm or destroy. Why would he feel compelled to defend something that cannot be harmed or hurt in any way? Regardless of what actions his oppressors may have planned, he knew there was no way they could attack his spiritual truths which were untouchable in this physical world.

If and when you find yourself defending your beliefs, it is only because your beliefs are capable of being attacked. You do not need to defend what cannot be damaged or attacked. Truth needs no defense, so why do so many religions spend so much time trying to prove they are right...defending their positions....pushing their beliefs by using fear of eternal abandonment as a reason to love God? Because you need to defend anything that has faults...or it will be destroyed. Where you are weakest, you must defend the most by being the loudest and distracting anyone from seeing your weakness.

Take a moment and think of a belief that you have ever defended or are now defending, and consider this...stop defending it. If it needs a defense, it's not a truth. The time and resources you are spending on defending your specific beliefs are preventing you from seeing and embracing other truths that do not need a defense.

When your castle ...religion has weaknesses ...inconsistencies and contradictions in spirit, one possible reaction is that you say it is like that on purpose and that is how it was meant to be. You can say we are not to question Gods reasons, but to believe what he says, or else...even if the spirit of what he says we should do, goes against what he has been written to have done himself. All this appears to be accepted without question since, for some reason, many religions make God exempt from following the spirit of his own teachings.

If God can do what he wants...but we have to do as he says, then does God want us to behave better than he has demonstrated he can behave? Does God want us to love on a level higher than he can love? If this is so, shouldn't we be God? Is it possible we have this whole scenario reversed somehow? With God set in such an "Unaccountable" position within so many of our religious frameworks, you are basically given a blank check to provide an excuse for anything that appears to contradict, since your whole religion is based upon a premise that embraces exceptions and one-sided thinking. Our current society defines this is form of leadership as a dictatorship.

For any religion, whenever anyone asks you about something that does not appear to make sense, you have no choice other than to defend that which has more holes than solid matter. You could fix the flaws...but this would mean admitting to yourself and those around you that there is a flaw...and somehow this translates into an irrational method of thinking that if there is one flaw in the castle, then the whole castle is worthless. This is not so.

Ask yourself, would it be better for you to spend your time defending breaches in a castle that will need defense forever or would it be better to spend your time allowing the breaches to be healed by acknowledging the flaws and then embracing new truths that need no defense? The first option will consume your time and resources, while the latter will free your resources and provide additional blessings as well.

If the Bible were your castle and it was shown to have flaws...would you be willing to see how to get past these flaws and correct them or would you be adamant that there are no flaws...no matter how much evidence exits to say it is so...even when much of the evidence is within the Bible itself? Truth cannot be damaged or hurt or threatened...so are you willing to be open to see things more clearly? Are you willing to see more truthfully? Then just set aside your defenses for a moment and be open to hear and see things differently. Don't be afraid of what something might mean, instead, be happy you have found truer meaning.

For example...the Bible states in 1Jn.4:18 that "Perfect Love casts out fear". I believe this is a truth. I see no reason to debate it or argue it. This statement appears to be a well balanced thought since the simple presence of love should totally annihilate fear. In the same way as turning on a light switch has the result of making the darkness simply vanish, so does love make fear vanish. Love and fear cannot exist at the same time, in the same place or be used together in any way, since one would annihilate the other in the same way that light annihilates darkness. Likewise, in 1Jn.1:5 it states "God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.". This confirms the spirit behind the truth that love and light are identical in the same way that darkness and fear are identical.

With respect to the story of Babel (Gen 11:6&7), the Bible quotes God as saying "Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they begin to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them. Come, lets us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one anothers speech."

For reasons not explained, it didn't set well with God of what we might accomplish and he caused the languages of the people to change so that they could not accomplish things as easily. The statement is very clear in showing God as being concerned...fearful and even a bit paranoid of where our actions might lead us if we were allowed to progress unimpeded. Since only fear or love can exist at the same time, in this story, was God motivated by his love of what we were doing, or by his fear of what our actions might lead to?

The only time anyone gets angry or upset is when they fear how something may conclude...be it the reason to flood the earth, the reason to swallow thousands in an earthquake, the reason to use a sea to drown an enemy, the reason to bring plagues upon a nation, the reason to rain fire from heaven...etc,. Nothing of this form ever, ever, ever comes about except though being motivated by the fear of what will happen if some form of action is not taken. So then, is God a god of Love?...then how can he fear. Love and fear cannot coexist.

A loving God says "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." (Matt 5:44) and he would walk into Sodom and embrace the people and see their need and the suffering of their empty hearts. He would do what he could to help heal the scars in their lives that have allowed them to sink so low. His unconditional love would motivate him to bring about positive change and healing for the entire city. A loving God has no reason to fear what these people are doing because his truths...his castle, is perfect and solid. Nothing anyone does here on earth can affect him or upset him. He has no reason to do anything other than help because everyone in that city is one of his children and he wants all of them to be well.

A fearful God says "I only love those that love me" (Prov 8:17) and he would tower over the city of Sodam and smash it's buildings and kill all life...without remorse. A fearful would God see the actions of the people in this city as a threat to his leadership and since there is no way they could possibly love him naturally...because he is an angry God, he has to rule through threat of death and punishment. An angry and fearful God cannot and will not look at any way to help these people, because he thinks this would be a sign of weakness....and a fearful God has so much weakness as it is, so he can't allow the possibility that somebody might see that his castle is full of holes and he has to stand watch at all times to protect what he knows is not perfect.

There are only two motivations at the very heart of any action, love or fear. There is never any possibility that you can ever rationalize that God killed because of the love he had for the people he killed or that God destroyed cities because of the love he had for the cities...and this leaves the only motivation as fear and hatred.

No matter how you try to rationalize how the Bible says what it says, you have to accept that either there are flaws in the stories depicting him as being upset and reacting out of fear, or you have to accept there is a flaw in saying that perfect love casts out fear or that God is light, not darkness. One of these concepts is flawed. One of these concepts is not true...and if God truly is a God of love, which one would you believe has to be the true statement? Is it so hard to fathom that many of our fearful depictions of a angry and vengeful God were simply an ancient attempt to try to create order in their society? Many of the stories...tales, are the obvious result of them not being able to fathom a god with unconditional love. Today, we can better fathom this, so we need to move past centuries old tales of fear and embrace the truths of a loving God instead.

So we move on. There are flaws in the Bible. This does not mean your religion is shattered or that the whole Bible gets tossed. God speaks to you through any avenue provided...so if you are reading the Bible and are looking for truths, you can begin to weed through those parts that are mans written thoughts and find those things that are truths. For any story...any chapter...any verse, simply ask yourself if the words are using fear or love to motivate you. If the words are using love, they are inspired by the heart of God. If the words are using fear, they are inspired from the heart of the person that wrote the words. All this means is that the writers were human, just like you.

I've had somebody say, "So you just pick and choose those parts of the Bible you say are true."...and basically, the answer is yes, but that's OK. There is never any penalty handed to you when you seek the truth and your heart is open to see clearly. My favorite saying is "God is a God of Love and He does not teach through fear or use fear in any way". I firmly believe this to be true and so as I read any book, including the Bible, if I find something that does not go along with the loving spirit of what I believe to be true, I simply conclude the statement is from man and I move on until I find words from God.

What is our conclusion? "Truth will set you free" (John 8:32). It will not bind you, punish you or threaten you. Truth will set you free. Anything that binds, punishes, inflicts pain or takes advantage of suffering....is not a truth and will not set you free. God wants your hearts and minds free of fear, so just choose to be open to see more clearly...more truthfully and God will hold your hand and walk you through whatever is necessary to free you from any current perception of him being associated with fear in any way.

God is Love. God is Light. Gods real teachings are extensions of who he is and he is not exempt from his own teachings because it is simply not possible for him to act or behave any differently than who he is. Set aside any concepts of God being fearful or God using fear and darkness as tools because they simply do not exist in his presence and so they are not there to be used.

Open your heart and mind to see God differently and more truthfully and you will see no fear, no punishment, no judgments, no conditions for love, no requirements of sacrifice, no blaming with sin and no threats of any kind. You will see pure love, pure peace, pure kindness and a solid desire to do all that is necessary to help us undo what we have done to ourselves. Just say, "I choose to see more clearly.", and your path to seeing and experiencing unbiased truths will begin.

David Nelmes - David considers it a wonderful blessing that his insight and writings can provide opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. He pursues Gods truths and is open and willing to see what God would have him see. He invites you to join him.
You can visit David's website at: www.beingwilling.com