Mick Mooney's Blog, page 2

Why I Believe Jesus Spoke In Parables?

I believe Jesus spoke in parables because what he wanted most was for people to start thinking. It wasn’t about just proclaiming information that could be accepted ‘by faith’. Rather, he spoke in a way that forced people to really think about what he might possibly mean, and they needed to think quite a lot before they could even get to the point to believe it ‘by faith.’

In a world full of preachers proclaiming information about God, or information about the covenant, or information about how God relates to us, Jesus was different. He didn’t even make his message clear. He spoke in parables, in pictures, and none of them had a quick and easy explanation.

In the gospels, Jesus called people to follow him, just as he calls us today, but it is significant to note that he did not indoctrinate any of them. He did not sit them down and force them to understand his theology, to repeat it endlessly so they had it memorized and could then force it upon others.

While he did teach them, it was mostly through creating word pictures in the form of parables, it was through captivating their imagination and their hearts with questions, but he did not enforce them to have the answers he himself knew. That was a significant part of freedom Jesus seemed to respect: The freedom to seek our own understanding so when we have it we will know it really is what we believe and not just what others have told us we must blindly believe.

I guess Jesus knew it was not the accepting of information that was important, but rather the actual act of thinking that was important. For when we think, we engage our spiritual life in a personal way. When we think things through, then our conclusions belong to us fully. When we think, only then do we truly begin to believe, for only then do our beliefs truly become our own.

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This was an excerpt from my forthcoming book, out Aug 26: An Outsider’s Guide to the Gospel.

A Greater Peace within all You Don’t Know

The further away you travel from religion and the know-it-all mindset you inherit with it, the more freedom you find in asking questions about your faith. You no longer feel obligated to pledge undivided allegiance to your doctrines. You become pleased to put them on trial, to examine then, and to discard them if they are found to be without substance.

You begin to enjoy the engagement of such questions with others; whether they agree or disagree is no longer the point. The point is to have an honest, respectful and open conversation. You get used to being uncomfortable with new questions. More than that, you begin to expect them to arise and for your next rabbit-hole experience to begin where you follow questions wherever they take you, and discover truth in strange and wonderful ways.

Religion’s starting point is answers. When you enter into it you are stuffed full, and over time you get into the habit of stuffing newcomers with the same answers. But walking away from religion, while maintaining your faith, sends you on a very different path. You step into a wildly different pattern.

It is no longer a starting point of answers, but continual journey of questions. Each question draws you into a greater understanding of God. Also, at the same time, each questions leads you into a deeper acceptance of the mystery of God, and a greater peace within all that you don’t know.

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This was an excerpt from my forthcoming book, out Aug 26: An Outsider’s Guide to the Gospel.

Jesus Didn’t Teach with Answers, He Taught with Questions

Jesus talked a lot in parables, in little short stories. He also seemed to be more interested in questions then answers. When people asked Jesus a question, often he gave them a question back. In fact, he hardly ever gave a direct answer to anything. Even his big statements about himself such as: ‘I am the bread of life’ required people to go away and work out for themselves what it possibly meant.

Jesus didn’t teach with answers, he taught with questions; he taught in parables that required the hearer to go away and figure out the answer for themselves. I think that is a really significant thing to understand regarding how we learn from God. It’s not about waiting for answers, but, rather, we learn by daring to follow the questions God stirs in our hearts.

From the earliest times of the human experience, religion was steadfast in presenting God to mankind in the form of as an exclamation point; when Christ entered the world, he bent the presentation of God into a question mark. Jesus loved questions. We should, too.

Jesus didn’t try to enforce upon us a doctrinal statement. He didn’t come to indoctrinate us. He came to liberate us. He came to encourage us to ask what we truly think about God. He presented parables to get us to stop and think, to question our own perception of God, to draw us into questioning what our own beliefs about God’s nature and plans are.

Jesus showed us that not only is it okay to question who God is—what his nature is, how he operates, and how he thinks of us—it is actually the only way to truly step out of the prison of Belief-by-Indoctrination that religion binds us to.

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This was an excerpt from my forthcoming book, out Aug 26: An Outsider’s Guide to the Gospel.

(Want to help out a little with the book launch? You’re invited to join this facebook group here)

What Does a Personal Relationship with God Look Like?

So what does a personal relationship with God feel like? It feels personal, that’s what. It’s a relationship that you and God experience and understand. It’s not a corporate relationship.

Yes, many others also have a personal relationship, and that’s a beautiful thing, just as connecting with other believers is a beautiful experience, but I don’t expect their relationship to God to be a cookie cutter of mine. Vocabulary that describes my faith and belief is—and I think should be—different. The way I connect with my divine Father naturally varies to others.

The thoughts and questions that God stirs my heart with—and the answers I find—are never going to be the same as everyone else, because my relationship with God is personal.

Contrary to this is religion. Religion creates a corporate identity. When we buy into religion we end up speaking, sounding, even looking like everyone else within that corporate branded identity. Same thoughts. Same beliefs. Same well-defined doctrines—and if you step out of line and have questions that don’t fit that corporate identity, chances are you might be silenced, or even booted out.

Well, you know, I don’t mind if I don’t fit the corporate identity of Christianity, nor do I seek membership. I’m happy to have a relationship that is unique with my creator. I’m thankful the Spirit of God is leading my life, and showing me more each day how to let go of religious ambitions, and simply live the life of love he’s always been inspiring me to live. To walk freely in each day, with an open mind to learn new things, and a open heart to connect with others gracefully and genuinely.

To live. To love. To celebrate the gift of life with others, and to enjoy the personal relationship with God I’ve been graced to have.

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This was an excerpt from my forthcoming book, out Aug 26: An Outsider’s Guide to the Gospel.

(Want to help out a little with the book launch? You’re invited to join this facebook group here)

Jesus and the Revelation that we are One

Jesus revealed a divine truth about God. He is on the side of the excluded. Jesus identified with those whom the exclusive groups within the world rejected. He didn’t identify with the poor simply because they were poor; rather, he connected with them because the were being excluded due to their poverty. Jesus connected with those who had been rejected by other groups.

Truth be told, Jesus is the ultimate outsider of all groups and labels—he does not stand on the side of the rich or the poor, of men or of women, of black or of white—he is on the outside of all these separate groups, and it is outside of them we are welcomed, no matter where we stand on the world’s social ladder, to make our home and discover our true identity with him. It is on the outside we begin to see each other no longer as different, as better or worse, but as family. As brothers and sisters. As one.

Jesus didn’t come to build his own little group, he came to bring us into a place where there are no groups. A place where we let go of the labels of the world. He did not come to create an army. On the contrary, he came to implant a truth so deep within the human heart it would have the power to end all armies.

God is Love. He has no tribe, no army. Rather, he has the world in its entirety in his hands. A humanity as a whole that he loves. Jesus came to break the belief in tribes (at the time, not unlike our current times, every nation, most notably his own, believed their God was exclusively theirs and theirs alone) to bring us into the truth of Oneness.

He revealed that our reflection is not just the person in the mirror, it is the person across from us. Across from our political beliefs. Across from our religious beliefs. Across from our social status. Across from our suffering or our blessings. Across from the color of our skin. He removed the belief in camps and groups, in the lifestyle of separation and exclusion.

Jesus revealed how all the reasons we conclude make us different (and therefore, in our minds, justifies separating ourselves from others) only blinds us from the truth.

We are not different. We are more than the same.

We are one.

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This was an excerpt from my forthcoming book, out Aug 26: An Outsider’s Guide to the Gospel.

It is the follow up to my novel SNAP: Everyone has a Breaking Point

(Want to help out a little with the book launch? You’re invited to join this facebook group here)

Jesus, Friend of the Outsiders

From the world’s perspective, there will always be people pushed outside the accepted circle; there will always be people branded as outsiders. Jesus was intuitively aware of this, for he experienced it first-hand.

When Jesus entered the world, he was born—in society’s eyes—an illegitimate child. The son of an adulteress. He was born in the equivalent of a side alley dumpster. In the first few years of his life, he was harassed and hounded as a menace to his own nation and was hunted down to be slaughtered, keeping his family constantly in hiding, refugees, in other nations. He was born in poverty and disgrace, and returned there to grow up in the slums, known as Galilee, where the lower class lived with their embarrassing accents and tattered clothing.

Jesus could relate to those labeled as outsiders, because he was one. He could relate with those who had a tarnished reputation because he grew up with one. He could identify with the misfortunate and poor, because he had known of it his whole life.

But he did more than just grow up. He came to stand up for all who were looked down upon. He came to stand up for all who were pointed out by society and the religious as unworthy, unclean and unacceptable.

Jesus did more than just save the world, he showed all the outcasts of the world that he stands with them— right here, right now.

He showed those whom were mistreated, misunderstood and misrepresented that he will stand between them and the religious folk with their stones and exclusive theology they use to beat and condemn; he showed us he would go so far as to take the beating of the stones in place of the outcast—if any dared to still throw them.

On the outside, where those who are part of the ‘in’ groups never desire to venture, is where Christ makes his home and from there he calls out to all, “Come, follow me, this is the way to life”.

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This was an excerpt from my forthcoming book, out Aug 26: An Outsider’s Guide to the Gospel.

(Want to help out a little with the book launch? You’re invited to join this facebook group here)

Jesus, The Outsider

When Jesus turned up to start his public ministry, he did things differently. He didn’t schmooze with the politically connected and wealthy, nor did he get cozy with the ruling religious class in the hope of gaining support and influence. He didn’t obsess over his own imagine in the hope of presenting himself as picture-perfect, with picture-perfect followers and admirers. Instead, he identified with those with no image in the eyes of the ruling class. He picked a bunch of teenagers and a few young men from the poorest, most mocked part of the country, and even threw in a tax collector that the whole nation despised.

He openly befriended women, even the most despised in the eyes of his own nation, Samaritan women, and prostitutes of ill repute. He drank alcohol liberally with those society looked down upon, much too liberally for the religious folks of the day, causing him to be branded a ‘glutton and a drunkard’.

He publicly exalted the women who followed him, at times pointing out how they understood the truth about God while both the Pharisees and his own male disciples failed to grasp the reality of his ministry and the true character of God.

But he did more than just identify with those whom society so easily cast into its shadows. He came to stand up to all the religious bullies standing behind their pulpits and holy robes, obsessed with twisting the God of love into some kind of split-personality mental case.

He went on record, talking openly while making his claims, that God does not consider it acceptable behavior for anyone to harass, suppress and abuse people because they hold a position inside a religious institution or have some kind of religious title before their name.

He came to be a light for all who were living in the darkness of the abusive and manipulative tactics of those in powerful positions in religious institutions. To the everyday person, he offered: “Come follow me, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” But to the religious leaders he declared: “And you experts in the Bible, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them.”

The only thing that got Jesus mad, from what we see in the account of his ministry, is thinking one can judge and condemn others and place a heavy burden upon them due to a belief that they are some kind of divine mediator for God on earth.

In the gospel accounts we see that Jesus’ finger was not pointed at those with moral sins. The only time Jesus pointed his finger in judgment was when it was pointed at the religious, hardened in heart by their pious pride, who made it their self-appointed duty to look down upon, correct and condemn others.

In every way, Jesus went against the grain of the strongly established social, cultural and religious prejudices. And in doing so he broke this awful yoke off the neck of all who wanted to be set free from it. The yoke of the social, cultural and religious falsehood that measures people unjustly, that pushes people down, that keeps rank, that keeps count. That separates. That rejects. That oppresses. That disqualifies.

He consistently stood on the side of those society looked down upon, and lifted them up. Time and time again he showed those who were exalted in society—by wealth, title, sex, or nationality—that the very people they pitied were in fact the very ones greatly blessed. Yes, blessed, for while they may have been looked down upon by men, they were not looked down upon by God. Rather, they were as equal as everyone else in God’s eyes.

Jesus showed us all by his life—and also by his death—that there are no outcasts or outsiders in God’s eyes. There is no unclean. There is no lesser sex. There is no lesser color. There is no lesser race. There is no lesser human being.

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An excerpt from my forthcoming book, out Aug 26: An Outsider’s Guide to the Gospel.

(Want to help out a little with the book launch? You’re invited to join this facebook group here)

(Also, when you join my mailing list you get a free audio book. Details at the top of the sidebar)

An Outsider’s Guide to the Gospel

Good news everyone: The 26th of August is the official release date of my latest book: An Outsider’s Guide to the Gospel. This book is an important one for me personally, and I believe will be a worthy read for all you, too. It’s huge for me because it doesn’t hold back any punches on exactly what I think of Jesus, walking the path of faith, the here and now reality of the gospel and the salvation of whom, when, why, and how. I believe I can honestly give this book to someone and say: “Here, this is everything I believe about the gospel.”

It is the follow up to my novel SNAP, and although is completely aligned with my own beliefs, it is written from the perspective of Frank, the preacher’s son who no longer participates in the institutional church, and, after three years, has come to terms with how he understands his faith, and subsequently lays it all out there for all to read.

Something I can promise you about An Outsider’s Guide to the Gospel is this: it is full of original thought. Whether you agree or not I leave up to you, but my promise is it is a thought provoking book, a positive book that expresses the gospel in a way that is hardly heard from any pulpit. A book that explores, in depth, the reality of love as the central theme of the gospel. It is honest. It is real. It is a culmination of about ten years of thought on the subject, and the conclusions I’ve come to have not been reached by reading them in other books, but rather, I’ve reached my conclusions through my own research, contemplation, and honest exploration of my faith.

Every weekday for the next six weeks, leading up to the launch of the book, I am going to be posting excerpts from the book, so bookmark this blog and check in regularly. You won’t be disappointed.

If you sign up to my mailing list, you’ll not only get an email letting you know when the book is released, you’ll also get a free audio book version of my book: God’s Grace Apart From Law.

Just add your email below to get your free gift. Enjoy.

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Join my mailing list

If you want, you can take a moment to join a new facebook group I have set up specifically for people who want to stay updated and learn how they can help me out during the book launch (party!). Join here and stay tuned for more details.

I hope you’ll join me in being excited about this book release. Stay tuned!

God Is Love. Fully. Always. Forever.

It takes only a moment to have the revelation that God is love, but it takes a lifetime to let go of other doctrines we’ve been taught/conditioned to believe that makes God out to be anything less than love.

We play theological gymnastics most of our lives, finding ways to justify God the half lover, God the almost lover, God the if you do, I do lover. God the it’s not my fault lover, God the angry lover.

In the end, though it will take a lifetime, I think we’ll all give up on the theological gymnastics game, and just accept the reality of God the way a child does: God is love. Fully. Always. Forever.

The Joy Of Being Different – And Celebrating The Uniquness Of All

At the very basic level of our belief, we believe that we are all made in the image of God. This I completely believe and celebrate. This means at our core we are all exactly the same. We are all equals. We are all one. Because we are all made in the image of God. And what is that image? That image is love (singing L-O-V-E love).

Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 1 John 4:8

I think we run into problems, however, when we begin to conform into the outer image of one another, instead of abiding in the inner image of God/love. What I mean is we start to listen to the same kind of music, do the same activities, use the same kind of words and phrases, listen to the same teachings, have the same weekly schedule of events and programs etc. This of course can happen quite easily in a religious setting most easily. But it can happen in any setting/group that is fundamental in its worldview, whether it be religious, political, corporate or what ever.

There is a real danger when we start to conform into the ‘corporate image’ that we begin to actually lose touch with who we really are. It is not noticed as long as you are immersed in this corporate culture, but if you ever come out of it, it is not uncommon to feel lost, wondering if you even know who you are anymore. This is the danger of conforming to the outer image of others for the sake of inclusion.

It’s hard to embrace and celebrate your uniqueness when others want you to be something else–sadly, something a little closer to themselves. While I think we should all celebrate the truth we are the same image on a heart/spirit level, for we are all made in the image of love, we should also celebrate that none of us need to be the same in our outer expression.

I don’t think we’re designed by God to be like one another in our personalities and passionate pursuits. We are designed to be different, to go after different kinds of dreams, to have different hobbies, to see things from different perspectives.

We’re created to desire different things, to be drawn to different kinds of lifestyles, to seek after different kinds of experiences.

I really believe that it is these very differences that make it interesting to spend time together. It is what makes being friends refreshing and rewarding. But to enjoy this blessing, we have to let go of the desire to conform people into our own image.

Your image is beautiful. But it is yours, not mine, and not anyone else’s, and that’s the way it’s meant to be. When we can simply accept people for who they are, we can participate in beautiful and refreshing friendships. But when we expect people to change, to be more like ourselves, then we can never truly connect with anyone, because we are not looking for individuals to celebrate life with, but candidates we think can be molded into an image closer to our own.

Don’t be scared of those who are different to you, who believe different, live different, see the world different – these people are a blessing from God. If we can overcome our religious desire to conform people into our image, and live with the liberty of embracing and enjoying the uniqueness of others around us, we can also participate in the joy of life on a far greater scale.

Celebrate your unique and wonderful ways. And do likewise with others. We can celebrate both our united image of love, and also enjoy and celebrate all the differences we have as well. It is when we can embrace (instead of separating and judging) the differences of others, we truly begin to see just how we are all the same. We were made to bless one another with our uniqueness. We are all different, we are all made in the image of love, and that is what makes us all the same.