Following Jesus to the Christ

Following Jesus to the Christ

At its core, authentic spirituality is not about beliefs. It’s about behavior. Martin Thielen[1]

Among the well-intentioned but misguided statements I am most uncomfortable hearing from “Christians” include: “Have you accepted Christ into your heart?” and “Have you surrendered your life to Jesus?” and “Have you been born again?” and “Do you know where you’re going after you die?” These types of not-so-subtle-accusations-parading-as-concerned-questions are bothersome to me, and always have been, not because there are not partial truths contained in them but because they are misleading. They assume Jesus and the Christ are synonymous. They assume salvation is an individual attainment. They assume their brand of Christianity is the only way to God. Worse yet, those who do not adopt their version of Christianity will spend eternity in Hell. Those who use these types of evangelical hooks remind me of the scribes and Pharisees that Jesus criticizes so strongly in the gospels. He calls them hypocrites and blind guides because they try to convince others to believe the only way to God is by following their strict rules on diet, hand-washing, whom one could associate with, and the like – relatively petty concerns when compared with sharing God’s love and acceptance to the outcasts and suffering. I am certain the scribes and Pharisees were following God in the best way they knew how, just as I am certain most users of the sort of questions above are doing. In many cases, however, they are only trying to resolve their own confusion about salvation by creating doubts in others.

First of all, as I and others have written elsewhere, Jesus and the Christ are not synonymous. Jesus of Nazareth was a human being who lived 2000 years ago. The Christ is the universal state of spiritual and physical Oneness that means anointed or chosen. Jesus became the Christ as he consciously lived into his Oneness with God. As such he manifested God in the flesh, a child of God (as opposed to the only child of God). Jesus lived and died; the Christ is eternal. Jesus’ eternal nature resides in the Christ, as does ours. By following the example of Jesus, we too join in the Christ as God’s anointed as we allow our conscious wills to unite with God’s. We are already One with God– always have been, always will be – but until we consciously live into that reality we create havoc by living and behaving as if we were separate, individual entities. Our ego-self, the part of us that thrives on its individuality,dies with our body because, like everything of the earth, it is illusory, temporal, and passing. Our Oneness, however, is eternal. Once we consciously awaken to the unity that is our essence, heritage, and destiny, which is attaining Christ consciousness, the entire focus of our life changes. We repent, as Jesus commanded, not by repeating a certain prayer or joining a particular church but by seeing with the new eyes and feeling with the new heart given us. We awaken to the unbreakable unity of which we are a part, interconnected with everyone and everything. Until our vision is corrected, however, we remain harsh and prejudiced judges because we cannot see beyond our own restrictive biases.

Too many of today’s expressions of what it means to be a Christian do not consider the transformation of consciousness required. If we withhold compassion from those in life-situations similar to those Jesus showed mercy to, we have not transformed. If we do not welcome the outcast, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or heal the sick with the gifts we have available, we have not found our Oneness with God. Once that mystery has been revealed we cannot not welcome the outcast, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, or heal the sick because to do so not only withholds mercy from the needs of the body of Christ (see Matthew 25:31-46), but it also withholds mercy from ourselves! Once we awaken to our divine unity, we cannot not ease the suffering of others because we recognize it as our suffering, too. It is not enough to believe in our Oneness with God; we must behave in ways consistent with that Oneness – not by forcing ourselves to behave contrary to our natural tendencies, but because our natural tendencies have realigned with God’s. And that is what is missed in the types of evangelical challenge-questions I listed earlier. Behavior always trumps belief.

A blind person does not seek direction from another blind person, which is why Jesus called the scribes and Pharisees blind guides. They could not lead others to salvation because they had not experienced a transformation of consciousness themselves – they only tried to convince themselves and others they had. And they did so by parading their self-proclaimed piety in arrogant displays of superiority, privilege, and passive-aggressive judgement.

This is the 34^thin a series titled Crucifying Christianity, Resurrecting the Way.Life Notes are my explorations into mysteries that interest me. They are invitations for readers to explore more deeply into life’s mysteries. Engage with me or explore contemplative spiritual direction at ghildenbrand@outlook.com.

---

[1] Martin Thielen, Doubter’s Parish.com, The Bottom Line About My Religion, May 6, 2025.