EDITOR'S CHOICE: The Message of Jesus


		The Message of Jesus “As related in my book For Christ’s Sake, I can never forget the sense of illumination and of liberation that came when I fully realized for the first time that Jesus’ main message and sense of mission had very little to do with saving us from sin and with proclaiming himself as the third person of the Trinity (that is, as absolute Deity) and everything to do with proclaiming the reality of the Kingdom of God. The opening verses of Mark, the earliest of the four Gospels, make this absolutely clear. Jesus came preaching the euaggelion or "good news" of God’s Kingdom. The entire focus of the parables and other sayings is upon the Kingdom of God, also known as the pious synonym "the Kingdom of Heaven." (Pious Jews used "heaven" as a way to avoid saying the name of God.) Jesus announced by word and deed that no matter what outward appearances may seem, God is in complete control of human affairs. God reigns, nurtures, heals, and finally delivers humanity into an entirely fresh dimension of being and wholeness. It is essential to notice that the primary emphasis of Jesus’ teaching about the Kingdom is not about some kind of escape from this present world with its great joys, its grievous sufferings, and its enormous challenges. Rather, his call is for a radical trust in God now, in the present moment. The Kingdom is the offer of God’s loving presence with and within us today. "The Kingdom of God is within you or in your midst," he said. Belonging to the Kingdom is not a matter of trusting some deity "above all thing" or somehow "out there." It is about a God who is the ground and depth of the entire cosmos, and hence of each one of us. This Kingdom or Presence of God in power is both a current reality and a future or "eschatological" event. In Jesus’ teaching, one enters this Kingdom by childlike trust — not in dusty dogmas or in rigid creeds, but in the living God. Yet, at the same time, because of the very trustworthiness of this Presence, there is the assurance that one day the Kingdom will come in all its fullness.” The Message of Jesus www.wcg.org/lit/gospel/goodnews.htm If this page was accessed during a web search you may wish to browse the sites listed below where this topic titled "The Message of Jesus" or related issues are discussed, commented, criticized or researched in detail to promote global peace, religious harmony, and spiritual development of humanity: http://www.adishakti.org/ http://www.al-qiyamah.org/ http://www.adi-shakti.org/ http://www.holyspirit-shekinah.org/ http://www.ruh-allah.org/ http://www.tao-mother.org/ http://www.aykaa-mayee.org/