With Christmas coming soon, many around the world will begin the celebration of the birth of Christ, the one who brought the message of peace to the earth. The one who showed himself to be like us, yet who showed us we can be like the Father as well.

There are many questions and assumptions about his life and what he did and what it all meant. Because man has the acquired talent to embellish any story given him, it's difficult to say that any particular story is totally correct to the degree in which it is written.

With this in mind, then we can instead, look at the spirit of the message and not just the message itself, but to see the spirit of the message and to deduce those stories that don't fit well, we need to create a base upon which to believe.

I have chosen the base upon which God the Father is all loving, all peaceful and all creating. Any other version or description of God that I come across is simply viewed as an error in perception. Any view that does not share these truths about God can only be an error of man. There is no other alternative.

With God being viewed as perfect love and perfect peace, many of the manmade versions of him simply have to go. The concepts that God can be angry, jealous, fearful, paranoid, unsure, debatable or dissatisfied, are all versions of God that man created, because a God who is perfect love and perfect peace, can't have those other traits. It's not possible.

In one respect, you have to consider that much of what you have been taught about God, is in error to some degree. If you believe there is any reason at all to fear God or if you view him as a being that is looking for opportunities to test you and wager your actions with the devil, you really need to take a closer look at what having a God of love really means. The God man envisions, is not a God of love, but a God of punishment and oppression. It's mans own reflection...not Gods face.

A God of love can only look at you with an amazing light and warmth that can never be subdued. He can only ever want to help you and aid you. He can only ever want to keep you close and spend eternity with you...so what went wrong? Why do these things not occur? Why doesn't he step down from heaven and help us if we're not supposed to be fearful? If he is so loving, why are all things as they are?

There was an eternity where we knew we were with the Father and then we made another choice. We made an error and chose to try to do something apart from him. Since it is not possible to do anything apart from the Father, this totally confused and upside down version of a reality came into being. This universe, this physical thing we call "real" is really just a lonely shadow of what our true spirts are. Because we think we are physical and because we think God is angry at us for trying to create apart from him, we have evaded him for millennia on end, but he has never lost site of us.

God wants us all back, but we were created with free will and it is this free will that God will not circumvent, so it's not that he has chosen to stay away, but he is respecting our desire to want to be in this reality. It's all about choice. You can choose to accept this world as man has made it, or you can do as Jesus did and choose to see things differently. Having chosen to see things differently, God was able to help Jesus grow spiritually to a level never seen before, and not seen again...but in time, we will see this again in all of us. None of us are excluded from some day remembering our true selves and returning to the Father.

When man writes down the events of history, he can only write things in the best way in which he understands it. That is why the Bible shows a consistent angry God that requires sacrifice. It was the only way that God could be imagined to be, and so no matter what occurred, they wrote him in to fit the outcome. If they were having problems, then God is punishing them. If they were having good times, then God must be rewarding them. If something was totally not understood, they made God the architect of some event to explain it away. The bottom line is that whenever you do better things, better things then happen. When you do poor things, poor things happen. It's a consistent cycle of cause and effect. Punch him and get punched back. Love him and get love back. It's always a choice. It's never God punishing us.

I remember a moment where a comedian made a joke about the Passover with respect to how the Jewish people celebrate the day that their God didn't kill them. It sounded so strange to hear it that way, but how else would you say it? When you come right down to it, why would you even want to be with a God who would just as soon kill you if you look the wrong way? Why would a God that created all that exists, use such odd and strange methods to kill and destroy? Why do we not continue to see these things in the post Old Testament world? Has the unchangeable God changed? Has God gotten over his anger? Has God undergone rehabilitation? No, God hasn't changed...we just stopped writing these kinds of stories about him.

Jesus's purpose on earth was to show that you we can live differently. His love for all men is what enabled him to heal and feed the thousands. His total love of all of us was a testimony of how to live. His trial and crucifixion was a message to us that no matter what any man does to you, your true you, the spirit that is you, cannot be touched. He proved this as he rose again.

Jesus's death wasn't a sacrifice. The only way it could have been a sacrifice would be if it was something he and God was not willing to do. It's possible that Jesus did not like what was going to happen to him, but he chose to accept his path and accepted his role. How then can you say that he sacrificed? He chose to show you that no matter what man can do, it doesn't matter. Man was the one who described the whole scenario as sacrifice, because they could only see the scenario as an extension of the Old Testament angry God, but it wasn't a sacrifice, it was an act of unconditional love.

Perhaps you say then that God was the one who made the sacrifice by allowing his son to be beaten and die...but God is a spirit, as was Jesus and as are we all. Jesus's spirit was never in danger, and that was the whole point...to prove that the real you can't be hurt. How then could God have sacrificed his son when there was no way for Jesus's spirit to die or be injured? The ancient writers of the Bible constantly confused this physical reality with Gods spiritual reality and treat them as the same, but they are not. God is spirit as are we. There is no physical thing that is required or can be done that can ever, ever, ever, ever have a spiritual effect...but spiritual things always make physical effects.

Besides, why would a loving God require blood sacrifices. These are physical things, and again, God is not physical. These concepts came from ancient and barbaric customs, practiced all over the world by all different cultures. God is spiritual and requires no physical sacrifice. The only thing you can do for God is to be open and be willing to let the Holy Spirit and Jesus work with you to open your eyes to the truth. God is love. God is the total absence of fear. God is peace. God is the total absence of anger. God is forever giving and sharing. God is the total absence of sacrifice.

Be open to hear him. Be willing to hear him. Choose to see differently...and you will. It's all about choice. Choose to see. Choose to forgive. Choose to be peaceful. Choose to see your brothers in love. Choose to share the truth. Choose to be free from mans interpretations of God.

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