Common themes between the New Testament and Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now." Part 3

God is love...

1Jn 4:8  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.

After you read this post through, I would ask you to click on the link provided here and read "The Back Porch Prayer." I say after because I want to be sure you read this post as well.

In my considerably full life I have had a lot of experiences and a few changes of course. The Back Porch Prayer briefly chronicles one of the most important changes of course in my life. It was the genesis of my study of theology and brought about this paradigm shift. I want to relate a story from the time directly following my back porch prayer. As I returned to embrace Jesus Christ as the unique Son of God and redeemer, I felt led to begin church services in my home. We had a fairly large family room that lent itself to being a small chapel. I was rehabbing homes at the time and had every carpenter tool imaginable. I decided to build me a small pulpit. I was cutting out the wood for it, made it sturdy and put a front facer board on the 4X4 post that held the top part of the lectern or pulpit. I got out my router and was going to write Jesus Saves on it, but was stopped by the Spirit. Instead, the suggestion was to write GOD IS LOVE on it. I knew that it was part of a bible verse I had heard as a youngster but did not know where it was found and had to look it up in a concordance. For the longest time I focused on the last phrase, GOD IS LOVE. It is only recently that the real true meaning of the verse has jumped out at me. 

I want to unpack the "whoever does not love does not know God" clause of the sentence. Of course, the word love in this sentence is from the Greek word AGAPE' (pronounced ag-ah-pay.') It is not PHILIO/brotherly love, and it is not EROS/romantic love. No, it is ego-less love. It is a love that always has the best interest of the other in focus. So, the Apostle John is simply saying that if one does not possess ego-less love does not really know God because God is EGO-LESS love. Ego-less love, that is selfless love is the foundational nature of God.

To keep the "Power of Now" theme in the mix here is a quote from Tolle's book: "What is God? The eternal One Life underneath all the forms of life. What is love? To feel the presence of that One Life deep within yourself and within all creatures. To be it. Therefore, all love is the love of God."

Tolle, Eckhart. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (p. 155). New World Library. Kindle Edition. Tolle also is saying that ego-less love is the love of God.

So an important question that comes quickly to mind is as follows. How can we humans give and receive the love that God is? It certainly cannot be achieved by a read and do mentality which is precisely the way most evangelicals understand it to be. I have heard so many give this absurd thought. I love you... I don't have to like you... but I must love you because the scripture says I must and so I love you. Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous? Yet, I would be willing to bet that if you have been in evangelical circles you will have heard it... shaking my head!

No, no, no! That is not the way AGAPE/love works. The same apostle that wrote God is love also wrote herein is love... herein is AGAPE' … it is not that we love God but that he loved us and sent his Son as a propitiation. Yup, you got it... it is peace with God because we are declared righteous by the gospel message that ultimately causes us to really love God. And, it is our intense love for God that declares us righteous, says that we are his child, does not hold our trespasses/short comings against us that in turn produces AGAPE deep within our being. We experience the Christ through really, really, really believing the gospel. Once we are certain that we are redeemed and forever righteous in God's sight, we have a peace that supernaturally produces AGAPE/love and joy. It is the fruit of the Spirit love, joy and peace! This is the place where the ego dies and we become crucified with Christ. 

Hear me out now... you cannot experience this AGAPE/love by dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. AGAPE/love is only available NOW. You have to experience it in the present by being present in the presence of God.

Common themes between the New Testament and Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now." Part 2

The all in all....

Eph 1:23 NET Bible  "Now the church is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all."

The overlaid, and underlying premise of Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now" is that at the most basic level, you could call it the God level, all is one, all is present, in other words there is only NOW. Further, Tolle states that we are all connected in the present in the presence of knowing. This is akin to Jesus' teaching that He and the Father are one, and that beyond that, all those who put faith in the gospel message are one with him and the Father. First of all Jesus states this: John 10:30  "The Father and I are one.” What does this mean? Well, it means there is no separation at the core at the underlying essence. But he goes on... Joh 17:20-26  “I am not praying only on their behalf, but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their testimony,  (21)  that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me.  (22)  The glory you gave to me I have given to them, that they may be one just as we are one –  (23)  I in them and you in me – that they may be completely one, so that the world will know that you sent me, and you have loved them just as you have loved me.  (24)  “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they can see my glory that you gave me because you loved me before the creation of the world.  (25)  Righteous Father, even if the world does not know you, I know you, and these men know that you sent me.  (26)  I made known your name to them, and I will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them, and I may be in them.” There is a lot to unpack here but I will focus on just one verse.

Look at verse 21,  that they will all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. I pray that they will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. This is a perfect explanation for the ALL IN ALL. Paul uses this theme in so many different places. In Ephesians chapter four where he addresses unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace he writes this. Eph 4:4-6  "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling,  (5)  one Lord, one faith, one baptism,  (6)  one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all." When you couple this with Jesus words in John a compelling case begins to unfold. In fact, this is inextricably linked to the gospel/good news. Not only are we the righteousness of God in Christ, but we are one with the creator of the universe, and further, we are one with one another. Paul expands this theme in passages where he says that their is neither male nor female, Jew or Gentile, slave or free, but rather we are ALL one in the Christ. When I refer to "the Christ," I am not diminishing Jesus of Nazerath. I am however aware that the unifying element in this oneness is the Spirit of Christ that indwells us all and is really our original created state as declared in Gen 1:31. 

When Jesus and Paul are so focused on this oneness, why is evangelical Christianity so focused on otherness? I think it is because sin has been so misunderstood. Ultimately "sin" is not believing the report that God was in Christ, reconciling a fallen world to himself, but more than that, it is not believing God's declaration found in Genesis 1:31. When one embraces the gospel that God has declared humanity righteous through Jesus Christ the last Adam, he merely punctuated his original declaration found in the Genesis passage. He then, supplied the Spirit of Christ to help with our doubt. It is the Spirit of Christ indwelling each of us that enables us to rest in the fact that we are one and that God is indeed ALL IN ALL.

(Note: There are many posts on this blog that show that the author of Hebrews equated sin and unbelief. Just type in unbelief or sabbath rest and you will find them. The fact is that it is a reality.)

So what implications does this have? Well first off, it could go a long way toward healing the great divide found in humanity. If we understand that we are one with God and connected in that oneness it would go a long way toward solving some of our greatest problems. If one could embrace the real gospel and not the perverted gospel that most of evangelical Christianity subscribes to, and if we could understand the real definition of sin, and not the perverted definition of sin that most of evangelical Christianity has embraced it would go a long way toward truly freeing the mind. If one could embrace the correct view of scripture... that of the redemptive narrative.... and reject the perverted view of scripture... seeing it as a legal constitutional document... it would go a long way toward producing the love that God has purposed for all humanity. After all, GOD IS LOVE, and that is another view held by Tolle which will be fodder for a later post.

This love would indeed become a transforming catalyst for all of mankind....

Common themes between the New Testament and Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now." Part 1

1Co 15:31  I die every day! That is as certain, brothers and sisters, as my boasting of you—a boast that I make in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What did Paul mean when he wrote "I die daily?" I think he was saying that the cross has put to death once and for all his ego. The book by Eckhart Tolle, "The Power of Now" speaks to the fact that the mind is the ego. It has a life of its own. It thinks in the past, what happened before, and in the future, what will happen, and it stays away from the present. I am a person with a very active, you could say over active mind. It races on and on and often causes me anxiety. It always is from things that have passed or things that could happen in the future. Most do not happen by the way, and the things in the past really cannot be changed. They are what they are so to speak, and the only power we have at all is in the present moment.

Here in lies the power of justification by faith. The fact is simple, we ARE the righteousness of God in Christ RIGHT NOW! Every moment, we are in the presence of God in the present. It is in the present moment that no weapon formed against us will prosper. It is in the present moment that we are dwelling in the secret place of the shadow of the Almighty. It is in the present that all the promises of God are yes and amen. It is in the present that we are indwelt by the Holy Spirit of Christ Yes it is true that we were there yesterday, and we will be there tomorrow, but our real power comes from the fact, that we are there now!

Have you never wondered why people seem to be healed instantaneously only to return later to the same condition? I believe that in the present moment they are healed but they soon revert back to the past or begin to worry about the future. They are healed because God is in the present moment. That is where he resides. All moments to God are now, that is how he can see past and future.  He does not occupy the past or the future. Why, because the only real time to God is now. Everything is now. The alpha and omega (beginning and end) is now. While this is impossible for our MIND to fathom, as the past and future is its playground, it is never the less reality that all that really exists is now. This moment. Faith to overcome the ego is "now faith."

As this blog post series continues,  we will see that the mind, the false self is inextricably linked with the flesh, in such a way as "the now" (present) is often wasted on egoic pleasure and pain. We will see that when Jesus spoke of denying oneself, he was speaking of the false self the egoic mind. We will also see that the only way to overcome the false self is in the present, through the power of the gospel, declaring that we are the righteousness of God in the present moment. Didn't John the apostle tell us that it is not yet known what we will be, but we will be like him/Jesus in every way. Guess what, we are exactly that in the present moment.