“They (those who love him) are the ones he chose specially long ago and intended to become true images of his Son, so that his Son might be the eldest of many brothers (and sisters).” – Romans 8:29, the Bible
My meditations of late have led me back to my spiritual roots, but viewing them from a different perspective from how I was raised: the idea that Christ lives within each and every one of us. It is clear to me from this particular verse, and many others talking about miracles, that we are intended to LITERALLY be like Christ … not just in kindness, and love, but in all things … miracles included.
To many people, and to myself as a part of organized religion in my youth, that looks like praying fervently for what we want or believe to be God’s will … and then hoping beyond hope for a miracle. I now see this verse (and really all of them) differently … Christ REALLY does live within us, and wants to be one with us in every way, shape, and form. Jesus Christ was one man whom many believe to also be God, but Christ (meaning God) living within all of us was the gift that God has given to us … that we ALL can be Christ.
Am I saying that we can be, or are, gods? No. What I am saying is that if we embrace an intimate relationship with God … if we take God into every part of us (and I mean EVERY part … even/especially the parts we fear, or think God won’t want to see), and become one with God … in that blessed union, we are Christ re-born. Each one of us has this ability, and it is merely a matter of making that connection with God and following wherever God leads … never closing our hearts, and allowing God to blossom through us, and to become us. When we are fully one with God, who can then discern where God and man/woman end or begin?
THAT is when, and how, miracles happen … when we are completely one with God, we simply follow God’s guidance. If God guides us to do something, we put our energy into following that guidance … and watch what happens: a miracle!
This is something to me that is beyond religion, or man-made structures … I believe that everyone can achieve this relationship with God … nobody need adhere to somebody else’s structure in order to know God. God is infinite, you cannot place infinity within a structure.
“But … if there’s no structure, then it will all be chaos. There must be structure!” Is what I hear to counter this from each separate religion in the world.
There is only one structure big enough to encompass the enormity of God: LOVE:
“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” 1 Corinthians 13:7, the Bible
Know the Christ within you, be one with God, and go forward knowing that if what you do is based in LOVE, then you are indeed one with God. That is all you will ever need.
——-
Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.
We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!
There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.
By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.
In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.
Southern California, Northern California,Mission Viejo, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin, San Jose, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Palm Springs, Long Beach
Religion4All 
Yes, and I feel that the flowering of the Christ potential within us, is in direct correlation to the amount of love we are able to allow ourselves both to extend…and receive. Thankyou for this post.
Yes, I tend to think of it in terms of keeping my heart open and never letting it close (same concept, it seems to me). If you are always open, and never allow yourself to close, no matter what … the Christ is able to work through you, AND you are able to receive the enormity of that LOVE that is what God has for each of us. The minute we close down though, we go right back to being the flailing human … unable to receive Christ’s love, and unable to be used in whatever ways God wants to use us.
It really has given me new insight into what it truly means to love unconditionally … you never let your love shut down. God endures rejection after rejection from us, thousands of rejections … and God loves us more than we can even conceive. Yet no matter how many times we reject God, God is still there … eager to love us and hopeful that we will love back.
If we are to be truly used by the Christ within us, we have to love in the same way … nothing can ever shut us down. Not rejection, not trials, not even death … that is WHO Christ was … a model.