More proof! (that we don’t belong here)

When on earth, Jesus taught many things which are still difficult to accept.  Many say that the most difficult lesson Christ left us with is to love our enemies.  It seems to be impossible to do.  It seems to go against everything that the world teaches us about survival.  Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and its core mantra, ‘survival of the fittest’, cannot be reconciled with Christ’s commandment.  How do you love your enemy when he is, at the very least a competitor for the things that you need to survive (food, shelter, a mate) and at worst a monster like Hitler?  Why would Christ do that to us?  Why would He ask us to do something that is so foreign to us that, save for rare occasions, we openly shun the thought?  Regardless the reason, if you going to call yourself a Christian you are going to have to come to terms with this, and soon.

As Christians we accept that we are both physical and spiritual beings.  Like Christ we are created with a physical presence that occupies natural space in time.  And also like Christ there is a super-natural, or ‘above nature’ part of our being that exists outside of this physical world.  This explains a lot of the conflict we have during our earthly lives.  Our divine creation was for a different place and a different purpose.  This is why these teachings of Christ seemed so outrageous for many of his audience 2000 years ago, and still today.  Christ is speaking to our physical side through our physical ears trying to reach our spiritual mind.  There is a lot of physical stuff in the way that we need to put aside – things in which we have wrapped up that spirit mind – things like fear, self preservation, and the survival instinct.  This is the time tested result of placing our trust and faith in our own ability to keep us alive.  It’s very strong stuff here on earth, but ‘above’ this ‘natural’ world it is pretty much useless.  Again, if we call ourselves Christians we take Jesus at his word in that God has prepared a place for us – and it’s not this one:

John 18:36 – Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.’  

John 14:3 – And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

This is one of the reasons God became man so that He could teach us the things we need to know in order to become the beings He means us to be, and become prepared for our ultimate environment.  I think of it sometimes like being a ‘fish out of water’.  We struggle here on earth, flopping around, gasping for air trying to survive, trying to reconcile what we see around us with what we feel deep within us, until that day comes when we are placed back into the cool deep water we were made to breathe…pretty nifty indeed.