Jesus responds to Pilgrim’s birthday greeting

Dear Pilgrim,

Thank you for your birthday wishes, and apologies for the delayed response. As you know, I always hear the cries of my followers and normally respond immediately (though not always with the answer that at the time they want). But in your case, sadly, your message went through to Spam. However, Gabriel, one of my right hand angels, brought it to my attention just as it was about to be deleted. He said he felt you were a little confused – which, I have to say, I think is right. So, on this occasion, I thought I would send you a personal reply.

Contrary to what you say, I do not have ‘everything’. In particular, I do not have the love and obedience of everyone on Earth – which is what I want. Not for my sake, but for all of yours.   You see, people who don’t know, or reject, me are blind and eternally lost, because by themselves they can’t get free of what the Bible calls ‘sin’. This is true even of people you, Pilgrim, would say are ‘good’.

You see, Adam and Eve’s first rebellion broke something and put them under the control of something really nasty – a bit like if you were to go out and buy a new computer today, but just after you set it up someone sends you a really bad virus, which, not understanding, you open.   From that moment on, whatever you type, all you get are long streams of gibberish, because a hacker has got in and taken over control and is stealing all your passwords. Even worse, he’s got access to everyone else on your address list, and is attacking them too!   By yourself, there’s nothing you can do to clean up the system. You can’t even get access to the system. So you have to call in a computer expert who knows how to get rid of the virus and who can put your system back the way it was, so that it works properly.

Well, that’s exactly what happened with Adam and Eve when they ate the apple back in Eden. They got a virus, and the virus worked through them, so that everyone who came after them got infected too. And by themselves Adam and Eve couldn’t put it right, because the devil had got control. Yes, Pilgrim, I’m sorry to tell you the devil really does exist and, just like the hacker, he’s got into and corrupted your system.

Of course, God could have dealt with the problem at once but, if He had, Adam and Eve would have been irreparably damaged. To continue the computer analogy, if God had cleaned up the system straight away, He would have had to override all the circuits and that would have taken away Adam and Eve’s freedom and put them under eternal subjection. The devil really would have won then!

No, the only safe way to get rid of the virus and put Adam and Eve back into direct relationship with Himself, which would allow them to become fully the people God wanted them to be, was to come into the system Himself and clean it from the inside. Which was where I came in. As God’s son I took on human form, so that I could tackle the devil at source and break the stranglehold, setting men and women free.

But all this took quite a while, in a human terms, to arrange, so while the Father was getting everything into position, He gave men and women guidelines on how to live – exactly suited to the way they were made. That’s what the Bible is – a book telling people how to live, and recording the history of God’s plan to come in and save them.

So you see, what that means is that the Bible is absolutely vital, and you simply can’t rewrite it as the whim takes you to make it more ‘relevant’.

I know you won’t like this, Pilgrim, because for the last two thousand years a lot of you have been trying very hard to prove you don’t need me at all and that you can do it on your own – that you have all the answers in fact! But sadly, whatever your philosophers and great thinkers try and maintain, evil is not just the absence of good, or ignorance, but a reality that hates God and all that is good, and wants to destroy.

You say you’ve taken on board my message about loving everyone and not judging ‘big time’, and you boast that you’re all so advanced you never judge anyone, except for the bigots who want to stick to old-fashioned morality. Pilgrim, I am appalled! How can you have so twisted and misunderstood my message? Yes, I command you to love everyone, as my Father Himself loves everyone, and I command you not to condemn – but of course you must ‘judge’ what does or does not lead to life, and you must fight for those who are in danger. Otherwise you condemn them to eternal destruction.   How is that ‘loving’?

Pilgrim, just like it says in the book you want to rewrite, I am the same yesterday, today, and forever. Though the world changes, I do not.

You say the bigots keep banging on about marriage being only between one man and one woman for life, and how all sex outside of that is sin, but actually they’re right. A man and woman complement and complete each other, in a way that two men, or two women simply can’t. Yes, there can be great friendship and love, but never that ‘completion’, which is what marriage is about. You see, when Adam was first created, he was lonely, so – just like it says in the Bible – God created a companion for him, from his own flesh. Male and female – two parts of one whole, who complete each other, forming together the image and reflection of God.

This isn’t a creational mistake – it’s a gift! And what you call problems down the centuries, such as people being born in the ‘wrong gender’, are largely the result of people becoming so fixated on their sexuality, that they simply can’t see the greater picture. They don’t realize that they’re spiritual beings in a body, but think they’re just ‘body’, and so they can never transcend the limitations of their flesh. Pilgrim, what you call freedom is actually bondage, and it delights the devil, because it increases peoples’ separation from God.

You say you’re working hard to eliminate religious bigotry, but I am mystified, Pilgrim. How can you so misunderstand? No, all religions are not the same, and just as my faithful follower John recorded (and as I hope you’re beginning to understand), no one can be set free and come to the Father except through me, Jesus!   If anyone denies this, or tries to evade or twist this truth, then he or she is a servant of the evil one and can have no part in my kingdom.

I have seen the situation on Earth – moral corruption, the breakdown in families, the increasing unrest and rise in violence, climate change, collapse of the world economies…   But you know, this is what happens when you insist on going it alone and reject me. If you really want my help, pilgrim, then you need to do a bit of good, old fashioned repenting. And you could start by going back and reading the Bible, and listening to what it actually says.

Your would-be loving Lord and Saviour,

Jesus