Signs: Living a God-Directed Life

By Jack Ream

There is no doubt that membership in the Christian Church has decreased recently to a minority of the population in Europe and is approaching that in the United States, yet in both areas a majority of the population still claims to be Christian. That being the case, what does being a Christian mean to those who don’t belong to a church? If it doesn’t mean following Jesus, it is a misnomer. At the beginning of the current era, Europe was controlled by the Roman Empire. This evolved into religious control by the Roman Catholic Church for several centuries, then into strife between the Roman Catholic Church and the churches of the Protestant Reformation As a result of these events, a culture developed that is commonly referred to as conventional wisdom, a philosophy that is roughly taken from that of the Christian Church, but doesn’t follow any doctrine of the church completely. This way of life is sometimes referred to as Cultural Christianity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781728338316

Jack Ream

Jack Ream, a lazy person, retired from business to found an organization that set up and operated a homeless shelter for the last fifteen years. He was also instrumental in establishing an ecumenical community food pantry that it became one of the largest in the United States. Jack graduated from The Ohio State University with a degree in engineering in 1954 and served two years as an officer in the US Navy. His career included plant superintendent of a manufacturing plant, then plant manager of another manufacturing plant. At age fifty-three, he changed careers, developing computer software for small businesses. Jack resides in Dover, Ohio, has eight children, nineteen grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.

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© 2020 Jack Ream. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  05/29/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-3833-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-3832-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-3831-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019920247

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Website

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 God

Chapter 2 God -- Judge Or Teacher?

Chapter 3 God’s Relationship To Man

Chapter 4 Theology, Spirituality, And Poverty

Chapter 5 Treating Addictions

Chapter 6 God Will Provide

Chapter 7 The Kingdom Of God

Chapter 8 Temptation

Chapter 9 The Narrow Gate

Preface

There is no doubt that membership in the Christian Church has decreased recently to a minority of the population in Europe and is approaching that in the United States, yet in both areas a majority of the population still claims to be Christian. That being the case, what does being a Christian mean to those who don’t belong to a church? If it doesn’t mean following Jesus, it is a misnomer. At the beginning of the current era, Europe was controlled by the Roman Empire. This evolved into religious control by the Roman Catholic Church for several centuries, then into strife between the Roman Catholic Church and the churches of the Protestant Reformation As a result of these events, a culture developed that is commonly referred to as conventional wisdom, a philosophy that is roughly taken from that of the Christian Church, but doesn’t follow any doctrine of the church completely. This way of life is sometimes referred to as Cultural Christianity.

When Europeans came to America, they brought with them the strife between church and state that the church had endured in Europe. To avoid a repeat of the problems Europe faced religiously, they adopted the notion that religion had to be free from influences by government, therefore the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This situation allowed the Christian Church to be splintered into many sects, and allowed a variety of beliefs to be considered Christian, but it also set the stage for European Conventional Wisdom to become a part of the culture of the United States. So the culture was considered Christian even though it was really a mixture of beliefs some of which resembled the teaching of Jesus.

For a while during my young adult life I was part of the Christian group that had dropped out of the church. I don’t know why so many other people who claim to be Christians aren’t members of a Christian church, but my reason for dropping out was that I couldn’t see where the church was helping anyone become a follower of Jesus and I felt it was because the church was hung up on morality, a subject that Jesus didn’t seem to be concerned about.

When my wife and I started a family, my attitude toward the Christian church changed. I wanted my children to at least know about Jesus and what he stood for, so I dropped back into the church, and started trying to live my life following the things Jesus taught. I found it difficult to follow him, completely, but I stayed close enough that I could see that life could be pleasant following him. I stayed in the church, trying to follow what the leadership of the church was teaching. But the distractions of raising children, building a career, and trying to keep up with my peers made it difficult to stay on track. My attempts to follow Jesus were frequently not at all successful.

As time passed, so did the distractions and I now have a better understanding of the problems the church faces. Now, in my senior years, I find that life is great. For the last dozen years, or so, I have experienced life as more pleasant and exciting than I ever expected it to be. I have a strong desire to share with others how my life got that way. What I have learned along the way is not revolutionary or original with me; in fact, the basic principles that I follow day to day are all common knowledge to Christians, but, unfortunately, not common practice; they are the principles that Jesus taught. Most people know these principles and could follow them, but they don’t. It takes no special talent to follow them, but it does take self-discipline and faith that Jesus knew what he was talking about; the kind of faith that lets you put your life in the hands of God in everything you do. It takes centering your thoughts on God and other people. (Whether you know it or not, or believe it or not, or want it to be that way or not, your life is in the hands of God in everything you do.)

That is easy to say, and it may sound boring, but it takes time, practice, and a certain amount of effort to maintain that state of mind, and that’s what it is, a state of mind. I have learned a lot about God in the last few years; a lot that my church should have taught me when I was young and impressionable. But it didn’t do it then and it still doesn’t. Instead, the things that the church concentrates on are not holding the attention and/or interest of most of the people even in the Christianized part of the world.

Most of us live our life according to the things our culture teaches us. Our culture teaches us how to get through the day when things are going good for us, but when problems arise, those cultural solutions frequently don’t satisfy us. Somehow, Jesus figured out that following conventional wisdom (our cultural norms) wasn’t helping the people of Israel get through the difficult times in life; times were very difficult and hard in his day for people who were poor and/or oppressed, which was most of the people. He tried to get his culture to change. The evidence that I see tells me they didn’t understand, even though they knew he was special and close to God. He wasn’t successful at the time in achieving what he set out to achieve, but some of his followers left us a legacy, the Synoptic Gospels, which tell us how he was trying to get the Jewish people to live, and why.

My life hasn’t always been as pleasant as it is today, and has been for the last several years. I’ve been very active in the Episcopal Church for many years, am currently Senior Warden of my parish, and a fan of Jesus. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the church frequently loses track of both Jesus and God in their day-to-day activities, so it isn’t as effective as it should be. That is a second reason for this book. I hope to convince a few people to also become fans of Jesus and help him change society before our culture destroys itself.

For me, this new life started late one Saturday night, or early Sunday morning in February of 2003 at the age of 73, when I had a nocturnal spiritual visitor. Knowing that fact may cause you to chalk this all off as senility; be my guest. My visitor that night gave me a job to do that I knew, intuitively, I couldn’t and wouldn’t refuse to do. That visit confused me for several months because I had never experienced anything like that and I didn’t know what to make of it for quite a while. Was it really God who visited me, or was it all a figment of my imagination? Once the confusion cleared, God had my attention, and has had it ever since. My experiences in accomplishing the job my visitor gave me caused me to adopt a new way of life, experience the problems involved in being a leader in a church congregation, and led me to study the history of the church, and how those who are active in the church view the church. Now, nearly through my eighties, I’m still volunteering full time at the vocation my visitor gave me. I’m in good health, enjoying every day, and working more hours than I did when I was being paid. To pass on what I have learned is the first reason for writing this book.

In spite of all its self-made problems, I have great hope for the Christian Church, but that hope will not be realized unless and until it becomes re-unified and starts following the teachings of Jesus. Because I follow Jesus and pay attention to what is going on around me, I can see what God is doing every day in my community and in the lives of the people I work closely with. What I see God doing is very exciting, and in many cases miraculous, but I know that most of the people around me don’t see these things as being done by God or as miracles. That’s a shame. It’s not hard for me to have faith that God has my best interest at heart because I’ve learned how God operates, and I know what God is doing and not doing. It’s too bad that most of the church leaders can’t see that, too.

I don’t think the church, as an institution, has ever understood God. It is so convinced that it knows God that it refuses to change some of its very questionable doctrines. Tradition has so much influence on the church leadership that the church refuses to rethink its nearly 3000 year old ideas, the first 1000 years of which were a time of constant change of ideas. It has historically resisted change to such a degree that it no longer cares to pay attention to God, whose actions are visible every day, if you care to look, know where to look and what to look for. Unfortunately, life lived according to conventional wisdom, at least in the United States, is so pleasant most of the time that most people are not motivated to change to the counter cultural life style that Jesus taught. By the time the frustrations and disappointments in life catch up to them they are too old and tired to change. What my grandchildren tell me is that the church doesn’t speak to them. If it doesn’t start to speak to them soon, the pews will be empty when my children’s generation passes.

What I also have come to believe is that there is no need for there to be any poverty in the United States. If the various Christian denominations (and non-denominations) worked together, they could solve all the poverty problems we have today with very little assistance from government. Because poverty problems are for the most part spiritual problems, only the religious institutions can solve them. In the United States it would be illegal for the government to do what must be done to solve some of these problems. I believe that if the Christian churches would start seriously working together on the problems, following Jesus’ example, the problems of poverty could be and would be solved.

All of us are basically selfish. God made us that way so that we could and would survive. I’m convinced that God gave Jesus the job of changing the way that Judaism understood the character of God, and of helping us overcome our selfishness and other instinctive attitudes, but when the Roman Empire and the leaders of Judaism took Jesus out of the picture, what replaced him were practices and traditions that completely missed the point he was trying to make. Somehow, someone recorded what Jesus had said, and as a result, we have the information available to us today concerning what he was trying to accomplish, in spite of our culture’s efforts to eliminate his teaching. There are forces at work today, just as in Jesus’ day, that try hard to keep people from following what Jesus taught. Unfortunately, it looks to me like some of those forces are involved in the politics of the various denominations of the Christian Church, so the church still looks at the character of God the same way Judaism did. As far as I’m concerned, Jesus was right. He is the way, but believing that he is the way doesn’t get it done. Living and thinking the way he taught will; at least it has for me.

I hope that this book helps lead you to consider living life as Jesus suggested.

Jack Ream

11/24/2019

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GOD

The human mind seems to know, intuitively, that there is an intelligent being or entity behind the universe in which we live. I say it is an intelligent being because of the intricate balance of forces that, working together, keep this complex universe stable. Science has observed that everything is in a perpetual state of motion, so the stability of the universe tells us that the forces acting on objects within a given system are balanced, the observed motion is predictable, and their activity follows fixed rules. If there were no rules governing the interaction of objects, everything that exists would be free to move at will in any direction and at any speed. The result would be chaos. The fact that the world isn’t in a state of chaos tells us that there are rules and lots of them. We have learned what most of the rules or laws are that govern the behavior of inanimate material objects; rules such as the law of gravity. These rules are rigid, specific, and unchanging as long as the objects don’t have the ability to think and change the rules. But what happens to the behavior of an object if it is given the ability to think? Adding intelligence to an inanimate world adds another dimension to the equations that define the rules, making them so complicated that it often appears to cause chaos. The rules governing intelligent behavior are not rigid and unchanging, but are conditional, dependent on so many variables that we have not developed the ability to predict the subject’s behavior.

There is abundant evidence that ancient societies felt that the intelligent being that put the universe together also had the ability to affect the activity of intelligent objects, adding to the complexity of predicting the activity of not only intelligent objects, but also the activity of the creator. These ancient societies feared the creator, probably because they assumed that the creator was, among other things, responsible for the natural disasters (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.) that occasionally occurred, for which they had no other explanation and which caused great destruction and loss of life. The creator, the agent behind all the rules, also represented the unknown, and human beings have always feared the unknown. Time and science have developed other explanations for the natural disasters which appear to exonerate the creator, but the assumption that the creator was responsible for them, when combined with our fear of the unknown, has had a long-lasting and detrimental effect on our understanding of the creator. To remove this fear, philosophers and sages have sought to know more about the creator, probably so that mankind could avoid being destroyed or controlled by it, but also, possibly, so that mankind could find a way to control the creator like mankind tries to control everything else. (Mankind claims to have been created in the image of the creator.) To communicate ideas about the creator, they had to give it a name. In English we call the creator, God.

Giving the creator a name didn’t define or describe it, but it made it possible for people to study it, talk about it, try to describe its characteristics, and try to determine how we should relate to it. The first civilizations felt that there were multiple Gods, but, eventually, ancient Hebrew scholars concluded that there was only one God, a living God, and made that God, by definition, the central figure in their religion. So God exists by definition, but that doesn’t tell us anything about God’s character, or even if God has a character.

Since no one had ever seen God, those scholars decided that the only way to understand or describe God was to describe what God was doing. To do that, they had to develop a sense of the presence of God. We only know that God is present when we can recognize that there has been a change in our environment or in us and there is no other force or being that we know of that is responsible for the observed effect. But having a reason to believe that it was God that caused