Christians, We Need to Talk

This world, and everything in it, does not matter.
I refuse to surrender my mission. Every time I open my mouth to discuss things from the Bible, I keep stumbling over this same, damnable heresy. Sometimes it’s quite conscious, but mostly it’s buried in the assumptions where it’s never questioned. I keep trying to break the hold this lie has on so many people, but they keep clinging to the lie.
When I say something is “eternal,” does it conjure in your mind the image of time running on into infinity? That’s flat out wrong. No, not harmless, but utterly wrong. “Eternal” as a term points to an entirely different level of existence, something to which there simply is no comparison on this plane of existence. I hope I don’t need to write a book explaining how this is the Hebrew concept, the way folks in the Bible would have thought of it. There are already lots of books saying that, and you all keep ignoring them. The Bible says that, but you are blind to it. The other realm is entirely different, and we can’t even describe it. We are forced to use parabolic language, mostly to prove that point.
If you seize upon the parables and symbols as literal reality, you cannot possibly understand anything in Scripture. The people who wrote it didn’t see it that way.
When you start acting like some piece of real estate with buildings is somehow not simply land and structures, you call God a liar. When you act like a human organization is somehow different from all other human organizations, you tread on the Blood of Christ. The Congregation of Saints — church, ecclesia — is not the buildings and real estate, nor even the organization which claims to own it and use it. If you cannot conduct your business without all those trappings, you are not using God’s power to get things done. You don’t qualify for the biblical term “church.”
Let’s get this straight. We do have commands from God how to conduct ourselves in this fallen realm. Those commands are not intended to fix everything. They will result in a better life, but that’s not the purpose. The purpose is to draw attention to the other realm, from which those commands come. Things we do on this earth may well solve problems, but that’s not the objective. The objective is to demonstrate, to call attention to something far above all this world of sorrow. We do not have any mandate from God to correct this world’s ills, any more than Jesus healed everyone on the planet. There were places where He simply didn’t do many miracles. Was His power reduced? No. There was no point, nothing to be gained in terms of revelation.
All miracles were a matter of revelation, pointing out something people needed to know about God. That there was a need is taken for granted, but meeting the need was the method, not the purpose. So long as you folks keep confusing methods for the mission, you will continue frittering away every opportunity to reveal Jesus to the world. Reducing human misery is the means, not the end. You do what you can where you are, and never, ever assume someone else has failed because they aren’t taking care of the needy groups down the road. Human needs and lack and sorrow are the baseline of human existence. It’s supposed to be that way. It’s that way so you can have an opportunity to point out why it’s that way.
What part of “fallen” do you not understand? The whole universe is under a curse, and it won’t be renovated. It will be removed. All you’ve done will go “POOF” all at once. All you’ve accomplished will be dissolved into nothing. The only thing recorded in Heaven is how well your choices revealed or obscured the God who called you. If you keep chasing the objectives of social work and politics, you cannot possibly reveal the Christ of the Cross, and you have no idea what the Resurrection is all about.
I could go on at length, pointing out all the heresies of Christianity today which result from this entirely false understanding. But until you get this one thing right, nothing I or anyone else could say, nor angels, nor God Himself, is going to make any difference. Get this, and a lot of other crap will collapse.
Jesus said it so bluntly, “My Kingdom is not of this world.”