It’s not just a flukey coincidence of history that the only people Jesus condemned belonged to the religious establishment.

The same problem still exists.

People who claim to be religious (and are in the institutional sense) trash others to defend their congregation against, well, Jesus’ truth. People who cling to a creed or doctrine or religious belief system act like it gives them license to pour contempt on anyone who disagrees. People who question a denomination are targets for slander in public and gossip in private. People who make great claims for spiritual personal maturity sit and watch children of God crucified by their religious associates.

Jesus Christ Crucifix

Jesus Christ Crucifix (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Paul writes not just inspired words from Jesus Christ, but lived the words in a life of brutality and humiliation at the hands of religious and political flunkies.

“These things that I once considered valuable, I now consider worthless for Christ. It’s far more than that! I consider everything else worthless because I’m much better off knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. It’s because of him that I think of everything as worthless. I threw it all away in order to gain Christ and to have a relationship with him. This means that I didn’t receive God’s approval by obeying his laws. The opposite is true! I have God’s approval through faith in Christ. This is the approval that comes from God and is based on faith that knows Christ. Faith knows the power that his coming back to life gives and what it means to share his suffering. In this way I’m becoming like him in his death, 11 with the confidence that I’ll come back to life from the dead”
(Philippians 3:7-11 God’s Word).

Paul came to realize only one thing really mattered.

“Brothers and sisters, when I came to you, I didn’t speak about God’s mystery as if it were some kind of brilliant message or wisdom. While I was with you, I decided to deal with only one subject—Jesus Christ, who was crucified. When I came to you, I was weak. I was afraid and very nervous. I didn’t speak my message with persuasive intellectual arguments. I spoke my message with a show of spiritual power so that your faith would not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:1-5 God’s Word).

No controversy, no opinion, no debate about words or theology, no system or institution or bureaucracy, no committee or board, no programme or plan, no religion or denomination, no creed or doctrine will survive the cataclysm of the end of the world.

Only the person “Jesus Christ, who was crucified” is worthy of loyalty and living for.

What “project” consumes you that you can act like an immoral child of earth against the children of Spirit?

What are you living for, really?