I believe Jesus said what he meant and means what he says. And, if that is what Jesus says is best for me to do; I'm going to do it!

In the late afternoon, sitting alone in my family room, I was reading for a class I was taking. The author is Dallas Willard.

My day-to-day email provider is AOL. When I went to check my email this morning, I was confronted with the announcement that "Oprah is a disciple of The Secret." My first thought was "that's an amazing thing to say." Not because it isn't true, but because very few people use the word "disciple" to describe someone. I was curious (drawn in by a good headline), so I read the article. I wanted to discover what this writer thinks a "disciple" is.

Check out the "basics" section of our website. There, you will regularly discover significant thoughts and understandings that direct our common life together. It is the only "static" part of this website. But, it is not isolated! Let me share how our three prime directives are intertwined throughout the site:

What you think matters! Especially when it comes to how and what you think about God.

I've long pondered the truth of Luther's comment, "Faith creates God." True, God is more than any belief I hold and greater than any doctrinal system put in place to describe Him. I am unable to conjure Him up in my limited thought capacities. Besides, who He is and what He does not rely on my account of Him. The truth is that He is who He is apart from me.

This is the first of four posts based on the way Americans "view" God. Here are some thoughts on the "Authoritarian" God:

This second post of four recognizes that the "Authoritarian" God and the "Benevolent" God share one major quality: both views accept that God has a high standard of rightness. God has high expectations! But, in the understanding of people who lean toward these God-views, the "Authoritarian" God is primarily angry at "sin" (anything that goes against his will) while the "Benevolent" God is forgiving of "sin." A brief description of the "Benevolent" view of God includes:

The Baylor study of how USAmericans view God suggests a third primary concept of God - the "Critical" God. A brief description of this viewpoint reveals:

About one in four USAmericans view God as "Distant." This would be a general description of such a God:

I wasn't sure if I should title this "Seeing the Real God" or "Seeing the True God" or "Seeing the Only God." So, I just put "Seeing God." That seems enough to me since God is going to be more than my ideas or images, my categories or concepts. To "see God" seems like the experience of a life time!

It seems true to me that you gradually become like those who have some influence over you or who have been selected to be in positions of power and authority over you. So, in part, you become like your parents until you make real choices for yourself. And, in part, you become like the teachers who made a difference in your life until you enter your life-learning approaches. And, in part, you become like your friends who lived in your life until you choose a different way. And, in part, you become like TV characters you find satisfying or interesting until you go another direction.