I'm fascinated by the ideas of Leo Tolstoy in his little book, The Kingdom of God Is Within You. He shares a number of mind-stretching ideas.
One concept I'm rolling around in my head involves his ideas around the misunderstanding of Christianity. The rational man thinks that all that is needed is moral ethics, so throw God and Christianity in the trashbin of discarded superstitions. Partly this is in the line of reasoning that says humans can, without religion, expand love to ever larger groupings from self to family to village to nation and on to the abstract idea of humanity. History belies this, however.
Partly this is based on the mistaken idea that Christianity is just a bunch of rules, myths, control techniques, the bureaucracy of the church, etc. (Christianity as an organization may be those things, but Christ is not.) Partly it is based on the idea all we need is communism, socialism or some other ism. Partly it is based on the mistaken idea that being a Christian does not require any changes in thought, word or deed.
But, if we go back to Christ, we see love, deep inner kingdom Love. We see that being a follower of The Way is profoundly transformative. We are made New. We love because within is the Seed of God and so it is our nature to love. Our love is inclusive. We love life. We love earth. We love God. As Paul said the Christ within is the hope of glory. We need to step into the awareness that was Christ's and live from the kingdom of God within us.
God within my soul, lead me to Your inner kingdom. Lead me to be a flowing fountain of your Love. Transform me into Your very own.
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