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This is a cut and paste from an email I put together for a good friend who wondered why I cared for the dregs of society. Warning, it is LONG:
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If the right-wingers really studied the matter, they'd find they have more in common with Muhammad than with Jesus. Muhammad was a merchant, a businessman and entrepreneur - a capitalist. Before Jesus walked off his job, he was a carpenter, a common laborer - and with his talk of brotherhood, no doubt would have been a union man.
He hung out with the dregs of society: the poor, prostitutes, tax collectors, and finally thieves. Not exactly the kind of person to whom you would entrust your most precious and eternal possession: your stock portfolio.
Jesus revealed his anti-business agenda as soon as he threw the money-changers out of the temple. To the orthodox for whom taxation is government organized theft, Jesus' clear advocacy of paying taxes by "rendering unto Caesar" is a complete abomination. Scholars are still divided over whether the raising of Lazarus was to escape the death tax or an intent to pay it twice.
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Jesus mollycoddled the poor and went out of his way to condemn the rich. His warning that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a wealthy man to get into heaven was typical socialist blather. The affluent have had to devote themselves to breeding smaller camels and building larger needles ever since.
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Jesus' purpose in life was to do the will of His heavenly Father. Wherever He went, He brought goodness. He never hurt or injured anyone, although He did get angry at others who did wrong. He called self-righteous church-going people vipers and once turned over tables in the temple where money-changers were taking advantage of the people.
Jesus was friends with the outcast of society—sinners. He reached out to the publicans, thieves, prostitutes. He never scorned anyone. He knew what was in the heart of a man (or woman). Just because they were religious did not mean that they knew God.
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Jesus challenged the Pharisees’ purity system by almost everything he did. It’s no coincidence that there are so many stories about Jesus getting into the everyday dirt and grit of life. Touching lepers, being touched by a hemorrhaging woman. Forgiving an adulteress. Going into an unclean graveyard to cast out demons and send them into a herd of unclean pigs. Eating with outcasts like tax collectors and prostitutes, and drunkards — all of those people at the very bottom of the Who’s Who of the Impure.
So Jesus came to confront the heart of this system — the temple — by driving out the money-changers and the sacrificial animal dealers; by exposing the profits and the kickbacks that the temple elite received “under the table” when he said that the temple authorities had turned his Father’s house into a “den of robbers,” as it’s recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke.
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"Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments'" (Matthew 22:37-40, emphasis mine).
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:34-35).
The counterfeit Christ and his followers have long lists of "do's and don't's" that are preached as "Gospel." And everyone who doesn't subscribe to their legalistic list are condemned. We see them protesting with signs that read "God hates fags," "God hates baby-killers," and "God hates !"
But the genuine Jesus has just two laws: love God and love people. True followers of Jesus may not agree with the lifestyles and opinions of everyone (in fact, they shouldn't), but they will be the first to show compassion to those they disagree with. That's why Jesus hung out with drunks, prostitutes, "tax collectors," and "sinners." He loved people. He didn't love all their actions--and didn't join them in all their behaviors--but He showed them that he loved them. True followers of Jesus are not preaching against people with addictions; they are volunteering at rehabilitation programs at local shelters. They're not bombing abortion clinics; they're working in the pro-life Crisis Pregnancy Centers.
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Jesus also had withering words for the wealthy who oppressed--or simply ignored --the poor.
"Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort" (Luke 6:20, 24).
Genuine followers of Jesus have a sense of joy and satisfaction in who they are--at whatever "level" on the social or ecclesiastical ladder they may find themselves.
Jesus said, "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete" (John 15:11).
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5. His earthly father was a carpenter, a humble hewer of wood with whom He lived and laboured, conforming to our human ways of life, custom, language and living that He might understand and love us better and communicate with us on the lowly level of our own limited human understanding!--He learned to LOVE Mankind. He saw their suffering and had great compassion on them, longing to not only heal their sick and broken bodies, but also to save their immortal spirits!
6. When the time came and He began his life's work, He went about everywhere doing good.--Helping people, loving children, healing heartaches, strengthening tired bodies, saving whom He could. He not PREACHED His message, but He LIVED it amongst us. He not only ministered to their spiritual needs, but He spent a great deal of time ministering to their physical and material needs, miraculously healing them when they were sick, feeding them when they were hungry and sharing His life and His Love!
7. He was so simple and His religion was so simple that He said you must become as a little CHILD to receive it! He didn't preach Temple worship, He didn't preach going to synagogue nor going to church, He didn't preach any complicated ceremonies or difficult rules.--All he did was preach LOVE and show Love, as He strove to lead God's children into the True Kingdom of God, whose only laws are to "love the Lord with all thy heart" and "love thy neighbour as thyself".
8. He had very little to do with the high-fallutin', rich-robed, churchy scribes, pharisees and hypocrites--the religious leaders of that day--except when they insisted on annoying Him with their critical questions. Then He would sock it to them, publicly exposing them as the "blind leaders of the blind" that they were, even telling them that they were like white-washed SEPULCHRES, which indeed appear beautiful, clean and holy on the OUTSIDE, but WITHIN are full of rottenness, corruption and stinking dead men's bones!
9. He was not a mere religious reformer, He was a REVOLUTIONARY! He refused to compromise with the false religious system, but rather worked totally OUTSIDE of it, reaching and sharing His Love with the poor and common folk who had long ago abandoned and been abandoned by organised religion. He never went into any bar with whip in hand, breaking up the bottles and throwing out the bartender. Nor did He ever enter any brothel, beating up the poor girls, overturning their beds and throwing the men out the window.--But He DID make a whip, go into their big beautiful religious Temple, overturn the tables, spill out the money and drive the money-mad money-changers out of the church, condemning them for turning what was supposed to be a house of prayer into a den of thieves!
10. He made Himself of no reputation, and was a companion of drunks and prostitutes, publicans and sinners, the outcasts and downtrodden of society. He even told them that they would enter the Kingdom of Heaven before the so-called "good" people, the self-righteous and religious leaders who re jected Him and His simple Message of Love. The power of His Love and of His appeal was so great and gave such great faith to the sincere truth-seekers that they didn't hesitate to drop everything they had and forsake all immediately to become His full-time followers!
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From Matthew 25:
31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are
blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for
you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are
cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to
eternal life."
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