Believe in God; Believe Also in Me

Jesus speaking:

“Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me” (Matthew 11:6 NIV).

“And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me” (Matthew 11:6 NASB).

People of stated Christian belief or denominational adherence speaking:

“I believe in the Christian God, but not Jesus.”

“God is enough for me. I don’t need Jesus.”

“I am religious as far as the Christian denominational God goes, but am not into Jesus.”

“I know there is a Christian God; that's it, period.”

“I follow the liturgy and catechism of my church. Outside of that, I don’t really know God or Christ at all.”

“I pray to the Christian God all the time, but I am uncomfortable around the topic of Jesus.”

“I believe in a loving Christian God, but not the God of the Bible.”

“When I think of God, I don’t equate him with Christ, I equate Him with my religion and denomination. A personal connection with Christ is not part of that equation. If anything, Christ belongs to the church and is separate from me.”

Jesus speaking: 

“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas *said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.
If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”
Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.
“These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe. I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here” (John 14:1-31).

“Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny Him before My Father who is in heaven” (John 10:32-33).

“I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father”(John 10:14-18).

“I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).


This, then, is the Gospel, the Good News as it is called, that Jesus is come from and of our Father in heaven.

He comes, continually, for everyone.

The Good News is that there is no cultural, denominational, religious, Protestant, Vatican, familial, evangelical, political, social, priestly or congregational litmus test or corporate church membership or definition of God that one must sign on to, pass or maintain in order to become, and be, one of Jesus Christ’s tender sheep in His all-inclusive flock.

To “believe” in the Christian God without Christ is not only impossible, as the verses above make clear, but is also the greatest sorrow and rejection of abundant life one can impose on one’s self.


Copyright Barb Harwood

Prayer with no Expectations

At times I do not feel like praying. Anything forced does not seem to me to be prayer; It feels more like doing the dishes only because my mom told me to.

And then, especially earlier on in my Christian walk, I would pray because I thought my prayer—the prayer itself that emitted from my self—to have power. 

And then there is the transactional prayer—the praying that goes on at the same time as, in the back of my mind, a reciting of the score: 

“I have been living this good way for you, God, so You will certainly honor this request.”

As I sat here early this morning, contemplating how to get going again with prayer after many days of back-burnering it, it occurred to me that if I really pray for God’s will to be done (as Jesus taught), then I pray without expectations.

The elimination of expectations disables any trusting in myself and my words and instead recognizes and relinquishes all power to the Holy Spirit (who prays for us even when we don’t know what to pray and are at a loss for words):

“In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God” (Romans 8:26-27).

Rote prayer no longer exists for the same reason—it is no longer viable to think that my simply going through the motions will elicit an outcome. The Romans verse above clearly points this out, not so that we can simply never pray, but so that we can avoid, as much as possible, a rote sort of prayer that checks a box.

And the transactional prayer also disappears, again, for the same reason: whatever I do or don’t do, when erased from the scoreboard, frees prayer to be what prayer simply is: a pure two-way conversation with God void of past, present and future. 

Many people will say we ought to remember the answered prayers of the past (meaning, I suppose the prayers answered in the way we wanted them to be answered and not counting the prayers that weren’t). I agree it is very well to remember past and current blessings of God, and to certainly enjoy that they will be forthcoming. But not as a basis or criterion for current ongoing prayer.

Praying without expectations takes trust, which is what I realize I have lacked when I initiated rote, self-power-fulfilling and transactional prayer.

This trust is confident only of “God’s will be done,” keeping myself out of it in every way. It is a trust that thinks on Him and Him only—not what He will or won’t do—but just Him. 

This is the path, I believe, to the peace that the Bible says is beyond understanding. It is a trusting ignorance of outcomes content in a pure and simple faith in the person of Christ. 

Copyright Barb Harwood

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7

What is Hell?

I find it sadly ironic that many of us reject hell while at the same time live within it. 

The Christmas Vacation movie, starring Chevy Chase, has a great illustration of everyday hell-on-earth. After disaster upon disaster occurs during the days leading up to the Griswold family Christmas celebration, Clark responds to his wife’s advice that everyone go home before things get worse:

“Worse! How could they get any worse! Take a look around you, Ellen, we’re at the threshold of hell!”

Hell is our personal separation—here on earth—from the receipt of sincere love, the affirmation of parents, understanding between ourselves and others, vital health, what we imagine “success” to be: in general it is a separation—here on earth—from peace and contentment in all circumstances.

If any one of us cannot say we have been in our own personal hell—be it an addiction; a stalemate with a spouse; rejection in job, friendship or romance; a physical illness or disability; impending death for ourselves or the death of a loved one; the loss of a home through foreclosure or natural disaster; being wrongly accused be it on a grand or small scale; estrangement….If we can say we have not experienced hell on this earth then I think we are not cognizant of what hell really is. 

Because nobody escapes the above list of possibilities in life. 

Sure, there are ranges and degrees, and what may not seem like hell to others, may, due to our current mental and physical state, indeed be hell to us. 

The reason that all of the potential hellish states of being exist is due to our ultimate separation from God.

How do I mean that?

I mean that, even though those states of hell-on-earth exist and do not go away—even when we desire and include God in our life, those states of hell-on-earth become other than hell-on-earth.

God removes the hell of it all by staying with and getting us through the physical, emotional, and mental crisis or breakdown.

A beautiful example I always go to is this:

A meek, sincere, mature, quiet, physically hard-working Godly man in his 60’s was diagnosed with late stage melanoma. 

After months of undergoing treatment, he said something I have never forgotten and which brings me genuine comfort and confidence:

“The Lord will work a miracle. Either He will cure my cancer, or He will take me home.”

This man lived in the peace and contentment of Christ that kept hell at bay.

Jesus Christ…His peace, His gentle yoke is what keeps us out of hell, here on earth, here and now. 

Copyright Barb Harwood

“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.” John 14:1

“…the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” John 14:26-27

Where is the Beauty in All of This?

In all of life, where, and what, is beauty?

Where is it to be found?

And must we visit it a while, and then depart?

Isaiah 52:7 captures beauty where we may not:

“How lovely on the mountains

Are the feet of him who brings good news,

Who announces peace

And brings good news of happiness,

Who announces salvation,

And says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”

In all the world and universe, there is no greater beauty than this.

We strive our entire lives to locate, create, promote, and travel to beauty.

Notice how, in the above verse, beauty is not found in the mountains, which are, no doubt, lovely. 

Beauty is not found in the person traversing the hills and natural peaks of nature. Otherwise, the verse would stop at “feet” instead of going on to describe what makes those feet lovely: good news, peace, an announcement of happiness and salvation. 

That is what makes the feet walking upon the mountains lovely: feet shorn of the Gospel of God in Christ.

This is available anywhere, lying in wait for sober, yet eager, takers. 

We need not compete through levels or acquire credentials before attaining it. We need not ask or earn the permission or approval of any person. We need not require our own “self-betterment” first.

We need only what Scripture itself ascribes:

“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;

A broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise” (Psalm 51:17).

Jesus Himself, in the New Testament, says, 

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30).

Jesus’ feet are the lovely carriers of beauty to all corners of the earth, even to us. He is the One who keeps loveliness there, and in here—inside of our heart, mind, soul and spirit—through His grace and merciful transformation. 

It doesn’t matter where: this beauty, this loveliness, this Gospel of Jesus lives.

Those ensnared in darkness—through not yet being rent yet by contrition—miss it. 

“…the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light…” (John 3:19, in part).

This beauty is not visible to or perceived by some because it is overshadowed, nullified, marred, and blacked out by the darkness thoughtlessly and often unknowingly enforced, stipulated and promulgated by their incubation in it. 

Hence a bleak soot coats the world in a nebulous norm; an unnerving sense of “what’s it all about?"; an obsession with outward significance and often, in the end, a daily shrugging at and resignation towards the “crazy world we live in.” 

This beguiling yet treacherous obscurity of beauty does not require murder and flames of destruction. 

It’s very essence is often entirely the opposite, couched in a pleasant wink of elaborate and cunning opposition to grace and mercy, appealing to the inner places we deny are within us until they reveal themselves in support of what we criticize in others but now locate, to our horror, in ourselves.

This predisposition lives deep within us. 

C.S. Lewis describes it as indulgences in lust and anger, which we deem to be trivial.

It is from these so-called "trivial mis-steps,” left unchecked, from which each individual goes on to lose future, and more daunting, battles for good and loveliness. 

Beauty, in the scheme of things, is not the absolute absence of evil, but its reigning over evil where it continues to exist.

Even in the starkest hour, beauty can be found alive, in the articulation of Christ who holds out His hand to the “worst” perpetrator (and there is no partiality with God, that we can excuse ourselves: 1 Samuel 16:7; Romans 2-3; 1 Corinthians 10:12). 

It is this Gospel—this Good News of Jesus Christ—that aids the injured, heals the spiritually damaged, affirms the overlooked, hears the lost and suffering, and comprehends the grieving and inconsolable. 

It is this Gospel that grants all who are caught up in frustration, who mentally struggle or suffer complacency, who show no regard for others or even themselves, a garland instead of ashes, gladness instead of anguish and remorse, encouragement instead of perpetual accusation—so that we may be “oaks of righteousness” planted by the Lord, that He may be glorified (Isaiah 61:3).

This, then, in all of life, is what beauty is and where it is to be found.

This, then, is the beauty in all of this.

Copyright Barb Harwood

Christian Without the Church

I used to be a "Christmas Presbyterian": only attended church on Christmas Eve for the 7 p.m. candlelight service. This is known as the “C” in the “C and E” Christian moniker: those who attend church only on Christmas and Easter.

Then I became a mom, and began the obligation-motivated attendance of corporate church so as to “expose my children to religion.”

Then I moved to a new town, began attending a couple of churches, and became born again in Christ—not because of one church but because of the work of God on my person that included my connecting with a Bible study through a corporate church (a church which has since been through two implosions. I’ll get to that later).

Then, as a newby born-again, I took it upon myself to adopt the view that “C and E Christians” were lacking, in a big way. 

I arrived at this conclusion for two reasons: one, because that’s what I myself had been as a “C and E” church-goer and second, because, in my new Christian social groups, it was heralded as probably thee highest calling and therefore mark of a “true” Christian to attend church—not just occasionally or at the high holidays, but every Sunday (in some congregations, twice on Sunday) and then again on Wednesday nights.

I understand my wanting to give back to God through church attendance—thinking I could give back to God that way: 

“Look,” I told myself, “at all that God has done for me!” 

At that point, I didn’t know any better. 

Since then, I have come to marvel in humble gratefulness at God’s mercy and grace towards and upon me, quoting often David in 2 Samuel 7:18:

“Who am I, O Lord GOD, and what is my house, that you have brought me this far?”

Thankfully, I now know that there is nothing I can do to complete this transaction with God. 

This realization is where I positively turned the corner.

Many years of church involvement later—including the attending of Christian seminary—God continues that broad place of discernment and the ability to decide in my own heart and mind (Romans 14)—counseled by His Spirit and authority—that the number of times a person attends church per week, or whether they attend at all, is neither here nor there with me. And it has never been more confirmed that it is neither here nor there with God either. 

“Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are his children.’ Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead” (Acts 17:23b-31). 

Church can provide vision, no doubt. 

But it can also, as it did me, cause people to miss the Christian forest for the religious tree.

After 19 years of living Christianity as a saved Christian, growing in the knowledge of the Lord, I have observed that those who attend church are often no better off in spiritual maturity than the next person, and, in fact, are often stilted in their growth by that very church attendance.

I know I was. 

Yes, the act of church helped in some ways (I am choosing to keep the active works of charity separate from this discussion of church attendance and its implied and promoted automatic connection with inner transformation and faith). 

Again, I am not advocating that people not go to church, or that they stop going. 

If church is working out in the lovely ways I know it has and continues to do for so many, with obvious transformation in their spiritual maturity, then I would posit that those folks already have a solid foundation in Christ, not dependent upon their church or the attendance thereof.

But for many others, such as myself, church became a crutch, a “Well, at least I went to church this Sunday” excuse for lazy or poser Christian living every other day of the week.

My churchy activities and the whirlwind of busyness in that capacity were the very thing I used to justify my failure to faithfully and intentionally apply what I was reading in Scripture to my inner thoughts and attitudes. It is those attitudes which in turn produce undesirable reactions and behaviors, in which, at the time, I was excelling.

And then there was the near-militant, peer-pressured atmosphere of denominational or evangelical church-sermon preaching, and the congregation that hungrily and apparently unquestioningly ate up.

So if, for example, one is in a liberal church, one must sit through and subscribe to, not a sermon on holiness, but a political diatribe, often stamped as a call to “social justice.”

If in a conservative church, one must listen to a repeated lament of the “culture” and feel compelled to join “small group” studies of books written by the latest evangelical pop author.

And then, after all of that, inevitably the church of one’s attendance implodes internally, either closing down entirely or breaking off into factions. The members “leave” the church and maybe start or join a new one more to their liking, or forgo corporate church altogether.

Many Christians have told me, 

“No place or church is perfect.” 

Yes, that is true, but why is it that in my own personal experience—either witnessing or hearing about it from close friends—that the Christian church contains the same, and often more, dissension and pride than secular organizations? 

It dawned on me that I didn’t have to look too far for the answer: 

Me and people like me, dependent upon church to make them Christian, forgoing the personal investment of walking and being discipled one-on-one by God through Jesus Christ and His Spirit. 

So there I was, this avid church-goer, loyal to the corporate church but not to Jesus; intent on making a fine and gregarious appearance every Sunday, but failing to tow that same line at home, or in my daily attitudes.

I had uncovered the crux of the problem: the incessant, time-honored compartmentalization of church that says:

“I can be ‘Christian’ for a few hours on Sunday, and then I’m ‘good to go.’”

Well, I wasn’t good to go, and must’ve sensed it all along, because I was not at peace or comfortable in corporate church, nor was I content with my outside life, even though I was a Christian.

The joke was on me, but I was finally done fooling myself. 

So I left church behind and began the spiritually and life-affirming adventure to live sequestered from religion in general and church in particular. 

Again, if the person reading this has a totally different—positive—track record with church—I accept and acknowledge that.

What I aim to flesh out here is the very large, yet ignored, elephant in the room that the mere concept and existence of corporate church, handed down in its pretty-much unchallenged format for hundreds of years, is not the litmus test for determining and estimating anybody’s faith or dedication to and belief in God and Christ. 

In short, the curated standard of Christendom—the church and its authority over and grip upon people of faith—ought not to be the standard and was never intended by God to be.

Jesus and the living out daily of His walk, regardless of whether we ever set foot in a church, is the Gospel, the only standard.

Church—the denomination we align with, the building we sit and perhaps even flourish in, in spite of its many beneficial (as well as detrimental) aspects, is in no way a reflection of or determiner at all of our actual character, integrity, compassion or wisdom. 

We are not made “good people” through the osmosis of church.

Coming to this place of honesty with myself and God, I could unabashedly admit that all of my church attendance, Sunday school teaching, committee memberships, and participation in church programming, was a facade.

I had been focused on church in lieu of how to actually read Scripture, mature in Christ and be increasingly transformed away from the sinner that I am.

So this Christmas, I, with a very clear conscience before God and man, join with the “C” Christmas Christians (and seekers and wanderers), to worship and celebrate, inside of a church, once a year, that all is well with my soul because Jesus was born there. 

Jesus was born: Not in a church. Not in a pastor. Not in a creed. Not in a law. Not in a synod. Not in a denomination. But outside of all of that. 

Inside of us.

As a baby, raised up by God to be the Savior. 

Of me and of you. 

No mediator. 

No building.

No membership class to take first. 

Free. 

For the taking.

His gift to each one of us. Here and now. Between us and Him.

That simple.

Jesus.

Lord of Lords.

King of Kings.

Wonderful Counselor.

Mighty God.

Everlasting Father.

Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).

Copyright Barb Harwood