Revelations 6:9 - 11 (KJV)

9 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the alter the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:

10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?"

11 And white robes were given unto every one of them...

If the spirit of God is in any part of you, you will not want to become thirsty for blood and vengeance and you would neither request nor expect God to agree with you about having earned the right to kill other people. If the spirit of God is in any part of you, you will not want to judge, but will want to embrace love and forgiveness. If the spirit of God is in any part of you, you will always and forever want what is best for the earth and all who exist there.

The spirit of God is in every part of you. If you open your heart to hear his voice, you will see that the verse above, and thousands of similar verses, have nothing to do with the loving and forgiving God that is part of you. You can find his love and forgiveness and really feel it...deep, deep inside that part of you that has never totally forgotten the goodness of our creator.

How can the same God, the same Jesus, who looked upon his attackers while hanging from the cross, feel such compassion and forgiveness for those people and then later desire to kill them? Only a god that can change and only a god that reacts the way man does, could act this way. Only a god without the capacity to forgive can be this way...and that god is not the God that was part of Jesus, but a god made by man and embellished by stories of self-rightousness aimed to control by fear through the threat of punishment and death.

If it was my destiny to die for the sake of spreading Gods word, and then after dyeing, if I were to cry out for vengeance and the death of my attackers, then it would be very clear that I never understood the word of God in the first place. Love and forgiveness is not temporary or set aside here and there to accomplish ungodly things. In the Book of Revelation, John's vision of these angry martyrs only represents his own anger and feelings of the revenge he wanted and this has nothing to do with anything God would ever fathom to pursue. It's what he felt was his right to demand upon God for having lived self-righteously and having sacrificed. The reality is that God does not require nor demand these things from us and therefore there is no real grounds for having a right to punish those who did not follow any of the rules and regulations created and interpreted by man.

The Book of Revelation may possibly be based upon John having actually seen some future events, just like Nostradamus or any other psychic...but his perception of what these events were, what they meant and the spirit in which God was involved...these are all clearly John's own personal gloom and doom depictions of who he felt God was and how he felt God would interact and how he felt man should be punished. There is no New Testament forgiveness here, but only the Old Testament's angry, vengeful and unforgiving god. The Book of Revelations has nothing to do with God.

As with John, many may wish to push their version of God upon us and will march on the capital city with posters and chants to end abortion...while also having accepted the concept that God should kill all non believers in a bloody massacre at the end of times. The pursuit of life or death cannot be placed on the same plate. Only one is true...the other is not. Your god is either a god that cherishes life or a god that destroys life...he cannot be both because his own words indicate that a house divided against itself cannot stand. None of this adds up in religions eyes which is why religion does not work, because God is a God of love and not of fear and death. Man has added the stories and perceptions of fear and death to attract and control by fear, but that has nothing to do with who God is.

Many who are followers of the end times are anxiously waiting for the tragic events of the Book of Revelations to unfold... so can it also be said that they are the looking forward to people being tortured and killed? Their desired future of Gods kingdom on earth depends upon it. Jesus said is was just as sinful to have lusted after your neighbors wife as is was to have actually been with her. By the same token, would it be just as sinful to desire and condone the mass murder of all non-believers as to having performed the mass murder of millions yourself?

My thought is this...if God is such an angry and vengeful entity, why would anyone want to be with him? This explains, of course, why he has to threaten us to force us to obey him and love him and worship him. Doesn't any of this sound like a story of Zeus gone bad with hints of a modern day dictatorship? Even within your own lives, haven't we all learned that love is only really worth it when it is given freely and unconditionally...and without threat of repercussion? Have we somehow surpassed Gods own capacity to understand love...or has our past so terribly misinterpreted and underestimated Gods capacity to love and we are only now just starting to fathom how much more glorious, beautiful, peaceful and loving he is?

If God is not behind the tragic events of the day, what then is responsible for the worlds condition? We are. On so many levels, both spiritual and physical, we have created and continue to support the hostile man-made and natural environments that exists here. We have accepted, eerily enjoy and also look forward to both man-made and natural tragic events. These events serve to both justify our religious positions and to provide entertainment in predicting them and watching then again afterwards. Even though it is often not apparent, we are very powerful spiritual beings. We have, are, and will continue to manifest things upon this earth based upon

There may be evil and misguided actions performed by people in the world, but still at the heart of most men is a genuine desire to help and be helpful, to love and be loved. We confuse our emotions and our abilities at times...leading to hostilities and misunderstandings, but overall we would rather have peace. Even though it's not immediately helpful, most of our fighting is because we believe it's a necessary step towards achieving peace. Granted, we might not have figured out how to achieve peace...but it's still what we truly want and we will continue to work with it until we finally figure it out in the ages to come.

Think for a moment about recent stories of the kindness, love, and compassion that the worlds people demonstrate, especially after tragedies when our needs are greatest. If man has this capacity and desire to help...if man has this capacity for compassion...if man has this capacity for forgiveness...if man has this capacity for kindness...if man has this capacity for good...if man has this capacity to choose love over hate, how much more do you think our Father...our Creator has the capacity to do these things? Other than what centuries old beliefs have told you, can you see in yourself today, the light that is a real part of God and can you see that this light can not and will not ever, ever pursue anything other than love and peace. Anything that says otherwise or does otherwise is not in line with the desires of God.

Prophecies of The End Times are not from God. God is not looking to destroy the world and punish us. God would never do anything to evoke fear. Absolute love casts out all fear...so God cannot be Love and then do things that would create fear. Those two concepts cannot exist at the same time. These view points come from a total misunderstanding of God as being vengeful and angry as opposed to being loving and forgiving. So many of the things written about God, especially the things that are centuries upon centuries old, were written from a frightened and limited perspective. It's time to let go of these primitive beliefs and start seeing God as the loving and forgiving god he really is.

History sometimes has a tendency to repeat itself because there are lessons we still need to learn and certain events will occur again and again until we choose to see things differently and change what we are being and doing. The concept that Jesus will return to establish a worldly kingdom has already come and gone. The ancient belief was that Jesus, the Messiah, would come to establish a new government...and when he made it apparent that it was not his mission to create a physical world government...everything changed and he was killed. Today, again many are waiting for Jesus to come and create an earthly kingdom, a primary purpose of the existence of the Book of Revelation, and it's not going to happen because his mission is a spiritual one, not a physical one. Because we often forget we are spiritual beings temporarily interacting here, we often confuse Gods goals and desires for us as being physical, and they are not. Gods goals and desires for us are spiritual and they have nothing to do with anything physical.

Spiritual things are eternal...physical things are not. God is eternal...he created us eternal and he, Jesus and the Holy Spirit will continue to work with us for ages and ages to come until we also choose once again to only pursue the eternal and then to forever leave this physical place where everything dies and nothing is eternal. God didn't create this mess we are in, so he's not going to do anything to extend the time we are here, but is doing everything possible to give us the tools to shorten our time here and finally come home to him.

Meanwhile, due to the concept of the end times and the world being destroyed, many lives are possibly being wasted and tormented with thoughts of no future and thoughts of pending wars and tribulations...all leading up to living in a state of fear which is totally out of line with Gods desire that each day be peaceful, joyful, forgiving and loving...with no regrets from the day before and no apprehensions of tomorrow to mess up your today.

Know this...God is not unaware of you. God loves you beyond anything ever imagined. God is waiting patiently for your heart to be open to walk through life without fear...and then you will truly hear him and feel his guidance. While you are motivated by fear and subjecting others to fear, it's difficult for you to properly interpret what God is saying. For you, as with John, God never stops communicating and never stops telling you things that will help your growth, but any and all fear you embrace will blur and taint what you are hearing, making it difficult to see Gods true desires clearly. Under these circumstance, you may think you have a world of truth, but all you will have is a word of truth surrounded by fear, to be delivered through fear, accepted with fear and followed because of fear. Set aside fear and don't accept anything that even hints at it and you will be open for rivers of truth to flow into your being.

Live this...Since God is love, simply ignore the stories, perceptions and rumors created and spread through fear, because they are not from God. God is working with everyone at all times, so just be patient while you and the people of the world work through being fearful and be happy to know that God has not forgotten a single one. Pray that we all open our minds more and more each day to hear God's truth and set aside man-made truths. Just rest in peace to know that God is patiently working with everybody. Extend your love and peace as well and our time here will be shortened...not with end times of death and destruction and the creation of Gods physical kingdom on earth, but with end times of everybody simply leaving this place and returning to an eternal existence with our creator in his spiritual kingdom that always has and always will be.

*Compliments of:
Dreams Alive Magazine - http://www.dreamsalivemagazine.com
Being Willing - http://www.beingwilling.com

About the Author

David Nelmes provides opportunities for those around him to see things from perspectives they had not considered before. His desire is for himself and all men to pursue truth and be open and willing to see what God would have us see. His influences consist of being truly open and applying the truths in both "The Bible" and "A Course In Miracles". See more at: - BeingWilling.com