Hi there,

I had the following conversation the day after new year but I’ve been sitting on it ever since because some people might not like this one. It's one of those conversations. But if you can hear God in this, please share it with as many others as you think should see it. Thanks so much.

Mark
 
Change is coming. Worldwide change, but nobody's ready.

Mark, people in leadership and influence need to be replaced. Either that, or what they’re saying needs to be replaced.

Good grief, God! Where did that come from?? It sounds like those horrible prophecies that stuffy charismatics used to trot out when I was a kid.

Mark, settle down. It’s nothing personal, we’re not angry, not wanting to punish anyone, but it is true. Leaders and influencers everywhere need to be replaced, or what they’re saying does.

God, in my day I swear people wanted to sound like old testament prophets. They’d rant and rave and we’d all run around repenting, although not quite sure what we were repenting for.

Mark, that’s still happening, millions are trapped back there. They think they hear my voice, but what they’re really peddling is Religion and his sinister brother Condemnation. They couldn’t possibly accept what I really want to say to them, which is – I like them just the way they are.

Well, I don’t want to sound like them – and I certainly don’t want to hear you talk about ‘leaders and influencers needing to be replaced’. That’s not my game, God, I want to keep right out of their politics – who the heck am I to say stuff like that? 

Mark, this isn’t you, it’s just me. Leaders and influencers need to be replaced.

You’re not going to let up on this are you, God?

No. Leaders and influencers, big and small, from the most famous to the most unknown, need to be replaced – or they need to change what they’re saying. We’re not fussy, they can have it either way.

In most cases it will be their choice, but if they don’t make it, we will make it for them. We have to. We’re cleaning house. Worldwide. Changing how things are done. The leaders and the influencers hold the keys to the hearts of the people and we need the people back.

Oh man, God, I hate it when people start on about ‘God wants the church to repent…’ And ‘thus sayeth the Lord, I will spit out the luke warm blah blah blah’, it’s painfully predictable and so boringly religious – and this is starting to sound like that…

Mark, this isn’t that. I’m not bossing, not imperious, we’re not asking for ‘Christian repentance’ – we just want the people back. Leaders…

Leaders at all levels of Churches and Christian organisations, from mega to tiny. Right down to small groups.

God, can I not be part of this discussion please. I write books that Christians read – antagonising Christian leaders is plain dumb! There’ll be heaps of them reading this.

Exactly! Mark, our aim is not to antagonise. If leaders and influencers have a conversation with us about this; ask US what to do, not their ‘mentors’ and ‘oversights’, we’ll tell them how to let go of their firm grip on the minds and hearts of the people. It’s a simple matter. We may even share some leadership of the people with them, we’ll take that on a case by case basis, but we need the people back.  Change is coming. Worldwide change.

This is not the fault of the leaders and influencers themselves, we’re not pointing the finger, you all do that, but we don’t. Leaders didn’t create the system, the system created them. The system has to go! All of it. A completely clean slate.

Whatever that means, God?!?

It’ll be clear enough if people get serious about this and ask us.

God this isn’t more about revival is it? Please no! I’m sorry to be cynical, but everyone’s always on about blimmen revival, and yet when I ask you about it you just change the subject.

No. This is NOT about revival. You Christians want change within the structures you have built, but those structures are built on Religion’s foundation, not ours. This isn’t personal, not a disciplining of those in charge, it’s simply time for change. So few of your leaders know how to hear us, and for that reason most are standing in the way of what we want to do without realising it. They’re holding on to a system that needs to go.

But, God, I’m a ‘leader’ of sorts too. There are thousands who read my books… so I guess I’m probably part of the problem too?

Mark, if you stay in conversation with us, you’ll be safe.

Really, God?? Safe from what, your anger or something?

Mark, we’re NOT ANGRY! We’re just cleaning house. Attending to business. If you stay in conversation with us, back and forth like this, you won’t make the mistake of holding people back. They’re not your people, they’re ours. We’re a wee bit jealous in that regard.

Jealous of who, Christians?

No, people. Humans. Leaders and influencers in Christian organisations are blocking humans, inside and outside of Christianity, from discovering us. Everyone can see that. It’s been a worldwide problem for thousands of years and now it has to stop. Sorry, but it’s true.

How are they blocking people from discovering you, God? Their intention is the opposite for goodness sake.

Mark, organised Christianity has so misrepresented us that your message has become a turbo-charged, music and coffee added, version of the Pharisees’ crippling condemning poppycock. You all need to get honest with yourselves about this.

This will go down like a lead balloon, God.

Mark, it’s time to replace thousands of years of Christian systems. This is the complete strip down and rebuild of Christianity, the removal of systems and the re-establishment of personal relationship – submitted to me, not to man. The complete removal of all existing ‘authorities’. The age of all your little kings is gone. It’s time to reinstate the relationship between man and God with no intermediaries.

Sounds like you’re a bit cross, God??

Not at all. Your enemy has fooled you into thinking I’m inclined to be cross. He’s told you that you cannot hear me because of ‘sin’. He lies. You can hear me irrespective of your behaviour. But you have taken his lie the next step - instead of asking me whether he’s right, you have made it ‘gospel truth’.

You have followed Eve’s lead, argued with him instead of asking me. He’s convinced you that you can’t hear me, and so, to solve the problem, you’ve established complex religious systems and ‘spiritual leaders’ to hear me on your behalf. Over thousands of years you have built an entire system of belief around that lie and appointed others to stand ‘in the gap’ as you call it.

THEY BLOCK THE FLOW

You’re right, they do stand in the gap between us – they block the flow. They stifle the two way conversation I have designed you for. That’s not normally their intention, but your system says your leaders must hear me on your behalf. They say it’s dangerous to hear me direct, they dissuade you from conversation like this – you’ll struggle to find what they’re saying in the scriptures Mark and yet you have all believed it.

Well, what are they supposed to do, God??

Leaders are NOT supposed to hear me on your behalf. They can teach you how to hear me, but that’s it! Period. The people and I can take it from there. Your leaders think I need help. They’re wrong. I don’t want them telling you what I’m saying. I’m quite capable of doing that myself. I want them to let go and stop trying to control what you hear.

I don’t want your leaders leading you, I want to lead you. I don’t want intermediaries between us, I am the intermediary. You don’t need a support person when you meet with me, that just complicates things. I want to speak with you direct.

If your leaders would stop chattering you’d have a better chance of hearing me. Many of them would like to stop, but the system doesn’t allow them that option. Your Christian systems are nothing but a clever lie to prevent the people and I talking.

God, I’m not sure about this. I tend to be anti-establishment, you know that. I could just be making this up to ‘spiritualise’ my disenchantment with the control (I think) churches assert over Christians.

Yes, you could. But this is actually me, Mark. I’m saying this. And you’re not the only one hearing it, not by a long shot. Luther heard part of it, many others have heard it since, and more are hearing it now, including you. I’ve been saying this for thousands of years but now I’m coming to do something about it. You find yourself in a most fortunate age.

Many Christian leaders are hearing this themselves, but they’re blocking their ears because they don’t know what to do with it. The system has no place for this message, meaning the system has no place for us. Up until now we have had to make a place for the system, but that’s over now.

Old things have already passed away, all things are already made new, you are all peddling a dead system. It was dead before you and the father of lies conceived it, and it is still dead. No amount of prayer will ever revive it. I. DO. NOT. RECOGNISE. IT.

But, God, you’ve worked with it for hundreds of years, probably thousands? You bless it for goodness sake. I’ve seen you do so!

Yes, I have and I do. You demand that I do, so I fit with your demands.

Well, why stop now?

Because it’s time. Mankind requires something new for what is coming. Wake up and see what’s on the horizon, Mark. “I in them, and you in me”, bears no resemblance to the Christianity you, Religion and Condemnation have invented. You have made a life changing relationship into a system of rules and customs. You have taken the lover God and made him the boss God.

Revival is breathing life into a dead body so that it comes back to life. You’re all calling out for that, but it’s not going to happen. I don’t want this body alive again.

Reformation is what you need and it is different – it requires that the structure being ‘reformed’ be removed, completely disassembled and rebuilt from the ground up. Not new life in an old body, you need a completely new body.

When a thing is reformed the new is nothing to do with the old. I might for instance, crush all the bricks from a church into sand, only to make them into a beach for the unchurched to walk on. That’s reformation, Mark, and those with leadership and influence are not ready for all that to happen.

Ok, so God, is this all that horrible angry stuff about the church being too ‘grace focused’, not zealous enough?

No! The complete opposite - you’re not grace focused enough. Not by a long shot. You’re still far too focused on the accusations of the devil. What you have all missed, is that you can hear me, and easily converse with me, no matter how many of Religion’s list of ‘sins’ you commit. Your enemy has pretended my voice to focus you on your behaviour. Mark, all I want is conversation.

CONVERSATION LEADS TO RELATIONSHIP, BEHAVIOUR DOESN’T

Your only real sin is that you don’t believe me. Your naughty crimes do NOT prevent conversation, it’s the opposite – your lack of conversation allows your naughty crimes to become a bother for you. The only thing that stops you hearing me is your lack of belief and we can easily deal with that together. I just want to talk, and the Christian systems and leaders you have established make that so terribly difficult. 

So what are we supposed to do, God?

The complete opposite of what you have always done.

What have we always done?

You’ve disciplined those you believed at fault. You’ve looked for sin and punished the innocent.

Innocent, God?

Innocent in my eyes – ‘then neither do I condemn you’ ‘there is now therefore no condemnation’, ‘the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, though he fall he won’t be cast out.’

You have no right to discipline anyone. I do that, and contrary to your opinion, hardly ever – my burden is light. Conversation, not discipline, is what changes you. ‘Repentance’ does not mean what you all think it means, nothing like it. Your enemy and your religious systems have taught you it means ‘to change so you can be with’.  But what it actually means is the opposite - ‘to change as a result of being with’.

Can you see how devious the lie is? In your wholesale focus on sin, guilt and punishment, you have completely misunderstood simple gateways to our relationship like Romans 12, you read them over and over again in the ancient scriptures, but you don’t understand them.

The true meaning of ‘living sacrifice’ is a simple ‘hi God I’m yours, now what?’, but you have made it into mental and spiritual flagellation in an attempt to make yourself acceptable. You can’t make yourself acceptable, Mark, you already are. I love you. What the passage actually says is that if one establishes a ‘Hi God’ relationship, then I will tell you what I want.

Because so few of you ever relax into that sort of relationship, you never end up asking me what I want – instead you tell me what I want. But you’re very wrong about what I want. Very wrong!

Ok, so if what we’re doing is the opposite of what you want, describe what you do want.

Talk. Between us. God and man at table sat down. Each and every one of you, in discussion with me. Not listening to others tell you what I want, listening instead to me. I’ll tell you what I want, and most often it’s the opposite of what you think. I wish you could understand that I’M. NOT. CROSS. WITH. YOU.

In fact most often I want what you want, Mark, just like any father does for his kids. You’re my children. The way your leaders and influencers carry on, you’d think you were my enemies. I’m your friend. Friends want what you want.

Ok, God, most of this is what I often hear you say. But this bit about Christian leadership and influencers worldwide needing replacing, that’s new and it’s worrying me. 

Why, Mark?

Because I’m not convinced telling me is a good idea. I’m not really the guy you should tell this to. I don’t have a very big platform…

I’m not just telling you, Mark. I’m telling anyone who will listen. That’s the only criteria. Anyone truly listening will hear this. Size of platform is irrelevant.

Ok, what am I supposed to do about this?

Continue with these conversations. I’ll explain as we go.

God why does your voice sound like our own thoughts when we have a conversation with you?

God it makes it hard for people to have a conversation with you when your voice sounds a lot like their own thoughts. Why do you do that??

You already know the answers Mark.

I do?

You do. You’ve struggled with the same problem and demanded I explain it to you. Often. It’s a regular issue for you, just as it is for everyone else, so we’ve spoken of it often.

Ok true. But I thought you wanted to have a conversation about this, in writing, so others could read it and be helped by it.

Many will.

Many will what?

Be helped by it. It’s conversation-with-God 101. Everyone needs to know it. My voice sounds like your own thoughts at first because it’s meant to. Like a car is meant to start when you turn the key.

Really God? It’s very satisfying when a car starts at the first turn of the key, but very frustrating when having a conversation with you and realising that your answers might not be your answers after all because they sound like my own thoughts.

Yes. But there’s a reason for that, an important God-designed reason that is even more satisfying once you understand it. It’s like solving a mystery Mark, because it is a mystery this talking back and forth with me. A mystery that was designed to intrigue you in a way that compels you to solve it. It’s not hard but it is.
Yes well let’s not get into that God. You say stuff like that with so much meaning…

Intrigue Mark. So much intrigue.

Ok you say stuff like that, “It’s hard, but it’s not”, with so much ‘intrigue’ behind it…

And meaning too Mark. I just wanted you to realise that I make statements like that, “It’s hard but it’s not”, because yes they contain deep meaning, but I also wanted you to see they are laced with intrigue to entice you to solve and understand them. I gave you a brain and I love it when you use it, in conversation with me, to solve life’s eternal, yet right-now mysteries.

Man God! I hope people can understand this. I can because I’m the one interpreting what you’re saying, but I’m not so sure anyone else will know what on earth you’re talking about.

Why are you able to understand it?

Because as I type the words I hear you speak, I’m also reading them as they hit the screen. And I recognise them, they’re my own words for what you’ve said. I’m the interpreter in this conversation, so I’m using my own way of speaking to interpret your voice.

Why do you use your own way of speaking when interpreting my voice?

Two reasons God. The first it’s the one I’m familiar with, every interpreter does that, if someone is interpreting a foreign speaker, no matter how much they try to interpret in a more universal language, their own ways of speaking come through.

Yes, what’s the other reason?

Well because I hate the silly ‘Christianese’ language that us Christians seem to have developed, it makes you sound distant and imperious and us pompous and just plain weird. And because I hate it I’m determined to interpret your voice in everyday language, the way I speak to anyone else. I can’t stand the horrible “Thus sayeth the Lords” and “The Lord would say unto this people”…

Why horrible Mark?

I don’t know God, it just makes my skin crawl. I suppose that’s not very spiritual of me to think like that, but it makes us Christians sound like a bunch of blimmen loonies – I mean what’s wrong with us, are we so removed from the real world that we have to speak this special language?? And frankly it makes you sound so distant too God.

Mark here’s the thing. Two things. I have made myself servant to you humans, it’s not a chore, I love it, I make myself a servant so that you can decide if you hear my voice and if you want to hear it; a servant so that you can dig up my voice and interpret it, or leave it sitting on the table.

Part of that dynamic, of allowing you to decide whether you’ll listen to my voice or not, of allowing you the right to interpret it rather than forcing you to listen to it; part of that is you get to interpret my voice in any language you want. So when you Christians decide to use your imperious prophetic sounding language – “The Lord would say unto you this day…” I allow that. I’m your servant. I submit my voice to your interpretation and if you want to speak it in your special Christian language then you can. It’s not my first choice, but I fit with it because it’s your choice.

That’s two things God, it sounded like about fifteen?!?

Actually it was just one. Here’s the second, I’ll fit with whatever language you want to interpret my voice in. I’m your servant remember. That’s a hard concept for you Christians to get your head around. But if you ask me what sort of language to interpret my voice in, then I’ll tell you to do it in the language of the people.

If you’re not sure about that then look at my life. My whole life from birth to death was lived in the language of the people. I was born, like so many, an illegitimate child. Actually in worse conditions than most. I died a death no more glamorous than anyone else’s, in fact worst that most. My very life was lived in ‘your language’. I got down to your level. And when I spoke to humans I spoke the way they spoke, not imperious, just the way they spoke.

Point God?

If you speak in imperious Christianese you can still speak my words. That’s your choice, but you create distance between me and the people I am speaking to. You make me sound high and away and not like them – hard to fathom, impossible to get to know on a true friendship basis. But I am exactly like them. I’m a man. I made myself a man in order to prove my love for you.

And Mark before you point it out, this conversation hasn’t been about your original question – ‘why does my voice sound like your thoughts when we have a conversation?’

Well God in a funny sort of way I’m thinking it has.

Aaah, now you’re beginning to get good at this. Tell me why you think it has.

Well because you’re talking all about how in a conversation with you it’s us interpreting your voice.

Yes?

And when we interpret your voice we do it in our own words.

Yes?

And that means your words, as they arrive in our minds, because you speak to our thoughts, your words sound… well they sound like our thoughts?

Exactly.

When a man interprets a foreign speaker, he is familiar with that foreign language, but doesn’t speak it every day.

And so Mark?

Well it means his own words spoken in interpretation are clearer to him than the words the foreigner spoke. His own words are clearer because they are not only the interpretation, but they are his own words.

Exactly Mark.

Hah! That’s what you’re saying isn’t it!! When I interpret your voice, your words sound like mine because having heard your words in my mind I’m articulating them into my own written words, or speaking them out loud in my own spoken words?!?

Yes. And there’s another important reason I speak in a way that sounds like your own voice.

Why God?

So that you can become used to it, familiar with it, and not have to take any notice of it if you don’t want.

Huh?

Don’t sound so surprised Mark, we’ve gone over this principle together many times.

Ok true, but it does still sound very unlike the God that Religion has taught us about.

Yes that god is not me Mark. That god is the one the bible calls “The accuser”. That god demands all kinds of obedience and servitude, in the name of love. That god punished his son in your place because he needed a victim for his anger at sin. That’s not love, that’s menace and domination Mark. It’s time you all saw through it. You want revival? Forget about it while you’re trying to foist an angry vindictive behaviour-focused God on the world. It won’t work with this generation, they know more about me than you do quite often. And they know that I’m not that angry grumpy god that Religion teaches you about.

Alright, so why do you want us to be able to be familiar with, used to, not have to take any notice of your voice?

You know that too Mark. You tell me.

Ok because it means we only respond to your voice if we want to. We don’t end up forced to have a conversation with you like we would if you spoke in a loud thundering audible voice. If you did that we’d all be flat on our faces. There’d be no point God.

Why would there be no point Mark? The god who accuses you says that if you are compelled to relationship, if you feel the pressure from him to pray and read your bibles and rid your lives of sin that you’ll be able to avoid hell and enter everlasting life. What is it that makes his lie so devastating? Why is there no point in being compelled to conversation with me?

Because you’re not trying to save us from hell, you’re trying to have a relationship with us. A friendship. You can’t have a relationship by force. That god, the god of religion is the god of force and domination. He wants us on our knees for hours pouring out our hearts, you want us having a conversation, a friendship, a back and forth conversation where we enjoy you, and you us. And if there’s anything that needs sorting out, fixing up, that’ll sort of just happen as part of the process – your Holy Spirit will help with that.

Quite right. Good conversation Mark. Well worthwhile.

The bible’s a funny book Mark.

Go away God! I don't find it amusing when you say things like that. The moment I let you open up on stuff like that it’s me that gets in the gun. In the old days they’d burn you at the stake for disagreeing with their perspective on the bible.

These days they blithely call you a heretic and start ranting to others that you’re deceived, evil blah blah blah. So go away please God I don’t want to know – “the bible’s a funny book”. I mean seriously!!

But I do want to talk about this.

God!! NO!!! I don’t want this discussion.

Why not?

I just told you.

Actually Mark, shall I explain something?

Well alright, obviously you’re going to anyway. So be my guest.

I won’t if you don’t want Mark.

Oh whatever God. Go for it. Spill the beans.

If you’re sure.

I’m sure.


Ok. This is from the one who sees the heart. I know the real reasons you do things.

Oh oh…

But I’m always gentle about what I expose Mark. The real reason you don’t like me talking about things that challenge popular Christian teaching is not the controversy it causes. Be honest, you love controversy, anything for a reaction.

You could have fooled me God, the constant accusations that I’m a heretic and deceived wear me down.

Actually they don’t, they invigorate you, they bring the problem out in the open, expose the attitudes that Religion has slipped unnoticed into organised Christianity. Once seen you can attack and decimate them, you like that Mark. You’ve sworn an oath before me to destroy Religion, to make him cower. You know that. I know that.

Ok. Alright I admit it. So if that’s not the reason then tell me what is? Why don’t I like you dropping stuff like that on me? Because God one thing’s for sure, I don’t. I do not like it when you drop subjects on me like “The bible’s a funny book.” That just doesn’t sound like you God.

Exactly and there lies the problem. It’s not what others think, it’s what you think Mark. This whole idea, conversation like this with me, defies everything you’ve ever been taught about God, Jesus, Christianity, heaven and hell. It’s not everyone else’s religion that you’re worried about, it’s your own. You are still, after all these years and three books about it, still uncomfortable about this idea of talking back and forth with me.

Well God it’s so weird, you have to admit that! It’s not just the naysayers this sounds weird to, it sounds weird to me too!!

Alright good. Now you’re being honest. No it’s not weird at all Mark, just not taught. Not known. Unfamiliar. Like a toddler learning to walk. Something in that child tells them they were born for this, that walking is just the beginning of what they were born for – but something else screams “be careful you might fall.” When we speak like this your problem is you’re hearing the “be careful you might fall” voice.

Ok?

So Mark shall we continue? I want to talk about the bible, it’s a funny book.

Do I have a choice?

Of course.

Not really God. Not if I don’t want to upset you.

Mark I’m very difficult to upset. If your kids won’t talk about what you want to, how upset are you really?

Well sometimes, quite a lot. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but sometimes I get a bit shitty when they don’t want to talk about what I want to.

Exactly again Mark, but me, I’m not like that. I have nothing to be embarrassed about. I don’t get…

NO! Don’t say that word God. If I write that word as coming out of your mouth I’ll get excommunicated.

No you won’t. You’re not ‘communicated’ to anything anyway Mark, but you’d be surprised how hungry people are for the God that speaks like them, the God who’s not prissy, not a prude. The real God. Humans are screaming out for the real God, and religious people like you are putting them off.

Religious?? Man God that’s a bit blimmen hurtful.

Well Mark you are. The reason you don’t like me startling you with conversations about the bible being a funny book, or the racial strife between Pakeha and Maori, is that those subjects challenge your real perspective on me. You’re nailed hard to that god you think crucified his own son in your place. That god who’s focused on your sin, focused on getting you ‘pure’ to keep you out of hell.

Yes I knew you would crucify my son, but no I didn’t crucify him, didn’t need to punish someone. Yes I used the cross to defeat your enemy but not in the way you think I did. If you all listened to me instead of spending your lives telling me, you’d understand Mark.

Man God, you just stir this stuff up on purpose don’t you (smiling). If it was someone else you were talking to I’d laugh, think it funny, but somehow it’s not when you talk to me.

Yes it is. Very funny. You’re wanting to laugh right now. You love that I’m a God with a brain, a God who doesn’t buy Religion’s lies.

Ok fine. That’s what I love. Are you going to talk about why the bible’s a funny book or not??

I’ll take that as permission (smiling).

You said you were smiling?

Of course. You’re created in my image. You smile, which means I do too.

Ok, carry on God.

Mark the bible’s a funny book.

Alright I’ll humour you God, why is the bible a funny book?

Because it’s true, yet what so many people think it says is a lie. Because it’s not a riddle, the truth is there in plain sight, but it’s presented as though it was a riddle. Some things are not fully stated, others are stated in one way, and then later in the opposite.

Alright, ok God. Give me some examples. But before you do, you know this is a problem right? People think the bible is sacred, almost as though they think the pages themselves are somehow holy or something, so writing down these words of yours will have them up in arms.

As we’ve already discussed Mark, that’s not your problem so drop it. Your problem is that you yourself are incredulous that I’d say such a thing about the bible. It challenges your thinking.

Alright true God.

And Mark that’s the devil’s trick. He makes you think of the bible as some sacred document, a book to be careful of, a book to tread gently around, a book that can be offended in some mystic way. He lies. The bible is a bunch of stories about people and the way they spoke to me and I spoke back. Me. God. Not some lofty God, but me. Jesus. I’m the one who turned up the illegitimate child of a girl from Nazereth, the wrong side of the tracks. I’m not prissy, not precious, I invented the birth process, the bloody mess that leads to life. I’m a realist Mark. I have to be, I invented reality.

Your point God?

That the bible, if it really is documented history about humans and me, and it is, then it’s not to be treated religiously or carefully. It’s a book to be challenged and dug into.

Really?

Really. If I invite you to challenge me personally…

Isaiah 1:18: “Come let us reason together [‘yakach’: to decide, adjudge, prove, reprove]

If I invite you to reprove me, while I do the same to you, then obviously, without question I’m inviting you to do the same to the book that includes human’s words to me and mine back to them.

God that’s not how the bigwigs like to think of the bible. They don’t call it “human’s words to you and yours back to them.” They say in hallowed tones that it’s ‘your word’. Obviously saying it that way makes them sound important to themselves.

Mark they’re not alone. You like to sound important to yourself too.

Smiling. Ok true God. Point taken.

Mark the bible is not ‘my word’, it contains some of my words. Comparatively very few given that the heavens pour forth speech. I speak more words in a single day, every day Mark, than those recorded in the bible.

Oh no. You didn’t just say that God!!

I did Mark. Get over yourself. The bible isn’t ‘my word’, it’s some of my words along with a lot of human history. My ‘word’ is Jesus. My ‘words’ are the words that proceed from my mouth. Some of which are recorded in the bible, most of which are not.

Oh dear dear dear dear dear!

Yes. The problem is serious.

That’s not what I meant God!! You know that.

Yes. Just being clever Mark. Shall we continue?

You’re going to anyway, so yes let me have it, both barrels.

Ok Mark here’s the point. This conversation is just the introduction. The bible is a funny book. What you think it means it doesn’t. You think it’s incredibly important for religious reasons. You’re wrong. It’s important, actually far more important than any of you realises, but for reasons you don’t even understand. The bible contains truths, just inside the door of the book, that none of you ever get to. You’re too busy dissecting the passages in the door way of the book to get any further.

Whatever happened to the idea that listening to me led you to things you’d never heard before Mark? You’re all so busy trying to hear, and hear again all the things you already know. And yet you don’t know those things at all. Ask your friends who’ve given their lives to studying the bible, people like Mark Virkler, or Charity, or Baxter Kruger, Mark Keown, Bryden Black or Geoff Woodcock, they’ll tell you that the more one learns about the bible, the more one learns that you know almost nothing.

Even those popular passages, the ones you’re all fixated on, are largely misunderstood by almost all of Christendom. Including you. Especially including you.

You said that last bit God. Especially including me?

Of course. When you decide like you have to spend your life listening to me you quickly discover that actually you know nothing. Or like your great buddy Geoff Hill says, “you don’t know what you don’t know”.

Ok. As usual God, you start out talking about something simple – “the bible’s a funny book”, and suddenly we’re all over the blimmen planet of truth.

Stick with me Mark we’re going somewhere. The bible’s a funny book - it’s not about what you all think it’s about.

Oh lovely God.

Mark steady on… remember “Call to me and I will show you things you know nothing about.”

Ok, so explain why it’s a funny book God.

Two very simple examples Mark. We’ve talked about them both before but in a different context. But I’ll stick with them to make this easy for you. First is the Abraham story. People, well-meaning people, make the ridiculous assumption that the number of times I spoke to Abraham in the bible is the total number of times I spoke to Abraham. Honestly? You Christians need to recognise the bible is a brainy book and can’t be understood unless you use your brains when you read it. What have I told you about that topic Mark?

That the times you spoke to Abraham recorded in the bible, are simply the ones recorded in the bible?

Yes. That’s my point. You Christians make ridiculous assumptions about the bible, you included. You read something and you decide what it means and then deify what you think. You forget to ask me, you don’t know how because you think I’m confined to having to speak through scripture. Of course I speak through scripture. But Mark, sorry to offend you, I speak through Beatles songs and Harry Potter Novels too. I’ll speak through whatever I have to, I’m not precious remember.

What about you Mark? Can you only talk to your kids by txt, or are you happy to phone them, skype them and even just sit and talk with them?

Mark my second point, another bible story, is this. The bible makes it clear that arch angels, when speaking to the devil, in one situation at least, rather than rebuke him direct, called on me to rebuke him.

Yes?

And yet in another passage the bible makes it clear that archangels wrestle with the prince of darkness themselves, with no mention of deferring the battle to me.

Point God??

It’s a funny book Mark. It says one thing, and then another. You can’t build a doctrine on a passage. Why am I telling you this?

Because we need to listen to you speak direct to our spirits to explain what the bible does and doesn’t mean.

Exactly. How long before I can speak with you like friends, and not my religious servants? I spilled a lot of blood for the right Mark, as did the prophets. Will this be the generation that learns at last to hear me speak direct?