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Hi, this is Chris Lepine. Welcome to my third podcast, God Without the Garbage, Removing the Roadblocks to Your Human Birthright. So, good morning, good evening, good night, whatever time you’re listening to the podcast. I’m so glad you’re here. It’s a real privilege to share this with you and to be on the journey together. Today’s podcast is really about getting the God you deserve.
Right now you’re probably not satisfied with the God you’re getting: the experience, the ideas around God. And certainly in our popular culture, there’s a lot of resistance to the idea of God, but I’m guessing that you’re listening to this podcast, because you are looking for a different experience of God than you’ve been getting. And it’s really also not only about getting the God that you deserve, but also getting the destiny you deserve. You may not be happy with the life you’re having right now: the experiences the outcomes. And so it’s not only about finding the God that that you really deserve, it’s about getting the kind of life that you deserve, the kind of spiritual life that you deserve.
I think that we all start this journey (at least I certainly did) with a dissatisfaction . . . dissatisfaction maybe about ourselves, certainly about our world. The world around today . . . most of us can agree that it’s going through a very, very, very difficult time. And we want to see it get better, and there are just so many problems. So I think that these things lead us to dissatisfaction and these things lead us to want to search, want to search for, you know, the real God.
But through it all, I really want you to remember, please remember, that you are precious; you have a unique value in this universe; you have a unique identity, a unique personality; you have a unique set of gifts; you are in a unique circumstance: All of these things together is a set of opportunities and gifts and capabilities that are really gifts to you. And you deserve the best God that you can find, that’s going to help you on this life journey.
I want you to understand there is hope for the future. You may be in a situation in your life where you are going through very great challenges. You may be frustrated with an addiction, with a negative partner and abuse, with being unemployed, with war, with climate change, whatever it is, God has a role to play in this. And really, we want the best kind of God we can get to deal with this situation.
I think all of us come with those essential inner questions about what’s going on. Certainly, who am I? Why am I here on earth? What am I supposed to be doing in my life? Why is my life the way it is? How can I be a better person? What’s the purpose of the universe? What is really going on? Why is the world the way it is? Why? Why is there so much suffering and confusion? Why do I have this hunger? Why do you have this hunger inside, to be more to grow, to keep going? Why? Why is this there?
That’s so much a part of what makes us humans: lots of questions. We all have numerous questions about this, but I really want to reiterate that you do have value and there is hope for the future. And really, what’s needed for us on this journey is to keep an open, fearless mind. You’re gonna have to chart your own path on this, but you’re gonna have help every step of the way with the kind of God you’re looking for, I really want to reassure you, no matter what experiences you’ve had. So the real key to finding the kind of God you deserve, God without the garbage, is to first keep an open mind.
Be willing to take some risks with your thoughts. That’s the key now. But on the other hand, you don’t want to have a foolish mind; you don’t want to just accept what I’m telling you; you don’t want to just accept what someone else may be telling you. You want to think about these things, you want to ponder them, and then make your own decision. Part of the garbage part of God is just accepting what people tell you. Now, that’s really what’s led to many, many problems. So, in order to really get the kind of God that you deserve, in order to discover the kind of God that you deserve, and the kind of life you deserve, in order to find your destiny, you have to be open.
So fortunately, I think you’re coming with the keys to do that. So, the keys to this whole reinvention of God, this reinvention of yourself, this reinvention of your life, is your openness, your hunger for really discovering the truth: There really is a truth out there. It’s not that I have one truth, and you have another truth. And that it’s just relative. You know, if I you look at the sky, and it’s blue, and I look at the sky, and I say it’s green, there is really one core truth there. We may differ on the way we describe the sky, etc. We may differ on the way we describe God, etc. But there, there really are some core truths out there. So your efforts are going to help you find those core truths, and you’ll find them within yourself. You’ll find them by your inner response to what you’re being told.
So here are the essentials I want you to think about today of your journey. These tools are going to help you first discover the truth about God, discover a God without the garbage, and also move forward in your life. So the first one is, you’ve got to be sincere, of course, in your desire. And you have to be honest with yourself, that yes, I desire to grow, I have a desire to find out what’s going on, to find out the truth about myself, the truth about the real God, and I have to put forth effort. I have to be open. I really have to be sincere and hunger for that truth to be open to what’s going to come. And this foundation is going to equip you to begin the journey. It’s really a lifelong journey.
But to start those initial discoveries to get a new perspective, you’re going to need those essentials. And it’s first about allowing your thoughts to be changed. Because it’s our thoughts that are determining what we can experience: They’re like doorways or walls: You can have walls or doorways. So if I, for example, have an assumption that everything that you tell me about, let’s say, Seattle, Washington, USA . . . If I have an assumption that Seattle is a terrible place, period, and then you come along and you say, Hey, I’ve been to Seattle. It’s beautiful. There’s lots to do . . . If I have that wall up there, if I have that prejudice, I am not going to be able to experience the truth about Seattle. I’ll never go to Seattle. I’ll never open the doorway to get there or even experience it.
So of course, we don’t want to just accept, right in that instance . . . My friend maybe told me about how wonderful Seattle is. I’m not just going to accept it as the truth. But I’m going to be open minded and say maybe it is a great place and I want to check it out. I want to go there. And then you go there. And you discover the truth about Seattle. It’s really the same for the thoughts we have about God, about ourselves, about the world, about the universe.
Whether we realize it or not, we have a lot of assumptions; we have a lot of thoughts that are either doorways or they’re walls. If they’re a wall, it’s prejudice, it’s an assumption, it’s stereotyping. Those are walls. Sometimes an assumption, or a stereotype is true. Many times they’re not. There are certain assumptions we have that are usually true. For example, when I walk into a room, there’s going to be electrical power, there’s going to be a light switch, there’s probably going to be a light. But these are basic things that help us get through life. But when we start applying them to conclusions about God, and our lives, we have to be very, very careful. Because many of these things are really walls.
So let’s go back . . . it’s about being willing to accept new insights, accept the truth. How do you even know what’s true? And that’s going to help us find God without the garbage. How do we know what’s true: That’s the tricky part. And it’s about also being a little brave.
There’s a lot of uncertainty around this when we just start out. So you may have been told certain things about God your whole life, or about yourself. And believe it or not, there is security, there’s a strange form of comfort in being told what to think and being told what to do. Because if you’re told what to think, and you’re told what to do, if you accept that, if you don’t make any effort beyond that, if you act automatically, then you don’t have to try, you don’t have to grow. There is some comfort in that. I’m not saying you’re not going to be satisfied. You’re not going to be truly happy; you’re not going to be truly, fully human. But a lot of people take the comfort route, take the easy way; a lot of people are passive.
So as we go together in this adventure (and I’m on the same adventure, and I have certain assumptions, I have certain prejudices, stereotypes, etc.), it’s an eternal process of being sincere about wanting to know the truth, being sincere about wanting to grow, and just putting out the consistent daily effort to do it. We’re gonna miss once in a while; we’re gonna fall down: It’s just part of it. As long as we keep trying, as long as we’re sincere, then we’re gonna make progress. That’s, that’s the beauty of it. We don’t have to be allstars; we don’t have to be these amazing people. We just gonna grow in that process.
Sometimes, the growth is sudden. Sometimes it’s slow (usually it’s slow), but the satisfaction can be consistent. And that’s really the best part of this whole process. So please, I want to assure you, again, that you have value. There is hope for your future. You are going to discover the answers to the questions you have. You’re going to discover a better life. You’re going to discover adventure: You’re going to get God without the garbage (I promise you), if you sincerely put out the effort to find the truth, being willing to let go of some of your assumptions, and growth.
So let’s think about some of the roadblocks that we’re dealing with today, because they’re pretty big. There is a reason that fewer people are going to a church or being part of a spiritual community. There’s a reason that not as many people have the beliefs that they did before. And a lot of it is that what we’ve been taught just isn’t working today. We’re not getting the nourishment; we’re not getting the power; we’re not getting the direction we need to live in the modern world. Many of the things that we were taught as children, our spiritual religious upbringing, we don’t think is working today; it’s just not doing it for us.
We’ve got a lot of distractions, that’s for sure: the media, the complexity of life, the way things are changing so quickly, so quickly. The relativity of different opinions . . . it’s bewildering. At best, it’s exhausting. And it’s self-destructive at worst. So we’ve got a lot of a lot of things to deal with; we’ve had a lot of negative experiences, a lot of garbage, I’ll call it the garbage. We’ve had God with garbage, God buried under piles and piles of garbage.
I assure you there is a truth about God that you will discover when you put out the effort. And the place you’re going to discover it is inside of yourself: you do have a sense inside yourself. Let’s call it a spiritual sense, within you, that is able to perceive the truth about God that is able to perceive truth outside. It sometimes takes a while to know what’s true. You have to keep going back and feeling that, being in touch with that through some type of meditative experience. But you will know the truth. Eventually it’ll get stronger every day; you’ll be more certain of it: You just have to let that grow, again, through your effort through your sincerity.
It’s really about removing a lot of these layers of thoughts and assumptions and stereotypes. Think of the negative experiences that you may have experienced, or other people have. Let’s just think about it for a minute. If we look at traditional religion, the biggest thing right now is we’re finding that a lot of religious institutions have abused their power, a lot of them. We know through the ages, there have been wars, the accumulation of money and power, persecution, etc. Today, it seems even more, more obvious. You can find sexual abuse scandals, where people in power, just abused boys, women, you name it. We find people running religious institutions and living in tremendous luxury. It’s widespread. We have churches in the United States where people are bringing automatic weapons to the service. This isn’t widespread. We have people being hypocritical, persecuting others, and they say they’re religious. And it goes on and on.
You may have been taught that God is an angry God, that God is some old man that’s judging your life . . . has a microscope out just making a list of what you’ve done wrong. And when you do something wrong, he’s checked it off, and you’re either going to hell, or you’re going to heaven. And in the end, if you’re going to hell, you’re going to suffer for eternity. That’s another idea that’s floating around about God that God is angry, that God doesn’t really forgive you. There’s a lot around that, that somehow as a baby–here’s another one–that you were born with sin on your soul with some type of debt, and that unless you repay that or eliminate that debt, that you cannot experience the love of God. These are all false assumptions. These are negative experiences.
And we’ve also been taught in the wider culture that God is a taboo subject. We just don’t want to talk about God: we’re going to keep it we’re going to call it mindfulness. We’re going to call it whatever. One of the biggest taboos in Western society is that you’re just not going to talk about God. And the reason I think the that exists is that there has been so much negativity around God, as you know, especially when you look back at the Middle Ages, the church, at least in the Western world, the Christian church, the Catholic Church, was totalitarian and controlled every aspect of life, many times persecuted people, many times tortured people. And it was absolute and monolithic in Europe, and that’s what the Reformation was all about.
There was a revolt by intellectuals against all of this, and we’re still living with that today; Western society is still, in a way, revolting against the totalitarianism of that church. So people are in a place where we think God is covered with garbage. And we think God is a pretty bad God. There is a widespread antipathy or confusion about God, because of all . . . I’ll call it garbage. Right? It’s a sexual abuse scandals. It’s the misuse of money, and power. It’s the anti-, I’d say, the anti-God, culture. It’s all out there. There are assumptions that God cannot be a person, that God cannot be a person you can talk to. That’s an assumption. I’m not going to try to change your mind on that. But these are things that your Spirit will teach you as you go within.
But the God that you deserve is a God, that’s better than you can possibly imagine. And if we just to think for a moment, about stripping away all of that garbage, and what’s leftover, God has to be better than our negative assumptions about God. Think of it: God, if we go back, whether you believe in the Big Bang or not, there is a point in in time, if we go back far enough, when there was no universe . . . there had to be something before the universe was even created. There had to be a first cause of everything. Okay, we had a big bang . . . What was before the Big Bang, what was before all that? And if we go back to that, there’s has to be a God. Even intellectually, when you think about that, and as you start to think about your own experience, your inner spirit, if you are open, if we remove the garbage ( I asked you to suspend these assumptions and just let your inner spirit start to teach you), I think you’re going to realize that you really are going to get the God you deserve.
You will begin to learn that you are a child of God, of the God that created the entire universe. Just accept that, accept that this God is the source of all good–the potential for all good. Think of the most amazing human beings that you admire. God is far, far, far beyond that and is the potential for that. God is absolute love. God is a being that you can have a relationship with: You are a child of God. You have an inner spirit, that is a part of God and is showing you the way. God is absolute love. God is the Absolute Person and will give you security, assurance, confidence, power, and peace. God existed and will always exist independently of any religion, any philosophy, any culture, any person. God is there.
So all the negativity of garbage is just that. It’s just stuff blowing around. And we need to cut through that. I encourage you to cut through that and kind of suspend many of these assumptions about God, and realize that so much of this is because we have had negative experiences with people who say they are religious. We have had false teachings about who God really is. And it’s led to a lot of pain. But I want to encourage you for a second to just open your mind about who God really is.
I’m going to read you something from The Urantia Book, and it’s a it’s a parable from Jesus. And just open your mind for a minute. This is the kind of God that we have–a God without the garbage. Okay, here’s the quote from Jesus in The Urantia Book:
“A certain man had two sons; one, the younger, was lighthearted and carefree, always seeking for a good time and shirking responsibility, while his older brother was serious, sober, hard-working, and willing to bear responsibility. Now these two brothers did not get along well together; they were always quarreling and bickering. The younger lad was cheerful and vivacious, but indolent and unreliable; the older son was steady and industrious, at the same time self-centered, surly, and conceited. The younger son enjoyed play but shunned work; the older devoted himself to work but seldom played. This association became so disagreeable that the younger son came to his father and said: `Father, give me the third portion of your possessions which would fall to me and allow me to go out into the world to seek my own fortune.’ And when the father heard this request, knowing how unhappy the young man was at home and with his older brother, he divided his property, giving the youth his share.
“And then, after the happy father had led the footsore and weary lad into the house, he called to his servants: `Bring on the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry, for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they all gathered about the father to rejoice with him over the restoration of his son.
“About this time, while they were celebrating, the elder son came in from his day’s work in the field, and as he drew near the house, he heard the music and the dancing. And when he came up to the back door, he called out one of the servants and inquired as to the meaning of all this festivity. And then said the servant: `Your long-lost brother has come home, and your father has killed the fatted calf to rejoice over his son’s safe return. Come in that you also may greet your brother and receive him back into your father’s house.’
“But when the older brother heard this, he was so hurt and angry he would not go into the house. When his father heard of his resentment of the welcome of his younger brother, he went out to entreat him. But the older son would not yield to his father’s persuasion. He answered his father, saying: `Here these many years have I served you, never transgressing the least of your commands, and yet you never gave me even a kid that I might make merry with my friends. I have remained here to care for you all these years, and you never made rejoicing over my faithful service, but when this your son returns, having squandered your substance with harlots, you make haste to kill the fatted calf and make merry over him.’
“Since this father truly loved both of his sons, he tried to reason with this older one: `But, my son, you have all the while been with me, and all this which I have is yours. You could have had a kid at any time you had made friends to share your merriment. But it is only proper that you should now join with me in being glad and merry because of your brother’s return. Think of it, my son, your brother was lost and is found; he has returned alive to us!'”
“Within a few weeks the young man gathered together all his funds and set out upon a journey to a far country, and finding nothing profitable to do which was also pleasurable, he soon wasted all his inheritance in riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a prolonged famine in that country, and he found himself in want. And so, when he suffered hunger and his distress was great, he found employment with one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into the fields to feed swine. And the young man would fain have filled himself with the husks which the swine ate, but no one would give him anything.
“One day, when he was very hungry, he came to himself and said: `How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare while I perish with hunger, feeding swine off here in a foreign country! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no more worthy to be called your son; only be willing to make me one of your hired servants.’ And when the young man had reached this decision, he arose and started out for his father’s house.
“Now this father had grieved much for his son; he had missed the cheerful, though thoughtless, lad. This father loved this son and was always on the lookout for his return, so that on the day he approached his home, even while he was yet afar off, the father saw him and, being moved with loving compassion, ran out to meet him, and with affectionate greeting he embraced and kissed him. And after they had thus met, the son looked up into his father’s tearful face and said: `Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no more worthy to be called a son’—but the lad did not find opportunity to complete his confession because the overjoyed father said to the servants who had by this time come running up: `Bring quickly his best robe, the one I have saved, and put it on him and put the son’s ring on his hand and fetch sandals for his feet.’ (Paper 169:1.6)
This is one of Jesus’s favorite parables from The Urantia Book. And this is a God without the garbage; this is a God that has unconditional love. No matter what you’ve done in your life, no matter what you’ve said to God, no matter what you’ve squandered, that God really wants to help you go forward. No matter what situation you’re in, no matter what your suffering, your confusion, God will help you be happy in that situation. That’s the kind of God that we have. God does not belong to any church, or organization; God is not part of any religion doesn’t belong to any religion; God is not controlled by any religion.
Religions are a human institution, invention, belief system, about the experience of God, or based on different teachers. So, when we strip all that away, you’re left with your one to one experience with God. And as you build this experience, this can be an experience of God without the garbage, the garbage of the negative experiences. You’ve had the garbage of what religions have done in the name of God, the prejudices, the assumptions, the scandals, the misuse of power, the abuses, etc. God is not part of that. God does not condone that. The real livers of spirituality are people who are responding directly to the will of God, to the leading of the Spirit within, and they’re showing good fruits in their lives. They’re helping people; they’re being kind; they’re being balanced; they’re being selfless.
The original religion of Jesus is a religion of service, of serving others, of helping other people grow, to have a better world. It is a religion of a God, without the garbage. It is a one-to-one experience of you and your dear, loving God. Please understand that God is not a man. God is not a human. God is not a woman. God is beyond gender. God doesn’t include any of the negative aspects of human beings. And the very, very best that we can think of in in a person is an infinitesimal bit of the eternal goodness of God, of the infinite total goodness of God. You will discover these truths within when you come with that sincerity–that hunger for truth; when you put forth the effort and you look inside, you will discover this, you will discover a God without the garbage because you deserve this.
This is what you were meant for. This is your human birthright, your human birthright is as a child of God, as a son or daughter of God. That’s your birthright. You think about it: The very creator of the entire universe–all those billions of galaxies, all the people on them, all the stars, everything, all of that life–that creator . . . the all-powerful, all loving Creator of all reality, an endless universe, is your loving, Universal Father, not a male, not a man, not a woman, but takes the role of a father of the initiator, upholder and sustainer of all reality.
And that part of God, that God has placed a part of himself inside you, a divine spirit, that is your direct link to him. So, you have an instantaneous phone line to God. And when you come with that sincerity, with that hunger for truth, with that open mindedness, and you sit and you wait and you take time to be with God, you will gradually discover the truth about yourself and God. And then it’ll be an eternal adventure in eternal growth. So, you can do it, you really can. Things can get better. It’s a gradual process; it isn’t going to be instantaneous.
But please, please be assured that God is independent of religions, and you can have a direct experience of your loving, dear divine parent.
Let’s take a look at the steps to find God without the garbage. Now the steps are very, very simple. But in the beginning, they’re a little difficult. So, step number one is you have to come with a sincere desire for the truth and growth. Above all else, if you’re not sure about whether you’re interested in finding the truth, if you’re still holding on to those negative assumptions, and stereotypes and those experiences, it’s going to be harder: You’re just not going to be able to get through. But what you need to do is, when you feel the desire to know more, when you have that curiosity about life about yourself, immediately, make time wherever you are, to be silent, and express that desire for truth. Whatever your belief in God is, whatever your negative experiences may have been, just express your heart inside yourself about this desire for truth. Keep doing that, and listen.
So number one, you’re gonna pour your heart out sincerely with a hunger for that truth and a desire to move on and grow. And as you do that, you will gradually experience more and more of the spirit within of God. And as you do that, you’ll start to learn more and more about the nature of God; you will discover God without the garbage; you will discover that your loving, Universal Father is more amazing and stupendous than you could ever imagine and that the best possible future you can imagine, the most amazing, rewarding future is nothing compared to the spiritual adventure, and your birthright your destiny that He has defined for you.
Remember, you are a unique combination of who you are: your personality, your gifts, your place in life and your place at this time in history. You have a unique contribution that you can make. And if you choose, if you go forward, this is an eternal process: You will be resurrected after you die. And be assured (that’s what I talked about in my last podcast) that you will be. Membership in an organization, membership in a church, is not the ticket, of course, to resurrection. The ticket to this eternal journey is being willing to listen to the Divine leading and follow it. What you believe actually isn’t even the ticket. Accepting the truth within, the truth is that you are a child of God, that you have an eternal destiny . . . that opens up advanced levels of truth and teaching. And that’s a great thing when you get there. But if you have a desire for God and you start to follow that leading, that’s gonna get you there.
The steps of finding God without the garbage . . . Once again, it’s making those times to pour out your heart completely. And then listening. This is what many people refer to as prayer. Right now the popular term is mindfulness. But you know, just find a place where (maybe it’s in your room, maybe it’s in nature) where you’re just going to sit for a little bit. Do a little bit every day, a little bit every morning, maybe a minute at first. If you do it every day, it’ll grow. And you will begin to discover God without the garbage; you will begin to have your deepest desire, your deepest hunger for truth, satisfied; you’ll start to get answers; you’ll start to feel the absolute complete love of the Creator of the entire universe within you. God is going to give you the God without the garbage.
The ideal God will give you everything you need to move forward in your life to grow spiritually. God answers prayers with spiritual growth, with power, with assurance, for more advancement, to find your destiny. And that’s really how you find that path forward. As you spend more time with God you will learn more truth; when you spend more time with the God without the garbage, you begin to realize that leading, and as you follow that leading my friend, you will increase your capacity to feel it more and to know God at a deeper level. That’s the beauty of it. It’s like a muscle, you just keep expanding and getting stronger. You increase your capacity the more you try: Just trying as good.
You’re going to have your own path; you’re going to have your own unique adventure that God has for you. And it will be endless. And that’s really God without the garbage. So please, don’t allow anyone for a moment longer. To keep you from the God you deserve, to keep you from your human birthright, to keep you from your eternal birthright given to you directly by the Universal Father, by your Heavenly Father, the Ultimate Creator Sustainer of the entire universe. Don’t let anyone take that from you, no matter what you’ve been through. You’ve suffered enough. Don’t let them keep taking your birthright from you!
Despite what our culture may say, despite the negative experiences you’ve had, despite your disappointment, know that nothing, none of this can truly stop you If you want to know the truth. God is waiting for you. Your loving, loving parent is waiting for you and has everything you need within. The Spirit he has given you is the absolute source of inspiration, of confidence, of truth. And you can go forward from there. You can go out into the world confidently listen to different people talk about truth, read things, observe things, and your inner spirit from our loving Heavenly Father is going to let you know if that’s true or not.
Your inner spirit is going to give you the strength to face challenges in your life. The spiritual life is not about avoiding challenges or just trying to feel peaceful; it’s not about that. Your birthright–human life now and after death–is about taking that adventure and growing, about stretching yourself, about pushing yourself. Right now that might not seem possible: that’s okay. But you will gradually grow into a person more capable, more confident, more accomplished than you could ever imagine. Despite what you think of yourself, despite your limitations, because the ultimate source of power and inspiration and light and truth is within you.
The Spirit of our loving Heavenly Father, of our loving Universal Father, is within you. There is no limit. When we give ourselves absolutely to discovering the truth, to discovering the divine leading for ourselves, and when we try to follow that leading, every time we try, we grow our capacity; there’s a new divine invasion of our souls. We grow and grow and grow toward that greater person. Remember, it’s not the speed of your growth that’s important: It’s just that you’re making progress. This is not going to be instantaneous, but I promise you, when you take the time and give yourself to this, it will be beneficial. Just do a little bit every day and grow from there. And you can have the God without the garbage. You deserve it.
It’s time for a new era in your life. It’s time for a new era for humankind.
Thanks again for joining me today on podcast number three for Saturday, November 26, 2022. This podcast has been God Without the Garbage: Removing Roadblocks to Your Human Birthright. You deserve it. I hope you have a great week. And I’ll see you next time. Of course, you can check out my website for more info and on December 10, don’t forget, my new book, Profound Prayer is coming out. It’s on Amazon: Actually, you can preorder it right now, the eBook, for 1/3 the regular price, 2.99 US dollars. But anyway, there’s lots of free stuff on my website, etc. I hope you have a great week and a great day. Take care now. Bye bye.
–Chris Lepine
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