"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." (John 14:1)

Why would their 'hearts be troubled'?

Jesus is saying this to his disciples as he is explaining that he will be leaving the physical world and returning to the spiritual realm:

"My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come." (John 13:33)

This caused his followers great concern because their spiritual teacher was leaving them. This is an expected response from serious students who have come to rely upon the instructions of their spiritual teacher.

Yet Jesus is clarifying to them that they can continue to follow him. He is giving them the instructions by which they can continue growing in their spiritual lives, and stay connected with him. He is giving them the instructions by which they can continue to develop their loving relationship with the Supreme Being.

Why is 'trust' so important to Jesus?

Jesus tells them clearly to trust in the Supreme Being: "Trust in God". And he follows that by instructing them to trust in him as well.

The word "trust" is being translated from the Greek word πιστεύω (pisteuō), which means, according to the lexicon, "to think to be true, to be persuaded of, to credit, place confidence in," and of course "to trust in."

To trust in a peer typically means to believe in what they may say or do. It also means that we can rely on them to be truthful about something, or rely on them to do what they say they will do.

But to trust in the Supreme Being communicates this along with something greater: It means to be able to depend on and rely upon God to the point where we can give our lives to the Supreme Being, and have confidence that the Supreme Being will always look after us, take care of us, and will always have our best interests in mind. It means to take refuge in the Supreme Being.

This contrasts greatly with the trust that we can put upon a peer, who does not have the power nor the perfection of the Supreme Being. God's children were created with the freedom of love and the ability to make mistakes. And we indeed make plenty of mistakes. This is because we are not God. We are not perfect. We are subject to making mistakes. Therefore, we cannot be completely reliant on another person. We can make mistakes. Even if we intend well, we can let someone down.

Also, we do not have the power and the authority of the Supreme Being. We are not in control. We might each have a small amount of control over our own choices, but we cannot control everything. Therefore, while we might trust another person to be honest, we cannot rely upon them in terms of always taking care of us.

This is an issue in many relationships of this world. Two people may get together and begin to feel love for one another. They begin to trust each other. Then they begin to say stuff like "I'll always be there for you," and "I will take care of you."

We can certainly appreciate an intention to take care of us. But the other person does not have the ability to take care of us in all situations. Nor can they control what might happen. This is because they are not God. They cannot control the weather. They cannot control sickness, disease, and death. 

But we can trust that the Supreme Being will take care of us, as Jesus promises here. Jesus is telling his disciples to trust in God because he knows that God will take care of them. He knows that God loves them and has their best interests at heart.

Many people do not believe this. Many, in fact, will question God's existence.

Can we 'trust in God'?

But through it all, if we trust in God, and we trust in the teachings of Jesus (which tell us to trust in God), then we will be relying upon the Supreme Being, and He will always take care of us.

In fact, God will take care of us regardless of whether we trust Him or not. He loves us unconditionally. He cares for us even if we blaspheme Him.

But if we follow Jesus' teachings, and we trust in the Supreme Being, we meet a different fate. We begin to return to our original relationship with the Supreme Being. Trust is a thing that takes place between two individuals. For there to be trust, there must be the trustor and the trustee. A trustor is a person who trusts or relies upon the trustee. This means that there is a relationship between the two: A relationship of trust.

If we follow Jesus' teaching and we trust God, we begin to re-develop our original trusting, dependent relationship with Him. In the spiritual realm, everyone is dependent upon the Supreme Being. And as a result, everyone is fulfilled and happy, because they enjoy a loving, trusting relationship with the Perfect Person.

We can resume our dependent spiritual relationship with the Supreme Being simply by trusting Him. We can trust that no matter what situation our temporary physical body is in, He is trying to teach us something that will benefit us. We can trust that we will come away from this temporary situation knowing more about ourselves and about life than we had before. 

We can trust that ultimately, the lessons we learn will help bring us back to Him, because that is the only thing that will truly make us happy - and the Supreme Being wants us to be happy.

Should we 'surrender to Jesus'?

Some teachers instruct their followers to "surrender to Jesus." What do they mean by this? Their teaching is that if we surrender to Jesus, we will be saved.

They are right, but not necessarily in the manner they teach. They are teaching surrender to Jesus in an isolated way. They are forgetting about the Supreme Being. When Jesus says "trust also in me" the word "also" is the key operator. The word "also" is translated from the Greek word καί (kai), which, according to Thayer's Lexicon, is "copulative." 

"Copulative" means the word connects the phrase following to the previous phrase; in this case, "Trust in God". Thus Jesus is saying that trusting in Jesus must be connected to trusting in God.

This is also clarified in Jesus' other teachings. To "surrender" to someone means to follow their instructions. In this statement, Jesus is instructing us to trust in the Supreme Being. 

Therefore, his instruction is that we actually need to rely upon and become dependent upon the Supreme Being - the same Supreme Being that Jesus relies upon and is dependent upon.

Jesus also instructed his students to do God's will. This service to God is connected to Jesus' ultimate instruction - which we must follow if we truly trust Jesus:

“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matt. 22:37-38)

If God exists, why is there so much suffering?

For those who question whether there is a God, most of this doubt comes from the observation of suffering in this world.

The question posed is sometimes stated as, "If God exists, why are so many suffering?"

This is also asked about children because children are considered innocent: Why do children suffer?

The answer is not adequately answered by ecclesiastical Christian teachers. This is because they do not know. They stumble to answer this question because they do not know the answer.

The answer lies in knowing our real identity. Most of us think we are these physical bodies. Yet our physical body is a changing and temporary vehicle. Science now knows that the atoms and molecules making up our bodies are constantly recycling. Within five years we have a completely different body on. It is like looking at a waterfall: Its water is always changing.

We can look at the body we wore when we were a baby. That is not the same body we occupy today. It was a different body.

Therefore, we know, not only scientifically, but from teachings passed down for thousands of years that we are not these physical bodies. We are spiritual persons who are temporarily occupying physical bodies.

We have come to occupy these physical bodies because we were booted out of the spiritual realm. The spiritual realm is a place of humble love, where its citizens care for the Supreme Being and God's children more than themselves. But since we also have freedom (and love requires freedom), some of us chose a different path. We chose to be self-centered rather than loving God-centered.

Here we were given the opportunity to exercise our desires, but in a virtual realm that was set up by the Supreme Being to also function as a place of learning: A rehabilitation center of sorts.

Who suffers in a video game?

We might compare the physical world and this temporary body to playing a video game. A person can sit down at a computer, pick a game icon, and begin playing the game. The video game will have certain rules that the player must play by. The video game icon will undergo various tests, and may be shot at, beat up or crash. Sometimes the icon might be blown up and the game is over.

However, regardless of the results of the video game and whether the game icon is hurt or killed, we can still turn off the computer and walk away from the video game unscathed.

This can be compared to the physical world. Our bodies are not us. They are like virtual icons that we occupy while we are here. But like a well-designed game that draws us in, the physical world tricks us into thinking that we are these physical bodies. That even though the body is constantly changing, we identify with it, thinking that it is us.

This also means that the various sufferings that occur in and around our body do not actually affect the real person within: the spiritual self. At the time of death, each of us will leave our physical body behind, like the video game, unscathed.

This does not mean we do not take away the lessons we learn while here. Just like the video game player who walks away from the computer remembering the experience of the game and even learning its lessons - which is why people who repeatedly play the same game will continually get better - we leave our physical body with the lessons learned during our physical lifetimes.

Does a video icon suffer?

So as we consider the original question - regarding the suffering that exists in the physical world - we can know that the sufferings of the virtual physical world do not happen to us. They happen to a virtual avatar or icon - a temporary physical body - that we wear for a while.

In a computer game, say a video war game where icons get blown up, does the video gamer get blown up when his icon gets blown up? No. Does the video gamer get hurt when his icon gets punched or otherwise harmed in the video game? No.

Blaming the Supreme Being for this world might thus be compared to a gamer blaming the company or programmer who created the video game when their icon gets blown up in the game. It would be nonsensical because the gamer is fine. There is no harm to the gamer when the icon in the game gets blown up or punched for example.

In the same way, the spirit-person - the soul - is not harmed when the body is harmed. The spirit-person leaves the body fully intact. The soul leaves with some learning experiences, but is otherwise unharmed.

Like the video game, this physical world and this temporary physical body will dissolve at some point, and we will leave it. It is like driving a car. We get in the car, drive it for a while, and then get out.

And even though we may identify with our car (as most people do) we will eventually get out of that car. Even if the car has become severely dented up and the engine stops working, we can still get out of the car unscathed.

What we take away from the physical world are our learning experiences. Just as most video games are programmed to teach certain skills which the player can get better at, the physical world is also programmed to teach.

Is this about consequences?

Most video games are also programmed with consequences. In a car driving video game, for example, if we don't steer correctly or go too fast around the turns our car will crash. After we crash a few times we learn to steer better and slow down around the turns. Even though our game icon might have "died" several times before, we can always keep trying and keep learning more and more until we perfect the skill.

The virtual physical world is the same. Here, when we make mistakes, the body might suffer consequences, but we can learn from those mistakes.

For example, let's say that we walk into a room of people and we want to have fun. So we bring in a squirt gun and begin squirting people with water, getting them wet. At some point, someone gets angry. After we keep spraying people, someone punches us in the face.

Our eye becomes blackened, and we feel pain from being punched. We learned several important lessons (hopefully). We hopefully learned that we should also consider others when we are trying to have fun. We should be attentive about how our actions affect others.

Within a week or two, the black eye and any pain associated with being punched will be gone. What is left are the lessons we learned about the situation. We hopefully have learned an important lesson: we are not the center of the universe.

This is only one lesson of millions that a person will learn in a lifetime. But if we carefully examine the lessons the physical world teaches, we find that most are set up to teach us to lighten up about ourselves, and to care more about others. They are set up to teach us about humility and love.

When we consider any video game, we naturally consider the game's purpose. Is it to teach us to play better tennis? To drive a car better? While most video games are programmed with the purpose of having fun, most games also uniquely teach some kind of skill. And it is learning this skill that interests gamers - even if the skill is how to point and shoot better.

While playing, we can typically see a game's purpose by experiencing its rules and consequences. In the physical world, we can see that the purpose of this "game" is to become better people: To learn to love again, and care for others, and ultimately - if we graduate from this "level" - to learn to love the Supreme Being again.

So as our temporary physical body is taken through a variety of experiences, we can know that we will eventually leave the body unscathed - taking with us only the learning these experiences gave us. Whether we become the President of the United States or spend our life in jail, we still leave the body the same way. We will still leave the physical world only with those learning experiences.

We will leave everything else behind. We will leave all our possessions, and all our money (or lack thereof). We will leave our positions, our fame, our reputations, our credit score, our family, our pet, and our name behind. We will also leave all the suffering of this body behind: 

All of its diseases, tumors, dysfunctions and vulnerabilities. It will all dissolve as quickly as a video game dissolves when the computer is turned off.

Once the computer is turned off, the video gamer must now face reality. This is like when the body dies.

When the body dies, all the material stuff that we care about will dissolve. Then we must face the reality of what we've learned during our venture into the physical world. We must face our spiritual growth. We must face whether we have learned to love and care for others while we were in this world. We must face whether we have grown closer to God.

We must face whether we have taken the time to develop our relationship with God, and whether we trust Him. 

"Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you ..." (John 14:09-12)

Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing His work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." (John 14:09-12)

Is Jesus saying that he is God?

It is clear that Jesus is discussing two individuals in this statement: "I"/"me" from the Greek ἐγώ (egō); and "the Father" from the Greek πατήρ (patēr).

Part of the misunderstanding regarding Jesus' statement lies in the translation* of the words "seen" and "in" within these verses.

The word "seen" is being translated from the Greek word ὁράω (horaō). According to the lexicon, ὁράω can mean "to see with the eyes," but it can also mean, "to see with the mind, to perceive, know," and "become acquainted with by experience, to experience."

Is Jesus talking about Phillip and his disciples seeing God with the physical eyes when they see Jesus' physical body?

That would be nonsensical. Many other people, including the institutional temple Pharisees who had offended Jesus with accusations and hostile questions, and the priests who eventually had Jesus arrested, also saw the physical form of Jesus.

The Romans who murdered Jesus' body also saw his physical body, and the many people who doubted Jesus' teachings also saw Jesus' physical body. Yet we can know by their various statements and actions that none of them saw God when they saw Jesus' physical body.

If they were to see the Supreme Being simply by looking upon Jesus' physical body, they would have certainly believed and followed Jesus' teachings. But they didn't. They in fact did the opposite. This is because they did not see the Supreme Being when they saw Jesus' physical body.

This fact, together with the definition of the word being used - ὁράω (horaō) - indicates clearly that Jesus is not saying that he is the Supreme Being. Nor is Jesus talking about seeing with the physical eyes.

Jesus is talking about perceiving who he really is. This is confirmed by Jesus' initial phrase: "Don't you know me...." - the operator being "know." And because he uses the word "know" together with "seen," we can understand that Jesus is talking about knowing who he is - perceiving who he is - not simply seeing his physical body.

Furthermore, it is nonsensical to interpret that Jesus is saying he is God when he says: "The words I say to you are not just my own." This indicates that his words are coming not only from him, but also from the Supreme Being - a Person separate from Jesus.

This phrase, "The words I say to you are not just my own" also indicates there is a bond between Jesus and the Supreme Being. Since their words are aligned, there is a bond.

What is this bond?

It is the bond of love and service. Jesus is exchanging a loving relationship with the Supreme Being. He is serving God out of love. As a result, he has dedicated his life to pleasing the Supreme Being. Thus his message mirrors the Supreme Being's message because Jesus wants to please God. So he is passing on the Supreme Being's message to others.

It is also through this bond - this intimate relationship - that the Supreme Being has empowered Jesus. God authorized Jesus to represent Him.

This intimate relationship with God is what Jesus is describing here. He is wondering why Phillip - after seeing Jesus' many acts of loving devotion to God, including healing people and then commanding them to devote their lives to loving and doing the will of God - still does not perceive Jesus' relationship with God.

This might be compared to an ambassador of a country going to a foreign government and sitting down to negotiate with them, and realizing that the foreign government does not accept the relationship between the ambassador and his government, and thus is not trusting that the ambassador can negotiate on behalf of his government.

To add to the analogy, let's say that during their negotiation, the ambassador promises that his government will send a shipload of food to the foreign country. The food ships to the foreign country and they receive it at their ports. The next day, during their discussions, after the foreign government officials know the food has arrived, they continue to doubt whether the ambassador is truly representing his government and is empowered by his government.

That would be outrageous, because the ambassador just proved to the foreign government that he was empowered, because after he promised food, his government indeed shipped food to the foreign country.

Jesus is discussing a similar situation. After spending so much time with Jesus, hearing his teachings, seeing his miracles, and seeing his devotion to God, Phillip should have had no doubt that Jesus was God's representative. He should have no doubt of the loving relationship that exists between Jesus and the Supreme Being.

What about Jesus being 'in the Father'?

What does Jesus mean when he states, "Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me?" Jesus is not talking about his physical body here. The word "in" is being translated from the Greek word ἐν (en). This word means, according to the lexicon, "in," "by" or "with." If we were to translate the sentence using "with" instead of "in," we can understand the meaning of Jesus' statements more clearly:

"Don't you believe that I am with the Father, and that the Father is with me?"

and:

"Believe me when I say that I am with the Father and the Father is with me;"

Since Jesus is standing in front of Phillip, it would be illogical to imagine that Jesus' physical body is within God. But when we utilize the word "with" we can better understand that Jesus is talking about the bond between Jesus and God. "With" indicates an intimate bond: In this case, a bond of love and loving service. There is a togetherness, as Jesus is lovingly working on behalf of God, and God is reciprocating. Thus Jesus can say that he is "with" God.

This translation also helps clarify his phrase, "The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing His work."

Is this about possession?

God did not possess Jesus' body. Jesus is freely working to please God.

Notice that Jesus is connecting "the words I say" to "doing His work." "The words I say" refers to Jesus' teachings. They refer to what Jesus has been teaching them. This is "His work," evidenced by many other statements of Jesus about his teachings, such as: "My teaching is not my own. It comes from Him who sent me." (John 7:16)

These statements indicate that Jesus, by devoting himself to the Supreme Being, is executing God's mission. This doesn't mean that Jesus has lost control. He certainly can choose - as each of us can at any time - to do God's will or not. But Jesus chooses to do what is pleasing to God. 

And due to his love for God, God is communicating to Jesus what is pleasing to Him, and this relates to Jesus' teaching them about God and how to learn to love and serve God. As Jesus executes this, he can perceive that what he is doing is what God wants him to do.

This is confirmed by Jesus' next statement:

"I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father."

This verse confirms that Jesus did not say he was "in" the Father, because if he was "in" the Father, he couldn't say that he would be "going to the Father." Going to someone doesn't make sense if one is inside that person.

But if we understand Jesus' statement by seeing that Jesus is doing God's will out of his devotion to Him and this establishes a bond between him and God, we can also see how Jesus can say to his disciples that "anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing." If Jesus was the Supreme Being, how could "anyone" "do what I have been doing"? This would make no sense.

Rather, Jesus is indicating that if his disciples truly trusted Jesus' teachings and understood his relationship with God, they could do precisely what Jesus was doing - serving God.

This is indicated by the word "faith," taken from the Greek word πιστεύω (pisteuō). which means, according to the lexicon, "to think to be true, to be persuaded of, to credit, place confidence in." In other words, it means to trust Jesus. It means to have confidence in his teachings.

And just what is Jesus referring to when he says, "will do what I have been doing"? What has Jesus been doing that anyone who trusts in his teachings can also do?

How will he do 'greater things'?

Thus we can know that with the statement, "He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father" Jesus is suggesting a person who takes to heart Jesus' teachings, and then passes them on to others will be doing "greater things" because those teachings are then reaching a broader audience. They are reaching others who may not have heard them before.

Jesus says, "I am going to the Father" because he knows his body will be murdered soon, and he will be leaving the physical world and returning to the spiritual realm to be with the Supreme Being. Before he leaves, he is requesting that his disciples pass on the knowledge Jesus has given them.

The word "anyone" is critical here. Any of us who puts full confidence in Jesus' teachings can learn to love God and please God. Why? Because Jesus' most important teaching is:

“ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matt. 22:37-38)

*Here is the translation of Jesus' statement from the Lost Gospels of Jesus:

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long and still you haven’t come to know me Philip? One who perceives me has perceived the Creator. How can you then say, ‘Show us the Creator?’ Do you not trust that I am with the Creator and the Creator is with me? The words I speak to you are not spoken from my authority: Rather, the Creator abiding with me is doing His work. Trust me that I am with the Creator and the Creator is with me; at least trust the works in themselves. Very truly I say to you, he who trusts in me – the works I do, he will also do – and greater works than these will he do, because I am departing to go to the Creator." (John 14:9-12)

"... blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29)

Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." (John 20:29)

Why did would they not have 'believed'?

Jesus is stating this after Thomas has put his hand into the hole in Jesus' side and confirmed his acceptance that it is Jesus who is appearing before his disciples.

As discussed with the verse previous, this confirms that Jesus did not appear to them in his physical body. Otherwise, there would be no doubt that this was Jesus. 

Indeed, Jesus is appearing to them in an angel-like appearance - one allowing Thomas to put his hand through Jesus' side. Jesus' physical body died, and the spirit-person of Jesus left that body and re-appeared to his students within an angel-like appearance.

They had physically witnessed Jesus during his missionary work. And now he was also appearing before their eyes in an angel-like appearance. So why would they not "believe" in him?

And for those "who did not see" - what would they "believe"? That Jesus appeared to his disciples? Or that Jesus existed?

There is actually no special acclaim for someone to have "believed" that Jesus existed. Most historians accept that Jesus existed - many of whom do not accept the existence of the Supreme Being.

And certainly, those people who saw Jesus walk the earth preaching and did not respect him - even those who persecuted him - certainly "believed" in Jesus' existence. Why wouldn't they "believe?"

What about Jesus dying for our sins?

Yet some interpret that Jesus was talking about believing in him "rising after three days." As if it is a special honor to believe that Jesus "rose" after three days.

What is the special advantage of that?

Many teachers claim that this is about believing that Jesus died for our sins.

This is a strategy designed to attract followers. Sectarian translators, following the Roman Catholic interpretation, set this up in order to attract followers looking for salvation.

And yes, it certainly is an attractive proposal: All we have to do is "believe" that Jesus existed and died for our sins - and we are clean. All our sins are forgiven. We won't have to suffer the consequences of our behavior because Jesus' dying on the cross cleaned it all up for us.

But these institutions don't leave it there. They say we also have to join their institution and come to church and give them some money so they can keep their jobs and five- or six-figure salaries. In other words, the "died for my sins" thing is a lure - bait to bring us in and give them our donations.

And what if we don't give them our donations to buy their big cars and houses? Will they threaten us with "going to hell"?

But why can't we just accept that Jesus died for my sins that once and be done with it? Why do we have to go back to their institution every week - to accept that Jesus died for my sins again?

And what do we hear when we go into their institutions each week? We hear them drone on about - you guessed it - Jesus' dying for our sins. And boy, we sure do like that when they assure us that we're clean. We're good to go. We're not going to hell. After all the crap we've been doing, too.

Some institutions will even pass out little crackers to eat with some juice or wine - saying the crackers are Jesus' body and the juice or wine is Jesus' blood. So they want us to eat his body and drink his blood once a week?

Why are they drinking Jesus' blood?

Sounds a little like a vampire, yet this is the ritual for some sects: They pretend to drink Jesus' blood in the form of wine or grape juice. Then they say they are saved because they drank his blood.

Yes, a vampire is thought of as someone who drinks the blood of others in order to use that blood for themselves. This is called usury.

And usury is precisely what is going on in the name of Jesus in so many of these institutions. They are using Jesus. They are using the torture of Jesus' physical body in order to get cleansed.

That's not so different from the vampire.

The reality is that Jesus did not come to preach usury: He didn't teach that we should use him to be cleansed of our sins - as if he is some sort of doormat for us to wipe our sins off on.

In fact, this is a complete perversion of his teachings.

Just consider what Jesus said when a father asked him to heal his son:

“You unbelieving and perverse generation, how long shall I stay with you and put up with you? Bring your son here.” (Luke 9:41)

What did Jesus mean by "perverse generation"? He meant that instead of them hearing his teachings, many had perverted his message into one related to their own self-centeredness. "Perverse" means to distort and turn something upside down - typically into something that accommodates one's own self.

Jesus was speaking of those who make everything about themselves.

And this is precisely how these institutions are using Jesus. Instead of hearing Jesus' teachings - instructing us to love and serve the Supreme Being - these institutions and their teachers are claiming that Jesus is all about me, myself and mine - how I can be cleansed. How I can get my diseases healed. How I can make more money or get a better job if I "believe" in Jesus.

Are these products of a "perverse generation"?

What Jesus was actually doing was trying to show us how to love and serve someone besides ourselves - God. This was the meaning of his allowing his body to be persecuted. He was serving the Supreme Being. This is why he said just minutes before his arrest:

“My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as You will.” (Matt. 26:39)

Right now all we care about is me, myself, and mine. With perhaps a little family, country and/or institution mixed in. But this is still self-centeredness. It is still all about me and my stuff.

Meanwhile, Jesus is trying to encourage his students to accept his teachings: That they can trust his teachings and follow his teachings teaching us to love and serve the Supreme Being.

This is diametrically opposed to the notion that Jesus' purpose was to cleanse our sins - a self-centered proposal. A proposal based upon a fear of "going to hell."

This fear is - yes - self-centered. It is about me, myself, and mine.

So what is Jesus really saying here to his disciples? He is asking that they "trust" in him and his teachings. That they "trust" in God and "trust" that if we follow Jesus' teachings then we will be fulfilled.

Is this about trust?

Yes, the Greek word πιστεύω (pisteuō) means to "trust" or "have confidence." It is a personal word - someone has to "trust" or "have confidence" in someone else. It is not like believing black holes exist or something. It is trusting that someone is being honest and telling us the truth about something.

Yes, Jesus is saying that he wants their trust. Because he spent years teaching them that they should give their lives to the Supreme Being. That they can rely upon the Supreme Being. That they can love God and serve God.

This requires some effort - even for a follower who saw Jesus walking on the earth before their eyes. Even when it is said by someone who performed miracles. It is still a reach - because our physical eyes cannot see the Supreme Being.

Yes, the Supreme Being is invisible to the physical eyes because each of us rejected our relationship with God at some point. So He let us go. He is giving us our space. He gave us a world and a temporary vehicle (the physical body) that allows us to ignore His existence for a while. So we can act out our self-centered desires.

But He doesn't give up on us. God wants us back. But we have to choose that ourselves. We have to make a determined choice - do we want to return to the spiritual realm or do we want to stay here in hell away from God? Then, if we decide we want to regain our relationship with God, we have to work at changing our consciousness.

If we want to return to the spiritual realm we have to regain our consciousness of love. This means we have to change. Love means caring about the Supreme Being and His children more than we care about me, myself and mine. This is our innate consciousness. This is what fulfills us.

We get a taste of this consciousness when we "fall in love" with another person of this world. For a while, we feel that we want to dedicate ourselves to this person. We do stuff for them. We serve them. And how does this make us feel?

We feel great when we are "in love." It is the greatest feeling - as we compare it to our normally self-centered consciousness.

And it is because of this glimpse into our true consciousness that everyone is chasing this "falling in love" feeling. We all want that feeling.

But the funny thing is - once we find that feeling with someone of this world - it doesn't last. We may still "love" the person, but we typically do not stay "in love" with the person. That wonderful feeling goes away. Why?

Because we realize they aren't that perfect person we expected them to be. We discover their ugly side. We find out they are also - like us - basically self-centered, with many faults.

So we lose our expectation that our being "in love" with them will fulfill us. Because our "falling in love" with them didn't fulfill us. What does that tell us?

It tells us these "in love" feelings of this world are misplaced.

But because we all pine for that feeling of being "in love" - what does that tell us?

It tells us that innately we - the person inside this temporary physical body - needs to be "in love" with the perfect person. Who is that?

It is the Supreme Being. The Supreme Being is that perfect person - that soul mate - we've been looking for.

This is what Jesus was trying to tell his students. But did they trust him? Did they trust him when he told them there is a spiritual dimension they could not see and within that spiritual dimension there is a Supreme Being they can fall in love with, and serve, and give their hearts to?

Yes, some who did not see Jesus' miraculous appearance after the death of his physical body, and did not see his healings and other indications of his special role as God's representative have trusted that Jesus really was telling us the Truth when he told us that loving the Supreme Being will fulfill us:

“ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment.” (Matt. 22:37-38)