My Journey to Trusting God instead of People who define God.

Is it right for people to conclude that when one starts questioning the doctrines and beliefs one has been taught, questioning the  rituals and practices that are considered biblical, questioning bible interpretations, questioning bible infallibility, questioning bible errorless-ness, one is traveling down a slippery-slope to the abyss of being anti-God, anti-Christ and anti-Gospel?

I would say a big yes when it comes to having God, Christ, the Bible and the Gospel wrapped up in a little denominated box that fits one's denominated belief. I know I am definitely ANTI...God, Christ, Bible and Gospel when it comes to some of the how's, why's, and what's I believed about God, Christ, the Bible and the Gospel that was programmed into me by the religious meaning of such!

Contrary to what some people say, God is not angered by questioning what we think or believe about Him just because the preachers and teachers that did instructed you to believe what you believe about God as truth, nor is He angered when we challenge the core beliefs we accepted as truth. Because some of things I was taught about the Bible, God, Jesus and the Gospel didn't add up or support a "changeless" God, the character that Jesus showed us about God, Bible interpretation and doctrines or God's Gospel of Grace and Love, I decided to scrutinize all of what I had been taught through the lens of Jesus.

Guess what...though somewhat taken aback in discovering that what I accepted as truth did not support what Jesus revealed about God  and the Gospel, Church or doctrine, caused me to question denominated interpretation of the Bible. I could not ignore these findings and rather than turn a blind eye to my heart I slowly and methodically began to accept that the traditional beliefs that were passed to me by  the man, influenced and trained religious seminarian that religion was the way to God and what God wanted the untrained pew-warmers to know would come from the spiritually trained "man-of-God," who was more spiritually enlightened to receive from God what the pew-warmers needed through a Sunday-programmed-event-driven-meeting in a people segregating name-tagged building called Church.

When I started this journey some fifteen or so years ago, I knew there was a big risk of being misunderstood by my family and friends and my spiritual siblings. I thoroughly understand that, because being subjected to someone questioning what is the accepted belief for centuries and belief that is cemented in "orthodoxy" and "tradition" causes the one doing the questioning to be subjected to being tagged as a suspicious individual who has to be watched with care and more often than not, eventually tagged as one who has become an heretical apostate who has departed from the faith and needs to be given a wide marginalized berth.

Then the labeling starts...He has succumbed to liberalism, he is spiritually immature, he is heretical to the point of being cultish, he never really was apart of us, etc.. such labels are intended squash any meaningful discussion and dialogue and prevent people from thinking fro themselves or to ask questions regarding the status quo.

Christ said "become as a "little child for such is the kingdom of heaven". Question without fear of reprisal is the way of a child. A child is the one with nothing to gain or nothing to lose in being given a honest assessment and is the most willing to ask uninhibited questions and will proclaim the simple truth regardless of the disagreeing majority.

The refusal of people to become as a little child in their learning spiritual truths is a factor that prevents them from entering God's kingdom of heaven on earth where there is freedom for Christ to do His work through them to influence the Community of Humanity for God.

If we do not question our beliefs and doctrines we will never know if they are truth!