Real Christianity is real simple. It's about one thing only: just listen and obey the Holy Spirit.
Every human being is programmed to want and give unconditional love. It is part of our human nature.
The Holy Spirit is the voice inside of you (usually in the form of thoughts) which nudges you to do something out of unconditional love (for yourself and for others). To be a Christian means to make the choice to obey that voice as quickly and often as you can. If you practice this simple activity, you will eventually be able to live and act like Jesus.
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About Spiritual Springs
Spiritual Springs has evolved over time and is now on its third iteration. While the main, divinely-assigned mission remains the same (communicate the Truth in a simple way, so that it can be effective), the current focus is now on spiritual mentoring. To support this ministry, we continue selling printed products.
The basic principle of the last iteration has remained the same: if you dedicate yourself to giving unconditional love to the human beings around you, everything else (peace, faith, wealth, etc) will spring out of you effortlessly. Spiritual Springs continues to focus on helping others in that journey.
Learning Options
First and foremost, read the Summary of Teachings below. If you find it agreeable, put it in practice.
To help you with that, we have Bible reading plans of different lengths (1 year, 3 months, 7 days) available on the online store.
If you still face challenges, or just need to ask occasional questions, mentorship is available (spiritual director). This is a monthly session provided at no cost, but candidates will be screened for commitment and genuine interest. Contact us to begin the process.
More detailed teaching is in our books, available on the online store.
To shop for printed products, click here.
Summary of Teachings
What exactly is unconditional love?
The best way to find out what unconditional love looks like is to read the Bible.
But if you're in a hurry, here is the summary: it is about self-sacrifice without self-denial.
It's that desire to perform an act of kindness out of the goodness of your heart. It doesn't feel like it is costing you anything.
How to know if a desire (or thought) is from unconditional love (the Holy Spirit) or not?
Does it come out of love, joy and peace? or out grief, fear, or anger?
The Bible helps you calibrate your sense of what is love.
The Bible has stood the test of time as a great book to help you calibrate your sense of unconditional love.
However, the Holy Spirit might also lead you into other teachings and books that might help you.
How do you know if they are helping or leading you astray?
See if they contradict the Bible and your basic intuitive knowledge of unconditional love. This is a very intuitive exercise. You know what this love is like. You already have deep inside of you the understanding of what is unconditional love.
The more you know yourself, the easier it is to determine if the desire is coming from unconditional love or from something else.
How do you know if something contradicts the Bible? How do you know what the Bible really says?
To discover the true meaning of the Bible, you must understand it's symbols.
Use Strong's concordance to find all occurrences of the same symbol (for example: light, water, earth, tree, fruit, brightness, dove, man). This will give you a sense of what a symbol means in the Bible's language.
If that sounds too complicated, just do this: read the whole Bible from start to finish, like a story book. Read it like you read Lord Of The Rings. Don't worry about having faith or not, or whether what is says is true or not, etc. Just read it - the whole Bible, in the sequence which it is presented.
Additionally, it works even better if you read a whole book (Genesis, Exodus, etc) in one sitting.
If, after reading the whole Bible once, you feel no different, try reading it again. And again. The third time's a charm.
How does reading the Bible in this way work?
When you become familiar with the symbols and their meaning, they will act on you effortlessly to make you grow spiritually. This is because they act on an intuitive /unconscious level (this is why we say that "images speak louder than words").
As you read the Bible (and continue obeying the nudges of the Holy Spirit to give unconditional love to the people around you), you will become more and more like Christ, and get and closer to God every day, without much effort.
This works because every human being has the seed of the Holy Spirit. If you nourish It (by obeying It's voice and reading the Bible), It will grow and mature into a spiritual tree.
The other interesting thing is that, once you've been initiated on the symbols, even non-Bible material will work (for example, looking at a candle being lit will remind you of God's love/light/energy and get you closer to Him).
By the way, one of the major roles of church rituals (like communion) is to remind you of and reinforce the meaning of the Bible's symbols.
How do you know if your interpretation of a symbol is correct?
Most symbols used in the Bible have a universal intuitive meaning for every human being (for example, we all know that water is used to wash things and make them clean, hence why water baptism is a symbol of spiritual cleansing).
This is where analogical reasoning skills are useful (this means the ability to think in analogies). Symbols are analogies of what they represent. For example, the Virgin Mary is an analogy of your virgin "psychological body" (or soulish body) which contains the seed of the Holy Spirit, which gets fertilized by God and eventually gives birth to the baby Holy Spirit (Jesus' gestation, birth, spiritual growth, death, resurrection and ascension are an analogy of your own spiritual journey).
When trying to understand a symbol, it is also useful to ponder what it represents (ie, to what is it analogous?)
Use your intuition (the Holy Spirit) to find these answers. You already have this knowledge in you.
Of course you also need to use some intelligence and logical reasoning. All your interpretations should be coherent with each other. Also keep in mind that some symbols might mean different things in different contexts (water can mean baptism but it can also mean turbulent emotions).
Why is this better than reading commentaries or listening to sermons?
The Bible is such a well-crafted masterpiece, that it has many layers of meaning (literal, symbolic, etc).
For the most part, all layers are true. Unless, of course, its clear that one of them isn't. For example, the mustard seed which becomes a tree in Luke 13:19 is not real in the literal layer (mustard is a bush); the passage is symbolic, and is talking about your spiritual tree (also called the tree of righteousness or tree of life).
Speaking from experience, the layer that is most effective at truly changing a person is the symbolic layer.
This is because the Bible is an extremely logical book (but not a 21st century logic). The process of spiritual growth is a 7-step journey of trust-building with God. This archetypal journey, which is repeated fractally throughout the whole Bible (starting with the 7 days of creation in Genesis), is what makes you grow up spiritually. As you read the stories, you go through the journey yourself.
Most Protestant education has focused on the literal layer, to the detriment of the symbolic one. This is in part because the symbolic layer cannot be transmitted through explanatory teaching.
You have to internalize the Bible's symbols yourself. No one can do this for you.
This is why it's important that, when studying the Bible, you don't let humans tell you what the Bible says. Read the Bible for yourself and ask the Holy Spirit (your intuitive knowledge) what it is saying. Then, if you are still in doubt, check your understanding with what others have said.
If you've been in Christianity for a while, or if you have preconceived ideas about it, you will have to set aside everything you've heard and known about the Bible so far - otherwise, this might not work. Read the Bible like you've never heard of Christianity before. Be open to what it truly says. Read it with a curious mind.
How will I know that this is working?
As you study the Bible and grow spiritually, the Holy Spirit will give you wisdom, and you will be able to effortlessly know if something is aligned with unconditional love or not.
You will also receive the Fruit of the Spirit (ie, the results of having a consecrated spirit) listed in Gal 5:22-23 (ability to love others unconditionally, joy despite circumstances, faith in God, self-control, wealth in all its forms, etc) - effortlessly.
As you continue growing, you will later receive the Gifts of the Spirit (ie, the results of having a consecrated soul) listed in 2 Cor 12:7-10, 28-30 (ability to heal others through prayer, clairvoyance, accelerated learning, etc) also effortlessly.
Notice how in both cases, the analogy is correct: a tree does not make an effort to produce fruit and you don't make an effort to receive gifts.
Anything achieved through a person's own effort is not from the Holy Spirit. The truly spiritual Christianity produces results effortlessly, because they come from God.
If a person has become happier, more loving, etc because they have "worked on themselves" or gone to a "Christian" counselor then they did not produce the Fruit of the Spirit. Rather, it's a work of the soul (it is a noble pursuit, but it's not from the Holy Spirit).
In the same token, if a person has learned how to prophesy or cultivated the ability to pray and get others healed, it is not the Gift of the (Holy) Spirit. Rather, it's the "gift" of some other spirit, or it is the person's self-righteous use of the occult forces (either way, these powers are not from God and cooperating with them will lead you down a destructive path).
What are some other ways to discern spiritual Christianity from philosophical Christianity?
Most (if not all) of Protestant Christianity today is simply a beautiful philosophy. This is why it requires so much rational, intellectual and argumentative teaching. It is why scholars need to dedicate themselves to countless discussions about theological concepts (like "infant vs adult baptism" or "once saved always saved vs saved-lost, saved-lost"). And at its worse, it leads to practices like "harmonizing" passages with each other (ie, twisting the Bible's words to justify a wrong interpretation).
This perpetuates a Christianity that is just a theory. And because it cannot be applied to real life, the only solution for putting it into practice is to borrow techniques from other domains and slap Christian jargon onto it (hence why we have things like "Christian" self-help books, "Christian" therapists, and even "Christian" yoga).
Real, spiritual Christianity produces change effortlessly because it comes from the Holy Spirit. The true, spiritual Christianity is practical, and it works. But for it to work, you have to set your self and your own efforts aside. You do that by building a relationship of trust with (and obedience to) the Holy Spirit.
Speaking from experience, the true fruits and true gifts are truly effortless.
The only price you pay for them is to give God your unconditional allegiance. It is to surrender your whole self to Him. It is to dedicate your life to learning how to love your fellow human beings unconditionally the way Jesus loved (and learning it from Him instead of from people). This complete surrender of the self might feel like a heavy price, but it won't feel heavy at all when you experience the bliss of His love for you. When you experience His unconditional love for you, it will echo with the Holy Spirit seed that is inside of you, and will feel right. It will feel good. It will feel like this is exactly what you've been looking for your whole life - and you will want more of it.
I am praying that you will experience this Love soon.
Ready to start your journey?
Real Christianity is a lifelong commitment. It is not a self-help "30 days to a happier you" type of program. Start seeking the Holy Spirit's help just a bit more than what you already do today. When you are ready, make the decision to have Him as your only teacher.
If you want to accelerate this process, read the Bible as explained above (with an open mind, looking at the symbolic layer). Reading plans of different lengths (1 year, 3 months, 7 days) are available on our online store.
I am praying that your journey will be fruitful. God bless you!