He didn't want a fan club. Not worshipers. Not admirers. Followers. Disciples. Apprentices.

I have a beloved brother, Mark. Many brothers I suppose, but  this one is the most dear to me. More importantly, for the Dying World of dead Souls in which I live, I have had more hope in him to help them then in anyone, not as he is, but as he could be. More than any other I have ever encountered.

As long as I have known him he has been horribly concerned that everyone regarding Jesus is on a different page.

He honestly rebuked me and another today, in a conversation we had, that I was doing the same as others, speaking for Jesus. And it makes him very very very upset.

Later on in the morning I objected. I said how am I speaking for Jesus when I speak his words and hold myself strictly completely absolutely and exactly accountable to his words and example?

At the time I did not think to say to him, but you are doing exactly that. You are telling yourself and the world that you are of the spirit, that you know jesus, but you do not hold yourself accountable to his words and behavior. Not even troubling yourself to knowing them. And you can't hold yourself accountable to something that you don't know.

Jesus said, lovingly I expect, 'those that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words I do not judge them. But there is one that judges them on the last day, the words that I have spoken, because they are the words of my father.' And, ' if a man loveth me not, he keepeth not my sayings. And the words that I speak is not mine but the father's that sent me.' And a dozen other such verses in the four canonical gospels that his words are totally completely absolutely eternally indispensable.

This should be so obvious. Not the existence of einstein, not the idea of einstein, not the love of einstein, not the origin story of einstein, but the words and teachings of Einstein enable people to change the world. How could I be more clear?

Studies indicate that the vast majority of people consider themselves above average drivers. Take all the time you need.

Therefore, would the world, would any single individual, be better off if all the traffic laws, all the traffic signs, all the white lines, all the guardrails, all the maps, etc, we're taken away because we're all good drivers? Absolutely insanity.

If my brother ever gets past his stubborn Pride and sets himself to the arduous task of learning the words of jesus, 363 crucial verses by my count finished moments ago today these last 2 months of nearly all day effort, if my brother ever gets into committing them to memory, holding himself and others to Jesus words, not his own ideas, jesus' words and example, I believe he will discover a level of joy that is unimaginable to him right now. And I believe that Cortez will discover an apprentice of Jesus that might save a soul or two which would be a soul or two more than are being saved right now.

Has just mentioned, two months almost full-time, 7 days a week, in the 90° Plus sun, have been devoted to a process that I did not understand at the beginning. Using a leading software tool, essentially free, Bible memory, on my Android and laptop, I decided I needed to find the verses that in total gave me the essential ideas of jesus. Something that appears in multiple gospels, I would just pick one. First I went gospel by gospel and highlighted the essential versus in each one, then in several iterations I did what I said first, okay, which of these represents his essential ideas, eliminating duplicates. I did John first, then mark, then matthew, and last of all luke.

Probably a third of these I have committed to memory. If creator gives me the time I expect within 30 days it will be pretty close to 363.

This experiment of taking Jesus words and examples seriously as one takes math seriously, or Google Maps seriously, that experiment began about 4 years ago. There has not been a day that I have been unwilling to decide that it was a mistaken experiment. Not the best use of my time.

What it has taught me is that Jesus is the son of God, not my idea of him, not whether I love him, not whether I have his spirit, but weather in every objective factual truthful way I am is serious devoted accomplished apprentice.

As God is my witness, if there is anything that could have saved the world, it's too late now, it would have been doing what I have just done from day one. And In fairness that was not possible to have the written word and we didn't have wide literacy. But for about 500 years it has been possible no one has done it, and there has been this massive business called Christianity making sure that we didn't. Because if we did, we don't need christianity. And just like the scribes and pharisees, they sure as hell weren't going to let that happen.

It is too late for the individual, but it is not too late for me to save myself from being a walking dead person like I was for the first 60 or so of my decades. Excluding the first seven or eight years of my life before I was stripped away from being a child of god.

And infinitely more important it is not too late for me to become an accomplished true verifiable Apprentice of jesus, disciple of jesus, his franchise, not mine, his words, not mine, his ideas, not mine, but I might encourage another soul to stop being dead, and to come alive.

James