Faith UNder Construction

God created you and me and all of us pure and unsullied. Spiritually speaking, there is no such thing as inherited dirt or hereditary sin. There is nothing wrong with the human ego as it leaves the hands of the Maker. Those who tell us that the ego is evil and must be destroyed, are telling us we must destroy ourselves, which would be to undo the creative work of God. The human ego is a vessel — a vessel perfectly designed to hold the love and wisdom of God; a beautifully patterned wine glass (each of us with our own distinctive markings and patterns) meant to contain and hold the pure wine of the Life of God. Unfortunately, however, we most of us start off by filling it with dirty, stinking water, from hell. You could change the analogy and think of the ego as a leather bucket, which is sodden with dirty water and oozes thick black fluid into itself. Before putting into it clean spring water you must empty it out and scour it round and disinfect it and dry it; then, and only then, can it be used to contain and hold the Water of Life from God.

How does one cleanse one's own ego? We must clean it with that very same Water of Life — the truths of God's Holy Word, the teachings of Scripture. Any truth that reveals God's nature can make us clean if we absorb it and model our lives upon it. So Jesus said in the upper room: "He that believes and is baptized shall be saved."

In the past it has generally been assumed that, by baptism here, Jesus was referring specifically to the Sacrament of Baptism used as a sign of admission into the Christian Church. But a better interpretation of our Lord's words would be: "He that believes and is washed clean shall be saved."