WHICH CHRISTIANITY IS RIGHT? COME TO JESUS - A SKEPTIC'S JOURNEY Part 7 of 7

Which Christianity is Right? My From New Age to Jesus Search.

Aloha. I rejected church and the Bible for over forty years. Please forgive me GOD.

I mixed my own GOD. A little Eastern philosophy. A little New Age. A little conspiracy. A little Gnosticism. I called it open-minded. From New Age to Jesus, this is the part where I finally asked the question I had been dodging.

Which Christianity am I even practicing?

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6, ESV)

Jesus named Himself as the Way. He did not hand me a toppings menu at a burger bar. The 11x LOVE Method keeps GOD at the center for the same reason. Daily LOVE Practice is how I stay with Him on purpose.

Key Takeaways

1. I treated GOD like a DIY burger bar. Toppings. Practices. My way.

2. I did not know there were this many kinds of Christianity. Catholic. Orthodox. Protestant. Then all the splits after that.

3. I went. Greek Orthodox liturgies. Catholic Mass, including Latin. Protestant services with hands in the air.

4. People do not die for a lie. The Bible is the most scrutinized book on earth.

5. I am picking Jesus. Then I am learning which church still holds the Way.

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Episode Timestamps

Jump to any section:

• [00:00] Which Christianity am I practicing

• [01:47] GOD is not a burger bar

• [06:31] Bitcoin, forks, and rulers

• [08:57] Spiritually dehydrated

• [11:06] People do not die for a lie

• [13:33] I went Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant

• [17:58] The Orthodox Way and St Tikhon

• [27:20] 1054, forks, and what stayed

• [34:50] My boss who walked in LOVE

• [54:12] I am picking Jesus

I treated GOD like a burger bar

Catholicism. Orthodoxy. Protestant. Episcopalian. Presbyterian. Lutheran. Charismatic. Evangelical. Prosperity. I stood there like, how many Christian things are there?

I have only been doing this for three months. I am not a biblical scholar. I am a believer who spent forty years mixing a buffet of deception, narcissism and false teachings.

I wanted it to be my way.

This is not a burger bar where you get to choose your toppings.

I wanted it to be.

My son told me, Mom, sit down. Read the New Testament. Just read. He was right. I still wanted to talk to people. I still wanted to ask, where are my Christians at?

I started reading the ESV on the Bible app. For years I had only done the little plans. Patience. Virtue. Tidbits.

I never sat down and did what my son said until recently. Thank you, sweetheart.

I also got a physical Orthodox Bible. Thank you, Thea Katina. It is huge. I held it and thought, where do I start?

So I watched everybody. Apologetics. Catholics. An exorcist. Orthodox teachers. Protestants. Mega churches. Prosperity talk.

I thought, how am I supposed to know what is real and who to trust after decades of being duped?

Bitcoin taught me something about churches

I am a Bitcoiner. Bitcoin runs on rules, not rulers. Nobody gets to wake up and declare there are twenty-two million Bitcoin today. You can copy the code, add junk, and beg people to come over. Those copies do not become Bitcoin.

They are fake, worthless mutant copies.

Church history started looking like that. Take what you were given, add a pile, subtract a pile, call it an upgrade.

I made the same mistake with Jesus that I made with Bitcoin. I lumped the whole category together and threw it in the trash. Televangelists. Priests hurting kids. Forget it.

I threw the baby out with the bathwater.

Then the Holy Spirit came in about three months ago and said it was time. Take a deeper look.

I thought New Age and New Thought and Eastern philosophy had the bigger picture. I was actually starving. Spiritually dehydrated. Malnourished. The GOD I was serving was a buffet version of GOD. That was my illusion and delusion.

I discarded the Bible because humans wrote it. Telephone game. Too old.

I do believe Jesus walked this earth as GOD and as man, both at the same time. He died for us. He rose. He is who He says He is.

People do not die for a lie

People do not carry on that story, risk their lives, get brutally tortured, and die for a hoax.

So many people over so many centuries endured persecution, torture, and death for this. The Bible is the most highly scrutinized book in the world.

If you knew something was a lie or a hoax, would you die for it? I would not.

All Scripture is breathed out by GOD and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. (2 Timothy 3:16, ESV)

Our brains fill gaps. That is how people manipulate you. They expose a hole, then they let you connect it, so you feel clever for believing it. Stay vigilant. Verify.

I cannot slam a gavel and say you must believe. That's not my job. I can only tell you what I have been experiencing.

I actually went

Greek Orthodox, many times. Fasting. Divine liturgies. I do not understand half of what is happening. I am there. It is not a pep rally. The Eucharist is the most important part. They treat the Body and Blood of Christ as real.

Three Catholic services. One in Latin. Two evening ones in English. Bible. Lesson. Songbook with numbers, so my little brain could follow.

Two Protestant churches. One of them twice. One had music I did not love. The other had better music, hands in the air, people praying up front. It felt good. No sacraments. No Eucharist.

I was baptized as a kid as a Lutheran. I want to get baptized again as an adult.

Do not take my word for a darn thing. Go. Have your own relationship with Jesus. Walk the Way.

What I read in The Orthodox Way

I have been reading The Orthodox Way. Our reasoning brain is a gift from GOD, so research has a place. The Bible is not only a pile of old documents. It is the book of the Church, containing GOD's word. We do not read it as isolated individuals, making it mean whatever we want. We read it as members of the Church, in communion with the members throughout the ages. The final criterion is the mind of the Church. Holy Tradition. The Fathers. The saints. How Scripture is used in worship.

That first half is my tiny stubborn brain. Gathering. Wrestling. Comparing. Is this real? Does this apply today? The book said that work is secondary.

The real purpose of Bible study is to feed our love for Christ, to kindle our hearts into prayer, and to give guidance in our personal life.

St Tikhon of Zadonsk said it like this. Whenever you read the Gospel, Christ Himself is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking with Him.

Jesus is the Word. Christ is the Word of GOD.

My skeptical and curious mind wants to tear things apart. These are divinely inspired words from GOD to the disciples. Stephen was stoned to death for speaking what he believed. A giant conspiracy to die for a lie is a wild theory to swallow.

The black thing in my bedroom

I have had demonic oppression in my own life.

Ten years ago I SNAPPED, I lost it. Perimenopause. New business. Big move across country. Parent with Alzheimer's. Dangerous marriage. Drinking like a sailor on shore leave. I was on the bed staring off.

I had been contemplating suicide. My deceived and exhausted mind fooled me and thought the world would be better off without me and my messy ass. My husband came home and said I was not me. Faraway empty stare. Somewhere else. He was right. Something wanted me dead and was whispering in my ear to kill myself and that everyone would be better off without me. What I really needed was serious help, love, and Jesus.

Spiritual warfare will rip you and your family apart if you stick your head in the sand and pretend it is not happening while refusing to even acknowledge Satan is real and he sends demons to torment us in spiritual warfare all day every day since the dawn of creation.

When we turn our hearts over to GOD, read the Word, and stay with Jesus, we get a peace nothing else fills. The 5 D's, the soul holes, that is temporary relief. That is an open door.

Some churches ignore the demonic because it is uncomfortable. Ignoring it does not make it leave.

I came out of Kundalini yoga abuse. Yogi Bhajan. John Friend. Bikram. Osho. Shambhala had its own sex-abuse shutdown. Predators show up wherever people get drunk on power. Yoga world. Christian world. Buddhist world. The devil will take any pulpit you hand him.

1054, forks, and what still feels ancient

The schism around 1054 split Rome and the Orthodox East. From where I am standing, Orthodoxy looks like the layer that changed the least from the time Jesus walked, the apostles, and the original Fathers.

Splits along the way look like Bitcoin forks. Add this. Take that away. Call it Roman Catholicism. Call it Protestantism.

I am not standing on a mountain telling you one is right and you are wrong. I have more inquiry to do.

So far, what feels the most unchanging and ancient and true, to me, is the Orthodox way.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8, ESV)

No singular head, the way Bitcoin has no CEO. Councils. Not giant changes because the mood of the age moved.

I went looking at scandals. I am not saying Orthodoxy has had none. It has. It seems more vigilant about guarding the tradition, and less of the giant cover-up machine I kept running into in the other lanes.

Cover-up culture in church is disgusting. Predators who speak the Word and then destroy people. That is a big reason I rejected organized religion. Peer to peer. Me and GOD sounded better and safer. But someone has to be keeper of the truth - the ledger. The truth has to get carried from generation to generation. Who wrote the Bible and gathered the books? The Bible came to be because the church was. There would be no Bible without the church.

Some Protestant talk sounded like this. Once you are saved, you are cool. You do not have to do works. Just say yes to Jesus. It sounded awesome and easy. Yet, it did not make very much sense to me.

My boss who walked like Jesus

Mid-90s. Staff leasing company in San Diego. Fluorescent lights. I was doing accounting. I was the token pagan in an office of born-again Christians. Little hippie Val. Massage. Yoga. Meditation.

Two of them would speak in tongues over me. I was stubborn, stupid and arrogant. I told them if it makes you feel better, sure, pray over me.

My boss almost died in a motorcycle accident. He said, Jesus, I will accept You if I live. His whole life turned. He never tried to convert me with a show. I watched how he walked.

He was a broken man. Faults. Sin. Same as the rest of us. When he thought no one was looking, I was looking. I was his right hand. Kind. Generous. He went toward the people who are not seen. He did that with me.

That is what a true Christian looks like to me. Living with GOD. Living with LOVE. GOD is LOVE.

And He said to him, “You shall love the Lord your GOD with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39, ESV)

Love GOD first. Then love each other.

You walk into an Orthodox church and there is a dome with Jesus in the middle. Icons everywhere. At first I was watching “what to expect” videos so I would not stand in the wrong spot. GOD lives there.

I already had a decade of morning practice, evening practice, 11x LOVE rhythm. Now I am pivoting that devotion to the true GOD. Jesus. The Holy Spirit. The Father. The triune GOD. My brain still wants a Venn diagram. Mystery is still being revealed.

Why I have questions, and why I am still going

The Roman Catholic Church, right now, looks to me like it adapts with the age. This pope says this, so we adjust course. One infallible figurehead does not sit right with me, same as a Bitcoin CEO would not. I like a council. I do like that Catholic churches are open seven days a week. I can walk into Mass tonight.

Protestants. I love the energy and the music. High five your neighbor. The part that concerns me is the offshoots. We will change that because modern times.

Orthodox Christianity has the things that stand the test of time. Same Divine Liturgy. Same calendar. Wednesdays and Fridays, fasting. Our hyper-distracted minds need a rock we can trust.

Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. (Matthew 10:34, ESV)

Jesus did not show up as peace, love, and granola. He came to cut the lies. A woman in my past told me, Val, your name is Valerie B LOVE, so we expect you to sprinkle fairy dust all the time. I do like that part of me. There is also mama-bear LOVE. Get away from the light socket. We do not make peace with evil predators and rename it kindness.

Be like my old boss. See the person on the street. Give your heart, your ear, a hug, a hand, especially when no one is looking.

Yoga on every block, and the hunger under it

I live in Boulder. About twenty yoga studios. You can go all day. People say it is stretching. There 100% is a spiritual component. Otherwise go to the gym and do pilates.

There is a hunger for spiritual fellowship every day. We do not have that many services for Jesus. Yoga is cotton candy. It looks big, pink and fluffy. It does not nourish you and actually opens unexpected doors to the demons. I will do more on this in a separate video.

Witchcraft starts the same way. Just a love spell. Then a money spell. Then you are in demonic territory, and it started so sweet and turns out so poisonous.

Which Christianity am I choosing

I am choosing Jesus. That is what I am choosing. I am choosing LOVE.

I will be spending a lot more time at the Greek Orthodox Church. I like this church very much. I am getting to meet one-on-one with my priest. I may still go to a Catholic evening Mass when the Orthodox church is not open, if he says that is okay. If he tells me not to, I will abide. Being my own god has not gotten me very far.

I know Jesus loves me for real. Mistakes and all. He wants me in His kingdom. Now I finally understand what those wonderful people in my accounting office were talking about.

Better late than never. Thanks and sorry I was such a jerk when you were trying to pray for me. They told me I could be born again in Christ. I thought it sounded boring. I asked them, so I can live my whole life as a mess, and on my deathbed say I accept Jesus? They said yes, if you are sincere.

If you are confused, open the Bible. The Gospels first. Get a physical Bible if you can and keep it by the bed. Read the word. Pray all day. Repent. Find a pastor or priest.

Common Questions About Which Christianity to Choose

Q: Which Christianity is right?

A: Jesus is the Way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him. Church families are how that truth got carried through history. I am still learning, and currently spending more time in Greek Orthodox worship because it feels the most ancient and unchanging.

Q: What is the difference between Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches?

A: Orthodox Christianity emphasizes Holy Tradition, councils instead of a single pope, the Divine Liturgy, and the Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Christ. Roman Catholicism shares sacraments and also has a pope as a singular head. Many Protestant churches emphasize solo scriptura, preaching, music, and personal faith, and some do not practice the Eucharist the same way.

Q: Do I still need church if I already believe in Jesus?

A: The Bible came to be because the church was. Private faith and a personal relationship with Jesus is real. The Church is how Scripture was gathered, guarded, and handed down. I tried peer-to-peer-only GOD for decades. I am going in person now.

Q: Can I mix Christianity with New Age, yoga, or witchcraft?

A: No. Mixing GOD with a toppings bar was my old life, and it left me spiritually dehydrated and in danger. From New Age to Jesus means closing those doors. Stretch at the gym if you need a stretch. Do not treat yoga, spells, or manifestation as a path to the Father. DYOR but I definitely have renounced all of that. It's not worth the risk.

Q: How do I start if I rejected church for years?

A: Read the Gospels. Go sit in a real service. Talk to a pastor or a priest. Pray all day. I am a faith-based life coach, not a priest. The Daily LOVE Practice is the morning engine. PRAY ALL DAY is the whole-day practice.

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Peace, LOVE & Warm Aloha

DJ Valerie B LOVE 🩷

About DJ Valerie B LOVE ~ Disciple of Jesus

Co-Founder of The 11x LOVE Method, on a mission to help 1 million spiritual seekers become Faith Finders and Freedom Lovers by designing and rocking their Divine Masterpiece for GOD through a Daily LOVE Practice and accountability community. "PRAY ALL DAY"

Resources & Links Mentioned

• The Holy Bible, ESV: John 14:6, 2 Timothy 3:16, Hebrews 13:8, Matthew 22:37-39, Matthew 10:34

• The Orthodox Way 

• St Tikhon of Zadonsk, on reading the Gospel

• The 11x LOVE Method and Daily LOVE Practice

• Come to Jesus Series, Parts 1 through 6