A few years ago, I went through the process of “deconstructing my religion.” I had been a follower of Jesus for about 20 years; it was high time to do a sort of spring cleaning of my beliefs, to figure out what I was going to move on with and what I was going to get rid of.
Not long into the process, I chose a guiding principle to keep me grounded: Jesus was not the baby I would throw out with the bathwater. This meant that no matter what I came up against in the process, I would hold on to His words, teachings, and way of life because I knew that I never wanted to do life without Him. I had tried that before, and that was not an option I would consider again. Jesus is too close a Friend, too good a Savior, and you know, He also works miracles – and who can’t use a miracle in their life every now and then?
In this process I questioned beliefs that I had simply accepted without testing, and I thoroughly examined those that were just religious exercises. The process of parsing through my faith, trying to figure out what to keep and what to discard, was brutal. It took a lot of reading, praying, and introspection. It also led to having to make some difficult decisions.
I’m glad I went through that process. I know that many other people have deconstructed their religion and discarded Jesus along with the the church. I didn’t want that to be my story.
In the Bible, the words Jesus’ spoke are written in red. Throughout my deconstruction process, I held on to those red letters found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John’s gospels and the book of Revelation. I focused on my relationship with Jesus and who I had experienced Him to be to me throughout my life.
The red letters became the light against which I held up every belief I scrutinized. I kept them if they lined up with what Jesus said or did. If they didn’t, I worked through the process of letting go of them. This process sometimes led to me apologizing to some people for how I had been to them because of the legalistic beliefs I had incorporated.
Photo: Deception Pass, WA (Debbie Mendoza)
That was years ago, and I find myself in that place once again, where I must focus on what the red letters say. The entire Bible is important, yes, but as a stated follower of Jesus, what kind of follower am I if His words are not the most important to me?
So much information is being fed to us constantly, and some terrible things are happening in the world. My first response (and I know I’m not alone in this) is to be fearful and anxious. After a few minutes of scrolling through social media or watching the news, I can feel my heart rate picking up and my breath getting shallower. But based on what I know of the red letters, that is not how Jesus wants me to live. It’s not how He wants us to live.
So, I find myself going back to the red letters—those books in the Bible where Jesus spoke and lived on earth. There, He made choices and was an example to us of how to love God and our neighbors, how not to worry, how to love our enemies, how not to be fearful, how to be generous, and how to care for others. And I want all those things for myself.
This time, revisiting the red letters, I’m struck by how, where we see labels on people, Jesus sees each person’s intrinsic value as one created in God’s image.
Take, for example, the encounter He had with a Samaritan woman at a well (John 4). Jesus showed up there around the middle of the day and conversed with a woman different from Him in many ways. She was a Samaritan (of a different ethnicity). She was female (different gender). She had been the wife of many different men and was now living unmarried with another (different societal status). Yet, with all those labels she lived with, Jesus chose her to deposit a couple of His most life-giving and beautiful messages that are still taught today all over the world:
“Jesus answered and said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14
“But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers.” John 4:23.
Jesus’ disciples, looking for Him, were extremely surprised, even shocked, to find Him deep in conversation with this woman. By looking at her, they couldn’t recognize that God had created her to be entrusted with a message for the world.
Photo: Coupeville, WA (Debbie Mendoza)
We see so differently from how God sees. The red-letter words indicate that there isn’t much in this world that is as it seems. Jesus’ actions and His teachings exemplified this verse from the Old Testament when Samuel was looking to anoint the next king of Israel:
“But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7.
It is so easy to be swept along by hateful rhetoric that causes us to slap labels onto people, making us think it’s “us vs. them.” For followers of Jesus, the red letters should give us pause (what we call a check in our spirits) to ask God for eyes to see beyond the labels and to see people the way He does.
So this is where I find myself as the news continues to bombard us and so much feels out of my control – poring over the red letters not only to find my way through the mess but also to:
- Love God. (Matt 22: 38)
- To love myself well so I can love others. (Matt 22: 39)
- Have peace within myself. (John 14:27)
- Have compassion for others. (Matthew 9:36)
- To seek my place in fighting injustice. (Luke 11:42)
- Do not be fearful. (Luke 21:28)
- Not worry. (Matt 5:25)
- Live an abundant life. (John 10:10)
- Give generously. (Luke 6:38
- Not be judgmental. (Matt 7:1)
- Care for the “least of these”. (Matt. 25:40-45)
As followers of Jesus, we can trust the Holy Spirit of God to search our hearts against the light of Jesus’s words. Regularly checking our beliefs to ensure they line up with the red letters of the Bible can only make us better Jesus followers and will help to ensure we don’t find ourselves so far down a path that looks nothing like the one He has for us. But, even if that is where we find ourselves, our Father awaits our repentance and welcomes us back with kindness and open arms.
May His Name be glorified in our thoughts, words, actions, and choices as we seek to be faithful followers of Jesus, putting the red letter words front and center in any and all of our decision-making processes. Amen.
© Debbie Mendoza, February 2025
All scripture references are from the NASB 1995 translation unless otherwise stated.
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