Teacher-Brother Dave's initial comments: I am presenting some of my Topical Studies from the fully public domain, 2097 page, Fifth Epochal Revelation of Truth and with my added comments. The Revealed text is free of copyright, so you may freely share individually these supernal quotes with your friends and relatives. But my order of selections, font types for emphasis and my added comments are Copyright 2014 by Dave@PureChristians.org All Rights Reserved. Contact me first about using the whole Study or group of Studies.
[My added comments of explanation below are in these square brackets]
Topical Study 86 "TRUST and ASSURANCE in and with GOD"
Compiled 4/10/2015 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Part 5 of several]
PAPER 142 THE PASSOVER AT JERUSALEM
5. The Discourse on Assurance
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
142:5.1 One of the great sermons which Jesus preached in the temple this Passover week was in answer to a question asked by one of his hearers, a man from Damascus. This man asked Jesus: “But, Rabbi, how shall we know of a certainty that you are sent by God, and that we may truly enter into this kingdom which you and your disciples declare is near at hand?” And Jesus answered:
142:5.2 “As to my message and the teaching of my disciples, you should judge them by their fruits. If we proclaim to you the truths of the Spirit, the Spirit will witness in your hearts that our message is genuine. Concerning the kingdom and your assurance of acceptance by the heavenly Father, let me ask what father among you who is a worthy and kindhearted father would keep his son in anxiety or suspense regarding his status in the family or his place of security in the affections of his father’s heart? Do you earth fathers take pleasure in torturing your children with uncertainty about their place of abiding love in your human hearts? Neither does your Father in heaven leave his faith children of the Spirit in doubtful uncertainty as to their position in the kingdom. If you receive God as your Father, then indeed and in truth are you the sons of God. And if you are sons, then are you secure in the position and standing of all that concerns eternal and divine sonship. If you believe my words, you thereby believe in Him who sent me, and by thus believing in the Father, you have made your status in heavenly citizenship sure. If you do the will of the Father in heaven, you shall never fail in the attainment of the eternal life of progress in the divine kingdom.
142:5.3 "The Supreme Spirit shall bear witness with your Spirits that you are truly the children of God. And if you are the sons of God, then have you been born of the Spirit of God; and whosoever has been born of the Spirit has in himself the power to overcome all doubt, and this is the victory that overcomes all uncertainty, even your faith.
142:5.4 “Said the Prophet Isaiah, speaking of these times: ‘When the spirit is poured upon us from on high, then shall the work of righteousness become peace, quietness, and assurance forever.’ And for all who truly believe this gospel, I will become surety for their reception into the eternal mercies and the everlasting life of my Father’s kingdom. You, then, who hear this message and believe this gospel of the kingdom are the sons of God, and you have life everlasting; and the evidence to all the world that you have been born of the spirit is that you sincerely love one another.” [Be now the divinely beloved son of God in Truth that YOU ARE ! Thank You our Eternal Savior Jesus Christ ! Amen !]
PAPER 143 GOING THROUGH SAMARIA
2. Lesson on Self-Mastery
143:2.7 “Your sonship is grounded in faith, and you are to remain unmoved by fear. Your joy is born of trust in the divine word, and you shall not therefore be led to doubt the reality of the Father’s love and mercy. It is the very goodness of God that leads men into true and genuine repentance. Your secret of the mastery of self is bound up with your faith in the indwelling spirit, which ever works by love. Even this saving faith you have not of yourselves; it also is the gift of God. [!!] And if you are the children of this living faith, you are no longer the bondslaves of self but rather the triumphant masters of yourselves, the liberated sons of God.
7. Teachings about Prayer and Worship
143:7.6 Worship is the technique of looking to the One for the inspiration of service to the many. Worship is the yardstick which measures the extent of the soul’s detachment from the material universe and its simultaneous and secure attachment to the spiritual realities of all creation.
PAPER 146 FIRST PREACHING TOUR OF GALILEE
2. At Jotapata
146:2.9 8. Prayer may not be employed to avoid the delays of time or to transcend the handicaps of space. Prayer is not designed as a technique for aggrandizing self or for gaining unfair advantage over one’s fellows. A thoroughly selfish soul cannot pray in the true sense of the word. Said Jesus: “Let your supreme delight be in the character of God, and he shall surely give you the sincere desires of your heart.” “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” “For the Lord hears the cry of the needy, and he will regard the prayer of the destitute.”
3. The Stop at Ramah
146:3.1 At Ramah Jesus had the memorable discussion with the aged Greek philosopher who taught that science and philosophy were sufficient to satisfy the needs of human experience. Jesus listened with patience and sympathy to this Greek teacher, allowing the truth of many things he said but pointing out that, when he was through, he had failed in his discussion of human existence to explain "whence, why, and whither," and added: "Where you leave off, we begin. Religion is a revelation to man's soul dealing with spiritual realities which the mind alone could never discover or fully fathom. Intellectual strivings may reveal the facts of life, but the gospel of the kingdom unfolds the truths of being. You have discussed the material shadows of truth; will you now listen while I tell you about the eternal and spiritual realities which cast these transient time shadows of the material facts of mortal existence?" For more than an hour Jesus taught this Greek the saving truths of the gospel of the kingdom. The old philosopher was susceptible to the Master's mode of approach, and being sincerely honest of heart, he quickly believed this gospel of salvation.
146:3.2 The apostles were a bit disconcerted by the open manner of Jesus’ assent to many of the Greek’s propositions, but Jesus afterward privately said to them: “My children, marvel not that I was tolerant of the Greek’s philosophy. True and genuine inward certainty does not in the least fear outward analysis, nor does truth resent honest criticism. You should never forget that intolerance is the mask covering up the entertainment of secret doubts as to the trueness of one’s belief. No man is at any time disturbed by his neighbor’s attitude when he has perfect confidence in the truth of that which he wholeheartedly believes. Courage is the confidence of thoroughgoing honesty about those things which one professes to believe. Sincere men are unafraid of the critical examination of their true convictions and noble ideals.”
146:3.3 On the second evening at Ramah, Thomas asked Jesus this question: "Master, how can a new believer in your teaching really know, really be certain, about the truth of this gospel of the kingdom?"
146:3.4 And Jesus said to Thomas: “Your assurance that you have entered into the kingdom family of the Father, and that you will eternally survive with the children of the kingdom, is wholly a matter of personal experience — faith in the word of truth. Spiritual assurance is the equivalent of your personal religious experience in the eternal realities of divine truth and is otherwise equal to your intelligent understanding of truth realities plus your spiritual faith and minus your honest doubts.
146:3.5 "The Son is naturally endowed with the life of the Father. Having been endowed with the living Spirit [a Thought Adjuster from God living within you !] of the Father, you are therefore sons of God. You survive your life in the material world of the flesh because you are identified with the Father's living Spirit, the gift of eternal life. [!!!] Many, indeed, had this life before I came forth from the Father, and many more have received this Spirit because they believed my word; but I declare that, when I return to the Father, he will send his Spirit into the hearts of all men. [Into ALL humans !!!]
146:3.6 "While you cannot observe the divine Spirit at work in your minds, there is a practical method of discovering the degree to which you have yielded the control of your soul powers to the teaching and guidance of this indwelling Spirit of the heavenly Father, and that is the degree of your love for your fellow men. This Spirit of the Father partakes of the love of the Father, and as it dominates man, it unfailingly leads in the directions of divine worship and loving regard for one's fellows. At first you believe that you are sons of God because my teaching has made you more conscious of the inner leadings of our Father's indwelling presence; but presently the Spirit of Truth shall be poured out upon all flesh, and it will live among men and teach all men, even as I now live among you and speak to you the words of truth. And this Spirit of Truth, speaking for the spiritual endowments of your souls, will help you to know that you are the sons of God. It will unfailingly bear witness with the Father's indwelling Presence, your Spirit, then dwelling in all men [all !!!] as it now dwells in some, telling you that you are in reality the sons of God. [I often share in my inspired words: "IT IS DONE ! Now everyone is our loving Father God's Divine son ! Be now and eternally the son of God, in Truth, that YOU ARE !"]
146:3.7 "Every earth child who follows the leading of this Spirit shall eventually know the will of God, and he who surrenders to the will of my Father shall abide forever. The way from the earth life to the eternal estate has not been made plain to you, but there is a way, there always has been, and I have come to make that way new and living. [Our Master Jesus Christ Michael IS the New and Living Way into an eternal and Glorious Destiny in our loving Universal Father God !!] He who enters the kingdom has eternal life already -- he shall never perish. But much of this you will the better understand when I shall have returned to the Father and you are able to view your present experiences in retrospect."
146:3.8 And all who heard these blessed words were greatly cheered. The Jewish teachings had been confused and uncertain regarding the survival of the righteous, and it was refreshing and inspiring for Jesus’ followers to hear these very definite and positive words of assurance about the eternal survival of all true believers.
PAPER 147 THE INTERLUDE VISIT TO JERUSALEM
5. Visiting Simon the Pharisee
147:5.7 That same evening Jesus made the long-to-be-remembered address to the apostles regarding the relative value of status with God and progress in the eternal ascent to Paradise. Said Jesus: “My children, if there exists a true and living connection between the child and the Father, the child is certain to progress continuously toward the Father’s ideals. True, the child may at first make slow progress, but the progress is none the less sure. The important thing is not the rapidity of your progress but rather its certainty. Your actual achievement is not so important as the fact that the direction of your progress is Godward. What you are becoming day by day is of infinitely more importance than what you are today.
8. The Feast of Spiritual Goodness
147:8.5 And then long into the night Jesus propounded to his apostles the truth that it was their faith that made them secure in the kingdom of the present and the future, and not their affliction of soul nor fasting of body. He exhorted the apostles at least to live up to the ideas of the prophet of old and expressed the hope that they would progress far beyond even the ideals of Isaiah and the older prophets. His last words that night were: “Grow in grace by means of that living faith which grasps the fact that you are the sons of God while at the same time it recognizes every man [every human !] as a brother.” [in the family of God in Jesus and in Spirit ! Sons of God we are ! Thank You Jesus !]
PAPER 149 THE SECOND PREACHING TOUR
2. Attitude of the People
149:2.13 The Master was admired by all who met him except by those who entertained deep-seated religious prejudices or those who thought they discerned political dangers in his teachings. Men were astonished at the originality and authoritativeness of his teaching. They marveled at his patience in dealing with backward and troublesome inquirers. He inspired hope and confidence in the hearts of all who came under his ministry. Only those who had not met him feared him, and he was hated only by those who regarded him as the champion of that truth which was destined to overthrow the evil and error which they had determined to hold in their hearts at all cost.
5. Lesson Regarding Contentment
149:5.4 [Jesus:] “Seek not, then, for false peace and transient joy but rather for the assurance of faith and the sureties of divine sonship which yield composure, contentment, and supreme joy in the Spirit.” [Yes, we each are divinely beloved by our loving Father God ! He has made us his sons in the Family of God in Heaven and now progressing on Earth ! Amen !]
6. The "Fear of the Lord"
149:6.5 [Jesus:] “Your forebears feared God because he was mighty and mysterious. You shall adore him because he is magnificent in love, plenteous in mercy, and glorious in truth. The power of God engenders fear in the heart of man, but the nobility and righteousness of his personality beget reverence, love, and willing worship. A dutiful and affectionate son does not fear or dread even a mighty and noble father. I have come into the world to put love in the place of fear, joy in the place of sorrow, confidence in the place of dread, loving service and appreciative worship in the place of slavish bondage and meaningless ceremonies. But it is still true of those who sit in darkness that ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’ But when the Light has more fully come, the sons of God are led to praise the Infinite for what he is rather than to fear him for what he does. [God is not imperfect nature and not imperfect man here on earth ! God is like our perfect Jesus Christ in Coordinate (Co-Equal) Deity and Divine nature !]
149:6.11 [Jesus:] “You do well to be meek before God and self-controlled before men, but let your meekness be of spiritual origin and not the self-deceptive display of a self-conscious sense of self-righteous superiority. The prophet spoke advisedly when he said, ‘Walk humbly with God,’ for, while the Father in heaven is the Infinite and the Eternal, he also dwells ‘with him who is of a contrite mind and a humble spirit.’ My Father disdains pride, loathes hypocrisy, and abhors iniquity. And it was to emphasize the value of sincerity and perfect trust in the loving support and faithful guidance of the heavenly Father that I have so often referred to the little child as illustrative of the attitude of mind and the response of Spirit which are so essential to the entrance of mortal man into the Spirit realities of the Kingdom of Heaven.
PAPER 152 EVENTS LEADING UP TO THE CAPERNAUM CRISIS
152:1.5 Never before Jesus was on earth, nor since, has it been possible so directly and graphically to secure the results attendant upon the strong and living faith of mortal men and women. To repeat these phenomena, we would have to go into the immediate presence of Michael, the Creator, and find him as he was in those days — the Son of Man. Likewise, today, while his absence prevents such material manifestations, you should refrain from placing any sort of limitation on the possible exhibition of his spiritual power. Though the Master is absent as a material being, he is present as a spiritual influence in the hearts of men. By going away from the world, Jesus made it possible for his spirit to live alongside that of his Father which indwells the minds of all mankind. [A tremendous revelation of this Father-Son Union Spirit living within us always !!]
5. Back in Bethsaida
152:5.3 [ Jesus to his apostles and men and women disciples: ] “How long shall I bear with you? Are you all slow of spiritual comprehension and deficient in living faith? All these months have I taught you the truths of the kingdom, and yet are you dominated by material motives instead of spiritual considerations. Have you not even read in the Scriptures where Moses exhorted the unbelieving children of Israel, saying: ‘Fear not, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord’? Said the singer: ‘Put your trust in the Lord.’ ‘Be patient, wait upon the Lord and be of good courage. He shall strengthen your heart.’ ‘Cast your burden on the Lord, and he shall sustain you. Trust him at all times and pour out your heart to him, for God is your refuge.’ ‘He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.’ ‘It is better to trust the Lord than to put confidence in human princes.’
PAPER 154 LAST DAYS AT CAPERNAUM
6. Jesus' Family Arrives
154:6.5 It was just another of those instances in which his earth family could not comprehend that he [Jesus] must be about his Father’s business. And so Mary and his brothers were deeply hurt when, notwithstanding that he paused in his speaking to receive the message, instead of his rushing out to greet them, they heard his musical voice speak with increased volume: “Say to my mother and my brothers that they should have no fear for me. The Father who sent me into the world will not forsake me; neither shall any harm come upon my family. Bid them be of good courage and put their trust in the Father of the kingdom. But, after all, who is my mother and who are my brothers?” And stretching forth his hands toward all of his disciples assembled in the room, he said: “I have no mother; I have no brothers. Behold my mother and behold my brethren! For whosoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, the same is my mother, my brother, and my sister.” [and Mary heard this and fainted ! Jesus' Earth family could not comprehend the deep truths He revealed ! Even today, few do, but far more than back about 2,000 years ago ! Progress is certain, but seemingly slow to the human perspective.]
PAPER 155 FLEEING THROUGH NORTHERN GALILEE
1. Why Do the Heathen Rage?
155:1.2 [Jesus:] “Today you see this fulfilled before your eyes. But you shall not see the remainder of the Psalmist’s prophecy fulfilled, for he entertained erroneous ideas about the Son of Man and his mission on earth. My kingdom is founded on love, proclaimed in mercy, and established by unselfish service. My Father does not sit in heaven laughing in derision at the heathen. He is not wrathful in his great displeasure. True is the promise that the Son shall have these so-called heathen (in reality his ignorant and untaught brethren) for an inheritance. And I will receive these gentiles with open arms of mercy and affection. All this loving-kindness shall be shown the so-called heathen, notwithstanding the unfortunate declaration of the record which intimates that the triumphant Son ‘shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ The Psalmist exhorted you to ‘serve the Lord with fear’ — I bid you enter into the exalted privileges of divine sonship by faith; he commands you to rejoice with trembling; I bid you rejoice with assurance. He says, ‘Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish when his wrath is kindled.’ But you who have lived with me well know that anger and wrath are not a part of the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven in the hearts of men. But the Psalmist did glimpse the true Light when, in finishing this exhortation, he said: ‘Blessed are they who put their trust in this Son.’” [Yes !!]
5. The Discourse on True Religion [Very powerful, much is included here]
155:5.7 And then the Master, in his hour of teaching, went on to make clear these truths:
155:5.8 Until the races become highly intelligent and more fully civilized, there will persist many of those childlike and superstitious ceremonies which are so characteristic of the evolutionary religious practices of primitive and backward peoples. Until the human race progresses to the level of a higher and more general recognition of the realities of spiritual experience, large numbers of men and women will continue to show a personal preference for those religions of authority which require only intellectual assent, in contrast to the religion of the Spirit, which entails active participation of mind and soul in the faith adventure of grappling with the rigorous realities of progressive human experience.
155:5.9 The acceptance of the traditional religions of authority presents the easy way out for man's urge to seek satisfaction for the longings of his spiritual nature. The settled, crystallized, and established religions of authority afford a ready refuge to which the distracted and distraught soul of man may flee when harassed by fear and tormented by uncertainty. Such a religion requires of its devotees, as the price to be paid for its satisfactions and assurances, only a passive and purely intellectual assent.
155:5.10 And for a long time there will live on earth those timid, fearful, and hesitant individuals who will prefer thus to secure their religious consolations, even though, in so casting their lot with the religions of authority, they compromise the sovereignty of [God-given, unique, unchanging] personality, debase the dignity of self-respect, and utterly surrender the right to participate in that most thrilling and inspiring of all possible human experiences: the personal quest for Truth, the exhilaration of facing the perils of intellectual discovery, the determination to explore the realities of personal religious experience, the supreme satisfaction of experiencing the personal triumph of the actual realization of the victory of spiritual faith over intellectual doubt as it is honestly won in the supreme adventure of all human existence — man seeking God, for himself and as himself, and finding him. [Powerful, inspiring words from our Sovereign Savior Jesus here in Spirit !]
155:5.11 The religion of the spirit means effort, struggle, conflict, faith, determination, love, loyalty, and progress. The religion of the mind -- the theology of authority -- requires little or none of these exertions from its formal believers. Tradition is a safe refuge and an easy path for those fearful and halfhearted souls who instinctively shun the spirit struggles and mental uncertainties associated with those faith voyages of daring adventure out upon the high seas of unexplored truth in search for the farther shores of spiritual realities as they may be discovered by the progressive human mind and experienced by the evolving human soul. [!!]
155:5.12 And Jesus went on to say: "At Jerusalem the religious leaders have formulated the various doctrines of their traditional teachers and the prophets of other days into an established system of intellectual beliefs, a religion of authority. The appeal of all such religions is largely to the mind. And now are we about to enter upon a deadly conflict with such a religion since we will so shortly begin the bold proclamation of a new religion -- a religion which is not a religion in the present-day meaning of that word, a religion that makes its chief appeal to the divine Spirit of my Father which resides in the mind of man; a religion which shall derive its authority from the fruits of its acceptance that will so certainly appear in the personal experience of all who really and truly become believers in the truths of this higher spiritual communion." [the sacred experiences of personal God-consciousness !]
155:5.13 Pointing out each of the twenty-four and calling them by name, Jesus said: “And now, which one of you would prefer to take this easy path of conformity to an established and fossilized religion, as defended by the Pharisees at Jerusalem, rather than to suffer the difficulties and persecutions attendant upon the mission of proclaiming a better way of salvation to men while you realize the satisfaction of discovering for yourselves the beauties of the realities of a living and personal experience in the eternal truths and supreme grandeurs of the kingdom of heaven? Are you fearful, soft, and ease-seeking? Are you afraid to trust your future in the hands of the God of Truth, whose sons you are? Are you distrustful of the Father, whose children you are? Will you go back to the easy path of the certainty and intellectual settledness of the religion of traditional authority, or will you gird yourselves to go forward with me into that uncertain and troublous future of proclaiming the new truths of the religion of the Spirit, the Kingdom of Heaven in the hearts of men?”
6. The Second Discourse on Religion
155:6.2 [Jesus, in part:] You have come out from among those of your fellows who choose to remain satisfied with a religion of mind, who crave security and prefer conformity. You have elected to exchange your feelings of authoritative certainty for the assurances of the spirit of adventurous and progressive faith. You have dared to protest against the grueling bondage of institutional religion and to reject the authority of the traditions of record which are now regarded as the word of God. Our Father did indeed speak through Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Amos, and Hosea, but he did not cease to minister words of truth to the world when these prophets of old made an end of their utterances. My Father is no respecter of races or generations in that the word of truth is vouchsafed one age and withheld from another. Commit not the folly of calling that divine which is wholly human, and fail not to discern the words of truth which come not through the traditional oracles of supposed inspiration. [ Read I Thes 5: 19-21 !! Amen !]
155:6.5 While the religion of authority may impart a present feeling of settled security, you pay for such a transient satisfaction the price of the loss of your spiritual freedom and religious liberty. My Father does not require of you as the price of entering the kingdom of heaven that you should force yourself to subscribe to a belief in things which are spiritually repugnant, unholy, and untruthful. It is not required of you that your own sense of mercy, justice, and truth should be outraged by submission to an outworn system of religious forms and ceremonies. The religion of the Spirit leaves you forever free to follow the truth wherever the leadings of the Spirit may take you. And who can judge — perhaps this Spirit may have something to impart to this generation which other generations have refused to hear?
Topical Study 86 "TRUST and ASSURANCE in and with GOD"
Compiled 4/13/2015 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Part 6 of 7]
PAPER 159 THE DECAPOLIS TOUR
3. Instruction for Teachers and Believers
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
159:3.12 [Jesus:] When my children once become self-conscious of the assurance of the Divine Presence, such a faith will expand the mind, ennoble the soul, reinforce the personality, augment the happiness, deepen the Spirit perception, and enhance the power to love and be loved.
PAPER 170 THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
2. Jesus' Concept of the Kingdom
170:2.1 The Master made it clear that the kingdom of heaven must begin with, and be centered in, the dual concept of the truth of the Fatherhood of God and the correlated fact of the brotherhood of man. The acceptance of such a teaching, Jesus declared, would liberate man from the age-long bondage of animal fear and at the same time enrich human living with the following endowments of the new life of spiritual liberty:
170:2.2 1. The possession of new courage and augmented spiritual power. The gospel of the kingdom was to set man free and inspire him to dare to hope for eternal life.
170:2.3 2. The gospel [of Jesus that each and every human being is a divinely beloved son of our Father God !!] carried a message of new confidence and true consolation for all men, even for the poor.
170:2.4 3. It was in itself a new standard of moral values, a new ethical yardstick wherewith to measure human conduct. It portrayed the ideal of a resultant new order of human society.
170:2.5 4. It taught the pre-eminence of the spiritual compared with the material; it glorified spiritual realities and exalted superhuman ideals. [Yes !]
170:2.6 5. This new gospel held up spiritual attainment as the true goal of living. Human life received a new endowment of moral value and divine dignity. [as potentially eternal sons of God !]
170:2.7 6. Jesus taught that eternal realities were the result (reward) of righteous earthly striving. Man's mortal sojourn on earth acquired new meanings consequent upon the recognition of a noble destiny.
170:2.8 7. The new gospel affirmed that human salvation is the revelation of a far-reaching divine purpose to be fulfilled and realized in the future destiny of the endless service of the salvaged sons of God. [!!!]
170:2.16 They [the apostles] looked upon the coming of the kingdom in the hearts of men as a gradual development, like the leaven in the dough or like the growing of the mustard seed. They believed that the coming of the kingdom in the racial or world sense would be both sudden and spectacular. Jesus never tired of telling them that the kingdom of heaven was their personal experience of realizing the higher qualities of spiritual living; that these realities of the Spirit experience are progressively translated to new and higher levels of divine certainty and eternal grandeur.
170:2.20 Jesus taught that, by faith, the believer enters the kingdom now. In the various discourses he taught that two things are essential to faith-entrance into the kingdom:
170:2.21 1. Faith, sincerity. To come as a little child, to receive the bestowal of sonship as a gift; to submit to the doing of the Father’s will without questioning and in the full confidence and genuine trustfulness of the Father’s wisdom; to come into the kingdom free from prejudice and preconception; to be open-minded and teachable like an unspoiled child.
170:2.22 2. Truth hunger. The thirst for righteousness, a change of mind, the acquirement of the motive to be like God and to find God.
PAPER 171 ON THE WAY TO JERUSALEM
7. "As Jesus Passed By"
171:7.5 Jesus was never in a hurry. He had time to comfort his fellow men “as he passed by.” And he always made his friends feel at ease. He was a charming listener. He never engaged in the meddlesome probing of the souls of his associates. As he comforted hungry minds and ministered to thirsty souls, the recipients of his mercy did not so much feel that they were confessing to him as that they were conferring with him. They had unbounded confidence in him because they saw he had so much faith in them. [!!]
171:7.6 He never seemed to be curious about people, and he never manifested a desire to direct, manage, or follow them up. He inspired profound self-confidence and robust courage in all who enjoyed his association. When he smiled on a man, that mortal experienced increased capacity for solving his manifold problems.
PAPER 174 TUESDAY MORNING IN THE TEMPLE
5. THE INQUIRING GREEKS
174:5.12 Then Jesus continued to speak: "All this has not happened for my sake but for yours. [!!] I know of a certainty that the Father will receive me and accept my mission in your behalf, but it is needful that you be encouraged and be made ready for the fiery trial which is just ahead. Let me assure you that victory shall eventually crown our united efforts to enlighten the world and liberate mankind. [Mankind is, overall, slowly progressing in following Jesus in Spirit and in Father-Son Truth Union ! On the last page of this mighty Revelation of Truth we will read: "Be not discouraged; human evolution is still in progress, and the revelation of GOD to the world, IN AND THROUGH JESUS, shall not fail." We lovers of Jesus need to further unite in this good and needed continuing Mission of Truth to all humans. Let us work together under Jesus here in Spirit !] The old order is bringing itself to judgment; the Prince of this world I have cast down; and all men shall become free by the Light of the Spirit which I will pour out upon all flesh after I have ascended to my Father in Heaven. [He the Father-Son Union Spirit of Truth ! Just like Jesus now always here with us in Spirit !! Very important: peruse John `12:31-32 !]]
PAPER 176 TUESDAY EVENING ON MOUNT OLIVET
3. Later Discussion at the Camp
176:3.2 [Jesus:] “And even you, Thomas, fail to comprehend what I have been saying. Have I not all this time taught you that your connection with the kingdom is spiritual and individual, wholly a matter of personal experience in the spirit by the faith-realization that you are a son of God? [This is a tremendous statement on one possible method of the return of Jesus !! Please read on carefully.] What more shall I say? The downfall of nations, the crash of empires, the destruction of the unbelieving Jews, the end of an age, even the end of the world, what have these things to do with one who believes this gospel, and who has hid his life in the surety of the eternal kingdom? You who are God-knowing and gospel-believing have already received the assurances of eternal life. Since your lives have been lived in the Spirit and for the Father, nothing can be of serious concern to you. Kingdom builders, the accredited citizens of the heavenly worlds, are not to be disturbed by temporal upheavals or perturbed by terrestrial cataclysms. What does it matter to you who believe this gospel of the kingdom if nations overturn, the age ends, or all things visible crash, since you know that your life is the gift of the Son, and that it is eternally secure in the Father? Having lived the temporal life by faith and having yielded the fruits of the spirit as the righteousness of loving service for your fellows, you can confidently look forward to the next step in the eternal career with the same survival faith that has carried you through your first and earthly adventure in sonship with God. [Powerful, uplifting words of our Master Jesus !]
PAPER 178 LAST DAY AT THE CAMP
1. Discourse on Sonship and Citizenship
178:1.11 [Jesus:] Remember that you are commissioned to preach this gospel of the kingdom — the supreme desire to do the Father’s will coupled with the supreme joy of the faith realization of sonship with God — and you must not allow anything to divert your devotion to this one duty. Let all mankind benefit from the overflow of your loving spiritual ministry, enlightening intellectual communion, and uplifting social service; but none of these humanitarian labors, nor all of them, should be permitted to take the place of proclaiming the gospel. These mighty ministrations are the social by-products of the still more mighty and sublime ministrations and transformations wrought in the heart of the kingdom believer by the living Spirit of Truth and by the personal realization that the faith of a Spirit-born man confers the assurance of living fellowship with the Eternal God. [Beautiful Truths !]
PAPER 180 THE FAREWELL DISCOURSE
2. The Vine and the Branches
180:2.1 Then Jesus stood up again and continued teaching his apostles: “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. I am the vine, and you are the branches. And the Father requires of me only that you shall bear much fruit. The vine is pruned only to increase the fruitfulness of its branches. Every branch coming out of me which bears no fruit, the Father will take away. Every branch which bears fruit, the Father will cleanse that it may bear more fruit. Already are you clean through the word I have spoken, but you must continue to be clean. You must abide in me, and I in you; the branch will die if it is separated from the vine. As the branch cannot bear fruit except it abides in the vine, so neither can you yield the fruits of loving service except you abide in me. Remember: I am the real vine, and you are the living branches. He who lives in me, and I in him, will bear much fruit of the spirit and experience the supreme joy of yielding this spiritual harvest. If you will maintain this living spiritual connection with me, you will bear abundant fruit. If you abide in me and my words live in you, you will be able to commune freely with me, and then can my living spirit so infuse you that you may ask whatsoever my spirit wills and do all this with the assurance that the Father will grant us our petition. Herein is the Father glorified: that the vine has many living branches, and that every branch bears much fruit. And when the world sees these fruit-bearing branches — my friends who love one another, even as I have loved them — all men will know that you are truly my disciples. [We are in the believing Brotherhood of/in/with Jesus !]
180:2.2 "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Live in my love even as I live in the Father's love. If you do as I have taught you, you shall abide in my love even as I have kept the Father's word and evermore abide in his love."
5. The Spirit of Truth
180:5.1 The new helper which Jesus promised to send into the hearts of believers, to pour out upon all flesh, is the Spirit of Truth. This divine endowment is not the letter or law of truth, neither is it to function as the form or expression of truth. The new teacher is the conviction of truth, the consciousness and assurance of true meanings on real spirit levels. And this new teacher is the spirit of living and growing truth, expanding, unfolding, and adaptative truth.
PAPER 181 FINAL ADMONITIONS AND WARNINGS
1. Last Words of Comfort
181:1.8 A certain amount of both stoicism and optimism are serviceable in living a life on earth, but neither has aught to do with that superb peace which the Son of God bestows upon his brethren in the flesh. The peace which [our Jesus Christ] Michael gives his children on earth is that very peace which filled his own soul when he himself lived the mortal life in the flesh and on this very world. The peace of Jesus is the joy and satisfaction of a God-knowing individual who has achieved the triumph of learning fully how to do the will of God while living the mortal life in the flesh. The peace of Jesus’ mind was founded on an absolute human faith in the actuality of the divine Father’s wise and sympathetic overcare. Jesus had trouble on earth, he has even been falsely called the “man of sorrows,” but in and through all of these experiences he enjoyed the comfort of that confidence which ever empowered him to proceed with his life purpose in the full assurance that he was achieving the Father’s will. [Jesus continues to give us believers in Him his perfect Paradise-level peace ! This greatly lessens the perceived problems we have in this still defective world !]
181:1.9 Jesus was determined, persistent, and thoroughly devoted to the accomplishment of his mission, but he was not an unfeeling and calloused stoic; he ever sought for the cheerful aspects of his life experiences, but he was not a blind and self-deceived optimist. The Master knew all that was to befall him, and he was unafraid. After he had bestowed this peace upon each of his followers, he could consistently say, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
181:1.10 The peace of Jesus is, then, the peace and assurance of a son who fully believes that his career for time and eternity is safely and wholly in the care and keeping of an all-wise, all-loving, and all-powerful spirit Father. And this is, indeed, a peace which passes the understanding of mortal mind, but which can be enjoyed to the full by the believing human heart. [Very True ! Allow Jesus to come in to you-as-soul, to comfort and ever-Guide you ...]
PAPER 188 THE TIME OF THE TOMB
4. Meaning of the Death on the Cross
188:4.6 Jesus lived and died for a whole universe, not just for the races of this one world. While the mortals of the realms had salvation even before Jesus lived and died on Earth, it is nevertheless a fact that his bestowal on this world greatly illuminated the way of salvation; his death did much to make forever plain the certainty of mortal survival after death in the flesh.
Topical Study 86 "TRUST and ASSURANCE in and with GOD"
Compiled 4/15/2015 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Part 7 of 7]
PAPER 191 APPEARANCES TO THE APOSTLES AND OTHER LEADERS
2. First Appearance to the Apostles
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
191:2.1 [The evening of his self-resurrection, Sunday, April 09, A.D. 30, Jesus makes his 9th sudden appearance:] Shortly after nine o’clock that evening, after the departure of Cleopas and Jacob, while the Alpheus twins comforted Peter, and while Nathaniel remonstrated with Andrew, and as the ten apostles were there assembled in the upper chamber with all the doors bolted for fear of arrest, the Master, in morontia [soul] form, suddenly appeared in the midst of them, saying: “Peace be upon you. Why are you so frightened when I appear, as though you had seen a spirit? Did I not tell you about these things when I was present with you in the flesh? Did I not say to you that the chief priests and the rulers would deliver me up to be killed, that one of your own number would betray me, and that on the third day I would rise? Wherefore all your doubtings and all this discussion about the reports of the women, Cleopas and Jacob, and even Peter? How long will you doubt my words and refuse to believe my promises? And now that you actually see me, will you believe? Even now one of you is absent. When you are gathered together once more, and after all of you know of a certainty that the Son of Man has risen from the grave, go hence into Galilee. Have faith in God; have faith in one another; and so shall you enter into the new service of the kingdom of heaven. I will tarry in Jerusalem with you until you are ready to go into Galilee. My peace I leave with you.”
5. Second Appearance to the Apostles
191:5.1 Thomas spent a lonesome week alone with himself in the hills around about Olivet. During this time he saw only those at Simon's house and John Mark. It was about nine o'clock on Saturday, April 15, when the two apostles found him and took him back with them to their rendezvous at the Mark home. The next day Thomas listened to the telling of the stories of the Master's various appearances, but he steadfastly refused to believe. [!!] He maintained that Peter had enthused them into thinking they had seen the Master. Nathaniel reasoned with him, but it did no good. There was an emotional stubbornness associated with his customary doubtfulness, and this state of mind, coupled with his chagrin at having run away from them, conspired to create a situation of isolation which even Thomas himself did not fully understand. He had withdrawn from his fellows, he had gone his own way, and now, even when he was back among them, he unconsciously tended to assume an attitude of disagreement. He was slow to surrender; he disliked to give in. Without intending it, he really enjoyed the attention paid him; he derived unconscious satisfaction from the efforts of all his fellows to convince and convert him. He had missed them for a full week, and he obtained considerable pleasure from their persistent attentions.
191:5.2 They were having their evening meal a little after six o'clock, with Peter sitting on one side of Thomas and Nathaniel on the other, when the doubting apostle said: "I will not believe unless I see the Master with my own eyes and put my finger in the mark of the nails." As they thus sat at supper, and while the doors were securely shut and barred, the morontia Master suddenly appeared inside the curvature of the [U-shaped] table and, standing directly in front of Thomas, said:
191:5.3 “Peace be upon you. For a full week have I tarried that I might appear again when you were all present to hear once more the commission to go into all the world [this universal commission continues !] and preach this gospel of the kingdom. Again I tell you: As the Father sent me into the world, so send I you. As I have revealed the Father, so shall you reveal the divine love, not merely with words, but in your daily living. I send you forth, not to love the souls of men, but rather to love men. You are not merely to proclaim the joys of heaven but also to exhibit in your daily experience these spirit realities of the divine life since you already have eternal life, as the gift of God, through faith. When you have faith, when power from on high, the Spirit of Truth, has come upon you, [coming soon, May 18. A.D. 30 -on, and here now still] you will not hide your light here behind closed doors; you will make known the love and the mercy of God to all mankind. Through fear you now flee from the facts of a disagreeable experience, but when you shall have been baptized with the Spirit of Truth, you will bravely and joyously go forth to meet the new experiences of proclaiming the good news of eternal life in the kingdom of God. You may tarry here and in Galilee for a short season while you recover from the shock of the transition from the false security of the authority of traditionalism to the new order of the authority of facts, truth, and faith in the supreme realities of living experience. Your mission to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-revealing life among you; on the truth that you and all other men are the sons of God; [Yes, the Good News of Jesus here in Spirit is that all humans are now sons of God ! Thank You our Father and Master Jesus as One Combined Spirit here!] and it shall consist in the life which you will live among men — the actual and living experience of loving men and serving them, even as I have loved and served you. Let faith reveal your light to the world; let the revelation of truth open the eyes blinded by tradition; let your loving service effectually destroy the prejudice engendered by ignorance. By so drawing close to your fellow men in understanding sympathy and with unselfish devotion, you will lead them into a saving knowledge of the Father’s love. The Jews have extolled goodness; the Greeks have exalted beauty; the Hindus preach devotion; the faraway ascetics teach reverence; the Romans demand loyalty; but I require of my disciples life, even a life of loving service for your brothers in the flesh.” [Life ! and loving service ! Tremendous !]
191:5.4 When the Master had so spoken, he looked down into the face of Thomas and said: "And you, Thomas, who said you would not believe unless you could see me and put your finger in the nail marks of my hands, have now beheld me and heard my words; and though you see no nail marks on my hands, since I am raised in the form that you also shall have when you depart from this world, what will you say to your brethren? You will acknowledge the truth, for already in your heart you had begun to believe even when you so stoutly asserted your unbelief. Your doubts, Thomas, always most stubbornly assert themselves just as they are about to crumble. Thomas, I bid you be not faithless but believing -- and I know you will believe, even with a whole heart."
191:5.5 When Thomas heard these words, he fell on his knees before the morontia Master and exclaimed, "I believe! My Lord and my Master!" [Lord means God. "My Lord and my God !" in John 20:28] Then said Jesus to Thomas: "You have believed, Thomas, because you have really seen and heard me. Blessed are those in the ages to come who will believe even though they have not seen with the eye of flesh nor heard with the mortal ear."
191:5.6 And then, as the Master's form moved over near the head of the table, he addressed them all, saying: "And now go all of you to Galilee, where I will presently appear to you." After he said this, he vanished from their sight.
191:5.7 The eleven apostles were now fully convinced [finally !] that Jesus had risen from the dead, and very early the next morning, before the break of day, they started out for Galilee.
PAPER 192 APPEARANCES IN GALILEE
2. Visiting with the Apostles two and two
192:2.7 When they returned to the others, Jesus went for a walk and talk with Andrew and James. When they had gone a short distance, Jesus said to Andrew, “Andrew, do you trust me?” And when the former chief of the apostles heard Jesus ask such a question, he stood still and answered, “Yes, Master, of a certainty I trust you, and you know that I do.” Then said Jesus: “Andrew, if you trust me, trust your brethren more — even Peter. I once trusted you with the leadership of your brethren. Now must you trust others as I leave you to go to the Father. When your brethren begin to scatter abroad because of bitter persecutions, be a considerate and wise counselor to James my brother in the flesh when they put heavy burdens upon him which he is not qualified by experience to bear. And then go on trusting, for I will not fail you. When you are through on earth, you shall come to me.”
192:2.8 Then Jesus turned to James, asking, “James, do you trust me?” And of course James replied, “Yes, Master, I trust you with all my heart.” Then said Jesus: “James, if you trust me more, you will be less impatient with your brethren. If you will trust me, it will help you to be kind to the brotherhood of believers. Learn to weigh the consequences of your sayings and your doings. Remember that the reaping is in accordance with the sowing. Pray for tranquillity of Spirit and cultivate patience. These graces, with living faith, shall sustain you when the hour comes to drink the cup of sacrifice. But never be dismayed; when you are through on Earth, you shall also come to be with me.”
4. The Lakeside Gathering
192:4.5 This was a sad home-coming for John Mark. Just a few hours before he reached home, his father, Elijah Mark, suddenly died from a hemorrhage in the brain. Although the thought of the certainty of the resurrection of the dead did much to comfort the apostles in their grief, at the same time they truly mourned the loss of their good friend, who had been their stanch supporter even in the times of great trouble and disappointment. John Mark did all he could to comfort his mother and, speaking for her, invited the apostles to continue to make their home at her house. And the eleven made this upper chamber their headquarters until after the day of Pentecost. [May 18, A.D. 30]
PAPER 193 FINAL APPEARANCES AND ASCENSION
2. The Phoenician Appearance
193:2.1 The Master's eighteenth morontia appearance was at Tyre, on Tuesday, May 16, at a little before nine o'clock in the evening. Again he appeared at the close of a meeting of believers, as they were about to disperse, saying:
193:2.2 “Peace be upon you. You rejoice to know that the Son of Man has risen from the dead because you thereby know that you and your brethren shall also survive mortal death. But such survival is dependent on your having been previously born of the spirit of truth-seeking and God-finding. The bread of life and the water thereof are given only to those who hunger for truth and thirst for righteousness — for God. The fact that the dead rise is not the gospel of the kingdom. These great truths and these universe facts are all related to this gospel in that they are a part of the result of believing the good news and are embraced in the subsequent experience of those who, by faith, become, in deed and in truth, the everlasting sons of the eternal God. [!!] My Father sent me into the world to proclaim this salvation of sonship to all men. And so send I you abroad to preach this salvation of sonship. Salvation is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will immediately begin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in loving service to their fellow creatures. And the fruits of the divine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace. If professed believers bear not these fruits of the divine spirit in their lives, they are dead; the Spirit of Truth is not in them; they are useless branches on the living vine, and they soon will be taken away. My Father requires of the children of faith that they bear much spirit fruit. If, therefore, you are not fruitful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your unfruitful branches. Increasingly, must you yield the fruits of the spirit as you progress heavenward in the kingdom of God. You may enter the kingdom as a child, but the Father requires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spiritual adulthood. And when you go abroad to tell all nations the good news of this gospel, I will go before you, and my Spirit of Truth shall abide in your hearts. My peace I leave with you.”
3. Last Appearance in Jerusalem
193:3.1 Early Thursday morning, May 18, [A. D. 30] Jesus made his last [19th] appearance on earth as a morontia [soul-form] personality. As the eleven apostles were about to sit down to breakfast in the upper chamber of Mary Mark's home, Jesus appeared to them and said:
193:3.2 “Peace be upon you. I have asked you to tarry here in Jerusalem until I ascend to the Father, even until I send you the Spirit of Truth, who shall soon be poured out upon all flesh, [and thus upon all humans worldwide !] and who shall endow you with power from on high.” Simon Zelotes interrupted Jesus, asking, “Then, Master, will you restore the Kingdom, and will we see the glory of God manifested on earth?” When Jesus had listened to Simon’s question, he answered: “Simon, you still cling to your old ideas about the Jewish Messiah and the material kingdom. But you will receive spiritual power after the Spirit has descended upon you, and you will presently go into all the world preaching this gospel of the kingdom. As the Father sent me into the world, so do I send you. And I wish that you would love and trust one another. Judas is no more with you because his love grew cold, and because he refused to trust you, his loyal brethren. Have you not read in the Scripture where it is written: ‘It is not good for man to be alone. No man lives to himself’? And also where it says: ‘He who would have friends must show himself friendly’? And did I not even send you out to teach, two and two, that you might not become lonely and fall into the mischief and miseries of isolation? You also well know that, when I was in the flesh, I did not permit myself to be alone for long periods. From the very beginning of our associations I always had two or three of you constantly by my side or else very near at hand even when I communed with the Father. Trust, therefore, and confide in one another. And this is all the more needful since I am this day going to leave you alone in the world. The hour has come; I am about to go to the Father.”
PAPER 195 AFTER PENTECOST
5. The Modern Problem
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
195:5.8 Religion is designed to find those values in the universe which call forth faith, trust, and assurance; religion culminates in worship. Religion discovers for the soul those supreme values which are in contrast with the relative values discovered by the mind. Such superhuman insight can be had only through genuine religious experience.
6. Materialism
195:6.1 Scientists have unintentionally precipitated mankind into a materialistic panic; they have started an unthinking run on the moral bank of the ages, but this bank of human experience has vast spiritual resources; it can stand the demands being made upon it. Only unthinking men become panicky about the spiritual assets of the human race. When the materialistic-secular panic is over, the religion of Jesus will not be found bankrupt. The spiritual bank of the kingdom of heaven will be paying out faith, hope, and moral security to all who draw upon it “in His name.”
10. The Future
195:10.17 Even secular education could help in this great spiritual renaissance if it would pay more attention to the work of teaching youth how to engage in life planning and character progression. The purpose of all education should be to foster and further the supreme purpose of life, the development of a majestic and well-balanced personality. There is great need for the teaching of moral discipline in the place of so much self-gratification. Upon such a foundation religion may contribute its spiritual incentive to the enlargement and enrichment of mortal life, even to the security and enhancement of life eternal.
PAPER 196 THE FAITH OF JESUS
Introduction
196:0.1 Jesus enjoyed a sublime and wholehearted faith in God. He experienced the ordinary ups and downs of mortal existence, but he never religiously doubted the certainty of God’s watchcare and guidance. His faith was the outgrowth of the insight born of the activity of the Divine Presence, his indwelling Adjuster. [The pure Essence of God within -- God's will.] His faith was neither traditional nor merely intellectual; it was wholly personal and purely spiritual.
196:0.2 The human Jesus saw God as being holy, just, and great, as well as being true, beautiful, and good. All these attributes of divinity he focused in his mind as the "will of the Father in heaven." Jesus' God was at one and the same time "The Holy One of Israel" and "The living and loving Father in heaven." The concept of God as a Father was not original with Jesus, but he exalted and elevated the idea into a sublime experience by achieving a new revelation of God and by proclaiming that every mortal creature is a child of this Father of love, a son of God. [Yes, Jesus teaches us in Spirit that each and every human on Earth is now a divinely beloved son of God with potential for eventual perfection and eternal life ! That is the real Gospel (Good News) of our Sovereign Universe Creator Son of God Jesus Christ Michael that all humans on this world most need to know and to live in faith and in doing loving service to all !]
196:0.3 Jesus did not cling to faith in God as would a struggling soul at war with the universe and at death grips with a hostile and sinful world; he did not resort to faith merely as a consolation in the midst of difficulties or as a comfort in threatened despair; faith was not just an illusory compensation for the unpleasant realities and the sorrows of living. In the very face of all the natural difficulties and the temporal contradictions of mortal existence, he experienced the tranquillity of supreme and unquestioned trust in God and felt the tremendous thrill of living, by faith, in the very presence of the heavenly Father. And this triumphant faith was a living experience of actual spirit attainment. Jesus’ great contribution to the values of human experience was not that he revealed so many new ideas about the Father in heaven, but rather that he so magnificently and humanly demonstrated a new and higher type of living faith in God. Never on all the worlds of this universe, in the life of any one mortal, did God ever become such a living reality as in the human experience of Jesus of Nazareth. [Now our Master Jesus is the fullness of God here to all in His Created Universe ! And He, Jesus, the Spirit of All Truth, is here with us to lovingly lead us -- now and eternally !]
196:0.4 In the Master's life on earth, this and all other worlds of the local creation discover a new and higher type of religion, religion based on personal spiritual relations with the Universal Father and wholly validated by the supreme authority of genuine personal experience. This living faith of Jesus was more than an intellectual reflection, and it was not a mystic meditation.
196:0.5 Theology may fix, formulate, define, and dogmatize faith, but in the human life of Jesus faith was personal, living, original, spontaneous, and purely spiritual. This faith was not reverence for tradition nor a mere intellectual belief which he held as a sacred creed, but rather a sublime experience and a profound conviction which securely held him. His faith was so real and all-encompassing that it absolutely swept away any spiritual doubts and effectively destroyed every conflicting desire. Nothing was able to tear him away from the spiritual anchorage of this fervent, sublime, and undaunted faith. Even in the face of apparent defeat or in the throes of disappointment and threatening despair, he calmly stood in the divine presence free from fear and fully conscious of spiritual invincibility. Jesus enjoyed the invigorating assurance of the possession of unflinching faith, and in each of life’s trying situations he unfailingly exhibited an unquestioning loyalty to the Father’s will. And this superb faith was undaunted even by the cruel and crushing threat of an ignominious death. [Done by very sinful, cruel humans; never was that God's will !!]
196:0.9 The Master’s entire life was consistently conditioned by this living faith, this sublime religious experience. This spiritual attitude wholly dominated his thinking and feeling, his believing and praying, his teaching and preaching. This personal faith of a son in the certainty and security of the guidance and protection of the heavenly Father imparted to his unique life a profound endowment of spiritual reality.
196:0.11 In the earthly life of Jesus, religion was a living experience, a direct and personal movement from spiritual reverence to practical righteousness. The faith of Jesus bore the transcendent fruits of the divine spirit. His faith was not immature and credulous like that of a child, but in many ways it did resemble the unsuspecting trust of the child mind. Jesus trusted God much as the child trusts a parent. He had a profound confidence in the universe — just such a trust as the child has in its parental environment. Jesus’ wholehearted faith in the fundamental goodness of the universe very much resembled the child’s trust in the security of its earthly surroundings. He depended on the heavenly Father as a child leans upon its earthly parent, and his fervent faith never for one moment doubted the certainty of the heavenly Father’s overcare. He was not disturbed seriously by fears, doubts, and skepticism. Unbelief did not inhibit the free and original expression of his life. He combined the stalwart and intelligent courage of a full-grown man with the sincere and trusting optimism of a believing child. His faith grew to such heights of trust that it was devoid of fear.
196:0.12 The faith of Jesus attained the purity of a child’s trust. His faith was so absolute and undoubting that it responded to the charm of the contact of fellow beings and to the wonders of the universe. His sense of dependence on the Divine was so complete and so confident that it yielded the joy and the assurance of absolute personal security. There was no hesitating pretense in his religious experience. In this giant intellect of the full-grown man the faith of the child reigned supreme in all matters relating to the religious consciousness. It is not strange that he once said, “Except you become as a little child, you shall not enter the Kingdom.” Notwithstanding that Jesus’ faith was childlike, it was in no sense childish.
196:0.13 Jesus does not require his disciples to believe in him but rather to believe with him, believe in the reality of the love of God and in full confidence accept the security of the assurance of sonship with the heavenly Father. The Master desires that all his followers should fully share his transcendent faith. Jesus most touchingly challenged his followers, not only to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed. This is the full significance of his one supreme requirement, “Follow me.”
196:0.14 Jesus’ earthly life was devoted to one great purpose — doing the Father’s will, living the human life religiously and by faith. The faith of Jesus was trusting, like that of a child, but it was wholly free from presumption. He made robust and manly decisions, courageously faced manifold disappointments, resolutely surmounted extraordinary difficulties, and unflinchingly confronted the stern requirements of duty. It required a strong will and an unfailing confidence to believe what Jesus believed and as he believed.
1. Jesus -- The Man
196:1.5 It should not be the aim of kingdom believers literally to imitate the outward life of Jesus in the flesh but rather to share his faith; to trust God as he trusted God and to believe in men as he believed in men. Jesus never argued about either the fatherhood of God or the brotherhood of men; he was a living illustration of the one and a profound demonstration of the other.
3. The Supremacy of Religion
196:3.19 The Hebrews had a religion of moral sublimity; the Greeks evolved a religion of beauty; Paul and his conferees founded a religion of faith, hope, and charity. Jesus revealed and exemplified a religion of love: security in the Father’s love, with joy and satisfaction consequent upon sharing this love in the service of the human brotherhood.
Topical Study 87 "Embracing Spiritual Growth
by Sincerely Seeking to be Spirit-of-God-Led"
[Highlights of my Topical Studies 59, 65, 68, 74 and 82 done here earlier]
Compiled 4/17/2015 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Part 1 of many]
PART I THE CENTRAL AND SUPERUNIVERSES
PAPER 1 THE UNIVERSAL FATHER
Introduction
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
1:0.4 This magnificent and universal injunction [by God the Universal Father on Paradise states: "Be you perfect; even as I am perfect !"] to strive for the attainment of the perfection of divinity is the first duty, and should be the highest ambition, of all the struggling creature creation of the God of perfection. This possibility of the attainment of divine perfection is the final and certain destiny of all man's eternal spiritual progress.
1:0.5 Mortals of Earth can hardly hope to be perfect in the infinite sense, but it is entirely possible for human beings, starting out as they do on this planet, to attain the supernal and divine goal which the infinite God has set for mortal man; and when they do achieve this destiny, they will, in all that pertains to self-realization and mind attainment, be just as replete in their sphere of divine perfection as God himself is in his sphere of infinity and eternity. Such perfection may not be universal in the material sense, unlimited in intellectual grasp, or final in spiritual experience, but it is final and complete in all finite aspects of divinity of will, perfection of personality motivation, and God-consciousness.
1:0.6 This is the true meaning of that divine command, "Be you perfect, even as I am perfect," which ever urges mortal man onward and beckons him inward in that long and fascinating struggle for the attainment of higher and higher levels of spiritual values and true universe meanings. This sublime search for the God of universes is the supreme adventure of the inhabitants of all the worlds of time and space. [Spiritual values are love, mercy, ministry, (service,) truth, beauty and goodness]
2. The Reality of God
1:2.3 The actuality of the existence of God is demonstrated in human experience by the indwelling of the divine presence, the spirit Monitor sent from Paradise to live in the mortal mind of man and there to assist in evolving the immortal soul of eternal survival. The presence of this divine Adjuster in the human mind is disclosed by three experiential phenomena:
1:2.4 1. The intellectual capacity for knowing God -- God-consciousness.
1:2.5 2. The spiritual urge to find God -- God-seeking.
1:2.6 3. The personality craving to be like God -- the wholehearted desire to do the Father's will.
3. God is a Universal Spirit
1:3.7 In the inner experience of man, mind is joined to matter. Such material-linked minds cannot survive mortal death. The technique of survival is embraced in those adjustments of the human will and those transformations in the mortal mind whereby such a God-conscious intellect gradually becomes Spirit taught and eventually Spirit led. This evolution of the human mind from matter association to Spirit union results in the transmutation of the potentially spirit phases of the mortal mind into the morontia [a soul level higher than the physical but sub-spiritual for now] realities of the immortal soul. Mortal mind subservient to matter is destined to become increasingly material and consequently to suffer eventual personality extinction; mind yielded to Spirit is destined to become increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve oneness with the surviving and guiding Divine Spirit and in this way to attain survival and Eternity of personality existence. [No human, other than Jesus our Maker and Savior, has become fully spiritual in this brief lifetime ! Thus, Jesus has made many higher mansion worlds, and many higher spheres, for our future spiritualization. God and Jesus have both said and eternally say: "Be you perfect, even as I AM perfect." Amen !]
5. Personality of the Universal Father
1:5.5 [Very important:] In the local creations (excepting the personnel of the superuniverses) God has no personal or residential manifestation aside from the Paradise Creator Sons [our Sovereign Savior Jesus Christ Michael] who are the Fathers of the inhabited worlds and the Sovereigns of the local universes. If the faith of the creature were perfect, he would assuredly know that when he had seen a Creator Son he had seen the Universal Father; in seeking for the Father, he would not ask nor expect to see other than the Son. Mortal man simply cannot see God until he achieves completed spirit transformation and actually attains Paradise. [Yes ! SEE JESUS: SEE GOD; THEY ARE ONE IN SPIRIT !]
1:5.15 The absolute perfection of the infinite God would cause him to suffer the awful limitations of unqualified finality of perfectness were it not a fact that the Universal Father directly participates in the personality struggle of every imperfect soul in the wide universe who seeks, by divine aid, to ascend to the spiritually perfect worlds on high. This progressive experience of every spirit being and every mortal creature throughout the universe of universes is a part of the Father's ever-expanding Deity-consciousness of the never-ending divine circle of ceaseless self-realization.
PAPER 2 THE NATURE OF GOD
3. Justice and Righteousness
2:3.5 In any universe contest between actual levels of reality, the personality of the higher level will ultimately triumph over the personality of the lower level. This inevitable outcome of universe controversy is inherent in the fact that divinity of quality equals the degree of reality or actuality of any will creature. Undiluted evil, complete error, willful sin, and unmitigated iniquity are inherently and automatically suicidal. Such attitudes of cosmic unreality can survive in the universe only because of transient mercy-tolerance pending the action of the justice-determining and fairness-finding mechanisms of the universe tribunals of righteous adjudication.
2:3.6 The rule of the Creator Sons in the local universes [each local universe, when completed, will have about ten million human inhabited worlds, and many higher heavenly spheres, some through which we will ascend.] is one of creation and spiritualization. These Sons devote themselves to the effective execution of the Paradise plan of progressive mortal ascension, to the rehabilitation of rebels and wrong thinkers, but when all such loving efforts [including lavish mercy ministry !] are finally and forever rejected, the final decree of dissolution is executed by forces acting under the jurisdiction of the Ancients of Days.
5. The Love of God
2:5.5 After all, the greatest evidence of the goodness of God and the supreme reason for loving him is the indwelling gift of the Father -- the Adjuster who so patiently awaits the hour when you both shall be eternally made one. Though you cannot find God by searching, [with only the physical eyes and human mind] if you will submit to the leading of the indwelling spirit, you will be unerringly guided, step by step, life by life, through universe upon universe, and age by age, until you finally stand in the presence of the Paradise personality of the Universal Father. [Wonderful !]
2:5.6 How unreasonable that you should not worship God because the limitations of human nature and the handicaps of your material creation make it impossible for you to see him. Between you and God there is a tremendous distance (physical space) to be traversed. There likewise exists a great gulf of spiritual differential which must be bridged; but notwithstanding all that physically and spiritually separates you from the Paradise personal presence of God, stop and ponder the solemn fact that God lives within you; he has in his own way already bridged the gulf. He has sent of himself, his spirit, to live in you and to toil with you as you pursue your eternal universe career. [!!]
2:5.9 The Father's love follows us now and throughout the endless circle of the eternal ages. As you ponder the loving nature of God, there is only one reasonable and natural personality reaction thereto: You will increasingly love your Maker; you will yield to God an affection analogous to that given by a child to an earthly parent; for, as a father, a real father, a true father, loves his children, so the Universal Father loves and forever seeks the welfare of his created sons and daughters.
2:5.10 But the love of God is an intelligent and farseeing parental affection. The divine love functions in unified association with divine wisdom and all other infinite characteristics of the perfect nature of the Universal Father. God is love, but love is not God. The greatest manifestation of the divine love for mortal beings is observed in the bestowal of the Thought Adjusters, but your greatest revelation of the Father’s love is seen in the bestowal life of his Son [Jesus Christ] Michael as he lived on earth the ideal spiritual life. It is the indwelling Adjuster who individualizes the love of God to each human soul.
6. The Goodness of God
2:6.5 Righteousness implies that God is the source of the moral law of the universe. Truth exhibits God as a revealer, as a teacher. But love gives and craves affection, seeks understanding fellowship such as exists between parent and child. Righteousness may be the divine thought, but love is a father's attitude. The erroneous supposition that the righteousness of God was irreconcilable with the selfless love of the heavenly Father, presupposed absence of unity in the nature of Deity and led directly to the elaboration of the atonement doctrine, which is a philosophic assault upon both the unity and the free-willness of God. [Thank You Jesus for showing us the True Father God of infinite Love, divine Light and eternal Life in and as You !!!]
2:6.6 The affectionate heavenly Father, whose Spirit [a Divine Thought Adjuster] indwells his children on earth, is not a divided personality — one of justice and one of mercy — neither does it require a mediator to secure the Father’s favor or forgiveness. Divine righteousness is not dominated by strict retributive justice; God as a [our infinitely loving] Father transcends God as a judge.
7. Divine Truth and Beauty
2:7.4 The false science of materialism would sentence mortal man to become an outcast in the universe. Such partial knowledge is potentially evil; it is knowledge composed of both good and evil. Truth is beautiful because it is both replete and symmetrical. When man searches for truth, he pursues the divinely real. [!!]
2:7.6 Intellectual self-consciousness can discover the beauty of truth, its spiritual quality, not only by the philosophic consistency of its concepts, but more certainly and surely by the unerring response of the ever-present Spirit of Truth. [producing the profound Conviction of Truth and in Truth !!] Happiness ensues from the recognition of truth because it can be acted out; it can be lived. Disappointment and sorrow attend upon error because, not being a reality, it cannot be realized in experience. Divine truth is best known by its spiritual flavor.
2:7.7 The eternal quest is for unification, for divine coherence. The far-flung physical universe coheres in the Isle of Paradise; the intellectual universe coheres in the God of mind, the Conjoint Actor; [The Infinite Spirit acting for both God the Universal Father and God the Eternal Son] the spiritual universe is coherent in the personality of the Eternal Son. But the isolated mortal of time and space coheres in God the Father through the direct relationship between the indwelling Thought Adjuster and the Universal Father. Man's Adjuster is a fragment of God and everlastingly seeks for divine unification; it coheres with, and in, the Paradise Deity of the First Source and Center.
PAPER 3 THE ATTRIBUTES OF GOD
1. God's Everywhereness
3:1.4 The creature not only exists in God, but God also lives in the creature. "We know we dwell in him because he lives in us; he has given us his spirit. This gift from the Paradise Father is man's inseparable companion." "He is the ever-present and all-pervading God." "The Spirit of the everlasting Father is concealed in the mind of every [yes, every !!] mortal child." "Man goes forth searching for a friend while that very friend lives within his own heart." "The true God is not afar off; he is a part of us; his Spirit speaks from within us." "The Father lives in the child. God is always with us. He is the guiding Spirit of eternal destiny." [Yes, God is Omnipresent; the Universal Father-Infinite I AM has no outside and no beyond; He totally transcends space. And we also exist within his Personality and Spirit Presence Circuits !!]
PAPER 5 GOD’S RELATION TO THE INDIVIDUAL
1. The Approach to God
5:1.3 Although the approach to the Paradise presence of the Father must await your attainment of the highest finite levels of Spirit progression, you should rejoice in the recognition of the ever-present possibility of immediate Communion with the bestowal Spirit of the Father so intimately associated with your inner soul and your spiritualizing self. [Beautiful, true and good ! and spiritually transforming !!]
5:1.4 The mortals of the realms of time and space may differ greatly in innate abilities and intellectual endowment, they may enjoy environments exceptionally favorable to social advancement and moral progress, or they may suffer from the lack of almost every human aid to culture and supposed advancement in the arts of civilization; but the possibilities for spiritual progress in the ascension career are equal to all; [ALL !] increasing levels of spiritual insight and cosmic meanings are attained quite independently of all such sociomoral differentials of the diversified material environments on the evolutionary worlds.
5:1.5 However Earth mortals may differ in their intellectual, social, economic, and even moral opportunities and endowments, forget not that their spiritual endowment is uniform and unique. They all enjoy the same Divine Presence of the gift from the Father, and they are all equally privileged to seek intimate personal Communion with this indwelling Spirit of divine origin, while they may all equally choose to accept the uniform spiritual leading of these Mystery Monitors. [The perfect will of God within you -- the divine Thought Adjusters -- is the same One will of God for each and for all ! Thus we must all seek to learn and obey the One Will of God in/as Jesus and in/as Spirit ! This means that this backward world will continue to progress; and eventually, we will all have and enjoy one worldwide moral code, one planetary law, one planetary language, one combined race, one Godly government, and finally, much later, one true world religion in Jesus Christ here in Spirit ! Then this planet will be admitted into God's Light and Life on a planetary and universe basis; now God's Light and Life in Jesus is Individually (humanly) received by all sincere Truth lovers !]
2. The Presence of God
5:2.4 It is because of this God fragment [Thought Adjuster] that indwells you that you can hope, as you progress in harmonizing with the Adjuster's spiritual leadings, more fully to discern the presence and transforming power of those other spiritual influences that surround you and impinge upon you but do not function as an integral part of you. The fact that you are not intellectually conscious of close and intimate contact with the indwelling Adjuster does not in the least disprove such an exalted experience. The proof of fraternity with the divine Adjuster consists wholly in the nature and extent of the fruits of the spirit which are yielded in the life experience of the individual believer. "By their fruits you shall know them." [On Page 2054 of this Revelation, Jesus states: "...the fruits of the divine Spirit which are yielded in the lives of Spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace."]
3. True Worship
[Three important paragraphs !]
5:3.6 The Creator or Sovereign Sons [our Sovereign Universe Creator Father-Son of God is Jesus Christ Michael] who preside over the destinies of the local universes stand in the place of both the Universal Father and the Eternal Son of Paradise. These Universe Sons receive, in the name of the Father, the adoration of worship and give ear to the pleas of their petitioning subjects throughout their respective creations. To the children of a local universe a Michael Son is, to all practical intents and purposes, God. He is the local universe personification of the Universal Father and the Eternal Son. The Infinite Spirit maintains personal contact with the children of these realms through the Universe [Holy] Spirits, the administrative and creative associates of the Paradise Creator Sons.
5:3.7 Sincere worship connotes the mobilization of all the powers of the human personality under the dominance of the evolving soul and subject to the divine directionization of the associated Thought Adjuster. [The pure spirit Essence of God within you, destined to be you when you are finally an all spirit-perfected Son of God.] The mind of material limitations can never become highly conscious of the real significance of true worship. Man's realization of the reality of the worship experience is chiefly determined by the developmental status of his evolving immortal soul. The spiritual growth of the soul takes place wholly independently of the intellectual self-consciousness. [!! Worship does not change God; but it greatly helps you and me in our spiritual transformations, soul growth, and sharing with others the fruits of the Spirit.]
5:3.8 The worship experience consists in the sublime attempt of the betrothed Adjuster to communicate to the divine [Paradise Universal] Father the inexpressible longings and the unutterable aspirations of the human soul -- the conjoint creation of the God-seeking mortal mind and the God-revealing immortal Adjuster. Worship is, therefore, the act of the material mind's assenting to the attempt of its spiritualizing self, under the guidance of the associated Spirit, to communicate with God as a faith son of the Universal Father. The mortal mind consents to worship; the immortal soul craves and initiates worship; the divine Adjuster presence conducts such worship in behalf of the mortal mind and the evolving immortal soul. True worship, in the last analysis, becomes an experience realized on four cosmic levels: the intellectual, the morontial, [soul level] the spiritual, and the personal -- the consciousness of mind, soul, and spirit, and their unification in personality. [Tremendous !! Thank You our loving and gracious Father God !!! Please peruse this paragraph several times ! Morontia is a soul reality that is super-physical, but is a sub-spiritual reality.]
4. God in Religion
5:4.1 The morality of the religions of evolution drives men forward in the God quest by the motive power of fear. The religions of revelation allure men to seek for a God of love because they crave to become like him. But religion is not merely a passive feeling of "absolute dependence" and "surety of survival"; it is a living and dynamic experience of divinity attainment predicated on humanity service.
5:4.3 God is not only the determiner of destiny; he is man's eternal destination. All nonreligious human activities seek to bend the universe to the distorting service of self; the truly religious individual seeks to identify the self with the universe [cosmic consciousness of a spiritual universe far more than just the material universe] and then to dedicate the activities of this unified self to the service of the Universe Family of fellow beings, human and superhuman.
5:4.6 The Hebrews based their religion on goodness; the Greeks on beauty; both religions sought truth. Jesus revealed a God of love, and love is all-embracing of truth, beauty, and goodness. ["Love is the desire to do good to others."]
Topical Study 87 "Embracing Spiritual Growth
by Sincerely Seeking to be Spirit-of-God-Led"
[Highlights of my Topical Studies 59, 65, 68, 74 and 82 done here earlier]
Compiled 4/20/2015 by Dave@PureChristians.org
[Part 2 of many]
PAPER 5 GOD’S RELATION TO THE INDIVIDUAL
5. The Consciousness of God
[Paper:Section.Paragraph]
5:5.1 Morality has its origin in the reason of self-consciousness; it is superanimal but wholly evolutionary. Human evolution embraces in its unfolding all endowments antecedent to the bestowal of the Adjusters and to the pouring out of the Spirit of Truth. But the attainment of levels of morality does not deliver man from the real struggles of mortal living. Man’s physical environment entails the battle for existence; the social surroundings necessitate ethical adjustments; the moral situations require the making of choices in the highest realms of reason; the spiritual experience (having realized God) demands that man find him and sincerely strive to be like him.
5:5.3 The fact-seeking scientist conceives of God as the First Cause, a God of force. The emotional artist sees God as the ideal of beauty, a God of aesthetics. The reasoning philosopher is sometimes inclined to posit a God of universal unity, even a pantheistic Deity. The religionist of faith believes in a God who fosters survival, the Father in heaven, the God of love.
5:5.13 ? Eternal survival of personality is wholly dependent on the choosing of the mortal mind, whose decisions determine the survival potential of the immortal soul. When the mind believes God and the soul knows God, and when, with the fostering Adjuster, they all desire God, then is survival assured. Limitations of intellect, curtailment of education, deprivation of culture, impoverishment of social status, even inferiority of the human standards of morality resulting from the unfortunate lack of educational, cultural, and social advantages, cannot invalidate the presence of the divine spirit in such unfortunate and humanly handicapped but believing individuals. The indwelling of the Mystery Monitor constitutes the inception and insures the possibility of the potential of growth and survival of the immortal soul.
5:5.17 ? The ability of mortal parents to procreate is not predicated on their educational, cultural, social, or economic status. The union of the parental factors under natural conditions is quite sufficient to initiate offspring. A human mind discerning right and wrong and possessing the capacity to worship God, in union with a divine Adjuster, is all that is required in that mortal to initiate and foster the production of his immortal soul of survival qualities if such a spirit-endowed individual seeks God and sincerely desires to become like him, honestly elects to do the will of the Father in heaven. [Even your faith is a free Gift from God ! If you are having any problems in seeking and finding God AS A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, just sincerely and wholeheartedly continue to ask our Creator Father and Elder Brother Jesus and the Holy Spirit above and within you to help you Know God in your soul, and thus have perfect spiritual peace -- even the same Paradise peace of God that Jesus has !]
PAPER 9 RELATION OF THE INFINITE SPIRIT TO THE UNIVERSE
9:4.6 Mind transmutes the values of spirit into the meanings of intellect; volition [of human personality] has power to bring the meanings of mind to fruit in both the material and spiritual domains. The Paradise ascent involves a relative and differential growth in spirit, mind, and energy. The personality is the unifier of these components of experiential individuality.
PAPER 12 THE UNIVERSE OF UNIVERSES
7. THE PART AND THE WHOLE
12:7.7 The will of God does not uniformly prevail in the heart of the God-seeking material mortal, but if the time frame is enlarged beyond the moment to embrace the whole of the first life, then does God’s will become increasingly discernible in the Spirit fruits which are borne in the lives of the Spirit-led children of God. And then, if human life is further enlarged to include the morontia [soul-level Heavens] experience, the Divine will is observed to shine brighter and brighter in the spiritualizing acts of those creatures of time who have begun to taste the Divine delights of experiencing the relationship of the personality of man with the Personality of the Universal Father. [I am a Divinely Beloved son of I AM ! Thank You Jesus and the Father-Infinite as One here in Spirit !]
19:5.12 And from all this, you mortals, just now taking your first step on the eternal journey, can well see that you must advance a long way before you will progress by "sight" and "material" assurance. You will long use faith and be dependent on revelation if you hope to progress quickly and safely.
PART II THE LOCAL UNIVERSE
PAPER 32 THE EVOLUTION OF LOCAL UNIVERSES
32:5.7 There is in the mind of God a plan which embraces every creature of all his vast domains, and this plan is an eternal purpose of boundless opportunity, unlimited progress, and endless life. And the infinite treasures of such a matchless career are yours for the striving ! [by seeking God in living faith and trust !]
32:5.8 The goal of eternity is ahead! The adventure of divinity attainment lies before you! The race for perfection is on! whosoever will may enter, and certain victory will crown the efforts of every human being who will run the race of faith and trust, depending every step of the way on the leading of the indwelling Adjuster and on the guidance of that good spirit of the Universe Son, which so freely has been poured out upon all flesh. [He the Spirit of Truth is Jesus Christ as God here with us ! See John chapters 16 and 17. Especially note John 16:7-16]
PAPER 34 THE LOCAL UNIVERSE MOTHER SPIRIT
5. The Ministry of the Spirit
34:5.4 When mind is thus endowed with the ministry of the Holy Spirit, it possesses the capacity for consciously or unconsciously choosing the spiritual Presence of the Universal Father -- the Thought Adjuster. But it is not until a bestowal Son has liberated the Spirit of Truth for planetary ministry to all [!!] mortals that all normal minds are automatically [!!] prepared for the reception of the Thought Adjusters. [Thank You Jesus !!!] The Spirit of Truth works as one with the presence of the spirit of the Divine Minister. This dual spirit liaison hovers over the worlds, seeking to teach truth and to spiritually enlighten the minds of men, to inspire the souls of the creatures of the ascending races, and to lead the peoples dwelling on the evolutionary planets ever towards their Paradise goal of divine destiny.
34:5.5 Though the Spirit of Truth is poured out upon all flesh, this spirit of the Son is almost wholly limited in function and power by man's personal reception of that which constitutes the sum and substance of the mission of the bestowal Son. The Holy Spirit is partly independent of human attitude and partially conditioned by the decisions and co-operation of the will of man. Nevertheless, the ministry of the Holy Spirit becomes increasingly effective in the sanctification and spiritualization of the inner life of those mortals who the more fully obey the divine leadings.
34:5.6 As individuals you do not personally possess a segregated portion or entity of the Spirit of the Creator Father-Son or the Creative Mother Spirit; these ministries do not contact with, nor indwell, the thinking centers of the individual's mind as do the Mystery Monitors. Thought Adjusters are definite individualizations of the prepersonal Reality of the Universal Father, actually indwelling the mortal mind as a very part of that mind, and they ever work in perfect harmony with the combined Spirits of the Creator Son and Creative Spirit.
34:5.6 The presence of the Holy Spirit of the Universe Daughter of the Infinite Spirit, of the Spirit of Truth of the Universe Son of the Eternal Son, and of the Adjuster-spirit of the Paradise Father in or with an evolutionary mortal, denotes symmetry of spiritual endowment and ministry and qualifies such a mortal consciously to realize the faith-fact of sonship with God. [In and with our Holy Father-Son-Spirit of Truth here ! Now, and just as and just where you are ! In the Family of God in Jesus and in Spirit !]
6. THE SPIRIT IN MAN
34:6.1 With the advancing evolution of an inhabited planet and the further spiritualization of its inhabitants, additional spiritual influences may be received by such mature personalities. As mortals progress in mind control and spirit perception, these multiple spirit ministries become more and more co-ordinate in function; they become increasingly blended with the overministry of the Paradise Trinity. [We have One Holy Father-Son-Spirit of Truth here, upon all and also within all human faith sons of God, in addition to the prepersonal pure spirit will of God within your mind now, called the Thought Adjuster or the Mystery Monitor or the Divine Pilot Light.]
34:6.2 Although Divinity may be plural in manifestation, in human experience Deity is singular, always one. Neither is spiritual ministry plural in human experience. Regardless of plurality of origin, all spirit influences are one in function. Indeed they are one, being the spirit ministry of God the Sevenfold [review: our Master Creator Son Jesus Christ Michael is the First Person in God the Sevenfold here to us] in and to the creatures of the grand universe; and as creatures grow in appreciation of, and receptivity for, this unifying ministry of the spirit, it becomes in their experience the ministry of God the Supreme.
34:6.3 From the heights of eternal glory the divine Spirit descends, by a long series of steps, to meet you as you are and where you are and then, in the partnership of faith, lovingly to embrace the soul of mortal origin and to embark on the sure and certain retracement of those steps of condescension, never stopping until the evolutionary soul is safely exalted to the very heights of bliss from which the divine Spirit originally sallied forth on this mission of mercy and ministry.
34:6.4 Spiritual forces unerringly seek and attain their own original levels. Having gone out from the Eternal, they are certain to return thereto, bringing with them all those children of time and space who have espoused the leading and teaching of the indwelling Adjuster, those who have been truly "born of the Spirit," the faith sons of God. [Our Adjusters within are a Sacred Gift directly from God the Father-Infinite I AM on Paradise; now you know more of our Glorious Final Destiny ! These Adjusters were only universally bestowed after A.D.30 when Jesus and the Father, as One, lovingly poured out the Spirit of Truth upon all flesh ! Read about He the Spirit of Truth in John 16:7-16 also]
34:6.5 The divine Spirit is the source of continual ministry and encouragement to the children of men. Your power and achievement is "according to his mercy, through the renewing of the Spirit." Spiritual life, like physical energy, is consumed. Spiritual effort results in relative spiritual exhaustion. The whole ascendant experience is real as well as spiritual; therefore, it is truly written, "It is the Spirit that quickens." "The Spirit gives life."
34:6.6 The dead theory of even the highest religious doctrines is powerless to transform human character or to control mortal behavior. What the world of today needs is the truth which your teacher of old declared: "Not in word only but also in power and in the Holy Spirit."The seed of theoretical truth is dead, the highest moral concepts without effect, unless and until the divine Spirit breathes upon the forms of truth and quickens the formulas of righteousness. [We may ask for greater spiritual wisdom in understanding God's will and also this mighty Revelation ! Amen !]
34:6.7Those who have received and recognized the indwelling of God have been born of the Spirit. "You are the temple of God, and the spirit of God dwells in you." It is not enough that this spirit be poured out upon you; the divine Spirit must dominate and control every phase of human experience.
34:6.8 It is the presence of the divine Spirit, the water of life, that prevents the consuming thirst of mortal discontent and that indescribable hunger of the unspiritualized human mind. Spirit-motivated beings "never thirst, for this spiritual water shall be in them a well of satisfaction springing up into life everlasting." Such divinely watered souls are all but independent of material environment as regards the joys of living and the satisfactions of earthly existence. They are spiritually illuminated and refreshed, morally strengthened and endowed. [Amen ! Perfect peace and continual progress !]
34:6.9 In every mortal there exists a dual nature: the inheritance of animal tendencies and the high urge of spirit endowment. During the short life you live on Earth, these two diverse and opposing urges can seldom be fully reconciled; they can hardly be harmonized and unified; but throughout your lifetime the combined [Father-Son-] Spirit ever ministers to assist you in subjecting the flesh more and more to the leading of the Spirit. Even though you must live your material life through, even though you cannot escape the body and its necessities, nonetheless, in purpose and ideals you are empowered increasingly to subject the animal nature to the mastery of the Spirit. There truly exists within you a conspiracy of spiritual forces, a confederation of divine powers, whose exclusive purpose is to effect your final deliverance from material bondage and finite handicaps.
34:6.10 The purpose of all this ministration is, "That you may be strengthened with power through His spirit in the inner man." And all this represents but the preliminary steps to the final attainment of the perfection of faith and service, that experience wherein you shall be "filled with all the fullness of God," "for all those who are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God."
34:6.11 The Spirit never drives, only leads. If you are a willing learner, if you want to attain spirit levels and reach divine heights, if you sincerely desire to reach the eternal goal, then the divine Spirit will gently and lovingly lead you along the pathway of sonship and spiritual progress. Every step you take must be one of willingness, intelligent and cheerful co-operation. The domination of the Spirit is never tainted with coercion nor compromised by compulsion.
34:6.12 And when such a life of spirit guidance is freely and intelligently accepted, there gradually develops within the human mind a positive consciousness of divine contact and assurance of spirit communion; sooner or later "the Spirit bears witness with your spirit (the Adjuster) that you are a child of God." Already has your own Thought Adjuster told you of your kinship to God so that the record testifies that the Spirit bears witness "with your spirit," not to your spirit. [A sacred Vision of God -- in my simple symbols:
Also called Spirit Birth, the Vision of God and Jesus Christ as Coordinate and as One, Spirit Transformation, many personal terms. oO is, when just coming together and just touching, the symbol for infinity; { } represents Glorious Holy Spirit Light (Luminosity)]
7. THE SPIRIT AND THE FLESH
34:7.1 The flesh, the inherent nature derived from the animal-origin races, does not naturally bear the fruits of the divine Spirit. When the mortal nature has been upstepped by the addition of the nature of the Material Sons of God, as the Earth races were in a measure advanced by the bestowal of Adam, [and Eve,] then is the way better prepared for the Spirit of Truth to co-operate with the indwelling Adjuster to bring forth the beautiful harvest of the character fruits of the Spirit. If you do not reject this Spirit, even though eternity [what infinite love and lavish mercy God has for us !!!] may be required to fulfill the commission, "He will guide you into all truth." [John 16:7-16 is very important. Also Johnn 12:31-32 !]
34:7.2 Evolutionary mortals inhabiting normal worlds of spiritual progress do not experience the acute conflicts between the Spirit and the flesh which characterize the present-day Earth races. [nine mixed races, now blending into one] But even on the most ideal planets, pre-Adamic man must put forth positive efforts to ascend from the purely animalistic plane of existence up through successive levels of increasingly intellectual meanings and higher spiritual values.
34:7.3 The mortals of a normal world do not experience constant warfare between their physical and spiritual natures. They are confronted with the necessity of climbing up from the animal levels of existence to the higher planes of spiritual living, but this ascent is more like undergoing an educational training when compared with the intense conflicts of Earth mortals in this realm of the divergent material and spiritual natures. [So sad to here see so many human drunks and drug-addicts trying to run away from Spirit reality ! and some humans still do very cruel and warlike animal aggressions. Today, murder is illegal; but terrible wars, even world wars are NOT YET outlawed ?? Count the costs of not following Jesus' command to always try to "Love all Humans ; (even your supposed) enemies." Cooperation, not confrontation !]
34:7.4 The Earth peoples are suffering the consequences of a double deprivation of help in this task of progressive planetary spiritual attainment. The [about 200,000 years ago on earth, former, fallen Planetary Prince here followed Satan and Lucifer in terrible default] upheaval precipitated world-wide confusion and robbed all subsequent generations of the moral assistance which a well-ordered society would have provided. But even more disastrous was the [much later, at about 37,000 BC] Adamic default in that it deprived the races of that superior type of physical nature which would have been more consonant with spiritual aspirations.
34:7.5 Earth mortals are compelled to undergo such marked struggling between the Spirit and the flesh because their remote ancestors were not more fully Adamized by the Edenic bestowal. It was the Divine plan that the mortal races of Earth should have had physical natures more naturally Spirit responsive.
34:7.6 Notwithstanding this double disaster to man's nature and his environment, present-day mortals would experience less of this apparent warfare between the flesh and the Spirit if they would enter the Spirit Kingdom, [God's Sovereignty in the Family of God on earth and on high] wherein the faith sons of God enjoy comparative deliverance from the slave-bondage of the flesh in the enlightened and liberating service of wholehearted devotion to doing the will of the Father in heaven. Jesus showed mankind the new way of mortal living whereby human beings may very largely escape the dire consequences of the [fallen Planetary Prince's] rebellion and most effectively compensate for the deprivations resulting from the Adamic default. "The spirit of the life of Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of animal living and the temptations of evil and sin." "This is the victory that overcomes the flesh, even your faith."
34:7.7 Those God-knowing men and women who have been born of the Spirit experience no more conflict with their mortal natures than do the inhabitants of the most normal of worlds, planets which have never been tainted with sin nor touched by rebellion. Faith sons work on intellectual levels and live on spiritual planes far above the conflicts produced by unrestrained or unnatural physical desires. The normal urges of animal beings and the natural appetites and impulses of the physical nature are not in conflict with even the highest spiritual attainment except in the minds of ignorant, mistaught, or unfortunately overconscientious persons. [Intelligent self-control is needed; praying for strength to become more moral and Spirit-led does help !]
34:7.9 {Presented by a Mighty Messenger temporarily assigned to service on Earth.}
