Summaries From The Urantia Book
The Mind of Jesus
(from Part 4 of The Urantia Papers.)
Innerface International Vol 10 Number 4
These Papers confirm that the purpose of Jesus' life on our planet
included revealing God to man and man to God, and that his life was to
exhibit "the transcendent possibilities attainable by a God-knowing
mortal being during the short career of mortal existence."
Having
fully achieved his purpose, Jesus left us with this injunction: "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 and women are
the sons and daughters of God. And this mission shall consist in the
life which you will live among them--the actual and living experience
of loving them and serving them, even as I have loved and served you."
However, just knowing where Jesus went and what he said and
did would be of little help for our task. To emulate him, we need to know
how he thought and what he thought. We must know the mind of Jesus.
The Papers have provided the necessary information--but have
spread that information over almost 700 pages of text.
Human memory is such that it is helpful for most of us to
have a framework on which to build.
Herein we have tried to provide a synopsis of Part 4 that
will assist in the understanding of Jesus mind. It is a framework for
helping us to think as Jesus might think that is based upon spiritual
aspects of his life, thought, work, and teaching.
The Indwelling Father-Spirit
The
function of the indwelling Father-Spirit is described as: "The great
goal of our human existence is to attune to the divinity of the indwelling
Spirit. The great achievement of our mortal life is the attainment of
a true and understanding consecration to the eternal aims of the divine
Spirit who waits and works within our mind. And our ideal life is one
of loving service to our fellow travelers."
Teachings of Jesus
We
start our synopsis as Jesus entered his 28th year at which
time he began to be certain that he was indwelt by the Spirit of God.
As this relationship grew, he also became aware that this same Spirit
of the Father indwells all of his earthly children as their mentor and
guide.
Jesus taught us: 'The will of God is the way of God, partnership
with the choice of God in the face of any potential alternative. To do
the will of God is the progressive experience of becoming more and more
like God--who is the source and destiny of all that is good and beautiful
and true.'
'Only in the perfection, harmony, and unanimity of will can
the creature become as one with the Creator…always must the desire to
do the Father's will be supreme in the soul and dominant over the mind
of a mortal child of God.'
'Become interested in your fellows; learn how to love them
and watch for the opportunity to do something for them that you are sure
they want done. They who would have friends must first show themselves
friendly.'
'When wise men and women understand the inner impulses of
their fellows, they will love them. And when you love your brothers and
sisters, you have already forgiven them.'
During a lengthy period of intimate association with religious
leaders in his early career, never once did Jesus attack their errors
or even mention the flaws in their teaching. In each case he would select
the truth in what they taught and then proceed to embellish and illuminate
this truth in their minds that in a very short time this enhancement of
truth effectively crowded out the associated error.
Goodness and truth
He taught: 'Goodness, like truth, is always relative, unfailingly
evil contrasted, living, and always progressing, a personal experience
that is everlastingly correlated with the discernment of truth and beauty.'
'Goodness is found in the recognition of positive truth--its
values at the spiritual level--which must, in human experience, be contrasted
with the negative counterpart--the shadows of potential evil.'
'Evil becomes a reality
of personal choice only when a moral mind makes evil its choice.'
'Truth cannot be defined with words, only by living.'
'Revealed truth, personally discovered truth is the joint
creation of the material mind and the indwelling Spirit.'
'But truth can never become our possession without the exercise
of faith. Faith acts to release the superhuman activities of the divine
spark that indwells us.'
Our task
'Human life continues--survives--because it has a universe
function, the task of finding God.'
'Prayer is the great unifier of the inspirations and faith
urges of a soul trying to identify itself with the spirit ideals of the
Indwelling Spirit.'
'There are only two groups of mortals in the eyes of God;
those who desire to do his will and those who do not. Likewise there are
two great classes--those who know God and those who do not.'
'If we know God, our real business on Earth is so to live
as to permit the Father to reveal himself in our lives, and thus will
all God-seeking persons see the Father in us and ask for our help in finding
out more about God who in this manner finds expression in our lives.'
Jesus taught a young associate: 'I have absolute confidence
in my Father's overcare; I am consecrated to
doing the will of my Father in heaven. I do not believe that real harm
can befall me. I am absolutely assured that the entire universe is friendly
to me--this all-powerful truth I insist on believing with a whole hearted
trust in spite of all appearances to the contrary.'
The soul
'The soul of man is distinct from the divine Spirit that
dwells within the mind. The divine Spirit arrives simultaneously with
the first moral activity of the human mind, and that is the occasion of
the birth of the soul.'
'The soul is self-reflective, truth discerning, and
spirit-perceiving, the part of mankind which elevates the human being
above the level of the animal world. Self-consciousness is, in and of
itself, not the soul. Moral self-consciousness is true human self-realization
and constitutes the foundation of the human soul--and the soul is that
which represents the survival value of human experience. Moral choice
and spiritual attainment, the ability to know God and the urge to be like
him are the characteristics of the soul.'
Jesus' life
In deciphering Jesus' life be mindful of his purposes--first,
to acquire creature experience, second, to reveal the Paradise Father,
and third, to untangle the consequences of our rebellious sin. (later
Christianity reversed this order, making Jesus' sacrificial death his
primary purpose.)
On the day of his baptism, Jesus stood in the
Following his baptism, the choices confronting Jesus for
the kind of ministry to adopt were: his own way--one that might seem profitable
from the stand point of immediate needs; or the Father's way--one that
provided an example to humanity of a farseeing ideal of creature life.
There was just one motive in Jesus' post baptismal life and
that was a better and truer revelation of his Paradise Father; he was
the pioneer of the new and better way to God, the way of faith and love--which
he insisted on going about in the most quiet and non-dramatic manner,
avoiding all display of power.
Jesus told his apostles, 'Make no mistake; we go forth to
labor for a generation of sign seekers…but they will be slow to recognize
in the revelation of my Father's love, the credentials of my mission.'
More on
teaching
Jesus did not make the mistake of over-teaching. He did not
precipitate confusion in his audience by the presentation of truth too
far beyond their capacity to comprehend.
'My Father's kingdom concerns not things visible and material.
For wherever the Spirit of God teaches and leads the soul of man, there,
in reality, is the kingdom of heaven. And this
'In my Father's kingdom there shall be neither Jew nor gentile,
only those who seek perfection through service, for I declare that he
who would be great in my Father's kingdom must first become of server
of all.'
Program
Jesus' program--he would not cater to the physical gratification
of his people. He would not deal out bread to the multitudes; he would
not attract attention to himself through wonder working; nor would he
use temporal power or authority to gain acceptance of a spiritual message.
Jesus taught the apostles to preach forgiveness of sin through
faith in God but without penance or sacrifice. They also early learned
that Jesus had a profound respect and sympathetic regard for every human
being he met, and that nothing ever seemed so important to him as the
individual human who chanced to be in his immediate presence.
Jesus never ceased repeating that faith only was necessary
in the business of finding God, adding that, 'it will be by the lives
you live that others will know that you have been with me and have learned
of the realities of the kingdom.'
He told his disciples that the kingdom of God is within you,
that you do not have to see alike, feel alike, even think alike in order,
spiritually, to be alike. 'Harmony,' he said, 'grows from the fact that
each of us is identical in origin, nature, and destiny.'
'Spirit unity implies two things--first you are possessed
of a common motive for soul service--to do the will of the Father--and
second, you have a common goal of existence--to find the Father and to
become like him.'
Warning against creeds
Again and again Jesus warned against the formulation of creeds
and the establishment of traditions as a means of guiding believers. 'Lead
men into the kingdom,' he said, 'and the great and living truths of the
kingdom will presently drive out all serious error. Your business is to
reveal God to the individual as their heavenly Father, to lead men and
women to become God-conscious--and to present them to God as his faith
children.'
The only reward to Jesus' followers--in this world, spiritual
joy and divine communion; in the next world, eternal life in the progress
of divine spirit realities of the Father.
Jesus was a teacher, not a preacher. He came to present spiritual
truths to material minds. He came to do the Father's will and only his
Father's will. And because of this singleness of purpose he was not anxiously
bothered by evil in the world. He paid no attention to public opinion
and was not influenced by praise. He was never excited, vexed, or disconcerted,
sometimes saddened, but never discouraged. And he was always unselfish.
Love is the rule of living
Love is the rule of living in the kingdom--supreme devotion
to God while loving your neighbor as yourself. Obedience to the will of
the Father, yielding the fruits of the spirit in one's personal life is
the law of the kingdom.
'If you recognize you are children of the Father, then you
have been born of the spirit of God; and whosoever has been born of the
spirit has the power within himself to overcome all doubt.'
There are high values in mortal existence--intellectual mastery
and spiritual achievement--which far transcend the gratification of man's
purely physical appetites and urges.
'The evidence to all the world that you have been born of
the spirit is that you sincerely love one another.'
'Just as earthly families are built on tolerance, patience,
forgiveness, and love, so with the earthly family of God.'
Concern
yourselves with the spiritual kingdom
To his disciples, Jesus said, 'Temporal matters are the concern
of the men of the world. You are spiritual ambassadors of a spiritual
kingdom, special representatives of the spirit Father. Love is the greatest
of all spirit realities. Truth is a liberating revelation but love is
the supreme relationship.'
The Master was a perfect specimen of human self-control.
When he was reviled, he reviled not; when he suffered, he uttered no threats;
when he was denounced, he simply committed himself to the righteous judgment
of the Father.
'I come with a new message of self-forgetfulness and self-control.
I show you the way of life as revealed to me by my Father in heaven. By
your love for one another you are to convince the world you have passed
from death into life everlasting.'
Function of the Indwelling Spirit
Jesus taught: 'If the Spirit dwells within you, you are free
and liberated children of the Spirit. Your secret of self-mastery is faith
in the Indwelling Spirit which ever works by love. If then you are born
of the Spirit, you are forever delivered from a life of self-denial and
watch-care over the desires of the flesh and are translated into the joyous
kingdom of the Spirit whence you spontaneously show forth the fruits of
the spirit in your daily lives.'
'When you have become wholly dedicated to doing the will
of the Father, all your petitions will be forthcoming because all these
petitions will be in full accordance with the Father's will.'
'Avoid materialistic praying; pray in the spirit and for
the abundant gifts of the Spirit.'
Jesus taught that the prayer for divine guidance over the
earthly life was next in importance to a petition for knowledge of the
Father's will. In reality this means a prayer for divine wisdom.
We worship God by the aid of the Indwelling Spirit. And this
spirit of the Father speaks best to man when the human mind is in an attitude
of true worship. Worship, taught Jesus, makes one increasingly like the
one who is being worshipped.
'The degree of your love for others is the direct measure of just
how much you have yielded your soul to the teaching and guidance of your
indwelling God-Spirit.'
Rule for living
'Whereas the level of brotherly love is upgraded when it
embraces unselfish devotion to the welfare of our fellows, the greatest
advance is at the level of spirit insight and spiritual interpretation
which impels us to recognize in this rule of life the divine command to
treat all people as we conceive God would treat them.'
'The Father never sends affliction as an arbitrary punishment
for wrong doing. Mankind should not blame God for those afflictions that
are a natural result of the way they choose to live, nor complain of experiences
that are the natural result of life as it is lived on this world.'
Jesus transcended the teachings of his forbears when he boldly
substituted clean hearts for clean hands as the mark of true religion.
Jesus taught: 'Emotionally people react individually. The
only uniform thing about them is the Indwelling Spirit of God. Thus, only
through and by appeal to this indwelling Spirit can mankind ever attain
unity and brotherhood.'
Anger is a material (animalistic) manifestation indicating
failure of the spiritual nature to gain control. "Anger rests in
the bosom of fools."
Jesus said, 'Let your hearts be so dominated by love that
your indwelling Spirit will have little trouble in delivering you from
the tendency to give vent to those outbursts of animal anger which are
so inconsistent with the status of a child of the Father.'
Jesus always preached temperance and consistency--pointing
out that excessive zeal can lead to recklessness and presumption, while
too much prudence and discretion can lead to cowardice and failure.
Jesus said: '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.'
"I
have come into the world…"
'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.'
'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. My Father
disdains pride, loathes hypocrisy, and abhors iniquity.'
'The Father has sent me into the world to show how he desires
to indwell and guide all his earthly children; and I have so lived this
life in the flesh as to inspire everybody likewise ever to seek to know
and do the will of the indwelling Spirit of the heavenly Father.'
Jesus' kingdom is founded on love, proclaimed in mercy, and
established by unselfish service.
"Let me emphatically state…"
'Let me emphatically state this eternal truth: if you,
by truth coordination learn to exemplify in your lives this beautiful
wholeness of righteousness, your acquaintances will then seek after you
that they may gain what you have acquired.'
'The measure wherewith truth seekers are drawn to you represents
the measure of your truth endowment, your righteousness. The extent
to which you have to go with your message to the people is, in a way,
the measure of your failure to live the whole or righteous life, the truth
coordinated life.'
'Many souls can best be led to love the unseen God by first
being taught to love their brothers and sisters whom they can see.'
'When religion is wholly spiritual in motive, it makes all
of life more worthwhile, filling it with high purposes, dignifying it
with transcendent values, inspiring it with superb motives, all the while
comforting the human soul with a sublime and sustaining hope.'
'The most thrilling and inspiring of all possible human experiences
is the personal quest for truth, the determination to explore the realities
of personal religious experience, and the exhilaration of facing
the perils of intellectual discovery. It is the supreme satisfaction of
experiencing the personal victory of spiritual faith over intellectual
doubt as it is honestly won in that supreme adventure of all human existence--man
seeking God for himself, of himself, and as himself--and finding him.'
'The religion of the spirit means effort, struggle, conflict,
faith, determination, love, loyalty, and progress.'
Jesus continued: 'We will shortly begin the bold proclamation
of a new religion--a religion that makes its chief appeal to the divine
spirit of my Father that resides in the mind of man--a religion that shall
derive its authority from the fruits of its acceptance.'
God seeking
'I have called upon you to discover the supernal
experience of finding God for yourself, in yourself, and of yourself and
as a fact of your own experience. The religion of the spirit leaves you
forever free to follow the truth wherever the leadings of the Spirit may
take you.'
'The supreme experience of human existence is: finding God
for yourselves and knowing him in your own souls.'
'Never forget there is only one adventure that is more satisfying
than the attempt to discover the will of God, and that is the supreme
experience of honestly trying to do the divine will.'
'Spiritual destiny is dependent on faith, love and devotion
to truth--hunger and thirst for righteousness--the whole hearted desire
to find God and to be like him.'
'You are destined to live a narrow and mean life if you learn
to love only those who love you. The less of love in any person's nature
the greater their love need--and the more does divine love seek to satisfy
such need.'
The kingdom
and self-esteem
'Kingdom believers should have an implicit faith, a whole
souled belief in the certain triumph of righteousness. They
must increasingly learn to step aside from the harassments of material
existence while they refresh the soul, inspire the mind, and renew the
spirit by worshipful communion.'
'In advancing the cause of the kingdom, make your
appeals directly to the divine spirit that dwells within the mind.'
'In bringing others into the kingdom, do not lesson or destroy
their self-respect. It is the purpose of this gospel to restore self-esteem
to those who have lost it and to restrain it in those who have it.'
'Do not make the mistake of only condemning the wrongs in
peoples' lives. Accord generous recognition for the most praiseworthy
things in their lives. Forget not that I will stop at nothing to restore
self-esteem to those who have lost it and who really desire to regain
it.'
'Idleness is destructive to self-esteem; therefore encourage
your brethren to ever keep busy at their chosen tasks.'
'God's children die searching for the very same God who dwells
within them.'
'The believer has only one battle and that is against doubt--unbelief.
In preaching the gospel you are simply teaching friendship with God.'
Casting your lot
'If you dare to believe in me and wholeheartedly follow me,
you shall most certainly, by so doing, enter upon a sure pathway to trouble.
I do not promise to deliver you from the waters of adversity, but I do
promise to go with you through all of them.'
'Never forget, the Father does not limit the revelation of
truth to any one generation or to any one people.'
'Fear not those who are able to kill the body but after that
have no more power over you. I admonish you to fear no one, neither in
heaven nor on Earth but rejoice in the knowledge of him who has power
to deliver you from all unrighteousness and to present you blameless before
the judgment seat.'
'The Father never compels anyone to enter the kingdom. Though
the door to life may be narrow, it is wide enough to admit all those who
sincerely seek to find him.'
'I am the new and living way. Whosoever wills may enter to
embark upon the endless truth-search for eternal life. All too long have
your fathers believed that prosperity was the token of divine approval,
that adversity was the proof of God's displeasure. Such beliefs are superstitions.'
Jesus on prayer: 'All true prayers are addressed to spiritual
beings, and all such petitions must be answered in spiritual terms and
consist in spiritual realities. Spirit beings cannot bestow material answers
to the spirit petitions of material beings.'
More on the kingdom
'In this world, the kingdom is the supreme desire to do the
will of God, the unselfish love of your fellow man which yields the good
fruits of improved ethical and moral conduct.'
'In heaven, the kingdom is the goal of mortal believers wherein
their love of God is perfected.'
Jesus taught that we enter the kingdom by faith. Two things
only are essential, firstly to come with the faith-sincerity of a little
child to receive our entry as a gift while submitting to the Father's
will unconditionally, and secondly, truth hunger, the thirst for righteousness--the
acquirement of the motive to find God and to be like him.
The receipt of God's forgiveness involves a four step process:
God's forgiveness is actually made available and is personally
experienced just in so far as we have forgiven our neighbor.
We will not truly forgive our neighbors unless we love them
as ourselves.
To thus love our neighbor is the highest ethics.
Moral conduct, true righteousness, becomes then, the natural
result of such love.
'The righteousness of any act must be measured by the motive.'
Graciousness
Jesus spread good cheer everywhere he went. He was full of
grace and truth. His associates never ceased to wonder at the gracious
words that proceeded from his mouth. You can cultivate gracefulness, but
graciousness is the aroma of friendliness which emanates from a love-saturated
soul.
Goodness is attractive only when it is gracious--and is effective
only when it is attractive.
Jesus was always ready and willing to stop or detain a multitude
while he ministered to the needs of a single person or to a little child.
Most of the really important things that Jesus said or did seemed to happen
casually, 'as he passed by.' He dispensed health and happiness naturally
and gracefully as he journeyed though life. It was literally true, 'he
went about doing good.'
And so it behooves the Master's followers in all ages to
learn to minister 'as they pass by' -to do unselfish good as they
go about their daily duties.
Loving your neighbor
'When the wise understand the inner impulses of others, they
will love them. And when you love your neighbors, you have already forgiven
them. This capacity to understand human nature and to forgive apparent
wrongdoing is Godlike.'
'Your inability or unwillingness to forgive your neighbor
is the measure of your immaturity, your failure to attain adult sympathy,
understanding, and love. You hold grudges and nurse vengefulness in direct
proportion to your ignorance of the inner nature and true longings of
your fellow human beings.'
'Love is the outworking of the divine and inner urge of life.
It is founded on understanding, nurtured by unselfish service and perfected
in wisdom. Seek not in your daily lives, self-glorification, but seek
rather the glory of God.'
'You cannot stand still in the affairs of the eternal kingdom.
My father requires all his children to grow in grace and in the knowledge
of truth. You who know these truths must yield the increase of the fruits
of the spirit and manifest a growing devotion to the unselfish service
of your fellows. In faithfulness do what is entrusted to you, and thereby
shall you be ready for the reckoning call of death.'
Responsibility
In teaching children to pray "Our Father," an enormous
responsibility is placed upon earthly fathers so to live and order their
homes so that the word "father" has worthy connotations while
becoming enshrined in the minds and hearts of growing children.
'The fruits of the spirit, your sincere and loving service, are
the mighty social lever to uplift the races of darkness. And this Spirit
of Truth will become your powerful multiplying fulcrum.'
'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.'
'Humanitarian labors are social by-products that must not
replace the proclamation of the gospel.'
'Labor to persuade the minds of others but never dare to
compel them.'
'Be gentle in your dealings with erring mortals, patient
in intercourse with the ignorant, and forbearing under provocation--but
be valiant in defense of righteousness, mighty in the promulgation of
truth, and aggressive in preaching the gospel of the kingdom'
'The revelation I have made is a living revelation, and in
accordance with the laws of spiritual growth and adaptive development,
it shall bear appropriate fruits in each generation.'
'Do not forget that you are commissioned to go forth preaching
only the good news. You are not to attack the old ways; you are skillfully
to put the leaven of new truth in the midst of the old beliefs. Let the
Spirit of Truth do his own work.'
'Remember always to love one another. Do not strive with
others, even with unbelievers. Sow mercy, even to those who despitefully
abuse you.'
'He who would be great among you, let him become server of
all.'
Remember
The remembrance supper is the emblem of the bestowal ministry
of the Spirit of Truth. It is also a symbol of our emergence from the
bondage of ceremonialism and selfishness into the spiritual joy of brotherhood
and fellowship. [Note: the Spirit of Truth is the spirit of Jesus which
was bestowed upon all believers after his resurrection.]
Upon all such occasions (a remembrance supper), the Master
is really present and his spirit fraternizes with our indwelling Father-Spirit.
Jesus to his disciples: 'And so I give you a new commandment,
that you love one another even as I have loved you. And by this will all
mankind know that you are my disciples if you thus love one another as
I have loved you.'
Jesus: '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 the Father
will grant us our petition.'
'Prayer is a way of taking God's way, an experience of learning
how to recognize and execute the Father's will.'
'You are in this world but your lives are not to be world-like.
I have chosen you 'out of the world' to represent the spirit of another
world even to this.'
"With the coming of the Spirit of Truth"
'With the coming of the Spirit of Truth all the children
of light will be drawn toward one another. And my Father and I will be
able to live in the souls of each one of you, and also in the hearts of
all other men who love us and make that love real in their experiences
by loving one another even as I am now loving you.'
This new teacher is the spirit of living and growing truth,
expanding, unfolding, and adaptive truth.
Divine truth is a spirit discerned and living reality. Living
truth is dynamic and can enjoy only an experiential existence in the human
mind.
Truth is a spiritual reality value experienced only by spirit-endowed
beings who function on supermaterial levels
of universe consciousness, and who, after the realization of truth, permit
its spirit of activation to live and reign within their souls.
'Love, unselfishness, must undergo a constant and living
re-adaptive interpretation of relationships in accordance with the leading
of Spirit of Truth. Love must grasp the ever changing concept of the highest
cosmic good of the individual who is loved. And such love goes on to strike
this same attitude to all individuals who could possibly be influenced
by one spirit-led mortal's love for his fellows.
The golden rule and the teaching of non-resistance cannot
be dogmatized; they can only be comprehended by living them in accordance
with the interpretation of the Spirit of Truth who directs the loving
contact of one human being with another.
'When the new teacher comes, then shall this Spirit of Truth
lead each of you abroad to labor for the kingdom.'
'God is no respector of persons;
in the sight of God, all are equal, all believers are the children
of God.'
'When the new teacher comes let him teach you the poise of
compassion and that sympathetic tolerance which is born of sublime confidence
in me and of perfect submission to the Father's will.'
Our chores
'Dedicate your life to demonstrating the combined human affection
and divine dignity of the God-knowing disciple.'
'As far as is in your power live long on Earth that your
life of many years may be fruitful in souls won for the heavenly kingdom.'
'To him who is God-knowing there is no such thing as common
labor or secular toil. All earthly labor is sacred and is a service--even
to God the Father.'
'Learn
that the expression of even a good thought must be modulated in accordance
with the intellectual status and spiritual development of the hearer.'
'Be not dismayed that you fail to grasp the full meaning
of the gospel. You are but finite and fallible mortal men--and that which
I have taught you is infinite, divine, and eternal.'
Participation in the religion of Jesus is the sure and certain
technique whereby spiritually isolated and cosmically lonely individuals
can escape personality isolation and all its consequences of fear and
helplessness.
Fear, anger, evil, and forgiveness
'In half-civilized man there still lurks an evil brutality
that seeks to vent itself upon those who are superior in wisdom and spiritual
attainment.'
Having revealed God to man, Jesus was now (at his crucifixion)
engaged in making an unprecedented revelation of man to God. He was now
revealing to the worlds the final triumph over all fears of creature personality
isolation.
As taunts, insults, and blows fell upon Jesus, he was not
vanquished, merely uncontending in the material
sense.
Jesus was not even angry when, at his trial, ignorant
mortals derisively struck him in the face after blindfolding him.
As they nailed Jesus on the cross, his only words were, "Father,
forgive them for they know not what they do." He could not have so
mercifully and lovingly interceded for his executioners if such thoughts
of affectionate devotion had not been the mainspring of all his life of
unselfish service.
Salvation
The gospel of the good news that we mortals may, by faith,
become spirit-conscious that we are children of God, is not in any way
dependent on the death of Jesus. True, indeed, this gospel of the kingdom
has been illuminated by the master's death, but even more so, by his life.
Moses taught the dignity and justice of a creator God; but
Jesus portrayed the love and mercy of a heavenly Father.
It is wholly correct to refer to Jesus as our savior. He
forever made the way of salvation (survival) more clear and more certain.
The concept of atonement and sacrificial salvation is rooted
and grounded in selfishness. The believer's chief concern should not be
the selfish desire for personal salvation but rather the unselfish urge
to love and serve our fellow beings even as Jesus loved and served mortal
man.
The great thing about the death of Jesus, as it is related
to the enrichment of human experience and the enlargement of the way of
salvation, is not the fact of his death but rather the superb manner and
the matchless spirit in which he met that death.
The cross forever shows that the attitude of Jesus toward
sinners was neither condemnation nor condonation,
but rather eternal and loving salvation.
When thinking men and women look upon Jesus as he offered
up his life on the cross, they will hardly again permit themselves to
complain at even the severest hardships of life, much less at petty harassments
and fictitious grievances.
Jesus is truly a savior in the sense that his life and death
do win us over to goodness and righteous survival.
Jesus loved us so much that his love awakens the response
of love in the human heart. Love is truly contagious--and eternally creative.
Righteousness
Jesus portrayed a higher quality of righteousness than justice--mere
technical right and wrong. Divine love does not merely forgive wrongs;
it absorbs and actually destroys them.
Greater love can no one have than this--that they would be
willing to lay down their life for their friends. And Jesus had such love
that he was willing to lay down his life even for his enemies.
"Your
mission to the world"
'Your mission to the world is founded on the fact that I
lived a God-revealing life among you, and on the truth that you and all
others are the children of God. And your mission shall consist in the
life that you will live--the actual living experience of loving and
serving others, even your enemies, just as I have loved and served you.'
'Give up intolerance and learn to love others as I have loved
you. Devote your life to proving that love is the greatest thing in the
world. It is the love of God that impels the individual to seek salvation.
Love is the ancestor of all goodness, the essence of the true and the
beautiful.'
'Do not neglect to minister to the weak, the poor, and the
young.'
'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. Pray for tranquility of spirit and try to cultivate patience.'
'Make sure you are devoted to the welfare of your brethren
on Earth with a tireless affection. Admix friendship with your counsel
and add love to your philosophy. Be faithful. Be less critical.
Expect less of some.'
'When you are a faith child of God, all upright work is sacred.
Nothing that a child of God does can be common. Do your work, as from
this time on, as you would do it for God.'
'My one purpose is to reveal my Father. I have lived this
God-revealing bestowal that you might experience the God-knowing career.'
'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 that 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.'
'You may enter the kingdom as a child, but the Father requires
that you grow up to the full stature of spiritual adulthood.'
The Mission of the Spirit of Truth
'The first mission of the Spirit of Truth is to foster and
personalize truth, for it is the comprehension of truth that constitutes
the highest form of human liberty. Next, it is the purpose of this Spirit
to destroy the believer's feeling of orphanhood.'
The Spirit of Truth never creates a consciousness of himself,
only a consciousness of Jesus, the Son.
The Spirit of Truth also came to help you to recall and understand
the words of the Master as well as to illuminate and re-interpret his
life on Earth.
Next the Spirit of Truth came to help the believer to witness
to the realities of Jesus' teachings and his life as he lived it in the
flesh and as he again lives it anew in the individual believer of each
passing generation.
The Spirit of Truth equips the teachers of Jesus' new religion
with spiritual weapons. They are to go out to conquer the world with unfailing
forgiveness, matchless goodwill, and abounding love. They are equipped
to overcome evil with good, to vanquish hate by love, to destroy fear
with courageous and living faith in truth.
Pentecost--its effects
Pentecost endowed mortal man with the capacity to forgive
personal injuries, to keep sweet in the face of the gravest injustice,
to remain unmoved in the face of appalling danger, and to challenge the
evils of hate and anger by the fearless acts of love and forbearance.
Up to Pentecost, religion had revealed only mankind seeking
for God. Since Pentecost, there shines out over the world the spectacle
of God also seeking for mankind--and sending his Spirit to dwell within
those whom he has found.
Before Pentecost, women had little or no spiritual standing
in the tenets of the older religions. After Pentecost, women stood before
God in equality with men. No longer can men presume to monopolize the
ministry of religious service.
Before Pentecost,
the apostles had given up much for Jesus. After Pentecost, they gave themselves
to God, and the Father and Son responded, giving themselves to man by
sending their Spirits to live within them.
The material spirit of selfishness has been swallowed up
in this new spiritual bestowal of selflessness.
Jesus and revelation
Jesus lived a life which is a revelation of man submitted to the Father's
will.
The religion of Jesus does not seek to escape this life--rather
it provides the joy and peace of another and spiritual existence to ennoble
the current life in the flesh.
Mankind has passed through the ravages of great and destructive
wars from which there emerged but one victor--Jesus of Nazareth with his
gospel of overcoming evil with good. The secret of a better civilization
is bound up in the Master's teachings of the brotherhood of man, and the
good will of love and mutual trust.
In
Religion is the revelation to man of his divine and eternal
destiny. It is designed to find those values that call forth faith, trust,
and assurance--and culminate in worship. It discovers supreme values--superhuman
insight that can be had through genuine religious experience.
A lasting social system without a morality predicated on
spiritual realities can no more be maintained than could the solar system
without gravity.
When there is so much good truth to publish and proclaim,
why dwell upon evil?
Experiential religion
In religion, Jesus advocated and followed the method of experience--even
as science pursues the technique of experiment. We find God through spiritual
insight, but we approach God through the love of the beautiful, pursuit
of truth, loyalty to duty, and worship of divine goodness. But of all
these values, love is the true guide to real insight.
No matter what the conflict between materialism and the teachings
of Jesus may be, eventually Jesus' teachings will fully triumph.
In reality true religion cannot become involved in controversy
with science or materialism as it is in no way concerned with material
things--only with things of the spirit.
Freedom or initiative in any realm of existence is directly
proportional to the degree of spiritual influence and cosmic mind control;
that is, in human experience, the degree of actuality of doing 'the Father's
will'. And so, when once you start out to find God--and seek to do his
will--that is the conclusive proof that God has already found you.
The religion of Jesus stands as the transcendent spiritual
summons, calling to the best there is in man to rise above all these legacies
of animal evolution and, by grace, attain the moral heights of true human
destiny.
Doing
Modern culture must become spiritually baptized with a new
revelation of Jesus' life.
Religion is only an exalted humanism until it is made divine
by the discovery of the reality of the presence of God in personal experience.
Jesus' religion is based on personal spiritual relations
with the Father and wholly validated by the supreme authority of genuine
personal experience.
The Faith of Jesus
Jesus' faith was so real and all-encompassing that it absolutely
swept away any spiritual doubts and effectively destroyed every conflicting
desire.
Jesus' personal faith, spiritual hope, and moral devotion
were always correlated with the keen realization of the reality and sacredness
of all human loyalties--personal honor, family love, religious obligations,
social duty, and economic necessity.
The personal faith of Jesus 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.
As a man of the realm, Jesus brought to God the greatest
of all offerings; the consecration and dedication of his own will to the
majestic service of doing the divine will. Jesus always and consistently
interpreted religion in terms of the Father's will.
The God-consciousness of Jesus
The secret of Jesus' unparalleled religious life was his
consciousness of the presence of God and he attained it by intelligent
prayer and sincere worship--unbroken communion with God--and not by leadings,
visions, or extraordinary religious practices.
Jesus trusted God much as the child trusts a parent. He had
a profound confidence in the universe--just such a trust as a child has
in its parents.
Jesus does not require his disciples to believe in him but
rather to believe with him in the reality of the love of God and, in full
confidence, to accept the security of the assurance of membership in the
family of the heavenly Father. He desires that all his followers should
share fully his transcendent faith. He challenged his followers to believe
as he believed. This is the full significance of his one supreme command,
"Follow me."
To follow Jesus means to personally share his religious faith
and to enter into the spirit of the Master's life of unselfish service
for man.
What has real value?
Of all human knowledge that which is of the greatest value
is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it.
Jesus was a wholly consecrated mortal, unreservedly dedicated
to doing his Father's will. It was this very singleness of purpose and
unselfish devotion that enabled him to effect such extraordinary progress
in the conquest of the human mind in one short life.
In his devotion to the cause of the kingdom, Jesus burned
all bridges behind him; he sacrificed all hindrances to the doing of the
Father's will.
Jesus did not long to escape from his earthly life; he mastered
a technique of acceptably doing the Father's will while in the flesh.
He attained an idealistic religious life in the very midst of a realistic
world.
Jesus taught men to place a high value on themselves in time
and in eternity, and he was willing to spend himself in unremitting service
to humankind. And it was this infinite worth of the finite that made the
golden rule a vital factor in his religion. What mortal beings could fail
to be uplifted by the extraordinary faith Jesus had in them?
On spiritual value
Personal spiritual religious experience is an efficient solvent
for most mortal difficulties; it is an effective sorter, evaluator, and
adjuster of all human problems. Religion does not remove or destroy human
troubles--but it does dissolve, absorb, illuminate, and transcend them.
The Indwelling Spirit of God
The mind of man can attain high levels of spiritual insight
and corresponding spheres of divinity of values because it is not wholly
material. There is a spirit nucleus in the mind of man--the indwelling
Spirit of God.
Three separate evidences of this Spirit indwelling of the
human mind are:
Humanitarian fellowship--love. Only the spirit-indwelt intellect
is unselfishly altruistic and unconditionally loving.
Interpretation of the universe--wisdom. Only the spirit-indwelt
mind can comprehend that the universe is friendly to the individual.
Spiritual evaluation of life--worship. Only the spirit-indwelt
mortal can realize the divine presence and seek to attain a fuller experience
with this foretaste of divinity.
The human
mind--limits and values
The human mind does not create real values; human experience
does not yield universe insight. Concerning insight--the recognition of
moral values and the discernment of spiritual meanings--all that the human
mind can do is to discover, recognize, interpret, and choose.
The moral values of the universe become intellectual possessions
by the exercise of three basic judgments or choices of the mortal mind:
Self-judgment--moral choice.
Social-judgment--ethical choice.
God-judgment--religious choice.
Thus it appears that all human progress is effected by a
technique of conjoint revelational evolution.
Help is available
Unless a Divine Lover lived in the mind of man, individuals
could not unselfishly and spiritually love. And unless an Interpreter
lived in their minds, they could not truly realize the unity of the universe.
Also, unless an Evaluator indwelt each mind, that mind could not appraise
moral values nor recognize spiritual meanings. This Indwelling Lover hails
from the very source of Infinite Love; this Interpreter is part of Universal
Unity; this evaluator is of the Center and Source of all absolute values
of divine and eternal reality.
Human survival is, in great measure, dependent on consecrating
the human will to the choosing of those values selected by this spirit-value
sorter--the indwelling interpreter and unifier--our indwelling God-Spirit.
Jesus revealed and exemplified a religion of love--security
in the Father's love, with joy in sharing this love in the service of
the human brotherhood.
Every time any person makes a reflective moral choice, they
immediately experience a new divine invasion of their soul.
Man's contact with the highest objective reality, God, is
only through the purely subjective experience of knowing him, worshipping
him, and of realizing family membership with him.
Our supreme experience and greatest challenge and adventure
Religion is mankind's supreme experience during the mortal
nature, and love is the highest motivation that any person may utilize
in their universe ascent--but love, divested of truth, beauty, and goodness
is only a sentiment.
The religious person can transcend an environment and, in
this way, escape the limitations of the world through the insight of divine
love. This concept of love generates in the soul of man the super-animal
effort to find truth, beauty, and goodness; and when these are found,
God is found--and the finder is consumed with the desire to be like him.
Be not discouraged; human evolution is still in progress,
and the revelation of God to the world, in and through Jesus shall not
fail.
The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication
with the divine indwelling Spirit of God.
Man's greatest adventure consists in a sane effort to advance
the borders of self-consciousness, through the realms of soul-consciousness,
in a whole-hearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness--contact
with the divine presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness,
an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious
experience of knowing God.
Our relationship with God is an experience of faith in that
we have reached out to the borderland of spirit consciousness to the point
of contact of the divine presence, the God-Spirit within--and so attained
that spirit consciousness that is equivalent to knowledge of the actuality
of our child-parent relationship with the Father.
The Father is living love and this life of the Father is
in his Son. And the Spirit of the Father is in his Son's sons and daughters--mortal
man. And when all is said and done, the Father idea is still the highest
human concept of God.
