The Lessons of The Cross

 

Lessons of the cross

188:5.1 (2017.9)The cross of Jesus reflects the fullness of the supreme devotion of the true shepherd to even the unworthy members of his flock. It places all relationships between God and man forever on a family basis. God is the Father, man is his son. Love, the love of a father for his son, becomes the central truth in the universe-relationships between Creator and creature-not the justice of a king, who seeks satisfaction in the suffering and punishment of his sinning subject.

188:5.2 (2018.1)The cross shows forever that Jesus' attitude toward sinners was neither condemning nor condoning, but rather eternally and lovingly saving. Jesus is truly a Savior, in the sense that people are won to goodness and to righteous survival through his life and death. Jesus loves people so much that his love awakens the response of love in people's hearts. Love is truly contagious and eternally creative. Jesus' death on the cross illustrates a love strong and divine enough to forgive sin and absorb all evil doing. Jesus revealed to this world a higher quality of justice than righteousness - the purely technical right and wrong. Divine love not only forgives wrong deeds, it absorbs them and actually nullifies them. Forgiveness out of love far exceeds forgiveness out of mercy. Mercy sets aside the guilt of wrongdoing: love, however, nullifies sin, and all the weakness that results from it, forever. Jesus brought a new way of life to Urantia. He taught us not to resist evil, but through him to seek a goodness that actually destroys evil. Jesus' forgiveness is not condonation: it is salvation from condemnation. Salvation does not pass over wrongful acts: it restores them. True love does not compromise with hate, nor does it condone it, but it destroys it. The love of Jesus is never satisfied with mere forgiveness. The Master's love involves rehabilitation, eternal survival. It is perfectly correct to speak of salvation as salvation, if by this you mean this eternal rehabilitation.

188:5.3 (2018.2)Jesus, by the power of his personal love for men, was able to break the grip of sin and evil. He thereby set people free so that they could choose better ways of life. Jesus portrayed redemption from the past, which in itself promised victory for the future. Forgiveness thus provided salvation. Once the beauty of divine love has found full access to the human heart, it destroys forever the temptation of sin and the power of evil.

188:5.4 (2018.3)Jesus' suffering was not limited to crucifixion. In fact, Jesus of Nazareth spent more than twenty-five years on the cross of a real, intense, mortal existence. The true value of the cross lies in the fact that it was the highest and final expression of his love, the completion of the revelation of his mercy.

188:5.5 (2018.4)On millions of inhabited worlds, tens of trillions of evolving creatures who might have been tempted to give up the moral struggle and abandon the good fight of faith have looked again to Jesus on the cross and then continued the arduous journey, inspired by the sight of God laying down his incarnate life in dedication to selfless service to man.

188:5.6 (2018.5)The triumph of death on the cross is summed up entirely in the spirit of Jesus' attitude toward those who besieged him. He made the cross an eternal symbol of the triumph of love over hate and the victory of truth over evil when he prayed, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. That devoted love was contagious throughout this vast universe: the disciples were kindled by their Master with it. The very first teacher of His gospel who was called to leave his life in this service said, when they stoned him, 'Do not impute this sin to them.'

188:5.7 (2018.6)The cross makes an supreme appeal to the best in man because it reveals a man who was willing to give his life for the service of his fellow men. No one can have greater love than this: that he is willing to give his life for his friends - and Jesus had such a love, that he was willing to give his life for his enemies, a love greater than had ever before been known on earth.

188:5.8 (2019.1)On other worlds, as well as on Urantia, this sublime sight of the death of the man Jesus on the cross of Calvary touched the emotions of mortals, while it aroused the highest devotion of angels.

188:5.9 (2019.2)The cross is the high symbol of holy service, of dedicating one's life to the welfare and salvation of one's fellow man. The cross is not the symbol of the sacrifice of the innocent Son of God in the place of guilty sinners in order to appease the wrath of an offended God, but it does indeed exalt itself forever, on earth as well as everywhere else in this awesome universe, as a sacred symbol of the good giving themselves to the bad, saving them precisely by this devoted love. Indeed, the cross exalts itself as the sign of the highest form of selfless service, the supreme devotion of a righteous life given entirely for the service of sincere service, even in death, the death of the cross. And the mere sight of this great symbol of the self-giving life of Jesus truly inspires us all to do the same.

188:5.10 (2019.3)When thinking men and women look at Jesus as he sacrifices his life on the cross, they will hardly afford to complain even about life's gravest adversities, much less about trivial irritations and their many, purely imaginary grievances. His life was so glorious and His death so triumphant that we are all lured into a willingness to share both. There is a true appeal in the entire self-sacrifice of Michael, from the days of his youth to this overwhelming spectacle of his death on the cross.

188:5.11 (2019.4)Take care, then, that when you consider the cross as a revelation of God, you do not look at it with the eyes of primitive man or from the point of view of the later barbarian, both of whom viewed God as a ruthless Sovereign who renders strict justice and inflexibly enforces his laws. Rather, you should take care to see in the cross the final manifestation of Jesus' love and devotion to the life mission by which he bestowed himself on the mortal races of his vast universe. See in the death of the Son of Man the climax of the unfolding of the Father's divine love for his sons upon the worlds of mortals. Thus the cross depicts the dedication of willing love and the gift of voluntary salvation to those willing to receive these gifts and dedication. There was nothing in the cross that the Father demanded - only what Jesus willingly gave and refused to avoid.

188:5.12 (2019.5)If man cannot appreciate Jesus in other ways and understand the meaning of his self-gifting on earth, at least he can understand the communion expressed in his suffering as a mortal. No one can ever fear that the nature and extent of his afflictions in this world are unknown to the Creator.

188:5.13 (2019.6)We know that the death on the cross took place not to reconcile man to God, but to encourage man to become aware of the eternal love of the Father and the endless compassion of His Son, and to make these universal truths known to a whole universe.

A Thought for Consideration from The Urantia Book

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The Task of Christianity

 

The task of Christianity

195:9.1 (2082.6)Do not overlook the value of your spiritual heritage, the river of truth that has continued to flow through the ages, even into the barren times of a materialistic, secularist age. Take care that in all your praiseworthy efforts to free yourself from the superstitious beliefs of past centuries, you hold on to the eternal truth. Be patient, however! When the present revolt against superstition is over, the truths of the gospel of Jesus will continue to gloriously illuminate a new, better way.

195:9.2 (2082.7)But paganized, socialized Christianity is in need of a new contact with the uncontaminated teaching of Jesus: it is languishing because it lacks a new vision of the Master's life on earth. A new, fuller revelation of the religion of Jesus is meant to conquer an empire of materialistic secularism and overthrow the world domination of mechanistic naturalism. Urantia now stands trembling on the threshold of one of its most amazing, exciting epochs of social reordering, moral revival and spiritual enlightenment.

195:9.3 (2082.8)Even though the teaching of Jesus was highly modified, it has survived the mysteries at the time of his birth and the ignorance and superstition of the dark Middle Ages, and is even now slowly triumphing over the materialism, mechanism, and secularization of the twentieth century. And such times of great trial and impending defeat are always times of great revelation.

195:9.4 (2082.9)Religion does need new leaders, spiritual men and women who dare to rely solely on Jesus and his incomparable teaching. If Christianity continues to neglect its spiritual mission while it remains preoccupied with social and material problems, the spiritual renaissance will have to wait for the arrival of these new teachers of the religion of Jesus, who will devote themselves exclusively to the spiritual renewal of men. And then these souls born of the spirit will soon provide the leadership and inspiration needed for the social, moral, economic and political reorganization of the world.

195:9.5 (2083.1)The modern age will refuse to accept a religion that is not true to fact and not in harmony with its highest conceptions of truth, beauty and goodness. The hour has come for a rediscovery of the true, original foundation of today's distorted, compromised Christianity - the real life and teaching of Jesus.

195:9.6 (2083.2)Primitive man lived in superstitious bondage to religious fear. Modern civilized man becomes terrified at the thought that he could be controlled by strong religious beliefs. Thinking man has always been afraid of falling into the grip of a religion. Whenever a strong, moving religion threatens to control him, he invariably tries to rationalize it and make it into a tradition and an institution, hoping thus to control it. By this procedure, even revealed religion becomes a man-made and man-controlled religion. Modern, intelligent men and women shun the religion of Jesus because of their fear of what it will do to them - and to them. And there is every reason for such fears. Indeed, the religion of Jesus controls and transforms its believers, for it demands that men devote their lives to the pursuit of knowledge of the will of the Father in heaven, and it requires that the energies of life be unselfishly placed in the service of the brotherhood of men.

195:9.7 (2083.3)Selfish men and women simply will not pay such a price, even for the greatest spiritual treasure ever offered to mortal man. Only when man is sufficiently disillusioned by the grievous disappointments associated with the foolish, deceitful pursuit of selfish ends, and when he has discovered how unfruitful formalized religion is, will he be inclined to turn sincerely to the gospel of the kingdom, the religion of Jesus of Nazareth.

195:9.8 (2083.4)The world needs more first-hand religion. Even Christianity - the best religion of the twentieth century - is not just a religion about Jesus; it is largely a religion that people experience secondhand. They accept their religion entirely as handed down by their accepted religious teachers. What an awakening the world would experience if it could see Jesus as he really lived on earth and learn firsthand his life-giving teaching! Descriptions of beautiful things cannot move as deeply as seeing them, nor can the words of a profession of faith inspire man's soul as much as the experience of knowing the presence of God. But expectant faith will always keep open the door of hope of man's soul, so that there the eternal, spiritual realities of the divine values of the worlds above may enter.

195:9.9 (2083.5)Christianity has dared to lower its ideals in the face of the challenge of human greed, war-mongering, and the desire for power; the religion of Jesus, however, stands firm as the unstinted, transcendent spiritual call that asks the best in man to rise above all these legacies of animal evolution, and by grace, to reach the moral heights of true human destiny.

195:9.10 (2083.6)Christianity is in danger of slowly dying because of formalism, overorganization, intellectualism and other non-spiritual tendencies. The modern Christian church is not the brotherhood of dynamic believers to whom Jesus instructed to continually bring about the spiritual transformation of successive generations of people.

195:9.11 (2083.7)So-called Christianity has become both a social, cultural movement and a religious belief and practice. The river of modern Christianity draws its water from many an ancient pagan swamp and many a barbarian wetland; many ancient cultural catchments drain into the cultural stream of our time, in addition to the high plains of Galilee which are assumed to be its source area.

A Thought for Consideration from The Urantia Book

Jesus'Early Manhood

128:0.1 (1407.1)AS JESUS of Nazareth entered upon the early years of his adult life, he had lived, and continued to live, a normal and average human life on earth. Jesus came into this world just as other children come; he had nothing to do with selecting his parents. He did choose this particular world as the planet whereon to carry out his seventh and final bestowal, his incarnation in the likeness of mortal flesh, but otherwise he entered the world in a natural manner, growing up as a child of the realm and wrestling with the vicissitudes of his environment just as do other mortals on this and on similar worlds. 128:0.2 (1407.2)Always be mindful of the twofold purpose of Michael’s bestowal on Urantia: 128:0.3 (1407.3)1. The mastering of the experience of living the full life of a human creature in mortal flesh, the completion of his sovereignty in Nebadon. 128:0.4 (1407.4)2. The revelation of the Universal Father to the mortal dwellers on the worlds of time and space and the more effective leading of these same mortals to a better understanding of the Universal Father. 128:0.5 (1407.5)All other creature benefits and universe advantages were incidental and secondary to these major purposes of the mortal bestowal.

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Our Perfect and Righteous Heavenly Father prayer

144:5.26 (1622.23)Our perfect and righteous heavenly Father,

144:5.27 (1622.24)This day guide and direct our journey.

144:5.28 (1622.25)Sanctify our steps and co-ordinate our thoughts.

144:5.29 (1622.26)Ever lead us in the ways of eternal progress.

144:5.30 (1622.27)Fill us with wisdom to the fullness of power

144:5.31 (1622.28)And vitalize us with your infinite energy.

144:5.32 (1622.29)Inspire us with the divine consciousness of

144:5.33 (1622.30)The presence and guidance of the seraphic hosts.

144:5.34 (1622.31)Guide us ever upward in the pathway of light;

144:5.35 (1622.32)Justify us fully in the day of the great judgment.

144:5.36 (1622.33)Make us like yourself in eternal glory

144:5.37 (1622.34)And receive us into your endless service on high.

144:5.38 (1622.34)* * *

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Lao-Tse and Confucius

 

Lao-Tse and Confucius

94:6.1 (1033.4)About six hundred years before the arrival of Michael, it seemed to Melchizedek, long since departed from the flesh, that the purity of his teaching on earth was being unduly jeopardized by general absorption into the older Urantia beliefs. It appeared for a time that his mission as a forerunner of Michael might be in danger of failing. And in the sixth century before Christ, through an unusual co-ordination of spiritual agencies, not all of which are understood even by the planetary supervisors, Urantia witnessed a most unusual presentation of manifold religious truth. Through the agency of several human teachers the Salem gospel was restated and revitalized, and as it was then presented, much has persisted to the times of this writing.

94:6.2 (1033.5)This unique century of spiritual progress was characterized by great religious, moral, and philosophic teachers all over the civilized world. In China, the two outstanding teachers were Lao-tse and Confucius.

94:6.3 (1033.6)Lao-tse built directly upon the concepts of the Salem traditions when he declared Tao to be the One First Cause of all creation. Lao was a man of great spiritual vision. He taught that man’s eternal destiny was “everlasting union with Tao, Supreme God and Universal King.” His comprehension of ultimate causation was most discerning, for he wrote: “Unity arises out of the Absolute Tao, and from Unity there appears cosmic Duality, and from such Duality, Trinity springs forth into existence, and Trinity is the primal source of all reality.” “All reality is ever in balance between the potentials and the actuals of the cosmos, and these are eternally harmonized by the spirit of divinity.”

94:6.4 (1033.7)Lao-tse also made one of the earliest presentations of the doctrine of returning good for evil: “Goodness begets goodness, but to the one who is truly good, evil also begets goodness.”

94:6.5 (1033.8)He taught the return of the creature to the Creator and pictured life as the emergence of a personality from the cosmic potentials, while death was like the returning home of this creature personality. His concept of true faith was unusual, and he too likened it to the “attitude of a little child.”

94:6.6 (1034.1)His understanding of the eternal purpose of God was clear, for he said: “The Absolute Deity does not strive but is always victorious; he does not coerce mankind but always stands ready to respond to their true desires; the will of God is eternal in patience and eternal in the inevitability of its expression.” And of the true religionist he said, in expressing the truth that it is more blessed to give than to receive: “The good man seeks not to retain truth for himself but rather attempts to bestow these riches upon his fellows, for that is the realization of truth. The will of the Absolute God always benefits, never destroys; the purpose of the true believer is always to act but never to coerce.”

94:6.7 (1034.2)Lao’s teaching of nonresistance and the distinction which he made between action and coercion became later perverted into the beliefs of “seeing, doing, and thinking nothing.” But Lao never taught such error, albeit his presentation of nonresistance has been a factor in the further development of the pacific predilections of the Chinese peoples.

94:6.8 (1034.3)But the popular Taoism of twentieth-century Urantia has very little in common with the lofty sentiments and the cosmic concepts of the old philosopher who taught the truth as he perceived it, which was: That faith in the Absolute God is the source of that divine energy which will remake the world, and by which man ascends to spiritual union with Tao, the Eternal Deity and Creator Absolute of the universes.

94:6.9 (1034.4)Confucius (Kung Fu-tze) was a younger contemporary of Lao in sixth-century China. Confucius based his doctrines upon the better moral traditions of the long history of the yellow race, and he was also somewhat influenced by the lingering traditions of the Salem missionaries. His chief work consisted in the compilation of the wise sayings of ancient philosophers. He was a rejected teacher during his lifetime, but his writings and teachings have ever since exerted a great influence in China and Japan. Confucius set a new pace for the shamans in that he put morality in the place of magic. But he built too well; he made a new fetish out of order and established a respect for ancestral conduct that is still venerated by the Chinese at the time of this writing.

94:6.10 (1034.5)The Confucian preachment of morality was predicated on the theory that the earthly way is the distorted shadow of the heavenly way; that the true pattern of temporal civilization is the mirror reflection of the eternal order of heaven. The potential God concept in Confucianism was almost completely subordinated to the emphasis placed upon the Way of Heaven, the pattern of the cosmos.

94:6.11 (1034.6)The teachings of Lao have been lost to all but a few in the Orient, but the writings of Confucius have ever since constituted the basis of the moral fabric of the culture of almost a third of Urantians. These Confucian precepts, while perpetuating the best of the past, were somewhat inimical to the very Chinese spirit of investigation that had produced those achievements which were so venerated. The influence of these doctrines was unsuccessfully combated both by the imperial efforts of Ch’in Shih Huang Ti and by the teachings of Mo Ti, who proclaimed a brotherhood founded not on ethical duty but on the love of God. He sought to rekindle the ancient quest for new truth, but his teachings failed before the vigorous opposition of the disciples of Confucius.

94:6.12 (1034.7)Like many other spiritual and moral teachers, both Confucius and Lao-tse were eventually deified by their followers in those spiritually dark ages of China which intervened between the decline and perversion of the Taoist faith and the coming of the Buddhist missionaries from India. During these spiritually decadent centuries the religion of the yellow race degenerated into a pitiful theology wherein swarmed devils, dragons, and evil spirits, all betokening the returning fears of the unenlightened mortal mind. And China, once at the head of human society because of an advanced religion, then fell behind because of temporary failure to progress in the true path of the development of that God-consciousness which is indispensable to the true progress, not only of the individual mortal, but also of the intricate and complex civilizations which characterize the advance of culture and society on an evolutionary planet of time and space.

The Nature of God

The Nature of God 2:0.1 (33.1)INASMUCH as man’s highest possible concept of God is embraced within the human idea and ideal of a primal and infinite personality, it is permissible, and may prove helpful, to study certain characteristics of the divine nature which constitute the character of Deity. The nature of God can best be understood by the revelation of the Father which Michael of Nebadon unfolded in his manifold teachings and in his superb mortal life in the flesh. The divine nature can also be better understood by man if he regards himself as a child of God and looks up to the Paradise Creator as a true spiritual Father. 2:0.2 (33.2)The nature of God can be studied in a revelation of supreme ideas, the divine character can be envisaged as a portrayal of supernal ideals, but the most enlightening and spiritually edifying of all revelations of the divine nature is to be found in the comprehension of the religious life of Jesus of Nazareth, both before and after his attainment of full consciousness of divinity. If the incarnated life of Michael is taken as the background of the revelation of God to man, we may attempt to put in human word symbols certain ideas and ideals concerning the divine nature which may possibly contribute to a further illumination and unification of the human concept of the nature and the character of the personality of the Universal Father. 2:0.3 (33.3)In all our efforts to enlarge and spiritualize the human concept of God, we are tremendously handicapped by the limited capacity of the mortal mind. We are also seriously handicapped in the execution of our assignment by the limitations of language and by the poverty of material which can be utilized for purposes of illustration or comparison in our efforts to portray divine values and to present spiritual meanings to the finite, mortal mind of man. All our efforts to enlarge the human concept of God would be well-nigh futile except for the fact that the mortal mind is indwelt by the bestowed Adjuster of the Universal Father and is pervaded by the Truth Spirit of the Creator Son. Depending, therefore, on the presence of these divine spirits within the heart of man for assistance in the enlargement of the concept of God, I cheerfully undertake the execution of my mandate to attempt the further portrayal of the nature of God to the mind of man.

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The First Human Family

URANTIA was registered as an inhabited world when the first two human beings - the twins - were 11 years old, even before they had become the parents of the first-born of the second generation of real humans. The message from Salvington from the archangel on the occasion of this formal recognition of the planet ended with the following words: 63:0.2 (711.2)'Human consciousness has appeared on 606 of Satania, and these parents of the new race will be called Andon and Fonta. And all the archangels pray that these creatures may soon be endowed with the personal indwelling of the gift of the spirit of the Universal Father.' 63:0.3 (711.3)Andon is the Nebadon name which means “the first creature resembling the Father that exhibits a human yearning for perfection. Fonta means “the first creature similar to the Son exhibiting human yearning for perfection. Andon and Fonta never knew these names until they were given to them at the time of fusion with their Thought Founders. Throughout their stay as mortals on Urantia, they called each other Sonta-an and Sonta-en. Sonta-an meant “loved by mother” and Sonta-en meant “loved by father. They gave themselves these names, and their meaning is indicative of their mutual esteem and affection.

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The arena of consciousness of choice

 

The arena of consciousness of choice

111:1.1 (1216.2)Although the work of the Judges is spiritual in nature, they must of necessity perform all their labor on a rational basis. Consciousness is the human ground on which the Mentor-mind, with the cooperation of the personality in whom it dwells, must bring the morontia-soul to development.

111:1.2 (1216.3)There is a cosmic unity in the distinct levels of consciousness of the universe of universes. The rational self arises in the cosmic consciousness, approximately as a mist arises in the cosmic energies in universe-space. At the human (i.e. personal) level of the rational self, with the consent of mortal consciousness, the potential of spirit evolution becomes dominant, because of the spiritual gifts of the human personality as well as the creative presence of an entity point of absolute value within this human self. Yet this spirit-dominance over material consciousness depends on two experiences: this consciousness must have evolved through the service of the seven assistant consciousness spirits, and the material (personal) self must choose to cooperate with the indwelling Richter in creating and nurturing the morontia-self, the evolutionary, potentially immortal soul.

111:1.3 (1216.4)Material consciousness is the arena in which human personalities live, are aware of themselves, make decisions, elect God or forsake him, come to eternal life or destroy themselves.

111:1.4 (1216.5)Material evolution has endowed you with an apparatus of life, your body; the Father Himself has endowed you with the purest spirit-actuality known in the universe, your Thought-giver. But to you, subject to your own decisions, consciousness has been entrusted, and by this consciousness you live or you die. In this consciousness, and with this consciousness, you make those moral decisions which enable you to acquire Richter Equality, and this is God Equality.

111:1.5 (1216.6)Mortal consciousness is a temporary system of mind given to humans for the duration of a material life for their use, and according to their use of this consciousness they accept or reject the potential of an eternal existence. Consciousness is virtually the only universe-reality you possess that is subject to your will, and the soul - the morontia-self - will faithfully display the harvest of the decisions the mortal self makes in time. Man's consciousness rests lightly on the underlying electro-chemical mechanism, and touches lightly on the mind-morontia energy system above it. Of neither of these two systems is man ever fully conscious in his mortal life; therefore, he must work in the consciousness, of which he is conscious. And what secures survival is not so much what the mind understands as what the mind desires to understand; it is not so much what consciousness resembles as what consciousness tries to resemble, which constitutes identification with mind. What culminates ascending through the universe is not so much that man is aware of God as that he craves God. What you are today is not as important as what you become, from day to day and in eternity.

111:1.6 (1217.1)Consciousness is the cosmic instrument on which the human will can play the discords of destruction, and on which this same human will can produce the glorious melodies of identification with God and consequent eternal survival. The Richter granted to man is, after all, inaccessible to evil and incapable of sin, but mortal consciousness can actually be twisted, distorted, and made bad and ugly by the sinful cooperations of a perverse, selfish, human will. Likewise, this consciousness can become noble, clean, true, and good - truly great - in accordance with the spirit-enlightened will of a man who knows God.

111:1.7 (1217.2)Evolutionary consciousness is wholly stable and reliable only when it manifests itself at both extremes of cosmic intellectuality - the wholly mechanical and the wholly spiritualized. Between the intellectual extremes of pure mechanical regulation and true spirit-nature, there is that vast group of evolving and ascending kinds of consciousness whose stability and tranquility depend on the choice of personality and on its identification with spirit.

111:1.8 (1217.3)Yet man does not submit his will idly, slavishly to the Richter. Rather, he chooses actively, positively, and cooperatively to follow the guidance of the Richter when, and while, this guidance consciously differs from the desires and impulses of natural, mortal consciousness. The Richters do manipulate man's consciousness, but never dominate it against his will; for the Richter, human will has supreme authority. And this will they truly consider and respect as they strive to achieve the spiritual ends of directing thought and transforming character in the almost limitless arena of the evolving human mind.

111:1.9 (1217.4)Consciousness is your ship, the Richter is your pilot, the human will is the captain. The captain of the mortal vessel must be wise enough to trust that the divine pilot will guide the ascending soul to the morontia ports of eternal survival. Only from selfishness, sloth and sin can man's will reject the guidance of this loving pilot and ultimately cause the mortal voyage to end in shipwreck on the dangerous, evil cliffs of rejected grace and on the rocks of sin embraced by him. With your consent, this faithful pilot will lead you safely across the barriers of time and over the obstacles of space, to the very origin of divine consciousness, and even further, to the Father of Judges on Paradise.

A Thought for Consideration from The Urantia Book

'Our Religion'

 

'Our Religion'

131:10.1 (1453.3)After the great effort of putting together this compilation of the world religions' teaching on the Paradise Father, Ganid set to work formulating what he considered a summary of the beliefs concerning God to which he had come through the teaching of Jesus. The young man was in the habit of referring to these beliefs as “our religion. Here is what he wrote down:

131:10.2 (1453.4)'The Lord our God is one Lord, and you must love him with all your mind and heart, doing your utmost to love all his children as yourself. This one God is our heavenly Father in whom all things exist and who dwells by His Spirit in every sincere human soul. And we who are the children of God must learn to entrust our souls to him as to a faithful Creator. With our heavenly Father, all things are possible. Since he is the Creator and made all things and all beings, it could not be otherwise. Although we cannot see God, we can know him. And by living daily according to the Father's will, we can reveal him to our fellow men.

131:10.3 (1453.5)'The divine riches of God's character must be infinitely deep and eternally wise. We cannot fathom God with our knowledge, but we can know him in our hearts through our personal experience. Even though his righteousness is beyond all comprehension, even the humblest man on earth can receive his grace. As the Father fills the universe, he also dwells in our hearts. Man's consciousness is human, mortal, but man's spirit is divine, immortal. God is not only all-powerful, but also all-wise. If our earthly parents, yet inclined to evil, can love their children and bestow good gifts upon them, how much more must the good Father in heaven love his children on earth with wisdom and bestow appropriate blessings upon them.

131:10.4 (1454.1)'The Father in heaven will not allow even one of his children to perish on earth if that child has a desire to find the Father and truly desires to be like him. Our Father loves even the wicked and is always lenient toward the ungrateful. If only more people could know of the goodness of God, they would certainly want to repent of their bad ways of life and give up all known sin. All good things descend from the Father of the Light, in whom there is no mutability, nor hint of reversal. The spirit of the true God is in man's heart. His intention is that all men will be brothers. When people begin to grope for God, it proves that he has found them, and that they are seeking knowledge about him. We live in God and God dwells in us.

131:10.5 (1454.2)'It will no longer be enough for me to believe that God is the Father of all my people: from now on I will believe that he is also my Father. I will always seek to worship God with the help of the Spirit of Truth, who is my helper when I have become truly God-knowing. But in first of all, I am going to practice to worship God by learning to do God's will on earth; that is, I am going to do my best to deal with every fellow human being exactly as I think God would want me to. And when we live this kind of life in the flesh, we may ask many things of God, and he will fulfill the desire of our heart, so that we will be all the better able to serve our fellow men. And all this loving serving of the children of God, increases our ability to receive and experience the joys of heaven, the high pleasures of the service of the spirit of heaven.

131:10.6 (1454.3)'I will thank God every day for his unspeakable gifts; I will praise him for his wonderful works to the children of men. To me he is the Almighty, the Creator, the Power and the Mercy, but the most beautiful thing is that he is my spirit-Father, and as his earthly child I will go out once to see him. And my teacher has said that by seeking Him, I will become as He is. By faith in God, I have found peace with him. This new religion of ours is very joyful and brings lasting happiness. I trust that I will be faithful even unto death, and will surely receive the crown of eternal life.

131:10.7 (1454.4)'I am now learning to examine all things and to adhere to what is good. All that I would have people do for me, I will do for my fellow men. By this new faith I know that man can become a son of God; however, sometimes it frightens me to think that all men are my brothers, but it must be true. I do not see how I can rejoice in the fatherhood of God while refusing to accept the brotherhood of men. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. If that is true, then all men must be my brethren.

131:10.8 (1454.5)'From now on I will do my good works in secret; also I will pray most when I am alone. I will not judge, so as not to be unfair to my fellow men. I am going to learn to love my enemies; I have not yet really mastered this exercise of being God-like. Although I detect God in these other religions, I find that in “our religion” his beauty comes out better, that here he is more loving, more merciful, more personal and more positive. But above all, this grand, glorious Being is my spiritual Father: I am His child. And by no other means than my honest desire to be like Him will I finally find and eternally serve Him. At last I have a religion with a God, a wonderful God, and he is a God who preserves forever.

A Thought for Consideration from The Urantia Book            

The Second Garden

The Second Court

76:0.1 (847.1)WHEN Adam chose to leave the first Court to the Nodites without resistance, he and his followers could not move west, for the Edenites had no ships suitable for such an adventure at sea. They could not go north, for the northern Nodites were already marching on Eden. They were afraid to go south: the hills of that region were infested with hostile tribes. The only road open was to the east, and so they marched eastward to the then pleasant regions between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. Many of those who were left behind also later moved eastward in order to join the Adamites in their new home in the valley.

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The Dawn Races of The Early Man

The early lemurs involved in the ancestry of the human race were not directly related to the pre-existing gibbon and ape tribes then living in Eurasia and North Africa, whose descendants have survived to the present day. Nor did they descend from the present type of lemurs, although they had a common ancestor, which, however, has since long since died out. 62:1.2 (703.3)These early lemurs evolved in the western hemisphere, but the establishment of the genus of mammals that would form the direct ancestry of mankind took place in southwest Asia, in the original area of central life-implantation but along the borders of the eastern regions. Some millions of years ago, lemurs of the North American type had migrated west across the Bering land bridge and moved slowly along the Asian coast to the southwest. These migrating tribes finally reached the healthy region between the then larger Mediterranean Sea and the rising mountain ranges of the Indian Peninsula. In these regions west of India they united with other favorable races and thus established the ancestry of the human race.

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Gods Relation to The Universe

In Treatise Four of the Urantia book, it talks about God's relationship to the Universe and also talks about how we, people on Urantia are still under the influence of primitive God image understanding and that we still cling to what our ancestors understood when it comes to who God the Father is. God is pure Love and not a father of vengeance and attraction and repulsion as we read throughout the Old Testament. This treatise also says that all the books that are supposedly “holy” are based on myths because our forefathers were fond of myths. Now we will get a clearer and clearer picture about the Bible and all these other books and the stories described in them and have a question mark over what we read whether it is really from God and if so whether it is correctly understood and written down or expressed to us the descendants.

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The Supreme Lordship of God the Father

 

The supreme dominion of the Father

3:5.1 (50.6)In his contact with the creations that arose after Havona, the Universal Father exercises his infinite power and supreme authority not by asserting it directly, but rather through his Sons and the personalities subordinate to them. And God does all this of His own free will. If occasion should arise, if divine thought should prefer it, all delegated power could also be exercised directly, but as a rule such action takes place only if the delegated personality has failed to accomplish what God has entrusted to him. At such times, when faced with such negligence, the Father does act independently and in accordance with the precepts he himself has chosen, always remaining within the limits of what he has reserved for himself in terms of divine power and potential, and his choice is always of unfailing perfection and infinite wisdom.

3:5.2 (51.1)The Father rules through His Sons: there runs through the organization of the universe from high to low an unbroken chain of rulers, ending with the Planetary Sovereigns who are in charge of the destiny of the evolutionary worlds in the Father's awesome domains. 'The earth is the Lord's and its fullness.' 'He sets down kings and raises kings to thrones.' 'The Most Exalted reign in the kingdoms of men.' These exclamations are not merely expressions of poetic nature....

3:5.3 (51.2)In the affairs of the hearts of men things may not always go as the Father wills, but in the reign over and vis-à-vis the destiny of a planet the divine plan wins: the eternal intention of wisdom and love triumphs.

3:5.4 (51.3)Jesus said, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. When you catch a glimpse of what is going on in many areas of God's well-nigh infinite creation, and catch sight of its overwhelming immensity, it is possible that your understanding of his primacy may be shaken, but you must accept as certain that he is eternally enthroned in the Paradise center of all things, and that he is the beneficent Father of all thinking beings. There is only “one God and Father of all, who is above all and in all,” and “he is before all things and all things exist in him.

3:5.5 (51.4)The uncertainties of life and the vicissitudes of existence in no way contradict the idea of the universal sovereignty of God. The life of all evolutionary creatures is surrounded by certain inevitabilities. Will consider the following:

3:5.6 (51.5)1. Is courage - strength of character - desirable? If so, man must be raised in an environment that requires him to wrestle with hardships and respond to disappointments.

3:5.7 (51.6)2. Is altruism - serving one's fellow man - desirable? If so, life experience must be such that one must also cope with conditions of social inequality.

3:5.8 (51.7)3. Is hope - the greatness of trust - desirable? Then human existence must be constantly confronted with risks and ever-recurring uncertainties.

3:5.9 (51.8)4. Is faith - the highest assertion to which human thought can come - desirable? That must be human consciousness in the difficult circumstance that it always knows less, than it can believe.

3:5.10 (51.9)5. Is love of truth and a willingness to go wherever it leads desirable? If so, man must grow up in a world where error is available and lies are always possible.

3:5.11 (51.10)6. Is idealism-the daytime understanding of the divine-desirable? If so, man must struggle in an environment of relatable goodness and beauty that stimulates the irresistible pursuit of the better.

3:5.12 (51.11)7. Is faithfulness - the highest performance of duty - desirable? Then man must persevere amid the possibilities of infidelity and apostasy. The heroism of dutifulness consists in the implied danger of negligence.

3:5.13 (51.12)8. Is altruism-the spiritual institution of selflessness-desirable? If so, mortal man must live in confrontation with an inescapable self that ceaselessly cries out for recognition and honor. Man could not dynamically choose the divine life, if there were no ego-life to renounce. Man could never make saving righteousness his own, if there were no potential evil as a contrast to elevate and make the good more evident.

3:5.14 (51.13)9. Is pleasure - the satisfaction of happiness - desirable? Then man must live in a world where the alternative of pain and the probability of suffering are ever-present experiential possibilities.

3:5.15 (52.1)Throughout the universe, each unit is considered a part of the whole. The survival of the part depends on its cooperation with the plan and intention of the whole, its sincere desire and utter willingness to do the divine will of the Father. The only evolutionary world without error (the possibility of unwise judgment) would be a world without free intelligence. The Havona universe has a billion perfect worlds with their perfect inhabitants, but evolutionary man must be fallible if he is to be free. The free but still inexperienced intelligence cannot initially be wise across the board with any possibility. The possibility of wrong judgment (evil) becomes sin only when man knowingly endorses and accepts a deliberately immoral judgment.

3:5.16 (52.2)The full appreciation of truth, beauty and goodness is inherent in the perfection of the divine universe. The inhabitants of the Havona worlds do not need the potential evil associated with the relative levels of value as an incentive to make choices: these perfect beings are able to recognize and choose the good even without contrasting moral situations that call for reflection. But all these perfect beings are as they are, in terms of moral nature and spiritual status, merely by virtue of the fact that they exist. They have merely acquired experiential progress within their inherent status. Mortal man even earns his status as a candidate for the way up through his own faith and hope. All the divinity that human thought understands and the human soul acquires is attained through experience; it is a reality of personal experience and is therefore a unique possession, unlike the inherent goodness and righteousness of the infallible personalities of Havona.

3:5.17 (52.3)The creatures of Havona are naturally brave, but they are not oodish in the human sense. Kindness and courtesy are innate to them, but one can hardly call them altruistic, as humans can be. They expect a pleasant future, but do not live in hope, as the mortal on the uncertain evolutionary worlds can do so confidently and exquisitely. They believe in the stability of the universe, but the saving faith by which mortal man ascends from the status of an animal to the gates of Paradise is utterly unknown to them. They love the truth, but know nothing of those qualities of truth that preserve the soul. They are idealists, but they are born that way; the rapture with which one develops into an idealist by one's own stimulating choice is totally unknown to them. They are faithful, but have never felt the excitement of sincere, intelligent devotion to duty when faced with the temptation to abandon one's duty. They are selfless, but have not reached this level of experience through the lustrous victory over a belligerent self. They know pleasure, but do not understand the sweetness of pleasure as a means of escape from the potential of pain. A Thought for Consideration from The Urantia Book

Progress through Character Development

 

Progress through Character Development

28:6.14 (316.1)On Urantia you grotesquely attempt to fathom one's character and estimate one's specific abilities, but on Uversa we actually do this in perfection. These seconaphim weigh your trustworthiness on the living scales of flawless character assessment, and when they have looked at you, we need only look at them to know the limits of your ability to carry responsibility, perform the tasks entrusted to you and accomplish missions. Your assets to trustworthiness are clearly plotted against your liabilities to possible negligence or treachery.

28:6.15 (316.2)Your superiors plan to advance you by entrusting you with increasingly onerous tasks once your character has developed sufficiently to carry these greater responsibilities with grace, but putting too much on someone's shoulders only asks for mischief and is sure to end in disappointment. And the mistake of prematurely burdening a person or angel with responsibility can be avoided by employing the services of these angels who can unfailingly assess the ability of individual personalities in time and space to fulfill their entrusted tasks. These seconaphim always accompany the High Commanders, and these directors never appoint candidates until they have been weighed on the scales of these seconaphim and found to be “not too light.

28:6.16 (316.3)5. The Sanctity of Service. Immediately after a person is found to be trustworthy, the privilege of serving falls to him. Nothing can stand between you and the possibility of increased service but your own unreliability, your defective ability to appreciate the high seriousness of a task entrusted to you.

28:6.17 (316.4)Service - intentional service, not slavery - gives the highest satisfaction and is the expression of the most divine dignity. Service - increased service, increasing service, difficult service, adventurous service, and finally divine, perfect service - is the goal of time and the destination of space. But always the periods of service and progress in time will be alternated by periods of play. And after the service in time follows the super-service in eternity. During the play in time you should imagine the work in eternity, just as during the service in eternity you will think back to the play in time.

28:6.18 (316.5)The universal economy is based on absorption and production; throughout your eternal career you will encounter the monotony of inactivity or the stagnation of personality. Progress is made possible by inherent motion, progress springs from the divine capacity for acitvity, and achievement is the child of imaginative adventure. But inherent in this capacity for achievement is the responsibility of ethics, the need to recognize that the world and the universe are filled with a multitude of beings of different types. This entire magnificent creation, yourself included, was not made just for you. This is not a self-centered universe. The Gods have decreed, “It is more blissful to give than to receive,” and your Master-Son has said, “Whoever wishes to be the greatest among you, be all servants.

28:6.19 (316.6)The true nature of any service, whether rendered by man or angel, is fully revealed in the face of these secoraphimic designators of service, the Sanctities of Service. The full analysis of your true and hidden motives is clearly displayed. These angels are indeed the mind readers, the investigators of hearts, and the revelators of souls in the universe. Mortals may use words to hide their thoughts, but these high seconafines expose the deepest motives of the human heart and consciousness of angels.

A Thought for Consideration from The Urantia Book

Fatherly and Brotherly Love

 

Fatherly and brotherly love

140:5.1 (1573.3)From the Sermon on the Mount to the speech at the Last Supper, Jesus taught his followers to show fatherly love rather than brotherly love. In brotherly love you love your neighbor as yourself, which would be an adequate observance of the “golden rule. But paternal love demands that you love your fellow mortals as Jesus loves you.

140:5.2 (1573.4)Jesus loved humanity in two ways. He lived on earth as a dual personality-human and divine. As the Son of God, he loves man with a fatherly love - he is man's Creator, his universe-Father. As the Son of Man, Jesus loves mortals like a brother - he was truly a man among men.

140:5.3 (1573.5)Jesus did not expect his followers to achieve an impossible manifestation of brotherly love, but rather that they would so strive to be like God - perfect, as well as the Father in heaven is perfect - that they could begin to see man as God sees his creatures, and therefore love men as God loves them - to exhibit the fledgling beginnings of fatherly love. In the course of these exhortations to the twelve apostles, Jesus sought to reveal this new understanding of fatherly love in its connection with certain emotional attitudes that play a role in many social improvements in the environment.

140:5.4 (1573.6)The Master introduced this weighty discourse by drawing attention to four attitudes of faith, as a prelude to the subsequent description of his four transcendent, supreme responses of paternal love, as opposed to the limitations of mere brotherly love.

140:5.5 (1573.7)He spoke first of those who were poor in spirit, hungered for righteousness, persevered in meekness, and were pure in heart. Such spirit-distinguished mortals could be expected to reach such levels of divine selflessness, that they would be able to pursue the amazing pursuit of paternal love; that even as mourners they would find strength to show mercy, promote peace and endure persecution, and in all these difficult situations love even the unlovable humanity with a fatherly love. Fatherly love can reach heights of devotion that immeasurably exceed brotherly love.

140:5.6 (1573.8)The faith and love of these beatitudes strengthen moral character and create happiness. Fear and anger weaken character and destroy happiness. This weighty speech began in the key of happiness.

140:5.7 (1573.9)1. Happy are the poor in spirit - the humble. To a child, happiness means the satisfaction of the desire for instantaneous pleasure. The adult is willing to sow the seeds of self-denial in order to then reap greater happiness. In the time of Jesus and after, happiness has too often been linked to the idea of possessing wealth. In the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector praying in the temple, one felt rich in spirit - full of self-doubt; the other felt “poor in spirit” - humble. One was complacent; the other was studious and seeking truth. The poor in spirit seek purposes of spiritual riches - to God. And such seekers of truth need not wait for a reward in the distant future; they are rewarded now. They find the kingdom of heaven in their own hearts, and they experience this happiness now.

140:5.8 (1574.1)2. "Happy are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Only those who feel poor in spirit will ever hunger for righteousness. Only the humble seek divine strength and crave spiritual power. But it is very dangerous to deliberately fast spiritually in order to become more desirous of spiritual gifts. Physical fasting becomes dangerous after four or five days; one easily loses all desire for food. Long fasting, physical or spiritual, usually destroys hunger.

140:5.9 (1574.2)Experiential justice is a pleasure, not a duty. Jesus' justice is a dynamic love - fatherly-brotherly love. She is not the negative, “thou shalt not” type of justice.

140:5.10 (1574.3)It is not so easy to teach these first two Beatitudes to a child, but a mature consciousness should be able to grasp their meaning.

140:5.11 (1574.4)3 "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. True meekness is not related to fear. Rather, it is an attitude of man cooperating with God - “Thy will be done. It involves patience and forbearance and is driven by an unshakable faith in a lawful and kind universe. It overcomes all temptation to rebel against divine guidance. Jesus was the ideal gentle man of Urantia, and he inherited a vast universe.

140:5.12 (1574.5)4. "Happy are those who are pure in heart, for they will see God. Spiritual purity is not a negative trait except in the sense that it lacks distrust and vindictiveness. In discussing purity, Jesus did not intend to deal exclusively with human attitutdes toward sexuality. He was referring more to the faith man must have in his fellow man: the faith a parent has in his child that enables him to love his fellow men as a father would. A father's love need not be indulgent and it does not condone evil, but it is always anti-cynical. Fatherly love is directed to one goal only and always seeks the best in man: this is the disposition of the true parent.

140:5.13 (1574.6)To see God - by faith - means to gain true spiritual insight. And spiritual insight increases the guidance of the Richter, and together these ultimately increase God-consciousness. And when you know the Father, you are confirmed in the assurance of your divine sonship and can love each of your brothers in the flesh more and more, not only as a brother - with brotherly love - but also as a father - with fatherly affection.

140:5.14 (1574.7)This exhortation is easy to explain even to a child. Children are naturally full of faith, and parents should take care not to lose this simple faith. When dealing with children, avoid all deception and do not instill mistrust in them. Help them wisely to choose their heroes and their life's work.

140:5.15 (1574.8)Then Jesus went on to teach his followers about the achievement of the main goal of all human struggle - perfection, even the acquisition of divinity. Again and again he exhorted them, “Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. He did not call the twelve to love their neighbor as they loved themselves. This would have been a valuable achievement: it would have been proof that they had made brotherly love their own. But rather, he urged his apostles to love people as he had loved them - to love with both paternal and fraternal affection. And he explained this by wise on four supreme responses of paternal love:

140:5.16 (1575.1)1. "Happy are those who grieve, for they shall be comforted. Neither so-called common sense nor the best logic could ever argue that happiness can be derived from sorrow. But Jesus was not referring to outward or ostentatious grieving; he was alluding to the emotional disposition of tender-heartedness. It is a great error to teach boys and young men that it is unmanly to be tender-hearted or otherwise show affection or physical suffering. Compassion is a worthy trait of both men and women. It is not necessary to be insensitive in order to be masculine. This is the wrong way to present brave men. The great men of the earth have not been afraid to grieve. Moses, he who grieved, was a greater man than Samson or Goliath. Moses was a brilliant leader, but he was also a gentle man. Sensitivity and receptivity to human distress creates real and lasting happiness, while such gentleness protects the soul from the destructive influence of anger, hatred and suspicion.

140:5.17 (1575.2)2. "Happy are the merciful, for mercy will be shown to them. Mercy here indicates the height, depth and breadth of the most sincere friendship - kindness. Mercy can sometimes be passive, but here it is active and dynamic, supreme fatherliness. A loving parent has little trouble forgiving his child, even many times. And in an unsaved child, the impulse to relieve suffering is natural. Children are normally kind and compassionate when they are old enough to realize the actual circumstances.

140:5.18 (1575.3)3. "Happy are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. Jesus' hearers longed for military deliverance, not peacemakers. But Jesus' peace is not of the pacifist and negative kind. Faced with trial and persecution, he said, “My peace I leave with you. 'Let not your hearts be troubled, nor be afraid.' This is the peace that prevents disastrous conflict. Personal peace integrates personhood. Social peace prevents fear, greed and anger. Political peace prevents racial conflict, national distrust and war. Founding peace is the cure for distrust and suspicion.

140:5.19 (1575.4)Children can easily learn to become peacemakers. They like to do something as a team; they enjoy playing with each other. On another occasion the Master said, “Whoever will want to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever will want to lose his life will find it.

140:5.20 (1575.5)4. 'Happy are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Happy are ye when men shall scorn and persecute you, and shall speak all manner of evil of you unjustly. Be glad and rejoice greatly, for great is your reward in heaven.

140:5.21 (1575.6)Very often peace is indeed persecuted. But young people and brave adults never shun difficulties and dangers. “No one has greater love, than to dedicate his life to his friends. And a fatherly love can do all this freely - things that brotherly love can hardly encompass. And progress has always been the ultimate harvest of persecution.

140:5.22 (1575.7)Children always respond when their courage is challenged. Youth are always ready to “take a chance. And every child must learn early on to be able to deny himself something.

140:5.23 (1575.8)And so it is revealed that the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount are grounded in faith and love, and not in laws - ethics and duty.

140:5.24 (1575.9)Fatherly love delights in repaying evil with good - doing good in retaliation for injustice.

A Thought for Consideration from The Urantia Book