Becoming Perfect and Divine

Living Faith

The Flesh The "flesh," refers to the inherent nature derived from the animal-origin races. The flesh does not naturally bear the fruits of the divine Spirit. When the mortal nature has been upstepped somewhat by the addition of the nature of the Adams and Eves, then the way is better prepared for the Spirit of Truth in cooperation with the indwelling Thought Adjuster to bring forth a harvest of the character fruits of the spirit. If  mortals do not reject this spirit, he will guide them into all truth.

Escaping Animal Bondage Lucifer's rebellion and the default of Adam and Eve were a double disaster to man's nature and his earthly environment. However, present-day mortals would experience less of the apparent warfare between the flesh and the spirit if they would enter the spirit kingdom. Faith in the spiritual overcomes the animal flesh. Faith sons of God enjoy comparative deliverance from the slave-bondage of the flesh in the enlightened and liberating service of wholehearted devotion to doing the will of the Father in heaven. Jesus (the incarnation of Michael, the universe creator), showed mankind the way of living to largely escape the dire consequences of the Lucifer rebellion and how to compensate for the deprivations resulting from the Adamic default. The Spirit of Truth (the spirit of the life of Christ Jesus) frees mortals from the law of animal living and the temptations of evil and sin.

The Way of Faith Evolutionary mortals inhabiting normal worlds of spiritual progress do not experience the acute conflicts between the spirit and the flesh that characterize present-day Earth races. While mortals on normal worlds are also confronted with the necessity of climbing up from the animal levels of existence to the higher planes of spiritual living, their ascent is more like undergoing an educational training when compared with the intense conflicts of Earth mortals between the material and spiritual natures. God-knowing men and women on Earth reborn of the Spirit experience no more conflict with their mortal natures than do the inhabitants of worlds that have never been tainted with sin nor touched by rebellion. Earth's faith sons work on intellectual levels and live on spiritual planes far above the conflicts produced by unrestrained or unnatural physical desires. Faith sons should never question their status and standing. In every dark hour, at every crossroad in the forward struggle, the Spirit of Truth will always speak, saying, " This is the way. "

Man's Sense of Guilt The recognition of a sense of guilt is a badge of transcendent distinction for mankind. It does not mark man as mean but rather sets him apart as a creature of potential greatness. Such a sense of unworthiness is the initial stimulus that should lead quickly and surely to those faith conquests that translate the mortal mind to the superb levels of moral nobility, cosmic insight, and spiritual living. In this manner, the meanings of human existence are changed from the temporal to the eternal, and all values are elevated from the human to the divine.

The Power of Prayer While nonselfish prayer is strengthening and comforting, materialistic praying is destined to bring disappointment and disillusionment as advancing scientific discoveries demonstrate that man lives in a physical universe of law and order. The childhood of an individual or a race is characterized by primitive, selfish, and materialistic praying. To some extent, materialistic petitions are efficacious in that they lead to efforts and exertions that contribute to achieving the answers to such prayers. The real prayer of faith always contributes to the augmentation of the technique of living. However, the spiritually advanced person should exercise great caution in attempting to discourage the primitive or immature mind regarding such prayers.

Evolutionary Religions The many religions of Earth are all good to the extent that they bring man to God and bring the realization of the Father to man. It is a fallacy for any group of religionists to conceive of their creed as The Truth. Such attitudes indicate theological arrogance rather than of the certainty of faith. There is not an Earth religion that could not profitably study and assimilate the best of the truths contained in every other faith, for all contain truth. Religionists should borrow the best in their neighbors' living spiritual faith rather than denouncing them as lingering superstitions and worn out rituals.

Faith and Family Social leadership is transformed by spiritual insight. Religion prevents all collective group movements from losing sight of their true objectives. Along with children, religion is the great unifier of family life, provided it is a living and growing faith. Family life cannot be had without children. It can be lived without religion, but such a handicap enormously multiplies the difficulties of this intimate human association. Presently, family life, next to personal religious experience, suffers most from the decadence consequent upon the transition from old religious loyalties to newly emerging meanings and values.

Growth Man cannot cause growth, but he can supply favorable conditions for growth. Growth is always unconscious, whether it is physical, intellectual, or spiritual. Love must grow. It cannot be created, manufactured, or purchased. Evolution is a cosmic technique of growth. Social growth cannot be secured by legislation, and moral growth can not be had by improved administration. Man's sole contribution to growth is the mobilization of the total powers of his personality through living faith.

Contact With The Thought Adjuster The best approach to the soul's morontia zones of possible contact with the Thought Adjuster is through living faith and sincere worship, wholehearted and unselfish prayer. Too much of the uprush of the memories of the unconscious levels of the human mind has been mistaken for divine revelations and spirit leadings.

The Progression of Religion Evolutionary religion provides only the assurance of faith and the confirmation of conscience. Revelatory religion provides the assurance of faith plus the truth of a living experience in the realities of revelation. The third phase of the experience of religion, has to do with the morontia state in the Mansion Worlds, with the firmer grasp of mota (greater wisdom). Increasingly in the morontia progression the truths of revealed religion are expanded. More and more the sons of God learn the truth of supreme values, divine goodnesses, universal relationships, eternal realities, and ultimate destinies.

The Discovery of Jesus By appropriating the faith of Jesus, mortal man can foretaste in time the realities of eternity. Jesus made the discovery, in human experience, of the Final Father. His brothers in the flesh of mortal life can follow him along this same experience of Father discovery. They can even attain, as they are, the same satisfaction in this experience with the Father as Jesus did. Jesus was and is the new and living way whereby man can come into the divine inheritance, which the Father has decreed shall be his for the asking. In Jesus there is demonstrated both the beginnings and endings of the faith experience of humanity, even of divine humanity.

Faith and Belief Belief attains the level of faith when it motivates life and shapes the manner of living. The acceptance of a teaching as true is not faith. That is mere belief. Neither is certainty nor conviction faith. A state of mind attains to faith levels only when it actually dominates the mode of living. Faith is a living attribute of genuine personal religious experience. One believes truth, admires beauty, and reverences goodness, but does not worship them.  Such an attitude of saving faith is centered on God alone, who is all of these personified and infinitely more.

Faith Liberates Belief is limiting and commands adherence to a commitment. Faith is expanding and releasing. Simply stated, belief fixates, faith liberates. A living religious faith is more than an association of noble beliefs; it is more than an exalted system of philosophy. Faith is a living experience concerned with spiritual meanings, divine ideals, and supreme values. Living faith is God-knowing and man-serving. Beliefs may become group possessions, but faith must be personal. Theologic beliefs can be suggested to a group, but faith can rise up only in the heart of an individual religionist.

Faith Is Honesty Faith never falsifies its trust by denying realities. Faith does not confer any assumed knowledge upon its devotees. Faith is a traitor when it fosters betrayal of intellectual integrity and belittles loyalty to supreme values and divine ideals. Faith never shuns the problem-solving duty of mortal living. Living faith never fosters bigotry, persecution, or intolerance.

Non-Believers To the unbelieving materialist, man is simply an evolutionary accident. His hopes of survival are strung on a figment of mortal imagination. To the unbelieving atheist, man's fears, loves, longings, and beliefs are but the reaction of the incidental juxtaposition of certain lifeless atoms of matter. For the non-believer, no display of energy nor expression of trust can carry him beyond the grave. The devotional labors and inspirational genius of the best of men are doomed to be extinguished by death. There remains only the long and lonely night of eternal oblivion and soul extinction. Nameless despair is man's only reward for living and toiling under the temporal sun of mortal existence. Each day of life slowly and surely tightens the grasp of a pitiless doom which a hostile and relentless universe of matter has decreed shall be the crowning insult to everything in human desire which is beautiful, noble, lofty, and good.

The Normal Experience Most men very early become conscious that they are not alone in the world or the universe. For these mortals, there develops a natural spontaneous self-consciousness of other-mindness in the environment of self-hood. Faith translates this natural experience into religion, the recognition of God as the reality, source, nature, and destiny of other-mindness. Such a knowledge of God is ever and always a reality of personal experience. If God were not a personality, he could not become a living part of the real religious experience of a human personality.

Conquering Fear The conquest of fear occurs in the evolution of mind ideation (the process of forming and relating ideas) when primitive animal fear is transmuted into the constantly deepening reverence for God and into increasing awe of the universe. Primitive man had more religious fear than faith, and the supremacy of spirit potentials over mind actuals is demonstrated when craven fear is translated into living faith in spiritual realities.

The Certainty of Religious Faith The philosophic elimination of religious fear and the steady progress of science add greatly to the mortality of false gods. Even though these casualties of man-made deities may momentarily fog the spiritual vision, they eventually destroy that ignorance and superstition that obscured the living God of eternal love. The relationship between the creature and the Creator is a living experience, a dynamic religious faith, which is not subject to precise definition. To isolate part of life and call it religion is to disintegrate life and to distort religion. This is just why the God of worship claims all allegiance or none.

Personal Experience Convictions about God may be arrived at through wise reasoning, but the individual becomes God-knowing only by faith, through personal experience. In much that pertains to life, probability must be reckoned with, but when contacting with cosmic reality, certainty may be experienced when such meanings and values are approached by living faith. The God-knowing soul dares to say, "I know," even when this knowledge of God is questioned by the unbeliever who denies such certitude because it is not wholly supported by intellectual logic. To every such doubter the believer only replies, "How do you know that I do not know?"

Questioning Faith Though reason can always question faith, faith can always supplement both reason and logic. Reason creates the probability that faith can transform into a moral certainty, even a spiritual experience. God is the first truth and the last fact. All truth take origin in him, while all facts exist relative to him. God is absolute truth. As truth, one may know God, but to understand, to explain God, one must explore the fact of the universe of universes. The vast gulf between the experience of the truth of God and ignorance as to the fact of God can be bridged only by living faith. Reason alone cannot achieve harmony between infinite truth and universal fact.

Faith Trumps Doubt Belief may not be able to resist doubt and withstand fear, but faith always triumphs over doubting, for faith is both positive and living. The positive always has the advantage over the negative, truth over error, experience over theory, spiritual realities over the isolated facts of time and space. The convincing evidence of this spiritual certainty consists in the social fruits of the spirit that people with faith yield as a result of this genuine spiritual experience. Jesus said: "If you love your fellows as I have loved you, then shall all men know that you are my disciples."

No Blissful Ignorance The God-knowing individual is not blind to the difficulties or unmindful of the obstacles that stand in the way of finding God in the maze of superstition, tradition, and the materialistic tendencies of modern times. The God-knowing individual has encountered all these deterrents, surmounted them by living faith, and attained the highlands of spiritual experience in spite of them. Many who are inwardly sure about God fear to assert such feelings of certainty because of the multiplicity and cleverness of those who assemble objections and magnify difficulties about believing in God. It requires no great intellect to pick flaws, ask questions, or raise objections. It requires a brilliance of mind to answer these questions and solve these difficulties. Faith is the technique for dealing with all superficial contentions.

Uplifting (Living Faith) It raises man out of and beyond himself when he realizes that there lives and strives within him a spirit that is eternal and divine. A living faith in the superhuman origin of our ideals validates the belief that mortals are the sons of God and makes real the altruistic convictions, the feelings of the brotherhood of man.

Inner and Outer Experience Although religious experience is a purely spiritual subjective phenomenon, such an experience embraces a positive and living faith attitude toward the highest realms of universe objective reality. The ideal of religious philosophy is a faith-trust that leads man unqualifiedly to depend upon the absolute love of the infinite Father of the universe of universes. Such a genuine religious experience far transcends the philosophic objectification of idealistic desire. It takes salvation for granted and concerns itself only with learning and doing the will of the Father in Paradise. The earmarks of such a religion are faith in a supreme Deity, hope of eternal survival, and love, especially of one's fellows.

The Poison of Theology When theology masters religion, religion dies. Religion becomes a doctrine instead of a life. The mission of theology is merely to facilitate the self-consciousness of personal spiritual experience. Theology constitutes the religious effort to define, clarify, expound, and justify the experiential claims of religion, which, in the last analysis, can be validated only by living faith. In the higher philosophy of the universe, wisdom, like reason, becomes allied to faith. Reason, wisdom, and faith are man's highest human attainments. Reason introduces man to the world of facts (to things). Wisdom introduces man to a world of truth (to relationships). Faith initiates him into a world of divinity (spiritual experience).

The Role of Reason When reason once recognizes right and wrong, it exhibits wisdom. When wisdom chooses between right and wrong, truth and error, it demonstrates spirit leading. In this way, the functions of mind, soul, and spirit are united and functionally inter-associated. Through truth man attains beauty and by spiritual love ascends to goodness.

Cosmic Circles The mastery of the cosmic circles is related to the quantitative growth of the (morontia) soul, the comprehension of supreme meanings. The qualitative status of this immortal soul is wholly dependent on the grasp of living faith upon the Paradise-potential fact-value that mortal man is a son of the eternal God. A seventh circler goes on to the mansion worlds to attain further quantitative realization of cosmic growth just as does a second or even a first circler.   Click for explanation of morontia. Click for more on Cosmic Circles.

Faith Is Personal The right to enter the kingdom is conditioned by faith (personal belief). The cost of remaining in the progressive ascent of the kingdom is the pearl of great price, which to possess a man sells all that he has. The teaching of Jesus is a religion for everybody, not just for weaklings and slaves. His religion never became crystallized (during his day) into creeds and theological laws; he left not a line of writing behind him. His life and teachings were bequeathed the universe as an inspirational and idealistic inheritance suitable for the spiritual guidance and moral instruction of all ages on all worlds. Today, Jesus' teaching stands apart from all religions, although it is the living hope of every one of them.

Difficult Concepts Jesus talked at great length, teaching the twelve apostles what they must be, rather than what they must do. This is the fundamental principle of Living Faith. As Jews, The apostles knew only a religion that imposed the doing of specific rituals as the means of attaining righteousness (salvation). But Jesus reiterated that in the kingdom, one must be righteous (perfect mortals) to do the work of salvation. Many times Jesus repeated, "Be you therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." All the while the Master was explaining to his bewildered apostles that the salvation that he had come to bring to the world was to be had only by simple and sincere faith. It was difficult to convince these Galilean fishermen that, in the kingdom, being righteous, by faith, must precede doing righteousness in the daily life of the mortals of earth.

The Way The Master sought to impress upon all his teachers of the gospel of the kingdom that their only task was to reveal God to each individual as his Universal Father - to lead each individual man to become son-conscious; then to present this same man to God as his faith son. Both of these essential revelations are accomplished in Jesus (the incarnated father of the local universe) who is, "the way, the truth, and the life." The religion of Jesus was based entirely on the living of his bestowal life on earth. When Jesus departed from this world, he left behind no books, laws, or other forms of human organization affecting the religious life of the individual.

Religious Confidence It is only natural that mortal man should feel insecure as he views himself inextricably bound to animal nature while he possesses spiritual powers that transcend all things temporal and finite. Only religious confidence (living faith) can sustain man amid such difficult and perplexing problems.

Reminisces of a Guardian Angel "Much of my difficulty was due to the unending conflict between the two natures of my subject: the urge of ambition opposed by animal indolence; the ideals of a superior people crossed by the instincts of an inferior race; the high purposes of a great mind antagonized by the urge of a primitive inheritance; the long-distance view of a far-seeing Monitor counteracted by the nearsightedness of a creature of time; the progressive plans of an ascending being modified by the desires and longings of a material nature; the flashes of universe intelligence canceled by the chemical-energy mandates of the evolving race; the urge of angels opposed by the emotions of an animal; the training of an intellect annulled by the tendencies of instinct; the experience of the individual opposed by the accumulated propensities of the race; the aims of the best overshadowed by the drift of the worst; the flight of genius neutralized by the gravity of mediocrity; the progress of the good retarded by the inertia of the bad; the art of the beautiful besmirched by the presence of evil; the buoyancy of health neutralized by the debility of disease; the fountain of faith polluted by the poisons of fear; the spring of joy embittered by the waters of sorrow; the gladness of anticipation disillusioned by the bitterness of realization; the joys of living ever threatened by the sorrows of death. Such a life on such a planet! And yet, because of the ever-present help and urge of the Thought Adjuster, this soul did achieve a fair degree of happiness and success and has even now ascended to the judgment halls of mansonia" (the mansion worlds).

Sharing Divinity By the old way (pre-Jesus), men sought to suppress, obey, and conform to the rules of living. By the new way, they are first transformed by the Spirit of Truth and thereby strengthened in the inner soul by the constant spiritual renewing of the mind. In this manner, men are endowed with the power of the certain and joyous performance of the gracious, acceptable, and perfect will of God. It is personal faith in the exceedingly great and precious promises of God that ensures man's sharing of the divine nature. By faith and the spirit's transformation, mortals become in reality the temples of God, and his spirit actually dwells within each human temple.

The Themes the Apostles Taught The kingdom of heaven is at hand. By faith in the fatherhood of God, mortals may enter the kingdom of heaven, thus becoming the sons of God. Love is the rule of living within 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.

Sonship Sonship is grounded in faith. God's sons are unmoved by fear. Joy is born of trust in the divine word. Never doubt the reality of the Father's love and mercy. It is the very goodness of God that leads men into true and genuine repentance. The secret of the mastery of self is bound up with faith in the indwelling spirit that ever works by love.

Balance Worship (contemplation of the spiritual) must alternate with service (contact with material reality). Work should alternate with play. Religion should be balanced by humor. Profound philosophy should be relieved by the rhythmic characteristics of poetry. The strain of living (the time tension of personality) should be relaxed by the restfulness of worship. Feelings of insecurity arising from the fear of personality isolation (loneliness) in the universe should be neutralized by the faith contemplation of the Father and by the attempted realization of the Supreme.

Deceptive Circles Jesus was invited to dine with Simon a respected Pharisee (a member of an ancient Jewish sect that emphasized strict interpretation and observance of the Mosaic law in both its oral and written form). Among those who came in off the street to observe the event was a woman who had recently become a believer in the gospel of the kingdom. The woman was well known throughout all Jerusalem as the former keeper of a brothel. Upon accepting the teachings of Jesus, she had closed up her business and had induced the majority of the women associated with her to accept the gospel. She was held in great disdain by the Pharisees and was compelled to wear her hair down, the mark of harlotry. Standing behind Jesus as he reclined, the woman began anointing his feet with perfumed lotion while wetting his feet with her tears of gratitude, and wiping them with the hair of her head. When she had finished this anointing, she continued weeping and kissing his feet. Simon was appalled that Jesus allowed the woman to touch him. Later, Jesus explained his actions to his apostles. "This transformed woman whom some of you saw at Simon's house today is, at this moment, living on a level which is vastly below that of Simon and his well-meaning associates; but while these Pharisees are occupied with the false progress of the illusion of traversing deceptive circles of meaningless ceremonial services, this woman has, in dead earnest, started out on the long and eventful search for God, and her path toward heaven is not blocked by spiritual pride and moral self-satisfaction. The woman is, humanly speaking, much farther away from God than Simon, but her soul is in progressive motion; she is on the way toward an eternal goal. There are present in this woman tremendous spiritual possibilities for the future. Some of you may not stand high in actual levels of soul and spirit, but you are making daily progress on the living way opened up, through faith, to God. There are tremendous possibilities in each of you for the future. Better by far to have a small but living and growing faith than to be possessed of a great intellect with its dead stores of worldly wisdom and spiritual unbelief."

Veronica While Jesus was hurrying through a narrow street the throng of people jostled him, Jesus suddenly stopped, exclaiming, "Someone touched me." When those who were near him denied that they had touched him, Peter spoke up: "Master, you can see that this crowd presses you, threatening to crush us, and yet you say ‘someone has touched me.' What do you mean?" Then Jesus said: "I asked who touched me, for I perceived that living energy had gone forth from me." As Jesus looked about him, his eyes fell upon a near-by woman, who, coming forward, knelt at his feet and said: "For years I have been afflicted with a scourging hemorrhage. I have suffered many things from many physicians; I have spent all my substance, but none could cure me. Then I heard of you, and I thought if I may but touch the hem of his garment, I shall certainly be made whole. And so I pressed forward with the crowd as it moved along until, standing near you, Master, I touched the border of your garment, and I was made whole; I know that I have been healed of my affliction." When Jesus heard this, he took the woman by the hand and, lifting her up, said: "Daughter, your faith has made you whole; go in peace." With her faith, it was only necessary to approach the Master's person. It was not at all necessary to touch his garment; that was merely the superstitious part of her belief. Jesus called this woman (Veronica of Caesarea-Philippi) into his presence to correct two errors which might have lingered in her mind, or which might have persisted in the minds of those who witnessed this healing. He did not want Veronica to go away thinking that her fear in attempting to steal her cure had been honored, or that her superstition in associating the touch of his garment with her healing had been effective. He desired all to know that it was her pure and living faith that had wrought the cure.

The Power   Neither the apostles or the common people could understand the nature and attributes of the God-man, Jesus. Nor has any subsequent generation been able to evaluate what took place on earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. There will never be an opportunity for either science or religion to check up on the remarkable events people were witnessing because such an extraordinary situation can never occur again on this world or on any other world in the local universe. Never again will a being appear in the likeness of mortal flesh embodying all the attributes of creative energy combined with spiritual endowments that transcend time and most other material limitations. Today, while his absence prevents "miraculous" material manifestations, mankind should refrain from placing any sort of limitation on the possible exhibition of his spiritual power. Though the Master is absent as a material being, he is present as a spiritual influence in the hearts of men. By going away from the world, Jesus made it possible for his spirit to live alongside that of his Father, the Thought Adjuster, which indwells the minds of all mankind.

Pure Motives When religion is wholly spiritual in motive, it makes all life more worth while, 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. True religion is designed to lessen the strain of existence; it releases faith and courage for daily living and unselfish serving. Faith promotes spiritual vitality and righteous fruitfulness.

Living in the Kingdom In the kingdom, man's religion changes from the mere intellectual belief in traditional authority to the actual experience of that living faith which is able to grasp the reality of God and all that relates to the divine spirit of the Father. The religion of the mind ties the individual hopelessly to the past. The religion of the spirit consists in progressive revelation and ever beckons men on toward higher and holier achievements in spiritual ideals and eternal realities. Be concerned only with the spirit of living truth and the power of true religion. It is not the fear of a dead religion that will save men but rather faith in a living experience in the spiritual realities of the kingdom.  Do not become blinded by prejudice and paralyzed by fear. It is not the purpose of true religion merely to bring peace but rather to insure progress. There can be no peace in the heart or progress in the mind unless one falls wholeheartedly in love with truth, the ideals of eternal realities.

Jesus' Counsel "The issues of life and death are being set before you -- the sinful pleasures of time against the righteous realities of eternity. Even now you should begin to find deliverance from the bondage of fear and doubt as you enter upon the living of the new life of faith and hope. And when the feelings of service for your fellow men arise within your soul, do not stiflethem; when the emotions of love for your neighbor well up within your heart, give expression to such urges of affection in intelligent ministry to the real needs of your fellows."

The Quest for God The world is filled with hungry souls who famish in the very presence of the bread of life. Men die searching for the very God who lives within them. Men seek for the treasures of the kingdom with yearning hearts and weary feet when they are all within the immediate grasp of living faith. Faith is to religion what sails are to a ship; it is an addition of power, not an added burden of life. There is but one struggle for those who enter the kingdom, and that is to fight the good fight of faith. The believer has only one battle, and that is against doubt - unbelief.

Failure to Understand Great sorrow attended the misinterpretation of the Master's inferences regarding prayer. There would have been little difficulty about these teachings if his exact words had been remembered and subsequently truthfully recorded. Because of the flawed records, believers eventually regarded prayer in Jesus' name as a sort of supreme magic, thinking that they would receive from the Father anything they asked for. For centuries honest souls have continued to wreck their faith against this stumbling block. How long will it take the world of believers to understand that prayer is not a process of getting your way, but rather a program of taking God's way, an experience of learning how to recognize and execute the Father's will? It is entirely true that, when one's will has been truly aligned with his, one can ask anything conceived by that will-union, and it will be granted. And such a will-union is effected by and through Jesus.

The Peace of Jesus A certain amount of both stoicism and optimism are serviceable in living a life on earth, but neither has anything to do with that superb peace that the Son of God bestows upon his brethren in the flesh. The peace that Michael gives his children on earth is the same peace that filled his own soul when he lived the mortal life in the flesh on this planet. The peace of Jesus is the joy and satisfaction of a God-knowing individual who has achieved the triumph of learning fully how to do the will of God while living the mortal life. The peace of Jesus' mind was founded on an absolute human faith in the actuality of the divine Father's wise and sympathetic over-care. Jesus had trouble on earth, he has even been falsely called the "man of sorrows," but in and through all of these experiences he enjoyed the comfort of that confidence that ever empowered him to proceed with his life purpose in the full assurance that he was achieving the Father's will.

A Momentous Moment At Jesus' trial before the Jewish court, Caiaphas (the Jewish High Priest) could not longer endure the sight of the Master standing there in perfect composure and unbroken silence. Caiaphas thought he knew a way in which the prisoner might be induced to speak. He rushed over to the side of Jesus and, shaking his accusing finger in the Master's face, said: "I adjure you, in the name of the living God, that you tell us whether you are the Deliverer, the Son of God." Jesus answered: "I am. Soon I go to the Father, and presently shall the Son of Man be clothed with power and once more reign over the hosts of heaven." Jesus had confessed to being both God and man. This was the moment of the Master's greatest victory in all his long and eventful career as maker, upholder, and savior of a vast and far-flung universe. It is the same with all the sons of men. In the living experience in the religion of Jesus, the faith sons of God find final deliverance from the isolation of the self, at both the personal and planetary level. The God-knowing believer increasingly experiences the ecstasy and grandeur of spiritual socialization on a universe scale - citizenship on high in association with the eternal realization of the divine destiny of perfection attainment.

Jesus/Michaels' Words to the Apostles After His Resurrection "Your mission to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-revealing life among you; on the truth that you and all other men are the sons of God; and it shall consist in the life which you will live among men - the actual and living experience of loving men and serving them, even as I have loved and served you. Let faith reveal your light to the world; let the revelation of truth open the eyes blinded by tradition; let your loving service effectually destroy the prejudice engendered by ignorance. By so drawing close to your fellow men in understanding sympathy and with unselfish devotion, you will lead them into a saving knowledge of the Father's love. The Jews have extolled goodness; the Greeks have exalted beauty; the Hindus preach devotion; the far-away ascetics teach reverence; the Romans demand loyalty; but I require of my disciples life, even a life of loving service for your brothers in the flesh."

Jesus/Michaels' Last Words On Living Faith After His Resurrection Appearance #16 "...From the beginning of my sojourn as one of you, I taught you that my one purpose was to reveal my Father in heaven to his children on earth. I have lived the God-revealing bestowal that you might experience the God-knowing career. I have revealed God as your Father in heaven; I have revealed you as the sons of God on earth. It is a fact that God loves you, his sons. By faith in my word this fact becomes an eternal and living truth in your hearts. When, by living faith, you become divinely God-conscious, you are then born of the spirit as children of light and life, even the eternal life wherewith you shall ascend the universe of universes and attain the experience of finding God the Father on Paradise." "...Sonship with God, by faith, is still the saving truth of the gospel of the kingdom....That which the world needs most to know is: Men are the sons of God, and through faith they can actually realize, and daily experience, this ennobling truth. My bestowal should help all men to know that they are the children of God, but such knowledge will not suffice if they fail personally to faith-grasp the saving truth that they are the living spirit sons of the eternal Father." Appearance #18 "...My Father sent me into the world to proclaim this salvation of sonship to all men. And so I send you abroad to preach this salvation of sonship. Salvation is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will immediately begin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in loving service to their fellow creatures. And the fruits of the divine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace."

Ecclesiasticism Ecclesiasticism (the excessive adherence to ecclesiastical principles and forms) is incompatible with that living faith, growing spirit, and firsthand experience of the faith-comrades of Jesus in the brotherhood of man in the spiritual association of the kingdom of heaven. The praiseworthy desire to preserve traditions of past achievement often leads to the defense of outgrown systems of worship. The well-meant desire to foster ancient thought systems effectively prevents the sponsoring of new and adequate means and methods designed to satisfy the spiritual longings of the expanding and advancing minds of modern men. The Christian churches of the twentieth century stand as great, but wholly unconscious, obstacles to the immediate advance of the real gospel - the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

A House Divided Christianity is confronted with the doom embodied in one of its own slogans: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." The non-Christian world will not capitulate to a Christendom divided by sects. The living Jesus is the only hope of a possible unification of Christianity. The true church (the Jesus brotherhood) is invisible, spiritual, and is characterized by unity, not necessarily by uniformity. Uniformity is the earmark of the mechanistic nature of the physical world. Spiritual unity is the fruit of faith union with the living Jesus. The visible church should refuse longer to handicap the progress of the invisible and spiritual brotherhood of the kingdom of God. This brotherhood is destined to become a living organism in contrast to an institutionalized social organization. It may well utilize such social organizations, but it must not be supplanted by them.

Living in the Presence of God the Father Jesus did not cling to faith in God as would a struggling soul at war with the universe or a hostile and sinful world. He did not resort to faith merely as a consolation in the midst of difficulties or as a comfort in threatened despair. Faith for Jesus was not an illusory compensation for the unpleasant realities and the sorrows of living. In the very face of all the natural difficulties and the temporal contradictions of mortal existence, Jesus experienced the tranquility of supreme and unquestioned trust in God.  He felt the thrill of living, by faith, in the very presence of the heavenly Father. Jesus' triumphant faith was a living experience of actual spirit attainment. His great contribution to the values of human experience was not that he revealed so many new ideas about the Father in Paradise, but rather that he magnificently and humanly demonstrated a new and higher type of living faith in God.

The New Religion In the Master's life on Earth, this planet and all other worlds of the local creation discover a new and higher type of religion, a religion based on personal spiritual relations with the Universal Father, wholly validated by the supreme authority of genuine personal experience. This living faith of Jesus was far more than mental concentration or an intellectual reflection, but it was not a mystic meditation.

The Faith of Jesus Theology may fix, formulate, define, and dogmatize faith, but in the human life of Jesus, faith was personal, living, original, spontaneous, and purely spiritual. His faith was not reverence for tradition nor a mere intellectual belief that he held as a sacred creed. Rather, it was a sublime experience and a profound conviction that held him free from fear, anxiety, or doubt. His faith was so real and all-encompassing that it swept away any spiritual doubts and effectively destroyed every conflicting desire. Nothing was able to tear him away from the spiritual anchorage of this fervent, sublime, and undaunted faith. Even in the face of apparent defeat or in the throes of disappointment and threatening despair, he stood calmly in the divine presence free from fear and fully conscious of spiritual invincibility. Jesus enjoyed the invigorating assurance of the possession of unflinching faith. In each of life's trying situations, he unfailingly exhibited an unquestioning loyalty to the Father's will. This superb faith was undaunted even by the cruel and crushing threat of an ignominious death on the cross.

Paul's Error While the human Jesus was recognized as having a religion, the divine Jesus (Christ, The Messiah) became a religion. Paul's Christianity made certain the adoration of the divine Christ, but it lost sight of the struggling and valiant human, Jesus of Galilee, who, by the valor of his personal religious faith and the heroism of his indwelling Adjuster, ascended from the lowly levels of humanity to become one with divinity, becoming the new and living way whereby all mortals may ascend from humanity to divinity. Mortals in all stages of spirituality and on all worlds may find in the personal life of Jesus that which will strengthen and inspire them as they progress from the lowest spirit levels up to the highest divine values, from the beginning to the end of all personal religious experience.

Resurrecting the Human Jesus The time is ripe to resurrect the human Jesus from his burial tomb in the theological traditions and the religious dogmas of nineteen centuries. The human Jesus of Nazareth must no longer be sacrificed to even the splendid concept of the glorified Christ. What a transcendent service if, through this revelation in The Urantia Book, the Son of Man should be recovered from the tomb of traditional theology and be presented as the living Jesus to the church that bears his name, and to all other religions. The Christian fellowship of believers should not hesitate to make such adjustments of faith and of practices of living to "follow after" the Master in the demonstration of his real life of religious devotion to the doing of his Father's will and his consecration upon the unselfish service of man. If the living religion of Jesus would supplant the theologic religion about Jesus, the social readjustments, economic transformations, moral rejuvenations, and the religious revisions of Christian civilization would be drastic, revolutionary and a glorious achievement for earthlings.

Following After Jesus To "follow after Jesus" means to personally share his religious faith and to enter into the spirit of the Master's life of unselfish service for man. One of the most important things in human living is to find out what Jesus believed, to discover his ideals, and to strive for the achievement of his exalted life purpose. Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it. It should not be the aim of kingdom believers to literally imitate the outward life of Jesus in the flesh but rather to share his faith; to trust God as he trusted God, and to believe in men as he believed in men. Jesus never argued about either the fatherhood of God or the brotherhood of men. He was a living illustration of the one and a profound demonstration of the other.