In this proof we will discuss Creator Sons, moreover, Master Creator Sons. Who is Jesus – actually? What do Master Creator Sons do, and how do They do what ALL They do? Our Master Creator Son, Jesus of Nazareth, lives where? ‘When’ is He? And, why does He do so much for us, personally? There are many, many things stated about Jesus down throughout our timeline. Are they all true, or has confusion, forgetfulness, self-promotion and deception entered into the narrative of JESUS?
Yes. Let us look more closely!
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This Is Jesus pdf.
This Is Jesus!
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Jesus is a Creator Son—but even more.
What is a Creator Son? Who is Jesus?
21:0.1 THE Creator Sons are the makers and rulers of the local universes of time and space. These universe creators and sovereigns are of dual origin, embodying the characteristics of God the Father and God the Son. But each Creator Son is different from every other; each is unique in nature as well as in personality; each is the “only-begotten Son” of the perfect deity ideal of his origin.
7:6.1 The lack of a knowledge of the multiple Sons of God
is a source of great confusion on Urantia.
Jesus is a Master Creator Son. He completed all of His 7 bestowals. We were the last.
21:0.3 These primary Paradise Sons are personalized as Michaels. As they go forth from Paradise to found their universes, they are known as Creator Michaels. When settled in supreme authority, they are called Master Michaels. Sometimes we refer to the sovereign of your universe of Nebadon as Christ Michael. Always and forever do they reign after the “order of Michael,” that being the designation of the first Son of their order and nature.
Michael has many brothers across the master universe.
The bestowals of Michael as our Creator Son – now Master Creator Son.
“What does ‘bestowal’ mean? Why did Michael need to do these ‘bestowals’?
I am confused because we have always been told that Jesus came only to us on our world. What is this?”
bestowal : verb and noun : to convey as a gift —usually used with on or upon
To ‘bestow’ means to give as a gift. The giving [verb] of a gift is to bestow it to another/s. The actual ‘bestowal’ IS the gift [noun] as well.
In Paper 119 you can read in depth the ability and actualities of Michael’s bestowals to all of us in His universe. He gave Himself to each of His subordinate orders of beings in His universe. This is a REQUIREMENT for every Creator Son to accomplish before They can take full command in sovereignty and ruler-ship of their universes. Michael’s bestowals – literally becoming – of each of His lower orders of beings occurred in this order, starting with the highest and concluding with the lowest – us. Each of these bestowals were accomplished about 150 million years apart over the span of about 1 billion years in total. We were His last and final ‘bestowal’. This is why He said, “It is finished.” just before He died on the cross.
In the order of Michael’s bestowals [gifting of Himself] to His universe.
1. He became a Melchizedek Son.
2. He became a Lanonandek Son.
3. He became a Material Son - an Adam.
4. He became a seraphim – an angel.
5. He became an ascending spirit pilgrim – what we will one day be after our morontial career.
6. He became a morontia mortal of ascending status, semi-material – our next level of existence.
7. He became a flesh and blood human, born of woman as a babe – Jesus of Nazareth.
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119:0.2 The attribute of bestowal [gifting of Themselves] is inherent in the Paradise Sons of the Universal Father. In their desire to come close to the life experiences of their subordinate living creatures, the various orders of the Paradise Sons are reflecting the divine nature of their Paradise parents. The Eternal Son of the Paradise Trinity led the way in this practice, having seven times bestowed himself upon the seven circuits of Havona [the domicile of the Paradise Father in ‘heaven’ – the central universe of universes] during the times of the ascension of Grandfanda and the first of the pilgrims from time and space. And the Eternal Son continues to bestow himself upon the local universes of space in the persons of his representatives, the Michael and Avonal Sons.
The great importance of comprehending what Michael has done for all of us in His universe is the fact of the truth of the amazing compassion, understanding, experiential empathy of His divine love for US. When Jesus states that He understands our mortal struggles HE MEANS IT! To the depths of our sorrows, fears and loneliness He completely understands us. When He states that, “I AM the road.” we can fully trust His leadership to us in His chosen path for us, in His road ahead. Our tools for success are found in our faith and trust in Him. PERIOD!
Do consider a full and comprehensive reading of Paper 119 towards the goal of f e e l l n g a part of our entire universe, as citizens of His well-organized, well-administrated and friendly universe-community.
The time is RIPE for us to come into the knowledge of our universe authorities, teachers and personalities as the rest of our universe-fellows already know! This may be surprisingly rapid.
This is the origin of Jesus as our Sovereign Master Creator Son, Michael. His powers are vast!
21:1.1 When the fullness of absolute spiritual ideation in the Eternal Son encounters the fullness of absolute personality concept in the Universal Father, when such a creative union is finally and fully attained, when such absolute identity of spirit and such infinite oneness of personality concept occur, then, right then and there, without the loss of anything of personality or prerogative by either of the infinite Deities, there flashes into full-fledged being a new and original Creator Son, the only-begotten Son of the perfect ideal and the powerful idea whose union produces this new creator personality of power and perfection.
Our Jesus is the ONLY Son of His kind anywhere in the entire Master Universe.
21:1.2 Each Creator Son is the only-begotten and only-begettable offspring of the perfect union of the original concepts of the two infinite and eternal and perfect minds of the ever-existent Creators of the universe of universes [the Trinity]. There never can be another such Son because each Creator Son is the unqualified, finished, and final expression and embodiment of all of every phase of every feature of every possibility of every divine reality that could, throughout all eternity, ever be found in, expressed by, or evolved from, those divine creative potentials which united to bring this Michael Son into existence. Each Creator Son is the absolute of the united deity concepts which constitute his divine origin.
Michael [Jesus] created our universe, and us, along with His other orders of beings.
21:2.1 The Paradise Sons of the primary order are the designers, creators, builders, and administrators of their respective domains, the local universes of time and space, the basic creative units of the seven evolutionary superuniverses.
Master Michael was required extensive training before beginning
His creations towards ruler-ship.
A Creator Son is permitted to choose the space site of his future cosmic activity, but before he may begin even the physical organization of his universe, he must spend a long period of observation devoted to the study of the efforts of his older brothers in various creations located in the superuniverse of his projected action. And prior to all this, the Michael Son will have completed his long and unique experience of Paradise observation and Havona training.
All Michaels are required to become each of His created orders of beings. Jesus became one of us.
21:3.1 A Creator Son is given the range of a universe by the consent of the Paradise Trinity and with the confirmation of the supervising Master Spirit of the superuniverse concerned. Such action constitutes title of physical possession, a cosmic leasehold. But the elevation of a Michael Son from this initial and self-limited stage of ruler-ship to the experiential supremacy of self-earned sovereignty comes as a result of his own personal experiences in the work of universe creation and incarnated bestowal [becoming each of His created orders of beings – including us]. Until the achievement of bestowal-earned sovereignty, he rules as vicegerent of the Universal Father.
Jesus said…
165:2.9 "But I have many other sheep not of this fold, and these words are true not only of this world. These other sheep also hear and know my voice, and I have promised the Father that they shall all be brought into one fold, one brotherhood of the sons of God. And then shall you all know the voice of one shepherd, the true shepherd, and shall all acknowledge the fatherhood of God.”
Fatherhood precedes brotherhood!
Jesus, after His resurrection, said to two of His apostles...
192:2.13 “Have faith in God to the end of your days on earth. Never forget that, when you are a faith son of God, all upright work of the realm is sacred. Nothing which a son of God does can be common. Do your work, therefore, from this time on, as for God. And when you are through on this world, I have other and better worlds where you shall likewise work for me. And in all of this work, on this world and on other worlds, I will work with you, and my spirit shall dwell within you."
All Creator Sons have free will, as do we. This makes logical sense. All must earn their status.
21:3.3 The fact of creator-ship implies the fullness of sovereignty, but the Michaels choose to experientially earn it, thereby retaining the full co-operation of all Paradise personalities attached to the local universe administration. We know of no Michael who ever did otherwise; but they all could, they are truly freewill Sons.
This is why we also are required to sincerely MEAN what we say and do. Oaths MATTER!
21:3.12 In accepting the initial vicegerent sovereignty of a projected local universe, a Creator Michael takes an oath to the Trinity not to assume supreme sovereignty until the seven creature bestowals have been completed and certified by the superuniverse rulers. But if a Michael Son could not, at will, assert such unearned sovereignty, there would be no meaning in taking an oath not to do so.
This is the real meaning behind Jesus’ words on the cross, “It is finished!”
21:3.15 Before the completion of the bestowal career a Creator Son rules with certain self-imposed limitations of sovereignty, but subsequent to his finished bestowal service he rules by virtue of his actual experience in the form and likeness of his manifold creatures. When a Creator has seven times sojourned among his creatures [We were His 7th bestowal], when the bestowal career is finished, then is he supremely settled in universe authority; he has become a Master Son, a sovereign and supreme ruler.
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This is why He came to us! Jesus gave Himself to us in loving and compassionate expression.
21:4.2 The seven bestowals of a Creator Son involve his appearing on seven creature levels of being and pertain to the revelation of the seven primary expressions of the will and nature of Deity. Without exception, all Creator Sons pass through this seven times giving of themselves to their created children before they assume settled and supreme jurisdiction over the universes of their own creation.
MICHAEL CAN DO ANYTHING AT ANY TIME HE SO CHOOSES.
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21:5.1 The power of a Master Michael is unlimited because derived from experienced association with the Paradise Trinity, is unquestioned because derived from actual experience as the very creatures subject to such authority. The nature of the sovereignty of a sevenfold Creator Son is supreme because it:
1. Embraces the sevenfold viewpoint of Paradise Deity.
2. Embodies a sevenfold attitude of time-space creatures.
3. Perfectly synthesizes Paradise attitude and creature viewpoint.
This information [our book] was given to us about a century ago. MUCH has happened since.
The time is RIPE for all of us to comprehend the true, vast scope of our Paradise Father’s reach.
33:1.1 Our Creator Son is the personification of the 611,121st original concept of infinite identity of simultaneous origin in the Universal Father and the Eternal Son. The Michael of Nebadon [our universe name] is the "only-begotten Son" personalizing this 611,121st universal concept of divinity and infinity.
HE IS BOTH!
How we approach and address Him. Jesus or Michael?
Jesus [our name for Him] is our Universe Sovereign. When we relate or discuss our Universe Sovereign we refer to Him as Michael. When we relate or discuss our planetary prince [in title] we call Him Jesus. He is forever OURS! Just as we are forever HIS!
Our Paradise Father and the Trinity are powerful beyond our comprehension.
119:7.5 Joshua ben Joseph, the Jewish baby, was conceived and was born into the world just as all other babies before and since except that this particular baby was the incarnation of Michael of Nebadon, a divine Son of Paradise and the creator of all this local universe of things and beings. And this mystery of the incarnation of Deity within the human form of Jesus, otherwise of natural origin on the world, will forever remain unsolved. Even in eternity you will never know the technique and method of the incarnation of the Creator in the form and likeness of his creatures. That is the secret of Sonarington [the Paradise Michael Son’s world], and such mysteries are the exclusive possession of those divine Sons who have passed through the bestowal experience.
Mary and Joseph deserve our high praise! They did not know – but WE NOW CAN KNOW!
124:4.4 It was a trying experience for Joseph and Mary to undertake the rearing of this unprecedented combination of divinity and humanity, and they deserve great credit for so faithfully and successfully discharging their parental responsibilities. Increasingly Jesus' parents realized that there was something superhuman resident within this eldest son, but they never even faintly dreamed that this son of promise was indeed and in truth the actual creator of this local universe of things and beings. Joseph and Mary lived and died without ever learning that their son Jesus really was the Universe Creator incarnate in mortal flesh.
Jesus is our Creator, Father, brother and friend. This is mind-expanding for us.
140:5.2 Jesus loves mankind with a dual affection. He lived on earth as a twofold 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 as a brother — he was truly a man among men.
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Prerogatives of Creator Sons.
Jesus promised to return to us some day.
He can do this at any moment He so chooses.
This may be sooner than we think.
He will do this when He is ready. So – let US BE READY at any time for His return. May He find us working for His will when He does arrive!
149:1.7 What the Creator Son desires and the eternal Father wills IS.
Mantutia Melchizedek, the supervising authority in control of
The Urantia Book project says…
Your world is scheduled for a change of more than epochal dimension. He [Jesus] proposes to take human form and walk among the people and gather them to Him and reveal Himself to them in all His glory and in the name of the Father.
Michael's light reaches into every corner. There is no place to avoid His power. You cannot shrink from that which surrounds you on all sides. He but has the thought and the event is achieved. Many are His servants. Your world will be blanketed with His shining example. I know whereof I speak for I am a Melchizedek in His service. My name is Mantutia Melchizedek [author of Paper 56]. It is my honor to prepare His way.
Malavatia Melchizedek, Machiventa Melchizedek, and myself, will precede him. Michael Himself will usher in the Trinity Teacher Son who will follow in His stead, and God's wake will wash across this universe. It is the tide that raises all boats. Your world will be changed as much as the difference between night and day.
Michael's sun never sets. A new day will dawn for you, our friends and noble companions. You will be called. Make yourselves ready. Clear the decks, the time of action is here and not many days hence you will see these events transpire with your own earthly eyes. Make ready. The table is set. I bid you a fond farewell, and look forward to meeting you, embracing you, each one of you. So be it.
- Mantutia Melchizedek, in charge of The Urantia Book project
[Celestial Teachings 3.30.1992]
Testimony of the great power of Jesus/Master Michael to do anything He and His Father wills.
189:0.2 A Creator Son has within himself the power to bestow himself in the likeness of any of his created sons; he has within himself the power to lay down his observable life and to take it up again; and he has this power because of the direct command of the Paradise Father.
Paul’s personally invented religion called Christianity has confused everyone. Time to clarify!
104:1.11 The first Trinity of Christianity was proclaimed at Antioch and consisted of God, his Word, and his Wisdom. Paul knew of the Paradise Trinity of Father, Son, and Spirit, but he seldom preached about it and made mention thereof in only a few of his letters to the newly forming churches. Even then, as did his fellow apostles, Paul confused Jesus, the Creator Son of the local universe, with the Second Person of Deity, the Eternal Son of Paradise [2nd person of the Trinity].
Jesus is the Creator-Father of Lucifer, Satan and our deposed planetary prince Caligastia.
134:8.7 To the many proposals and counter-proposals of the emissaries of Lucifer, Jesus only made reply: "May the will of my Paradise Father prevail, and you, my rebellious son, may the Ancients of Days judge you divinely. I am your Creator-father; I can hardly judge you justly, and my mercy you have already spurned. I commit you to the adjudication of the Judges of a greater universe."
Jesus is all about ‘mercy ministry’. He sets the wrongdoing aside to give time for God to work.
53:9.1 Early in the days of the Lucifer rebellion, salvation was offered all rebels by Michael. To all who
would show proof of sincere repentance, he offered, upon his attainment of complete universe sovereignty, forgiveness and reinstatement in some form of universe service. None of the leaders accepted this merciful proffer. But thousands of the angels and the lower orders of celestial beings, including hundreds of the Material Sons and Daughters [Adam and Eves of other worlds], accepted the mercy proclaimed by the Panoptians and were given rehabilitation at the time of Jesus' resurrection nineteen hundred years ago. These beings have since been transferred to the Father's world of Jerusem, where they must be held, technically, until the Uversa courts hand down a decision in the matter of Gabriel vs. Lucifer [this occurred in the mid 80’s and they are ‘no more’ = extinction]. But no one doubts that, when the annihilation verdict is issued [mid 1980s], these repentant and salvaged personalities will be exempted from the decree of extinction. These probationary souls now labor with the Panoptians in the work of caring for the Father's world.
The Paradise Father and His Creator Sons are ONE.
1:5.6 The natures of the Paradise Creator Sons do not encompass all the unqualified potentials of the...nature of the First Great Source and Center, but the Universal Father is in every way divinely present in the Creator Sons. The Father and his Sons are one. These Paradise Sons of the order of Michael are perfect personalities, even the pattern for all local universe personality from that of the Bright and Morning Star down to the lowest human creature of progressing animal evolution [this is us].
Nature and personality. Jesus AS God with all of our Paradise Father’s qualities.
2:6.9 Facing the world of personality, God is discovered to be a loving person; facing the spiritual world, he is a personal love; in religious experience he is both. Love identifies the volitional will of God. The goodness of God rests at the bottom of the divine free-willness — the universal tendency to love, show mercy, manifest patience, and minister forgiveness.
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Jesus taught relationship between God and man reflects a father’s love of a family.
142:7.11 Love and mercy. A compassionate father is freely forgiving; fathers do not hold vengeful memories against their children. Fathers are not like judges, enemies, or creditors. Real families are built upon tolerance, patience, and forgiveness. ~ Jesus
Jesus [as God] explains how forgiveness from God is inevitable, inherent and inalienable.
174:1.3 "A part of every father lives in the child. The father enjoys priority and superiority of understanding in all matters connected with the child-parent relationship. The parent is able to view the immaturity of the child in the light of the more advanced parental maturity, the riper experience of the older partner. With the earthly child and the heavenly Father, the divine parent possesses infinity and divinity of sympathy and capacity for loving understanding. Divine forgiveness is inevitable; it is inherent and inalienable in God's infinite understanding, in his perfect knowledge of all that concerns the mistaken judgment and erroneous choosing of the child. Divine justice is so eternally fair that it unfailingly embodies understanding mercy.”
~ Jesus
Jesus’ crucifixion response reveals a love that redeems, rehabilitates and makes wrongs RIGHT.
188:5.2 The cross forever shows that the attitude of Jesus toward sinners was neither condemnation nor condonation, but rather eternal and loving salvation. Jesus is truly a savior in the sense that his life and death do win men over to goodness and righteous survival. Jesus loves men so much that his love awakens the response of love in the human heart. Love is truly contagious and eternally creative. Jesus' death on the cross exemplifies a love which is sufficiently strong and divine to forgive sin and swallow up all evil-doing. Jesus disclosed to this world a higher quality of righteousness than justice — mere technical right and wrong. Divine love does not merely forgive wrongs; it absorbs and actually destroys them. The forgiveness of love utterly transcends the forgiveness of mercy. Mercy sets the guilt of evil-doing to one side; but love destroys forever the sin and all weakness resulting therefrom. Jesus brought a new method of living to Urantia. He taught us not to resist evil but to find through him a goodness which effectually destroys evil. The forgiveness of Jesus is not condonation; it is salvation from condemnation. Salvation does not slight wrongs; it makes them right. True love does not compromise nor condone hate; it destroys it. The love of Jesus is never satisfied with mere forgiveness. The Master's love implies rehabilitation, eternal survival. It is altogether proper to speak of salvation as redemption if you mean this eternal rehabilitation.
Love and truth are co-equal, dependent. These two immense realities serve in harmony, together. Truth, as you have perceived it, is not the fullness of its reality. Truth, you see, may perhaps be mentally degraded to the level of fact perception. You say: ? This fact exists; therefore, it is true.? I say, no, this is not truth! This is not reality perception; this is mental logic-level perception. Truth is 'spiritual perception' also; it entails/encompasses soul grasping that is morontia-level understanding of reality. Truth is indescribably, incredibly and wonderfully more than material-level fact correlation. Truth, when perceived in reality enlarges the soul; it allows spiritual progression to occur and advancement to real-ize within a persons personality-reality. This truth is amazing. This enlightenment is beyond mere mental cognition but reaches into the depth of soul perception.
Love is the perception of God. Love is a singular reality, a singular truth. Love is experience, yes, but it is more! It is enfoldingment expansion, the opening of the soul to perception of reality and truth. Without love there is nothing, there is no path. The man Jesus told of a better way, the path of truth and love. This must be spoken of, must be perceived, so that such a profound experience can be understood on your material level.
It is He.
~ our great Teacher Ham
[Celestial Teachings 3.7.1991]
Preparing the way
It is a glorious time when two people meet and enjoy the times of falling in love with each other. Plans for the wedding day are filled with happy anticipation when family and friends will gather together to celebrate the joining of these two who desire to share their lives in loving association for the rest of their lives in the flesh.
The ceremonies and parties are planned, usually with the parents involved. Oftentimes, each parent will have a time to reflect with these friends various memories of their childhood, highlights of their child’s accomplishments and loving praises of those highest and most beautiful qualities of their beloved child. In this way these parents and friends are further informing everyone involved regarding some unknown facts and truths about these two people in order to elevate the appreciation, joy and spirit of celebration so as to add a deeper meaning and higher respect for these two about to make a solemn vow to each other for life. This is a time of supreme happiness and blessing. And – it takes some special planning.
Our beloved brother, John the Baptist, did such a thing for the preparation of our Jesus to our world. Jesus, as our bridegroom, came to love and receive His ‘bride’ – US! John heralded the joy set before us when Jesus would publicly arrive on the scene to reveal our Father in heaven to everyone, everywhere. John knew that Jesus would be bringing the good news of the kingdom of God that dwells within each one of His children on earth. John did a GREAT JOB! Thank you, John! [smas]
Who Jesus is
If you have seen the Son you have seen the Paradise Father.
6:2.2 The Eternal Son is the eternal Word of God. He is wholly like the Father; in fact, the Eternal Son is God the Father personally manifest to the universe of universes. And thus it was and is and forever will be true of the Eternal Son and of all the co-ordinate Creator Sons:
"He who has seen the Son has seen the Father." ~ Jesus
ONLY Jesus represents the Paradise Father to human mortals. None other can do this!
169:4.9 Jesus did proclaim himself as the revelation of the Father in the flesh, and he did say that whoso had seen him had seen the Father. As the divine Son he claimed to represent only the Father.
We have MANY celestial personalities who work for our Paradise Father and His Son, Michael, who is our Jesus. However, none claim to do for the individual what our indwelling Father and His Son do for us as His child. Many impinge upon us for personal guidance, leading-s and instructions, but none actually live within our minds and hearts. Even our Universe Mother Spirit, daughter of the third Person of the Trinity, who IS MIND does not directly indwell us. We operate within Her ministry of MIND. This is why our Paradise Father reserves this prerogative only for Himself. As Jesus IS GOD He can do the same for us as our indwelling Spirit of Truth, poured out upon all flesh on the Day of Pentecost.
Jesus IS human and divine!
“Certainly—this is the beauty of our spiritual freedom. Many can relate to the human Jesus; the history shows Him to be just like those who study about Him, for He was a common man and yet, He was able to live a perfected life. He did a great deal to enhance the minds of that day and age. The records [Bible] written about His life are acceptable for those who can handle very little. Over-all, the Jesus that we know is seemingly closer to the common man. Michael, on the other hand, is greatly related to spirit; to be more specific, the Spirit of Truth – which is a new and updated personality [who indwells us]. You are entirely welcome to go with what feels most comfortable to you at this time in your spiritual growth. Jesus set a beautiful example of living the mortal life; and Michael is even now a live connection. Either way, you can learn from His life, His example. As you progress in the spirit you will refer fondly to the stories of the life of Jesus, and learn therefrom; but for immediate communication, the Spirit of Truth is ever up-to-date and a living confidant.
~ Abraham, our father of many nations
[Celestial Teachings 11.10.2003]
Jesus was, and still is, human and divine.
136:1.6 There was one feature of the bestowal of Michael which was utterly foreign to the Jewish conception of the Messiah, and that was the union of the two natures, the human and the divine. The Jews had variously conceived of the Messiah as perfected human, superhuman, and even as divine, but they never entertained the concept of the union of the human and the divine. And this was the great stumbling block of Jesus' early disciples. They grasped the human concept of the Messiah as the son of David, as presented by the earlier prophets; as the Son of Man, the superhuman idea of Daniel and some of the later prophets; and even as the Son of God, as depicted by the author of the Book of Enoch and by certain of his contemporaries; but never had they for a single moment entertained the true concept of the union in one earth personality of the two natures, the human and the divine. The incarnation of the Creator in the form of the creature had not been revealed beforehand. It was revealed only in Jesus; the world knew nothing of such things until the Creator Son was made flesh and dwelt among the mortals of the realm.
Understand our mortal human frailty. We ALL continue to learn and grow. Mistakes were made.
Because the apostles could not comprehend this great and universal truth they went forward after His resurrection to blur the truth of who Jesus truly was and is. In this current poverty of truth the decision was made to give to us our book – The Urantia Book, a rare universe gift. Very seldom is this done. Now we have the information needed to accurately execute the instructions of our Master by proclaiming to the world His highest spiritual concept – His authentic gospel message, “The kingdom of God dwells within you.”
This is the beginning foundation of the true brotherhood of man.
As these obedient actions are taken He promises to enter in and engulf our world with His spiritual light. In this way ALL may come to know their own Paradise Father intimately and powerfully because our Paradise Father, in the flesh, came to us and showed us who our Father IS. His power is GREAT and will draw all people to our Father.
God wants His children for Himself!
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Discovering the early years of Jesus’ life is fun and interesting, but we will focus on His adult teachings and what He wanted us to learn and know regarding our Father in personal spiritual revelation. As we discover how Jesus lived His life we look not so much at what He said, but we look at what He DID. [This is true for all of us also – it’s not what we ‘say’, but what we DO that matters. God and Jesus see the heart.]
The stages of Jesus’ life on earth.
157:6.3 Jesus now entered upon the fourth and last stage of his human life in the flesh. The first stage was that of his childhood, the years when he was only dimly conscious of his origin, nature, and destiny as a human being. The second stage was the increasingly self-conscious years of youth and advancing manhood, during which he came more clearly to comprehend his divine nature and human mission. This second stage ended with the experiences and revelations associated with his baptism. The third stage of the Master's earth experience extended from the baptism through the years of his ministry as teacher and healer and up to this momentous hour of Peter's confession at Caesarea-Philippi. This third period of his earth life embraced the times when his apostles and his immediate followers knew him as the Son of Man and regarded him as the Messiah. The fourth and last period of his earth career began here at Caesarea-Philippi and extended on to the crucifixion. This stage of his ministry was characterized by his acknowledgment of divinity and embraced the labors of his last year in the flesh. During the fourth period, while the majority of his followers still regarded him as the Messiah, he became known to the apostles as the Son of God. Peter's confession marked the beginning of the new period of the more complete realization of the truth of his supreme ministry as a bestowal Son on Urantia and for an entire universe, and the recognition of that fact, at least hazily, by his chosen ambassadors.
Jesus is not a king. He never claimed that He was one.
169:4.1 Jesus always had trouble trying to explain to the apostles that, while they proclaimed the establishment of the kingdom of God, the Father in heaven was not a king. At the time Jesus lived on earth and taught in the flesh, the people of Urantia knew mostly of kings and emperors in the governments of the nations, and the Jews had long contemplated the coming of the kingdom of God. For these and other reasons, the Master thought best to designate the spiritual brotherhood of man as the kingdom of heaven [with Fatherhood as the foundation] and the spirit head of this brotherhood as the Father in heaven. Never did Jesus refer to his Father as a king. In his intimate talks with the apostles he always referred to himself as the Son of Man and as their elder brother. He depicted all his followers as servants of mankind and messengers of the gospel of the kingdom.
Jesus’ mission was a spiritual one—not a material kingship or physical global leader. He is higher than that! Kings hold power OVER their subjects. They rule by control as magnates or monarchs. Our Paradise Father does neither. Supreme in all our universe is Jesus’ teachings that free-will remains our Father’s gift to all living beings everywhere. When we choose not to follow God’s will He respectfully stands aside and allows us to make our own life-choices. Our Paradise Father is respectful, kind, giving, adorable, loving, selfless and full of mercy and forgiveness. These are also the attributes of Jesus.
king : noun - a male monarch of a major territorial unit
systematic : adj - methodical in procedure or plan
169:4.2 Jesus never gave his apostles a systematic lesson concerning the personality and attributes of the Father in heaven. He never asked men to believe in his Father; he took it for granted they did. Jesus never belittled himself by offering arguments in proof of the reality of the Father. His teaching regarding the Father all centered in the declaration that he and the Father are one; that he who has seen the Son has seen the Father; that the Father, like the Son, knows all things; that only the Son really knows the Father, and he to whom the Son will reveal him; that he who knows the Son knows also the Father; and that the Father sent him into the world to reveal their combined natures and to show forth their conjoint work. He never made other pronouncements about his Father except to the woman of Samaria at Jacob's well, when he declared
"God is spirit." ~ Jesus
Jesus, as God incarnate, manifested His name more fully for, and to, all of us!
182:1.9 The Master, during the course of this final prayer with his apostles, alluded to the fact that he had manifested the Father’s name to the world. And that is truly what he did by the revelation of God through his perfected life in the flesh. The Father in heaven had sought to reveal himself to Moses, but he could proceed no further than to cause it to be said, “I AM.” And when pressed for further revelation of himself, it was only disclosed, “I AM that I AM.” But when Jesus had finished his earth life, this name of the Father had been so revealed that the Master, who was the Father incarnate, could truly say:
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182:1.10 I am the bread of life.
182:1.11 I am the living water.
182:1.12 I am the light of the world.
182:1.13 I am the desire of all ages.
182:1.14 I am the open door to eternal salvation.
182:1.15 I am the reality of endless life.
182:1.16 I am the good shepherd.
182:1.17 I am the pathway of infinite perfection.
182:1.18 I am the resurrection and the life.
182:1.19 I am the secret of eternal survival.
182:1.20 I am the way, the truth, and the life.
182:1.21 I am the infinite Father of my finite children.
182:1.22 I am the true vine; you are the branches.
182:1.23 I am the hope of all who know the living truth.
182:1.24 I am the living bridge from one world to another.
182:1.25 I am the living link between time and eternity.
182:1.26 Thus did Jesus enlarge the living revelation of the name of God to all generations. As divine love reveals the nature of God, eternal truth discloses his name in ever-enlarging proportions.
193:3.1 Many queer and strange teachings became associated with the early narratives of the day of Pentecost. In subsequent times the events of this day, on which the Spirit of Truth, the new teacher, came to dwell with mankind, have become confused with the foolish outbreaks of rampant emotionalism. The chief mission of this out-poured spirit of the Father and the Son is to teach men about the truths of the Father's love and the Son's mercy. These are the truths of divinity which men can comprehend more fully than all the other divine traits of character. The Spirit of Truth is concerned primarily with the revelation of the Father's spirit nature and the Son's moral character. The Creator Son, in the flesh, revealed God to men; the Spirit of Truth, in the heart, reveals the Creator Son to men. When man yields the "fruits of the spirit" in his life, he is simply showing forth the traits which the Master manifested in his own earthly life. When Jesus was on earth, he lived his life as one personality — Jesus of Nazareth. As the indwelling spirit of the "new teacher," the Master has, since Pentecost, been able to live his life anew in the experience of every truth-taught believer.
Because Jesus IS the illustration of God in flesh He IS the demonstration of brotherhood.
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196:1.5 It should not be the aim of kingdom believers literally to imitate the outward life of Jesus in the flesh but rather to share his faith; to trust God as he trusted God and to believe in men as he believed in men. Jesus never argued about either the fatherhood of God or the brotherhood of men; he was a living illustration of the one and a profound demonstration of the other.
Jesus is our brother, Father and friend.
143:6.4 The theme of Jesus' teaching on Mount Gerizim was: That he wants all men to see God as a Father-friend just as he (Jesus) is a brother-friend. And again and again he impressed upon them that love is the greatest relationship in the world — in the universe — just as truth is the greatest pronouncement of the observation of these divine relationships.
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Jesus belongs to us. We belong to Him.
196:1.1 Jesus' devotion to the Father's will and the service of man was even more than mortal decision and human determination; it was a wholehearted consecration of himself to such an unreserved bestowal of love. No matter how great the fact of the sovereignty of Michael, you must not take the human Jesus away from men. The Master has ascended on high as a man, as well as God; he belongs to men; men belong to him. How unfortunate that religion itself should be so misinterpreted as to take the human Jesus away from struggling mortals! Let not the discussions of the humanity or the divinity of the Christ obscure the saving truth that Jesus of Nazareth was a religious man who, by faith, achieved the knowing and the doing of the will of God; he was the most truly religious man who has ever lived on Urantia.
Jesus is not only returning to our world one day, but He is ever-present NOW.
From our great Teacher...
For the true believer, there is no waiting for the Masters’ return, for He exists here now, within each heart, a friend to each soul. He is an ever-present help in times of uncertainty, travail, and the ever-changing fortunes and un-constancy of life. It is said that there is nothing you can ultimately depend upon more than this mighty Protector, this wonderful Friend. Life itself is ephemeral compared to the rock of His eternal nature. Riches take up wings and fly away. People come and go; are born and die. All the knowledge of humankind is but a grain of sand upon an eternal shoreline.
- Ham [Celestial Teachings 9.22.2003]
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What Jesus does.
Jesus, as our Creator Son, pledged to act as our retriever in order to bestow restoration if spiritual rebellion emerged. This He did, and continues to do even now.
7:4.4 – 6 1. The Plan of Progressive Attainment. This is the Universal Father’s plan of evolutionary ascension, a program unreservedly accepted by the Eternal Son when he concurred in the Father’s proposal, “Let us make mortal creatures in our own image.” This provision for up-stepping the creatures of time involves the Father’s bestowal of the Thought Adjusters and the endowing of material creatures with the prerogatives [powers] of personality.
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2. The Bestowal Plan. The next universal plan is the great Father-revelation enterprise of the Eternal Son and his co-ordinate Sons. This is the proposal of the Eternal Son and consists of his bestowal of the Sons of God upon the evolutionary creations, there to personalize and factualize, to incarnate and make real, the love of the Father and the mercy of the Son to the creatures of all universes. Inherent in the bestowal plan, and as a provisional feature of this ministration of love, the Paradise Sons act as rehabilitators of that which misguided creature will has placed in spiritual jeopardy. Whenever and wherever there occurs a delay in the functioning of the attainment plan, if rebellion, perchance, should mar or complicate this enterprise, then do the emergency provisions of the bestowal plan become active forthwith. The Paradise Sons stand pledged and ready to function as retrievers, to go into the very realms of rebellion and there restore the spiritual status of the spheres. And such a heroic service a co-ordinate Creator Son did perform on Urantia in connection with his experiential bestowal career of sovereignty acquirement.
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3. The Plan of Mercy Ministry. When the attainment plan and the bestowal plan had been formulated and proclaimed, alone and of himself, the Infinite Spirit projected and put in operation the tremendous and universal enterprise of mercy ministry. This is the service so essential to the practical and effective operation of both the attainment and the bestowal undertakings, and the spiritual personalities of the Third Source and Center all partake of the spirit of mercy ministry which is so much a part of the nature of the Third Person of Deity. Not only in creation but also in administration, the Infinite Spirit functions truly and literally as the conjoint executive of the Father and the Son.
Like water, Jesus, as true goodness, seeks the lowest places to provide His love and acceptance.
131:8.3 And like water, true goodness seeks the lowest places, even those levels which others avoid, and that is because it is akin to the Supreme.
Jesus speaks the parable of the wedding feast.
173:5.2 “The kingdom of heaven may be likened to a certain king who made a marriage feast for his son and dispatched messengers to call those who had previously been invited to the feast to come, saying, ‘Everything is ready for the marriage supper at the king’s palace.’ Now, many of those who had once promised to attend, at this time refused to come. When the king heard of these rejections of his invitation, he sent other servants and messengers, saying: ‘Tell all those who were bidden, to come, for, behold, my dinner is ready. My oxen and my fat-lings are killed, and all is in readiness for the celebration of the forthcoming marriage of my son.’ But again did the thoughtless make light of this call of their king, and they went their ways, one to the farm, another to the pottery, and others to their merchandise. Still others were not content thus to slight the king’s call, but in open rebellion they laid hands on the king’s messengers and shamefully mistreated them, even killing some of them. And when the king perceived that his chosen guests, even those who had accepted his preliminary invitation and had promised to attend the wedding feast, had finally rejected his call and in rebellion had assaulted and slain his chosen messengers, he was exceedingly wroth. And then this insulted king ordered out his armies and the armies of his allies and instructed them to destroy these rebellious murderers and to burn down their city.
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173:5.3 “And when he had punished those who spurned his invitation, he appointed yet another day for the wedding feast and said to his messengers: ‘They who were first bidden to the wedding were not worthy; so go now into the parting of the ways and into the highways and even beyond the borders of the city, and as many as you shall find, bid even these strangers to come in and attend this wedding feast.’ And then these servants went out into the highways and the out-of-the-way places, and they gathered together as many as they found, good and bad, rich and poor, so that at last the wedding chamber was filled with willing guests. When all was ready, the king came in to view his guests, and much to his surprise he saw there a man without a wedding garment. The king, since he had freely provided wedding garments for all his guests, addressing this man, said: ‘Friend, how is it that you come into my guest chamber on this occasion without a wedding garment?’ And this unprepared man was speechless. Then said the king to his servants: ‘Cast out this thoughtless guest from my house to share the lot of all the others who have spurned my hospitality and rejected my call. I will have none here except those who delight to accept my invitation, and who do me the honor to wear those guest garments so freely provided for all.’”
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=> The king represents our Paradise Father.
=> The guests are all those, everyone, everywhere, that He invites to join with Him in joyous and celebratory acceptance.
=> Those who reject Him find hardship in refusing His matchless help.
=> Those who change into His provided wedding garments [choose God’s will] are those who accept and respond to His kingdom invitation – the good, bad, rich and poor. Those who refuse are disallowed to enter.
=> Those who array themselves with this ‘change’- by faith - are welcomed into His feast of His eternal spiritual domain.
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Jesus reveals the Paradise Father’s love to all mankind in a group meeting in 2003.
Greetings. I cherish my individual relationships with you each and yet, there is such a rich flavor of love when we are all gathered together. Father gave you one another so that life would be more abundant. My journey with you, my children, is also with abundance. Even in your struggles there is opportunity for us to grow closer. I crave that closeness with my children.
I am driven to nourish the branches which stem from the vine. I am made to be in a state of constant gratitude, for I see this world moving in a forward direction. I am honored to have Mother [Her ministry of MIND] at my side, as are my loyal Teaching Staff, numerous divine orders – and you, my listening children.
My heart is full. Never have I viewed you as a lost people. Never have I given up hope on your inner goodness. Even in my darkest hour in my days in the flesh, I never thought of you as a world of weeds who needed to be left by the wayside and forgotten.
You have had a rich history of experience, and this has well served you, well served us as a universe, and well served God the Supreme [our God of ACTION]. I value you, your existence, your personalities, your souls – possibly more than you do, and certainly more than you could comprehend. I ask that you love and value one another as I love and value you. It is understandable to be in emotional upheaval from time to time when dealing with one another. I certainly had reason when sojourning in the flesh to take offense at my fellow’s treatment of me. I give gratitude to my Father for He bestowed upon me this loving understanding I had then – and now – for all experiencing mortals who are in a state of becoming.
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Your fellows are not really as you perceive them to be; they also are always in a constant state of change. This gift 'to change' is yours, and, all mortals of the realm. You will meet with those obstinate fellows who refuse growth and cater to the ego’s needs, yes, and yet a close personal relationship with the indwelling Father allows you understanding; it allows you to know that their disturbing character is not to become your problem or ministry.
The spiritual life is an opportunity to practice what you have learned on your fellows who challenge you. Your trials with one another give you that experience you need to advance in morontial levels.
I experience with you. My love is unshakable, unstoppable, and unfailing for my children. Know that as you carry on with the plan and purpose of our Father, I will be there. I know you, and I love what I know. Carry on.
– Michael, our Sovereign & Jesus, our Savior
[Celestial Teachings 8.25.2003]
152:1.5 By going away from the world, Jesus made it possible for his spirit to live alongside that of his Father which indwells the minds of all mankind.
Jesus brings us freedom. He shows us how to be in this world, but not OF it.
196:2.9 Jesus led men to feel at home in the world; he delivered them from the slavery of taboo and taught them that the world was not fundamentally evil. He did not long to escape from his earthly life; he mastered a technique of acceptably doing the Father's will while in the flesh. He attained an idealistic religious life [friendship with God] in the very midst of a realistic world. Jesus did not share Paul's pessimistic view of humankind [original sin]. The Master looked upon men as the sons of God and foresaw a magnificent and eternal future for those who chose survival [in His spiritual domain = the kingdom]. He was not a moral skeptic; he viewed man positively, not negatively. He saw most men as weak rather than wicked, more distraught than depraved. But no matter what their status, they were all God's children and his brethren.
Jesus showed us how to to progressively spiritually grow so that we can become ‘devoid of fear’.
He showed us how to become like God.
He did this as a mortal human revealing to us that all He spiritually achieved in His human nature
is available for our achievement also.
LET THAT SINK IN!
196:2.2 Jesus’ life in the flesh portrays a transcendent religious growth from the early ideas of primitive awe and human reverence up through years of personal spiritual communion until he finally arrived at that advanced and exalted status of the consciousness of his oneness with the Father. And thus, in one short life, did Jesus traverse that experience of religious spiritual progression which man begins on earth and ordinarily achieves only at the conclusion of his long sojourn in the spirit training schools of the successive levels of the pre-Paradise career. Jesus progressed from a purely human consciousness of the faith certainties of personal religious experience to the sublime spiritual heights of the positive realization of his divine nature and to the consciousness of his close association with the Universal Father in the management of a universe. He progressed from the humble status of mortal dependence which prompted him spontaneously to say to the one who called him Good Teacher, “Why do you call me good? None is good but God,” to that sublime consciousness of achieved divinity which led him to exclaim, “Which one of you convicts me of sin?” And this progressing ascent from the human to the divine was an exclusively mortal achievement. And when he had thus attained divinity, he was still the same human Jesus, the Son of Man as well as the Son of God.
Through Jesus we comprehend our Paradise Father’s character.
169:4.10 In the likeness of mortal flesh and to the mortal sons of God, he chose to limit his life revelation to the portrayal of his Father's character in so far as such a revelation might be comprehensible to mortal man. As regards the character of the other persons of the Paradise Trinity, we shall have to be content with the teaching that they are altogether like the Father, who has been revealed in personal portraiture in the life of his incarnated Son, Jesus of Nazareth.
As a magnifying glass brings the blurry into focus; so does Jesus make visible God to us.
169:4.13 Jesus is the spiritual lens in human likeness which makes visible to the material creature Him who is invisible. He is your elder brother who, in the flesh, makes known to you a Being of infinite attributes whom not even the celestial hosts can presume fully to understand. But all of this must consist in the personal experience of the individual believer. God who is spirit can be known only as a spiritual experience. God can be revealed to the finite sons of the material worlds, by the divine Son of the spiritual realms, only as a Father. You can know the Eternal as a Father; you can worship him as the God of universes, the infinite Creator of all existences.
The Significance of Pentecost – the Spirit of Truth poured out upon all flesh, everywhere!
194:2.1 – 20 Jesus lived on earth and taught a gospel which redeemed man from the superstition that he was a child of the devil and elevated him to the dignity of a faith son of God. Jesus’ message, as he preached it and lived it in his day, was an effective solvent for man’s spiritual difficulties in that day of its statement. And now that he has personally left the world, he sends in his place HIS Spirit of Truth, who is designed to live in man and, for each new generation, to restate the Jesus message so that every new group of mortals to appear upon the face of the earth shall have a new and up-to-date version of the gospel, just such personal enlightenment and group guidance as will prove to be an effective solvent for man’s ever-new and varied spiritual difficulties.
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The first mission of this spirit is, of course, to foster and personalize truth, for it is the comprehension of truth that constitutes the highest form of human liberty. Next, it is the purpose of this spirit to destroy the believer’s feeling of orphan-hood. Jesus having been among men, all believers would experience a sense of loneliness had not the Spirit of Truth come to dwell in men’s hearts. This bestowal of the Son’s spirit effectively prepared all normal men’s minds for the subsequent universal bestowal of the Father’s spirit (the Adjuster) upon all mankind. In a certain sense, this Spirit of Truth is the spirit of both the Universal Father and the Creator Son.
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Do not make the mistake of expecting to become strongly intellectually conscious of the out-poured Spirit of Truth. The spirit never creates a consciousness of himself, only a consciousness of Michael, the Son. From the beginning Jesus taught that the spirit would not speak of himself. The proof, therefore, of your fellowship with the Spirit of Truth is not to be found in your consciousness of this spirit but rather in your experience of enhanced fellowship with Michael.
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The spirit also came to help men recall and understand the words of the Master as well as to illuminate and reinterpret his life on earth. [The Spirit of Truth elevates our comprehension – our intellect.]
Next, the Spirit of Truth came to help the believer to witness to the realities of Jesus’ teachings and his life as he lived it in the flesh, and as he now again lives it anew and afresh in the individual believer of each passing generation of the spirit-filled sons of God. [Spirit-filled does not mean speaking in tongues or high public demonstrations of emotionalism.]
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Thus it appears that the Spirit of Truth comes really to lead all believers into all truth, into the expanding knowledge of the experience of the living and growing spiritual consciousness of the reality of eternal and ascending sonship with God.
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Jesus lived a life which is a revelation of man submitted to the Father’s will, not an example for any man literally to attempt to follow. This life in the flesh, together with his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection, presently became a new gospel of the ransom which had thus been paid in order to purchase man back from the clutch of the evil one — from the condemnation of an offended God [this is a falsehood]. Nevertheless, even though the gospel did become greatly distorted, it remains a fact that this new message about Jesus carried along with it many of the fundamental truths and teachings of his earlier gospel of the kingdom. And, sooner or later, these concealed truths of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men will emerge to effectually transform the civilization of all mankind.
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But these mistakes of the intellect in no way interfered with the believer’s great progress in growth in spirit. In less than a month after the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, the apostles made more individual spiritual progress than during their almost four years of personal and loving association with the Master. Neither did this substitution of the fact of the resurrection of Jesus for the saving gospel truth of sonship with God in any way interfere with the rapid spread of their teachings; on the contrary, this overshadowing of Jesus’ message by the new teachings about his person and resurrection seemed greatly to facilitate the preaching of the good news.
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The term “baptism of the spirit,” which came into such general use about this time, merely signified the conscious reception of this gift of the Spirit of Truth and the personal acknowledgment of this new spiritual power as an augmentation of all spiritual influences previously experienced by God-knowing souls.
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Since the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth, man is subject to the teaching and guidance of a threefold spirit endowment: the spirit of the Father, the Thought Adjuster; the spirit of the Son, the Spirit of Truth; the spirit of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit.
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In a way, mankind is subject to the double influence of the sevenfold appeal of the universe spirit influences. The early evolutionary races of mortals are subject to the progressive contact of the seven adjutant mind-spirits of the local universe Mother Spirit. [We discuss this in our ‘Attainment’ section. And again, Mother Spirit’s ministry is MIND.] As man progresses upward in the scale of intelligence and spiritual perception, there eventually come to hover over him and dwell within him the seven higher spirit influences. And these seven spirits of the advancing worlds are:
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1. The bestowed spirit of the Universal Father — the Thought Adjusters.
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2. The spirit presence of the Eternal Son — the spirit gravity of the universe of universes and the certain channel of all spirit communion.
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3. The spirit presence of the Infinite Spirit — the universal spirit-mind [Again, note – this is MIND, where we can think in higher spiritual terms] of all creation, the spiritual source of the intellectual kinship of all progressive intelligence-s.
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4. The spirit of the Universal Father and the Creator Son — the Spirit of Truth, generally regarded as the spirit of the Universe Son. [This is Michael – our Creator Son who is Jesus to us personally.]
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5. The spirit of the Infinite Spirit and the Universe Mother Spirit — the Holy Spirit, generally regarded as the spirit of the Universe Spirit.
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6. The mind-spirit of the Universe Mother Spirit — the seven adjutant mind-spirits of the local universe. [Mother Spirit’s ministry is MIND. We think and operate in Her.]
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7. The spirit of the Father, Sons, and Spirits — the new-name spirit of the ascending mortals of the realms after the fusion of the mortal spirit-born soul with the Paradise Thought Adjuster and after the subsequent attainment of the divinity and glorification of the status of the Paradise Corps of the Finality. [Happily – we ALL will receive a new name!]
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And so did the bestowal of the Spirit of Truth bring to the world and its peoples the last of the spirit endowment designed to aid in the ascending search for God.
Jesus was and is altogether GOOD!
He never sought to use His mighty powers to coerce people into following Him. The people ‘poor in spirit’ loved Him because they knew He was much like them – without economic wealth, He held no position/s of societal power or elitism and He was a layman. Yes, Jesus was a normal unpretentious layman.
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Those who perceived themselves so powerful were threatened by this. How could a lowly layman attract this many people and gain such a tremendous following? They could not conceive of His immense goodness and they hated Him for this. Jesus was a threat to the elite. So – they killed Him.
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Jesus knew all about it!
It is a special kind of courage! The spiritual requires us to personally go through some important experiences, psychic [mind] experiences, religious experiences, personal spiritual experiences that you share with each other. Wisdom received through tribulation is thought provoking and mind enlarging. Thoughts on the attempted wisdom gained through the tribulation experience may be challenging, but also are rewarding. Be not afraid!
It is not easy to intentionally traverse tribulation,
it requires a brave heart and a conviction of mind.
175:1.3 "Many of you have dared to believe my teachings and have already entered into the joy and liberty of the consciousness of sonship with God. And you will bear me witness that I have offered this same sonship with God to all the Jewish nation, even to these very men who now seek my destruction. And even now would my Father receive these blinded teachers and these hypocritical leaders if they would only turn to him and accept his mercy. Even now it is not too late for this people to receive the word of heaven and to welcome the Son of Man.” ~ Jesus
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LOVE vs. EVIL
Evil seeks to destroy another. Love—as Jesus possessed seeks to lift up the individual, especially the lowliest. Hate cannot destroy love. Jesus’ love not only overcomes hate, it destroys hate, engulfs hate and the one who refuses to move in hate will ‘fly like the eagles’. These Friends OF Jesus are ‘devoid of fear’ – just as Jesus showed us. They become UNSTOPPABLE!
In Jesus’ coming to reveal His Father to us, His mortal children, WE clarify His gospel message,
“The kingdom of God [His spiritual domain] dwells within you!” ~ Jesus
Father’s will was not involved in His torture.
183:1.1 There is great danger of misunderstanding the meaning of numerous sayings and many events associated with the termination of the Master's career in the flesh. The cruel treatment of Jesus by the ignorant servants and the calloused soldiers, the unfair conduct of his trials, and the unfeeling attitude of the professed religious leaders, must not be confused with the fact that Jesus, in patiently submitting to all this suffering and humiliation, was truly doing the will of the Father in Paradise. It was, indeed and in truth, the will of the Father that his Son should drink to the full the cup of mortal experience, from birth to death, but the Father in heaven had nothing whatever to do with instigating the barbarous behavior of those supposedly civilized human beings who so brutally tortured the Master and so horribly heaped successive indignities upon his non-resisting person. These inhuman and shocking experiences which Jesus was called upon to endure in the final hours of his mortal life were not in any sense a part of the divine will of the Father, which his human nature had so triumphantly pledged to carry out at the time of the final surrender of man to God as signified in the threefold prayer which he indited in the garden while his weary apostles slept the sleep of physical exhaustion.
Jesus CHOSE His own path to the cross. His Paradise Father allowed it to unfold naturally.
183:1.2 The Father in heaven desired the bestowal Son to finish his earth career naturally, just as all mortals must finish up their lives on earth and in the flesh. Ordinary men and women cannot expect to have their last hours on earth and the supervening episode of death made easy by a special dispensation. Accordingly, Jesus elected to lay down his life in the flesh in the manner which was in keeping with the outworking of natural events, and he steadfastly refused to extricate himself from the cruel clutches of a wicked conspiracy of inhuman events which swept on with horrible certainty toward his unbelievable humiliation and ignominious death. And every bit of all this astounding manifestation of hatred and this unprecedented demonstration of cruelty was the work of evil men and wicked mortals. God in heaven did not will it, neither did the archenemies of Jesus dictate it, though they did much to insure that unthinking and evil mortals would thus reject the bestowal Son. Even the father of sin turned his face away from the excruciating horror of the scene of the crucifixion.
186:5.2 It was man and not God who planned and executed the death of Jesus on the cross. True, the Father refused to interfere with the march of human events on Urantia, but the Father in Paradise did not decree, demand, or require the death of his Son as it was carried out on earth. It is a fact that in some manner, sooner or later, Jesus would have had to divest himself of his mortal body, his incarnation in the flesh, but he could have executed such a task in countless ways without dying on a cross between two thieves. All of this was man's doing, not God's.
NOW we can see more clearly WHY Jesus ELECTED this path to Jerusalem and the cross. God did NOT will this to happen. Recognizing how all Creator Sons are ‘retrievers’ for their children, especially those caught in a major Luciferian spiritual rebellion, Jesus chose to experience what we likely would also experience at the hands of evil and wicked people in our world, so infused with selfish and rebellion thinking. God needed NO requirement to be paid in order to forgive and mercifully welcome His children into His glorious eternal life. NO!
God has ALWAYS BEEN loving, forgiving and merciful.
Remember? God is CHANGELESS. Jesus CHOSE to experience for Himself what many of us experience in pain and suffering on a dark and evil world as ours. Do you see now? Will you comprehend, maybe for the first time, how incredible and compassionate our Master Jesus is? He WANTED to know our pain, our trials and tribulations so that He could more empathetic-ally and deeply understand US.
WHAT A SAVIOR!
WHAT A CREATOR!
WHAT AN AMAZING JESUS WE HAVE BEEN GIVEN!
[Now might be a good time to take a moment in quiet prayer.
Go to your Father within your heart.
Speak with Him as a friend regarding your ideal longings for life.]
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Doctrines vs. People
132:04 And this was his method of instruction: Never once did he attack their errors or even mention the flaws in their teachings. In each case he would select the truth in what they taught and then proceed so to embellish and illuminate this truth in their minds that in a very short time this enhancement of the truth effectively crowded out the associated error...
We may love our fellows while challenging their doctrines – not ATTACKING their personal beliefs.
Look for something in what they say that you can further embellish with Jesus’ truths. This requires wisdom, spiritual insight and SAVVY skills backed by higher spiritual thinking. This is exactly what Jesus did. Obviously, Jesus spoke truth everywhere He went. He always, always offered corrections when doctrines were spoken that countered the truths of who His Father was—what God’s true character and nature IS [good, loving, forgiving and merciful]. He never attacked the person with psychic force. But He did SPEAK TRUTH with direct correction.
Jesus came to reveal the Father to mankind. He has asked for us to do the same. In His Final Discourse to the Pharisees he spoke with authority and clarity. He called them a brood of vipers – clean cups on the outside with all dirty and evil intentions on the inside. These are strong words and He spoke them. This verbal action was not unloving. It was necessary in order for the upright distinction to be made between greed, selfishness, insincerity and evil in the name of God—juxtaposed the goodness, kindness, caring and loving true character and nature of God.
This is where we need God’s help.
At times we simply do not know what to do and our fear of rejection often results in our own silence-of-cowardice. Jesus was NO COWARD. We follow His lead. The world needs this kind of truth that reveals our Paradise Father to ALL in order to bring the spiritual uplift Jesus wants to see.
Jesus spoke truth to them ALL! He loved even Judas – even the Jewish Pharisees—even the Roman thugs who sought His destruction – even Lucifer, Satan and Caligastia – the leaders of our world’s 200K year old spiritual rebellion! They were ALL His created children. His love conquered their hate. His goodness destroys sin and evil. And He has called upon US to CARRY ON His torch of His true gospel message to all the world.
“The kingdom of God dwells within you.” ~ Jesus
From our great Teacher...
Yes, Father Michael was Jesus of Nazareth on this world some two-thousand years ago. There are no rebel spirits here on Urantia at this time. Fear can always produce reactions of terror even when there is nothing to fear. Fear is largely a chemical animal reaction to word stimulations stemming from the physical/animal basis of your human natures. Fear is non-existent in reality for fear is a mental reaction. For what do you, a true kingdom believer and a God-knowing child of the Infinite Lord of all creation, have to fear? What harm, ultimate harm, could ever be done to you or to this world? All of you – all of the children of this world – are God's children. Yes, all of you are His. Fear not these things. They largely rise up in the mind and are not real. Be fearless in your search for God. You are, as His child, entitled to search for Him everywhere, to search for Him even through those perceived fearful places. You are empowered and allowed your search, yes; and yet, no fear can change the fact that you belong to Father and He alone is your God.
- Ham [Celestial Teachings 10.19.1992]
100:2.7 Jesus portrayed the profound surety of the God-knowing mortal when he said: "To a God-knowing kingdom believer, what does it matter if all things earthly crash?" Temporal securities are vulnerable, but spiritual sureties are impregnable. When the flood tides of human adversity, selfishness, cruelty, hate, malice, and jealousy beat about the mortal soul, you may rest in the assurance that there is one inner bastion, the citadel of the spirit, which is absolutely unassailable; at least this is true of every human being who has dedicated the keeping of his soul to the indwelling spirit of the eternal God.
If you love Jesus with your whole heart and feel His call to work for Him, as the Melchizedeks, the Midwayers and ALL of our Celestial Overseers and Helpers do, then NOW may be your brief time in your spiritual careers on this troubled world to push forward and skillfully proclaim His truths to as many as you are able. Our younger fellows will certainly do this.
Is this YOU?
195:10.10 If the Christian church would only dare to espouse the Master's program, thousands of apparently indifferent youths would rush forward to enlist in such a spiritual undertaking, and they would not hesitate to go all the way through with this great adventure.
Michael, as Jesus, IS…
Love:
2:5.10 But the love of God is an intelligent and farseeing parental affection. The divine love functions in unified association with divine wisdom and all other infinite characteristics of the perfect nature of the Universal Father. God is love, but love is not God. The greatest manifestation of the divine love for mortal beings is observed in the bestowal of the Thought Adjusters, but your greatest revelation of the Father's love is seen in the bestowal life of his Son Michael as he lived on earth the ideal spiritual life. It is the indwelling Adjuster who individualizes the love of God to each human soul.
Purpose:
3:6.7 The infinite and eternal Ruler of the universe of universes is power, form, energy, process, pattern, principle, presence, and idealized reality. But he is more; he is personal; he exercises a sovereign will, experiences self-consciousness of divinity, executes the mandates of a creative mind, pursues the satisfaction of the realization of an eternal purpose, and manifests a Father's love and affection for his universe children. And all these more personal traits of the Father can be better understood by observing them as they were revealed in the bestowal life of Michael, your Creator Son, while he was incarnated on Urantia.
Goodness:
4:4.4 The Father-Absolute is the creator of the central and perfect universe and the Father of all other Creators. Personality, goodness, and numerous other characteristics
Wisdom:
4:4.4 God is limited in his creative acts only by the sentiments of his eternal nature and by the dictates of his infinite wisdom.
Perfect:
4:.4.4 God personally chooses only that which is infinitely perfect…
Tender:
4:4.6 He is eternally motivated by the perfect idealism of divine love, and that tender nature finds its strongest expression and greatest satisfaction in loving and being loved.
Merciful:
4:4.7 But it requires revelation to show that the First Cause of science and the self-existent Unity of philosophy are the God of religion, full of mercy and goodness and pledged to effect the eternal survival of his children on earth.
Listener:
5:3.6 The Creator or Sovereign Sons who preside over the destinies of the local universes stand in the place of both the Universal Father and the Eternal Son of Paradise. These Universe Sons receive, in the name of the Father, the adoration of worship and give ear to the pleas of their petitioning subjects throughout their respective creations. To the children of a local universe a Michael Son is, to all practical intents and purposes, God. He is the local universe personification of the Universal Father and the Eternal Son. The Infinite Spirit maintains personal contact with the children of these realms through the Universe Spirits, the administrative and creative associates of the Paradise Creator Sons.
All powerful:
33:2.3 Michael is the personification of the Paradise Father-Son to and in the local universe of Nebadon; therefore, when the Creative Mother Spirit, the local universe representation of the Infinite Spirit, subordinated herself to Christ Michael upon the return from his final bestowal on Urantia, the Master Son thereby acquired jurisdiction over "all power in heaven and on earth."
Peace:
181:1.8 A certain amount of both stoicism and optimism are serviceable in living a life on earth, but neither has aught to do with that superb peace which the Son of God bestows upon his brethren in the flesh. The peace which Michael gives his children on earth is that very peace which filled his own soul when he himself lived the mortal life in the flesh and on this very world. The peace of Jesus is the joy and satisfaction of a God-knowing individual who has achieved the triumph of learning fully how to do the will of God while living the mortal life in the flesh. The peace of Jesus' mind was founded on an absolute human faith in the actuality of the divine Father's wise and sympathetic overcare. Jesus had trouble on earth, he has even been falsely called the "man of sorrows," but in and through all of these experiences he enjoyed the comfort of that confidence which ever empowered him to proceed with his life purpose in the full assurance that he was achieving the Father's will.
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When is Jesus?
So far, we have not discovered how old Michael actually is.
Perhaps you will find it in our book and let us know where you found it. [happy smiles!]
However, we have been told this…
119:0.7 The local universe of Nebadon is now ruled by a Creator Son [our Michael] who has completed his service of bestowal [becoming all 7 of His personally created orders of beings]; he reigns in just and merciful supremacy over all the vast realms of his evolving and perfecting universe. Michael of Nebadon is the 611,121st bestowal of the Eternal Son upon the universes of time and space, and he began the organization of your local universe about four hundred billion years ago. Michael made ready for his first bestowal adventure about the time Urantia was taking on its present form, one billion years ago. His bestowals have occurred about one hundred and fifty million years apart, the last taking place on Urantia nineteen hundred years ago.
[We invite you to read the history-telling of Michael’s incarnations in His universe work of securing His Sovereign Universe Rulership in Paper 119. This paper, depicting the seven bestowals of Christ Michael, is the sixty-third of a series of presentations, sponsored by numerous personalities, narrating the history of Urantia down to the time of Michael’s appearance on earth in the likeness of mortal flesh. These papers were authorized by a Nebadon commission of twelve acting under the direction of Mantutia Melchizedek [in charge of The Urantia Book project – due to incarnate on our world, hopefully quite soon]. We indited these narratives and put them in the English language, by a technique authorized by our superiors, in the year A.D. 1935 of Urantia time.]
He is at all times—everywhere!
As the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit OF Jesus, He is everywhere at all times in His universe, now that His Spirit of Truth has been poured out upon all flesh since the Day of Pentecost.
137:8.7 "The Father in heaven sends his spirit to indwell the minds of men, and when I shall have finished my work on earth, likewise shall the Spirit of Truth be poured out upon all flesh. And the spirit of my Father and the Spirit of Truth shall establish YOU in the coming kingdom of spiritual understanding and divine righteousness. My kingdom is not of this world. The Son of Man will not lead forth armies in battle for the establishment of a throne of power or a kingdom of worldly glory. When my kingdom shall have come, you shall know the Son of Man as the Prince of Peace, the revelation of the everlasting Father. The children of this world fight for the establishment and enlargement of the kingdoms of this world, but my disciples shall enter the kingdom of heaven by their moral decisions and by their spirit victories; and when they once enter therein, they shall find joy, righteousness, and eternal life. ~ Jesus [before His resurrection]
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From our Great Teacher…
It is thought of by mortals that Michael is too great of a presence to know about personal human suffering; that while wars rage on in parts of the world, ‘why would Michael tend to assist someone experiencing anger or inner confusion.’ Mortals do not fully understand that with the assistance of the Creative Mother Spirit [Her ministry is MIND], He, Michael, is not bound. He is not like one being, one presence, that travels from problem to problem. Michael is like the wind – the wind can be everywhere and yet, still moving, still having an effect. What I would like to help you to understand is that communication with Michael is not strange or overwhelming.
It is deeply personal and makes the way for changes.
– Abraham, our father of many nations.
[Celestial Teachings 12-11-1995]
Jesus promises to return! These are His words spoken before His death and resurrection.
176:2.3 In further answer to Peter's question, Jesus said: "Why do you still look for the Son of Man to sit upon the throne of David and expect that the material dreams of the Jews will be fulfilled? Have I not told you all these years that my kingdom is not of this world? The things which you now look down upon are coming to an end, but this will be a new beginning out of which the gospel of the kingdom will go to all the world and this salvation will spread to all peoples. And when the kingdom shall have come to its full fruition, be assured that the Father in heaven will not fail to visit you with an enlarged revelation of truth [The Urantia Book is one such ‘enlarged revelation’] and an enhanced demonstration of righteousness [there is MORE to come!], even as he has already bestowed upon this world him who became the prince of darkness [Caligastia, our deposed and now annihilated rebel planetary prince.], and then Adam, who was followed by Melchizedek [the King of Salem spoken of in the Old Testament – now our Mighty Planetary Prince, newly installed], and in these days, the Son of Man. And so will my Father continue to manifest his mercy and show forth his love, even to this dark and evil world. So also will I, after my Father has invested me with all power and authority, continue to follow your fortunes and to guide in the affairs of the kingdom by the presence of my spirit, who shall shortly be poured out upon all flesh. Even though I shall thus be present with you in spirit, I also promise that I will sometime return to this world, where I have lived this life in the flesh and achieved the experience of simultaneously revealing God to man and leading man to God. Very soon must I leave you and take up the work the Father has entrusted to my hands, but be of good courage, for I will sometime return. In the meantime, my Spirit of the Truth of a universe shall comfort and guide you. ~ Jesus
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Where is Jesus?
So – where exactly is Jesus right now? There is so much I do not know. I WANT TO KNOW!
Michael has His headquarters, but He travels everywhere—to Paradise, all over His universe and even to the lowly planets of mortals.
32:0.1 A LOCAL universe is the handiwork of a Creator Son of the Paradise order of Michael. It comprises one hundred constellations, each embracing one hundred systems of inhabited worlds. Each system will eventually contain approximately one thousand inhabited spheres.
Salvington is the capital of our universe called Nebadon.
33:1.1 His [Michael’s] headquarters is in the threefold mansion of light on Salvington. And this dwelling is so ordered because Michael has experienced the living of all three phases of intelligent creature existence: spiritual, morontial, and material. Because of the name associated with his seventh and final bestowal on Urantia, he is sometimes spoken of as Christ Michael.
Jerusem is the headquarters of our local system.
46:0.1 JERUSEM, the headquarters of Satania, is an average capital of a local system, and aside from numerous irregularities occasioned by the Lucifer rebellion and the bestowal of Michael on Urantia, it is typical of similar spheres. Your local system has passed through some stormy experiences, but it is at present being administered most efficiently, and as the ages pass, the results of disharmony are being slowly but surely eradicated. Order and good will are being restored, and the conditions on Jerusem are more and more approaching the heavenly status of your traditions, for the system headquarters is truly the heaven visualized by the majority of twentieth-century religious believers.
WE HAVE MUCH TO LOOK FORWARD TO!
93:10.8 And all these speculations associated with the certainty of future appearances of both Magisterial and Trinity Teacher Sons, in conjunction with the explicit promise of the Creator Son to return sometime, make Urantia a planet of future uncertainty and render it one of the most interesting and intriguing spheres in all the universe of Nebadon. It is altogether possible that, in some future age when Urantia is approaching the era of light and life, after the affairs of the Lucifer rebellion and the Caligastia secession have been finally adjudicated [accomplished in the mid 80s], we may witness the presence on Urantia, simultaneously, of Machiventa, Adam, Eve, and Christ Michael, as well as either a Magisterial Son or even Trinity Teacher Sons.
Michael and His universe-partner, our Mother Spirit – the Holy Spirit, give us endless watchcare!
33:3.7 The Son and the Spirit now preside over the universe much as a father and mother watch over, and minister to, their family of sons and daughters. It is not altogether out of place to refer to the Universe Spirit as the creative companion of the Creator Son and to regard the creatures of the realms as their sons and daughters — a grand and glorious family but one of untold responsibilities and endless watchcare.
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How He works!
Michael was, is, and will always be – the Door, our experiential Creator that paved a way for us to have comprehension of God. Michael, as the man Jesus, was a living expression of God. Man can relate with man – something on his level; but God the Father is almost incomprehensible in His all-powerfulness, His everywhereness, His all-knowingness. Michael is an introduction into these greater concepts. Jesus refers to the 'born-again' experience. He is the first you will see, of God. He is the go-between between you and God as far as the alignment of mortal living with spiritual understanding, yes. Always are we closest with our indwelling Father Fragment, and it is Michael who helps us to understand who that is.
– Abraham, our father of many nations.
[Celestial Teachings 11.12.2001]
The narrow path and the open DOOR vs. the broad path leading to destruction – explained.
166:3.3 “You also have another saying among you, and one that contains much truth: That the way which leads to eternal life is straight and narrow, that the door which leads thereto is likewise narrow so that, of those who seek salvation, few can find entrance through this door. You also have a teaching that the way which leads to destruction is broad, that the entrance thereto is wide, and that there are many who choose to go this way. And this proverb is not without its meaning. But I declare that salvation is first a matter of your personal choosing. Even if the door to the way of life is narrow, it is wide enough to admit all who sincerely seek to enter, for I am that door. And the Son will never refuse entrance to any child of the universe who, by faith, seeks to find the Father through the Son.” ~ Jesus
The path to destruction is broad => free will choices in your mind to do lower/animalistic things.
The path to eternal life is straight and narrow => free will choices in your mind to do GOOD.
Rodan precisely and eloquently explained all of this in Paper 160. We discuss this in our ‘The Supreme Ideal – Religion Philosophy Cosmology’ section’. In further study of this diagram below we clearly see the WIDE path involves giving in to the lower and animalistic pull of our animal urges. The NARROW path involves choosing God’s will [what is good]. It is easy to act upon those impulses and strong urges that we initially feel when some situation we find ourselves in presents a challenge. If we act upon the ‘animal-thinking’ way this will likely lead us into some kind of destruction – smaller or larger. However, if we stop ourselves and give some time for quiet reflection with God seeking more spiritual intake He shows us a better way – His narrow path leading to higher thinking which leads to a better response with more loving actions. This path leads to spiritual growth, self-mastery which results in those spiritual fruits that Jesus helps us to discover. Our lives become calm. We discover a deeper understanding of our fellows, we can love them rather than ‘poke’ them back. In this way we begin to experience a higher way of living life WITH God because we are learning to think WITH God. This is the beginning, or continuing, of becoming ‘superhuman thinkers’. This is the NARROW path and it open wide for ALL to choose. This is the path to eternal life for we are becoming more like Him.
“Be perfect, as I am perfect.” ~ Jesus
132:3.4 Revealed truth, personally discovered truth, is the supreme delight of the human soul; it is the joint creation of the material mind and the indwelling spirit. The eternal salvation of this truth-discerning and beauty-loving soul is assured by that hunger and thirst for goodness which leads this mortal to develop a singleness of purpose to do the Father’s will, to find God and to become like him. There is never conflict between true knowledge and truth. There may be conflict between knowledge and human beliefs, beliefs colored with prejudice, distorted by fear, and dominated by the dread of facing new facts of material discovery or spiritual progress. ~ Jesus
There is a difference here.
Jesus is comparing TRUE knowledge and truth against HUMAN beliefs and knowledge which eventuates in prejudice, fear and dread. Discovering God leads to spiritual progress WITHIN YOU. Free will is our gift from God. Choosing His will, that which is good, is OUR ‘narrow path’ which leads us to eternal life by becoming like our Eternal Paradise Father who indwells our hearts and minds. When God is sincerely pursued He becomes DOMINANT and TRANSCENDENT in our hearts and minds. This was Jesus’ highest spiritual concept, “The kingdom of God dwells within you.”
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Saying a certain ‘prayer’ with specific words does not ‘get me into heaven’.
Many have done this – prayed the ‘sinner’s prayer’ and then went right back to living life as before. Many of these dearly beloved children of God had deeply sincere thoughts and desires for God and to come to KNOW God. But they have not had the true teachings of Jesus to grab onto, contemplate, apply and discover God within for themselves. Paul did not teach what Jesus taught. So Jesus’ teachings have been obscured for a very long, long time. The time is RIPE for our Master’s teachings to emerge with spiritual Power so that His children might come to fully comprehend this true path to Eternal Life. We will obey His instructions. We will become more like God in that we are choosing of our own free will to do His will. Our personal and internal path is NARROW because it is specifically and directly the desire to find Him within ourselves. The BROAD path towards pride, fear etc… are swallowed up in the goodness of God.
In every instance Jesus was honest and forthright, unless His wisdom led Him to be silent, as in the case of his brief conversation with Pilate. His honesty to everyone brought and brings knowledge. He learned how we think. And we learned how we should grow in light of His honest truth. This is how we should live also.
HONESTY GAINS KNOWLEDGE! ~ Jesus
Jesus was not SO concerned with His being ‘liked’ as He was with the certainty of His gospel message being clearly stated, and hopefully being correctly comprehended by those of whom He met and visited.
Jesus usually began His conversations with people by listening to their own thoughts and opinions first. He then went on to explain the truths of the Father’s spiritual domain – the kingdom within the hearts of men.
Eternal and spiritual realities! Jesus was patiently DIRECT!
146:3.1 At Ramah Jesus had the memorable discussion with the aged Greek philosopher who taught that science and philosophy were sufficient to satisfy the needs of human experience. Jesus listened with patience and sympathy to this Greek teacher, allowing the truth of many things he said but pointing out that, when he was through, he had failed in his discussion of human existence to explain "whence, why, and whither," and added: "Where you leave off, we begin. Religion is a revelation to man's soul dealing with spiritual realities which the mind alone could never discover or fully fathom. Intellectual strivings may reveal the facts of life, but the gospel of the kingdom unfolds the truths of being. You have discussed the material shadows of truth; will you now listen while I tell you about the eternal and spiritual realities which cast these transient time shadows of the material facts of mortal existence?" For more than an hour Jesus taught this Greek the saving truths of the gospel of the kingdom. The old philosopher was susceptible to the Master's mode of approach, and being sincerely honest of heart, he quickly believed this gospel of salvation.
11 examples of how Jesus did His personal work with the mortals He met while in the flesh.
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Notice how, to each one, He explained directly the certainty of their personal relationship with their indwelling Paradise Father living in their minds, hearts and souls, and their need for Him. His attentive listening to their stories and ideas provided Him a springboard into His purpose for coming to our world and talking with them. Jesus came to reveal the Father to mankind – ALL of them. His loving listening was the ‘bridge’ in itself which earned Him the right for further conversation whereby He could share with them His very direct truth. But, He did not tarry so long in conversation and ‘bridge-building’ that His message was only meagerly attained, or never attained at all. Spending so much time in ‘bridge-building’ without ever stating His true gospel message to others avails little, if nothing at all. Often, this tactic reveals our own fear and cowardice to courageously do as He has commanded. We are to proclaim God’s spiritual domain, His kingdom that dwells within.
144:4.1 Jesus and Ganid had...close converse with a great number of persons who greatly profited by the instruction received from Jesus.
Spiritual Truth given to all.
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133:4.2 The miller he taught about grinding up the grains of truth in the mill of living experience so as to render the difficult things of divine life readily receivable by even the weak and feeble among one’s fellow mortals. Said Jesus: “Give the milk of truth to those who are babes in spiritual perception. In your living and loving ministry serve spiritual food in attractive form and suited to the capacity of receptivity of each of your inquirers.”
Loyalty to God first.
133:4.3 To the Roman centurion he said: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things which are God’s. The sincere service of God and the loyal service of Caesar do not conflict unless Caesar should presume to arrogate to himself that homage which alone can be claimed by Deity. Loyalty to God, if you should come to know him, would render you all the more loyal and faithful in your devotion to a worthy emperor.”
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God lives within you.
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133:4.4 To the earnest leader of the Mithraic cult he said: “You do well to seek for a religion of eternal salvation, but you err to go in quest of such a glorious truth among man-made mysteries and human philosophies. Know you not that the mystery of eternal salvation dwells within your own soul? Do you not know that the God of heaven has sent his spirit to live within you, and that this spirit will lead all truth-loving and God-serving mortals out of this life and through the portals of death up to the eternal heights of light where God waits to receive his children? And never forget: You who know God are the sons of God if you truly yearn to be like him.”
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The spirit realm where God lives within you.
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133:4.5 To the Epicurean teacher he said: “You do well to choose the best and esteem the good, but are you wise when you fail to discern the greater things of mortal life which are embodied in the spirit realms derived from the realization of the presence of God in the human heart? The great thing in all human experience is the realization of knowing the God whose spirit lives within you and seeks to lead you forth on that long and almost endless journey of attaining the personal presence of our common Father, the God of all creation, the Lord of universes.”
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The divine spirit within the soul
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133:4.6 To the Greek contractor and builder he said: “My friend, as you build the material structures of men, grow a spiritual character in the similitude of the divine spirit within your soul. Do not let your achievement as a temporal builder outrun your attainment as a spiritual son of the kingdom of heaven. While you build the mansions of time for another, neglect not to secure your title to the mansions of eternity for yourself. Ever remember, there is a city whose foundations are righteousness and truth, and whose builder and maker is God.”
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Be guided by the spirit.
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133:4.7 To the Roman judge he said: “As you judge men, remember that you yourself will also some day come to judgment before the bar of the Rulers of a universe. Judge justly, even mercifully, even as you shall some day thus crave merciful consideration at the hands of the Supreme Arbiter. Judge as you would be judged under similar circumstances, thus being guided by the spirit of the law as well as by its letter. And even as you accord justice dominated by fairness in the light of the need of those who are brought before you, so shall you have the right to expect justice tempered by mercy when you sometime stand before the Judge of all the earth.”
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God indwells the hearts of all.
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133:4.8 To the mistress of the Greek inn he said: “Minister your hospitality as one who entertains the children of the Most High. Elevate the drudgery of your daily toil to the high levels of a fine art through the increasing realization that you minister to God in the persons whom he indwells by his spirit which has descended to live within the hearts of men, thereby seeking to transform their minds and lead their souls to the knowledge of the Paradise Father of all these bestowed gifts of the divine spirit.”
Worship only God in spirit who lives within you.
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133:4.9 Jesus had many visits with a Chinese merchant. In saying good-bye, he admonished him: “Worship only God, who is your true spirit ancestor. Remember that the Father’s spirit ever lives within you and always points your soul-direction heavenward. If you follow the unconscious leadings of this immortal spirit, you are certain to continue on in the uplifted way of finding God. And when you do attain the Father in heaven, it will be because by seeking him you have become more and more like him. And so farewell, Chang, but only for a season, for we shall meet again in the worlds of light where the Father of spirit souls has provided many delightful stopping-places for those who are Paradise-bound.”
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The Father in spirit dwells within you.
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133:4.10 To the traveler from Britain he said: “My brother, I perceive you are seeking for truth, and I suggest that the spirit of the Father of all truth may chance to dwell within you. Did you ever sincerely endeavor to talk with the spirit of your own soul? Such a thing is indeed difficult and seldom yields consciousness of success; but every honest attempt of the material mind to communicate with its indwelling spirit meets with certain success, notwithstanding that the majority of all such magnificent human experiences must long remain as superconscious registrations in the souls of such God-knowing mortals.”
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The spirit of your heavenly Father lives within you.
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133:4.11 To the runaway lad Jesus said: “Remember, there are two things you cannot run away from — God and yourself. Wherever you may go, you take with you yourself and the spirit of the heavenly Father which lives within your heart. My son, stop trying to deceive yourself; settle down to the courageous practice of facing the facts of life; lay firm hold on the assurances of sonship with God and the certainty of eternal life, as I have instructed you. From this day on purpose to be a real man, a man determined to face life bravely and intelligently.”
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Sincere faith in God who knows you within—in your soul.
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133:4.12 To the condemned criminal he said at the last hour: “My brother, you have fallen on evil times. You lost your way; you became entangled in the meshes of crime. From talking to you, I well know you did not plan to do the thing which is about to cost you your temporal life. But you did do this evil, and your fellows have adjudged you guilty; they have determined that you shall die. You or I may not deny the state this right of self-defense in the manner of its own choosing. There seems to be no way of humanly escaping the penalty of your wrongdoing. Your fellows must judge you by what you did, but there is a Judge to whom you may appeal for forgiveness, and who will judge you by your real motives and better intentions. You need not fear to meet the judgment of God if your repentance is genuine and your faith sincere. The fact that your error carries with it the death penalty imposed by man does not prejudice the chance of your soul to obtain justice and enjoy mercy before the heavenly courts.”
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Jesus fulfilled His mission with precise perfection!
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These are the instructions from Immanuel given to Michael just prior to His disappearance there and conception in the womb of Mary here. Mantutia Melchizedek, the director of our Urantia Book project, is authorized to show us what these instructions were. For full understanding we invite to read all of Paper 120.
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120:2.8 Your great mission to be realized and experienced in the mortal incarnation is embraced in your decision to live a life wholeheartedly motivated to do the will of your Paradise Father, thus to reveal God, your Father, in the flesh and especially to the creatures of the flesh. At the same time you will also interpret, with a new enhancement, our Father, to the supermortal beings of all Nebadon. Equally with this ministry of new revelation and augmented interpretation of the Paradise Father to the human and the superhuman type of mind, you will also so function as to make a new revelation of man to God. Exhibit in your one short life in the flesh, as it has never before been seen in all Nebadon, the transcendent possibilities attainable by a God-knowing human during the short career of mortal existence, and make a new and illuminating interpretation of man and the vicissitudes of his planetary life to all the superhuman intelligences of all Nebadon, and for all time. You are to go down to Urantia in the likeness of mortal flesh, and living as a man in your day and generation, you will so function as to show your entire universe the ideal of perfected technique in the supreme engagement of the affairs of your vast creation: The achievement of God seeking man and finding him and the phenomenon of man seeking God and finding him; and doing all of this to mutual satisfaction and doing it during one short lifetime in the flesh.
~ Immanuel of Salvington—the ambassador of the Paradise Trinity to our universe.
For expanded teachings regarding “man seeking God and finding Him” we would direct you to our “Attainment: Know God” section.
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Why He does all that He does.
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“Be joyful my children and exceedingly glad, for I, your Father and Brother am among you. I do appreciate all your efforts made towards furthering this Correcting Time.
I know of your struggles and understand that you view the road ahead as difficult and almost impassable. I am above that road; I am around that road; I am in that road. I know every angle you must strive from. I know the barriers of the ego that blocks your path. I have a complete map and understand the provisions you must prepare for in order to travel. I am the road.
I am your guide..
Where you are incomplete, I will complete. Where you are lacking, I will fulfill. In your loneliness, I will be there. I understand mortal desire. I understand the feelings of being limited or being oppressed. I understand feelings of inferiority and superiority – balance and imbalance. Where you fall short, there am I. Where you are unsatisfied, I will compensate with understanding. Where you are inadequate, I will take up. Where you are weak, I will strengthen you. When you are confused, I will clarify.
I seek to live in you and through you, to minister to you and to your fellows. I seek to correct your un-spiritized thinking. I seek to correct through you. I will work for you; I will work through you. I have many tasks that lie before me. I have responsibility to my universe, to my Father, to the God-in-time, and to you. I find these tasks my complete joy and satisfaction. I am ever challenged by these universe chores.
I seek the darkest of the dark and find it my utmost pleasure to bring light.
This is my duty as your Sovereign Creator of Nebadon. These responsibilities are what I thrive on. Would you allow me such joy to be a living presence in your lives?! Would you allow me to fulfill my duties as universe Sovereign?! Would you allow me to reap the pleasure I find in being at-one with you, my children?!
The spiritual destiny ahead is not a secret. The spiritual life is not covered over by a mortal veil. The living truth of all things spiritual is in plain view. You are most definitely – now, and have always been – allowed to partake in the universe happenings; I have seen to it.
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My dear children, I would not leave you alone at any time to trudge through your mortal difficulties so they may teach you divine values– not at all. I, rather, would have you know that your mortal difficulties are nothing else than your divine tasks and responsibilities, likened to my own, and that I am with you every moment along the way.
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I would seek to strengthen you and empower you with divine understanding and insight. I would lift you, my children, above the fog of the ego – to the clear blue skies of divine purpose. I do not look down upon you and say: "be corrected my children, for you are in error," not at all. I hold your hand in mine and sit face to face and say: "My child, I am in understanding, for I have a clear view of all there is to see and I would choose to take this particular path."
I am your helpmate. There is nothing that can shake me or divert my attention from the purpose at hand. I am not an angry king who rules over men that can be offered bargains or self-sacrifices in trade for spiritual leniency, no! I am your co-worker who seeks to make you more than you are.
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My children, I live to see you soar. Open your hearts and understand who I really am. Allow me my work in this kingdom. Allow me my place at your table. Where you are weak and in need I can, even without effort, strengthen and fulfill. Allow your burdens to be cast aside. Allow your mind to be free from worry and concern. Open yourself to receive my Spirit. Allow me to wash your incorrect thinking. Allow me to bestow love where you are empty. Allow me to refresh when you are weary.
I require a few of my children to carry on my work for the betterment of the planet, as well as the universe. You should be in top spiritual condition!
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I know of your thirst for the living water. I am with cup, my children. I know of your mortal hunger. Allow me to feed you with the bread of life. I am so that you would be made more. I love you. Carry On.”
~ Jesus, the son of man—Michael, Sovereign Universe Ruler
[Celestial Teachings 12.27.1999]
The Kitchen Sinks!
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The idiom ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ refers to the use of everything under the sun. Including just about everything, whether appropriate or not.
As the founder and worship pastor of a Christian church, I have, pretty much, seen it all. While speaking quite forthrightly and deliberately here regarding the need to get back to the actual teachings of Jesus, I have deep love for my fellows who are Christians. SO many do not actually know who Jesus is or what He truly said. Therefore, they also do not really know who our Paradise Father – God – is. I will address these ‘kitchen sinks’ in order to make clear what is needed for the future by correcting what was done in the past. May God’s will be done.
What most people think Jesus is.
“Jesus was a prophet – just a great ‘teacher’.”
Jesus was so much more than just a prophet or great teacher.
138:8.8 Jesus made plain to his apostles the difference between the repentance of so-called good works as taught by the Jews and the change of mind by faith — the new birth — which he required as the price of admission to the kingdom. He taught his apostles that faith was the only requisite to entering the Father's kingdom. John had taught them "repentance — to flee from the wrath to come." Jesus taught, "Faith is the open door for entering into the present, perfect, and eternal love of God." Jesus did not speak like a prophet, one who comes to declare the word of God. He seemed to speak of himself as one having authority. Jesus sought to divert their minds from miracle seeking to the finding of a real and personal experience in the satisfaction and assurance of the indwelling of God's spirit of love and saving grace.
“Jesus was a mere leader.”
leader : noun : someone who directs another's way
Jesus is our Sovereign Universe Ruler and Creator Son with absolute power—that is, power that cannot be checked by anyone or anything! Jesus is not a mere ‘leader’, although He does indeed lead and guide from within one’s own heart and mind, where He dwells as the Spirit of Truth.
32:0.3 Urantia belongs to a local universe whose sovereign is the God-man of Nebadon, Jesus of Nazareth and Michael of Salvington. And all of Michael's plans for this local universe were fully approved by the Paradise Trinity before he ever embarked upon the supreme adventure of space.
“Jesus is meek, timid and weak.”
Jesus, our Sovereign Ruler of our universe, is ANYTHING but a mild, kindly mystic!
141:3.6 The pictures of Jesus have been most unfortunate. These paintings of the Christ have exerted a deleterious influence on youth; the temple merchants would hardly have fled before Jesus if he had been such a man as your artists usually have depicted. His was a dignified manhood; he was good, but natural. Jesus did not pose as a mild, sweet, gentle, and kindly mystic. His teaching was thrillingly dynamic. He not only meant well, but he went about actually doing good.
159:3.9 In preaching the gospel of the kingdom, you are simply teaching friendship with God. And this fellowship will appeal alike to men and women in that both will find that which most truly satisfies their characteristic longings and ideals. Tell my children that I am not only tender of their feelings and patient with their frailties, but that I am also ruthless with sin and intolerant of iniquity. I am indeed meek and humble in the presence of my Father, but I am equally and relentlessly inexorable where there is deliberate evil-doing and sinful rebellion against the will of my Father in heaven. ~ Jesus
“Jesus is the sacrificial lamb of God. His blood paid the penalty for our sins – as original sin.”
Paul invented the concept of ‘original sin’. Jesus did not. Man owes God nothing.
188:4.3 Mortal man was never the property of the archdeceivers. Jesus did not die to ransom man from the clutch of the apostate rulers and fallen princes of the spheres. The Father in heaven never conceived of such crass injustice as damning a mortal soul because of the evil-doing of his ancestors. Neither was the Master's death on the cross a sacrifice which consisted in an effort to pay God a debt which the race of mankind had come to owe him.
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“God required Jesus’ blood to be shed in order to forgive the sins of mankind.”
The atonement doctrine came from Philo and Paul – NOT Jesus.
121:6.5 Many, but not all, of Philo's inconsistencies resulting from an effort to combine Greek mystical philosophy and Roman Stoic doctrines with the legalistic theology of the Hebrews, Paul recognized and wisely eliminated from his pre-Christian basic theology. Philo led the way for Paul more fully to restore the concept of the Paradise Trinity, which had long been dormant in Jewish theology. In only one matter did Paul fail to keep pace with Philo or to transcend the teachings of this wealthy and educated Jew of Alexandria, and that was the doctrine of the atonement; Philo taught deliverance from the doctrine of forgiveness only by the shedding of blood. He also possibly glimpsed the reality and presence of the Thought Adjusters more clearly than did Paul. But Paul's theory of original sin, the doctrines of hereditary guilt and innate evil and redemption therefrom, was partially Mithraic in origin, having little in common with Hebrew theology, Philo's philosophy, or Jesus' teachings. Some phases of Paul's teachings regarding original sin and the atonement were original with himself.
“Jesus said we could go to Hell as judgment for offending God with our sins.”
Jesus NEVER taught a doctrine of Hell. Our text shows nothing of Jesus’ teaching on Hell.
95:6.6 The Jewish traditions of heaven and hell and the doctrine of devils as recorded in the Hebrew scriptures, while founded on the lingering traditions of Lucifer and Caligastia, were principally derived from the Zoroastrians during the times when the Jews were under the political and cultural dominance of the Persians. Zoroaster, like the Egyptians, taught the “day of judgment,” but he connected this event with the end of the world.
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“Faith without works is dead.”
James taught this concept and Paul eluded to it. Jesus NEVER taught this!
158:6.4 “How long will it take you to learn that you cannot time-shorten the course of established natural phenomena except when such things are in accordance with the Father’s will? nor can you do spiritual work in the absence of spiritual power. And you can do neither of these, even when their potential is present, without the existence of that third and essential human factor, the personal experience of the possession of living faith. Must you always have material manifestations as an attraction for the spiritual realities of the kingdom? Can you not grasp the spirit significance of my mission without the visible exhibition of unusual works? When can you be depended upon to adhere to the higher and spiritual realities of the kingdom regardless of the outward appearance of all material manifestations?” ~ Jesus
“Jesus’ resurrection conquered death for us.”
Jesus’ resurrection was powered by Himself ALONE. His raising Himself from death has nothing to do with us as lowly mortals. We cannot – do not – have this power given to us in any way. Our personal resurrection, once this life in the flesh has run its course, is totally different.
189:0.1 SOON after the burial of Jesus on Friday afternoon, the chief of the archangels of Nebadon, then present on Urantia, summoned his council of the resurrection of sleeping will creatures and entered upon the consideration of a possible technique for the restoration of Jesus. These assembled sons of the local universe, the creatures of Michael, did this on their own responsibility; Gabriel had not assembled them. By midnight they had arrived at the conclusion that the creature could do nothing to facilitate the resurrection of the Creator. They were disposed to accept the advice of Gabriel, who instructed them that, since Michael had “laid down his life of his own free will, he also had power to take it up again in accordance with his own determination.” Shortly after the adjournment of this council of the archangels, the Life Carriers, and their various associates in the work of creature rehabilitation and morontia creation, the Personalized Adjuster of Jesus, being in personal command of the assembled celestial hosts then on Urantia, spoke these words to the anxious waiting watchers:
189:0.2 “Not one of you can do aught to assist your Creator-father in the return to life. As a mortal of the realm he has experienced mortal death; as the Sovereign of a universe he still lives. That which you observe is the mortal transit of Jesus of Nazareth from life in the flesh to life in the morontia. The spirit transit of this Jesus was completed at the time I separated myself from his personality and became your temporary director. Your Creator-father has elected to pass through the whole of the experience of his mortal creatures, from birth on the material worlds, on through natural death and the resurrection of the morontia, into the status of true spirit existence. A certain phase of this experience you are about to observe, but you may not participate in it. Those things which you ordinarily do for the creature, you may not do for the Creator. A Creator Son has within himself the power to bestow himself in the likeness of any of his created sons; he has within himself the power to lay down his observable life and to take it up again; and he has this power because of the direct command of the Paradise Father, and I know whereof I speak.”
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“The gospel of Jesus is: God is Jesus’ Father. Jesus died for our sins, was resurrected and now He is the risen and glorified Christ.”
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Paul limited, spun and changed the true teachings of Jesus. He should not have! Jesus is MORE!
4:5.4 The barbarous idea of appeasing an angry God, of propitiating an offended Lord, of winning the favor of Deity through sacrifices and penance and even by the shedding of blood, represents a religion wholly puerile and primitive, a philosophy unworthy of an enlightened age of science and truth. Such beliefs are utterly repulsive to the celestial beings and the divine rulers who serve and reign in the universes. It is an affront to God to believe, hold, or teach that innocent blood must be shed in order to win his favor or to divert the fictitious divine wrath.
“Jesus now sits at the right hand of the Father in Heaven.”
After Jesus’ death He did go to Paradise for the Father’s embrace, but His headquarters are now located in Salvington.
33:2.5 Although Michael's headquarters is officially located on Salvington, the capital of Nebadon, he spends much of his time visiting the constellation and system headquarters and even the individual planets. Periodically he journeys to Paradise and often to Uversa, where he counsels with the Ancients of Days. When he is away from Salvington, his place is assumed by Gabriel, who then functions as regent of the universe of Nebadon.
“WE are His chosen people. All others will go to Hell.”
Jesus is our physical and material expression of God Himself. He loves and cares for EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE.
134:5.4 This rule of the Most Highs in the kingdoms of men is not for the special benefit of any especially favored group of mortals. There is no such thing as a “chosen people. The rule of the Most Highs, the overcontrollers of political evolution, is a rule designed to foster the greatest good to the greatest number of all men and for the greatest length of time. ~ Jesus
“Jesus, as WE define Him, is the only way to heaven.”
MANY who lived before Jesus chose to do the will of God. Eternal life is found in loving our Father and doing His will [goodness].
140:1.4 “But for you, my children, and for all others who would follow you into this kingdom, there is set a severe test. Faith alone will pass you through its portals, but you must bring forth the fruits of my Father’s spirit if you would continue to ascend in the progressive life of the divine fellowship. Verily, verily, I say to you, not every one who says, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but rather he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
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140:1.5 “Your message to the world shall be: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and in finding these, all other things essential to eternal survival shall be secured therewith.~ Jesus
“You must pray the ‘sinner’s prayer’ in order to be saved.”
Your relationship with your indwelling Father is between you and Him. You need not say anything special to another mortal fellow in order to be ‘saved’. Faith is all that is required.
196:0.13 Jesus does not require his disciples to believe in him but rather to believe with him, believe in the reality of the love of God and in full confidence accept the security of the assurance of sonship with the heavenly Father. The Master desires that all his followers should fully share his transcendent faith. Jesus most touchingly challenged his followers, not only to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed. This is the full significance of his one supreme requirement, "Follow me."
“Jesus is the head of the Christian church.”
Jesus founded no churches. Jesus did not teach about half of the tenets of the Christian faith and, even today, would not promote them. He never mentioned the concept of ‘church’. Paul did this and he subsequently damaged Jesus’ teachings that true religion is a private matter between the individual and God. Jesus’ hopes, then, were that the true brotherhood of men founded upon the Fatherhood of God would result in the sharing of these individual spiritual experiences with God and then with others in the fraternity of the divine spirit.
170:5.17 The concept of Jesus is still alive in the advanced religions of the world. Paul's Christian church is the socialized and humanized shadow of what Jesus intended the kingdom of heaven to be — and what it most certainly will yet become. Paul and his successors partly transferred the issues of eternal life from the individual to the church. Christ thus became the head of the church rather than the elder brother of each individual believer in the Father's family of the kingdom. Paul and his contemporaries applied all of Jesus' spiritual implications regarding himself and the individual believer to the church as a group of believers; and in doing this, they struck a deathblow to Jesus' concept of the divine kingdom in the heart of the individual believer.
“Christ died for the true church’
Jesus taught the ideal of the brotherhood of ALL mortal people who discover sonship with God.
194:4.6 Christ was about to become the creed of the rapidly forming church. Jesus lives; he died for men; he gave the spirit; he is coming again. Jesus filled all their thoughts and determined all their new concept of God and everything else. They were too much enthused over the new doctrine that "God is the Father of the Lord Jesus" to be concerned with the old message that "God is the loving Father of all men," even of every single individual. True, a marvelous manifestation of brotherly love and unexampled [unprecedented] good will did spring up in these early communities of believers. But it was a fellowship of believers in Jesus, not a fellowship of brothers in the family kingdom of the Father in heaven. Their good will arose from the love born of the concept [the idea – not ideal] of Jesus' bestowal and not from the recognition of the brotherhood of mortal man. Nevertheless, they were filled with joy, and they lived such new and unique lives that all men were attracted to their teachings about Jesus. They made the great mistake of using the living and illustrative commentary on the gospel of the kingdom for that gospel, but even that represented the greatest religion mankind had ever known.
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“Jesus is Christianity.”
Christianity is based upon Paul’s compromise of Jesus’ teachings to gain popular approval.
121:5.13 Paul, in an effort to utilize the widespread adherence to the better types of the mystery religions, made certain adaptations of the teachings of Jesus so as to render them more acceptable to a larger number of prospective converts. But even Paul’s compromise of Jesus’ teachings (Christianity) was superior to the best in the mysteries [pagan cults].
“I’m a Christian. The Bible is the infallible ‘word of God’ [and Jesus].”
It is NOT. It has been changed by the hands of men. Peter, Paul and many others do not say exactly what Jesus said.
121:8.3 The Gospel by Mark. John Mark wrote the earliest (excepting the notes of Andrew), briefest, and most simple record of Jesus' life. He presented the Master as a minister, as man among men. Although Mark was a lad lingering about many of the scenes which he depicts, his record is in reality the Gospel according to Simon Peter [who changed the Master’s gospel message on the Day of Pentecost]. He was early associated with Peter; later with Paul [who entirely corrupted Jesus’ true teachings]. Mark wrote this record at the instigation of Peter and on the earnest petition of the church at Rome. Knowing how consistently the Master refused to write out his teachings when on earth and in the flesh, Mark, like the apostles and other leading disciples, was hesitant to put them in writing. But Peter felt the church at Rome required the assistance of such a written narrative, and Mark consented to undertake its preparation. He made many notes before Peter died in A.D. 67, and in accordance with the outline approved by Peter and for the church at Rome, he began his writing soon after Peter's death. The Gospel was completed near the end of A.D. 68. Mark wrote entirely from his own memory and Peter's memory. The record has since been considerably changed, numerous passages having been taken out and some later matter added at the end to replace the latter one fifth of the original Gospel, which was lost from the first manuscript before it was ever copied. This record by Mark, in conjunction with Andrew's and Matthew's notes, was the written basis of all subsequent Gospel narratives which sought to portray the life and teachings of Jesus.
“I’m not sure what Jesus’ gospel message is exactly. Maybe ‘Love’?”
We are to now clarify what Jesus really said, and to MOSTLY look to what He DID! Jesus is the ruler of our universe – our Sovereign Creator Son. He came to us to reveal the Father. May we honor Him!
196:2.1 Some day a reformation in the Christian church may strike deep enough to get back to the unadulterated religious teachings of Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. You may preach a religion about Jesus, but, perforce, you must live the religion OF Jesus. In the enthusiasm of Pentecost, Peter unintentionally inaugurated a new religion, the religion of the risen and glorified Christ. The Apostle Paul later on transformed this new gospel into Christianity, a religion embodying his own theologic views and portraying his own personal experience with the Jesus of the Damascus road. The gospel of the kingdom is founded on the personal religious experience of the Jesus of Galilee; Christianity is founded almost exclusively on the personal religious experience of the Apostle Paul. Almost the whole of the New Testament is devoted, not to the portrayal of the significant and inspiring religious life of Jesus, but to a discussion of Paul's religious experience and to a portrayal of his personal religious convictions. The only notable exceptions to this statement, aside from certain parts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are the Book of Hebrews and the Epistle of James. Even Peter, in his writing, only once reverted to the personal religious life of his Master. The New Testament is a superb Christian document, but it is only meagerly Jesusonian.
