UNDER CONSTRUCTION: new insights will be added soon. New Blog section additions coming as new insights from worship emerge. Blessings all!
Why Did Jesus Die On The Cross?
“I’m told that Jesus’ Father wanted Him to die on the cross for my sins. I feel guilty about this. Do I owe Jesus something for this? Will God kill me too if I am bad enough. I feel fear of God more than love for Him. What really happened that day?”
You were not born a sinner. We were born with the inherent nature to be selfish and choose to do erroneous or evil things. However, sin is more serious and related to deliberately doing things AGAINST our Father’s will. And further, iniquity means that someone has chosen to purposefully oppose our Paradise Father’s way over and over and over again.
Our Paradise Father did not put Jesus on a cross desiring His blood to pay for your mistakes. That would make our Father a cosmic criminal. Jesus chose to go to Jerusalem knowing full well that He would be arrested and crucified. He had good reasons for doing this. Prepare for your previous thoughts to be challenged with GOOD NEWS!
Jesus had every right and ability to leave our world just after His baptism with John in the Jordan river. However, He chose to stay with us a little while longer to accomplish much more for each one of us, and for all those in His universe who were watching this astounding event at the cross. The most touching moment came when Jesus made a new revelation of man to God. He stood before Pilate beaten, bruised, bloodied, falsely accused by an angry mob and judged worthy to die by crucifixion for lies and betrayals foisted upon Him. And in this moment He was completely and totally confident in His Father's loving over-care. What an amazing Sovereign Master we serve!
Statements to consider from Journey To The Father/The Urantia Book:
Before the events I am about to delineate, Michael of Nebadon (our Jesus) had bestowed himself six times after the similitude of six differing orders of his diverse creation of intelligent beings. Then he prepared to descend upon Urantia in the likeness of mortal flesh, the lowest order of his intelligent will creatures, and, as such a human of the material realm, to execute the final act in the drama of the acquirement of universe sovereignty in accordance with the mandates of the divine Paradise Rulers of the universe of universes. 120:0.2
As a Creator Son of God He must become one of every one of his created ‘orders of beings’. Jesus, in effect, is our parent. Here is what Immanuel, Jesus’ elder brother, said upon His departure for our world:
“6. On the planet of your bestowal, set rebellion-segregated man spiritually free. ….. In this, your material bestowal in the likeness of the flesh, you are about to experience the final enlightenment of a time-space Creator, the dual experience of working within the nature of man with the will of your Paradise Father. In your temporal life [on Earth] the will of the finite creature and the will of the infinite Creator are to become as one.. Pour out upon the planet of your bestowal the Spirit of Truth and thus make all normal mortals on that isolated sphere immediately and fully accessible to the ministry of the segregated presence of our Paradise Father, the Thought Adjusters of the realms. [A piece of God lives inside of you.] 120:2.6
Jesus couldn’t stay here forever as he needed to rule His entire universe as our Sovereign Master and give us our Spirit of Truth for all peoples on our world. He had a plan for His exit.
Why did He choose to leave us in this way?
Jesus continued to teach, saying: "When I have gone to the Father, and after he has fully accepted the work I have done for you on earth, and after I have received the final sovereignty of my own domain, I shall say to my Father: Having left my children alone on earth, it is in accordance with my promise to send them another teacher. And when the Father shall approve, I will pour out the Spirit of Truth upon all flesh. Already is my Father's spirit in your hearts (lives in our minds), and when this day shall come, you will also have me with you even as you now have the Father (Spirit of Truth lives in our souls). This new gift is the spirit of living truth. The unbelievers will not at first listen to the teachings of this spirit, but the sons of light will all receive him gladly and with a whole heart. And you shall know this spirit when he comes even as you have known me, and you will receive this gift in your hearts, and he will abide with you. You thus perceive that I am not going to leave you without help and guidance. I will not leave you desolate. Today I can be with you only in person. In the times to come I will be with you and all other men who desire my presence, wherever you may be (globally), and with each of you at the same time. Do you not discern that it is better for me to go away; that I leave you in the flesh so that I may the better and the more fully be with you in the spirit? [This occurred for at the very same time GLOBALLY.] ~ Jesus 180:4.1
The new helper which Jesus promised to send into the hearts of believers, to pour out upon all flesh, is the Spirit of Truth. This divine endowment is not the letter or law of truth, neither is it to function as the form or expression of truth. The new teacher is the CONVICTION OF TRUTH, the consciousness and assurance of true meanings on real spirit levels. And this new teacher is the spirit of living and growing truth, expanding, unfolding, and adaptive truth. 180:5.1
Truth grows, expands, unfolds and adapts within us.
"The Father sent me into this world, but only a few of you have chosen fully to receive me. I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, but all men will not choose to receive this new teacher as the guide and counselor of the soul (where He lives). But as many as do receive him shall be enlightened, cleansed, and comforted. And this Spirit of Truth will become in them a well of living water [as stated in His real ‘Lord’s Prayer’] springing up into eternal life. ~ Jesus 181:1.4
You may not worship your temporal rulers, and you should not employ temporal power in the furtherance of the spiritual kingdom; but you should manifest the righteous ministry of loving service to believers and unbelievers alike. In the gospel of the kingdom there resides the mighty Spirit of Truth, and presently I will pour out this same spirit upon all flesh. The fruits of the spirit, your sincere and loving service, are the mighty social lever to uplift the races of darkness, and this Spirit of Truth will become your power-multiplying fulcrum. ~ Jesus 178:1.6
He needed to leave us so that WE could have this kind of spiritual ‘power’ multiplying within us. And ~ IT DOES!
These are the moments of the Master's greatest victories in all his long and eventful career as maker, upholder, and savior of a vast and far-flung universe. Having lived to the full a life of revealing God to man, Jesus is now engaged in making a new and unprecedented revelation of man to God. Jesus is now revealing to the worlds the final triumph over all fears of creature personality isolation. The Son of Man has finally achieved the realization of identity as the Son of God. Jesus does not hesitate to assert that he and the Father are one; and on the basis of the fact and truth of that supreme and supernal experience, he admonishes every kingdom believer to become one with him even as he and his Father are one. (And so we CAN) The living experience in the religion of Jesus thus becomes the sure and certain technique whereby the spiritually isolated and cosmically lonely mortals of earth are enabled to escape personality isolation, with all its consequences of fear and associated feelings of helplessness. 184:4.6
We can be ONE with God NOW ~ not in theory or concept but in spiritual REALITY. This will be seen in our more spiritualized thinking!
Pilate spoke more truly than he knew when, after Jesus had been scourged, he presented him before the multitude, exclaiming, "Behold the man!" Indeed, the fear-ridden Roman governor little dreamed that at just that moment the universe stood at attention, gazing upon this unique scene of its beloved Sovereign thus subjected in humiliation to the taunts and blows of his darkened and degraded mortal subjects. And as Pilate spoke, there echoed throughout all Nebadon [the name of our local universe], "Behold God and man!" Throughout a universe, untold millions have ever since that day continued to behold that man, while the God of Havona [Heaven, located directly outside of Paradise], the supreme ruler of the universe of universes, accepts the man of Nazareth as the satisfaction of the ideal of the mortal creatures of this local universe of time and space. In his matchless life he never failed to reveal God to man. Now, in these final episodes of his mortal career and in his subsequent death, he made a new and touching revelation of MAN to God. 186:2.11
The Father in heaven loved mortal man on earth just as much before the life and death of Jesus on Urantia as he did after this transcendent exhibition of the copartnership of man and God. This mighty transaction of the incarnation of the God of Nebadon as a man on Urantia could not augment the attributes of the eternal, infinite, and universal Father, but it did enrich and enlighten all other administrators and creatures of the universe of Nebadon. While the Father in heaven loves us no more because of this bestowal of Michael, all other celestial intelligences do. And this is because Jesus not only made a revelation of God to man, but he also likewise made a new revelation of man to the Gods and to the celestial intelligences of the universe of universes. 186:5.6
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. 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. 194:2.8
Let’s make it sooner rather than later!
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