It is only the benevolent Creator of the Universe who could live as a working-class man, never have kids or marry, never write a single sentence in permanent form, be executed at age 35 by the Romans for going against religious tradition whose leaders had to make up lies in order to force the execution, go on to become the most famous man who will ever live, and continue to be more and more beloved across the entire world almost 2,000 years after His death.
MODERN TIMES have brought new problems for Christianity to solve. The higher a civilization climbs, the more necessary the duty to “seek first the realities of heaven” in all of mankind’s efforts to stabilize society and facilitate the solution of its material problems.
The God-conscious mortal is certain of salvation; he is unafraid of life; he is honest and consistent. He knows how bravely to endure unavoidable suffering; he is uncomplaining when faced by inescapable hardship.
The true believer does not grow weary in well-doing just because he is thwarted. Difficulty whets the ardor of the truth lover, while obstacles only challenge the exertions of the undaunted kingdom builder.
In the affairs of men’s hearts the Father may not always have his way; but in the conduct and destiny of a planet the divine plan prevails; the eternal purpose of wisdom and love triumphs.
As you glimpse the manifold workings and view the staggering immensity of God’s well-nigh limitless creation, you may falter in your concept of his primacy, but you should not fail to accept him as securely and everlastingly enthroned at the Paradise center of all things and as the beneficent Father of all intelligent beings. There is but “one God and Father of all, who is above all and in all,” “and he is before all things, and in him all things consist.”
The uncertainties of life and the vicissitudes of existence do not in any manner contradict the concept of the universal sovereignty of God. All evolutionary creature life is beset by certain inevitabilities. Consider the following:
1. Is courage – strength of character – desirable? Then must man be reared in an environment which necessitates grappling with hardships and reacting to disappointments.
2. Is altruism – service of one’s fellows – desirable? Then must life experience provide for encountering situations of social inequality.
3. Is hope – the grandeur of trust – desirable? Then human existence must constantly be confronted with insecurities and recurrent uncertainties.
4. Is faith – the supreme assertion of human thought – desirable? Then must the mind of man find itself in that troublesome predicament where it ever knows less than it can believe.
5. Is the love of truth and the willingness to go wherever it leads, desirable? Then must man grow up in a world where error is present and falsehood always possible.
6. Is idealism – the approaching concept of the divine – desirable? Then must man struggle in an environment of relative goodness and beauty, surroundings stimulative of the irrepressible reach for better things.
7. Is loyalty – devotion to highest duty – desirable? Then must man carry on amid the possibilities of betrayal and desertion. The valor of devotion to duty consists in the implied danger of default.
8. Is unselfishness – the spirit of self-forgetfulness – desirable? Then must mortal man live face to face with the incessant clamoring of an inescapable self for recognition and honor. Man could not dynamically choose the divine life if there were no self-life to forsake. Man could never lay saving hold on righteousness if there were no potential evil to exalt and differentiate the good by contrast.
9. Is pleasure – the satisfaction of happiness – desirable? Then must man live in a world where the alternative of pain and the likelihood of suffering are ever-present experiential possibilities.
The second century after Christ was the best time in all the world’s history for a good religion to make progress in the Western world. During the first century Christianity had prepared itself, by struggle and compromise, to take root and rapidly spread. Christianity adopted the emperor; later, he adopted Christianity. This was a great age for the spread of a new religion. There was religious liberty; travel was universal and thought was untrammeled.
We are on the cusp of another great Empire, and along with it, Christianity will evolve to those who unite around The Life and Teachings of Jesus. It is only a matter of time, and it is inevitable irrespective of whether the world goes through more major wars or collapses of Civilization or not. #Christianity #Christian #Christ
Anything that makes you feel extremely good should always be taken sparingly, and many of these things that make you feel really good should be avoided completely. Carbohydrates are on this list, it should be a red flag that they taste so good and cause cravings. Carbohydrates are basically drugs in food form, and you get all kinds of different diseases from abusing them. It’s a very hard addiction to break as well, but humans do not require consuming carbohydrates to survive or even thrive. Our distant ancestors only ate carbohydrates one short period per year when the fruit and berries came to bear.
One thing that makes you feel really good and only creates benefits for your entire being is worshipping the Father and praying to The Creator of the Universe after you have chosen to trust Him, love Him, and have submitted your will to His. #God
When theology masters religion, religion dies; it becomes a doctrine instead of a life. The mission of theology is merely to facilitate the self-consciousness of personal spiritual experience. Theology constitutes the religious effort to define, clarify, expound, and justify the experiential claims of religion, which, in the last analysis, can be validated only by living faith. In the higher philosophy of the universe, wisdom, like reason, becomes allied to faith. Reason, wisdom, and faith are man’s highest human attainments. Reason introduces man to the world of facts, to things; wisdom introduces him to a world of truth, to relationships; faith initiates him into a world of divinity, spiritual experience.
Faith most willingly carries reason along as far as reason can go and then goes on with wisdom to the full philosophic limit; and then it dares to launch out upon the limitless and never-ending journey in the sole company of TRUTH. #Faith #Reason #Wisdom
The next truly great President will love God so much that he truly loves other humans as a natural side effect of his love for God. The two greatest commandments (according to Jesus Christ) must be fulfilled within any truly great leader as Civilization evolves forward; although, we seem to be on the cusp of a great society reset of some sort if these kinds of leaders don’t take power.
These leaders will be very courageous due to their love for God, but they also must be able to see the greater good of difficult choices and clearly understand the long-term effects of their actions. They must have intelligence and wisdom along with a fair bit of knowledge as well.
The world may crumble slowly or collapse quickly, but the end result is the same if God-loving leaders don’t take power; it is only a matter of time before a natural collapse of Civilization happens without leaders who love God and others. #God #POTUS
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 their soul to the indwelling spirit of the eternal God. #God
Man’s greatest spiritual jeopardy consists in partial progress, the predicament of unfinished growth: forsaking the evolutionary religions of fear without immediately grasping the revelatory religion of love.
The most important thing to all mortals, whether they know it or not, is to be accepted as a loyal son or daughter of The Creator of the Universe. The secret to becoming a son or daughter of God is found within the desire to be accepted into God’s divine family.
If you truly desire to be welcomed and accepted by God, your soul will grow through increasing moral decisions. And thus the path to fulfilling the command to be perfect even as the Father is perfect is paved with our decisions, and complex decisions will not cease after mortal death. The growth process will continue onward so long as you have desired and accepted your place in the divine family of God.
Genuine prayer adds to spiritual growth, modifies attitudes, and yields that satisfaction which comes from communion with divinity. It is a spontaneous outburst of God-consciousness. #prayer#God
God is spirit – spirit personality; man is also a spirit – potential spirit personality. Jesus of Nazareth attained the full realization of this potential of spirit personality in human experience; therefore his life of achieving the Father’s will becomes man’s most real and ideal revelation of the personality of God. Even though the personality of the Father can be grasped only in actual religious experience, in Jesus’ earth life we are inspired by the perfect demonstration of such a realization and revelation of the personality of God in a truly human experience. #God
Jesus earnestly warned his apostles against the foolishness of the child of God who presumes upon the Father’s love. He declared that the heavenly Father is not a lax, loose, or foolishly indulgent parent who is ever ready to condone sin and forgive recklessness. He cautioned his hearers not mistakenly to apply his illustrations of father and son so as to make it appear that God is like some overindulgent and unwise parents who conspire with the foolish of earth to encompass the moral undoing of their thoughtless children, and who are thereby certainly and directly contributing to the delinquency and early demoralization of their own offspring.
The Lord our God is one Lord, and you should love Him with all your mind and heart while you do your very best to love all His children as you love yourself. This one God is our heavenly Father, in whom all things consist, and who dwells, by His Spirit, in every sincere human soul. We who are the children of God should learn how to commit the keeping of our souls to Him as to a faithful Creator and Father. With our heavenly Father all things are possible. Since He is the Creator, having made all things and all beings, it could not be otherwise. Though we cannot see God, we can know Him. By daily living the will of the Father in heaven, we can reveal Him to our fellows.
The divine riches of God’s character must be infinitely deep and eternally wise. We cannot search out God by knowledge, but we can know Him in our hearts by personal experience. While His justice may be past finding out, His mercy may be received by the humblest being on earth. While the Father fills the universe, He also lives in our hearts. The mind of man is human, mortal, but the growing soul is eternal and immortal. God is not only all-powerful but also all-wise. If our earth parents, being of evil tendency, know how to love their children and bestow good gifts on them, how much more must the good Father in heaven know how wisely to love His children on earth and to bestow suitable blessings upon them.
The Father in heaven will not suffer a single child on earth to perish if that child has a desire to find the Father and truly longs to be like Him. Our Father even loves the wicked and is always kind to the ungrateful. If more human beings could only know about the goodness of God, they would certainly be led to repent of their evil ways and forsake all known sin. All good things come down from the Father of light, in whom there is no variableness neither shadow of changing. The spirit of the true God is in man’s heart. He intends that all should be brothers and sisters. When one begins to feel after God, that is evidence that God has found them, and that they are in quest of knowledge about Him. We live in God and God dwells in us.
Henceforth will I do my good deeds in secret; I pray most when by myself. I will judge not that I may not be unfair to my fellows. I am going to learn to love my enemies; I have not truly mastered this practice of being Godlike. But most of all, this great and glorious Being is my spiritual Father; I am his child. And by no other means than my faith (trust, not mere belief) in Him and my honest desire to be like Him, I am eventually to find Him on Paradise at the center of all Creation and eternally serve Him.