Your mission to the world is founded on the fact that I lived a God-revealing life among you;...and it shall consist in the life that you will live among men--the actual and living experience of loving men and serving them, even as I have loved and served you. (2043)

   Many times in the Urantia Papers we are exhorted to live as Jesus lived.

   You may preach a religion about Jesus but, perforce, you must live the religion of Jesus. (2091)

   But in no way does this mean that we are to copy the material life of Jesus. It is Jesus' spiritual life that we are exhorted to live--and to do so we have to know the mind of Jesus. Why? So that we might 'sense' how a perfectly spiritualized mind would respond to the ordinary everyday experiences of living.

   Our quote from p. 2091 implies that unless we can actually live the spiritualized life we waste our time in preaching about Jesus. What is now needed….

   Christianity has indeed done a great service for this world, but what is now most needed is Jesus. The world needs to see Jesus living again on earth in the experience of spirit-born mortals who effectively reveal the Master to all men. It is futile to talk about a revival of primitive Christianity; you must go forward from where you find yourselves. (2084)

   There have been many most wonderful lives lived over the past 2000 years by men and women who truly discovered the meaning of  "living as Jesus lived." So what was it that they discovered in the Gospels that acted so uniquely as their guiding light?

   Along with the earliest of the Christians they were probably all aware of our indwelling by the Spirit of the Father--most often referred to by Paul and by John in verses such as "Know you not that you are the temple of God, that the Spirit of God dwells within you," (1 Cor. 3:16) and "if we love one another, God dwells in us, and his love is perfected in us." (1 John 4:12)

   But their primary source of understanding of the mind of Jesus almost certainly had its foundations in the "Sermon on the Mount," as presented in the Gospel of Matthew, plus some simple parable stories that Jesus used so expertly.

    The Sermon on the Mount begins with what have been called:

The Beatitudes

   Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
   Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
   Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
   Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
   Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
   Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
   Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
   Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
   Blessed are you, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
   Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Arrogance and Humility

   In modern times some of the phrasing of these words has acquired an altered meaning from the original translation. In the Urantia Papers, Jesus illustrates the meaning of "poor in spirit" in a story of a wealthy Pharisee who strode into the synagogue declaring his thanks to God that he was not like that miserable publican over there in the corner, and then followed up with a catalogue of his praiseworthy attributes. In contrast the publican prayed to God contritely in the words, "God have mercy on me, a miserable sinner."

   The first was full of his own arrogant self-importance and puffed up with conceit and pride. The second was humble before God, he was teachable, and anxious to do better. It is in the publican that we find the meaning of "poor in spirit."

   Likewise the meaning of "those who mourn" is seen in those who feel genuine sympathy for the unfortunate or distressed, while "the meek" are those who are the opposite of arrogant, bullying, dominating.