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Rule for living (continued)
Jesus transcended the teachings of his forbears when he boldly substituted clean hearts for clean hands as the mark of true religion.
Jesus taught: Emotionally, people react individually. The only uniform thing about them is the Indwelling Spirit of God. Thus, only through and by appeal to this indwelling Spirit can mankind ever attain unity and brotherhood.
Anger is a material (animalistic) manifestation indicating failure of the spiritual nature to gain control. "Anger rests in the bosom of fools."
Jesus said: Let your hearts be so dominated by love that your indwelling Spirit will have little trouble in delivering you from the tendency to give vent to those outbursts of animal anger which are so inconsistent with the status of a child of the Father.
Jesus always preached temperance and consistency--pointing out that excessive zeal can lead to recklessness and presumption, while too much prudence and discretion can lead to cowardice and failure.
Jesus said: Your forebears feared God because he was mighty and mysterious. You shall adore him because he is magnificent in love, plenteous in mercy, and glorious in truth.
"I have come into the world…"
I have come into the world to put love in the place of fear, joy in the place of sorrow, confidence in the place of dread, loving service and appreciative worship in the place of slavish bondage and meaningless ceremonies.
You do well to be meek before God and self-controlled before men; but let your meekness be of spiritual origin and not the self-deceptive display of a self-conscious sense of self-righteous superiority. My Father disdains pride, loathes hypocrisy, and abhors iniquity.
The Father has sent me into the world to show how he desires to indwell and guide all his earthly children; and I have so lived this life in the flesh as to inspire everybody likewise ever to seek to know and do the will of the indwelling Spirit of the heavenly Father.
Jesus' kingdom is founded on love, proclaimed in mercy, and established by unselfish service.
"Let me emphatically state…"
Let me emphatically state this eternal truth: if you, by truth coordination learn to exemplify in your lives this beautiful wholeness of righteousness, your acquaintances will then seek after you that they may gain what you have acquired.
The measure wherewith truth seekers are drawn to you represents the measure of your truth endowment, your righteousness. The extent to which you have to go with your message to the people is, in a way, the measure of your failure to live the whole or righteous life, the truth coordinated life.
Many souls can best be led to love the unseen God by first being taught to love their brothers and sisters whom they can see.
When religion is wholly spiritual in motive, it makes all of life more worthwhile, filling it with high purposes, dignifying it with transcendent values, inspiring it with superb motives, all the while comforting the human soul with a sublime and sustaining hope.
The most thrilling and inspiring of all possible human experiences is the personal quest for truth, the determination to explore the realities of personal religious experience, and the exhilaration of facing the perils of intellectual discovery. It is the supreme satisfaction of experiencing the personal victory of spiritual faith over intellectual doubt as it is honestly won in that supreme adventure of all human existence--man seeking God for himself, of himself, and as himself--and finding him.
The religion of the spirit means effort, struggle, conflict, faith, determination, love, loyalty, and progress.
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