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attendant upon the mission of demonstrating a better way of salvation to men as you experience the satisfaction of discovering for yourselves the beauties and realities of the eternal truths and supreme grandeurs of the kingdom of heaven? Are you fearful, soft, and ease-seeking? Are you afraid to trust your future in the hands of the God of truth, whose sons you are? Are you distrustful of the Father, whose children you are? Will you go back to the easy path of the certainty and intellectual settledness of the religion of traditional authority, or will you gird yourselves to go forward with me into that uncertain and troublous future of proclaiming the new truths of the religion of the spirit, the kingdom of heaven in the hearts of men?"
After a short break, during which the band considered this challenge, Jesus continued. In substance, he said: "I am calling upon you to be born again, to be born of the spirit. I am calling you out of the darkness of authority and the lethargy of tradition into the transcendent light of making for yourselves the greatest discovery that the human soul can make--the supernal experience of finding God for yourself, in yourself, and of yourself--and of doing all this as a fact in your own personal experience. In so doing your religion shall change from mere intellectual belief to the actual experience of that living faith which is able to grasp the reality of God and all that relates to the divine spirit of the Father. This religion of the spirit consists in a personal and progressive revelation that ever beckons you on toward higher and holier achievements in spiritual ideals and eternal realities.
"Never can the religions of authority come to unification. Human unity and mortal brotherhood can be achieved only by and through the super-endowment of the religion of the spirit. The hope of unity can only be realized when, and as, the divergent religions of authority become impregnated with, and overshadowed by, the unifying and ennobling religion of the spirit--the religion of personal and individual spiritual experience.
"The religions of authority require of mankind uniformity in belief, but this is impossible of realization in this troubled and divided world. The religion of the spirit requires only unity of experience--the unity of destiny--while making full allowance for diversity of belief. It requires only uniformity of insight, not uniformity of viewpoint and outlook. It does not demand uniformity of intellectual views, only unity of spirit feeling. Thereby it grows into the increasing joy and liberty of ennobling deeds of loving service and merciful ministration.
"Never forget there is only one adventure which is more satisfying and thrilling than the attempt to discover the will of the living God, and that is the supreme experience of honestly trying to do that divine will. And fail not to remember that the will of God can be done in any earthly occupation. Some callings are not holy and others secular. All things are sacred in the lives of those who are spirit led; that is, subordinated to truth, ennobled by love, dominated by mercy, and restrained by fairness--justice. The spirit which my Father and I send into the world is not only the Spirit of Truth but also the spirit of idealistic beauty.
"Those who are born of the spirit of God shall henceforth discern the word of God regardless of whence it appears to take origin. Divine truth must not be discounted because the channel of its bestowal is apparently human. Many have minds which accept the theory of God while they spiritually fail to realize the presence of' God. This is why I have so often taught you that God as presence can best be realized by acquiring the spiritual attitude of a sincere child. But it is not the mental immaturity of the child that I commend to you. Rather, it is the spiritual simplicity of such a fully-trusting little one. It is not so important that you should know about the fact of God as that you should increasingly learn to experience and feel the presence of God.
"When you begin to find God in your soul, presently you will begin to discover him in the soul of others and, eventually, in all the creatures and creations of a mighty universe. But what chance will the Father have to appear as a god of supreme loyalties and divine ideals in your souls if you give little or no time to the thoughtful contemplation of eternal realities? While the mind is not the seat of the spiritual nature, it is surely the gateway thereto.
"I ask you not to try to prove to others that you have found God. You cannot produce a valid proof. Nevertheless, there are two positive and powerful demonstrations of the fact that you are God-knowing, and they are:
1. The fruits of the spirit show forth in your daily routine life.
2. The fact that your entire life plan furnishes positive proof that you have unreservedly risked everything you are and have on the adventure of survival after death in the pursuit of the hope of finding the God of eternity, whose presence you have foretasted in time.
"You are now my apostles and to you religion must not become a theologic shelter to which you may flee in order to escape the rugged realities of idealistic adventure nor the difficulties of making spiritual progress. Rather must your religion forthwith become a fact of real experience testifying that God has found you, idealized you, ennobled you, and spiritualized you--and thereby you witness to your fellows that you have enlisted in the eternal adventure of finding the God who has already found and sonshipped you. Let us now be on our way. "
Adapted from Paper 155, Sections 5 & 6
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