|
Jesus and how he lived it." (2090)
If Jesus could make a morontia-style appearance to a gathering of Urantia Book readers today, what would he tell them? Surely it would include, "Your mission to the world shall consist in the life you will live among men."
[Please note that, in this last sentence, the use of the words "shall" and "will" is strictly grammatical. "Shall" is an imperative. Effectively it means "must."]
Even today the vast majority of the world's population, including most Christians, live in a state of spiritual illiteracy not much advanced from that of the Samaritans of Sychar.
The world needs to learn that people are not inherently evil, they are not the children of the devil, nor are they animals. Rather, though most are still in kindergarten, we are all sons and daughters in a single family of a God who is truth, beauty, goodness, and mercy, personified as the God of Infinite Love.
Acceptance of our family status and responsibilities immediately places us on a stairway of spiritual progress--a stairway leading directly from our mortal state, thence through the morontia life, and finally to a spirit existence on a journey the ultimate step for which is attainment of the very presence of the Universal Father.
Every step on this spiritual journey has a single step immediately above it and another that is immediately below. A universe rule is that for whichever step we are currently on, we will learn the lessons for the next stage from those immediately above us, and we will pass the knowledge of our current status to those immediately below us.
This teaching is not by rote learning. It is by living example.
Thus to the disciples at Alexandria, and the apostles, the morontia Jesus commanded: "You are all to proclaim the gospel of love and truth by the lives which you live in the flesh."
Those of us who are blessed by having possession of the Urantia Papers are in the same position as were the disciples at Alexandria, and the apostles, relative to those at locations such as Sychar. We also are expected to pass on the lessons on spiritual advancement by the actual lives we lead in the flesh. Jesus asks much more from those who have already climbed their first step:
"You shall love one another with a new and startling affection, even as I have loved you. You will serve mankind with a new and amazing devotion, even as I have served you. And when men see you so love them, and when they behold how fervently you serve them, they will perceive that you have become faith-fellows of the kingdom of heaven, and they will follow after the Spirit of Truth which they see in your lives, to the finding of eternal salvation." (2044)
Having climbed the first step of learning our responsibilities in joining God's family on Urantia, it appears that we place ourselves in a perilous position if we refuse the role of teacher to those immediately below us.
The Papers make it quite clear that our teaching role must be through the actual life we ourselves lead. Nothing else will suffice. The way to the Father is not by saying one thing and doing another. And there is absolutely no way we can attain our ends by deception.
"You shall love one another with a new and startling affection, even as I have loved you."
"Go thou and do likewise."
|
|
