August 6th, 1965
I think it is pretty well demonstrated in the experience of the human race that man cannot attain his full stature as a rightly fashioned person without the inspiration and guidance of religion. Religious faith which springs out of the vision of transcendent reality and an ultimately divine purpose is a stabilizing power of the first importance, even for health of body as well as for peace of mind. It not only stabilizes one’s life, it beautifies and consecrates it. It infuses a marching power. It liberates and lifts. It opens the window and doors of the person’s life for action. It enlarges perspective and is essentially a dynamic of action. It makes one feel himself to be a citizen of an enlarged universe, a friendly universe.
We are passing through an epoch, which is proving to be a very critical time for all existing forms and types of religious faith. The Renaissance of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries began the assaults on contemporary religious faiths, and this Renaissance spirit has gone on expanding its scientific conquests and increasing its assaults on the faiths, which men used to live comfortably. The period of a few centuries has discovered more facts and scientific processes than al the millenniums on man’s life on earth before this birth of the scientific and historical spirit began its conquests centuries ago.
Now comes the Urantia revelation to shed light upon the path of national life as well as upon religious experience and personal conduct, to give man a clear understanding of his past, his present, and his future. For the first time, God has been revealed in all his majesty and glory. We see him as a loving Father, and through his beloved son, Jesus of Nazareth, man has been revealed to God as well as God to man. And we who have this message are the men and women who have been called to take the first steps in offering the new light to a frustrated church and a distracted world. We are the first light to illuminate the path of deliverance from the chaos, confusion, and darkness of the present planetary dilemma. The Urantia revelation is regarded as a feature of the progressive evolution of human society, and ours is the transcendent privilege of presenting this revelation to the peoples of a strife-torn world.
“The great and immediate service of true religion is the establishment of an enduring unity in human experience, a lasting peace, and a profound assurance. The truly religious individual seeks to identify the self with the universe and then to dedicate the activities of this unified self to the service of the universe family of fellow beings, human and superhuman.” (P. 66, 67)
Having achieved consciousness and self-consciousness with what seems like a modest power of choice, man’s further progress will depend upon his willingness to grow and to pay the price of growth. There is no principle at work in life, which will carry man automatically upward unless he himself makes the effort to acquire a spiritualized consciousness. There is no principle at work in life, which will carry man automatically upward unless he himself makes the effort to acquire a spiritualized consciousness. There is no trend that works inevitably in the right direction without his cooperation. We cannot have fruits without roots, or a harvest without growth, and it is the difficulty of growing these desirable qualities that receives insufficient attention. Jesus “went about doing good” at the material level but he knew that his destiny was not to become a mere social or political reformer. His primary concern was to feed men with the bread of heaven, to awaken a higher spiritual consciousness in them.
To us, religion must become a way of living as well as a technique of thinking. The Urantia Book says:
Religion is faith, trust, and assurance.
Religion inspires men to live courageously and joyfully on the face of the earth.
Religion is an impulse for organizing the soul for dynamic service.
Religious living is devoted living.
Religion is a meaningful way of living dynamically face to face with the commonplace realities of everyday life.
“Of all human knowledge, that which is of greatest value is to know the religious life of Jesus and how he lived it.”
May God give to each of us moments of complete serenity, moments in which our spirits may commune with his Spirit to the end that we may make the final decision to allow our highest motives to command our lives. Such is an experience beyond words, culminating in rapture, and the release of the tremendous energies of inward power, which we all possess. The Urantia Book tells us on page 556, “Few mortals ever dare to draw anything like the sum of personality credits established by the combined ministries of nature and grace. The majority of impoverished souls are truly rich, but they refuse to believe it.”
We are built, as Shakespeare tells us, “With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls.”
God did not cease speaking to the human race when the prophets of old departed this world. He is still speaking, still communicating, and is as eager as ever to have listening and receptive souls.
I beseech our Heavenly Father to give to each of us the yearning and the courage to live in accordance with his invitation-command – to be perfect, even as he is perfect – to the end that his kingdom may come to this troubled world and the brotherhood of man will indeed become a reality.