I was driving through Cathedral City, California
this week and I saw a young, healthy looking, not badly dressed man
holding a sign at one of the intersections asking people for
money. His sign read: "Homeless. Need
$money$ WWJD?" (what would Jesus do?) And I thought,
well, the Jesus I know would say "pick up your bed and walk"
... for if Jesus would say this to a man who was an invalid for
thirty-eight years I cannot imagine that he wouldn't say the same to
this young man. In other words, Jesus was telling the man who
was an invalid to get a better image of himself ... to believe in
himself ... to have faith that G-d has a better purpose for him ...
for only in elevating his mind to be receptive to G-d would he have
been healed. The young man at the intersection asking for money
"caused" me to think about how the world has given us so
many contradictions about the Master Mind Jesus. Yet, even with
all the contradictions and outright ignorance of his philosophy that
has been taught throughout the ages ... his consciousness of our
One-ness with the Spirit (Mother/Father G-d) has never been surpassed
by any one yet.
"Without
a doubt, the most important individual figure in the history of the
world is Jesus Christ. For two thousand years many millions of lives
have been influenced by his teachings, as variously interpreted by
many divisions and schisms that have sprung up in his name.
(Note: there are over 38,000 different Christian sects) If you
happen to be a Christian, reared in either the Catholic or the
Protestant tradition, or if you are part of one of the Jewish orders,
or even if you consider yourself to be a non-believer, an agnostic, or
even a practicing atheist, without question, you have formed attitudes
or perhaps strong prejudices about Jesus. This is because the whole
flow of western civilization has been so completely involved with the
organized Christian church and the outreach of the Christian ideals.
He
discovered something in himself, which he believed was fundamental to
all persons. His teaching was that the Kingdom of God is within you
– that this dynamic potential to achieve and to overcome is a level
within yourself that the Apostle Paul called, "Christ in you, the
hope of glory." [Corinthians. 1:27] Jesus said, and mind you, he
said this: "...the works that I do shall he [you] do also; and
greater works than these shall he [you] do...." [John 14:12] That
is the key.
Surely,
Jesus has a message for us today. But we must see the difference
between what I call the religion about Jesus and the religion of
Jesus. Theology, the religion about Jesus, talks of the Divinity of
Jesus and that we must believe in him to be saved. On the other hand,
the religion of Jesus, as found in his teachings, emphasizes the
Divinity of man, and that if you believe in your innate unity with
God, you contact a Dynamic Power, then you are one with the flow of the
means by which you can change your life. This is the fundamental that
I think has been grossly understated, if not lost. I believe that this
is what Jesus was all about."
- Eric Butterworth, A New Look at Jesus
It
seems almost too incredible to most people
that G-d thinks through us, yet if we look at the way in which ideas
and communications are shared, we realize that there truly is only One
Intelligence that permeates Life. Humans communicate with each
other even when we don't speak each other's language. Humans
communicate with animals and birds and other forms of life as well.
This is because this Intelligence that permeates all of Life makes
this possible. Even though humans communicate with all these
forms of Life, most people only believe that certain saints, mystics
and deities can communicate with the One that makes all this possible
... G-d.
"We are individual points in the
Consciousness of God, or the original Creative Spirit of the Universe.
We are points where It thinks through us, as us, or, as we say, God as
man in man is man. ... But the God that is in man is the same God that
is Universal. There is no wall of separation, no barrier, no
place where one begins and the other leaves off. All is One and
One is All. The creativity of thought is not dependent upon the
thinker. Only the choice of thinking is dependent on the
thinker. The creative activity of thought belongs to the
Universe. ... If we had to make things happen, or push our thought
out, or influence or dominate and beat down the opposition, we should
be faced with an impossible task. We never try to coerce
anything in dealing with the laws of nature. .... One of the
things we must come to understand in dealing with the Laws of Spirit
is that we are still operating in a realm of Law and Order."
- Ernest Holmes, Living the Science of
Mind
The
Master Mind Jesus' communication with G-d gave us an open invitation
to do the same. We can all communicate with G-d, we just must be
open to it and believe in ourselves. As the Master Mind Jesus
stated: "you
believe in God, believe also in me."
And he wasn't referring to himself personally but speaking to the
universal "me" in all of us. Now, most theologians
will disagree with me, but like the architect of most of the New
Testament, they too want to foster religion while the Master Mind
Jesus was instead teaching us to "develop consciousness" and
gain a greater understanding and awareness of our relationship to the
Infinite. Each of us can say, "I
believe in me"
... and this will be the truth for us soon enough as we impress this
upon our consciousness. But, to say that someone who does not
believe in Jesus cannot use the same spiritual laws that Jesus used
would be nonsense. These laws are available to All and to All
alike. "G-d is no respecter of persons" we can read in
the science of mind and, as I often say, the Master Mind Jesus stated
that "it rains on the good and the bad alike" ... the pious
and the pagan the saints and the so called sinners the just and the
unjust.
It does not take much study in metaphysics or
legitimate spiritual writings to understand what made Jesus so
outstanding. He believed in himself more than others and this
belief in himself translated into a greater belief in G-d than others.
He accepted what he believed his purpose to be and never wavered in
that which he was called to do to demonstrate it. And this too,
sets him apart from those of us who still are influenced by the
race-mind. Most importantly, Jesus rarely ever forgot that he
was totally dependent on Principle ... that G-d is All-in-All; all
Power, all Intelligence, all Presence. We must always remember
and never forget that those of "lesser faith than Jesus"
authored the scriptures that detail his life experiences. And,
unless "the mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus" ...
there is always going to be "interpretation" rather than
"translation" ... and besides that, Jesus spoke Aramaic, a
language that was foreign to those who wrote the scriptures, which
provided an even greater opportunity to interpret rather than
translate the words attributed to him. I believe that when the
Master Mind Jesus broke the Sabbath, it was a significant event that
was evidence of his break with religion and religious dogma, and from
that point on, to use a contemporary phrase, he was "spiritual
but not religious."
He realized and identified with the truth that G-d's Love and Law is
available to everyone ... and that means you and me ... and that these
laws are universal, eternal and immutable.
Let's
let these words ring true for ourselves as never before: "I
believe in me." We must
believe in ourselves. We must believe in our ability to choose
rightly, to be decisive, specific and definite. In no other way
can the Infinite respond to us affirmatively. As we study the
way in which Jesus demonstrated the Truth, we will find that he was
always specific and definite. He always knew the point at which
he expected and believed that G-d would be revealed and realized, and
we can do this too. "You may
know all things by a little persistence. Therefore, cultivate
persistence. Get a good idea of what you can do and carry it out. Keep
this word: "I am satisfied with myself," wrote
the mystical Emma Curtis Hopkins
Let us
"identify" with the Power of G-d in our mind, just as the
Master Mind Jesus did and in this "identification" let us
know that G-d sees each of us in Its image and likeness ... so let us
not only declare without doubting,
"I believe in me" ... let's go even further and declare,
"I am satisfied with myself!"
AND
SO IT IS!
Keep
the
faith!
Rev.
Henry Bates
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