SpiritualFamily.Net: All site blogs: September 2024

LIFE IN THE IN-BETWEEN TIMES

Paul Kemp Administrator — Sun, 29 Sep 2024 14:36:23 +0000

LIFE IN THE IN-BETWEEN TIMES

The imaginal goop that precedes better days

Sep 27, 2024

Right now I know very few people whose hearts are not sore. The stressful dynamics of world events, political corruption, climate emergency, almost ubiquitous economic anxiety, and overall meanness of these times have turned millions of lives into individual reflections of a crumbling world.

I’m reminded of the caterpillar, which in the natural course of events disintegrates into a goop of imaginal cells. I kid you not, that’s what they are called. And from the imaginal soup emerges a butterfly; the ugly wormlike creature that once hugged the ground disappears into nothing, so the most beautiful creature can take flight into the sky.

I think that’s where we are now. We’ve “hugged the ground” - metaphysically, an over-attachment to worldly matters - which has led to inevitable disintegration, the caterpillar literally digesting itself from the inside out. And from our chrysalis will emerge the butterfly. We are dying to who we used to be, all of us, individually and collectively, and while it’s tempting to think only doom awaits us, that which is doom to the caterpillar is the womb of the butterfly. Life doesn’t stop. It doesn’t ever stop. It creates anew when we are willing to, when our exhaustion fades, when our inner work is done, and when we have learned the lessons that were up for us to learn. Digesting the meaning of that which fades away, we become the space of our own imagining.

Years ago when I was a very young woman, I was rushed to the hospital one night in New York City. I was in terrible pain suffering from an acute episode of colitis. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, the people around me looked scared, and in my pain I was panicked. I remember the young female doctor who, having figured out what was wrong with me, handed me a glass of water, told me to keep drinking, and looked at me very intently as though she was transmitting medicine through her gaze.

“I know you’re in terrible pain,” she said, "but listen to me. You have colitis. It is painful, I know, but it is not serious. You are not in trouble. The pain is very bad right now but it is going to subside. You are going to get through this.”

As she spoke to me, my pain immediately began to ease. I realized at that moment that my panic, more than the colitis, was the source of my continuing pain. That doctor was like an angel the way she dealt with me and I have never forgotten her. She did more than allay my colitis, she allayed my fear.

For those of us feeling hopelessness and an understandable cynicism in this moment - who have watched the world as we knew it fall into serious disrepair, who feel the personal effects of things having gone quite seriously wrong in one way or another - let’s be to one another what that doctor was to me that night. She knew my biggest problem was not the problem itself, but my fear of it. My fear that the pain wouldn’t end. My fear that the problem was more serious than it actually was.

We will emerge whole from these times because that is how nature operates. Faith is not blind, but visionary. The only thing dying here is the caterpillar, whose ending spells nothing but a new beginning - and of something far more beautiful. We will not be the same people we were before, or the same country we were before, or the same world we were before. The option to stave off our karmic debts has expired. We will fall on the sword of our own reckoning, or we will rise to the occasion and take up the task of re-creation that lies before of us. We will have scars but we will also have wings. Both personally and collectively, our disintegrating world is now the imaginal precursor of a world that still yet can be.

“The pain is very bad right now but it is going to subside. You are going to get through this.”

An angel once told me so.

The Need and Importance of The Urantia Book in the Christian Church

Iheanacho — Fri, 06 Sep 2024 01:37:10 +0000

The Need and Importance of The Urantia Book in the Christian Church

This is an address delivered to a group of pastors, ministers, and heads of churches in Lagos, Nigeria, by Pastor Iheanacho Uwaoma of the Positive Way Mission Church, during the Jesus Birthday Celebration of August 21, 2024,

Dear brethren, friends and fellow ministers of the gospel, I consider myself very privileged to have this opportunity to address you all, great men and women assembled here today. I also consider myself highly favored for being divinely led to The Urantia Book with my family, and later my church and the worldwide community of users of this wonderful spiritual masterpiece.

The Urantia Book is a positive, balanced, enlightening, spiritually enriching revelation to all humanity in this dispensation/epoch. As Jesus came to fulfill, instead of destroying, the Law, the Urantia revelation has come to give wings to the grace and truth of the Christian faith, so that it now soars above the ground, on high, thereby drawing all men and women to a living relationship with the Father in Heaven and with our fellows. Not a jot or tittle of it was authored by any human on earth.

One may ask, since we have the Bible, why do we bother about any other revelations, knowing that there are many false teachings going around in the whole world at present? The Urantia Book itself gives us the right answer to the question at 3:5.10: “Is the love of truth and the willingness to go wherever it leads, desirable? Then must man grow up in a world where error is present and falsehood always possible.” The book therefore provides all with what is essential for us to grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).

Every human being, Christians included, needs the assurance that the very God of Heaven and Earth is living close to, indeed inside, each one of us. The Bible hinted at it, The Urantia Book highlighted and elaborated this great truth—that the heavenly father through his divine presence in you relates with you as the spirit component of your being.

The Christian church needs to know emphatically about the spirit of man as revealed through the Urantia papers. It needs to know that “…an actual fragment of the living God resides within the intellect of every normal minded and morally conscious Urantia mortal.” (5: 0.1)

The book calls this fragment the Thought Adjuster and Mystery Monitor. It renders clearer the meaning of the scriptural verse—see Rom 8:16: “The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God.” While in The Urantia Book we read: “And this spirit of truth, speaking for the spiritual endowment of your souls, will help you to know that you are the sons of God. It will unfailingly bear witness with the Father’s indwelling presence, your spirit…telling you that you are in reality the sons of God.” (146:3.6) See also Prov. 20:2: “The spirit of man…” and Ecc. 12:7.

The Urantia Book fills the need for the abridgment of the feeling and sense of isolation that plagues this world. It provides the revelation of the existence of not just one heaven and one earth in creation, but the existence of the heaven of heavens, millions of earths in our universe and trillions of earths in the universe of universes all teeming with uncountable beings many of whom are mortals just like we are. It reveals the truth of our being members in a divine, grand and cosmic family relationship on our ascension journey to paradise, striving to fulfill the mandate of the Father that has called us to perfection.

One other need the Urantia revelation fulfills for the church is that of clarity. So many matters that we waited for in the by-and-by to understand them better, God has mercifully revealed and made them known to us at this time through The Urantia Book. Time and space constrain me but let me mention some here without giving much elaboration:

The nature of your paradise ascension career—the heaven we are going to.

God’s divine purpose for you and for all. And the exposition on myriad divine personalities and beings marshaled to assist us to reach the goal.

The provision that God has furnished to us to guarantee our survival if that is what we choose.

Clarity about the material/human mind. This book states that “Material mind is the arena in which human personalities live, are self-conscious, make decisions, choose God or forsake him, eternalize or destroy themselves.” (111:1.3).

Our safety as citizens of this world and this universe. Those who are mindful to do the will of our heavenly Father we can state, like Jesus, “I do not believe that real harm can befall me; I do not believe that my lifework can really be jeopardized by anything my enemies might wish to visit upon me, and surely, we have no violence to fear from our friends. I am absolutely assured that the entire universe is friendly to me—this all-powerful truth I insist on believing with a wholehearted trust despite all appearances to the contrary.” (133:1.4).

Love, presented as the greatest spirit reality and the greatest relationship in the world and universe. It comes from God and he who dwells in love dwells in God. It is simply the desire to do good to others.

Faith. It initiates man into the world of divinity (103:9.6), is the supreme assertion of the human mind (3:5.9) and is the source of divine energy to remake the world. (94:6.8)

Prayer—the best way to contact God, asking God for wisdom and strength while attacking problems at hand. (91:6.5,7)

Angels, called ministering spirits, all taking their origin from the infinite spirit. (30:2.82)

Jesus, revealed as God incarnate in man. Our world Urantia belongs to a local universe called Nebadon whose creator and sovereign is the Godman of Nebadon, Jesus of Nazareth and Micheal of Nebadon. (32:0.3)

Your responsibility and God’s responsibility for salvation (survival).

The devil’s current position and place in the scheme of things in our world.

The relationships connecting error, evil, sin, and iniquity. The place of forgiveness with God and man.

What Jesus himself stated for one to do to be saved: “Believe this gospel of the kingdom; accept divine forgiveness. By faith recognize the indwelling spirit of God, whose acceptance makes you a son of God.” (150: 5.2)

The place of Adam and Eve in the history and origin of mankind on this world.

So what is the significance and importance of the UB revelation to the world, especially the Christian church?

The revelation message cites a large percentage of the Christian Bible text. It testifies that the truth about the divine in our world today has its highest concentration within the Christian message.

It challenges Christians to higher levels of consecration, shifting emphasis from atonement to attunement with the divine spirit within every one of us. And it also enhances zeal through enriched knowledge from contact with the book.

It gives clear guidelines to knowing and doing God’s will by furnishing us with the true nature, character and attributes of God.

It furnishes the Christian with the highest level of information about our beloved Lord and savior Jesus, Christ Micheal, the son of God, concerning his preincarnate existence as the creator of our universe. And it even more beautifully presents us with the greatest information and knowledge every believer ever would desire to have about the very life and teachings of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the man of the realm—the son of man. This fills the gaps of information in the Bible concerning him who is fairer than all the sons of men.

It gives the Christian a complete and balanced insight about the relationship that science, philosophy and religion share together, creating a balance in our appreciation of the truth about God and our existence in the universe to the highest level we can intellectually grasp in this world.

It gives the Christian a full understanding of the heaven we all are striving to enter—indeed, the seven levels of heaven in existence.

Its revelations give the assurance that this world is still good and full of God’s glory as Prophet Isaiah saw in his vision. It is a proper place where all are valued equally and afforded the opportunity to receive proper training and experience to prepare us to render good services to all, both in this world and beyond.

The book is wholly positive, and it makes one acquire a positive mindset in life. And it is a fantastic, inexhaustible source material for every gospel minister’s use in preparing positive, enriching, and inspiring messages for the spiritual growth of the congregations.

It puts the stories of the Bible in their right perspectives. It places historical facts, truths, myths, legends, fables, evolutionary developments, and revelations in the Bible texts in the correct place in one’s mind for proper discernment and application.

It is indeed the gift of the divine to everyone in our world today.

We are implored to explore the book for ourselves with an open, unbiased and bold mind. And we are to proceed to live based on the highest consciousness of the truth we acquire. “Choosing to respond to divine leading; sincerely basing the human life on the highest consciousness of truth, beauty, and goodness, and then coordinating these qualities of divinity through wisdom, worship, faith, and love.” (110:3.7)

Afterwards, let us formulate our own independent opinions. Let’s have conversations. Let’s take the message to the whole world as is required of us good stewards of the oracles of God in our generation.

We highly appreciate all the people known and unknown to us that have already contributed to our mission. Of note are: The Urantia Library, The Urantia Foundation, The Christ Micheal Center, Pastor Soren Vestergaard, Mrs. Adedoyin Awoyinka and many others. We pray for more grace and blessings upon them all.

Thanks so much for listening. God bless you all in Jesus’ name.

Amen.

The mission statement of the Positive Way Mission Church in Lagos is to deliver the ideal ministration for a divine lifting in the minds and lives of all. Its vision is that all enjoy the best of God in this life and in eternity.

Uganda Fortportal Urantia Spiritual Brotherhood fellowship

Niwamanya Onesmas — Mon, 02 Sep 2024 04:02:20 +0000

We had a wonderful fellowship yesterday with our guest, Brother Ben Khart from Kampala, who has been a long-time reader of the Urantia Book. He spent two days with us, and the fellowship lasted for almost five hours. We are grateful for his presence and invite more brothers and sisters like him to share their experiences with us. We hope those who attended the fellowship can testify to the wealth of knowledge and insights they gained from Brother Ben. We look forward to his return for the next sharing session.

We encourage those who found the experience interesting and inspiring to share it with their friends, which can help transform many lives. We extend our gratitude to Brother Ben and appreciate everyone who made this event possible