Matt. 6:9 “Pray in this manner: Our Father…..”
John 20:17 “Jesus said… I am ascending to my Father and
your Father, and my God and your God.”
Luke 15:11-14 & 20-24 “And Jesus said to them, A man had two sons;
And his younger son said to him, My father, give me the portion which is coming
to me… and (he) went to a far country, and there he wasted his wealth in
extravagant living. And when all he had
was gone… he began to be in need… And he
rose up and came to his father. And
while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion on him,
and he ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.
And his son said to him, My father, I have sinned before heaven and
before you, and I am not worthy to be called your son. But his father said to his servants, bring
the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his
feet; and bring and kill the fat ox, and let us eat and be merry; For this my
son was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found.”
If you look
in your Bible, the section starting with the Gospels is labeled, The New Testament.
This is because Jesus presented a whole
new way to relate to God. The God of the
Old Testament is a demanding deity who is called, Lord. The God of Jesus is an ever-loving, forgiving,
caring God and Jesus called him “Father”.
Your role according to the Old Testament is that of “serf”, serving your
Lord. Jesus knew that the Divine loves
each of us intensely. He knew that the
role we play is more that of son or daughter.
Though our human personality may be nothing more than “serf”, our inner
essence, the part of us that is eternal is a divine expression of God and dear
to Spirit. The question is “What part
are we living our life from?”
Each of us as
the child of God can experience this love as if for a Father’s “only begotten
son” (or
daughter). No one is loved
more than another. You cannot earn this
love and you cannot have it rescinded.
It is your Divine Inheritance!
You can turn
away from God’s love. You can journey to
the far country where you block out God’s love.
You can pretend there is no God, and do terrible things. But, God never turns away from loving you. God is there to embrace you the moment you
turn back to live in the Father’s Presence.
Within you is
the human serf that lives in the far (separated) country and also, the child
of God that lives in the harmony of God’s loving presence. It is we who must choose where we live our
lives – in the belief in human separation or the understanding of our divinity
as a beloved expression of God. Living
in the presence of God’s love is the choice Jesus urged us to make.
Jesus knew
God as Father – always there to love him, to inspire and guide him, to provide
for him, to work miracles through him, and to give him life. He knew that he was never alone for “the Father”
was always with him and wishing for him, his highest good. And, Jesus expected his disciples to
establish this same child-father relationship with God that he demonstrated for
them.
Over and over
he asked us to step up to the plate. In
the Lord’s Prayer we do not pray, “Jesus’s Father, who art in heaven.” We are instructed to pray, “Our Father”. And he could not have been clearer when he
said, “my Father and your Father, and my
God and your God”.
One of our
first tasks is to leave Old Testament concepts behind and learn to experience
God as Jesus experiences God. You may
say, “Of course!” But this sense of “unworthiness”
that follows the serf is deeply ingrained in us and subtle in the way it
affects our spiritual thinking. It often
seems a bold and frightening leap to embrace that you are the beloved son or
daughter of the Most High. But, without
embracing this position – the relationship that Jesus taught over and over –
you can only go to the threshold of the kingdom of the heavens. You cannot actually enter in without the
consciousness of a “wedding garment” – that deep bond that exists between you
and the Father-God. (Parable of the Wedding Garment – Matt. 22:11-14)
So, this step
involves making a decision to leave whatever “far country” consciousness we
presently find ourselves in. We need to “humbly”
commit to a much deeper, more intense relationship with God as Father, Mother,
Beloved.
God, the
Father, always allows us to explore being on our own – pretending that we are
doing this life as a separate being and that we must only please ourselves. But this path causes us to lose contact with
the flow that is our source and “lack” results.
It may be physical lack or it may be emotional. But, in the end the path of believing we are
on our own ends in lack.
But, the
Parable of the Prodigal Son illustrates that God’s Presence comes alive in your
life the moment that you turn toward home.
It may be a long way back to living in perfect harmony with the Spirit
within you. But the moment that you
humbly choose to live in accord with this “something greater” that lives within
you and exists throughout your world, you will feel a shift. It is as if the Father is coming out to meet
you long before you finish the journey yourself.
Your Divine
Father, like any father, wants the best for you. God wants you to succeed. God wants you be he happy. God wants you to have abundance in all things
physical and non-physical. It is we who
hold ourselves back. It is never
God. If something we desire is not for
our highest good, God sets in motion something greater.
The Father
does not want us to suffer. We do that
to ourselves. God wants us to experience
the heights of Joy, the depths of Love, overwhelming Beauty, and the glory of
Life. We are allowed to explore all the
other stuff. And thankfully, the Father
is not the punishing type. We are not
punished “for” our sins but “by” them.
Quit thinking
that God might not want you to have some good thing, or God might enjoy your
having to struggle. Quit making God in
our human image. Realize God wants us to
prosper. Even in the Old Testament it
says, “Lord… they shall prosper who love you!”
(Psalm
122:6) God is ready to give
you everything. We, however, must figure
out how to accept all the good that God has for us! To be in a space where we can receive the robe,
the ring, the shoes, & the celebration of the parable, we have only to reach
toward home – reach out to love the Father more deeply.
There is one
more point on which we must be very clear.
You cannot “earn” your place as a Son or Daughter of God. It is already yours by divine decree. It matters not what terrible mistakes you
have made or how good you have tried to be.
You are a beloved child of God and always will be.
If you choose
to live out of harmony with the Spirit of all life, if you choose to think
yourself separate and in conflict with others around you, you will learn the
lesson of the prodigal who discovered that self-centered pleasure is directly connected
to self-centered pain. It hurts to be
out of harmony with the Divine.
But the
moment you choose to quit playing the human fool and turn toward the Father,
you are divine, the beloved Son or Daughter of God. To God, you always have been. To God you are cherished even when you place
yourself in a space where you cannot feel that you are cherished. There is no re-instatement exam. There is only the Father, welcoming you home.
It’s time to humbly commit to live in
the constant presence of a loving God.
PRACTICES:
1. Affirm your
relationship with God:
“My
desire is to Live my Life, Immersed in God’s Presence!”
“God Loves Me & I Love
God!”
“Life Loves me & I love
Life!”
“Be Still; God’s Presence is
Within me!”
Listen with
your heart following each affirmation until you feel the energy of what
you are affirming. Then take a quiet
time to contemplate – think about – each
Truth as it applies to your life.
2. Affirm God’s
wonderful will for good in your life:
“My Loving Father wants me to
Prosper & be Happy!”
“God
is constantly drawing to me, my Highest Good!”
“I am a child of God; & I
am meant to succeed in Life!”
“I am a child of God; My
Divine Inheritance is Life, Love, Abundance,
Wisdom & Fulfillment!”
3. Look out at
your life and realize: “Anything is possible, for it is not I, but
God’s Loving Spirit within me, that does the work through me!”
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