“Because
you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of
trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the
earth. Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold
fast what you have, that no one may take your crown.”
(Revelation 3:10 & 11; (NKJV) A long
time ago, Christ Jesus was walking about the now-ancient world, trying to bring
enlightenment and spiritual understanding to the primitive civilizations that
didn’t perceive half of what he was saying.
When he challenged the ancient beliefs of life and death that permeated
the world’s stage, misconceptions of his teachings brought him even the wrath
of the Roman Empire. The ancient world was
greatly divided on what constituted the truth of being on this material level
of thought and physical form. New ideas
and explanations were not easily accepted, or even tolerated, by the
masses. Since early civilization
consisted mostly of tribes and small city-states, each location had its own
beliefs. To be safe, it was wise to
leave alone honored beliefs of what constituted ‘truth’. Yet, onto this
dangerous stage of humanity, Jesus said things like, “I am the way, the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father, except through me.” (John
14:6; NKJV). Words such
as these challenged almost every religion in the world, in some way or
form. But they were said, deliberately,
because his ministry was actually meant to bring the truth of spiritual being
to a universal, and almost entirely materialistic, state of thought. Now, from other New
Testament readings, one can realize that with these words, Jesus was speaking,
not of his personal self, but of the universal Christ. Jesus (the man) was trying to show humanity
that our spiritual identities, as children of God, (who is Spirit) is referred
to as our Christ-identity, or Christ Self.
It is our higher Self that is the Christ, and every individual child
(off-spring) of God ‘comes back’ to God by putting on (realizing) ones’ own
Christ identity, as opposed to a temporary, mortal, material-seeming identity. When telling us that he
was ‘the way, the truth, and the life’
Jesus was telling us to follow his example.
He was urging us to awaken to our Christly, ever-lasting Selfhood. Jesus was telling us to follow his example of
being. He was only Jesus in the false,
finite sense of material being, which is also our own temporary illusions of
being; but since God is Spirit, our only Creator and Source, then God is our only true Parent, or Source
of origin…our only real Mother and Father…the male and female part of each of us. Whatever else
individual people believe about Jesus, it is important to realize that he was
our divine, spiritual brother, showing us our true, divine Selves (the Selves
that we have forgotten in memory). We
miss the whole of Christ Jesus’ message if we make him (in our thinking) a god to
be worshipped. Instead, Jesus always
spoke of God, alone, as the Source of all good; for he said, “Why callest thou me good? there is none
good but one, that is, God:”(Matthew
29:17; King James Version (KJV). At his resurrection, he
showed himself to be a chosen messenger from God, but otherwise equal in status
to the rest of humanity, when he said: “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” (John 20:17; King James Version (KJV). No doubt Jesus knew, about himself, that he
was a divine son of God, spiritual in body, soul, and mind, and never a material being at all.
That’s probably why he was chosen for his mission. He knew the truth of being. He knew that material ‘laws’ didn’t and
couldn’t kill him, or anyone else who was spiritually awake to the truth of
being. That’s why Lazarus was also
raised, by the consciousness of Jesus, from the dead. Jesus the Christ was an enlightened one, quite
possibly having been through the human experience before, which may explain his
role above all others on this material level of thought. And although he was the chosen son of God to
be a savior of humanity (those who believed themselves to be children of the
flesh) he never said he was the ONLY son of God. He was certainly a
chosen one to deliver humanity from its collective spiritual ignorance, but his
humility was part of the spiritual status of his being. He was our divine, spiritual brother, showing
us, by example, our true, divine selves; for everyone is a son and daughter of God. It was his mission to bring that realization
to Earth’s humanity; to show that life comes from God, alone, and that no one,
and nothing material, can really take it away.
Ponder this
thought: Material substance doesn’t die
because it never lived. Only the consciousness,
more precisely, the Christ Consciousness
within us, lives. The material shell we erroneously
believe to be our body disintegrates when abandoned by our consciousness. Jesus tried to show that
the body forms of ordinary people, after the physical death process, were all
capable of resurrection. He raised
Lazarus, the twelve year old daughter of Jairus, and a few others who had died physically,
even though they were not spiritually enlightened beings. They were just ordinary people. Finally, at the resurrection, the temporary,
finite Jesus revealed his infinite, ever-lasting Christ (spiritual)
identity. We are to follow that same
mental path and ‘put on’ our own Christ-identity. Despite appearances, we never really were the
children of the flesh. Mortal, material
man is a false identity. Immortal man
(the Christ) signifies our everlasting, spiritual identity, which exists right
where a fleshly identity seems to exist, but does not. Physical being is a state of self-deception. (Notice that in the
Bible, several individuals had their names
changed after a spiritual experience of enlightenment. For example, Jacob was renamed Israel
after ‘wrestling with a man’ and his
awakened, spiritual sense of himself came into remembrance. Then he was given a
more spiritual name, to go with his higher, spiritual identity. (SEE
Genesis 32:24-28, King James Bible Version (KJV). The disagreements and wars over religion on
Earth still exist since the words that Jesus spoke, more than two thousand
years ago. His message of spiritual
being and the invisible kingdom of heaven, always at hand, are still not fully perceived by everyone who reads them. People around the globe still don’t realize
that Jesus didn’t come here to be worshipped.
Mainly, he came to awaken his spiritual brothers and sisters so they
could find their way home…back to their awakened, God consciousness and their
own spiritual identities that dwell forever within it. When he told us, “Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may
take your crown,” (Revelation 3:11; (NKJV) Christ Jesus was telling us to hang on to our divine
birthright. Our ‘crown’ is our divinity as
God’s own off-spring, which, in this materialistic mental state, we’ve
forgotten. Since the kingdom of
God is within us (that is, within our own divine consciousness) we can never
really be out of our harmonious Home in Spirit.
This universal Christ Consciousness has been forgotten in our false
sense of material being, but our memory of it sleeps within us. Sometimes it creeps into our human awareness
just long enough to heal something or make a change in our human steps, which
were leading us astray. But always it is
there, ‘within us’. The ‘open door’ that is
spoken of in the book of Revelation refers to the times that our spiritual
consciousness brings us awake, now and then, and we gaze, once more, at God’s spiritual
kingdom and harmony; but then we forget
that the mental door to the kingdom of God is there, within us, and we turn
away from it again. Yet, consider this: nothing
in God (Spirit’s) creation, can ever be undone.
This includes who we really are
(God’s own, ever-lasting spiritual children) and where we really are (God’s ever-lasting, harmonious kingdom ever-present
but invisible to the physical senses). Eternal
harmony and ever-lasting life can only exist where good, alone, dwells;
otherwise, Heaven would lose its harmony and eternality. One must be fully awakened spiritually in
order to stay within such a realm; but the door is always there, allowing us to go
in and out, until we fully awaken spiritually and realize it is our divine
Home. So, since the kingdom
of God (Heaven) is an everlasting and ever-harmonious realm or dimension; no
destruction can enter there. To go
through the door for all time, I think we must be fully awakened, spiritually, to
the knowledge of the universal Christ.
Why? Because only that which is
everlastingly-good can exist in the spiritual realm that is our true Home, or
the Home would be contaminated. Any spot
of destruction would eventually destroy the Harmony and ever-lastingness of
Life of the whole realm. But I think we can mentally
make short trips through the door, until we completely awaken to our Christ
identity again and return to our true, individual self, made in the image of
God. When all materiality, evil, and
destructiveness leaves our thoughts due to our spiritual awakening, we’ll
return to our true, Christly nature.
Then our spiritual eyes will be open and we’ll realize that Heaven had always
been there, right where we were, all along.
We were just sleeping in the dream of materiality. |
