"For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice." (Words of Jesus; In John 18:17; New King James Version). "I am the way, the truth, and the Life. No one comes to the father, but by me." (Words of Jesus; in John 14:6; NKJV). "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed."(Words of Jesus; in John 8:36; NKJV). "The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, 'See here!' or 'See there! For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you." (Words of Jesus; in Luke 17:20 & 21; NKJV) "I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God." (Words of Jesus; in John 20:17: NKJV) "Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the LORD delivers him out of them all" (Psalm 34:19; NKJV)..
Human existence is fraught with peril, it seems. My favorite aunt used to say that, "Life is just plain contrary!" Yet, as we trust those things spiritual, more than we trust the chaos of material conditions around us, we begin to grow spirit-ward, and even begin to find healings in our daily lives on all fronts. We come to comprehend why, and how, Jesus and his disciples spent so much time and energy healing all manner of diseases and bad human conditions they encountered in peoples' often-tragic human experiences. The biblical accounts of these healings and teachings (which are recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of the New Testament) deserve much more attention than we give them. Over two thousand years ago, Christ Jesus and his disciples healed all types of diseases without even asking the name of such physical conditions. So, what was going on? And why was the healing of diseases, (even a few cases of physical death) so important for humanity to witness? What did Christ Jesus know, and teach to his disciples, in order for these healings to have occurred? A brief examination shows that God must not be the author of any diseases, or any bad conditions that manifest in the human scene, since Jesus taught his disciples to heal them all. If God causes disease, (or poverty, or conflicts of any kind) the Almighty would not, then, send a Savior to show the people how to banish such lacks of health and harmony, simply by turning our hearts and minds back to God for deliverance. Even physical death was 'healed' by Jesus, and not just for himself. Overcoming physical death was evidenced for everyone else when Jesus called Lazarus back from the grave, four days after Lazarus had died in the flesh. This clearly suggests that Jesus was not the only one who overcame physical death—he brought a few others back from the same, physical death-experience. But Jesus didn't use the term 'death'. Jesus called death 'sleep'. Of Lazarus he said, "Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him out of sleep." (John 11:11; NKJV). 'Sleep' is when consciousness is shut down to a lower level of perception. So, Jesus was saying that physical death is not the end of our spiritual consciousness. This can only mean that although Lazarus had lain in his tomb for four days, and clearly gone through the physical death process, Jesus knew that Lazarus was still alive spiritually, even after the physical death experience. Doesn't this appear to suggest that there really is no permanent state of lifeless being, since life returned to the physical body of Lazarus? And in the ministry of Jesus, a few just plain, ordinary people were also 'brought back', by Jesus, to life in the flesh. These demonstrations seem to be evidence that life really isn't dependent, nor even tied, to our fleshly body-identities. The Bible tells us "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life." (John 6:63; NKJV). Therefore, life cannot really die, nor disappear when departed from the physical form. By closely examining the healing ministry of Christ Jesus, one can't miss the point (for very long) that there is no real, spiritual reality in disease and death, for both disappeared into nothingness at the Master's mental touch. Then it must be that it is the belief of the life force as flowing through matter that needs to 'die' in us. Jesus, as our way-shower, was showing everyone the power to separate these false conditions of material, fleshly being from our, true life in Spirit's realm, however invisible this spiritual realm is to the limited, physical senses of perception. If God created disease, as a reality or punishment for sinning humanity, why would the Almighty send an enlightened, spiritual son to take human form, in order to communicate to humanity that life is not what it seems? Jesus (as humanity's messenger, in addition to way-shower) didn't just heal all diseases and other evils he encountered; for after these demonstrations of healing, he then died (physically) on the cross to show that even physical death is nothing more than an illusion of the physical senses. Nothing can kill Spirit's children. The two seeming identities of Jesus apply to all of us, in this human experience, where we seem to have finite, physical bodies but with a spiritual soul inside. We each have two identities competing for our attention. Was he really Jesus (the mortal, material man) or the Christ (the immortal spiritual one)? Do these two identities of Christ Jesus have anything to do with the rest of us? Yes, they have everything to do with us. I believe that Christ Jesus' greatest earthly mission was to reveal the universal Christ identity, the spiritual identity, of each of us. He was our way-shower because he was showing us ourselves—our real and divine Selves, forever safe and sound in God's eternal Love. When Jesus said that he was "the way, the truth, and the life" he was showing us that the transformation he made from the physical to the spiritual identity is the way to go for all of us. When he taught that God is Spirit, and we are the children of infinite Spirit, not the flesh, he was showing us the spiritual truth about ourselves. And when he demonstrated his own resurrection from death he was showing us our own immortal life, because we are all the immortal children of Spirit, God, not matter. Thus it is that his fleshly, temporary identity was known as Jesus; but his greatest spiritual mission was to reveal the universal Christ identity (the spiritual identity of each of us) that cannot die. His death, in the flesh, followed by his resurrection afterwards, was a demonstration of this fact. He was showing us the truth about humanity. We have only one, real identity, and that one is spiritually immortal. This is true of every one of us, despite the error of believing that we are mortal, material creatures, rather than ever-lasting children of Spirit, God. Christ Jesus had to die in the physical death process, to prove that our real identities, our spiritual identities, do not die…ever. The Christ (spiritual part of Jesus) has never really been a material mortal. Neither are we. But we believe we have a mortal, finite body, somehow wrapped around our spiritual soul inside. I can't remember where I found this, particular, historical fact, but I read that even Jesus' disciples and followers continued with their spiritual healing of physical and mental diseases for about four hundred years after Christ Jesus ascended above the material realm of thought. Then the more worldly churches of the now-ancient world began to ban spiritual healing from their movements, allowing their followers only material methods of healing. Yet, spiritual healing is now practiced in many modern-day religions. The realization that collective, worldly beliefs can conjure up all sorts of evil conditions, and that they can plague us until we stop believing in them, is no longer just an ancient perception. Everyone and anyone can do it. It is the correction of an identity crisis that afflicts all of us in this collective dream-state (illusion) of finite, material existence, where we seem to be separated from God, our everlasting Source. Through our innate spiritual perception, (rather than physical perception) we begin to realize that we are not mortals in a material creation. We are actually God's spiritual sons and daughters, living forever in the invisible kingdom of God. We are immortal beings, believing that we are mortal and material, while we live forever in our spiritual Home. As God's own children, we have really never left our true Home, except in a collective, material dream-state of existence. This line of thought, of course, is meta-physical in nature, rather than physical. Not everyone is ready to advance on this path. Yet, for those who are, the modern-day world is opening its doors wider, and wider, to let this understanding come into the world's collective consciousness in this human experience. Thus, although our heavenly home is something we dream of finding, one day, it has never really left us in the first place! Christ Jesus told us it was within us—that means it's in our conscious memory, and we can awaken to it, whenever we're ready to make the journey of awakening. (Think of Dorothy in the Land of Oz. She never went anywhere…she just dreamed that she had. Thus, her way home to Aunty Em was to mentally awaken—not go anywhere. What a great parable, this is!) The illusion of material, finite existence daily presents to us all sorts of 'evils' we must contend with. Yet, they are unreal to our spiritual existence. God is not the Source of ill-health, poverty, wars, hatred, or anything bad. The infinite Intelligence of the Creator knows no spiritual lack of any right and useful thing. Thus, there is no lack of anything good in God's everlasting spiritual creation. The lacks and limitations of things only manifest in the fleshly and finite forms because we believe ourselves to be material creatures in a physical, finite creation—and as those fleshly, finite creatures, we believe we are subject to physical so-called laws, instead of God's spiritual laws. that keep our souls (real selves) safe in God's loving care forever. Now, spiritual healing isn't just a mental exercise, as some imagine. It occurs when we realize that our eternal, perfect lives are in Spirit (God) and that we have always existed and always will continue to exist within God. Spiritual healing takes into account our eternal selves, not the material mortals we believe ourselves to be. Eternal-life means 'without beginning or end'. So, if we are ever to be immortal children of God, we already are. We just don't recognize ourselves. Thus, Christ Jesus didn't 'heal' disease and physical death in the way it seems. He healed because he knew that in spiritual (not material) reality, there is never anything to heal. God's perfect, harmonious creation is finished. It is already done. In other words, the healings of Jesus and his disciples were accomplished by knowing the spiritual Truth of existence as a spiritual, not material, phenomenon. They didn't heal disease; rather, they caused diseased conditions of body and mind, in the flesh, to return to the nothingness from whence they came—from the false, material beliefs of mortality that all the sick ones believed in and, thus, manifested in or on their fleshly forms. The deeper spiritual consciousness of divine Truth no longer allowed Jesus to believe in mortal existence as it pertained to anyone. Thus, it was his spiritual consciousness (his enlightened consciousness) that over-rode all the fleshly beliefs of the people he healed. Yet, Christ Jesus was the master healer. As God's spiritually sleeping children, we only grasp the truth of spiritual being over time. As Paul the Apostle once described, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (1st Corinthians 13:12; KJV) This means we perceive reality only partly because we live with a dualistic concept of existence, and believe ourselves to be spiritual souls, who are trapped in finite, material bodies. Thus, the false sense of materiality wars with the spiritual truth of being, until we learn that neither Spirit, nor anything, nor anyone in Its creation, can really be trapped in finite forms of any kind. To this end, Christ Jesus went through the whole physical death process to show humanity that life isn't in the physical body form, and never was. But, there are so many things that Christ Jesus told humanity that are still not widely comprehended today. For example, here is one, really important message concerning our captivity to material so-called laws of cause and effect: "Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed." (Words of Jesus; in John 8:36; NKJV). This tells us that when we mentally 'put on' the Christ identity, and discard the seeming finite, fleshly identity we have believed in for so long, we have re-established ourselves as God's own off-spring, and are reclaiming our rights as Sons and Daughters of God, not man. Thus, we are no longer citizens of 'this world' (the material realm of thought)—we are citizens of the kingdom of God, and no place else. In our true kingdom, we live under the sovereign laws, and power, of God—our infinite Creator and Lawmaker. And as we begin to trust God's invisible laws of everlasting Life, Health, Abundance and Love, (as existing right where a material universe with physical laws seems to be, but is not) we begin to experience our divine harmony break through the chaos of the human experience. Things in the physical scene then change around us for the better, to more pattern the divine reality. As we grow in our spiritual understanding of reality, we learn that right where a physical universe seems to be substance, right there is the underlying invisible kingdom of God's divine love, taking care of us for eternity. Like Christ Jesus, we realize that we really inhabit the invisible kingdom of God, not the seeming kingdom of this world (material realm of thought). And, in this spiritual, rather than material kingdom, God, Spirit, is our only Authority. Thus, the Christ is a universal, symbolic title, representing all God's spiritual children. It doesn't tell our individual, spiritual names; they will come back to us as we awaken and ascend beyond the material dream of life in matter. But it tells us that we will one day (when fully awakened spiritually) return to God's harmonious realm, back to our true existence in everlasting Spirit, and to our own place in it. So, whether or not one can even accept spiritual healing is paramount in the manifestation or overturning of the flesh from sickness to health again. And if one wants spiritual healing, but just doesn't believe in it, no such healing will likely occur, until that one's own belief system allows such a thing into consciousness, banishing all doubt. And until one begins to understand how and why such belief works in the human experience, sometimes even blind faith works. Yet, understanding is the better key to increasing faith, until it is not a struggle to believe any longer. So, to summarize humanity's identity crisis, here's the thing to know: Our one, biggest step in our spiritual awakening is to become aware of what the Christ really IS. The Christ is the term used to reference our everlasting, individual, spiritual identities. Our human name is the false, fleshly identity we were given at our entry on this level of thought. That identity is temporary and will cease to exist when we awaken spiritually and remember who we really are. Likewise, Jesus was the name of a physically, human man or identity; the Christ was the term that related to his true, spiritual identity, which like our own, exists with everlasting wholeness, health, abundance, and peace. In our everlasting, spiritual identities, it is, and always was, impossible to suffer from ill-health and death. God does not allow us to lose our everlasting, spiritual wholeness and health, for even one second in time, no matter what level of spiritual consciousness we dwell upon. Jesus healed disease by knowing that the persons believing in it didn't yet comprehend that we are spiritual (not material) beings, forever whole, safe, and free in God's spiritual kingdom, always within our own, innate spiritual sense. There is no other place to go—there is no other place to be. The underlying truth of our Christly Self (individual spiritual identity) is with us always, even during this illusory sense of material existence. This false sense of materiality is somewhat like a night dream when we usually don't realize that we are dreaming because, while mentally experiencing them, our night dreams often seem quite real. So, too, material existence seems quite real because we have been trained to accept it as solid reality since our entry here. Yet, the world's collective consciousness has changed quite a bit in the last twenty or so years and is moving onward and upward. Spiritual awareness and realization have come to the forefront of thought in many religious movements around the globe. Because of this, spiritual healing is much more accepted today than in the not-too-distant past. So, the healing Christ is still with us because divine TRUTH, like our spiritual Selves, never dies.
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