The “spirit from within,” as you say, is a PERSON. And that PERSON is a FRIEND.
3:1:4 Man goes forth searching for a friend while that very friend lives within his own heart.
5:4.13 3. Jesus’ concept – God as a living friend, a loving Father, the divine presence.
159:3.9 In preaching the gospel of the kingdom, you are simply teaching friendship with God.
What do we know about forming friendships? We know that it is a first and basic human conviction. It’s the one thing we can be certain of. And it just so happens that there is no friendship in the universe that we can be more certain of than our friendship with God.
16:9.4 Human self-consciousness implies the recognition of the reality of selves other than the conscious self and further implies that such awareness is mutual; that the self is known as it knows. This is shown in a purely human manner in man’s social life. But you cannot become so absolutely certain of a fellow being’s reality as you can of the reality of the presence of God that lives within you. The social consciousness is not inalienable like the God-consciousness; it is a cultural development and is dependent on knowledge, symbols, and the contributions of the constitutive endowments of man—science, morality, and religion. And these cosmic gifts, socialized, constitute civilization.
MidiChlorian wrote How one uses or assumes what this spirit is directing them to do, does not always represent God’s will. If one misinterprets this guidance, and acts against God’s will or way, is that action still God’s will?
First of all, the “spirit from within,” as you call him, does not tell people what to do. If people think they are being told what to do, what to think, what to say, then they need meds.
Can people misunderstand God’s will? Absolutely! Misunderstanding is a failure to assess true meanings. It’s due to a breakdown in communication – a failure to communicate – a momentary disconnection from the vine. That’s what they call ERROR. What is error? Error is EVIL. What is evil? Evil is imperfection. Are we forgiven for being imperfect? YES. Why are we forgiven? Because we are immature, we’re tadpoles, and also because the universe and the big guy who runs it are friendly in a fatherly way. Are we given multiple mercy credits to correct our misunderstanding errors? You betcha! More credits than we need. Is that friendly? Dang tootin’ it is.
174:1.4 If you are wise parents, this is the way you will love and understand your children, even forgive them when transient misunderstanding has apparently separated you.
Evil is the unconscious or unintended transgression of the divine law, the Father’s will. Evil is likewise the measure of the imperfectness of obedience to the Father’s will.
Evil is the immature choosing and the unthinking misstep of those who are resistant to goodness, rejectful of beauty, and disloyal to truth. Evil is only the misadaptation of immaturity or the disruptive and distorting influence of ignorance.
130:4.11 Error (evil) is the penalty of imperfection. The qualities of imperfection or facts of misadaptation are disclosed on the material level by critical observation and by scientific analysis; on the moral level, by human experience. The presence of evil constitutes proof of the inaccuracies of mind and the immaturity of the evolving self. Evil is, therefore, also a measure of imperfection in universe interpretation. The possibility of making mistakes is inherent in the acquisition of wisdom, the scheme of progressing from the partial and temporal to the complete and eternal, from the relative and imperfect to the final and perfected.
MidiChlorian wrote: It is difficult to assess God’s will, until after the fact — cause and effect.
What happens when you’re not doing God’s will? You are unhappy? Why are you unhappy? Because you’re trying to live out something that is NOT REAL. The question becomes, how long will you put up with unhappiness? Some people put up with it for a very long time because they blame other people for it, including God. But whose fault is it really? It’s yours and only yours. Deal with it. Fix it. Resume your loyalty relationship with God and move on. Get up and try again. Crying, whining, caterwauling, procrastinating, postponing, reality avoidance will all make you more miserable if you’re really a truth seeker. If you’re not a truth seeker, then perhaps you get some sick satisfaction from being miserable. It’s hard to understand. I leave it there.
2:7.6 Happiness ensues from the recognition of truth because it can be acted out; it can be lived. Disappointment and sorrow attend upon error because, not being a reality, it cannot be realized in experience. Divine truth is best known by its spiritual flavor.
89:10.6 The forgiveness of sin by Deity is the renewal of loyalty relations following a period of the human consciousness of the lapse of such relations as the consequence of conscious rebellion. The forgiveness does not have to be sought, only received as the consciousness of re-establishment of loyalty relations between the creature and the Creator. And all the loyal sons of God are happy, service-loving, and ever-progressive in the Paradise ascent.
To live your life on a trial and error, or cause and effect, basis is really living like an animal. The beauty of being human is that you have a higher mind with spirit friends living there and a personality who craves to know and love them. If you’re not utilizing those gifts, then you’re living a very difficult life. Definitely not a wise one, that’s for sure. Humans have access to the adjutants of worship and wisdom. Wisdom! It’s the escalator to the soul.
16:7.2 The selective response of an animal is limited to the motor level of behavior. The supposed insight of the higher animals is on a motor level and usually appears only after the experience of motor trial and error. Man is able to exercise scientific, moral, and spiritual insight prior to all exploration or experimentation.
Those two higher adjutants are so useful in avoiding the trial and error thing. You can actually work on things in your head before doing them. You can use your creative imagination to visualize the outcome of your action. And while you’re doing that, trying to make decisions of how best to do something, you should be asking those friends in your head what they think. You know, the mind of Jesus thing, which we’ve been told we can have on exchange any time we want? Where’s Jesus? In your soul. Where’s your soul? In your head. How do you get there? Worship and wisdom.
48:6.26 Even on Urantia, these seraphim teach the everlasting truth: If your own mind does not serve you well, you can exchange it for the mind of Jesus of Nazareth, who always serves you well.
So yeah, if you work on ideas in your head and don’t include Jesus’ mind, you’re only going to come up with material level solutions, solutions coming from the self rather than the “other-than-self” in your head. And what do we know about those kinds of decisions? They have no fulcrum, no power. They bend and distort the universe toward service of self.
110:6.17 But choosing to do the will of God joins spiritual faith to material decisions in personality action and thus supplies a divine and spiritual fulcrum for the more effective functioning of the human and material leverage of God-hunger. Such a wise co-ordination of material and spiritual forces greatly augments both cosmic realization of the Supreme and morontia comprehension of the Paradise Deities.
5:4.3 God is not only the determiner of destiny; he is man’s eternal destination. All nonreligious human activities seek to bend the universe to the distorting service of self; the truly religious individual seeks to identify the self with the universe and then to dedicate the activities of this unified self to the service of the universe family of fellow beings, human and superhuman.
What you’re looking for is supermaterial decisions, those that are identified with that “other-than-self” friend in your head. If you keep doing that, your identity shifts to favor those kinds of decisions, the one’s coming from the mind of your friend. It’s a process. These supermaterial solutions are from the soul, where your friend lives. And that’s the only place where decisions in tune with God’s will can be made ready by the Spirit of Truth for action. That’s where happiness comes from. That’s the true stuff coming forth, the stuff that can be acted out because it’s real . . . the fruits . . . the stuff in tune with God’s way . . . God’s will. It’s radical! but works every time it’s tried.
100:4.3 The highest happiness is indissolubly linked with spiritual progress. Spiritual growth yields lasting joy, peace which passes all understanding.
103:5.5 Human happiness is achieved only when the ego desire of the self and the altruistic urge of the higher self (divine spirit) are co-ordinated and reconciled by the unified will of the integrating and supervising personality.
159:3.10 Increasing happiness is always the experience of all who are certain about God.
Sooooooo . . . . long story short . . . . . if you’re constantly miserable and feel suffocated by an unfriendly universe, then you don know God very well and you’re definitely not doing his will very much. You’re suffering from a misinterpretation of the universe and a misadaptation to reality. Pretty basic stuff.
