54 posts · 9 participants · started Feb 1, 2015, 3:53 PM
Another thought regarding love and sacrifice. The Master did say this to his apostles:
157:6.8 From this time on, if any man would have fellowship with us, let him assume the obligations of sonship and follow me. And when I am no more with you, think not that the world will treat you better than it did your Master. If you love me, prepare to prove this affection by your willingness to make the supreme sacrifice.
157:6.8 From this time on, if any man would have fellowship with us, let him assume the obligations of sonship and follow me. And when I am no more with you, think not that the world will treat you better than it did your Master. If you love me, prepare to prove this affection by your willingness to make the supreme sacrifice.
Question: Is this sacrifice akin to Jesus being the “lamb of God”?
The UB tells us that the authors sometimes use the word power to indicate sovereignty.
0:6.2 Power is also employed to designate sovereignty.
I think the reign of God in great power might have to do with this idea of sovereignty. Wether it refers to sovereignty of God within the individual soul, or in the kingdom of men, or both, I cannot say for sure. But sovereignty means something very powerful to me; it means God’s will dominates self-will. Personality and power are currently being synthesized into the sovereignty of the Supreme. Our Master Michael, Jesus, is a revelation of the Supreme.
tas wrote:I personally am minded so far to think that the “reign of God” he talked about was referring to the listeners as individuals advancing in their spirituality to such an extent that the kingdom of God within would be expressed “in great power” in their lives, that that would be the “reign of God” they’d see. (Pentecost a part of that as well.)
133:5:6 Mathematics asserts that, if one person stands for a certain unit of intellectual and moral value, ten persons would stand for ten times this value. But in dealing with human personality it would be nearer the truth to say that such a personality association is a sum equal to the square of the number of personalities concerned in the equation rather than the simple arithmetical sum. A social group of human beings in co-ordinated working harmony stands for a force far greater than the simple sum of its parts.
Sorry to go off topic here but, as a one time farm boy, one of the most hilarious of all quotes in the book also has to do with mathematics in the prior verse to the one posted above:
(1476.7) 133:5.5 Logic is valid in the material world, and mathematics is reliable when limited in its application to physical things; but neither is to be regarded as wholly dependable or infallible when applied to life problems. Life embraces phenomena which are not wholly material. Arithmetic says that, if one man could shear a sheep in ten minutes, ten men could shear it in one minute. That is sound mathematics, but it is not true, for the ten men could not so do it; they would get in one another’s way so badly that the work would be greatly delayed.
Such a picture kept me laughing a long, long time when I first read it. 
"Live loyally today—grow—and tomorrow will attend to itself. The quickest way for a tadpole to become a frog is to live loyally each moment as a tadpole."
I’m like-minded tas. A stool cannot stand on two legs. A person who feels all wonderful about his/her God-connection and sequesters him/herself or spends the rest of life on a mountaintop, is like a stool with two legs. And while I do not disparage the choices of others regarding how some people live their lives, I do think the reign of God requires a third leg.
Indeed, a stool cannot stand on two legs but a person siting on a two legged stool can stand because a person can balance the stool. I’ve seen it done. Essentially a third leg would preclude God’s creation and that creation can achieve balance. A three legged stool is like God without His creation. Creation must achieve balance, perfect balance. With a three legged stool there is no achievement, no balance. Your analogy has crumbled. Find a better one.
emanny3003 wrote:Indeed, a stool cannot stand on two legs but a person siting on a two legged stool can stand because a person can balance the stool. I’ve seen it done. Essentially a third leg would preclude God’s creation and that creation can achieve balance. A three legged stool is like God without His creation. Creation must achieve balance, perfect balance. With a three legged stool there is no achievement, no balance. Your analogy has crumbled. Find a better one.
You missed my point. You’ve gone off into God’s creation, but I didn’t I’m talking about the reign of God here. The idea and ideal here is stability – physical, mindal and spiritual. I repeat: God gives. You receive. In turn you give to someone else. God loves you. You receive it. That’s two legs. Naturally you give this God-love to someone else. This makes the architecture stable. Where two or more are gathered. . . . That is a minimum of three. Of course you can have your own God-love between you and him. That’s two. But if you really have that God-love thing going on, I mean really have it, it is completely outgoing and outstretching to others. And that is the third leg, as I see it. My cup runneth over. The reign of God in great power.
You missed my point. You’ve gone off into God’s creation, but I didn’t I’m talking about the reign of God here. The idea and ideal here is stability – physical, mindal and spiritual.
I can only “go off” into God’s creation because I am God’s creation. Where else can I go? God alone is unchanging, stable. Creatures must seek stability in movement, change.
This stability in the face of change can only be achieved by BALANCED, RHYTHMIC INTERCHANGE.
The reign of God in great power.
You have missed my point. God is the ONLY power.
Mara wrote: I’m talking about the reign of God here.
117:6.10 All true love is from God, and man receives the divine affection as he himself bestows this love upon his fellows. Love is dynamic. It can never be captured; it is alive, free, thrilling, and always moving. Man can never take the love of the Father and imprison it within his heart. The Father’s love can become real to mortal man only by passing through that man’s personality as he in turn bestows this love upon his fellows. The great circuit of love is from the Father, through sons to brothers, and hence to the Supreme. The love of the Father appears in the mortal personality by the ministry of the indwelling Adjuster. Such a God-knowing son reveals this love to his universe brethren, and this fraternal affection is the essence of the love of the Supreme.
Regarding the reign of God in great power, I reiterate what the reference says:
140:1:6 “Whosoever would become great in my Father’s kingdom shall become a minister to all; and whosoever would be first among you, let him become the server of his brethren. But when you are once truly received as citizens in the heavenly kingdom, you are no longer servants but sons, sons of the living God. And so shall this kingdom progress in the world until it shall break down every barrier and bring all men to know my Father and believe in the saving truth which I have come to declare. Even now is the kingdom at hand, and some of you will not die until you have seen the reign of God come in great power.”
108:2:3 Thus is the stage of the human mind set for the reception of Adjusters, but as a general rule they do not immediately appear to indwell such minds except on those worlds where the Spirit of Truth is functioning as a spiritual co-ordinator of these different spirit ministries. If this spirit of the bestowal Sons is present, the Adjusters unfailingly come the instant the seventh adjutant mind-spirit begins to function and signalizes to the Universe Mother Spirit that it has achieved in potential the co-ordination of the associated six adjutants of prior ministry to such a mortal intellect. Therefore have the divine Adjusters been universally bestowed upon all normal minds of moral status on Urantia ever since the day of Pentecost.
194:3:6 Do not overlook the fact that the Spirit of Truth was bestowed upon all sincere believers; this gift of the spirit did not come only to the apostles. The one hundred and twenty men and women assembled in the upper chamber all received the new teacher, as did all the honest of heart throughout the whole world. This new teacher was bestowed upon mankind, and every soul received him in accordance with the love for truth and the capacity to grasp and comprehend spiritual realities. At last, true religion is delivered from the custody of priests and all sacred classes and finds its real manifestation in the individual souls of men.
Mara wrote: Perhaps he is referring to the bestowal of Thought Adjusters to every normal minded moral person – ever since the day of Pentecost.
The quote says, speaking to the twelve: ” . . . some of you will not die until you have seen the reign of God come in great power.”
None of them died before Pentecost except Judas. It seems to me if it was going to happen at Pentecost he would have said, “most of you will see the reign of God come in great power,” and leave the death thing out of it. It sounds like he’s talking about something further in the future and hinting that some of the twelve would die before it happened. So . . . with that line of thinking, I dismissed the coming of the Spirit of Truth (or Adjusters) on and after Pentecost as an answer to my question. I just don’t know if he’s talking about God’s reign within each apostle’s soul, or something to do with the spread of the gospel in a general way. Still don’t know for sure what he meant.
I was thinking in terms of the increased spiritual capacity of receptivity to the preaching of the Apostles at that time and before some of them died. 92:4:1 Thought Adjusters and the Spirit of Truth combined. 194:2:3 to the benefit of the spread of the gospel. Weren’t the Apostles surprised at how responsive the people were to their teachings?
Weren’t the Apostles surprised at how responsive the people were to their teachings?
Yes Mara. The Spirits are of no use to the individual alone. No man is an island. The power comes when brothers recognize the Spirits in each other. Therein lies the power.
emanny3003 wrote: The power comes when brothers recognize the Spirits in each other. Therein lies the power.
56:6:3 The material–minded creatures of the evolutionary worlds of the seven superuniverses can comprehend Deity unity only as it is evolving in this power-personality synthesis of the Supreme Being. On any level of existence God cannot exceed the conceptual capacity of the beings who live on such a level. Mortal man must, through the recognition of truth, the appreciation of beauty, and the worship of goodness, evolve the recognition of a God of love and then progress through ascending deity levels to the comprehension of the Supreme. Deity, having been thus grasped as unified in power, can then be personalized in spirit to creature understanding and attainment.
Mortal man must, through the recognition of truth, the appreciation of beauty, and the worship of goodness, evolve the recognition of a God of love and then progress through ascending deity levels to the comprehension of the Supreme.(56:6.3)
Recognition means “to know again”. To know the Spirit is not enough, it must also be recognized in your brother. The Kingdom of Heaven cannot be entered alone.
155:6:17 “Now, mistake not, my Father will ever respond to the faintest flicker of faith. He takes note of the physical and superstitious emotions of the primitive man. And with those honest but fearful souls whose faith is so weak that it amounts to little more than an intellectual conformity to a passive attitude of assent to religions of authority, the Father is ever alert to honor and foster even all such feeble attempts to reach out for him. But you who have been called out of darkness into the light are expected to believe with a whole heart; your faith shall dominate the combined attitudes of body, mind, and spirit.”
The brotherhood of man is entirely dependent upon the recognition of the Fatherhood of God. The recognition of sonship with the Father comes before the recognition of the sonship of brotherhood. God cannot reign with power in the individual or the group unless each person accepts sonship with the Father first. If you can’t or won’t recognize yourself a son of God, then you also can’t recognize your brothers and sisters who have the same Father. It’s simple.
16:9.14 You become conscious of man as your creature brother because you are already conscious of God as your Creator Father. Fatherhood is the relationship out of which we reason ourselves into the recognition of brotherhood.
52:6.7 The brotherhood of man is, after all, predicated on the recognition of the fatherhood of God.
134:4.1 The brotherhood of men is founded on the fatherhood of God.
194:04 The gospel of the kingdom is: the fact of the fatherhood of God, coupled with the resultant truth of the sonship-brotherhood of men.
195:8.11 You simply cannot establish the brotherhood of men while ignoring or denying the fatherhood of God.
I was thinking in terms of the increased spiritual capacity of receptivity to the preaching of the Apostles at that time and before some of them died.
That’s another good angle, the capacity of receptivity. The capacity of receptivity is a quantity issue, rather than a quality issue. I think the reign of God is basically a quality issue, but in terms of actually experiencing its power, perhaps that is a quantity issue (3:4.6). Each dispensation of revelation enlarges the capacity for receptivity (52:2.3). Perhaps Jesus means that his dispensation will bring greater capacity to experience the gospel. It may begin as a small, nearly invisible seed, but grow into a large tree. Many of his apostles would not die before seeing the seed grow at least into a sapling.
52:6.7 The brotherhood of man is, after all, predicated on the recognition of the fatherhood of God.
To recognize is to ‘know again’. This means we must have known it at one time and forgotten it.
You cannot receive the Kingdom unless it is as a child of faith. We lose our faith as we approach adulthood and must remember again, recognized what we once knew as an innocent child.
Bonita wrote: 52:6.7 The brotherhood of man is, after all, predicated on the recognition of the fatherhood of God.
To recognize is to ‘know again’. This means we must have known it at one time and forgotten it.
You cannot receive the Kingdom unless it is as a child of faith. We lose our faith as we approach adulthood and must remember again, recognized what we once knew as an innocent child.
It would seem that you didn’t look up the whole UB quote, in this case, because the implied reference segmented, would have presented the full presentation as:
(598.2) 52:6.7 5. Spiritual insight. The brotherhood of man is, after all, predicated on the recognition of the fatherhood of God. The quickest way to realize the brotherhood of man on Urantia is to effect the spiritual transformation of present-day humanity. The only technique for accelerating the natural trend of social evolution is that of applying spiritual pressure from above, thus augmenting moral insight while enhancing the soul capacity of every mortal to understand and love every other mortal. Mutual understanding and fraternal love are transcendent civilizers and mighty factors in the world-wide realization of the brotherhood of man.
Based on the whole quote, I ask, do you “recognize” what is the “brotherhood of man”, or was the abridgment, more interesting to your “Spiritual insight.”?
