Spiritual Advice and Guidance Blog: Urantia Book

Q: How can I change my life richer?

A:Thank you for your note to Truthbook.

It may be that you are not a native English-speaking person, so I am going to have to guess at the exact meaning of your question here...

You ask how you can change your life so that it is richer...? That could mean richer in a material sense, as in money or possessions, or it could mean richer in a spiritual sense. I will assume it is the latter - that you want to know how to make your spiritual life richer. I cannot give any advice to make your material life richer...

First, be encouraged to know that God lives within your mind, and that he is approachable in your thoughts. This is a powerful part of the revelation of The Urantia Book. God is your spirit Father, and he loves you with the affectionate love of a Father. This knowledge will help you to feel free to communicate with that most innermost part of yourself through quiet times of meditation and prayer. God hears our prayers, and if your aim is to enrich your inner spiritual life, you will be rewarded by an increased sense of peace and connection if you make the effort to reach up to God. As you reach up in your thoughts and prayers, God will reach down to meet you where you are and as you are. Share your inner life with God. Memorized words are not necessary...God answers the attitude of your soul.

Become interested in the people in your life - cultivate a friendly attitude towards all, and learn to love people, even with all their faults, for that is how God loves you. Know that God dwells within everyone else, too, and that makes all people your brothers and sisters. Learn to look for the beautiful in life, and cultivate the fruits of the Spirit.

From The Urantia Book:

(193:2.2) "Salvation is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will immediately begin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in loving service to their fellow creatures. And the fruits of the divine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace

Know that you are part of a divine plan that promises you eternal life. This eternal life is yours by a simple act of acceptance of your status as a child of God.

To gain the most inspiration for improving and enriching your life in all ways, I recommend reading The Urantia Book. For starters, please feel free to subscribe to our free Quote of the Day service, which will deliver an inspirational message to you daily. Each quote will have a link to the text of The Urantia Book, which will enlarge your understanding.

And come back often. The Urantia Book is available to read on our site, and you can listen as well. We have a top-notch search engine, and many other features to help you on your spiritual path.

Labels: eternal life, fruits of the spirit, God within, inner life, The Urantia Book

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Thursday, April 03, 2008

Peace Pilgrim Interview

First 8 minutes of a 30 minute interview at Pensacola Junior College in 1977
For more about Peace Pilgrim visit peacepilgrim.org

Labels: inner life, peace, Peace Pilgrim, pilgrimage, video

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Friday, May 04, 2007

What Is The Will Of God?

Q: What is the will of God?

A: This is a wonderful question, and I am happy to help you explore the subject as it is treated in The Urantia Book. It is actually a more elusive subject than one might think at first glance.

In this following quote we find the first mention of the will of God:

p25:6 1:3.6 In the universes God the Father is, in potential, the overcontroller of matter, mind, and spirit. Only by means of his far-flung personality circuit does God deal directly with the personalities of his vast creation of will creatures, but he is contactable (outside of Paradise) only in the presences of his fragmented entities, the will of God abroad in the universes. This Paradise spirit that indwells the minds of the mortals of time and there fosters the evolution of the immortal soul of the surviving creature is of the nature and divinity of the Universal Father. But the minds of such evolutionary creatures originate in the local universes and must gain divine perfection by achieving those experiential transformations of spiritual attainment which are the inevitable result of a creature's choosing to do the will of the Father in heaven.

This quote explains that the will of God is present in our world, but it exists only in the Spirit of God which indwells all normal-minded mortals. The good Spirit actually IS God, and is our only means of contacting God outside of Paradise . This is a wonderful and reassuring truth - that God actually DOES indwell our minds, and through our own efforts, we can use this indwelling presence to progressively discern the will of God.

This following quote further explains just how we, as mortals of earthly origin, grow to adopt the leadings of the indwelling Spirit, the "will of God," thereby achieving ultimate eternal survival. When we choose to be led by the Spirit-within, we then create that indestructible entity known as the soul, which is the very part of us that survives.

p26:1 1:3.7 In the inner experience of man, mind is joined to matter. Such material-linked minds cannot survive mortal death. The technique of survival is embraced in those adjustments of the human will and those transformations in the mortal mind whereby such a God-conscious intellect gradually becomes spirit taught and eventually spirit led. This evolution of the human mind from matter association to spirit union results in the transmutation of the potentially spirit phases of the mortal mind into the morontia realities of the immortal soul. Mortal mind subservient to matter is destined to become increasingly material and consequently to suffer eventual personality extinction; mind yielded to spirit is destined to become increasingly spiritual and ultimately to achieve oneness with the surviving and guiding divine spirit and in this way to attain survival and eternity of personality existence.

Although you did not specifically ask, I thought you might like to have further information regarding the will of God - for example, how the will of God is discerned and performed in a human life. How do we actually DO the will of God?

These quotes may give you some direction and encouragement:

p1221:2 111:5.1 The doing of the will of God is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with Godâ€”with the very God who has made such a creature life of inner meaning-value possible. Sharing is Godlikeâ€”divine. God shares all with the Eternal Son and the Infinite Spirit, while they, in turn, share all things with the divine Sons and spirit Daughters of the universes.

p1221:3 111:5.2 The imitation of God is the key to perfection; the doing of his will is the secret of survival and of perfection in survival.

p1221:7 111:5.6 This choosing of the Father's will is the spiritual finding of the spirit Father by mortal man, even though an age must pass before the creature son may actually stand in the factual presence of God on Paradise. This choosing does not so much consist in the negation of creature willâ€”"Not my will but yours be done"â€”as it consists in the creature's positive affirmation: "It is my will that your will be done."

So, we can now see that the "will of God" is truly an "inside job." The will of God exists in the form of the indwelling Spirit of God in the minds of mortals (known in Urantia Book teachings as the Thought Adjuster, or Mystery Monitor), and the finding and doing of that will consists in sharing that inner life - the life apart from the purely mechanical function of the brain - the life of the mind, and in the arena of free will. In other words, it is our mandate to choose, of our own free will, to do the will of God, allowing the leadings of the indwelling Spirit to inform our choices in life.

Finally, I chose the following quotes to give you an even broader view of the function of the will of God in the mind of man.

p138:2 12:7.7 The will of God does not uniformly prevail in the heart of the God-seeking material mortal, but if the time frame is enlarged beyond the moment to embrace the whole of the first life, then does God's will become increasingly discernible in the spirit fruits which are borne in the lives of the spirit-led children of God.

p382:6 34:7.6 ... present-day mortals would experience less of this apparent warfare between the flesh and the spirit if they would enter the spirit kingdom, wherein the faith sons of God enjoy comparative deliverance from the slave-bondage of the flesh in the enlightened and liberating service of wholehearted devotion to doing the will of the Father in heaven.

p435:7 39:4.14 The keys of the kingdom of heaven are: sincerity, more sincerity, and more sincerity. All men have these keys. Men use themâ€”advance in spirit statusâ€”by decisions, by more decisions, and by more decisions. The highest moral choice is the choice of the highest possible value, and alwaysâ€”in any sphere, in all of themâ€”this is to choose to do the will of God. If man thus chooses, he is great, though he be the humblest citizen of Jerusem or even the least of mortals on Urantia.

p1176:4 107:0.4 Any mortal who has seen a Creator Son has seen the Universal Father, and he who is indwelt by a divine Adjuster is indwelt by the Paradise Father. Every mortal who is consciously or unconsciously following the leading of his indwelling Adjuster is living in accordance with the will of God. Consciousness of Adjuster presence is consciousness of God's presence.

Thank you for this most interesting question. I hope the answer has been helpful to you.

Sincerely,

MaryJo
Truthbook.com

Labels: God's Will, inner life, kingdom of heaven, Mary Jo, soul, The Urantia Book, Thought Adjuster

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Saturday, October 08, 2005

Changing your inner self

You asked how you can change your inner self and I submit to you that the fact that you desire such a change is an indication that it is already happening.

Each human being is absolutely unique. The Urantia Book says it this way;

The love of the Father absolutely individualizes each personality as a unique child of the Universal Father, a child without duplicate in infinity, a will creature irreplaceable in all eternity.

Ponder that for a moment and really let it sink in. You are a child without duplicate in infinity, irreplaceable in all eternity! Now, ponder the fact that a piece of the Father's ultimate perfection lives in you. It only makes sense then that all significant personal change occurs from the inside out and this process is greatly facilitated if we do not resist it but accept and even embrace it.

You expressed some regret about the mistakes that you have made.

I can assure you, there will come a time when you realize that your mistakes and experiences have been your greatest teachers. Our patient and loving Heavenly Father expects us to make mistakes. In fact, he set that scenario up. He wants us to strive for perfection, but he knows (better than anyone) how far away from that lofty goal we are. His desire is only that our intentions are turned toward that goal and that we are mindful of it and working on it. The pain you feel about your mistakes is good because it suggests that you are conscious and moral.

These comforting words of Jesus always help me through a dark night in my soul:

"Do not become discouraged by the discovery that you are human. Human nature may tend toward evil, but it is not inherently sinful. Be not downcast by your failure wholly to forget some of your regrettable experiences. The mistakes which you fail to forget in time will be forgotten in eternity. Lighten your burdens of soul by speedily acquiring a long-distance view of your destiny, a universe expansion of your career."

You asked what you can do to make your mistakes right.

A Native American friend of mine says, "When you make a wrong turn you must make two right turns. One to correct the wrong turn and one just for growth."

I love this simple kind of wisdom.

You wondered "where exactly" you are going.

You are headed into eternity to become perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.

It's a journey that he has prepared for you, but it is your choice whether or not to take it. He has provided all you will need for the journey and even more, he has given you a piece of himself to live in your heart and mind and act as your personal guide. All this, to ensure your safe arrival home to Him where he actually dwells at the Paradise center and source of all that is. This is your eternal destination but getting there will also be sublime.

Jesus once told a Chinese merchant, "...we shall meet again in the worlds of light where the Father of spirit souls has provided many delightful stopping-places for those who are Paradise-bound."

Quoting the book again:

Love of adventure, curiosity, and dread of monotony--these traits inherent in evolving human nature--were not put there just to aggravate and annoy you during your short sojourn on earth, but rather to suggest to you that death is only the beginning of an endless career of adventure, an everlasting life of anticipation, an eternal voyage of discovery.

Quoting from Jesus again:

"You may be surrounded with small enemies and be retarded by many obstacles, but the big things and the real things of this world and the universe are on your side. The sun rises every morning to salute you just as it does the most powerful and prosperous man on earth."

My thoughts and prayers are with you. May the golden white light of Christ enfold you in healing and peace.

Blessings always.....Paula

Labels: God, humans, inner life, Jesus, mistakes, Paula, regret, The Urantia Book