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There is a question that frequently arises between the UB Students: What can I do to increase my faith, to turn it a strong, living and experiential faith? I think the answer lies in the teachings about the faith of Jesus and how he attained it, and can be complemented by Jesus teachings about prayer and worship.

“In the Master’s life on Urantia, this and all other worlds of the local creation discover a new and higher type of religion, religion based on personal spiritual relations with the Universal Father and wholly validated by the supreme authority of genuine personal experience. This living faith of Jesus was more than an intellectual reflection, and it was not a mystic meditation.” 196:0.4 (2087.4)

 “Jesus brought to God, as a man of the realm, the greatest of all offerings: the consecration and dedication of his own will to the majestic service of doing the divine will. … He lived just such a life of prayerful consecration to the doing of his Father’s will and ended his life triumphantly with just such a prayer. The secret of his unparalleled religious life was this consciousness of the presence of God; and he attained it by intelligent prayer and sincere worship — unbroken communion with God — and not by leadings, voices, visions, or extraordinary religious practices.” 196:0.10 (2088.5)

Living faith, then, is the outcome of a genuine personal experience in our spiritual relations with the Universal Father. And Jesus attained this religious life by “intelligent prayer and sincere worship — unbroken communion with God.”

To attain a genuine, living faith, we need a sublime and genuine religious experience with God, attaining the consciousness of having found God in our soul. (1121.6) If Jesus attained his magnificent living faith through intelligent prayer and worship, I think we can (and should) do the same.

We understand enough about prayer, reflective meditation and thinking, but true worship is a new concept to us. And it is an essential part of the religious experience that will allow us to attain a living faith. I think there are two essential elements in this communion with the Father:

1. Our mind consents to worship God if we hunger and thirst for God righteousness, if we want to do His will wholeheartedly.
2. We need to know and understand the teachings about the true worship technique.

The main characteristics of the true worship technique, according to The Urantia Book teachings, are:

1. Self-forgetting – superthinking.  (1616.9) 143:7.7 “Prayer is self-reminding — sublime thinking; worship is self-forgetting — superthinking.”
2. Effortless attention, centered in the presence of God in our superconsciousness. (1616.9) 143:7.7 “Worship is effortless attention, true and ideal soul rest, a form of restful spiritual exertion.”
3. Restfulness, relaxation which renews the mind.  “Relaxation determines the capacity for spiritual receptivity”. This means relaxation of body and mind. (1616.5) 143:7.3; (1774.4) 160:1.12
4. Expect nothing. (65.5) 5:3.3
5. Ask nothing. (65.5) 5:3.3
6. The inner self (the soul) must be intent upon God. 131:4.5 (1448.4)
7. Silent receptivity (mental silence). (150.2) 13:4.3

Superthinking means transcend thinking and attain the superconscious level of our mind. To transcend thinking we need to forget ourselves, rendering our will to God, focusing in Him the mind attention, in inner silence.  It requires body and mind relaxation.
 

196:3.34 (2097.2) The great challenge to modern man is to achieve better communication with the divine Monitor that dwells within the human mind. Man’s greatest adventure in the flesh consists in the well-balanced and sane effort to advance the borders of self-consciousness out through the dim realms of embryonic soul-consciousness in a wholehearted effort to reach the borderland of spirit-consciousness — contact with the divine presence. Such an experience constitutes God-consciousness, an experience mightily confirmative of the pre-existent truth of the religious experience of knowing God. Such spirit-consciousness is the equivalent of the knowledge of the actuality of sonship with God. Otherwise, the assurance of sonship is the experience of faith.

God bless you all. Your sister,

Jeannie.