God Discovered Jesus MeetUp Week 5 Follow Me - What He Meant
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The Jesus MeetUp Follow Me: What he meant Week 5
Definition of transcendent: adjective
beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience.
"the pursuit for a transcendent level of spiritual experience"
surpassing the ordinary; exceptional.
synonyms:
incomparable, matchless, peerless, unrivaled, inimitable, beyond compare/comparison, unparalleled, unequaled, without equal, second to none, unsurpassed, unsurpassable, nonpareil; More;
exceptional, consummate, unique, perfect, rare, surpassing, magnificent
"a transcendent genius"
(of God) existing apart from and not subject to the limitations of the material/physical universe.
synonyms:
mystical, mystic, transcendental, spiritual, divine; metaphysica
Jesus calls us to follow Him in transcendent faith AS He believed in His Father.
196:0.3 Jesus does not require his disciples to believe in him but rather to believe with him, believe in the reality of the love of God and in full confidence accept the security of the assurance of sonship with the heavenly Father. The Master desires that all his followers should fully share his transcendent faith. Jesus most touchingly challenged his followers, not only to believe what he believed, but also to believe as he believed. This is the full significance of his one supreme requirement, "Follow me."
There is a vast difference between the two words “what” and “as”. Example: We could believe as a fact that someone could fly in a rocket ship and land on the moon. This would be “what” it means to believe in something. It is quite another thing to personally prepare, pursue, adorn ourselves with a spacesuit, climb into a rocket ship, blast off of our planet, fly into space and then land on the moon “as” a personal experience. The former requires no faith and only mere belief in a fact. The latter requires faith that goes beyond fact and into personal experience which then does yield personal and factual assurance by way of actually doing such a thing. Jesus not only wants us to believe in WHAT He believes [that you can personally experience God within you by way of your transcendent and child-like faith] but also to actually pursue the spiritual experience of KNOWING God AS Jesus knew His Father.
Ponder deeply what you are being taught here by Jesus!
Take a moment to be silent and reflect upon what you just heard.
Any and everything that Jesus experienced in His human nature is possible for us as well in ours.
196:2.2 Jesus’ life in the flesh portrays a transcendent religious growth from the early ideas of primitive awe and human reverence up through years of personal spiritual communion until he finally arrived at that advanced and exalted status of the consciousness of his oneness with the Father. And thus, in one short life, did Jesus traverse that experience of religious spiritual progression which man begins on earth and ordinarily achieves only at the conclusion of his long sojourn in the spirit training schools of the successive levels of the pre-Paradise career. Jesus progressed from a purely human consciousness of the faith certainties of personal religious experience to the sublime spiritual heights of the positive realization of his divine nature and to the consciousness of his close association with the Universal Father in the management of a universe. He progressed from the humble status of mortal dependence which prompted him spontaneously to say to the one who called him Good Teacher, “Why do you call me good? None is good but God,” to that sublime consciousness of achieved divinity which led him to exclaim, “Which one of you convicts me of sin?” And this progressing ascent from the human to the divine was an exclusively mortal achievement. And when he had thus attained divinity, he was still the same human Jesus, the Son of Man as well as the Son of God.
Look closely at that sentence that declares that Jesus accomplished His spiritual ascent in His purely MORTAL ACHIEVEMENT! Are we not also mortals just as Jesus was? Do we not have an indwelling fragment of our Paradise Father just as Jesus had? Can we not utilize our transcendent child-like faith just as Jesus did? Is our indwelling Father just as capable of transforming our minds and souls to the extent that Jesus enjoyed as well? YES! Every single answer is a YES!!! This spiritual growth from our Father within our own souls culminates in a faith that goes well beyond belief in facts and directly into ASSURANCES -- CERTAINTIES -- TRANSCENDENT FAITH!
The good parent/child relationship reveals how Jesus’ transcendent faith in His Father was expressed in His life.
196:0.11 Jesus trusted God much as the child trusts a parent. He had a profound confidence in the universe — just such a trust as the child has in its parental environment. Jesus' wholehearted faith in the fundamental goodness of the universe very much resembled the child's trust in the security of its earthly surroundings. He depended on the heavenly Father as a child leans upon its earthly parent, and his fervent faith never for one moment doubted the certainty of the heavenly Father's overcare. He was not disturbed seriously by fears, doubts, and skepticism. Unbelief did not inhibit the free and original expression of his life. He combined the stalwart and intelligent courage of a full-grown man with the sincere and trusting optimism of a believing child. His faith grew to such heights of trust that it was devoid of fear.
Recognize that becoming DEVOID OF FEAR IS POSSIBLE FOR US AS WELL!!!
Although some of us may not have had good parents of whom loved us well we can still comprehend what we are being taught here. Your Paradise Father IS the ultimate good and loving parent who does indeed live within your own mind and soul. Our longing for such a good parent may be our greatest gift in that we might pursue our loving Father with an even greater passion given our deficiencies. This is most definitely true in our own life experiences. Trust your good indwelling Father. Be confident in your God of Truth. Find freedom from fear in the knowledge that our Giver-of-life is one of beauty and LOVE. This pursuit of God will provide for us the same “devoid of fear” that Jesus enjoyed all the way through and to the end of His mortal life here on our world. Faith is all that is required!
Define subjective and objective:
subjective: adjective: Dependent on or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world. Based on a given person's experience, understanding, and feelings; personal or individual. Not caused by external stimuli.
objective: adjective: Existing independent of or external to the mind; actual or real. Based on observable phenomena; empirical. Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices.
196:3.21 The exquisite and transcendent experience of loving and being loved [by the Father] is not just a psychic illusion because it is so purely subjective [personal]. The one truly divine and objective [actual] reality that is associated with mortal beings, the Thought Adjuster [your indwelling Father fragment], functions to human observation apparently as an exclusively subjective [personal] phenomenon. Man's contact with the highest objective [actual] reality, God, is only through the purely subjective experience of knowing him, of worshiping him, of realizing sonship with him.
What we are being taught here is that the only way to make direct contact with God is from personal worship in spiritual experience that the child of God pursues on their own and within themselves. Your spiritual experience with God becomes your personal proof of His existence as the most real, actual and factual truth in the entire cosmos. No one can ever disprove this. And - we can never prove this to someone else due to the fact that this is such a personal spiritual experience. So we should never even try to prove this to someone. We should merely STAND upon the truth of our own and very personally real spiritual experience with God within ourselves. This is what Jesus meant when He told everyone to “Follow Me”. So, we shall!
“Be born again.” ~ Jesus
155:6.3 “I have called upon you to be born again, to be born of the spirit. I have called you out of the darkness of authority and the lethargy of tradition into the transcendent light of the realization of the possibility of making for yourselves the greatest discovery possible for the human soul to make — the supernal experience of finding God for yourself, in yourself, and of yourself, and of doing all this as a fact in your own personal experience. And so may you pass from death to life, from the authority of tradition to the experience of knowing God; thus will you pass from darkness to light, from a racial faith inherited to a personal faith achieved by actual experience; and thereby will you progress from a theology of mind handed down by your ancestors to a true religion of spirit which shall be built up in your souls as an eternal endowment.” ~ Jesus
We enjoy a lovely planet full of material and physical beauty. Yet, we seem to have a harder time enjoying the beauties of our Father’s spiritual realm which is in fact more “real” than what our physical eyes can see. Jesus intends for us to now enter into the spiritual realm of His Father in living and active REALITY. This is what Jesus means when He is inviting us to be BORN AGAIN. When we only walk in material/physical sight we are actually walking in spiritual darkness. This is a form of spiritual “death”. When we pursue knowing our indwelling Paradise Father we begin to walk in the newness of spiritual light and life and it is experienced as a BIRTH. We then grow within our spirits as a result of our Father’s working with us in our souls and Jesus’ Spirit of Truth working within our minds. They will do most of the spiritual work within us. All we need do is provide for Them favorable conditions for this spiritual growth = child-like faith which will become TRANSCENDENT just as Jesus experienced in His mortal achievements.
A supreme life purpose!
160:3.5 This new gospel of the kingdom [individual worship with God] renders a great service to the art of living in that it supplies a new and richer incentive for higher living. It presents a new and exalted goal of destiny, a supreme life purpose. And these new concepts of the eternal and divine goal of existence are in themselves transcendent stimuli, calling forth the reaction of the very best that is resident in man's higher nature. On every mountaintop of intellectual thought are to be found relaxation for the mind, strength for the soul, and communion for the spirit. From such vantage points of high living, man is able to transcend the material irritations of the lower levels of thinking — worry, jealousy, envy, revenge, and the pride of immature personality. These high-climbing souls deliver themselves from a multitude of the crosscurrent conflicts of the trifles of living, thus becoming free to attain consciousness of the higher currents of spirit concept and celestial communication. But the life purpose must be jealously guarded from the temptation to seek for easy and transient attainment; likewise must it be so fostered as to become immune to the disastrous threats of fanaticism.
Higher living means that we are capable of loving others better, of attaining spiritual insight which brings forth a deeper understanding of what is happening in our world and our own lives and it means that we can enjoy a deep sense of purpose for living our lives. We find that it is much easier to respond to others with immediate understanding, compassion and care. We become a calmer person, a stronger person and we begin to “think with God” as He takes up more and more territory within our own minds. His thoughts become our own thoughts. Worry, jealously, pride and fear are moved farther and farther away from us as we experience every moment with God. With our pursuit of Him with our transcendent child-like faith we now climb higher and higher within our own souls and are delivered from the hard currents of a more animal-is-tic way of thinking and reacting. All of this does not mean that our lives will never encounter more hardships, challenges or even sufferings. Jesus experienced all of these things in His short life. What it does mean is that we can so foster this way of spiritual living that we become immune to silly fanaticism, delusions of an easy life or pleasure-seeking. We find a freedom and peace that will surpass all comprehension on a material/physical and lowly level.
Return to the high spiritual concept of Jesus, who proclaimed that the kingdom is the will of his heavenly Father dominant and transcendent in the heart of the believer!
Some questions to discuss:
To transcendent faith in our indwelling Paradise Father ~ Marin DeJohn
Now is a good time to say as a loving group The Lord’s Prayer all together.
Please turn these sheets back in.
Write down any questions you may have and give them to your leader.
Feel free to write down a prayer request and give it to your leader.
Next week we will discuss: Jesus’ Purpose On Earth
When men search for God, they are searching for everything. When they find God, they have found everything. The search for God is the unstinted bestowal of love attended by amazing discoveries of new and greater love to be bestowed.