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Q 7. How should we relate to the divine according to the 5th Epochal Revelation Urantia Papers?

How should we relate to the divine according to the 5th Epochal Revelation Urantia Papers?

According to the Fifth Epochal Revelation (The Urantia Book, or Urantia Papers), the proper way for humans to relate to the divine—centered on the Universal Father (God)—is through a personal, loving father-son (or daughter) relationship characterized by voluntary recognition, intelligent faith, sincere worship, prayerful communion, and wholehearted dedication to doing the Father's will. This is not formal ritual, coerced service, or distant reverence, but a living, experiential partnership enabled by the indwelling Thought Adjuster (a prepersonal fragment of the Father himself that dwells within every normal-minded mortal).

1. The Foundational Relationship: Sonship with the Universal Father

• God is first and foremost our loving Father; we are his children (sons and daughters) by grace and potential. The highest concept mortals can form of Deity is that of Father. Sonship is the supreme relationship between creature and Creator.
• This relationship is personal and reciprocal: The Father initiates contact by bestowing a fragment of himself (the Thought Adjuster) to live within us. We respond by recognizing this presence, loving him in return, and voluntarily choosing to align our will with his.
• The affectionate dedication of our human will to the doing of the Father's will is our choicest gift to God—the only true value we can offer him. In God we live, move, and have our being; he seeks no slavish service or arbitrary recognition, but heartfelt, free-will love and loyalty.

2. The Central Practice: True Worship

• Worship is the highest and purest form of relating to the Father. It is directed primarily to the Universal Father (directly or as manifested in his Creator Sons, such as Jesus/Michael of Nebadon).
• True worship is for its own sake—a spontaneous, natural reaction to recognizing the Father's matchless personality, lovable nature, and adorable attributes. It asks nothing, expects nothing for the worshiper, and contains no self-interest.
• It is the act of the son's personal communion with the divine Father: the material mind assents, the evolving soul craves and initiates it, and the indwelling Adjuster conducts the worship on our behalf, communicating our deepest longings to the Father.
• Worship occurs on multiple cosmic levels (intellectual, morontial/soul, spiritual, and personal) and unifies mind, soul, and spirit in personality. It is refreshing, creative, fraternal, and even "romantic" in attitude. The spirit of the Father speaks best when the human mind is in an attitude of true worship.

3. Prayer and Communion

• Prayer differs from worship: it includes a self- or creature-interest element (petitions, thanks, guidance, strength). In practical experience, prayer often blends with worship and can be addressed to the Father.
• Prayer is the sincere, longing look of the child to the Spirit Father—a psychological process of exchanging the human will for the divine will. It strengthens faith, augments the technique of living, and leads upward to the communion of true worship.
• Effective prayer involves faith, sincerity, wholehearted choice of the divine will, and dedication to doing it. It should seek divine wisdom for problems encountered on the path to perfection rather than material coercion of events.
• In daily life: Worship the Father; pray to and commune with the Son (Eternal Son or local Creator Son); and cooperate with the agencies of the Infinite Spirit (e.g., the Holy Spirit, adjutant mind-spirits, guardian angels) for practical affairs.

• The doing of the Father's will is nothing more or less than an exhibition of creature willingness to share the inner life with God.
• It is demonstrated through:
  • Living faith — like Jesus' sublime, wholehearted, experiential trust in the Father's watchcare. Jesus' faith was personal, spiritual, and undaunted; he lived by it moment by moment, interpreting all religion in terms of the Father's will. He demonstrated a new and higher type of religion based on personal spiritual relations with the Father, validated by genuine experience.
  • Unselfish love and service to fellow beings (the practical outworking of sonship—loving God and serving humanity as brothers/sisters in the family of God).
  • Moral decisions, character growth, and progressive attunement with the indwelling Adjuster.
• Jesus taught and lived that we should believe with him—sharing his transcendent faith in the reality of God's love and the security of sonship—rather than merely believing in him as a creed. "Follow me" means sharing his faith and way of life.

5. Practical Attitudes and Keys

• Sincerity: The keys to the kingdom of heaven are sincerity, more sincerity, and more sincerity—advancing through repeated decisions.
• Humility and hunger: Recognizing spiritual poverty, perfection-hunger, and the desire to know God and be like him.
• Progressive communion: Through intelligent prayer, sincere worship, and unbroken consciousness of God's presence (as Jesus achieved without reliance on visions or extraordinary practices).
• Avoid common pitfalls: No appeasement of an "angry God," no blood sacrifices or penance to win favor, no formalized or mechanical religion that neglects personal experience. Religion is dynamic—loving sonship, not mere duty or morality.

Overall Orientation

The Urantia Papers present our relation to the divine as an eternal adventure of becoming perfect even as the Father is perfect—starting now through faith-sonship. It is intimate (God lives within us), voluntary (no coercion), joyful (thrill of living in the Father's presence), and purposeful (contributing to the Supreme while ascending toward Paradise). Jesus' life is the supreme human example: he magnified the Father through perfect faith, prayerful consecration, and loving service while fully experiencing mortal life.

Key papers for deeper study:

• Paper 5: God's Relation to the Individual (core on worship, prayer, and Adjuster ministry).
• Paper 1: The Universal Father (sonship and the mandate to be perfect).
• Paper 91: The Evolution of Prayer.
• Paper 196: The Faith of Jesus (the ideal of living faith and personal religion).
• Jesus' teachings throughout Papers 140–196, especially on the kingdom as inner sonship.

In essence, we relate to the divine not as servants to a distant ruler, but as beloved children to a loving Father—through faith-filled communion, selfless worship, and the daily choice to share our inner life with him while expressing his love to others. This relationship transforms mortal existence into the beginning of an endless, joyous ascent toward divine perfection.