Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:29 am +0000 Posts: 3964
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toto wrote: toto wrote: fanofVan wrote: All of time is a correcting time....all of it. You have just finished telling us this about time. And now... fanofVan wrote: Don't need an event to prepare for or for motivation to live in the Spirit.
An event is a happening in time. Why would say that we don't need an event? All that is given to us and all that we have are happenings in time. Our lives are a series of events. It is wise to pay attention to these "events".
Thanks toto for pointing out my consistency!!!! All of time is a correcting, or more accurately a perfecting, time...all of it. And mortals do not need any specific event in-time to prepare for or be motivated to live in the Spirit.
Jim announces an impending event of global significance....as Christians have done now for 2000 years....the rapture or Armageddon or the second coming or some form of manifestation of the hand of God for deliverance from evil and the repercussions of sin. And his job is to herald the coming new age and warn those of us who, apparently by his judgment, are not doing enough to be prepared for whatever he says is coming.
He and Robert S. have started (or restarted) a Urantia Church to spread this warning and invitation to our world. I'm sure they would welcome your help toto/Mannie/Louis, loucol, JohnnyBones as you come with your own whole posse/platoon!
I've always found it interesting that the Master told the Apostles they were to 'win' souls for the 'kingdom' rather than to 'save' souls from damnation. A profound distinction I think.
Jim preaches a uniform expectation and a uniform preparation for the uniform event he is telling us to expect. This is not how the universe operates, especially on the material worlds of mortal birth. We are not to look for signs or expect signs in order for us to heed the call of the Spirit within. And we are to have hope, joy, peace, and confidence in this friendly universe and along the edges of conflict as we each, personally, listen to and respond to the Spirit within each of us. The expression of that experience is never to be uniform or specified by another.
Like so many of his fellow preachers, Jim seems far too focused on what others are or are not doing and seems to claim quite the insight into the hearts, minds, and lives of others. To be so intent on the saw dust found in the eyes of others ignores the beam one might otherwise be concerned about. I would sincerely advise Jim to stop predicting events in the future and to stop telling others what we should be doing to get ready for whatever he is predicting. The sky is not falling and the Most Highs rule in the kingdoms of humanity.
140:8.26 (1582.7) Jesus knew men were different, and he so taught his apostles. He constantly exhorted them to refrain from trying to mold the disciples and believers according to some set pattern. He sought to allow each soul to develop in its own way, a perfecting and separate individual before God. In answer to one of Peter’s many questions, the Master said: “I want to set men free so that they can start out afresh as little children upon the new and better life.” Jesus always insisted that true goodness must be unconscious, in bestowing charity not allowing the left hand to know what the right hand does.
140:8.30 (1583.4) Jesus did not teach his apostles that religion is man’s only earthly pursuit; that was the Jewish idea of serving God. But he did insist that religion was the exclusive business of the twelve. Jesus taught nothing to deter his believers from the pursuit of genuine culture; he only detracted from the tradition-bound religious schools of Jerusalem. He was liberal, big-hearted, learned, and tolerant. Self-conscious piety had no place in his philosophy of righteous living. *
140:8.31 (1583.5) The Master offered no solutions for the nonreligious problems of his own age nor for any subsequent age. Jesus wished to develop spiritual insight into eternal realities and to stimulate initiative in the originality of living; he concerned himself exclusively with the underlying and permanent spiritual needs of the human race. He revealed a goodness equal to God. He exalted love — truth, beauty, and goodness — as the divine ideal and the eternal reality.
140:8.32 (1583.6) The Master came to create in man a new spirit, a new will — to impart a new capacity for knowing the truth, experiencing compassion, and choosing goodness — the will to be in harmony with God’s will, coupled with the eternal urge to become perfect, even as the Father in heaven is perfect.
140:10.2 (1584.5) Another great handicap in this work of teaching the twelve was their tendency to take highly idealistic and spiritual principles of religious truth and remake them into concrete rules of personal conduct. Jesus would present to them the beautiful spirit of the soul’s attitude, but they insisted on translating such teachings into rules of personal behavior. Many times, when they did make sure to remember what the Master said, they were almost certain to forget what he did not say. But they slowly assimilated his teaching because Jesus was all that he taught. What they could not gain from his verbal instruction, they gradually acquired by living with him.
140:10.5 (1585.3) The one characteristic of Jesus’ teaching was that the morality of his philosophy originated in the personal relation of the individual to God — this very child-father relationship. Jesus placed emphasis on the individual, not on the race or nation. While eating supper, Jesus had the talk with Matthew in which he explained that the morality of any act is determined by the individual’s motive. Jesus’ morality was always positive. The golden rule as restated by Jesus demands active social contact; the older negative rule could be obeyed in isolation. Jesus stripped morality of all rules and ceremonies and elevated it to majestic levels of spiritual thinking and truly righteous living.
140:10.6 (1585.4) This new religion of Jesus was not without its practical implications, but whatever of practical political, social, or economic value there is to be found in his teaching is the natural outworking of this inner experience of the soul as it manifests the fruits of the spirit in the spontaneous daily ministry of genuine personal religious experience.

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