The LDS members and the Kingdom of God

[_sheryl]

Shalom!

If we honestly look within ourselves, we realize that our experiences, our awareness, is very limited, and thus so are the conclusions or beliefs that we hold based on these.

This is not a bad thing! This is how it is suppose to be - each of us being a consciousness that is having a unique experience, or journey of experience (growing awareness) as we move through time and space! This is our soul, or the outer aspect of our soul.

The problem arises when we think that our unique experience and awareness defines the conclusions and beliefs that everyone should hold! Only apostles and prophets, whose awareness extends well beyond the normal limited human awareness, whose touches the mind of God, can speak for others, or be messengers for others.

First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

By 'eye' Jesus is referring to our inner eye, our inner awareness. And by plank or speck he is referring to obstacles to that awareness. Full awareness is our true self, our higher soul, and these planks or specks arise because of sin, preventing us from being able to 'see' our true self within. And so before we want to help a brother to see, we better make sure that we can see ourselves! Telling others what is right based on a limited inner awareness is the blind leading the blind.

And so in our tradition, we have a term we use for our own conclusions and beliefs based on our own inner awareness: my Gospel. This term originated with Paul, as he admonished others in Romans, speaking of what he knows of God according to his own limited awareness. Paul, if you pay attention to his epistles, often differentiated between gifting of higher revelation and what he himself could see.

This said, the reason for the burning in the heart, according to my gospel, is Christ dwelling within, the Spiritual Sun that is behind what we think of as our heart. It is our true heart, and whenever we are open and spacious, opening to receive from God, opening to love others, we will feel a burning sensation. Spaciousness in the heart = burning.

And so the disciples' experience of burning in their heart, was love, their true heart responding to love and opening in love to the presence of their beloved teacher. Their connection with the Soul of Jesus, was deeper than that single life.

Peace be with you.

Sheryl

[_Themis]

It's more than that. It's the fact that so many in the church have had that, and I am a covert who has attended many other churches over the years, and I haven't seen the same effect.

I have seen better. Some religions really know how to into the spirit.

[_gdemetz]

Maybe that was the wrong spirit. You can't have the true Spirit, and then still believe many false teachings.

[_Franktalk]

No, you only hope it's more than that and you only hope the experience within different Church's is different to yours. It isn't though.

Lots of members claim a Holy Ghost type experience when finding their car keys or a few short weeks before they go inactive.

So says a man of the world who has filled his cup with the world so much the Spirit runs from him. In my opinion that is. Your desire to derail someone who does seek spiritual guidance is very telling to me. Just why would a man of the world desire to divert a man who is on the right path? I have to think that the warm feelings you get by embracing science and the knowledge of the world is just so much better when verified by another fallen person from the spiritual realm. One more notch to add to your fight for truth. But that is your downfall. You wear your truth around you for all to see that have spiritual eyes. Do you think that your declaration of a spiritual event means anything to me. I know how much you embrace the world. By scripture we know you can not obtain the message from God in any spiritual way. So anyone who has any kind of real spiritual event will place your rants in proper perspective. We all wish you well and do hope that one day things will change for you. But until that day I have to tell you that you are chasing windmills. You chase a construct of your own mind which not only is obvious to anyone with a spiritual bone but blinds you into thinking that you truly are effective. I assure you you are not. So whatever ego you feel is manufactured in your own mind and is just one more example of the worldly blanket which wraps you.

But hey, I could be wrong. So prove me wrong by telling me all of the spiritual events in your life? Show me how scripture has opened for you. Tell me what secrets have been revealed to you. Oh please enlighten us with your wisdom that was received of God. If indeed God speaks to you then tell us what He said. But be aware that I will treat your experiences in the manner most appropriate.

[_sheryl]

Maybe that was the wrong spirit. You can't have the true Spirit, and then still believe many false teachings.

Hmmm...who determines whose teachings are true and thus whose spirit is right?

[_gdemetz]

See FrankTalk's writing above. It was good.

[_Franktalk]

Hmmm...who determines whose teachings are true and thus whose spirit is right?

That is easy to answer. It is our free will to choose our own worldview which sets the stage for how we accept things as true or not. So each of us sees truth as we have prepared our self to see. If we already know everything then we will see a refection of that truth in everything we see. But if we prepare our self as an empty cup then someone else can show us truth. The bottom line is that we all have a personal set of filters to view all new ideas.

Truth is truth it is us who will determine if we see it or some other "truth".

[_sheryl]

Hmmm...who determines whose teachings are true and thus whose spirit is right?

That is easy to answer. It is our free will to choose our own worldview which sets the stage for how we accept things as true or not. So each of us sees truth as we have prepared our self to see. If we already know everything then we will see a refection of that truth in everything we see. But if we prepare our self as an empty cup then someone else can show us truth. The bottom line is that we all have a personal set of filters to view all new ideas.

Truth is truth it is us who will determine if we see it or some other "truth".

Hi Franktalk!

I wonder whether we do choose our worldview, because it does not appear in this life that we have chosen what family and culture we are born into, what experiences we have in our early years, that end up determining our worldview. Our worldview is made up of 'the world that we have viewed'. And our view of the world is very limited.

Something that sent me on a rather intense journey, that not only adjusted but changed my world view, my God view, comes from Acts 17:

Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you: “God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’ Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising.

So if God has determined the places and times that we will live in, has he not determined the world view that we hold? And if he has determined our world view, how can anyone's world view be wrong?

Perhaps the issue is not our world view, or any ideas that we have about anything, but about our seeking, our groping for God? And in that seeking and groping we will move through a myriad of world views. But the world views do not matter, they are just temporal snap shots of where we are in any given time and place. The issue according to scripture is our seeking God, groping, longing to draw near.

This is the choice, would you not say? Do we chose to grope for God, in our stumbling often inadequate ways? As you offered above, it is about being empty, each day allowing ourselves to be made new - arising as a new creation, seeking to draw even closer to God.

In our groping, we might study scripture, we might come to specific ideas about what scripture means, but I offer you that Truth is beyond any of our ideas. None of our ideas will stand next to Truth. They will be obliterated. The point not being our ideas, but our continued seeking. Drawing closer to God is the greatest intimacy we will ever experience, and just as we take off our clothes to draw physically near to one we love, we take of our ideas, our opinions, our thoughts and feelings about this or that when we draw spiritually near to God.

May we all become naked before our creator!

Shalom!

Sheryl

[_Franktalk]

Sheryl,

It is true that God sets a stage for us and of course that stage is a very powerful driver of how we learn to deal with life. I have often thought that the environments are so powerful that each of us has choice but the unequal nature of the stage mandates the full range of spectrum of good and evil for us to experience. I have also thought that some people have no spirit and are basically robots that do the things that are required so that we all experience what we need to. But another view is that some spirits that come here are already evil and God places them to do the most good in the sense of the stage. A vastly protected life does not advance.

I think that the range of spirits coming into this world are very different from each other. So in equal environments they will act very differently. So yes I can see that God does control much of the environment but I think that individual differences in spirit may drive the system more than environment. Also we seek environments on this earth. We tend to gravitate to what we desire. So where is the balance between the setting of the stage and our own free will of character that we brought with us?

[_Themis]

See FrankTalk's writing above. It was good.

Good rambling maybe. The only thing he really said there was if it agrees with what he believes then it is the spirit. Your posts basically say the same thing. The only thing this is good for is self delusion.