By Chris Mcals
God's Creation
Are you a person of Faith? If so, where does your certainty of belief come from? Where do you think lays the difference between Faith and fanaticism? And what would you say to someone who has never had a religious or spiritual experience and is, therefore, a skeptic. Why should he or she believe you?
It's not enough to say that you feel it in your heart, because not all hearts are the same, and it's not enough to say that you draw your Faith from nature or from the land. Faith is not an objective belief. It's something that's obvious to you, and you don't need an external belief to base it on, as you would if you followed the laws of the Universe. Either you have it or you don't.
Some people mull over doubts, trying to find answers, others may not have doubts, however they have questions. Even theoretical physicists have to deal with being consciously aware of their fallibility. Maybe we need doubt to strengthen our Faith to the point where we realize that life without God, a God like Jesus, who identifies with our human condition, is not enough. In fact, if there were no God there would be no reason to live.
Faith tells me that God created us in His own Image and that we are children of Light, and our inheritance is Divine. However our perception of self is one of fragmentation. We experience great vulnerability, sin, guilt, fear and mortality. Why? How did this happen?
What Happened
Here is a little story.
"God said one day, 'Let us bring forth a being capable of loving Me freely.' And so it was. God's creature reflected the beauty of his Creator because he bore the marks of His Divinity, having been brought forth out of the mouth and heart of God.
Upon opening his eyes for the first time man saw God, and immediately he knew himself, for God was his self-reflection. Likewise, in beholding His creature, God saw Himself, and this self-beholding was His Glory, a Glory that resounded throughout His whole Creation.
God's creature knew himself in God and longed to grow in the Love and Knowledge of his Creator. Meanwhile he was very happy, since his life was free from fear and guilt and he was often lost in the contemplation of God, whom he rightly called, "Abba."
It was God's greatest delight to see His creature rejoice, for man was all that He had created him to be. He reflected all that God valued, as the Love in his heart was a living, growing spark of God's exultant Love for him.
God gave man a free will in order to bring forth his individuality, the greater to rejoice in his personal response to Him. His joy reflected in his creature so that the delight was mutual and forever new.
While this was going on, the spirit of darkness lurked in wait, looking for a breach that would allow it to expand its dominion into the realm of Light. Motivated by an unquenchable thirst to lash out at God to deprive Him of His happiness, and unable to reach Him directly, the spirit of darkness seized upon God's creation. The breach he found was the free will given to man by God so that man might offer himself as a gift to God, for such is the nature of Love.
Having found the breach, the spirit of darkness moved in swiftly, by deception. It permeated man with its being to the very marrow of his consciousness so that man could no longer see God. As a consequence, he no longer knew himself in God but only in self-reflection, which is to say within the narrow limits of his dimmed awareness. Consequently, man didn't see himself as a gift meant for God, rather he saw himself as a gift meant for himself alone.
Thus wounded, he began to experience guilt and fear, and began staggering about blindly, feeling alone and disconnected from his Source. Like one suffering from amnesia, he began wondering, "who am I? Where do I come from? Why am I here?"
Intuitively, he knew that there had to be more to him than met the eye, but nothing within his new realm of consciousness offered him any solid proof of his intuitive belief. All had been lost and forgotten.
He felt fragmented, alone, but he didn't know why! No longer did he perceive himself to be beautiful and worthy to be loved. On the contrary! His will became weak, and he felt worthless and expendable. His journey back to God would be dark, long and difficult."
The Land of the Shadow of Death
God did not abandon man to his predicament. He came into our darkness as the Light of the world, as promised in Isaiah 9:12, "They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light shined." This Light is our Good Shepherd Jesus, who came to guide us back to His Father's House.
The spirit of darkness could not erase all traces of our original splendor and magnitude, but it dimmed and transformed them to a great extent so that our awareness of Reality is distorted, and our state of being is one of great limitation, much like that of prisoners held bound in a dark cave.
This poses problems for some people because, by being able to see some value in the limited world to which they were born, they naturally assume that this is all there is. Actually, what we see and experience at the objective level of our existence is very much like a very faded carbon copy of what Reality truly is.
Faith Means...
Faith means not allowing ourselves to be deceived by what appears to be the ultimate reality. If we believe this to be the only reality there is, how can we get past it? And if we don't believe in God, how can we find out who we really are?
Faith means believing in the Truth. But if we never look for the Truth, how can we hope to find it?
Jesus referred to Himself as the Truth, The Way the Life and the Light. In other words, He is the Steps that Lead to the Roof of the House. It is Him all the way, from start to finish! What we today call "Faith" (the first step) is the same that we will one day recognize as Jesus.
Faith is often misunderstood to mean the subjective choice of an individual who seeks comfort in a personal philosophy of life.
Actually Faith comes from seeking the Truth. It comes to those who wonder about the meaning of suffering and injustice in the world. It also comes to those who are far from self-complacency, to the poor in spirit, the captives, the spiritually blind, the outcasts. Why? Because these are the ones who are motivated to search for answers that will bring them deliverance and hope.
Their focus is finding the truth. By contrast, those who are comfortable and self-complacent are too engrossed in themselves and in their delusions to be motivated to seek the Truth. They are captive, but they think they are free. They are blind, but they believe they can see.
Faith comes from actively seeking the truth. Jesus said that Truth will make us free. Free from what? Free from captivity of the darkness that permeates our consciousness. Faith will banish the darkness from our consciousness, and flood it with its original splendor and magnitude.
Faith is the empowerment of seeing the Truth as it really is. Faith is Jesus showing us who we truly are while we journey back to His kingdom of Light and Love. And, as we journey, we become transformed into what we were meant to be from the beginning.
Faith is a Light piercing the darkness of ignorance and delusion. Faith is a sight, an awareness that goes beyond mere appearances. Faith is a consent of the will to a higher Reality that is neither seen or experienced, but that we know to be true.
Faith may seem like a somewhat sober, austere discipline, but when compared with the various disciplines we embrace in our daily life it's far less demanding. Its only requirement is an open mind and a mere consent of the will.
Faith is the Way (Jesus) out of the cocoon-like web of darkness that is holding us in captivity. It is through Faith that we will escape this bondage.
Safely Home
God has given us Jesus Christ to help us to escape our captivity. Jesus Himself is the Light of Faith. He took our flesh to be a visible Sign of this magnificent Reality. By believing in Jesus and by obeying His commandments we will be led in safety to our True Home. With Jesus as our guide, we will escape the prison of our fallen condition.
The more we move in Faith, the more we become awake and aware. And the more we become awake and aware, the more we become our True, beautiful Selves, free to enjoy our Divine inheritance and the original bliss of our Communion with God.
God's Creation
Are you a person of Faith? If so, where does your certainty of belief come from? Where do you think lays the difference between Faith and fanaticism? And what would you say to someone who has never had a religious or spiritual experience and is, therefore, a skeptic. Why should he or she believe you?
It's not enough to say that you feel it in your heart, because not all hearts are the same, and it's not enough to say that you draw your Faith from nature or from the land. Faith is not an objective belief. It's something that's obvious to you, and you don't need an external belief to base it on, as you would if you followed the laws of the Universe. Either you have it or you don't.
Some people mull over doubts, trying to find answers, others may not have doubts, however they have questions. Even theoretical physicists have to deal with being consciously aware of their fallibility. Maybe we need doubt to strengthen our Faith to the point where we realize that life without God, a God like Jesus, who identifies with our human condition, is not enough. In fact, if there were no God there would be no reason to live.
Faith tells me that God created us in His own Image and that we are children of Light, and our inheritance is Divine. However our perception of self is one of fragmentation. We experience great vulnerability, sin, guilt, fear and mortality. Why? How did this happen?
What Happened
Here is a little story.
"God said one day, 'Let us bring forth a being capable of loving Me freely.' And so it was. God's creature reflected the beauty of his Creator because he bore the marks of His Divinity, having been brought forth out of the mouth and heart of God.
Upon opening his eyes for the first time man saw God, and immediately he knew himself, for God was his self-reflection. Likewise, in beholding His creature, God saw Himself, and this self-beholding was His Glory, a Glory that resounded throughout His whole Creation.
God's creature knew himself in God and longed to grow in the Love and Knowledge of his Creator. Meanwhile he was very happy, since his life was free from fear and guilt and he was often lost in the contemplation of God, whom he rightly called, "Abba."
It was God's greatest delight to see His creature rejoice, for man was all that He had created him to be. He reflected all that God valued, as the Love in his heart was a living, growing spark of God's exultant Love for him.
God gave man a free will in order to bring forth his individuality, the greater to rejoice in his personal response to Him. His joy reflected in his creature so that the delight was mutual and forever new.
While this was going on, the spirit of darkness lurked in wait, looking for a breach that would allow it to expand its dominion into the realm of Light. Motivated by an unquenchable thirst to lash out at God to deprive Him of His happiness, and unable to reach Him directly, the spirit of darkness seized upon God's creation. The breach he found was the free will given to man by God so that man might offer himself as a gift to God, for such is the nature of Love.
Having found the breach, the spirit of darkness moved in swiftly, by deception. It permeated man with its being to the very marrow of his consciousness so that man could no longer see God. As a consequence, he no longer knew himself in God but only in self-reflection, which is to say within the narrow limits of his dimmed awareness. Consequently, man didn't see himself as a gift meant for God, rather he saw himself as a gift meant for himself alone.
Thus wounded, he began to experience guilt and fear, and began staggering about blindly, feeling alone and disconnected from his Source. Like one suffering from amnesia, he began wondering, "who am I? Where do I come from? Why am I here?"
Intuitively, he knew that there had to be more to him than met the eye, but nothing within his new realm of consciousness offered him any solid proof of his intuitive belief. All had been lost and forgotten.
He felt fragmented, alone, but he didn't know why! No longer did he perceive himself to be beautiful and worthy to be loved. On the contrary! His will became weak, and he felt worthless and expendable. His journey back to God would be dark, long and difficult."
The Land of the Shadow of Death
God did not abandon man to his predicament. He came into our darkness as the Light of the world, as promised in Isaiah 9:12, "They that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them has the light shined." This Light is our Good Shepherd Jesus, who came to guide us back to His Father's House.
The spirit of darkness could not erase all traces of our original splendor and magnitude, but it dimmed and transformed them to a great extent so that our awareness of Reality is distorted, and our state of being is one of great limitation, much like that of prisoners held bound in a dark cave.
This poses problems for some people because, by being able to see some value in the limited world to which they were born, they naturally assume that this is all there is. Actually, what we see and experience at the objective level of our existence is very much like a very faded carbon copy of what Reality truly is.
Faith Means...
Faith means not allowing ourselves to be deceived by what appears to be the ultimate reality. If we believe this to be the only reality there is, how can we get past it? And if we don't believe in God, how can we find out who we really are?
Faith means believing in the Truth. But if we never look for the Truth, how can we hope to find it?
Jesus referred to Himself as the Truth, The Way the Life and the Light. In other words, He is the Steps that Lead to the Roof of the House. It is Him all the way, from start to finish! What we today call "Faith" (the first step) is the same that we will one day recognize as Jesus.
Faith is often misunderstood to mean the subjective choice of an individual who seeks comfort in a personal philosophy of life.
Actually Faith comes from seeking the Truth. It comes to those who wonder about the meaning of suffering and injustice in the world. It also comes to those who are far from self-complacency, to the poor in spirit, the captives, the spiritually blind, the outcasts. Why? Because these are the ones who are motivated to search for answers that will bring them deliverance and hope.
Their focus is finding the truth. By contrast, those who are comfortable and self-complacent are too engrossed in themselves and in their delusions to be motivated to seek the Truth. They are captive, but they think they are free. They are blind, but they believe they can see.
Faith comes from actively seeking the truth. Jesus said that Truth will make us free. Free from what? Free from captivity of the darkness that permeates our consciousness. Faith will banish the darkness from our consciousness, and flood it with its original splendor and magnitude.
Faith is the empowerment of seeing the Truth as it really is. Faith is Jesus showing us who we truly are while we journey back to His kingdom of Light and Love. And, as we journey, we become transformed into what we were meant to be from the beginning.
Faith is a Light piercing the darkness of ignorance and delusion. Faith is a sight, an awareness that goes beyond mere appearances. Faith is a consent of the will to a higher Reality that is neither seen or experienced, but that we know to be true.
Faith may seem like a somewhat sober, austere discipline, but when compared with the various disciplines we embrace in our daily life it's far less demanding. Its only requirement is an open mind and a mere consent of the will.
Faith is the Way (Jesus) out of the cocoon-like web of darkness that is holding us in captivity. It is through Faith that we will escape this bondage.
Safely Home
God has given us Jesus Christ to help us to escape our captivity. Jesus Himself is the Light of Faith. He took our flesh to be a visible Sign of this magnificent Reality. By believing in Jesus and by obeying His commandments we will be led in safety to our True Home. With Jesus as our guide, we will escape the prison of our fallen condition.
The more we move in Faith, the more we become awake and aware. And the more we become awake and aware, the more we become our True, beautiful Selves, free to enjoy our Divine inheritance and the original bliss of our Communion with God.