Encounters with God

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  • #20448
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    Mikhail116
    Participant

    Hello there the purpose of this topic is to share any experiences you may have had with God or anything of divine nature. Im aware that trying to explain an experience can sometimes do it an injustice since the ones you share the experience with were not there in your experience and can judge or simply not believe you. But if you are open and want to share one feel free I expect this community to be made up of individuals who choose to believe. I myself have many experiences that have shaken me to my core and have made me really excited about our future. Some of these experiences that I’ve had have led me to take interest in the Urantia book and some have even given me confirmation that what I am reading is of divine origin. Also feel free to ask me questions, I am not that well versed in the Urantia book but from my “encounters with God” or divine experiences can maybe answer some questions about some of the possibilities that are available

     

    Thank you

    God bless you all

    #20454
    Mara
    Mara
    Participant

    . . . trying to explain an experience. . . .

    Welcome to the forum and to the study of The Urantia Book!

    A fragment of God is within you.  No special gymnastics are required to encounter him.  Some of the amazing stories I’ve heard from people affirm to me that God has a plan and anyone can choose to be part of his plan.  Sounds like you’re on-board. The real challenge I think is to do God’s will.  And each one of us has to figure that out day-by-day.  I very much like this reference pertaining to Jesus.

    196:0:10  Jesus brought to God, as a man of the realm, the greatest of all offerings: the consecration and dedication of his own will to the majestic service of doing the divine will. Jesus always and consistently interpreted religion wholly in terms of the Father’s will. When you study the career of the Master, as concerns prayer or any other feature of the religious life, look not so much for what he taught as for what he did. Jesus never prayed as a religious duty. To him prayer was a sincere expression of spiritual attitude, a declaration of soul loyalty, a recital of personal devotion, an expression of thanksgiving, an avoidance of emotional tension, a prevention of conflict, an exaltation of intellection, an ennoblement of desire, a vindication of moral decision, an enrichment of thought, an invigoration of higher inclinations, a consecration of impulse, a clarification of viewpoint, a declaration of faith, a transcendental surrender of will, a sublime assertion of confidence, a revelation of courage, the proclamation of discovery, a confession of supreme devotion, the validation of consecration, a technique for the adjustment of difficulties, and the mighty mobilization of the combined soul powers to withstand all human tendencies toward selfishness, evil, and sin. He lived just such a life of prayerful consecration to the doing of his Father’s will and ended his life triumphantly with just such a prayer. The secret of his unparalleled religious life was this consciousness of the presence of God; and he attained it by intelligent prayer and sincere worship — unbroken communion with God — and not by leadings, voices, visions, or extraordinary religious practices
    #20455
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    Mikhail116
    Participant

    That is a great reference thank you, I like how Jesus attained the consciousness of the presence of God. In my experience I came to know truth only with what I experienced and not from what I read anywhere, I even overlooked the Urantia book I didn’t give it much thought although its funny how I guessed my role in the universe or my higher identity without prior knowledge from God by just hearing about the contents in this book. I told myself I must be one of the characters mentioned in the book either an ascending, descending, paradise or creator son. I am still unsure about which one exactly pertains to me but I have a pretty big clue, I know most people might resonate with being an ascending son or that they at least entertain the idea of starting off as human and gradually ascending into divinity. I still have a lot of studying to do to really grasp what these terms actually mean but when God has a specific name for you and it is revealed to you strictly through a direct intimate encounter the terms become secondary to what you actually feel inside. See you can tell your experience without saying or revealing too much, its good to leave some of it to keep just for yourself but what I’m really more curious about is really not so much the spiritual encounter but how you changed, how you feel now and what you are doing with what you learned.

    #20456
    Mara
    Mara
    Participant

    I was given a special name by the “queen bee” of a religious cult I joined years ago.  What an ego trip!!! And with that name I began immediately to see myself as a special person.  I began to act special.  I had power in the cult community.  What I said had import, significance, or so I thought, as I channeled and prattled along.  People gave me deference.  I became self-inflated, self-important and above the rest.  What a delusion!  But when a person associates in a community of people who are like-minded in believing one person is more special than another, it becomes reinforcing and I must say addicting to the so-called special one who has a special name.  The delusion is that both the community and you set yourself off from the rest.  What a seduction! I know all about this dynamic, because I experienced it.  I am fortunate have this experience under my belt.  I recognize it in others. I am not saying I recognize this in you.  I am telling you I recognize the lure, the bait that this kind of thinking reinforces, especially so when other people are patting you on the back. I am powerless to stop anyone from going out into the weeds over it.  I went out into the weeds and no one could stop me.  Anyway, I thought I’d share this about my experience.  I had to find these things out for myself.

    The truth is that God is no respecter of persons.

    3:1:12  The fluctuations of the Father’s presence are not due to the changeableness of God. The Father does not retire in seclusion because he has been slighted; his affections are not alienated because of the creature’s wrongdoing. Rather, having been endowed with the power of choice (concerning Himself), his children, in the exercise of that choice, directly determine the degree and limitations of the Father’s divine influence in their own hearts and souls. The Father has freely bestowed himself upon us without limit and without favor. He is no respecter of persons, planets, systems, or universes. In the sectors of time he confers differential honor only on the Paradise personalities of God the Sevenfold, the co-ordinate creators of the finite universes.
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    117:6:22  The Father is no respecter of persons; he treats each of his ascending sons as cosmic individuals. The Supreme likewise is no respecter of persons; he treats his experiential children as a single cosmic total.
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    133:0:3  One day while resting at lunch, about halfway to Tarentum, Ganid asked Jesus a direct question as to what he thought of India’s caste system. Said Jesus: “Though human beings differ in many ways, the one from another, before God and in the spiritual world all mortals stand on an equal footing. There are only two groups of mortals in the eyes of God: those who desire to do his will and those who do not. As the universe looks upon an inhabited world, it likewise discerns two great classes: those who know God and those who do not. Those who cannot know God are reckoned among the animals of any given realm. Mankind can appropriately be divided into many classes in accordance with differing qualifications, as they may be viewed physically, mentally, socially, vocationally, or morally, but as these different classes of mortals appear before the judgment bar of God, they stand on an equal footing; God is truly no respecter of persons. Although you cannot escape the recognition of differential human abilities and endowments in matters intellectual, social, and moral, you should make no such distinctions in the spiritual brotherhood of men when assembled for worship in the presence of God.”
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    166:4:11  “The Father’s human children have equal capacity for the reception of material blessings; therefore does he bestow things physical upon the children of men without discrimination. When it comes to the bestowal of spiritual gifts, the Father is limited by man’s capacity for receiving these divine endowments. Although the Father is no respecter of persons, in the bestowal of spiritual gifts he is limited by man’s faith and by his willingness always to abide by the Father’s will.”
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    A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, would it not?   :-)

     

    #20457
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    Mikhail116
    Participant

    Thank you for those references and your experience I can relate to some of what you said, I quickly found out that I am no special son with any special protection or authority. The only time I experienced power from above was when I yielded to the person of Jesus which teaches me not to think that I can command that power or even know what it is about to do. What really moved me in my past experience is not the name I was called by but the intimacy I experienced with my heavenly father. Unfortunately we all still have egos even after an experience like that and its true what you say you may feel special or chosen or something along those lines, as for me I quickly learned although it took me a while to get over the awe factor. At the moment I’ve put aside my past experiences and just focus on the now moment just being comfortable with the reality I’m facing everyday but always remembering that I have a heavenly father who loves me and created me with a purpose. If I explain an experience it is never to make myself look better or make others think I’m to be looked as more important, I really just am curious to see how many others have experienced such love and beauty from our heavenly father.

    #20462
    Richard E Warren
    Richard E Warren
    Participant

    Hi Mikhail,

    It was a ‘personal religious experience’ finding the UB. Even before delving into it, I somehow knew THIS was what I had been looking for. I was so thirsty I drank it in, in just a year, then drank, and drank some more, still drinking 30 years later. It’s a bottomless well.

    Welcome to the Forum.

    Richard E Warren

    #20470
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    Mikhail116
    Participant

    Hello Rick,

    Thank you for sharing, its interesting to me that you use the word drink in reference to taking in spiritual teaching and information for I feel that its a literal spiritual thirst we all have that only our heavenly father can quench, I’ve felt this quenching of spiritual thirst through directly encountering the Father’s grace some years ago it droped me to my knees and I could only utter “thank you father” over and over again. What a marvelous way to experience his grace it reminded me of where it is said that every knee shall bow and acknowledge God but I believe it is his grace that will do this because it is a gift and a privilege in this life to get to personally know our father whether it is through religious experience or through taking in knowledge about God and the universe

    Blessings

    #20473
    Richard E Warren
    Richard E Warren
    Participant

    The quality of your witness is beautiful, and a pleasure to imbibe.

    Blessed we are.

    Richard E Warren

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