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As to the reign of God’s spirit in the hearts of individual believers . . .
God’s spirit in the heart would be the Thought Adjuster within the soul, right? Isn’t that source of great power referred to? Long ago I started a thread on the original forum about soul powers. I referenced the following quote:
p1097:7 100:4.3 But the great problem of religious living consists in the task of unifying the soul powers of the personality by the dominance of LOVE.
I’m wondering if the reign of God in great power has to do with the unifying power of the personality under the dominance of love. It’s odd that the author capitalized the word LOVE. They so rarely do that, and doing so emphasizes its dominating power. So, some of the apostles lived to see this begin to happen. Do you think they lived to see it within themselves?
Now that I think about it some more, perhaps Jesus was talking about individual apostles seeing this power within themselves rather than the socialization of personal religion and the spread of the church. Or, it might be meant both ways. Still pondering.
Now that I think about it some more, perhaps Jesus was talking about individual apostles seeing this power within themselves rather than the socialization of personal religion and the spread of the church. Or, it might be meant both ways. Still pondering.
One must recognize this power in oneself before recognizing it in others. One first, then the other.
Good point Tas. So are you saying that it was the enlarging brotherhood of believers, the power that comes from greater numbers of individuals living the Gospel?
I personally am minded so far to think that the “reign of God” he talked about was referring to the listeners as individuals advancing in their spirituality to such an extent that the kingdom of God within would be expressed “in great power” in their lives, that that would be the “reign of God” they’d see. (Pentecost a part of that as well.)
Here’s another tidbit of similar phrasing, from 144:5.42, which is from one of the alternative “Lord’s Prayer” versions:
“… Show us the pathway of eternal progress
And give us the will to walk therein.
Establish within us your divine kingship
And thereby bestow upon us the full mastery of self. …”To me, establishment of God’s “divine kingship” within and the “reign of God’s spirit in the hearts of individual believers” (170:4.3) seem pretty analogous. This passage also gives the insight of the outcome of this “divine kingship” being a bestowal of full mastery of self.
I’m wondering if the reign of God in great power has to do with the unifying power of the personality under the dominance of love. It’s odd that the author capitalized the word LOVE. They so rarely do that, and doing so emphasizes its dominating power. So, some of the apostles lived to see this begin to happen. Do you think they lived to see it within themselves?
No greater love is there than to lay down your life for others. In the case of Jesus’ listeners, some of them did follow after him and “drink the bitter cup” and give their lives as did he. To me not only is there no greater love than being willing to make such a sacrifice, but it seems it can also be said there’s no greater self mastery than to give up your life for others, wouldn’t you say? A display of self mastery like that would be a demonstration of God’s “divine kingship” within an individual — that the “reign of God’s spirit” had come to them in such “great power” they were able to give this greatest demonstration of love? That’s how it’s looking to me right now.
No greater love is there than to lay down your life for others. In the case of Jesus’ listeners, some of them did follow after him and “drink the bitter cup” and give their lives as did he. To me not only is there no greater love than being willing to make such a sacrifice, but it seems it can also be said there’s no greater self mastery than to give up your life for others, wouldn’t you say?
But love is not a sacrifice. It is no sacrifice at all.
To me not only is there no greater love than being willing to make such a sacrifice, but it seems it can also be said there’s no greater self mastery than to give up your life for others, wouldn’t you say? A display of self mastery like that would be a demonstration of God’s “divine kingship” within an individual — that the “reign of God’s spirit” had come to them in such “great power” they were able to give this greatest demonstration of love? That’s how it’s looking to me right now.
I like the first part of your post about establishing the divine kingship within each individual soul. We are never told if any of the apostles had reached such levels as self-mastery that you speak of though. It doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen to some of them before they died. As for laying down one’s life as evidence of self-mastery . . . I’m not sure. Certainly those martyred must have experienced a great deal of inner strength in order to go through it with such dignity. And it was this dignity during martyrdom that won other souls to the gospel, I think. A good example is Paul. It took Stephen’s martyrdom to eventually win him over. He certainly did experience the reign of God in great power within his own soul, and spread it like a powerful benign virus to the world.
128:3.6 And this was the same Stephen who subsequently became a believer in the teachings of Jesus, and whose boldness in preaching this early gospel resulted in his being stoned to death by irate Jews. Some of Stephen’s extraordinary boldness in proclaiming his view of the new gospel was the direct result of this earlier interview with Jesus. But Stephen never even faintly surmised that the Galilean he had talked with some fifteen years previously was the very same person whom he later proclaimed the world’s Savior, and for whom he was so soon to die, thus becoming the first martyr of the newly evolving Christian faith. WhenStephen yielded up his life as the price of his attack upon the Jewish temple and its traditional practices, there stood by one named Saul, a citizen of Tarsus. And when Saul saw how this Greek could die for his faith, there were aroused in his heart those emotions which eventually led him to espouse the cause for which Stephen died; later on he became the aggressive and indomitable Paul, the philosopher, if not the sole founder, of the Christian religion.
Another thought regarding love and sacrifice. The Master did say this to his apostles:
157:6.8 From this time on, if any man would have fellowship with us, let him assume the obligations of sonship and follow me. And when I am no more with you, think not that the world will treat you better than it did your Master. If you love me, prepare to prove this affection by your willingness to make the supreme sacrifice.
157:6.8 From this time on, if any man would have fellowship with us, let him assume the obligations of sonship and follow me. And when I am no more with you, think not that the world will treat you better than it did your Master. If you love me, prepare to prove this affection by your willingness to make the supreme sacrifice.
Question: Is this sacrifice akin to Jesus being the “lamb of God”?
The UB tells us that the authors sometimes use the word power to indicate sovereignty.
0:6.2 Power is also employed to designate sovereignty.
I think the reign of God in great power might have to do with this idea of sovereignty. Wether it refers to sovereignty of God within the individual soul, or in the kingdom of men, or both, I cannot say for sure. But sovereignty means something very powerful to me; it means God’s will dominates self-will. Personality and power are currently being synthesized into the sovereignty of the Supreme. Our Master Michael, Jesus, is a revelation of the Supreme.
tas wrote:I personally am minded so far to think that the “reign of God” he talked about was referring to the listeners as individuals advancing in their spirituality to such an extent that the kingdom of God within would be expressed “in great power” in their lives, that that would be the “reign of God” they’d see. (Pentecost a part of that as well.)I’m like-minded tas. A stool cannot stand on two legs. A person who feels all wonderful about his/her God-connection and sequesters him/herself or spends the rest of life on a mountaintop, is like a stool with two legs. And while I do not disparage the choices of others regarding how some people live their lives, I do think the reign of God requires a third leg. I would describe it as one other person. God gives. You receive. In turn you give to someone else. God loves you. You receive it. That’s two legs. Naturally you give this God-love to someone else. This makes the architecture stable. Jesus said, ” And all this is ever true, for, where two or three believers are gathered together, there am I in the midst of them.” Two believers plus God = three legs.
I think this reference applies to the discussion too.133:5:6 Mathematics asserts that, if one person stands for a certain unit of intellectual and moral value, ten persons would stand for ten times this value. But in dealing with human personality it would be nearer the truth to say that such a personality association is a sum equal to the square of the number of personalities concerned in the equation rather than the simple arithmetical sum. A social group of human beings in co-ordinated working harmony stands for a force far greater than the simple sum of its parts.Sorry to go off topic here but, as a one time farm boy, one of the most hilarious of all quotes in the book also has to do with mathematics in the prior verse to the one posted above:
(1476.7) 133:5.5 Logic is valid in the material world, and mathematics is reliable when limited in its application to physical things; but neither is to be regarded as wholly dependable or infallible when applied to life problems. Life embraces phenomena which are not wholly material. Arithmetic says that, if one man could shear a sheep in ten minutes, ten men could shear it in one minute. That is sound mathematics, but it is not true, for the ten men could not so do it; they would get in one another’s way so badly that the work would be greatly delayed.
Such a picture kept me laughing a long, long time when I first read it.
I’m like-minded tas. A stool cannot stand on two legs. A person who feels all wonderful about his/her God-connection and sequesters him/herself or spends the rest of life on a mountaintop, is like a stool with two legs. And while I do not disparage the choices of others regarding how some people live their lives, I do think the reign of God requires a third leg.
Indeed, a stool cannot stand on two legs but a person siting on a two legged stool can stand because a person can balance the stool. I’ve seen it done. Essentially a third leg would preclude God’s creation and that creation can achieve balance. A three legged stool is like God without His creation. Creation must achieve balance, perfect balance. With a three legged stool there is no achievement, no balance. Your analogy has crumbled. Find a better one.
emanny3003 wrote:Indeed, a stool cannot stand on two legs but a person siting on a two legged stool can stand because a person can balance the stool. I’ve seen it done. Essentially a third leg would preclude God’s creation and that creation can achieve balance. A three legged stool is like God without His creation. Creation must achieve balance, perfect balance. With a three legged stool there is no achievement, no balance. Your analogy has crumbled. Find a better one.You missed my point. You’ve gone off into God’s creation, but I didn’t I’m talking about the reign of God here. The idea and ideal here is stability – physical, mindal and spiritual. I repeat: God gives. You receive. In turn you give to someone else. God loves you. You receive it. That’s two legs. Naturally you give this God-love to someone else. This makes the architecture stable. Where two or more are gathered. . . . That is a minimum of three. Of course you can have your own God-love between you and him. That’s two. But if you really have that God-love thing going on, I mean really have it, it is completely outgoing and outstretching to others. And that is the third leg, as I see it. My cup runneth over. The reign of God in great power.You missed my point. You’ve gone off into God’s creation, but I didn’t I’m talking about the reign of God here. The idea and ideal here is stability – physical, mindal and spiritual.
I can only “go off” into God’s creation because I am God’s creation. Where else can I go? God alone is unchanging, stable. Creatures must seek stability in movement, change.
This stability in the face of change can only be achieved by BALANCED, RHYTHMIC INTERCHANGE.
The reign of God in great power.
You have missed my point. God is the ONLY power.
Mara wrote: I’m talking about the reign of God here.And thank you Mara for staying on topic. I really appreciate your efforts to avoid flight of ideas.The most egregious error of thinking results from an inability to recognize God’s reign of love within one’s own soul and the requirement that it be given away. Love is always there for taking and giving. Love is one of those things that you can take an infinite amount of and still have an infinite amount left. Love cannot be created or destroyed, hence it is possible to feel full of love while at the same time giving all of your love to others. And isn’t this the great circle of love, the reign of God in great power in the universe? When God reigns in your heart (soul), the rules of the universe demand that love pass through one’s personality to others.117:6.10 All true love is from God, and man receives the divine affection as he himself bestows this love upon his fellows. Love is dynamic. It can never be captured; it is alive, free, thrilling, and always moving. Man can never take the love of the Father and imprison it within his heart. The Father’s love can become real to mortal man only by passing through that man’s personality as he in turn bestows this love upon his fellows. The great circuit of love is from the Father, through sons to brothers, and hence to the Supreme. The love of the Father appears in the mortal personality by the ministry of the indwelling Adjuster. Such a God-knowing son reveals this love to his universe brethren, and this fraternal affection is the essence of the love of the Supreme.Regarding the reign of God in great power, I reiterate what the reference says:
140:1:6 “Whosoever would become great in my Father’s kingdom shall become a minister to all; and whosoever would be first among you, let him become the server of his brethren. But when you are once truly received as citizens in the heavenly kingdom, you are no longer servants but sons, sons of the living God. And so shall this kingdom progress in the world until it shall break down every barrier and bring all men to know my Father and believe in the saving truth which I have come to declare. Even now is the kingdom at hand, and some of you will not die until you have seen the reign of God come in great power.”Perhaps he is referring to the bestowal of Thought Adjusters to every normal minded moral person – ever since the day of Pentecost.108:2:3 Thus is the stage of the human mind set for the reception of Adjusters, but as a general rule they do not immediately appear to indwell such minds except on those worlds where the Spirit of Truth is functioning as a spiritual co-ordinator of these different spirit ministries. If this spirit of the bestowal Sons is present, the Adjusters unfailingly come the instant the seventh adjutant mind-spirit begins to function and signalizes to the Universe Mother Spirit that it has achieved in potential the co-ordination of the associated six adjutants of prior ministry to such a mortal intellect. Therefore have the divine Adjusters been universally bestowed upon all normal minds of moral status on Urantia ever since the day of Pentecost.And,194:3:6 Do not overlook the fact that the Spirit of Truth was bestowed upon all sincere believers; this gift of the spirit did not come only to the apostles. The one hundred and twenty men and women assembled in the upper chamber all received the new teacher, as did all the honest of heart throughout the whole world. This new teacher was bestowed upon mankind, and every soul received him in accordance with the love for truth and the capacity to grasp and comprehend spiritual realities. At last, true religion is delivered from the custody of priests and all sacred classes and finds its real manifestation in the individual souls of men.
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