2011-08-25-Good Fight of Faith
Lightline #320
Contents
1Heading
1Topic: The Good Fight of Faith
2Group: Lightline TeaM
2Facilitators
1Teacher: Michael, Tomas
2TR: Gerdean
3Session
1Opening
2Lesson
2.1Faith, Conflict
2.2Correcting Time
2.3Encouragement
3Dialogue
3.1Wealth
3.2Sexuality
3.3Light and Life
3.4Inner Life
4Closing
Heading
Topic: The Good Fight of Faith
Group: Lightline TeaM
Facilitators
Teacher: Michael, Tomas
TR: Gerdean
Session
Opening
MICHAEL: Good evening, friends. I am Michael. I thought I would visit with you for a minute before you begin your lessons. I am bursting with affection for my many loyal friends in their/your embrace of our relationship. Your birthday greetings were tenderly accepted as gifts, which they indeed are. Your acknowledgement of me and my life here among you is a step towards global light and life — global consciousness that will lead to light and life.
Nebadonia joins me in greeting you in all ways and sends her love to you through me as well as through her own spirit which you know as well as you know mine. In confidence then that you are well situated and well on your way, let me step aside in order for your teacher to commence. Be in my peace.
TOMAS: Good evening. I am Tomas and I am proud to serve here in this configuration of student/teacher relationship. I have served for many years and intend to be around for many more years. We have already begun and made great advancement in our plan. If you will look back upon your life over the past several years of knowing us and working with us, that is to say going into a prayerful state of mind and calling upon spirit to guide and direct your thoughts and your steps, you will see you have made progress. It is good to look back and view your accomplishments.
Lesson
Faith, Conflict
You have fought the good fight of faith. Each of you has fought this good fight. Repeatedly you fight this good fight. And many times this manifests in arguments among and between you. Often your internet lists, discussion boards are crossed with indications of conflict. And while it would appear as though it was a situation of one versus the other, it is more true that it is the fight of faith … grappling with doubt – yours and others. It is an essential part, a natural part of your evolution, as creatures of the realm and advancing souls into spirit. Even Jesus sometimes spoke harshly, and though many times it was construed or even intended to be addressed to those who would not hear him as he addressed them in the spirit, it was also for his own edification, encouragement and discipline. Sometimes we need to hear out loud those things that are essential for us to grasp.
It is difficult to live entirely within the realm of the mind. Indeed it was never expected that you live your entire existence in and through your mental faculties, although, of course, you need to have your mental faculties to function, or for the adjutant mind spirits to function, the Spirit of Truth, your prayer time and meditation time do depend upon a healthy mind and a clean heart but it is also true that there are other circuits and venues involved in your development.
This is what relationship is. When you speak to someone, you don’t just speak to their mind, you speak to their heart, you speak to their spirit, you speak to their fears, their hopes; you speak to them whatever you have within yourself. If you are confused, you will project your confusion outward and you will see them as confused. If you are angry, you will project that anger onto others and you will see them look back at you in anger. And if you are coming from a place of love and faith you will project that outward and you will see that projected back to you. Faith and love are the clearest vision and from a place of faith and love, you can also see where you can serve.
Correcting Time
This is the importance, of course, of correcting time. And as each new plateau comes along, each new adventure in your ascent, you will find new and different opportunities and challenges and difficulties to learn about, to master, to work through, to accomplish … and your valiant Adjuster experiences all these things with you. Through your experience, it experiences, it feels: it feels your pain and your triumph; it feels your challenges and your hopes; it feels your loss and your gain; and all this reposes in the evolving Supreme … and so you create divinity as you go through these episodes.
Sometimes the group suffers; sometimes individuals suffer. They are alienated, set upon, sorrowed, even grieved by some of the ways in which you set about fighting the good fight of faith. But what goes around comes around. The first sometimes shall be last and the last shall be first. So that overall, it is a lesson everyone learns one way or another, and faith will triumph. Love will prevail.
You are urged to live the day as though you were already in light and life. You are encouraged to do this because you can, because you live with and for divine reality, and it reflects itself into the shadow of your finite life, into the material world where you live. And so you can see with divine eyes that which you love and live within – your relationships, your home, your work , your play, your approach to cosmic problem-solving, as well as counting the cost to fight your battles here on behalf of those values which are supreme.
Again, the good fight of faith is fought as individuals and as groups and as nations, even as worlds, and when we have accomplished our goal, your world and the others quarantined will be connected, contactable by and through the appropriate circuits, and you will be aware of your place in the universe as part of the whole.
It is possible to understand that now, intellectually, and recognize that you are part of the whole, but it is difficult to perceive that as a reality when you are confronted by so many seemingly overwhelming challenges, finite challenges: the weather, storms, earthquakes, and all of that, notwithstanding there are political problems and domestic problems that require conscientious attention. And these can be stressful. But by holding your consciousness in that state of mind and being that represents light and life, as it was lived by the Master when he was here, it will be done. And it will be done in joy and happiness as it is already for many and those of you who know this kind of joy and happiness in the spirit recognize one another. And while your allure may seem to some to be naiveté — or even irresponsibility — while it may seem to be imperfect and incomplete, there are aspects of your progress that can be seen as substantial and real, having such a good foothold, we will not slide backward but proceed from here.
Encouragement
My words this evening are not new. They are a simple pep talk, but I find that encouragement is an essential ingredient in grappling with these issues and problems that beset you. It is so easy for you to become discouraged and disheartened. You become very eager for the next adventure but at the first sign of difficulty you begin to flail about and blame others or look for an excuse to have a temper tantrum or lament, and so we attempt to encourage you as often as possible – not to coddle you, no, but as an indication of the fact that you are upheld, you are understood, and you are aided in your efforts.
I am eager now to hear from you and find out what I may do to be of service to you as you face your duties, sometimes under dire circumstances. How may I be of some assistance? Yes, the star 6 command will open the door for you to engage in the open forum. I invite you to join me there.
Dialogue
Recca: Thank you for your words of encouragement this evening because, as you were speaking, I was saying, “What about?” and the next sentence was, of course, an upliftment. What about joy and moving forward into the pre light and life era, which is what we are in, daily attention to the souls we find ourselves with everyday, and certainly not being in any dire circumstances of danger as our brothers and sisters are in the Middle East right now, in Africa, in all kinds of places in the world, leaves us a margin of leisure, spiritual leisure, and to contribute our best, each one of us unfolding our best to the work of the Most Highs and the Teaching Mission and the Correcting Time.
What are our …? I know what our long-term goals are: to move into the spirit of light and life. But in embracing the changes that are happening daily by means of electronic media– Let me just say, the work of the Most Highs in the kingdoms of men today seems to be proceeding at a rapid pace, in a rapid time. Could you speak to the outworking right now, which seem calamitous in numerous places but are really the outworking of the Most Highs as I am looking at them through the outworking of the planetary Supreme?
Wealth
TOMAS: I would ask you to consider what a great leveling would look like. A great leveling on your planet would bring up those who are in dire straits, as compared to those who are above it all; the extremely poor and extremely wealthy, the extremely sick and extremely healthy, the extremely young and the extremely old. Find a great leveling space and allow that to be your meter that would represent some kind of equality, and begin to aspire to commend that as a goal.
If there are nations of peoples that are starving to death and dying of diseases, you in your realm are hardly in a position to do anything about it. Likewise if there are millionaires pulling strings to feather their nests, there is not much you can do about that either. But if you could find a middle ground where you are relatively comfortable without being uncomfortably needy, stay within that framework and encourage others to stay within that framework.
You might recall in the Urantia Papers, it talks about life on a neighboring planet and speaks to the accomplishment they have attained there in the unequal distribution of wealth by essentially shaming the wealthy into relinquishing their value system. It’s not so much that people have goods. Jesus did not scold Flavius for his many treasures. It’s the attitude that is so devastating. So live the values of light and life and discourage those who go too far afield of moderate.
Moderation, you know, eventuates in charm. And charm would certainly be a characteristic of light and life.
Do what you can to encourage those who are needy to help themselves or to find assistance in some one of the organized channels that exist to help the needy. If you are not lording it over them how much you have, they will then not feel envious of you. And so, befriending people and sharing your spiritual riches, your cultural and social riches, is something you can do besides inviting those who are less flush to your home for dinner on occasion.
Sexuality
And we certainly know you all can decline to be impressed with wealth and station if you were willing to stand by that value, yet so many of you are still in hot pursuit of material wealth and ease. Just as we seek to see your world lift itself up from the huge influence of sexual prowess, it would help if you were not to find everything so titillating but rather regard the genders as sons and daughters of divinity, not simply toys, sex toys or amusement, for gratification.
These are values that would change the way the world operates. It is too easy for you to vacillate and be agreeable, thinking this is Christ-like, but when there are values set forth that are contrary to those values that the Master espoused, then it is your duty to speak out, to speak for light and life, and those values that will help it come to be.
Thus you need to listen. You need to listen with ears to hear. And although it is not necessary that you respond to every belittling remark or every sexual innuendo, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity, when your Thought Adjuster will seek to be heard. Avail yourself of that opportunity. Open yourself to the possibility of being of service to humanity and help uplift their values.
Light and Life
Many people serve through committees, through organizations or through churches, but you can serve every day of your life by simply being centered and focused on the values that represent light and life … here and now, today. Many times you serve best by staying out of the situation. If you hear a husband and wife bickering, perhaps it is none of your business. If you see a parent chastise a child in the supermarket, perhaps it is none of your business. But there do come those occasions when the air is pregnant with potential and everything in you screams to speak out on behalf of truth beauty and goodness. Do not restrain yourself when that opportunity presents itself; allow your Adjuster to speak for you. It doesn’t have to be loud, or colorful, or even literate. Just be willing, and let the Spirit of Truth do its own work.
There is something you call “the court of public opinion” and it is very powerful. People see a news broadcast and within a day people all over the nation are commenting on that situation. These are great opportunities for you to participate in the cultivation of light and life. There are many great opportunities for you to suggest that perhaps their titillation is misplaced, or that the real victim in the situation is (fill in the blank). Again, if you listen with ears to hear, and go about with eyes to see, you will be trained. You will find yourself becoming more sensitive to those situations that are invitations from on high to act, to act on behalf of the Most Highs, to act on behalf of the angels of health, the angels of the home, the angels of industry.
Assist your heavenly helpers as they assist you. Be a co-worker with divinity, not merely a recipient, and watch the progress, for if we are all doing that at the same time, it can happen like prairie fire and the values, the mores can change very quickly. And if the mores can change in your circumstance, in your country, in this nation that has still so much potential, so many resources, and despite its many retardations so much wealth, the world will listen. And if it begins to hear common sense coming from this country, the United States has a chance to once more gain its status as a leader, but there is some work to be done. I don’t intend to get off into politics, but only to touch base with you as one who understands what you deal with here. These are the facts of life on Urantia. It is no wonder sometimes you get disheartened and discouraged and why you need encouragement.
There is yet another excerpt from the Urantia Papers that talks about how things change, in particularly with this speeded up technology in which you have to process in one day what your parents had a lifetime to assimilate. And so, do not refute this assistance, this encouragement that you find from your spiritual mentors and guides, beginning with the Father within, the spirit of truth, the adjutant mind spirits, the spirit of Mother and the Father, the angels, the helpers, the teachers, the midwayers.
Allow yourself to be influenced by divine goodness. Open your ears and your heart to divine truth. Release and spread divine beauty. Promulgate light and life that lives within you and will project itself out onto others and look back at you as a reflection of that which we aspire to attain. Does that help?
Recca: Yes, yes it did, indeed. I particularly liked your “listen to the values of light and life” because I’m just now reading in the Urantia Paper what you just said. I’m struck by the action of promulgating the values of light and life rather than what we would like, perhaps. As readers if the Papers too, to follow more in the footsteps of the ordinary development of an unquarantined planet, in that, an orderly progression from a Planetary Prince regimen to an Adam and Eve, racial up-stepping, having one language all over the world, one religion, is not what we find ourselves in, in these days, and to take advantage of our third world neighbors too are jumping the technological gap between industrialization and electronic technology is not upsetting their landscape with telephone poles. They’re just jumping right to cell phones and missing out on that developmental stage. We too need to remember that we are in the situation that we find ourselves in, now we will not labor to create one religion, one language, one race before we enter into light and life as we find ourselves here on this planet now.
We are such a strange and permutated planet of interest to the rest of the universe and we need to remember that the values of light and life are what living to and not the values of the sequentially progressive unrebellious planets. And I appreciate your saying that to stimulate us, to remind us that we can leap that example of our orderly neighboring planet who are progressing normally, and work out the Urantian solution, the Urantian progression toward planetary light and life which will be its own portfolio of decisions. I appreciate you jogging that.
Inner Life
TOMAS: Let me just add that when they investigated to find out what would be the best family for Michael to be born into as the wee babe, they chose an ordinary family; they had good genetic composition, but they were not wealthy by any means. They worked. They were devoted. They were disciplined, but they were hardly rich. They did not investigate the wealthy Greeks or Romans; they looked carefully to find the values into which this son of God could and would best be able to cultivate a love of God and a means of conveying the gospel. He never taught aspiring to wealth as our holy grail. Many of the values that are popular in your world today are indeed distorted because of the unfortunate distortion of values all the way back to the first revelation. And so your past, as you pointed out, is not the ideal past to look to upon which to build your future. Look within. Look beyond the current circumstances.
What of the angels? What of planetary government? What are they trying to do? Ask them how you can enhance your own approach. How can you assist them? You have such a unique opportunity here now. Granted you have a lot of chaos behind you, but the clarity that has arrived through these Papers that we refer to as our text open the doors wide to tremendous potential for the future. We can far the better see where error has taken place and you don’t want to do that again. You can learn from the many mistakes that have been made and atone for this error by dedicating yourself to the better way.
Most assuredly you will be guided. The spirit of truth will guide and direct you on your path toward a better life for you and thus for others, indeed, for your world. The spirit, once it is given an opportunity to function as it should, will accelerate and enhance your efforts as is referenced when they say “Ten men are of little more value than one in lifting a great load unless they lift together — all at the same moment.” I am encouraging you to have a load-pulling spirit, but first you need to understand what the load is you are carrying and what your strength is. Your strength comes from within and from your experience – your own personal experience. But allow your experience to be edified and perfected through cultivating your relationship with the Father first, foremost, uppermost and forevermore. Seek he first the kingdom of heaven and all these things will be added unto you.
Closing
I see my loyal compatriot, my T/R Gerdean is having mental fritzes, so I will acknowledge that we have been at this for a good hour and it has been a very good session made better by your participation, dear daughter.
Recca: I appreciate listening to your point of view. Particularly with regard to the work we do daily.
TOMAS: That’s where it is where your work is, where you live. That’s the important work. No wonder you want to know what it is because you want to be of service, you want it to be a meaningful experience, not only for you but for others. So go about your affairs this week and try on some of the things we discussed and suggested. Listen for the opportunity to speak up for those values that will support light and life. I look forward to the next time we have together.
Amen and farewell.
