Grace and Gratitude

"Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home."

— Wordsworth

In an ideal world, in a Divine world, everyone would have all the Love, Peace, Truth, Freedom, and Good that they could want. That is how it would be in the Kingdom of God, where everyone would live in the Grace of God, not having to ask for anything, with everything they need already provided. There would be no want, no lack. But, that is a Divine world, and obviously not the world in which we find ourselves. So, what has come between us and living in the Grace of God? What would deny us that experience, or the Presence of God in our lives? Whatever it is, it is by definition, Evil. Evil is that which blocks, interferes with, distorts, or denies us the Presence or Grace of God.

When we think of the Grace of God, we think of Love, a love which is extended to us at all times, including those times when we may feel most separate from it. The Grace of God is not something we have to earn, or work towards. It is something we need to appreciate and accept, here, now. It is by appreciating the Truth that we come closer to it; it is by appreciating the Light that we live in it; it is by appreciating the basis of inner Peace that we find it. And, it is by finding the Love of God in our own heart, that we realize the Grace of God, the saving Grace of a Supreme Being who will not be made separate from us, who is always there for us. Always.

Christians usually learn at least one positive thing from their religion, which is that Jesus may have lived thousands of years ago, but Christ is with us now. The Light of God, the blessing or Grace of God, the liberating power of God, is eternal; it is here, now. God has a presence, a consciousness, a Being, which transcends space and time. God can be aware of you, your life, and your true needs, at any moment, wherever you may be. All it takes, at times, is for you to reach out to God, the Highest Good, the Truth, the Light, the Love that you seek. And, the first step is to realize that God's Grace is there, for you, in the present moment, at each and every moment.

At each and every moment of your life it is possible to move closer to the Truth, Love, Light, and Peace of God. You do not need to go off in search of God somewhere "out there," but rather somewhere in there, in your own heart. As Jesus said, "The Kingdom of God is within you." It is unfortunate that people look everywhere else in the world, in relationships, in social institutions, in career, family, friends — and do not step back, step back from the world and everything and everyone in it for just a moment, and experience the Presence of God. That is something you need to find within you. It is not found out there in the world.

God is not found on the other end of a telephone prayer line. God is not found in a book, any book. God is not found in a building, church, synagogue, mosque, edifice, or institution. God is not found in a congregation, in a worship service, in a church social, in Sunday school, or in a preacher, minister, evangelist, or the pope himself. God — the True God — is the God of your heart. God must be found within you, or what you have "found" is not God at all. The Presence of God must be found within you. Unfortunately fundamentalist Christians have grown another appendage, something obscenely attached to the end of their hand: a book. They wave it, they sing its glories, they praise it, they hold it high. And they elevate it to such a high level that it takes the place of God in their lives. As we have observed, whatever takes the place of the most holy is Evil. Anything that separates you from and tries to take the place of the Truth, the Light, and the Way within you, is Evil. You must understand that putting all your faith in a book, is taking all your faith out of God. Believing every word of a book, and holding it so high that it is "absolute truth" every word of it, is actually putting God down. The book is not God. The words in the book are not "the word of God." God speaks to you in your own heart. God's Truth is only found or appreciated in your own heart. And, unless you find and live in the Light of conscience at each and every moment of your life, your life is a complete lie. So much for "absolute truth."

So many people go to church as a social event, a meeting of "like minds" — closed minds. They go through their life never once questioning things, never once truly thinking for themselves, and then they all meet to worship their book and its words, to sustain their illusions, to enable them to continue living in denial, ignorance, unawareness, and addiction. They sustain their addictions to worldly things, to materialism, to hedonism, to pleasing themselves rather than being pleasing in God's eyes. They are largely hypocrites. God's Grace does not enter their lives. You must understand that material rewards and hedonistic pleasures are most often the reward for being spiritually blind, for adopting the ways of the world, for selling out your soul. They are not the gift or Grace of God for being so "righteous" in your life. The Grace of God is what saves you from the world, not what sustains you in all of your illusions, indoctrination, false beliefs, misdirection, unawareness, and ignorance. The Grace of God is what saves you from your worldly life, and reminds you that it is spiritually worthless, in comparison to the eternal Life in God's Kingdom. Your church, your congregation, your minister, the Vatican, the Temple Mount — none of them are the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is not a worldly thing. The Kingdom of God must be found on the deepest level of your inner spiritual being. It is a spiritual dimension of existence, not this physical, material, worldly one.

So, you need to know there is such a thing as the Grace of God, and you need to know the difference between that and the ways of the world. If there is wrong in your life — if there are wrong influences, wrong thoughts, wrong desires, wrong behaviors, addictions to food, alcohol, drugs, tobacco, gambling and lotteries, shopping, sex, money, work, video games, or whatever — then somehow you have been missing the Presence of God in your life. You have been engaging in precisely those behaviors which keep you living in denial, which keep you separate from the Truth and the Light, which keep you living a lie. The Grace of God is extended to you, at every moment, but you've got something better to do. Understand, you cannot live your life in bondage to what is wrong, go to religious services for a couple of hours on the weekend, and imagine you are living in God's Light and Truth, or following the Way of God. You are following the ways of the world, and effectively rejecting God's Grace. read more ...

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