The World’s Religions

131:10.1Af­ter the ar­du­ous la­bor of ef­fect­ing this com­pi­la­tion of the teach­ings of the world re­li­gions con­cern­ing the Par­a­dise Fa­ther, Ga­nid set him­self to the task of for­mu­lat­ing what he deemed to be a sum­mary of the be­lief he had ar­rived at re­gard­ing God as a re­sult of Je­sus’ teach­ing. This young man was in the habit of re­fer­ring to such be­liefs as “our re­li­gion.” This was his rec­ord:

131:10.2“The Lord our God is one Lord, and you should love him with all your mind and heart while you do your very best to love all his chil­dren as you love your­self. This one God is our heav­enly Fa­ther, in whom all things con­sist, and who dwells, by his spirit, in ev­ery sin­cere hu­man soul. And we who are the chil­dren of God should learn how to com­mit the keep­ing of our souls to him as to a faith­ful Cre­ator. With our heav­enly Fa­ther all things are pos­si­ble. Since he is the Cre­ator, hav­ing made all things and all be­ings, it could not be oth­er­wise. Though we can­not see God, we can know him. And by daily liv­ing the will of the Fa­ther in heaven, we can re­veal him to our fel­low men.

131:10.3“The di­vine riches of God’s char­ac­ter must be in­finitely deep and eter­nally wise. We can­not search out God by knowl­edge, but we can know him in our hearts by per­sonal ex­pe­ri­ence. While his jus­tice may be past find­ing out, his mercy may be re­ceived by the hum­blest be­ing on earth. While the Fa­ther fills the uni­verse, he also lives in our hearts. The mind of man is hu­man, mor­tal, but the spirit of man is di­vine, im­mor­tal. God is not only all-pow­er­ful but also all-wise. If our earth par­ents, be­ing of evil ten­dency, know how to love their chil­dren and be­stow good gifts on them, how much more must the good Fa­ther in heaven know how wisely to love his chil­dren on earth and to be­stow suit­able bless­ings upon them.

131:10.4“The Fa­ther in heaven will not suf­fer a sin­gle child on earth to per­ish if that child has a de­sire to find the Fa­ther and truly longs to be like him. Our Fa­ther even loves the wicked and is al­ways kind to the un­grate­ful. If more hu­man be­ings could only know about the good­ness of God, they would cer­tainly be led to re­pent of their evil ways and for­sake all known sin. All good things come down from the Fa­ther of light, in whom there is no vari­able­ness nei­ther shadow of chang­ing. The spirit of the true God is in man’s heart. He in­tends that all men should be broth­ers. When men be­gin to feel af­ter God, that is ev­i­dence that God has found them, and that they are in quest of knowl­edge about him. We live in God and God dwells in us.

131:10.5“I will no longer be sat­is­fied to be­lieve that God is the Fa­ther of all my peo­ple; I will hence­forth be­lieve that he is also my Fa­ther. Al­ways will I try to wor­ship God with the help of the Spirit of Truth, which is my helper when I have be­come re­ally God-know­ing. But first of all I am go­ing to prac­tice wor­ship­ing God by learn­ing how to do the will of God on earth; that is, I am go­ing to do my best to treat each of my fel­low mor­tals just as I think God would like to have him treated. And when we live this sort of a life in the flesh, we may ask many things of God, and he will give us the de­sire of our hearts that we may be the bet­ter pre­pared to serve our fel­lows. And all of this lov­ing ser­vice of the chil­dren of God en­larges our ca­pac­ity to re­ceive and ex­pe­ri­ence the joys of heaven, the high plea­sures of the min­istry of the spirit of heaven.

131:10.6“I will ev­ery day thank God for his un­speak­able gifts; I will praise him for his won­der­ful works to the chil­dren of men. To me he is the Al­mighty, the Cre­ator, the Power, and the Mercy, but best of all, he is my spirit Fa­ther, and as his earth child I am some­time go­ing forth to see him. And my tu­tor has said that by search­ing for him I shall be­come like him. By faith in God I have at­tained peace with him. This new re­li­gion of ours is very full of joy, and it gen­er­ates an en­dur­ing hap­pi­ness. I am con­fi­dent that I shall be faith­ful even to death, and that I will surely re­ceive the crown of eter­nal life.

131:10.7“I am learn­ing to prove all things and ad­here to that which is good. What­so­ever I would that men should do to me, that I will do to my fel­lows. By this new faith I know that man may be­come the son of God, but it some­times ter­ri­fies me when I stop to think that all men are my broth­ers, but it must be true. I do not see how I can re­joice in the fa­ther­hood of God while I refuse to ac­cept the broth­er­hood of man. Whoso­ever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If that is true, then all men must be my broth­ers.

131:10.8“Hence­forth will I do my good deeds in se­cret; I will also pray most when by my­self. I will judge not that I may not be un­fair to my fel­lows. I am go­ing to learn to love my en­e­mies; I have not truly mas­tered this prac­tice of be­ing God­like. Though I see God in these other re­li­gions, I find him in ‘our re­li­gion’ as be­ing more beau­ti­ful, lov­ing, mer­ci­ful, per­sonal, and pos­i­tive. But most of all, this great and glo­ri­ous Be­ing is my spir­i­tual Fa­ther; I am his child. And by no other means than my hon­est de­sire to be like him, I am even­tu­ally to find him and eter­nally to serve him. At last I have a re­li­gion with a God, a mar­velous God, and he is a God of eter­nal sal­va­tion.”