First Preaching Tour of Galilee

146:2.1While the com­mon peo­ple of Jo­ta­p­ata heard Je­sus and his apos­tles gladly and many ac­cepted the gospel of the king­dom, it was the dis­course of Je­sus to the twenty-four on the sec­ond evening of their so­journ in this small town that dis­tin­guishes the Jo­ta­p­ata mis­sion. Na­than­iel was con­fused in his mind about the Mas­ter’s teach­ings con­cern­ing prayer, thanks­giv­ing, and wor­ship, and in re­sponse to his ques­tion Je­sus spoke at great length in fur­ther ex­pla­na­tion of his teach­ing. Sum­ma­rized in mod­ern phrase­ol­ogy, this dis­course may be pre­sented as em­pha­siz­ing the fol­low­ing points:

146:2.21. The con­scious and per­sis­tent re­gard for in­iq­uity in the heart of man grad­u­ally de­stroys the prayer con­nec­tion of the hu­man soul with the spirit cir­cuits of com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween man and his Maker. Nat­u­rally God hears the pe­ti­tion of his child, but when the hu­man heart de­lib­er­ately and per­sis­tently har­bors the con­cepts of in­iq­uity, there grad­u­ally en­sues the loss of per­sonal com­mu­nion be­tween the earth child and his heav­enly Fa­ther.

146:2.32. That prayer which is in­con­sis­tent with the known and es­tab­lished laws of God is an abom­i­na­tion to the Par­a­dise De­i­ties. If man will not lis­ten to the Gods as they speak to their cre­ation in the laws of spirit, mind, and mat­ter, the very act of such de­lib­er­ate and con­scious dis­dain by the crea­ture turns the ears of spirit per­son­al­i­ties away from hear­ing the per­sonal pe­ti­tions of such law­less and dis­obe­di­ent mor­tals. Je­sus quoted to his apos­tles from the Prophet Zechariah: “But they re­fused to hear­ken and pulled away the shoul­der and stopped their ears that they should not hear. Yes, they made their hearts adamant like a stone, lest they should hear my law and the words which I sent by my spirit through the proph­ets; there­fore did the re­sults of their evil think­ing come as a great wrath upon their guilty heads. And so it came to pass that they cried for mercy, but there was no ear open to hear.” And then Je­sus quoted the proverb of the wise man who said: “He who turns away his ear from hear­ing the di­vine law, even his prayer shall be an abom­i­na­tion.”

146:2.43. By open­ing the hu­man end of the chan­nel of the God-man com­mu­ni­ca­tion, mor­tals make im­me­di­ately avail­able the ever-flow­ing stream of di­vine min­istry to the crea­tures of the worlds. When man hears God’s spirit speak within the hu­man heart, in­her­ent in such an ex­pe­ri­ence is the fact that God si­mul­ta­ne­ously hears that man’s prayer. Even the for­give­ness of sin op­er­ates in this same unerring fash­ion. The Fa­ther in heaven has for­given you even be­fore you have thought to ask him, but such for­give­ness is not avail­able in your per­sonal re­li­gious ex­pe­ri­ence un­til such a time as you for­give your fel­low men. God’s for­give­ness in fact is not con­di­tioned upon your for­giv­ing your fel­lows, but in ex­pe­ri­ence it is ex­actly so con­di­tioned. And this fact of the syn­chrony of di­vine and hu­man for­give­ness was thus rec­og­nized and linked to­gether in the prayer which Je­sus taught the apos­tles.

146:2.54. There is a ba­sic law of jus­tice in the uni­verse which mercy is pow­er­less to cir­cum­vent. The un­selfish glo­ries of Par­a­dise are not pos­si­ble of re­cep­tion by a thor­oughly self­ish crea­ture of the realms of time and space. Even the in­fi­nite love of God can­not force the sal­va­tion of eter­nal sur­vival upon any mor­tal crea­ture who does not choose to sur­vive. Mercy has great lat­i­tude of be­stowal, but, af­ter all, there are man­dates of jus­tice which even love com­bined with mercy can­not ef­fec­tively ab­ro­gate. Again Je­sus quoted from the He­brew scrip­tures: “I have called and you re­fused to hear; I stretched out my hand, but no man re­garded. You have set at naught all my coun­sel, and you have re­jected my re­proof, and be­cause of this re­bel­lious at­ti­tude it be­comes in­ev­i­ta­ble that you shall call upon me and fail to re­ceive an an­swer. Hav­ing re­jected the way of life, you may seek me dili­gently in your times of suf­fer­ing, but you will not find me.”

146:2.65. They who would re­ceive mercy must show mercy; judge not that you be not judged. With the spirit with which you judge oth­ers you also shall be judged. Mercy does not wholly ab­ro­gate uni­verse fair­ness. In the end it will prove true: “Whoso stops his ears to the cry of the poor, he also shall some day cry for help, and no one will hear him.” The sin­cer­ity of any prayer is the as­sur­ance of its be­ing heard; the spir­i­tual wis­dom and uni­verse con­sis­tency of any pe­ti­tion is the de­ter­miner of the time, man­ner, and de­gree of the an­swer. A wise fa­ther does not lit­er­ally an­swer the fool­ish prayers of his ig­no­rant and in­ex­pe­ri­enced chil­dren, al­beit the chil­dren may de­rive much plea­sure and real soul sat­is­fac­tion from the mak­ing of such ab­surd pe­ti­tions.

146:2.76. When you have be­come wholly ded­i­cated to the do­ing of the will of the Fa­ther in heaven, the an­swer to all your pe­ti­tions will be forth­com­ing be­cause your prayers will be in full ac­cor­dance with the Fa­ther’s will, and the Fa­ther’s will is ever man­i­fest through­out his vast uni­verse. What the true son de­sires and the in­fi­nite Fa­ther wills IS. Such a prayer can­not re­main unan­swered, and no other sort of pe­ti­tion can pos­si­bly be fully an­swered.

146:2.87. The cry of the righ­teous is the faith act of the child of God which opens the door of the Fa­ther’s store­house of good­ness, truth, and mercy, and these good gifts have long been in wait­ing for the son’s ap­proach and per­sonal ap­pro­pri­a­tion. Prayer does not change the di­vine at­ti­tude to­ward man, but it does change man’s at­ti­tude to­ward the change­less Fa­ther. The mo­tive of the prayer gives it right of way to the di­vine ear, not the so­cial, eco­nomic, or out­ward re­li­gious sta­tus of the one who prays.

146:2.98. Prayer may not be em­ployed to avoid the de­lays of time or to tran­scend the hand­i­caps of space. Prayer is not de­signed as a tech­nique for ag­gran­diz­ing self or for gain­ing un­fair ad­van­tage over one’s fel­lows. A thor­oughly self­ish soul can­not pray in the true sense of the word. Said Je­sus: “Let your su­preme de­light be in the char­ac­ter of God, and he shall surely give you the sin­cere de­sires of your heart.” “Com­mit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” “For the Lord hears the cry of the needy, and he will re­gard the prayer of the des­ti­tute.”

146:2.109. “I have come forth from the Fa­ther; if, there­fore, you are ever in doubt as to what you would ask of the Fa­ther, ask in my name, and I will pre­sent your pe­ti­tion in ac­cor­dance with your real needs and de­sires and in ac­cor­dance with my Fa­ther’s will.” Guard against the great dan­ger of be­com­ing self-cen­tered in your prayers. Avoid pray­ing much for your­self; pray more for the spir­i­tual prog­ress of your breth­ren. Avoid ma­te­ri­al­is­tic pray­ing; pray in the spirit and for the abun­dance of the gifts of the spirit.

146:2.1110. When you pray for the sick and af­flicted, do not ex­pect that your pe­ti­tions will take the place of lov­ing and in­tel­li­gent min­istry to the ne­ces­si­ties of these af­flicted ones. Pray for the wel­fare of your fam­i­lies, friends, and fel­lows, but es­pe­cially pray for those who curse you, and make lov­ing pe­ti­tions for those who per­se­cute you. “But when to pray, I will not say. Only the spirit that dwells within you may move you to the ut­ter­ance of those pe­ti­tions which are ex­pres­sive of your in­ner re­la­tion­ship with the Fa­ther of spir­its.”

146:2.1211. Many re­sort to prayer only when in trou­ble. Such a prac­tice is thought­less and mis­lead­ing. True, you do well to pray when ha­rassed, but you should also be mind­ful to speak as a son to your Fa­ther even when all goes well with your soul. Let your real pe­ti­tions al­ways be in se­cret. Do not let men hear your per­sonal prayers. Prayers of thanks­giv­ing are ap­pro­pri­ate for groups of wor­shipers, but the prayer of the soul is a per­sonal mat­ter. There is but one form of prayer which is ap­pro­pri­ate for all God’s chil­dren, and that is: “Nev­er­the­less, your will be done.”

146:2.1312. All be­liev­ers in this gospel should pray sin­cerely for the ex­ten­sion of the king­dom of heaven. Of all the prayers of the He­brew scrip­tures he com­mented most ap­prov­ingly on the pe­ti­tion of the Psalmist: “Cre­ate in me a clean heart, O God, and re­new a right spirit within me. Purge me from se­cret sins and keep back your ser­vant from pre­sump­tu­ous trans­gres­sion.” Je­sus com­mented at great length on the re­la­tion of prayer to care­less and of­fend­ing speech, quot­ing: “Set a watch, O Lord, be­fore my mouth; keep the door of my lips.” “The hu­man tongue,” said Je­sus, “is a mem­ber which few men can tame, but the spirit within can trans­form this un­ruly mem­ber into a kindly voice of tol­er­ance and an in­spir­ing min­is­ter of mercy.”

146:2.1413. Je­sus taught that the prayer for di­vine guid­ance over the path­way of earthly life was next in im­por­tance to the pe­ti­tion for a knowl­edge of the Fa­ther’s will. In re­al­ity this means a prayer for di­vine wis­dom. Je­sus never taught that hu­man knowl­edge and spe­cial skill could be gained by prayer. But he did teach that prayer is a fac­tor in the en­large­ment of one’s ca­pac­ity to re­ceive the pres­ence of the di­vine spirit. When Je­sus taught his as­so­ciates to pray in the spirit and in truth, he ex­plained that he re­ferred to pray­ing sin­cerely and in ac­cor­dance with one’s en­light­en­ment, to pray­ing whole­heart­edly and in­tel­li­gently, earnestly and stead­fastly.

146:2.1514. Je­sus warned his fol­low­ers against think­ing that their prayers would be ren­dered more ef­fi­ca­cious by or­nate rep­e­ti­tions, elo­quent phrase­ol­ogy, fast­ing, pen­ance, or sac­ri­fices. But he did ex­hort his be­liev­ers to em­ploy prayer as a means of lead­ing up through thanks­giv­ing to true wor­ship. Je­sus de­plored that so lit­tle of the spirit of thanks­giv­ing was to be found in the prayers and wor­ship of his fol­low­ers. He quoted from the Scrip­tures on this oc­ca­sion, say­ing: “It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to the name of the Most High, to ac­knowl­edge his lov­ing-kind­ness ev­ery morn­ing and his faith­ful­ness ev­ery night, for God has made me glad through his work. In ev­ery­thing I will give thanks ac­cord­ing to the will of God.”

146:2.1615. And then Je­sus said: “Be not con­stantly over­anx­ious about your com­mon needs. Be not ap­pre­hen­sive con­cern­ing the prob­lems of your earthly ex­is­tence, but in all these things by prayer and sup­pli­ca­tion, with the spirit of sin­cere thanks­giv­ing, let your needs be spread out be­fore your Fa­ther who is in heaven.” Then he quoted from the Scrip­tures: “I will praise the name of God with a song and will mag­nify him with thanks­giv­ing. And this will please the Lord bet­ter than the sac­ri­fice of an ox or bul­lock with horns and hoofs.”

146:2.1716. Je­sus taught his fol­low­ers that, when they had made their prayers to the Fa­ther, they should re­main for a time in silent re­cep­tiv­ity to af­ford the in­dwelling spirit the bet­ter op­por­tu­nity to speak to the lis­ten­ing soul. The spirit of the Fa­ther speaks best to man when the hu­man mind is in an at­ti­tude of true wor­ship. We wor­ship God by the aid of the Fa­ther’s in­dwelling spirit and by the il­lu­mi­na­tion of the hu­man mind through the min­istry of truth. Wor­ship, taught Je­sus, makes one in­creas­ingly like the be­ing who is wor­shiped. Wor­ship is a trans­form­ing ex­pe­ri­ence whereby the fi­nite grad­u­ally ap­proaches and ul­ti­mately at­tains the pres­ence of the In­fi­nite.

146:2.18And many other truths did Je­sus tell his apos­tles about man’s com­mu­nion with God, but not many of them could fully en­com­pass his teach­ing.