example

• not lastingly influential to children

100:1.4Chil­dren are per­ma­nently im­pressed only by the loy­al­ties of their adult as­so­ciates; pre­cept or even ex­am­ple is not last­ingly in­flu­en­tial. Loyal per­sons are grow­ing per­sons, and growth is an im­pres­sive and in­spir­ing re­al­ity. Live loy­ally to­day—grow—and to­mor­row will at­tend to it­self. The quick­est way for a tad­pole to be­come a frog is to live loy­ally each mo­ment as a tad­pole.

• Jesus’ life an inspiration, not an e.

120:2.7“7. In all that you may per­form on the world of your be­stowal, bear con­stantly in mind that you are liv­ing a life for the in­struc­tion and ed­i­fi­ca­tion of all your uni­verse. You are be­stow­ing this life of mor­tal in­car­na­tion upon Uran­tia, but you are to live such a life for the spir­i­tual in­spi­ra­tion of ev­ery hu­man and super­hu­man in­tel­li­gence that has lived, now ex­ists, or may yet live on ev­ery in­hab­ited world which has formed, now forms, or may yet form a part of the vast galaxy of your ad­min­is­tra­tive do­main. Your earth life in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh shall not be so lived as to con­sti­tute an ex­am­ple for the mor­tals of Uran­tia in the days of your earthly so­journ nor for any sub­se­quent gen­er­a­tion of hu­man be­ings on Uran­tia or on any other world. Rather shall your life in the flesh on Uran­tia be the in­spi­ra­tion for all lives upon all Neb­a­don worlds through­out all gen­er­a­tions in the ages to come.

• Jesus’ life an inspiration, not an e.

129:4.7And this was his true and su­preme pur­pose. He did not come down to live on Uran­tia as the per­fect and de­tailed ex­am­ple for any child or adult, any man or woman, in that age or any other. True it is, in­deed, that in his full, rich, beau­ti­ful, and no­ble life we may all find much that is ex­qui­sitely ex­em­plary, di­vinely in­spir­ing, but this is be­cause he lived a true and gen­uinely hu­man life. Je­sus did not live his life on earth in or­der to set an ex­am­ple for all other hu­man be­ings to copy. He lived this life in the flesh by the same mercy min­istry that you all may live your lives on earth; and as he lived his mor­tal life in his day and as he was, so did he thereby set the ex­am­ple for all of us thus to live our lives in our day and as we are. You may not as­pire to live his life, but you can re­solve to live your lives even as, and by the same means that, he lived his. Je­sus may not be the tech­ni­cal and de­tailed ex­am­ple for all the mor­tals of all ages on all the realms of this lo­cal uni­verse, but he is ev­er­last­ingly the in­spi­ra­tion and guide of all Par­a­dise pil­grims from the worlds of ini­tial as­cen­sion up through a uni­verse of uni­verses and on through Ha­vona to Par­a­dise. Je­sus is the new and liv­ing way from man to God, from the par­tial to the per­fect, from the earthly to the heav­enly, from time to eter­nity.

• Jesus’ life an inspiration, not an e.

136:0.1Je­sus be­gan his pub­lic work at the height of the pop­u­lar in­ter­est in John’s preach­ing and at a time when the Jew­ish peo­ple of Pales­tine were ea­gerly look­ing for the ap­pear­ance of the Mes­siah. There was a great con­trast be­tween John and Je­sus. John was an ea­ger and earnest worker, but Je­sus was a calm and happy la­borer; only a few times in his en­tire life was he ever in a hurry. Je­sus was a com­fort­ing con­so­la­tion to the world and some­what of an ex­am­ple; John was hardly a com­fort or an ex­am­ple. He preached the king­dom of heaven but hardly en­tered into the hap­pi­ness thereof. Though Je­sus spoke of John as the great­est of the proph­ets of the old or­der, he also said that the least of those who saw the great light of the new way and en­tered thereby into the king­dom of heaven was in­deed greater than John.

• Jesus’ life an inspiration, not an e.

140:10.3It was not ap­par­ent to the apos­tles that their Mas­ter was en­gaged in liv­ing a life of spir­i­tual in­spi­ra­tion for ev­ery per­son of ev­ery age on ev­ery world of a far-flung uni­verse. Not­with­stand­ing what Je­sus told them from time to time, the apos­tles did not grasp the idea that he was do­ing a work on this world but for all other worlds in his vast cre­ation. Je­sus lived his earth life on Uran­tia, not to set a per­sonal ex­am­ple of mor­tal liv­ing for the men and women of this world, but rather to cre­ate a high spir­i­tual and in­spi­ra­tional ideal for all mor­tal be­ings on all worlds.

• Jesus’ life an inspiration, not an e.

181:1.3“If you would fol­low af­ter me when I leave you, put forth your earnest ef­forts to live in ac­cor­dance with the spirit of my teach­ings and with the ideal of my life—the do­ing of my Fa­ther’s will. This do in­stead of try­ing to im­i­tate my nat­u­ral life in the flesh as I have, per­force, been re­quired to live it on this world.

• Jesus’ life an inspiration, not an e.

194:2.8Je­sus lived a life which is a rev­e­la­tion of man sub­mit­ted to the Fa­ther’s will, not an ex­am­ple for any man lit­er­ally to at­tempt to fol­low. This life in the flesh, to­gether with his death on the cross and sub­se­quent res­ur­rec­tion, pres­ently be­came a new gospel of the ran­som which had thus been paid in or­der to pur­chase man back from the clutch of the evil one—from the con­dem­na­tion of an of­fended God. Nev­er­the­less, even though the gospel did be­come greatly dis­torted, it re­mains a fact that this new mes­sage about Je­sus car­ried along with it many of the fun­da­men­tal truths and teach­ings of his ear­lier gospel of the king­dom. And, sooner or later, these con­cealed truths of the fa­ther­hood of God and the broth­er­hood of men will emerge to ef­fec­tu­ally trans­form the civ­i­liza­tion of all man­kind.

• Jesus’ life an inspiration, not an e.

196:1.5It should not be the aim of king­dom be­liev­ers lit­er­ally to im­i­tate the out­ward life of Je­sus in the flesh but rather to share his faith; to trust God as he trusted God and to be­lieve in men as he be­lieved in men. Je­sus never ar­gued about ei­ther the fa­ther­hood of God or the broth­er­hood of men; he was a liv­ing il­lus­tra­tion of the one and a pro­found dem­on­stra­tion of the other.