gifts

1:1.2The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther never im­poses any form of ar­bi­trary rec­og­ni­tion, for­mal wor­ship, or slav­ish ser­vice upon the in­tel­li­gent will crea­tures of the uni­verses. The evo­lu­tion­ary in­hab­i­tants of the worlds of time and space must of them­selves—in their own hearts—rec­og­nize, love, and vol­un­tar­ily wor­ship him. The Cre­ator re­fuses to co­erce or com­pel the sub­mis­sion of the spir­i­tual free wills of his ma­te­rial crea­tures. The af­fec­tion­ate ded­i­ca­tion of the hu­man will to the do­ing of the Fa­ther’s will is man’s choic­est gift to God; in fact, such a con­se­cra­tion of crea­ture will con­sti­tutes man’s only pos­si­ble gift of true value to the Par­a­dise Fa­ther. In God, man lives, moves, and has his be­ing; there is noth­ing which man can give to God ex­cept this choos­ing to abide by the Fa­ther’s will, and such de­ci­sions, ef­fected by the in­tel­li­gent will crea­tures of the uni­verses, con­sti­tute the re­al­ity of that true wor­ship which is so sat­is­fy­ing to the love-dom­i­nated na­ture of the Cre­ator Fa­ther.

56:8.3Bear in mind, all that God the Fa­ther and his Par­a­dise Sons do for us, we in turn and in spirit have the op­por­tu­nity to do for and in the emerg­ing Su­preme Be­ing. The ex­pe­ri­ence of love, joy, and ser­vice in the uni­verse is mu­tual. God the Fa­ther does not need that his sons should re­turn to him all that he be­stows upon them, but they do (or may) in turn be­stow all of this upon their fel­lows and upon the evolv­ing Su­preme Be­ing.

196:0.10Je­sus brought to God, as a man of the realm, the great­est of all of­fer­ings: the con­se­cra­tion and ded­i­ca­tion of his own will to the ma­jes­tic ser­vice of do­ing the di­vine will. Je­sus al­ways and con­sis­tently in­ter­preted re­li­gion wholly in terms of the Fa­ther’s will. When you study the ca­reer of the Mas­ter, as con­cerns prayer or any other fea­ture of the re­li­gious life, look not so much for what he taught as for what he did. Je­sus never prayed as a re­li­gious duty. To him prayer was a sin­cere ex­pres­sion of spir­i­tual at­ti­tude, a dec­la­ra­tion of soul loy­alty, a recital of per­sonal de­vo­tion, an ex­pres­sion of thanks­giv­ing, an avoid­ance of emo­tional ten­sion, a pre­ven­tion of con­flict, an ex­al­ta­tion of in­tel­lec­tion, an en­no­ble­ment of de­sire, a vin­di­ca­tion of moral de­ci­sion, an en­rich­ment of thought, an in­vig­o­ra­tion of higher in­cli­na­tions, a con­se­cra­tion of im­pulse, a clar­i­fi­ca­tion of view­point, a dec­la­ra­tion of faith, a tran­scen­den­tal sur­ren­der of will, a sub­lime as­ser­tion of con­fi­dence, a rev­e­la­tion of cour­age, the procla­ma­tion of dis­cov­ery, a con­fes­sion of su­preme de­vo­tion, the val­i­da­tion of con­se­cra­tion, a tech­nique for the ad­just­ment of dif­fi­cul­ties, and the mighty mo­bi­liza­tion of the com­bined soul pow­ers to with­stand all hu­man ten­den­cies to­ward self­ish­ness, evil, and sin. He lived just such a life of prayer­ful con­se­cra­tion to the do­ing of his Fa­ther’s will and ended his life tri­umphantly with just such a prayer. The se­cret of his un­par­al­leled re­li­gious life was this con­scious­ness of the pres­ence of God; and he at­tained it by in­tel­li­gent prayer and sin­cere wor­ship—un­bro­ken com­mu­nion with God—and not by lead­ings, voices, vi­sions, or ex­traor­di­nary re­li­gious prac­tices.

2:6.3The “rich­ness of the good­ness of God leads erring man to re­pen­tance.” “Ev­ery good gift and ev­ery per­fect gift comes down from the Fa­ther of lights.” “God is good; he is the eter­nal refuge of the souls of men.” “The Lord God is mer­ci­ful and gra­cious. He is long-suf­fer­ing and abun­dant in good­ness and truth.” “Taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who trusts him.” “The Lord is gra­cious and full of com­pas­sion. He is the God of sal­va­tion.” “He heals the bro­ken­hearted and binds up the wounds of the soul. He is man’s all-pow­er­ful bene­fac­tor.”

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.

144:2.4“Which of you who is a fa­ther, if his son asks un­wisely, would hes­i­tate to give in ac­cor­dance with pa­ren­tal wis­dom rather than in the terms of the son’s faulty pe­ti­tion? If the child needs a loaf, will you give him a stone just be­cause he un­wisely asks for it? If your son needs a fish, will you give him a wa­ter­snake just be­cause it may chance to come up in the net with the fish and the child fool­ishly asks for the ser­pent? If you, then, be­ing mor­tal and fi­nite, know how to an­swer prayer and give good and ap­pro­pri­ate gifts to your chil­dren, how much more shall your heav­enly Fa­ther give the spirit and many ad­di­tional bless­ings to those who ask him? Men ought al­ways to pray and not be­come dis­cour­aged.

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.

69:5.13Ac­cu­mu­la­tions of wealth early be­came the badge of so­cial dis­tinc­tion. In­di­vid­u­als in cer­tain tribes would ac­cu­mu­late prop­erty for years just to cre­ate an im­pres­sion by burn­ing it up on some hol­i­day or by freely dis­tribut­ing it to fel­low tribes­men. This made them great men. Even mod­ern peo­ples revel in the lav­ish dis­tri­bu­tion of Christ­mas gifts, while rich men en­dow great in­sti­tu­tions of phi­lan­thropy and learn­ing. Man’s tech­nique varies, but his dis­po­si­tion re­mains quite un­changed.

150:5.3“Sal­va­tion is the gift of the Fa­ther and is re­vealed by his Sons. Ac­cep­tance by faith on your part makes you a par­taker of the di­vine na­ture, a son or a daugh­ter of God. By faith you are jus­ti­fied; by faith are you saved; and by this same faith are you eter­nally ad­vanced in the way of pro­gres­sive and di­vine per­fec­tion. By faith was Abra­ham jus­ti­fied and made aware of sal­va­tion by the teach­ings of Mel­chiz­e­dek. All down through the ages has this same faith saved the sons of men, but now has a Son come forth from the Fa­ther to make sal­va­tion more real and ac­cept­able.”

150:5.5In sum­ming up his fi­nal state­ment, Je­sus said: “You can­not buy sal­va­tion; you can­not earn righ­teous­ness. Sal­va­tion is the gift of God, and righ­teous­ness is the nat­u­ral fruit of the spirit-born life of son­ship in the king­dom. You are not to be saved be­cause you live a righ­teous life; rather is it that you live a righ­teous life be­cause you have al­ready been saved, have rec­og­nized son­ship as the gift of God and ser­vice in the king­dom as the su­preme de­light of life on earth. When men be­lieve this gospel, which is a rev­e­la­tion of the good­ness of God, they will be led to vol­un­tary re­pen­tance of all known sin. Re­al­iza­tion of son­ship is in­com­pat­i­ble with the de­sire to sin. King­dom be­liev­ers hunger for righ­teous­ness and thirst for di­vine per­fec­tion.”

167:5.1On the way to Judea Je­sus was fol­lowed by a com­pany of al­most fifty of his friends and en­e­mies. At their noon lunchtime, on Wednes­day, he talked to his apos­tles and this group of fol­low­ers on the “Terms of Sal­va­tion,” and at the end of this les­son told the para­ble of the Phar­isee and the pub­li­can (a tax col­lec­tor). Said Je­sus: “You see, then, that the Fa­ther gives sal­va­tion to the chil­dren of men, and this sal­va­tion is a free gift to all who have the faith to re­ceive son­ship in the di­vine fam­ily. There is noth­ing man can do to earn this sal­va­tion. Works of self-righ­teous­ness can­not buy the fa­vor of God, and much pray­ing in pub­lic will not atone for lack of liv­ing faith in the heart. Men you may de­ceive by your out­ward ser­vice, but God looks into your souls. What I am telling you is well il­lus­trated by two men who went into the tem­ple to pray, the one a Phar­isee and the other a pub­li­can. The Phar­isee stood and prayed to him­self: ‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of men, ex­tor­tion­ers, un­learned, un­just, adul­ter­ers, or even like this pub­li­can. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the pub­li­can, stand­ing afar off, would not so much as lift his eyes to heaven but smote his breast, say­ing, ‘God be mer­ci­ful to me a sin­ner.’ I tell you that the pub­li­can went home with God’s ap­proval rather than the Phar­isee, for ev­ery one who ex­alts him­self shall be hum­bled, but he who hum­bles him­self shall be ex­alted.”

170:2.211. Faith, sin­cer­ity. To come as a lit­tle child, to re­ceive the be­stowal of son­ship as a gift; to sub­mit to the do­ing of the Fa­ther’s will with­out ques­tion­ing and in the full con­fi­dence and gen­uine trust­ful­ness of the Fa­ther’s wis­dom; to come into the king­dom free from prej­u­dice and pre­con­cep­tion; to be open-minded and teach­able like an un­spoiled child.

193:1.2“Peace be upon you. You re­joice to know that I am the res­ur­rec­tion and the life, but this will avail you noth­ing un­less you are first born of the eter­nal spirit, thereby com­ing to pos­sess, by faith, the gift of eter­nal life. If you are the faith sons of my Fa­ther, you shall never die; you shall not per­ish. The gospel of the king­dom has taught you that all men are the sons of God. And this good news con­cern­ing the love of the heav­enly Fa­ther for his chil­dren on earth must be car­ried to all the world. The time has come when you wor­ship God nei­ther on Ger­izim nor at Je­ru­sa­lem, but where you are, as you are, in spirit and in truth. It is your faith that saves your souls. Sal­va­tion is the gift of God to all who be­lieve they are his sons. But be not de­ceived; while sal­va­tion is the free gift of God and is be­stowed upon all who ac­cept it by faith, there fol­lows the ex­pe­ri­ence of bear­ing the fruits of this spirit life as it is lived in the flesh. The ac­cep­tance of the doc­trine of the fa­ther­hood of God im­plies that you also freely ac­cept the as­so­ci­ated truth of the broth­er­hood of man. And if man is your brother, he is even more than your neigh­bor, whom the Fa­ther re­quires you to love as your­self. Your brother, be­ing of your own fam­ily, you will not only love with a fam­ily af­fec­tion, but you will also serve as you would serve your­self. And you will thus love and serve your brother be­cause you, be­ing my breth­ren, have been thus loved and served by me. Go, then, into all the world telling this good news to all crea­tures of ev­ery race, tribe, and na­tion. My spirit shall go be­fore you, and I will be with you al­ways.”

193:2.2“Peace be upon you. You re­joice to know that the Son of Man has risen from the dead be­cause you thereby know that you and your breth­ren shall also sur­vive mor­tal death. But such sur­vival is de­pen­dent on your hav­ing been pre­vi­ously born of the spirit of truth-seek­ing and God-find­ing. The bread of life and the wa­ter thereof are given only to those who hunger for truth and thirst for righ­teous­ness—for God. The fact that the dead rise is not the gospel of the king­dom. These great truths and these uni­verse facts are all re­lated to this gospel in that they are a part of the re­sult of be­liev­ing the good news and are em­braced in the sub­se­quent ex­pe­ri­ence of those who, by faith, be­come, in deed and in truth, the ev­er­last­ing sons of the eter­nal God. My Fa­ther sent me into the world to pro­claim this sal­va­tion of son­ship to all men. And so send I you abroad to preach this sal­va­tion of son­ship. Sal­va­tion is the free gift of God, but those who are born of the spirit will im­me­di­ately be­gin to show forth the fruits of the spirit in lov­ing ser­vice to their fel­low crea­tures. And the fruits of the di­vine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-know­ing mor­tals are: lov­ing ser­vice, un­selfish de­vo­tion, coura­geous loy­alty, sin­cere fair­ness, en­light­ened hon­esty, undy­ing hope, con­fid­ing trust, mer­ci­ful min­istry, un­fail­ing good­ness, for­giv­ing tol­er­ance, and en­dur­ing peace. If pro­fessed be­liev­ers bear not these fruits of the di­vine spirit in their lives, they are dead; the Spirit of Truth is not in them; they are use­less branches on the liv­ing vine, and they soon will be taken away. My Fa­ther re­quires of the chil­dren of faith that they bear much spirit fruit. If, there­fore, you are not fruit­ful, he will dig about your roots and cut away your un­fruit­ful branches. In­creas­ingly, must you yield the fruits of the spirit as you pro­gress heav­en­ward in the king­dom of God. You may en­ter the king­dom as a child, but the Fa­ther re­quires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spir­i­tual adult­hood. And when you go abroad to tell all na­tions the good news of this gospel, I will go be­fore you, and my Spirit of Truth shall abide in your hearts. My peace I leave with you.”