Episode:Jesus Goes Public—Precaution and Preaching (Part 1)

From Symmetry of Soul


Of religious courage, Jesus said: “The courage of the flesh is the lowest form of bravery. It is easy to die in the line of physical battle when your courage is strengthened by the presence of your fighting comrades, but it requires a higher and more profound form of human courage and devotion calmly and all alone to lay down your life for the love of a truth enshrined in your mortal heart.”

Listen to the broadcast or read a transcript of the broadcast.

Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, Courageous Dominance, Self-Control, Self-Mastery

Opening thought: Do we fully appreciate what has been done for us? Do we comprehend the grandeur of the heights of eternal achievement which are spread out before us? [40:7.5]

Closing thought: May the joy of God fill your heart and take you through the week.

Summary by Brad

Commentary after review

We discussed how Jesus essentially set aside his own free will during his Urantia bestowal so the Father's will could be done and so the Father could be revealed to mortals. During bestowal missions, Creator Sons set aside their own free will in deference to the Father's will. They say something like, "Not my will be done. I shall not be myself personally but instead consecrate my will as if it was a different will, the Father's will." Through seven bestowals and seven revelations of each of the seven Master Spirits, they achieve an all-new synchronization with supreme-type Deity. We also discussed how self-mastery of one's animal-origin self is the only way our personality can manifest in the outer life in this world. Michael achieved this self-mastery, and we can strive to as well.

We also briefly discussed how until about age 6 we have a mindal self, but not yet any bestowed personality. Somehow the local universe Mother Spirit fills in this gap for us seamlessly. Listen to the archive for more details.

We also discussed how we ought not despise primitive religion and animal fear as we review all of human history and look back on it. There would be no history were it not for religion and religion's inexorable driving forward of the evolutionary system. And, by design, what fuels primitive religion? Animal-origin fear! Fear brings the mind to a focus in primitive humans. Fear must not be despised any more than the animals we inherited fear from. We need fear and we need animals! But don't be satisfied with fear; can you be led up from fear, through cultivation of the three cosmic intuitions, to the point where you no longer need fear as your cosmic training wheels?

143:0 Going through Samaria

Paper 143 takes Jesus and the 12 apostles throughout southern Samaria on a thorough tour of its towns. The apostles struggled with this strange new land for at least two reasons. First, Judeans like Judas Iscariot were brought up to look down upon all Samaritans. Think of the worst sports rivalry you could ever imagine, only worse. Fortunately, the 11 other apostles hailed from Galilee and didn't suffer under a lifetime of so much prejudicial consideration of Samaritans.

143:1 Preaching at Archelais

A second reason the apostles struggled was how the gospel message was being received in Samaria. About half the apostles—generally those recruited later that earlier—reported to Jesus a common objection to their preaching. It went something like this: "Yes, yes, that's all well good. It's very heavenly, this message. But you can't live according to this. You'd be a passive, nonresistant weakling. Your message is for weaklings." It's an argument against the apostles' burning spiritual idealism, in favor of material pragmatism. The kind of argument a Roman-cultured person in those days might lodge. Something a "heathen"—literally someone down in the uncultivated plane of material existence with no spiritual eye open—might bring up. Of course, objections like "this is for weaklings and slaves" have been with us, and against Christianity, for 2,000 years. All those weak images of Jesus haven't helped.

So what's the appropriate way to consider this form of critique, both for the apostles and for ourselves as we live and proclaim the gospel?

Well, Jesus had a lot to say on this. He went on at great length, with an uncharacteristic amount of "strong feeling...manifest earnestness...and marked emotion." And it boils down to a few key ideas:

  1. Yes, the Father's love does rule the universe of universes. But because of His intimate identification with the Paradise Trinity, it's a tough love, with its "severe disciplines"; it's love and law in the universe.
  2. Human courage isn't just about spilling blood on the battlefield. It's an even higher courage to lay down your life in the name of wholehearted devotion to supreme values; our high regard for religious martyrs proves this point.
  3. Courage is spiritualized bravery. Courage originates in the inner life and if you have courage there it spans across every moment of your life, helping bravery come into play whenever it's needed. This "heroism of the God-knowing man" is the highest form of courage. Remember that the next time you watch a movie where some army captain exclaims, "Blood will be spilt this day!" What level of bravery or courage are you seeing dramatized there?

Remember: "Religion is not a specific function of life, rather is it a mode of living." Can you have the courage in your inner life to be a genuine religionist, even if when others see your courage they despise you (or worse)?

And remember: Religion is not fanaticism. Be religious and pure in your inner life, and appropriately and wisely tempered in your outer life.

And remember: "The ultimate goal of human progress is the reverent recognition of the fatherhood of God and the loving materialization of the brotherhood of man." You will not hear this proclaimed in our secular society today. Can you stand unmoved while under immense peer pressure in the outer life? If so, you'll be on your way to the kind of courage Jesus spoke of with "strong feeling...manifest earnestness...and marked emotion."

143.2 Lesson on Self-Mastery

This is a fascinating section the revelators composed by drawing on source materials from throughout the New Testament, including materials from Paul that were obviously written afters Jesus spoke this lesson. We suggested the major theme to keep in mind as you read this section is courageous dominance of the upper domain of your mind over the lower domain of your mind in the hourglass analogy we use often here.

Jesus spoke about replacing self-examination with self-forgetfulness. Now, to have courageous reflective examination? To "know thyself"? This is laudable. But there comes a point in our development where we should stop seeing ourselves as the shiniest object in the universe, and become self-forgetful. If you never do give up this habit, more likely than not you'll become increasingly a neurotic, narcissistic mess of an animal-origin self.

Jesus spoke about the human heart (the upper domain of one's mind). And he quoted the prophet Jeremiah in reminding the apostles of how things can go haywire if the wrong ideals are enshrined in the spiritualized domain of mind. The human heart can be "desperately wicked."

And Jesus spoke about the need to properly repent and re-found yourself on a proper inner life. Do that and the fruits of the spirit will flow out naturally from you. If you don't do that, your attempts to exhibit the fruits of the spirit will be a hollow pantomime—works righteousness, which is actually a form of self-righteousness. The true fruits of the spirit are not the ridiculous affectations of some kindly mystic. No. They're the essence of the highest type of enjoyable and ennobling self control.

And now because of this revelation we students of the 5th ER know better. So we must do better.