Episode:Jesus Goes Public—Precaution and Preaching (Part 5)
Prayer is the breath of the spirit life in the midst of the material civilization of the races of mankind. Worship is salvation for the pleasure-seeking generations of mortals. As prayer may be likened to recharging the spiritual batteries of the soul, so worship may be compared to the act of tuning in the soul to catch the universe broadcasts of the infinite spirit of the Universal Father.
Keywords: Urantia, Jesus, Prayer and Worship, Spiritual Capacity, Parable Prayers
Closing thought: Follow prayer up into reflection. Discover the illustrations of Jesus' parable prayers.
Note: Justin Armstrong filled in for Brad Garner this week.
Summary by Kermit
Commentary after Review
We carried over from last week our discussion of the truth-fact dyad. Consulting the Threefold Actuality with Unity study aid found on the Perfecting Horizons library, the fundamental parallel relationships of things, meanings, and values with fact, truth, and goodness were considered. The superadditive consequences of things and values to eventuate in meanings and of fact and goodness to lead to truth were further considered. Familiarity with the basic threefold patterns and their cosmic interplay is a helpful concept frame in which to access the truths of the revelation.
In point of clarification of the revelators’ dual use of the word soul we are reminded that when considering the morontia object or as has been suggested the actual morontia brain it is important to remember the morontia mind is encircuited therein, and it is this mindal function which is likely to be germane to such considerations. This discussion proceeded to ever deeper examination of the transactions among the three selves which constitute our being: the adjutant mindal self, the morontia soul, and the Thought Adjuster, in the context of psychic circle attainment and Adjuster fusion. Obviously, the archive is to be consulted for the details of this discussion.
Pre-reading commentary concluded with a revisitation of the Believer’s Prayer, specifically the two lines about bread for tomorrow and the water of life. The divine indweller creates the hunger and thirst for righteousness, divine perfection. With maturity such cultivated craving expands to a hunger for truth and thirst for righteousness. More details await the eager student in the archive of the broadcast.
144:4 More About Prayer
This section is one of those midwayer distillation restatements in modern phraseology of Jesus' teachings conducted over the period of several sessions. As such each paragraph is conceptually concentrated.
The midwayers refer to prayer as a worshipful practice suggesting its potential for leading from self-reminding to the self-forgetting state of genuine worship.
Jesus’ lessons on persistence in prayer are echoed in the teaching that earnest and longing repetition of any petition, regardless of its advisability or impossibility of answer still can expand the soul’s capacity for spiritual receptivity, when its expression is sincere and in faith. Here is an example of prayer as a spiritual technique, a favorable condition for being grown.
The initiating gift of sonship by the Father establishes the creature as a child of God. The faith-grasp receipt of this gift elevates this child of God to the universe status of a born again faith-son.
[91:8.11] begins with a most helpful reminder of how God answers man’s prayer, “...by giving him an increased revelation of truth, an enhanced appreciation of beauty, and an augmented concept of goodness.” In short, God’s answer is capacity for spiritual receptivity enlarging. And this capacity itself determines the quantity of heavenly blessings available to be realized as an answer to prayer.
Prayer and worship serve to enable the creature to detach from the wear and tear of life on material levels of the outer life while cultivating greater quantitative and qualitative spiritual self-realization and religious attainment in the inner life.
Prayer, being self-reminding, risks evolving into self-absorption. The Master’s practice of primarily praying for others avoids this. Additionally, concerning the efficacy of praying for others, instead of thinking of ways to persuade God to do something for others, such prayers can lead to new and creative insights as to how the pray-er him or herself might serve. But remember the Life Carriers designed into man the urge to pray. With its capacity-expanding potential, even material praying over time in sincerity and faith can progress to a sort of backing into the kingdom of heaven. Prayer as a psychologic procedure of ethical praying is not to be despised, but recognized as a growth step in character development, thirst for righteousness.
The midwayers mention that Peter and James came nearest to comprehending these teachings. We conjectured that perhaps this disclosure might suggest that we look to New Testament scriptures for Peter’s and James’s contributions as being somewhat more truthful than others?
144:5 Other Forms of Prayer
Jesus brought to the attention of the apostles from time to time, “parable prayers”, some from other worlds. He used these prayers for the purposes of illustration of other matters. Such illustrations, presented as prayers, might serve to induce a mode of reflection and recognition rendering the apostles more receptive to them.
As we read and discussed these prayers we noted various indicators of the possible concept frames of the authors suggesting different contexts of their origin, as to planetary dispensation and levels of Deity comprehension.
As always with the revelation, one should never feel settled in one’s interpretation of a particular section or passage. There is always more.
