Error In the Arms of Faith
Greetings and good morning, brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years, the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them with you. This morning we seek to understand the meaning of error in the arms of faith.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
Error in the Arms of Faith
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews, Chapter 11 Verse 1
Brothers and sisters, in today’’s broadcast we explore the problem of error in our faith (or more specifically, attempting to use our faith for the wrong purpose). "Without faith it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”” Therefore, faith is a spiritual tool given to us by the heavenly Father that, by using it, we may know him. Jesus told us that we were sons and daughters of the heavenly Father, and faith is to be used to experience this relationship. We run into error when we try to use this faith for any other purpose not associated with this relationship. Jesus instructed us that we should love God with all our heart, all our mind, and all our soul, and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves. God is love, and we are to love one another as Jesus loves us. When we do this, we experience the love of God as it flows through us.
Jesus, the Son of God, came into the world to reveal the Father and to reveal the technique for perfecting that relationship with the Father. He came into the world as a helpless infant, devoid of all knowledge of his pre-existence. By his faith he moved from not having any knowledge of the heavenly Father to absolute knowledge of the heavenly Father. It is apparent that he proceeded with this great spiritual achievement, just as you and I must by using his faith. We must progress in our understanding of the relationship with the heavenly Father until it is perfected. When it is perfected, it will be perfectly true. It will be characterized by love. When we say it will be true, we mean that it will be perfectly reflective of the relationship that Jesus has with the heavenly Father. When we say that it will be characterized by love, we mean that it will be characterized by goodwill to all.
Jesus revealed to us that God was our Father and that we are his children. If God is our Father, then we have a spiritually genetic relationship with him. This means that he is an intricate part of us, and being a part of us, we must proceed to become like him. "The apple does not fall far from the tree" and "he is a chip off of the old block" are some phrases that capture the essence of this relationship. "A part of every father lives in the child. The father enjoys priority and superiority of understanding in all matters connected with the child-parent relationship. The parent is able to view the immaturity of the child in the light of the more advanced parental maturity, the riper experience of the older partner. With the earthly child and the heavenly Father, the divine parent possesses infinity and divinity of sympathy and capacity for loving understanding. Divine forgiveness is inevitable; it is inherent and inalienable in God's infinite understanding, in his perfect knowledge of all that concerns the mistaken judgment and erroneous choosing of the child.””
Initially the child may not resemble the Father either in physique or character, but we observe that as the child develops, he comes to take on more and more of the Father’’s physique and character. Sometimes the full development of these factors are not apparent until much later in adult life. "If there exists a true and living connection between the child and the Father, the child is certain to progress continuously toward the Father's ideals. True, the child may at first make slow progress, but the progress is nonetheless sure. The important thing is not the rapidity of your progress but rather its certainty."
We know from personal experience that the child does not proceed in his relationship with his earthly father error-free and neither does the spiritual child proceed in his relationship with the heavenly Father without error. Truth discernment depends on faith, desire, a willingness to submit to the Father’’s will, and spiritual maturity (that is the establishment of the correct conduct and understanding). When the understanding is correct, then correct conduct will follow. When there is no error in the understanding, then there will not be error in the conduct. One follows the other just as the shadow follows the object.
The establishment of the relationship with the Father as we have stated is based on spiritual genetics but the recognition thereof is faith-based. By faith, we recognize our divine sonship with the heavenly Father. This faith has to be all-inconclusive of every step of the way of establishing the truth of the relationship with the heavenly Father. This faith must be able to foster the grasp of new meanings of divine sonship as the spiritual child matures. This faith is connected with the Spirit of Truth, which is the guide and the assurance of the truth of the relationship with Father. This is the same spirit that guided and assured Jesus as he marched from the complete absence of God consciousness to the full consciousness of his relationship with the Heavenly Father. This Spirit of Truth in conjunction with our faith has been mercifully given to us to assist us along the same road to perfection in the relationship with the heavenly Father.
This faith, and its exercise, has such a high value for the Father that he rewards our exercise of it even though it may be exercised in error. The fact that the relationship is grasped even imperfectly so is the important foundation. Once this faith foundation is established, and as the newly recognized son of God begins to progress and attempts to comprehend this relationship, this faith in conjunction with truth pushes out the error. Although it is natural to consider a material relationship with the Father since we are material beings, this becomes one source of error in the understanding of the relationship.
Since the soul is spiritually genetically based, the spiritual genes configure the soul in the image of the spiritual Father, and as this soul grows, it becomes more and more identified with the spiritual Father and less with the material self. As this process continues, error which is not in the image of the Father gets pushed out, and the soul takes on more of a bonafide spiritual reality. So the fate of error in the arms of faith is destined to be cast out and extinguished as the growth of truth crowds all things that are not a part of the spiritual Father. When the process is completed, a spiritual perfected soul stands in the embrace of his heavenly Father without any shadow of error.
This concludes today's message on the understanding the meaning of error in the arms of faith.We hope you find something in this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day.
Until next time, this is Dr. James Perry.
Your Kingdom Come; Your Will Be Done!
Error in the Arms of Faith
Inspirational Messages
By Dr. James Perry
