Faith's Journey into the Father's Love
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 will ponder our lives as we seek to understand the journey of faith.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
Faith's Journey into the Father's Love
"For whosoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that over cometh
the world, even our faith." 1 John, Chapter 5, Verses 4.
Brothers and sisters, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and so it is with the
endless and infinite journey of faith into the Father's love. The journey of faith begins with the
creation of ours souls, which allow us to perceive the truth, beauty, and goodness of our Father's love
accompanied by the desire to experience them. The desire to love unselfishly is the outward
manifestation of faith. And even though the journey of faith is indissolubly linked with the
experience of the outer life, it is truly a journey inward.
Initially our faith projections are related to our outward experiences; that is, it is perceived in
relationship to the material life. We initially believe that faith in God will prevent material upheavals
in our lives. But we do not travel very far on the faith journey before we experience the error of this
concept. The material life reveals nothing but change and often this change is painful, sorrowful, and
disappointing.
The disharmony between faith in God and the upheavals in the material life creates a crisis of faith
in us. Often we react to this crisis with the exertion that our faith is not strong enough, and that if our
faith were, these material upheavals would not occur. This erroneous understanding signals a
material interpretation of the "faith of a mustard seed." Strong faith is not related to material
harmony--only to spiritual harmony.
Sometimes we react to this crisis of faith by becoming a nonbelievers. This is complete error. To
attempt to progress through life without faith in God is to weaken the self in all its encounters with
the battles of life. Often this unbelief is manifested as depression and anxiety. But it is the very
nature of the struggle to increase in difficulty. Difficulties drive the true of heart back into the
embrace of faith. We now understand that though we may not understand the true nature of faith, to
progress we need it in our lives. Strong faith in the heavenly Father's love is absolutely essential for
tranquility of spirit and peace of mind.
During this stage of the faith journey, we harbor materialistic concepts of the truth, beauty, and
goodness of the Father's love. But though the concepts are materialistic, we have unswerving
confidence that the Father is true, beautiful, and good. We believe that ultimately God will vindicate
our losses, our sorrows, pains, and disappointments. And again here is a mixture of error and truth.
It is true that God will vindicate us, but this is not necessarily true in the material sense. The degree
of vindication that we can experience is directly proportional to the concept of spiritual vindication.
And nothing of true spiritual value is ever lost, only increased in value.
Our concepts of the truth, beauty, and goodness of the Father's love is only relatively true, beautiful,
and good. They begin to approach absoluteness to the degree of spiritual content and elimination of
the material content. Since the truth, beauty, and goodness of the Father's love are not to be had from
the material world, we turn inward for the acquirement of these nonmaterial, increasingly spiritual
values. Herein is experienced the real truth, beauty, and goodness of the Father's love in ever
heightening quality. Herein is the spiritual content distilled from the material experience that
concealed them.
The journey of faith, then, becomes an inward journey, a purification process where the concept of
faith is stripped of all material contamination. Faith then becomes ever increasingly pure and holy.
Our lives with its ever-increasing ups and downs and uncertainty provides the raw material. Each
experience that is entered into subject to the Father's will, and each one that is left behind subject to
the Father's will, tends to purify our faith.
As we progress, life progressively gets harder and harder to get through. Each experience challenges
the concept that we hold of the truth, beauty, and goodness of the Father's love. Each experience
causes a modification in our concept of divine goodness, eternal truth, and infinite beauty. The
intensity of the experience increases to the point where our material concepts fail, and fail time and
again. At this junction, we have two choices: We can become an unbeliever or we can continue on
with the faith journey, literally arising out of the material destruction of all that we hold to be
materially true, beautiful, and good. We can then become born again, where the pursuit of the truth,
beauty, and goodness of the Father's love is its own intrinsic reward.
This concludes today's message on understanding the faith' journey into the Father's Love. 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.
Inspirational Messages
By Dr. James Perry
Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done!
Faith's Journey into the Father's Love
