The Amazing Discovery

The Amazing Discovery

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 meaning of the

amazing discovery.

And now, sit back and listen to today's message.

The Amazing Discovery

"Jesus said unto them, My meat is do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work." John,

Chapter 4, Verse 34

Brothers and sisters, in today's broadcast we shall discuss the amazing discovery, the realization that

the Father's will has become our wills. We shall show how this happens, and shall explain the

apparent paradox of doing the Father's will as it applies to doing some particular act and as it applies

to becoming like the Father through His Son Jesus. With weary feet and blurred eyes from many

sleepless nights in prayer, and seeking to know and do the Father's will, have we sought to find the

assurance that we were indeed receiving knowledge of the Father's will, and in effect doing that will.

We have sought tangible evidence that would unlock the key to the assurance of being one with the

Father. We have examined our many decisions made under the influence of desiring to do the

Father's will, and have not always felt that those decisions yielded the results that they would follow

if the decision was in fact the Father's will. One of the critics of God and belief wanted to know why

we pray for answers that never come. We shall attempt to put our minds and souls at rest, for we

have earnestly sought to enter the Kingdom of heaven, and there is truth, beauty, and goodness in

these attitudes.

Since the Father's will lives in our minds and souls, you would think that it should not be such a

difficult thing to discern and execute it, especially since it is the Father's will that we do so. Yet we

are not always satisfied that we are achieving this goal. Sometimes we think we are doing the

Father's will, other times we think not, and still sometimes we just don't know at all. Is there any way

we can move from this dilemma of wanting to know but feeling like we don't know for sure? Perhaps

if we review what we know about the Father's will we can gain further insight into the difficulty.

First, we know that the Father’s will resides in our minds and souls because Jesus told us that if we

keep his commandment he and the Father would come and live in us. His commandment is that we

should love one another as he loves us.

We can validate this truth by our experience. If a thing is true, our experience will bear it out. We know that we cannot see the divine spirit with our materialeyes. Only the eyes of faith can discern the spirits of the Father and the Son residing within our souls.When we faith-discern the divine spirit, are we deceiving ourselves, or is there really a divine spiritthat we are discerning? There are certain characteristics of this divine spirit. We are told that it is the source of truth, beauty, and goodness in our minds. We are also told that this spirit is the source of divine love, the unselfish regard for others. In short all of the none-self urges, desires, and impulses and ideals that we recognize as true, beautiful, and good are manifestations of this divine spirit. And we are further told that this divine spirit is subject to our wills while it functions within us. The spirit’s desire is to manifest itself through us, to have us submit to His will.

When we are self-conscious of choosing the divine will (that we may have been choosing

unconsciously before) confusion may come about. we may have been choosing the divine urges,

desires, and impulses without recognition their source, without recognizing that in choosing them--

the divine, urges, desires, impulses--we were, in fact, choosing the divine will. When we seek to

consciously do (live) the divine will, we immediately run into the concept of will that we are familiar

with in the material world. To us exercising free will is to choose to do something concrete,

something material, to make a material decision and carry it out. Our initial concept of doing the

Father's will is material, therefore we tend to associate it with doing some material act. The Father

does act, but he does so in a spiritual way.We must learn to change our concept of executing the material will to the concept of executing a spiritual will. When we choose to be loving and kind, patient and tolerant, merciful and forgiving,it becomes apparent that this attitude permeates whatever act we are performing. We have chosen a spiritual decision when we choose to act upon spiritual qualities.

Since we are material creatures, these qualities must pervade our material activities. But when we choose these divine qualities over our own material qualities, something else happens. We are transformed into these qualities; rather, we display these qualities because we have chosen to make them apart of us. So living according to the divine will is choosing to become Godlike, like the heavenly Father, as demonstrated through His son, Jesus. As an act of will on the spiritual level we have chosen these qualities.

Becoming self conscious of choosing the Father's will follows after the conscious decision to do the

Father's will. Now this conscious choice may have been influenced by many extraneous factors but

at the least they were of such a nature that they impressed upon us the need to seek and then do the

Father's will. We started out with the material concept of doing the Father's will, which led us to

having a consistent prayer life. We experienced many sleepless nights and wracked our minds trying

to discern the Father's will to some difficulty. And even though our prayers may have been materially

or morally motivated, even spiritually, the result was the gradual elevation of our concepts of the

Father’’s will until it reached spiritual levels. Thus we see the purpose of prayer is to teach our

material minds how to do the Father's will, and in so doing we spiritualize our minds.

After we become self conscious of choosing the Father's will (becoming like the Father) there still

remains the problem of assurance of--in fact--doing the Father's will. Again must we resort to further

revelation. Jesus tells us that we should love the Father with all our hearts, all our souls, all our

might, and all our minds, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. This is the Father's will. Therefore

if we sincerely desire to do the Father's will, to be dominated by divine love, truth, beauty, and

goodness in our personal relationships, the desire itself becomes the proof that in fact we are doing

the divine will.

Though there are vast qualitative differences between becoming like the Father and achieving

perfection on Paradise, both states signify the choice to do the Father's will. We are His children and

are in the process of growing up. But that should not prevent us from realizing that as children, we

have the right to call Him Father and to enjoy all the prerogatives of being a child, even as the earthly

child enjoys the prerogatives of his earthly father. "Behold what manner of love the father has

bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God."

And we should not forget the more demonstrative proof: the amazing display of the fruits of the

spirit in our daily lives. This is the proof that the Father’s will has become ours. These fruits do not

make our material lives easier, but they do make our inward, spiritual lives better. We have become

living sons and daughter of the heavenly Father, and our chief joy is to do His will. We delight in

representing Him to one another. When our minds and souls have become spiritualized, and our

attitudes have become spiritual, the choices that we make will naturally reflect the Father's will.

When asking the Father what He would like us to do, His response to such dedicated souls is always

““do that which is true, beautiful, and good.”” All that is required to make this discovery real is the

embrace of faith, which is belief with a whole heart.

This concludes today's message on understanding the meaning of the amazing discovery. 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!

The Amazing Discovery