The Consequence of Avoiding the Father's Love
Greetings, 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 consequence of avoiding the Father's love.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Consequence of Avoiding the Father's Love
Jesus said, "For whither is greater, he that sitteth at meat or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at meat? But I am among you as he that serveth." Luke, Chapter 22, Verse 27.
Brothers and sister, those who have not been born again are programmed to be served, not to serve. They therefore derive their greatest pleasure from being served. Never will they enjoy serving others unselfishly. When they do serve others, the primary motive is the anticipation of being served in return, perhaps tenfold, a hundredfold, or even a thousandfold. Such is the attitude of those who are only born of woman and not of the spirit.
It is impossible for those only born of woman to enjoy the pleasure of serving others unselfishly. They rebel at serving others unselfishly. Their greatest sorrow is to love others unselfishly. They will receive countless acts of mercy and unselfish love, but never will it dawn upon the selfish self that it ought to follow the example that is being set for it. The natural self does not wonder why its self serving acts do not bring lasting pleasure or peace. That would indicate the function of spiritual insight, which it lacks.
To be born again, born of the spirit, is essential to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, where the sons and daughters of the Father find their supreme joy in serving one another. The born again experience reprograms the natural self from being served to serving. This experience allows the soul to discern the truth, beauty, and goodness of the Father's love. It allows the soul to taste the delights of sonship with God the Father. "Oh! Taste and see that the Lord is good."
But the price of being born again requires the supreme dedication. It means turning our backs on the old way of living. It means a repudiation of the old values and meanings of the flesh, and an embrace of the new values and meanings of the spirit. It means being conscious of the divine will and having a conscious dedication to doing that divine will. This decision is a personal one and must be made by each and every one. No one will ever find themselves in the Kingdom of Heaven without having made a free will choice for citizenship. The price of entering the kingdom is faith. We enter the Kingdom of Heaven by faith, but our growth in the Kingdom is dependent upon increasingly bearing the fruits of the spirit.
The Kingdom of Heaven is not meat and drink but righteousness, peace and joy in the spirit. The Kingdom of Heaven is a spiritual brotherhood of like-minded brothers and sisters who have as their common goal the attainment of the heavenly Father by the progressive technique of becoming like Him in all character attributes. The revelation of the Father's character is revealed in His Son, Jesus. So the technique of becoming like the Father is the technique of becoming like Jesus. Since Jesus lives in all morally minded individuals, he becomes the pattern by which we may emulate and acquire the spiritual character of the Heavenly Father. Only a world built upon the loving unselfish service of one another can bring harmony to the world. No amount of agreements can bring this about for the sole reason that agreements are based upon selfish considerations.
A world based upon selfish consideration presupposes that the desires of each are mutually exclusive, which is a state where all the desires of each are equally met. "If you scratch my back, I will scratch yours." The natural self knows nothing of fairness, and seeks to get as much for itself as it can. Only the unselfish desires of divine love can satisfy the deep longings and desires of our souls. The deepest longings and desires of our souls are spiritual rather than material. And this fact in and of itself guarantees that no amount of selfish material things can ever quench those spiritual aspirations of man.
The fact that we were created with a spirit nucleus ensures that we will hunger for truth and thirst for righteousness. And this hunger and thirst continues to gnaw at our souls until we adequately satisfy those cravings or decide to repress them in our own life. Since we have free will, we have the power to become like God or to destroy ourselves spiritually.
The moral self consciousness is the soul. It is the mechanism by which we recognize truth, beauty, and goodness. It is that part of us that worships God, that becomes like Him. It is up to us to foster this moral self consciousness until it achieves spirit levels of existence. The badge of our sonship with God is our moral consciousness. Our moral consciousness has the power to discern relative right from wrong. The choosing of right or wrong constitutes a religious experience and eventuates in soul growth, the growth of the moral self consciousness. The choosing of wrong decreases the moral self consciousness until a final wrong is chosen which destroys the moral self consciousness, destroys the soul. Subsequent to this event such a one loses the power to discern right from wrong and thus the power to choose between them. The rejection of the divine nature is a whole soul choice, a choice of the whole personality and not some part of it. Always is the choice of the divine nature reflected in the moral and the spiritual choices that we make.
Such an individual has put himself outside of God's mercy and within the province of God's justice. Likewise, an individual has become saved when no amount of passing of time will change his worshipful attitude toward God. In the former case the individual is guilty of eternally rejecting the mercy of God, while in the latter the individual has eternally chosen to abide by the divine will.
Those who avoid the choice of love because of intoxication with the immature pleasures of evil and error run the risk of gradually losing the capacity to choose the saving grace of divine love, of losing the capacity to be programmed to serve, of losing the privilege of becoming eternal sons and daughters of the eternal Father.
This concludes today's message on the consequence of avoiding 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.
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