The Construction of Life
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 gain insight into the construction of
life.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Construction of Life
"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life." John, Chapter 14, Verse 6.
Brothers and sisters, life is not without form or purpose. Life is constructed according to Truth. In
fact, life is Truth. Owing to immaturity of insight, wisdom, and lack of experience, some of us may
not be aware entirely of life's construction, but as we grow and develop we align ourselves with the
pattern of life and increasingly discern its wholeness, its pattern. For example, a child's view of life
is very primitive and narrowly circumscribed initially. But as the child matures, he comes to
appreciate the complexities of life. The complete appreciation of Truth equals completed maturity
and signifies complete and righteous responses to the problems inherent in life. One of the great
challenges of life is of discerning the correct structure of life and adjusting oneself accordingly.
Failure to appreciate life or to adjust to life on life's terms creates disharmony.
Aside from the natural aspects of life, life's meaning and value are composed of truth, beauty and
goodness. This entire structure is permeated by divine love. As we live, we strive to live according
to these standards. And the only way we can reach those standards of divinity is through growth and
experience, made possible by our choosing good over evil, truth over error, and beauty over ugliness.
Supreme beauty is achieved when we unify our self will with the Father's divine will.
In seeking to adjust to the truth of life, we must pray and worship, both of which make their
appearance early in our life experiences. Prayer is communion with the Architect of Life, while
worship enables us to become integrated within the framework of life, to become integrated into
divine life itself. But to accomplish this we must become supremely loyal to the way and purpose
of truth. This supreme loyalty makes it possible for us to become eternal.
In choosing truth, we must rely upon the divine spirit that lives in our minds and souls. In ascending
from partial existence to complete existence, we encounter different degrees of loyalty to truth. The
first degree of disloyalty to truth is evil (error). This is the unthinking state of existence and is a
measure of our inability to be led by the divine spirit. Stated another way, evil is ignorance of divine
reality and thus an unconscious violation of life. Much of the evil that we see in the world is due to
this ignorance. Before we are born again, we have a natural tendency to drift towards evil. This is
because we are not born with pre-knowledge of divine reality. We must first come to recognize truth
and then choose to become loyal to it.
Much of our early progress toward truth is based upon trial and error. This is the state of affairs
where progress is made by trying different scenarios. When the results do not work, then we discard
that solution and try another. We have not quite arrived at that state where we can project ahead and
see the results of our decisions. This ability to project ahead and see the results of a decision made
in the present requires a change on the inside. It requires a spiritual consciousness.
The spiritual nature is able to look ahead and see the results of decisions made in the present based
upon experiences of the past. When this ability is obtained, the soul is said to have been born again,
to have crossed over the boundary into spiritual reality. The first thing that the soul does is to shift
its attitude away from a selfish orientation to a divine orientation. This orientation aligns the soul
with the divine spirit who is the past, present and future at once. This orientation makes available
spiritual insight.
Now having passed from the ignorance of truth to the liberating knowledge of truth, there occurs an
increase in the degree of loyalty to truth. Any disloyalty at this point is conscious and premeditated
and equals sin. Conscious disloyalty to that which one knows is right is sin. Sin breaks the vital
connection with truth. When this disloyalty passes a certain point, that is when it becomes the
wholehearted attitude of the self, it becomes iniquitous. This state is equivalent to non-existence.
This is the dismissal of all truth from the soul and the mind, and the individual has in fact rejected
eternal salvation.
Now these attitudes of disloyalty towards truth manifest themselves in a variety of ways. One of the
ways is avoiding duty. Running away from duty involves a deliberate conscious choice to abandon
that which one should adhere to. Since this act is conscious and premeditated, it enters the realm of
sin-conscious disloyalty toward God. One of the mercy features provided by the merciful Father that
is designed to save the sinner is the way in which truth is constructed. Truth is constructed so that
when it is pursued, it yields satisfaction and happiness; when error is pursued, it yields unhappiness
and dissatisfaction, and the value that one is pursuing cannot be realized. This is the essential
difference between truth and error. Truth can be realized; error cannot. This difficult reality, with its
pain, sorrow and disappointment, forces the sinner to reconsider his decision to flee from truth, to
take a look back. If he does reconsider and returns to the fold of truth, he receives forgiveness and
is reinstated into truth. "The way of the transgressor is hard."
There are two basic aspects of the laws of life: We cannot run away from ourselves and we cannot
run away from God. We are composed of body, mind, and spirit. When something goes wrong in
the body, it is very apparent that we cannot run away from it. We must address it; sometimes the
body can adjust and bring itself back into equilibrium; sometimes outside influences can help to
alleviate the maladjustment, such as antibiotics in the case of infection, or blood pressure medicine
in the case of high blood pressure. In other cases of physical ailments, drugs can relieve some of the
suffering associated with something going wrong in the body; in other cases, nothing can be done
and the person has to learn to live with it, until death brings the whole process to an end.
Not so clearly recognized is the moral and spiritual aspects of the individual. We cannot run away
from the moral or spiritual aspects of ourselves; we can ignore them just as we can ignore some
aspect of the physical part of ourselves, but that does nothing to relieve us of the consequences of
doing so. It is just like sticking your head in the sand. When it comes to the moral and spiritual
aspects of life, what we are running to is worst than what we are running from. Such is the way that
life is constructed. Cooperation with the way of life is rewarded; rebellion against the way of life is
disciplined. "The flight from duty is the sacrifice of truth."
In the Old Testament of the Bible, there is a story of a fellow who tried to escape from his duty.
When Jonah was told to go to Nineveh, he refused to go and tried to go somewhere else. While on
the boat, a severe storm arose, and when the captain discovered that they were harboring a fugitive
from duty, they threw him overboard. Jonah was swallowed by a whale of darkness and
consequence. When he was finally thrown up upon the dry land of forgiveness after realizing the
folly of trying to escape from his duty, he carried it out. Jonah might agree that what he was running
to was worse than what he was running from.
We exist in an environment that is designed to bring out our potentials, physically, intellectual,
morally and spiritually. This environment is stimulative of many difficult decisions, the making of
which result in our growth and development. And it is not strange upon reflection to realize that
there is a penalty for failing to participate. We must confront and solve difficult problems or face
even more difficult problems in the pit of default. And while most of us may not like some of the
decisions we have to make, we like even less the consequences of not making those decisions. Often
we are forced to do what we would not otherwise do by the circumstances surrounding the problem.
This concludes today's message on understanding the meaning of life's construction. 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 Construction of Life
