The Flow of 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.
Today, we seek to understand the meaning of the flow of the Father's love.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Flow of the Father's Love
Jesus said, "He that believeth on me, as the scriptures hath said, out of his belly shall flow
rivers of living water." John, Chapter 7, Verse 38.
Brothers and sisters, there is first love, then patience, next mercy, and finally forgiveness. Patience
flows from love, and mercy flows from patience, and forgiveness flows from mercy. This is the cycle
of divine goodness. There is no beginning, and neither is there any ending. This is the cycle of
salvation.
When we fail to love divinely, selfishness rears its ugly head, and the result is disharmony with its
harvest of pain and suffering. The fruits of selfishness (evil) require time to manifest themselves;
more precisely, it requires time for the evildoer to recognize the relationship between what he does
or fails to do, and the undesirable consequences that follow the errors of the evil.
Therefore if we fail to respond to divine love, divine patience functions. If we fail to grasp the
meaning of divine patience, thinking that the Father's love is powerless to overcome evil, in due time
we begin to reap the consequences of evil. Even then divine mercy reaches out to us. Only divine
mercy can salvage us from the evil that we have become mired in. But divine mercy gives way to
forgiveness, to reinstatement into the Father's good graces; therefore, does the Father offer us divine
forgiveness for only this can restore us back into his good graces.
But if we ignore the cycle of salvation--divine love, divine patience, divine mercy and divine
forgiveness--then we enter a new cycle. This is the cycle of justice, where justice destroys that which
mercy cannot save. But if we respond to divine forgiveness, then does divine love flow again, re-
establishing the cycle of love, patience, mercy and forgiveness. And we become witnesses for his
divine goodness by revealing this cycle of love to our brothers and sisters. The Father makes
salvation available to us through his son, Jesus. "He who has the Son has already passed from
judgement to eternal life, while he who has not Son is already dead." Therefore, when we accept the
Father's love, mortal death cannot effect us in any way except to deliver us to a new level of divine
reality with a new and better form.
The Father offers us salvation from our material selves, from our animal natures. The material self
is selfish, and selfishness has the destructive effect of narrowing the consciousness until it vanishes.
The Son offers eternal life to us, the unselfish life. The unselfish life expands the consciousness, and
this expansion can never come to an end since it is infinite and eternal. And all of this is possible to
us now by a simple act of faith. All we need to do is to faith-accept salvation.
In due time, the new birth will come. We will expand our consciousness from the material life to the
spiritual life. And though our conscious minds cannot fathom these transactions, we know the
process has taken place because of the appearance in the mind of an infinite and eternal purpose with
the whole-hearted desire to pursue this purpose--the finding of the heavenly Father by the
experiential process of becoming like him. The pursuit of this eternal and infinite purpose makes us
eternal, for it requires all eternity to explore the infinity of the Father's love unlike temporal and
material purposes.
Since the eternal life is begun in our souls and minds, it must be lived there. Therefore the Kingdom
of Heaven is within. It is not the place that creates the heavenly life, but the attitude of mind and
desire of the soul, and a certain way of reacting to life. And be not deceived, brothers and sisters, all
of those who have experienced this new birth have undergone a re-orientation of their life's reactions.
In the place of hate, there is now love, unselfish love. In the place of evil, there is goodness, divine
goodness. In the place of unbelief, there is faith, spiritual faith. In the place of pride, so falsely called,
there is meekness. In the place of insensitivity, there is gentleness. In the place of excessiveness,
there is temperance. In the place of sadness, there is joy, spiritual joy, and in the place of material
turmoil, there is spiritual peace.
Finally there is also the pursuit of divine truth. Divine truth appears in our souls as the result of our
spiritual experiences and the revelation of the true meanings and divine values of these same
experiences by the divine spirit. After being born again, we become foremost concerned with truth,
for the comprehension of divine truth is the escape from error with its sorrow, pain, and
disappointment. Only truth can liberate our moral consciousness.
This concludes today's message on understanding the meaning of the flow of 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!
The Flow of the Father's Love
