The Light House of Truth
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 given many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them with you. This morning we seek to understand the meaning of the lighthouse of truth.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message
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The Lighthouse of Truth
"I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”” John, Chapter 8, Verse 12
Brothers and sisters, we are all familiar with a lighthouse. It is a tall building that has a light perched on top of it. The purpose of this lighthouse is to be a beacon for ships out on the ocean so that they can see how to make their way into the safety of the harbor. This lighthouse helps them to avoid crashing on dangerous rocks.
As we make our way through this life, our souls needs a lighthouse of truth to guide it and prevent it from wrecking on the shoals of evil. Sometimes in this journey, the storms of life obscure our limited spiritual vision and we cannot see the way. It is such a time that we need a greater light to follow. And this greater light is the light of truth. It emanates from it source, the divine Son, Jesus. This light is so brilliant that even though our material eyes cannot behold it, the eyes of our souls can and do. As the waves of confusion beat about our souls and threaten to topple and submerge them under the sea of evil, the shining light of truth shows our souls the way to safety. He says, "I am the way, the truth, and the light; Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
As long as the soul keeps its eyes on the lighthouse of truth, we can be assured that this light is leading it into the safety of the harbor of righteousness, the Father’’s will. And though the soul cannot see what lies between its position and the light, it must exercise trust in the goodness of the light. When doubt threatens to derail the soul from its journey to the Father, it must exercise faith in the very face of doubt. Though the material mind may not be in a position to appreciate it, nothing can prevent the soul from following the light since the connection to the light is maintained by desire alone. Emotional distress, mind confusion, and other difficulties of the material mind cannot break the chain of desire that connects the soul to the light.
The lighthouse of truth is also the lighthouse of hope. This light shining from the Father constantly dispels the darkness of despair. It guides the soul into the eternal vision, where all things are as they should be. It shows the soul that nothing of spiritual value is lost. Most of the time, our despair springs from being in an intolerable situation, where we can see no way out. Imprisoned in this intolerable situation is our fondest hopes and dreams, our desires. It is where our temporal path is blocked, and we can find no way to get beyond it. Each day appears to bring more of the same. But the lighthouse of hope shining from eternity sees no such barriers. It illuminates the path of truth, so that we can clearly see that there are no barriers on this path. All is clear as far as the soul can or will see. It is an eternal path that knows no end. This light of hope if we follow it will pull us through the barriers of temporal reality. It will remove the shackles of temporal values and meanings from our souls and replace them with the eternal values and meanings of the Father.
The lighthouse of truth is also the lighthouse of faith. This light of faith empowers our desire and our hope, for hope can never be activated if we lack faith. Faith is the engine that drives our hope. By the grasp of faith, our souls move forward in the light of truth. Without faith, nothing is possible; with faith all is possible that is possible. Faith shows us the vision of our eternal status and then begins the process of actually moving us into that status. It actually unfurls the potentials of our souls so that we can actually grasp these eternal values and meanings of the eternal state. Faith is the spiritual vision given to us by the heavenly Father to be used until such time as we can see with the eye of the spirit. Just now our vision is immature, and we cannot see the eternal goal. But with the exercise of our faith, we can faith-visualize the goal--divine perfection--and can be drawn towards it. Faith is our direct connection with the Father.
The lighthouse of truth is also the lighthouse of trust. This light is so necessary to our spiritual sense of well-being. For without trust, we cannot enjoy tranquility of spirit. Tranquility of spirit is the result of trusting in the goodness of God. Not only is tranquility of spirit the result of trusting in the goodness of God but it also the result of trusting in the power of his goodness. Without trust, we can have no peace of mind; without trust, we cannot calmly accept our status. Our emotions will run wild, going back and forth like an endless yo-yo, like a restless lion pacing back and forth in his cage. Trust lies at the bottom of faith and hope. Hope shows us the vision; faith propels us into the vision. But without trust, we will never sit still long enough for faith and hope to do their work. Without trust, we will not follow the light of truth. Without trust there can be no hope in our souls. Without trust there can be no exercise of faith. But how we increase our trust and thereby increase our faith and hope?
Trust is a difficult thing for the material mind to exercise on behalf of spiritual realities. But we know that we do exercise trust over material realities every day. And to the extent that we exercise this material trust is the same extent to which we enjoy material peace in our mind. But even so we know that our material trust is not always justified. In the material world, things and conditions change so often that our material trust is bound to be disappointed at some point. So we have a paradox here. The object of the material trust we can see and based upon some criterion, we make a decision to trust. But even after we use all of our material wisdom to arrive at the trustworthiness of an object, we are disappointed at some junction of our experiences. On the other hand, the object of our spiritual trust, we cannot see, and based upon our faith, we make a decision to trust, and we are not disappointed. But even though this is the case, the material mind still remains skeptical of spiritual trust and spiritual realities.
In order to acquire and increase our spiritual trust, there are some attitudes that are helpful. First of all, we must differentiate the material realities from the spiritual realities. This is extremely important because if we try to apply spiritual trust to material realities, we are going to be disappointed. While it may be coincidental that our material trust in material reality and our spiritual trust in spiritual reality may appear to justify our trust, it is strictly coincidental, the one having nothing to do with the other. We cannot use material trust to justify spiritual realities. Having separated the two, the one from the other, we can now begin to rationally apply our trust to the correct arena. The province of spiritual trust has to do with the survival of our souls upon material dissolution. It has to do with the security of our souls; the guidance and direction through this life, the supplying of spiritual qualities to our souls. In short, it has to do with spiritual matters.
When we say trust the Father, we are not talking about our material status. We are talking about our spiritual status. Even though our souls exist in our material minds during the mortal life, the soul can still receive spiritual ministry. It can still have hope in the face of material despair. It can still have faith in the midst of material disaster. It can still have spiritual trust when there is no basis for it. If we look back over our spiritual experiences, even though our trust may not have been what it should have been, it having contained a large element of doubt, we recognize that spiritually the Father brought us through those experiences intact. We emerged from those experienced with greater awareness of goodness than we had before.
So we see that our experiences with the Father justify further trust in him despite the fact that our material status may have gone south. We can also affirm in the face of spiritual uncertainty that we desire to trust him and that we are going to trust him. We can ask the Father to empower us to increase our trust in him. And we can acknowledge our absolute dependence upon him. We know of no other person who can save our souls and give us eternal life. And we can remind ourselves that whatever the difficulty, we will overcome it as long as we trust the Father. This trust allows us to know him. "Always will we know him because we trust him." Finally we can encourage each other to trust him. We can share our experiences of trusting him with each other. Nothing succeeds like success. The more we trust him, the more we can and will trust him.
This concludes today's message on understanding the meaning of the lighthouse of truth. 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
Your Kingdom Come; Your Will Be Done!
Inspirational Messages of Light
By Dr. James Perry
The Light House of Truth
