The Pathway Through Life
And when we do attain such heights of intellectual and spiritual achievement, not only will we mean well, but we will do well; and not only will we do good, but the good that we do will be wise as well as good. This is it!
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 seek to understand the pathway through life.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Pathway through Life
" Jesus saith unto him, I am the way the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." John, Chapter 14, Verse 6
Brothers and sisters, in today’’s broadcast, we explore the pathway through life. The pathway through life is a spiritual journey. We are all on this journey through life, a journey that we have never traveled before. Each of us must make this journey alone, and that is true even though others are traveling through life. Their pathway is different. Since we have never traveled this path before, we don’’t know the way or the destination. We have seen many falter along the pathway of life. We have watched many give up, and revert back to the simple urges of life: the urge of self maintenance, self perpetuation, and self gratification.
We have seen those who when confronted with the rigorous of the challenge have placed a dead religion in the place of the living religion of spiritual quest and achievements. Their courage have failed them. They have abandoned the higher goals of life. They have turned their backs on this great truth: " Selfish satisfaction and sensuous gratification, alone and of themselves, are not able to confer happiness upon experiencing human beings. There are higher values in mortal existence--intellectual mastery and spiritual achievement--which far transcend the necessary gratification of man's purely physical appetites and urges. Man's natural endowment of talent and ability should be chiefly devoted to the development and ennoblement of his higher powers of mind and spirit."
Many do not believe Jesus, and therefore do not find this pathway through life. Jesus has said that no one cometh to the Father except through him. If we wish to find the Father, we must rely upon Jesus’’ Spirit of Truth. It is the only way that we can obey the Father’’s eternal command. The pathway way through life is narrow, and there are many twists and turns, many potholes and pitfalls, many detours. But with a proper guide, the Spirit of Truth, the pathway through life can be found and safely traversed. Consider this analogy: A group of travelers begin a journey to a far distant destination. One group of travelers launch out on their own, using as their guide the natural impulses of the self, the impulses of self gratification. They do not travel far before they run into obstacles that these urges can not transcend. The journey through life is twofold: one is the material journey and the other is the spiritual journey. You can never reach the spiritual destination by traveling the material route.
The two journeys reveal different set of values and meanings. The pursuit of the purely material journey soon begin to lose satisfying meanings. The values of the material journey are temporal and material; the values of the spiritual journey are eternal and spiritual. The material journey leads only to self, but the spiritual journey through Jesus leads to the divine self, the heavenly Father. The spiritual journey is filled with the values and meanings of the heavenly Father. Here is to be experienced the values that the heavenly Father shares with us, the values of love, truth, beauty, and goodness. And these values are exhilarating and joyful, ever beckoning us onward into the discovery of new truth, discovering greater and greater meanings of our relationship with him. Whereas the material journey is a journey without; the spiritual journey is a journey within. We journey towards our goal, the heavenly Father and become perfect as He is in the process.
But how do we begin such a challenging but magnificent spiritual journey and how do we discover the guide, the Spirit of Truth who will lead us? The Spirit of Truth surrounds our souls, and we are only one desire, one thought, one decision to find him. With our faith, we discover the Spirit of Truth, and with our wholehearted desire, we began to follow this good spirit of eternal value, the Spirit of Jesus which is the way, the truth, and the life.
The urge to begin this journey comes from the Father himself in the form of the urge for moral and spiritual perfection as well as the unselfish urges to loving serve others. We begin this journey be following these urges, that is by responding to them in our moral and spiritual environment. It is the response to these urges that constitute the journey. When we comply, the urge for unselfish service moves us along the pathway of life. As we travel, the Spirit of Truth on the inside directs us and guides us along this path of truth. This Spirit of Truth instructs us how to relate to each other. In each circumstance, the Spirit of Truth urges us to love our neighbors as ourselves and to recognize our neighbors as our brothers and sisters. This good spirit constantly urges us to love one another as Jesus, the source of this spirit, does. As we travel this journey, we are given the opportunity to meet all kinds of brothers and sisters who are different in personality and in moral and spiritual status. And with the help of the spirit, we are taught to get to know them, to understand them, and finally to learn to love them.
This journey of discovering new brothers and sisters and learning to love them continues throughout this life and into the next life. And as we continue our journey of loving, we also continue with our internal journey towards the Father, where we continue to gain greater capacity to appreciate his divine values and meanings, growing in capacity to recognize more and more of Him. There is simply no end to our discovery of the heavenly Father and the loving interactions between us and our brothers and sisters.
As we seek to apply these unselfish urges to service, we invariably run into obstacles of an intellectual nature that must be overcome. That is, if we are to be of service, we must be skilled in the service that we wish to provide. We don’’t all do the same things equally well. We must be persistent in our efforts to actualize our intellectual potentials. We must continue to make the effort and persevere until we actualize our intellectual potentials. We must work hard and not give in to the slothful animal nature of being satisfied with our present status thereby hindering our intellectual and spiritual development. We must not yield to the selfish urge that clamors within us. We must continue to strive for intellectual mastery and spiritual perfection.
When we do our best with whatever endeavor of service we pursue, we then embark upon the spiritual journey through life. We are following the divine plan for our lives. At critical points in this journey are living guideposts that will direct us in the way of correct values and meanings.
These living guideposts will encourage, comfort, and help us. And as we overcome these obstacles in the spiritual journey, we increase our intellectual and spiritual status. These obstacles provide resistance to our present status, obstacles which are necessary for the emergence of slumbering intellectual and spiritual potentials.
This spiritual journey "supplies a new and richer incentive for higher living. It presents a new and exalted goal of destiny, a supreme life purpose. And these new concepts of the eternal and divine goal of existence are in themselves transcendent stimuli, calling forth the reaction of the very best that is resident in man's higher nature. On every mountaintop of intellectual thought are to be found relaxation for the mind, strength for the soul, and communion for the spirit. From such vantage points of high living, man is able to transcend the material irritations of the lower levels of thinking--worry, jealousy, envy, revenge, and the pride of immature personality. These high-climbing souls deliver themselves from a multitude of the crosscurrent conflicts of the trifles of living, thus becoming free to attain consciousness of the higher currents of spirit concept and celestial communication." And when we do attain such heights of intellectual and spiritual achievement, not only will we mean well, but we will do well, and not only will we do good, but the good that we do will be wise as well as good.
This concludes today's message on understanding the pathway through life. 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 Pathway Through Life
