Good Morning Garden

The sermon on the Mount opens with the eight Beatitudes. They are actually a prose poem in eight verses and constitute a general summary of the Christian teaching. A general summing up, such as this, is highly characteristic of the old Oriental mode of approach to a religious and philosophical teaching, and it naturally recalls the Eightfold Path of Buddhism, the Ten Commandments of Moses,and other such compact groupings of ideas.

Jesus concerned himself exclusively with the teaching of general principles, and these general principles always had to do with mental states, for he knew that if one’s mental states are right, everything else might be right too. Unlike the other great religious teachers, he gives us no detailed instructions about what we are to do or not to do.

… the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father.
…the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.

God is a spirit; and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth
(John 4:21, 23-24).

As humans, we yearn to be told what we should and should not do. Jesus knew that what we do results from how we think and feel. His instructions address theses causes of our actions. Until we are addressing the cause of our actions, we are merely treating the symptoms. When we become a new person in Christ, we are effectively changing what we think and how we think. The behavior that results from such activity will always be correct if we worship in spirit and in truth instead of action based on our limited human understanding.

Praying in spirit for truth,
Z gardener

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The setting forth of the Sermon on the Mount is an almost perfect codification of the religion of Jesus Christ. It covers the essentials. It is practical and personal. It is definite, specific, and yet widely illuminating. Once the true meaning of the instructions has been grasped, it is only necessary to begin putting them into practice to get immediate results. The magnitude and extent of these results will depend solely upon the sincerity and thoroughness with which they are applied. That is a matter which each individual has to settle for himself.

If you really do wish to become a different person altogether in the sight of God and man, then Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, has clearly shown you how it is to be done.

If you are prepared to break with the old man, and start upon the creation of the new one, then the study of the great Sermon will indeed be to you the Mountain of Liberation.

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves
(James 1:22).

The most important decision any of us will ever make is whether or not we will become the new person that God intended us to be. Multitudes upon multitudes have already embarked on this journey of being reborn as a child of God. Many more have not made the decision or have faltered in their transformation. Our success in this most critical process depends upon a true understanding that is put into practice with sincerity and thoroughness.

On the Mount,
Z gardener

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Externally, the Bible is a collection of inspired documents written by men of all kinds, in all sorts of circumstances, and over hundreds of years of time. The documents are seldom originals, but redactions and compilations of older fragments; and the names of the actual writers are seldom known for certain. This, however, does not affect the spiritual purpose of the Bible. The book, as we have it, is inexhaustible reservoir of spiritual Truth, compiled under divine inspiration, and the actual route by which it reached its present form does not matter.

History, biography, lyrical and other poetic forms are various mediums through which the spiritual message is given in the Bible; and, above all, the parable is used to convey spiritual and metaphysical truth. In some cases what was never intended to be more than a parable was, at one time, taken for literal statement of fact; and this often made the Bible seem to teach things that are oppose d to common sense.

The spiritual key to the Bible rescues us from these difficulties, dilemmas, and seeming inconsistencies. And the Truth turns out to be nothing less than the amazing but undeniable fact that the whole outer world—whether it be the physical body, the common things of life, the winds and the rain, the clouds, the earth itself—is amenable to man’s thought, and that he has dominion over it when he knows it.

Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet (Psalm 8:6).

In short, the Bible is God’s operating manual for humans so that we may live in the Eden created for us here below, and with God in heaven forever after this life. Regardless of the seeming mysteries, differing translations or interpretations, the important truths are clear and simple, easily understood and reflect the intelligence, will and laws given to us by the creator of the universe. Surely God is capable of communicating such things to us regardless of human errors, omissions and interpretations. Otherwise, it would not be God.

Following the manual,
Z gardener

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Jesus taught through miracles.

If the miracles did not happen, the rest of the Gospel story loses all real significance. If Jesus did not believe them to be possible, and undertake to perform them, then the Gospel message is chaotic, contradictory, and devoid of significance.

But the deeds related to Jesus in the Four Gospels did happen, and many others too, “the which, if they should be written, every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.” Jesus himself justified what peopl e thought to be a strange teaching by the works he was able to do; and he went further and said,

…the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works… (John 14:12).

Now what, after all, is a miracle? Those who deny the possibility of miracles on the ground that the universe is a perfect system of law and order, to the operation of which there can be no exceptions, are perfectly right. But the explanation is that the world of which we are normally aware, and with whose law alone most people are acquainted, is only a fragment of the whole universe as it really is; and that there is such a thing as appealing from a lower to a higher law—from a lesser to a greater expr ession. In the sense of a real breach of law, miracles are impossible. Yet, in the sense that all ordinary rules and limitations of the physical plane can be set aside or overridden by an understanding that has risen above them, miracles can and do happen.

How quickly we humans conclude that anything we can’t prove to be true is false. This perspective is how mankind believed the earth was the flat center of the universe and later that the atom was the smallest particle. As our knowledge increased, these false notions were proven wrong. In the same way, we try to squeeze God’s power, and things such as miracles, into our limited knowledge and understanding of them. Wake up, friends! All of the knowledge we possess is dwarfed by what we do not know, both in the physical and spiritual realm. It is our arrogance that leads us to judge the infinite based our limited perception. However, when we trust in God as opposed to our limited perception, we can know that we are attuned to all knowledge and understanding. Like the blind man who touched the tail of the elephant and thought it was like a snake, we too are blindfolded when limited to our knowledge and understanding. When we, through faith, transcend these limitations, God then removes the blindfold so we can see the true nature of that which we experience. It is then that miracle happen. It is then that we can find, recognize and live in the Eden God created for us.

Living the miracle,
Z gardener

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Letter or Spirit?

Jesus made a special point of discouraging the laying of emphasis upon outer observances; and, indeed, upon hard-and-fast rules and regulations of every kind. What he insisted upon was a certain spirit in one’s conduct, knowing that when the spirit is right, details will take care of themselves. Yet, in spite of this, the history of orthodox Christianity is largely made up of attempts to enforce all sorts of external observances upon the people.

Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life (2 Corinthians 3:6).

The real gauge of all our thoughts, words and deeds is the spirit which dwells in us and how that spirit prompts us to act. Even the taking of a human life can be the right thing to do if we are protecting our children from an intruder or if we are preventing undue suffering by=2 0a loved one who is on life support and will not recover. Yet, we can be following the letter of the biblical law and be doing great wrong because our spirit is filled with anger and judgement. The only true test is whether we are acting out of love, acceptance and compassion, or whether we are acting on some negative motivation.

Spirit driven,
Z gardener

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Jesus explains what the nature of God is, and what our own nature is; tells us the meaning of life and of death; shows us why we make mistakes; why we yield to temptation; why we become sick,and impoverished, and old; and most important of all, he tells us how all these evils may be overcome, and how we may bring fulfillment into our lives, and into the lives of others.

Jesus warns us, not once but often, that obstinacy in sin can bring very severe punishment, and that a man who parts with the integrity of his soul—even though he gain the whole world—is a tragic fool. But he teaches that we are only punished for—and actually punished by—our own mistakes; and he teaches that every man or woman, no matter how steeped in evil and uncleanness, has always direct access to an all-loving, all-powerful Father-God, who will forgive him, and supply His own strength to him to enable him to find himself again.

If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him (1 John 2:29).

We are the only thing that restricts the flow of God’s blessings into our lives. When we fully express God’s universal consciousness, divine will and Holy Spirit in this world, we create the channel through which God’s omnipotence flows into the physical universe. The more we express, the greater the flow. The good news is that God has given us everything we need to live in the Eden created for us. We have been given the knowledge, the means and the will to experience bliss here below and in heaven. The only question is whether we will do what it takes to live there. If we love fully, give freely and live spiritually, we will have all we need to experience all of God’s promised blessings here and forever.

Opening the channel,
Z gardener

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