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The Voice of Christ and the 33 000 sects of Christianity

Posted on 30 June 2017, 8:42

Theologians and philosophers sometimes produce long and complex arguments when they attempt to prove something to be true. The 33,000 sects of Christianity show the fruits of all this.

Stephen will have none of such arguments.

In the previous blog Stephen says, . [The truth is that]” we are here alive, able to move, communicate and reproduce. This is truth. The sun shines daily over all the earth. This is truth. The rain brings us the essential water for the growth of plants. This is truth and cannot be denied. Truth is a fond embrace, love, compassion, the wanting of good for all people, the healing of the sick in mind and body… one could go on and on. “ [Love is truth.]

In 1 John 4:8 we read: (7) Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. (8) Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.  (9) This is how God’s love was revealed among us: God sent His one and only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him

Stephen. Only the truth can have no contradictions; what is untrue will have contradictions and must then be disregarded.

Think of chemistry: unless a combination of elements has the desired result in a test, then that combination is unsuccessful. If in an experiment the combination of elements proved to be wrong would you then attempt to separate out the elements and use the same elements again to find out which of those elements are false or would you discard it and start the experiment again? The tendency is always to say that because there is some good in it that good should be taken out of the experiment and used. That in itself is wasted effort.
….
Our thoughts can create for us happiness or unhappiness. They can often guide us to words, signs and interpretations that do not come from the Father, but which serve as confirmation as to how we think and feel ourselves.

Often our thoughts and feelings [seem to be] confirmed in many ways at a later date [but] in the light of truth are contradicted.

Of course, you must respond to what you feel, but it is better to say, “Now I feel happy; I feel content and at peace with myself so what I do, what I perceive, what I am at this moment, is what I ought to be.”

Never say when unhappiness is with you, “This is how I should not be.” For to recognize that which in truth you are not, is to create a self that is untrue.” 

[Yes, there has been a Communicator other than Stephen, namely Jesus Christ. Several times I have heard this Voice, plainly other and greater than Stephen. Each time I am filled with awe and the strong sense of the numinous.  I am not moved to question this Voice, only to listen.]

The Voice of Christ: Sic Ecclesia Spiritus Sanctus .[“Thus in the church is the Holy Spirit”]  I say to you this, that before all could dwell in the one house, there must be complete trust in the Father of that house. For even you, who were close to me, loved in a different manner. Never do we see the complete trust in the Father, even though the books and the teachings that we have had show us only this: that each of us, though we love, restrict our love at some point or other. So recognise this in your fellows and in your selves that your trust is limited, and your trust and love will manifest in diverse manners. Expect no more of others than you would of yourselves.

This is why you live in these separate houses. Complete trust and the knowledge would enable you to dwell together. This is what we must learn. This is what you must teach. That you are here, and that all are here, and loved and cared for, is the proof that is shown to you. All must learn to trust, on that proof. This is all I have ever said and those that were before me have ever said. It must keep being said.

The voice of Christ ceased.  Then…

Stephen: Jesus once asked, “Why me?” The Christ or the connecting source from God has come to many as it will come to all of you. Be not awed by this. Jesus was the same as you all or the man who now walks along this roadway; he also has the qualities to be used by the Christ. Jesus was the perfect tool. At that time there was only need for one; now it needs many.

[Christ then was the Spirit that was in Jesus.  The word “Christ” is related to “chrism” and means “Anointed”, “Anointed with Spirit”.  Jesus was thus Anointed with Spirit/Christ.  In the next passage, Molly asks about Jesus Christ, while Stephen in his answer refers only to the Christ. The spirit of the historical Jesus, in perfect union, is taken up into the Christ. Christ is the outworking of the will of the Father.

This next passage is the key, and is crucial to Stephen’s teaching about the Christ.

“There never was a time when our Lord Jesus was not the Christ, nor any imaged creation of the Father not the Christ.

In the next blog, I shall continue quoting the words of Stephen. Stephen’s words often sound simply provocative. But we need to keep in mind that “Christ” for Stephen is the creative “Word” spoken of in the first verse of the Gospel according to St John.  The Word is what “images”, “thinks into becoming” physical reality.  The “Word”is like Plato’s Ideal Forms, of David Bohm’s Implicate Order producing the “Explicate Order” known to the physical senses.

For Stephen, All That Is is imaged by the Father, is in his image.  Stephen’s picture in some ways is profoundly deterministic.  He echoes Julian of Norwich’s “all things are well, and all manner of things are well”, a statement with which we could reasonably recoil. But from the point of view of eternity, there might be a different picture.

Let us see what our minds can do with all these contradictions.

Michael Cocks edits the journal, The Ground of Faith.
Afterlife Teaching From Stephen the Martyr by Michael Cocks is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and other bookstores.

Michael on Skeptico.

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For more on Stephen go to thegroundoffaith.net/issues/2017-02

 


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Stephen the Martyr asks, What is truth?

Posted on 06 June 2017, 9:26

Stephen. [The truth is that] we are here alive, able to move, communicate and reproduce. This is truth. The sun shines daily over all the earth. This is truth. The rain brings us the essential water for the growth of plants. This is truth and cannot be denied. Truth is a fond embrace, love, compassion, the wanting of good for all people, the healing of the sick in mind and body… one could go on and on.

Therefore, what we have learned of the truth will always correlate with what we learn again and again. For truth is like sun, constant and the same. One could wither an arm by constant suggestion then, by the same, one could correct a malady. This is why all the truths that we have known, all that we know of our Lord, must be repeated and repeated and be repeated again.

What we must look at is not the individual attitudes and actions in the narrow perspective but at the results. For, looking from a different point of view, the actions of Judas were as necessary as the actions of Pilate or the soldiers. We are always inclined to narrow the perspective to just the moment as the truth.[And say,] Here it is!

But the perspective of the Whole is not just the moment. It is for all moments past and all moments to come. Each one, as it was for Judas in his time onwards, was the truth. Now, in retrospect, we may look back and see all the truths of those moments in a much broader perspective. We can see that the truth can become enlarged as part of the pattern of the Whole. All moments, every moment that is being perceived now for all people, is part of the pattern.

It is difficult I know, to be told to look at what is in front of you as the ultimate truth and then to be told to look even beyond that, to search for a greater perspective through the Source and visualize or image what again, could be the whole truth. This of course cannot be done by one mind alone and segregated. It must be done collectively, through each other, through the Whole and from the Whole and the Source back to us.

Recognizing the truth.

Stephen: There are many things that cause us to wonder and perhaps become excited. There are many things that we may hear or see that would show us things that are known to be true, and this is good. But as always, even these words that I speak, they must be looked at with the greatest care. For man, in a body or without the body, believes many things in himself. The conclusions that he has drawn he fits into things that are true. He explains them to himself and would be apt to say, “I know these things that I have concluded are true, for are not these words here written a confirmation of that truth? Does not this that I do, speak with truth? Do not my figures add up? Therefore, the truth that is mine, I might give to another.” Then he perceives others and says, “They are mistaken; they see the same things as I but their additions are incorrect. Therefore I shall take them back through what they have heard, and think they know to be true. Then from my conclusions of the truth, I shall adjust their arithmetic.”
Can we then blame or judge that one who, when believing that he has the truth, offers this truth as a gift to others.

[But] we have been taught that to draw conclusions is to stop learning. To lead others to draw such conclusions, not from hate or deception but from love, would stop them from learning also. This is why the Father needs to watch over what we do. The Father has given each man the will to decide and listen for the truth and feel the truth for themselves, but not alone for His hand is outstretched. The hand of truth is always outstretched that we might grasp, each one for ourselves.

Physical man is complex; he might conclude that the egg may mean love, but truth is not the egg, but love! Think then, of how we must always look only for the Truth. Think of the emotions that come when we hear the stories of our Lord Jesus. We know the truth of these. You should disagree with what I, Stephen, say if it does not bring love and peace.” 

Question: Is the picture of reality as stated in the book I’m reading, true?

Stephen: The picture of reality, that is the true picture, is well known by the words of our Lord. It has been told very clearly, what is real and what is unreal. If the words that you read are simple and give the same concepts of reality that you have received they must be true concepts. Do not mistake what I have said, for words may be different; the methods of teaching and the description of reality might well, to the intellect, differ greatly. Summarize the book into the briefest concepts. Then compare the seeds of that book to the seeds of your knowing.

We often seek to analyse an expression of feeling, into concepts of mind that we place in words. Each of you here would describe the words that I have spoken differently and according to your own minds. But this I say to you, that your feelings are the same, although the understanding of your minds may be vastly different.

There are many paths to learning the Truth. Each path has different contours and to know the rightness of your path you have to look at your destination. If you feel sure and at peace within yourself that your destination is the same as those whose path may differ, then be at ease with your path and follow it. For it is your path, it is the one that you choose and understand.

Michael Cocks edits the journal, The Ground of Faith.
Afterlife Teaching From Stephen the Martyr by Michael Cocks is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and other bookstores.

Michael on Skeptico.

Paperback               Kindle

 


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“Life After Death – The Communicator” by Paul Beard – If the telephone rings, naturally the caller is expected to identify himself. In post-mortem communication, necessitating something far more complex than a telephone, it is not enough to seek the speakers identity. One needs to estimate also as far as is possible his present status and stature. This involves a number of factors, overlapping and hard to keep separate, each bringing its own kind of difficulty. Four such factors can readily be named. Read here
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