Posted on 13 August 2018, 8:44

Most of us have episodes in our lives which make us feel ashamed.  We can judge ourselves harshly, and wonder what consequences there may be for us in the afterlife, or in a future incarnation. Hindus are not the only people who believe in Karma or consequences. When churches present a number of things that we have to do, or not do, before we can go to heaven, they stoke our fears.

If you have these fears, you will probably find this conversation with the spirit of Stephen the Martyr helpful.

It is such an important issue for us all, and I would value readers’ thoughts about what he has to say.

Olive: I have some questions tonight, Stephen. The first one is: would you please give us more understanding on asking God for forgiveness for our sins, in connection with Karma? [The necessity of recompense for the wrong we have done.] 

Stephen: Is it your intention that you ask: Does the Father take away your Karma?

Olive: Perhaps, yes.

Stephen:Then let us ask ourselves: What is our Karma?

Our Karma, if we would allow it, would condition us to judge - maybe not even consciously - our own sin, to decide what is a suitable recompense for that sin and to sentence ourselves to that. This is, in fact, what we often do.

When we confess to the Father, we pray that the responsibility of this judgement be taken from ourselves and what needs to be corrected in ourselves [may] be corrected through the guidance and love which is the Father’s.

The two methods can not be confused, for the results are greatly different. If we ourselves judge ourselves we would be harsher than would be the Father. What we do in our judgement, from our own will and by our own choice, need not necessarily be the will of the Father. That is what we must learn.

We have spoken before of these things and we have said that it is the desire of the Father that we raise ourselves above the Karma.

Let us not then decide at the other extreme that by confessing we alleviate any necessity to pay a debt that our actions may have caused; for that debt should and will be paid with guidance and with love.

Think each of you of what you have judged to be your own indebtedness. As an exercise even now decide, in your own wisdom, what you would have considered to be the correct recompense or payment in return for what you have done wrong.

At the same time, look at what you do now, and the many things that you have done that would balance those things that you have done wrong, the opportunities where, through love, and feelings of love, you have done kindly deeds.

Do not judge that because you harm or do injustice to a particular person that the payment that the Father will have you give through love, shall necessarily recompense that same person. Often their recompense comes from elsewhere - from another who pays a debt.

But always these debts are paid with love, not with duty. These debts are paid in grace and not in duty. We pray for forgiveness and know that, through the love of the Father, we shall pay this debt - a debt that shall become a joy for us to pay, that shall bring love to another. Never revenge, for someone to give another satisfaction for a harm caused them can often lead the one thus paid into sin - the sin of satisfied revenge.

Therefore, I say that it is better that you pray for forgiveness and allow the Father to help you pay what you might owe. Only He can judge, only He has the strength by which you can repay.

Always, with love, you pay a greater price than what you took without love.

Do not believe that your way to salvation is by judging yourselves and repaying what you consider to be sufficient payment. Most often the payment which you return will fall short of what is deserved, it will be paid more often to the wrong recipient and lead the recipient into a debt of their own.

In the next conversation, we talk about this saving love.

Session 70: Love.

Stephen: The first thing you must ask about love is, what is the nature of love?

We have felt that love and God are the same.  Therefore it must be true that we cannot ourselves give love but be used as the instrument that allows love to flow. 

We have decided for ourselves and in our minds that I, Stephen or Thomas [the medium] or Michael,  or some other one of us, shall give love to this person, or love somebody who is good, then we shall proceed to give our love to this one.

We decided this time, in which direction the love, that should be flowing through us, must go.

Like when we point water at a flower we direct and give it to that one flower.

But as good husbandmen we know that if we did not direct the water also to all other plants they would wither and die for they needed this water.

Therefore should any of us decide that we ourselves must give love, to be correct, we must be sure that we could nourish all that require that love.

We can see that, should this be the case, we would faint and were we the giver of love many would be denied that love. 

Let love flow through us from the Source in the direction that is designated by the Gardener who can see the entire garden.

This is not that we do not realise our full potential, for our full potential is that we are a part of the Father, never that the Father is a part of us,  for we are a part of the Whole and the Whole is the Father.

To realise our full potential let us be that part that we are. 

Let us never assume [ourselves to be] a part that we are not for the little that we can give of our own can be only unsatisfying both to ourselves as givers and limited by those who receive.

For why else would the Lord say that we should love our neighbour as ourselves, when we know that if each of us were to attempt ourselves to love all our neighbours with the love that we can give, we could not succeed.

And if we did not succeed we would feel that we had failed and cease even to be a channel of love to ourselves.

We would indeed feel ashamed; we would indeed doubt our ability to be loved by the Father.

For each of us now can think of many whom we have had great difficulty in loving.

When this happens it is usually because we have decided that love is ours to give.

Think now of these ones that you cannot love.

Ask yourself, “Are they denied love simply because you are unable to give them love, your love? Do they lack sunshine?

Does the Father not care for and love them?”

You must say to yourself, “The Father has chosen me as an instrument to love these and I am pleased that I am an instrument and that the love of the Father flows from me to these and I feel the love I have given.”

Do not admonish the Father and say, “Father, why am not I the instrument for your loveto go to these that I feel no love for?” or “Father, why am I not the parent of all children; why do you slight me?” 

This then, is the nature of love. 

Be your instrument to allow what comes from the Father to flow through you.

Do not give yourself the unhappiness that a finger might feel if it wanted to see.

Know that you do have potential and do not judge what that potential must be.

God bless you all.

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.

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Posted on 01 August 2018, 10:17

As I read once again a transcript of a conversation with the spirit of St Stephen the Martyr in the 1970s, I feel once more on holy ground. I feel the strength of his loving personality. I feel again his love but also my incompleteness.

Stephen: recognise the love of the Father that is being given to you.
Does mystery alone bring faith? Should it not be what you can see, what you feel, even what you breathe and taste. Should not this be the means of the satisfying faith that you desire?

Michael: So frequently faith comes to me when I pray rather than when I reason. [Stephen speaks of the faith engendered by what comes from all directions. My comment narrows the question’]

Stephen: When each of you prays or looks within yourself, when you are at peace with yourself, you are quiet, and you take your mind above the things that are generally accepted that would give you comfort, then indeed you do know comfort.

It is good to pray, for faith is also a gift; it cannot be grown, only accepted.
And for those who would seek faith, then ask often that faith which is a seed among you all, would receive each time the nourishment by which it grows.

No magic or manifestation that even the Lord Jesus gave, gave faith to all those who witnessed.

Your previous self, who witnessed more wondrous things than you will ever witness in this body, did not have the growth of faith that you desired even then.

For when you look from without for what you require within you will be empty within and dissatisfied without.

Michael: Faith is a gift and those amongst whom I move and I keep awaiting it; a great deal of the time I feel now that I have it but I always look to see how I might stand by others as they await that gift.

Stephen: Let me then ask you this, that they may be asked too. What is it that you wish to have faith in?  When you have answered this question yourself you will find your search much easier for it is very close and each of you has felt what you are seeking.

It is like when you asked about the baptism in the spirit and the answer was that to be baptized in the spirit is to recognize the love of the Father that is being given to you.

Faith may not be unlike this.

It is also similar to the question given to you for the children, when you were to ask them what would make them happy. For if the answers are the same perhaps then the questions may be the same also. We are indeed learning much of ourselves.
God bless you all.

67. Against those who teach a wrathful God

When we were inviting Stephen into our midst, we had been talking to some hellfire Christians, and had been disturbed by what they said.  On this occasion it was not Stephen who appeared in our midst. This is what he said:

The Voice of Christ: My son, would a father give to a son who asked for bread, stone to eat? Or to a babe that thirsts, sour wine in the place of milk? Neither would the Father give thus unto them who are his children.

Be at peace; be not disturbed by hypocrites or those who use the word of the Father to separate Him from thee and thee from Him. For they are people whose ears are full of thorns, whose inward self is black with the curtain of darkness and even from their eyes no love can penetrate. From their mouths pour forth vile abominations instead of the seed of love, which the Word has planted. For it is with your heart, not with your eyes, that you will read the love which comes from the Father.

Remember that I have been criticized for the breaking of the law on the Sabbath. Each child that learns on the Sabbath, can be seen as the breaking the law, each act of mercy and display of love can be interpreted as the breaking of the law.

Let not this evil penetrate into your minds, and into your heart. Cast it out.

Feel, know me now.

[He blessed us.]

68. The sacrilege of suggesting that God is not Love.

Stephen: I think perhaps that one time I mentioned that I might be called a devil! You have questions to ask, child?

Olive: We have been helped immensely but would like further knowledge about the Bible - especially Reincarnation. This does not seem to be very clear in the Bible.

Stephen: Sufficient to say that there are many things not mentioned in detail, only in concept. As you, Thomas, so aptly put it, it does it not mention your aircraft either nor does it mention all the birds nor all the animals; but we see, we know of their existence.

The evil would be if we said a being other than the Father created these things that are not mentioned in the Bible. Recognise evil when you see it and when you hear evil teachings. Our adversary is cleverer than even you would conceive.

I give you a better concept.

What better way to separate you two here as individuals from your God than to have you believe that the God of the Bible is evil, harsh and vindictive and one that could bear malice.

If the words taken as they were given to you, were accepted by you as truly being the concept of God [given the previous evening by a visitor] you would answer as you have answered, if this be God then I want not to be part of Him.

Therefore this cannot be God, this abomination that is created from evil, by using the seeds of truth.

For these words destroy love, they destroy pity and they destroy forgiveness.

He demands joy, He demands laughter, and He demands all things that are beautiful.

He abhors what is ugly, what is painful and what is evil.

For by the same law and by the same interpretation I was stoned and the Lord Jesus was crucified.

You will often hear these words.

Know them for what they are.

In the wilderness these words and more and the seeds of vile sacrilege were planted and they will continue to be planted.

It is on the day of judgement that the planters of the seed will know them and understand how they, through their own words, separated themselves from God.

They have asked for the god that is close to their own hearts and minds; therefore, they shall be given what they asked for.

For the Father of Love, the creator of all beautiful things, tells us to accept no other God than He: not because he will punish you, but because you will be given what you ask.

That someone should suggest that the Father would withhold his protection from you because you have not grown enough to be the same as our Lord Jesus, is to mouth foul lies. May the Lord God forgive them.

Read the book yourselves and feel [for yourselves], for indeed the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. God bless you both.

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.

Paperback               Kindle