FEAR, COURAGE, AND STRENGTH

Compiled and Presented by Royce Russell

May 27, 1992

“Human things must be known in order to be loved, but divine things must be loved in order to be known..”

Remember you have come here having already understood the necessity of struggling with yourself. Therefore thank everyone who gives you the opportunity. Gurdjieff

Since this is the beginning of my presentation, I will start at the beginning. When I was born I started out with nothing, and to this very day I still have most of it. But along the way I've acquired a little fear, courage, strength, and The Urantia Book. It is by far my most prized possession. The Urantia Book is more than just a constellation of ideas that when enthusiastically embraced enable us to see beyond our visions. It showers us with sparks of thought that refresh us as we bathe in its illumination. My efforts, with the help of this book, will be to hopefully shed some light upon three aspects of man:

1. Fear as man's initial philosophical stance to the universe

2. The courage he needs to face and overcome it

3. The strength he acquires from the accumulated acts of courage he undertakes in overcoming his fears

Please keep in mind Mark Twain's assertion that "God created man because He was so disappointed in the monkey," and General Joseph Stillwell's "The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his ass." Inasmuch as this is true, God has sent man into the world not just to take part or start an evolutionary journey, but to finish and complete an ascending paradise career. Along the way we will need to overcome fear, develop courage, and maintain strength in varying degrees on various levels.

During the psychologically unsettled times of the twentieth century, amid the economic upheavals, the moral crosscurrents, and the sociologic rip tides of the cyclonic transition of a scientific era, thousands upon thousands of men and women have become humanly dislocated; they are anxious, restless, fearful, uncertain, and unsettled. In the face of unprecedented scientific achievement and mechanical development there is spiritual stagnation and philosophic chaos (1090). "In no other period of history were the learned so mistrustful of the divine possibilities in man as they are now" (Gopi Krishna).

To the unbelieving materialist, man is simply an evolutionary accident. His hopes of survival are strung on a figment of mortal imagination; his fears, loves, longings, and beliefs are but the reaction of the incidental juxtaposition of certain lifeless atoms of matter. No display of energy nor expression of trust can carry him beyond the grave. The devotional labors and inspirational genius of the best of men are doomed to be extinguished by death, the long and lonely night of eternal oblivion and soul extinction. Nameless despair is man's only reward for living and toiling under the temporal sun of mortal existence. Each day of life slowly and surely tightens the grasp of a pitiless doom which a hostile and relentless universe of matter has decreed shall be the crowning insult to everything in human desire which is beautiful, noble, lofty, and good.

But such is not man’s end and eternal destiny; such a vision is but the cry of despair uttered by some wandering soul who has become lost in spiritual darkness, and who bravely struggles on in the face of the mechanistic sophistries of a material philosophy, blinded by the confusion and distortion of a complex learning. And all this doom of darkness and all this destiny of despair are forever dispelled by one brave stretch of faith on the part of the most humble and unlearned of God's children on earth.

This saving faith has its birth in the human heart when the moral consciousness of man realizes that human values may be translated in mortal experience from the material to the spiritual, from the human to the divine, from time to eternity

(1118).

I can only surmise that this list of "human values" would surely include courage and strength.

Many times, in order to grasp greatness, we must stand upon the shoulders of giants. Most of us would surely agree that the shoulders of Jesus are large enough to provide a great vantage point from which to view enduring values. All the great people throughout history have learned how to control and conquer their fears. We may not want to leave our signature emblazoned on the pages of history, but it is vitally important that each of us embrace the challenge of mastering his/her own fears, in order to realize what makes each of us uniquely great!!

Let us now examine the pivotal and crucial role fear has forged in shaping us individually, as well as mankind throughout history: From our ancient ancestors trembling in the treetops to our modern day fears in accepting the religion of Jesus that would transform us.

FEAR

Webster defines it as: an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by expectation or awareness of danger. But if fear is merely False Evidence Appearing Real, then what kind of "Real-Lies-ations" do we make when fear distorts and clouds our perceptions?

A little more than one million years ago the Mesopotamian dawn mammals, the direct descendants of the North American Lemur type of placental mammal, suddenly appears (703). Being small of stature and having keen minds to realize the dangers of their forest habitat, they developed an extraordinary fear which led to those wise precautionary measures that so enormously contributed to survival, such as their construction of crude shelters in the high treetops which eliminated many of the perils of ground life. The beginning of the fear tendencies of mankind more specifically date from these days (704).

Primitive desires produced the original society, but ghost fear held it together and imparted an extrahuman aspect to its existence. Common fear was physiological in origin: fear of physical pain, unsatisfied hunger, or some earthly calamity; but ghost fear was a new and sublime sort of terror.

Except for this ghost factor, all society was founded on fundamental needs and basic biologic urges. But ghost fear introduced a new factor in civilization, a fear which reaches out and away from the elemental needs of the individual, and which rises far above even the struggles to maintain the group. This senseless superstition, some of which still persists, prepared the minds of men, through superstitious fear of the unreal and the supernatural, for the later discovery of "the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom." The baseless fears of evolution are designed to be supplanted by the awe for deity inspired by revelation. The early cult of ghost fear became a powerful social bond, and ever since that far-distant day mankind has been striving more or less for the attainment of spirituality.

Hunger and love drove men together; vanity and ghost fear held them together. But these emotions alone, without the influence of peace-promoting revelations, are unable to endure the strain of the suspicions and irritations of human inter-associations. Without help from superhuman sources the strain of society breaks down upon reaching certain limits, and these very influences of social mobilization--hunger, love, vanity, and fear--conspire to plunge mankind into war and bloodshed

(766).

All modern social institutions arise from the evolution of the primitive customs of your savage ancestors; the conventions of today are the modified and expanded customs of yesterday. What habit is to the individual, custom is to the group; and group customs develop into folkways or tribal traditions--mass conventions. From these early beginnings all of the institutions of present-day human society take their humble origin.

Ghost fear drove primitive man to envision the supernatural and thus securely laid the foundations for those powerful social influences of ethics and religion which in turn preserved inviolate the mores and customs of society from generation to generation (767).

One of the customs to arise from fearing the ghosts of the dead was the practice of paying priests fees for protection. Men early began to give death presents to the priests with a view to having their property used to facilitate their progress through the next life. The priesthoods thus became very rich; they were chief among ancient capitalists (776).

But it is only fair to record that many an ancient rich man distributed much of his fortune because of the fear of being killed by those who coveted his treasures. Wealthy men commonly sacrificed scores of slaves to show disdain for wealth (777).

The most intriguing aspect of my research uncovered the fact that our legacy of fear is due to the Adamic default. Had they succeeded in their mission, and set in motion a world not plagued by fear for future generations, I can hardly imagine where we would be now.

The Adamic children were usually Adjuster indwelt since they all possessed undoubted survival capacity. These superior offspring were not so subject to fear as the children of evolution. So much of fear persists in the present-day races of Urantia because your ancestors received so little of Adam's life plasm, owing to the early miscarriage of the plans for racial physical uplift (851).

Nevertheless, primitive man feared all types of power. At one time or another mortal man has worshipped everything on the face of the earth, including himself. He has also worshipped about everything imaginable in the sky and beneath the surface of the earth. Primitive man feared all manifestations of power; he worshipped every natural phenomenon he could not comprehend. The observation of powerful natural forces, such as storms, floods, earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes, fire, heat, and cold, greatly impressed the expanding mind of man. The inexplicable things of life are still termed "acts of God" and "mysterious dispensations of Providence" (944).

Man's earliest prereligious fear of the forces of nature gradually became religious as nature became personalized, spiritized, and eventually deified in human consciousness. The limited intellectual horizon of the savage so concentrates the attention upon chance that luck becomes a constant factor in his life. Primitive Urantians struggled for existence, not for a standard of living; they lived lives of peril in which chance played an important role. The constant dread of unknown and unseen calamity hung over these savages as a cloud of despair which effectively eclipsed every pleasure; they lived in constant dread of doing something that would bring bad luck. Superstitious savages always feared a run of good luck; they viewed such good fortune as a certain harbinger of calamity. Early man lived in uncertainty and in constant fear of chance--bad luck. Primitive man alternated between two potent interests: the passion of getting something for nothing and the fear of getting nothing for something. And this gamble of existence was the main interest and the supreme fascination of the early savage mind (950).

Primitive man constantly asked, "Who is tormenting me?" Not finding a material source for his miseries, he settled upon a spirit explanation. And so was religion born of the fear of the mysterious, the awe of the unseen, and the dread of the unknown. Nature fear thus became a factor in the struggle for existence first because of chance and then because of mystery. But to continue to ascribe things difficult of comprehension to supernatural causes is nothing less than a lazy and convenient way of avoiding all forms of intellectual hard work. Luck is merely a term coined to cover the inexplicable in any age of human existence; it designates those phenomena which men are unable or unwilling to penetrate. Chance is a word which signifies that man is too ignorant or too indolent to determine causes. Men regard a natural occurrence as an accident or as bad luck only when they are destitute of curiosity and imagination, when the races lack initiative and adventure. Exploration of the phenomena of life sooner or later destroys man's belief in chance, luck, and so-called accidents, substituting therefor a universe of law and order wherein all effects are preceded by definite causes. Thus is the fear of existence replaced by the joy of living (951-2).

Death was the supreme shock to evolving man, the most perplexing combination of chance and mystery. Not the sanctity of life but the shock of death inspired fear and thus effectively fostered religion (952). Primitive man slowly evolved religion out of his innate worship urge and his misconception of chance. Civilized man provides schemes of insurance to overcome these chance occurrences; modern science puts an actuary with mathematical reckoning in the place of fictitious spirits and whimsical gods.

Each passing generation smiles at the foolish superstitions of its ancestors while it goes on entertaining those fallacies of thought and worship which will give cause for further smiling on the part of enlightened posterity.

But at last the mind of primitive man was occupied with thoughts which transcended all of his inherent biologic urges; at last man was about to evolve an art of living based on something more than response to material stimuli. The beginnings of a primitive philosophic life policy were emerging. A supernatural standard of living was about to appear, for, if the spirit ghost in anger visits ill luck and in pleasure good fortune, then must human conduct be regulated accordingly. The concept of right and wrong had at last evolved; and all of this long before the times of any revelation on earth.

With the emergence of these concepts, there was initiated

the long and wasteful struggle to appease the ever-displeased spirits, the slavish bondage to evolutionary religious fear, that long waste of human effort upon tombs, temples, sacrifices, and priesthoods. It was a terrible and frightful price to pay, but it was worth all it cost, for man therein achieved a natural consciousness of relative right and wrong; human ethics was born! (965)

The savage felt the need of insurance, and he therefore willingly paid his burdensome premiums of fear, superstition, dread, and priest gifts toward his policy of magic insurance against ill luck. Primitive religion was simply the payment of premiums on insurance against the perils of the forests; civilized man pays material premiums against the accidents of industry and the exigencies of modern modes of living (956).

Industry, war, slavery, and civil government arose in response to the social evolution of man in his natural environment; religion similarly arose as his response to the illusory environment of the imaginary ghost world. Religion was an evolutionary development of self-maintenance, and it has worked, notwithstanding that it was originally erroneous in concept and utterly illogical.

Primitive religion prepared the soil of the human mind, by the powerful and awesome force of false fear, for the bestowal of a bona fide spiritual force of supernatural origin, the Thought Adjuster. And the divine Adjusters have ever since labored to transmute God-fear into God-love. Evolution may be slow, but it is unerringly effective (957).

Man has had a long and bitter struggle with the ghost cult. Nothing in human history is designed to excite more pity than this picture of man's abject slavery to ghost-spirit fear. With the birth of this very fear mankind started on the upgrade of religious evolution (958). Ghost fear was the fountainhead of all world religion; and for ages many tribes clung to the old belief in one class of ghosts. They taught that man had good luck when the ghost was pleased, bad luck when he was angered. In influencing the expanding evolutionary mind, the power of an idea lies not in its reality or reasonableness but rather in its vividness and the universality of its ready and simple application. Man was at last able to conceive of supernatural forces that were consistent in behavior, and this was one of the most momentous discoveries of truth in the entire history of the evolution of religion and in the expansion of human philosophy. And while this belief did enable man to reconcile the variables of chance with a concept of unchanging supermortal forces, this doctrine has ever since made it difficult for religionists to conceive of cosmic unity. The gods of evolutionary religion have generally been opposed by the forces of darkness (961).

The concept of good and evil as cosmic co-ordinates is, even in the twentieth century, very much alive in human philosophy; most of the world's religions still carry this cultural birthmark of the long-gone days of the emerging ghost cults (962).

Evolutionary religion is born of a simple and all-powerful fear, the fear which surges through the human mind when confronted with the unknown, the inexplicable, and the incomprehensible (986). Evolution unerringly achieves its end: It imbues man with that superstitious fear of the unknown and dread of the unseen which is the scaffolding for the God concept. And having witnessed the birth of an advanced comprehension of Deity, through the co-ordinate action of revelation, this same technique of evolution then unerringly sets in motion those forces of thought which will inexorably obliterate the scaffolding, which has served its purpose

(990).

Fear has always been the basic religious stimulus. Fear fashions the gods of evolutionary religion and motivates the religious ritual of the primitive believers. When modern man wonders at the presentation of so much in the scriptures of different religions that may be regarded as obscene, he should pause to consider that passing generations have feared to eliminate what their ancestors deemed to be holy and sacred. A great deal that one generation might look upon as obscene, preceding generations have considered a part of their accepted mores, even as approved religious rituals. A considerable amount of religious controversy has been occasioned by the never-ending attempts to reconcile olden but reprehensible practices with newly advanced reason, to find plausible theories in justification of creedal perpetuation of ancient and outworn customs (1004).

As for myself, the idea that many scriptures are, to some extent, the result of ancient people's fearing to change them is truly an intriguing notion. But more important than the subtle influence fear has had in shaping the scriptures that have served as guiding stars to civilizations, is the way in which fear has been a guiding hand in leading a child to its early concepts of God.

Religious meanings progress in self-consciousness when the child transfers his ideas of omnipotence from his parents to God. And the entire religious experience of such a child is largely dependent on whether fear or love has dominated the parent-child relationship. Slaves have always experienced great difficulty in transferring their master-fear into concepts of God-love. Civilization, science, and advanced religions must deliver mankind from those fears born of the dread of natural phenomena (1013). And many religious leaders, as well as civilizations, have directed their efforts toward delivering mankind from those fears. Buddha made a noble effort to deliver men from fear, to make them feel at ease and at home in the great universe, but he failed to show them the pathway to that real and supernal home of ascending mortals—Paradise - and to the expanding service of eternal existence (1035).

There grew up in Egypt a teacher called by many the "son of man" and by others Amenemope. This wise man of the Nile taught that "riches take themselves wings and fly

away”--that all things earthly are evanescent. His great prayer was to be "saved from fear" (1046).

No prophet or religious teacher from Machiventa to the time of Jesus attained the high concept of God that Issiah the second proclaimed during these days of the captivity (1068). A new concept of the supreme and universal Yahweh has appeared in the mind of mortal man, never to be lost to human view. The realization of divine justice has begun the destruction of primitive magic and biologic fear. At last, man is introduced to a universe of law and order and to a universal god of dependable and final attributes. The far seeing and courageous Isiah effectively eclipsed the nationalistic Yahweh by his sublime portraiture, and never ceased to proclaim this God of love (1069-70).

The ancient Greeks, however, took an alternate route and there developed the popular belief in the happy-go-lucky gods of Mount Olympus, gods more human than divine, and gods which the intelligent Greeks never did regard very seriously. They neither greatly loved nor greatly feared these divinities of their own creation.

A lightly regarded and superficial religion cannot endure, especially when it has no priesthood to foster its forms and to fill the hearts of the devotees with fear and awe. The Olympian religion did not promise salvation, not did it quench the spiritual thirst of its believers; therefore was it doomed to perish. The Greeks, however, did engage in a magnificent intellectual advancement. They had begun to master fear and no longer sought religion as an antidote therefor, but they did not perceive that true religion is the cure for soul hunger, spiritual disquiet, and moral despair (1078).

The philosophic elimination of religious fear and the steady progress of science add greatly to the mortality of false gods; and even though these casualties of man-made deities may momentarily befog the spiritual vision, they eventually destroy that ignorance and superstition which so long obscured the living God of eternal love (1124). But in ancient times, as well as now, man is given the choice of experiencing peace or conflict, between accepting truth or illusion. A Course in Miracles states that there are only two emotions, love and fear. The first is our natural inheritance, and the other our mind manufactures. The Urantia Book states these positions in evolutionary terms and with no less importance.

Man's greatest spiritual jeopardy consists in partial progress, the predicament of unfinished growth: forsaking the evolutionary religions of fear without immediately grasping the revelatory religion of love. Modern science, particularly psychology, has weakened only those religions which are so largely dependent upon fear, superstition, and emotion (1090).

But in our efforts to cross this evolutionary bridge successfully, from fear to love, we receive help from others as well as ourselves.

The Thought Adjusters would like to change your feelings of fear to convictions of love and confidence; but they cannot mechanically and arbitrarily do such things; that is your task. In executing those decisions which deliver you from the fetters of fear, you literally supply the psychic fulcrum on which the Adjuster may subsequently apply a spiritual lever of uplifting and advancing illumination (1192).

While the Thought Adjuster is waiting for us to make the first move, our guardian angels serve as an example to us, in spite of their bewilderment with us.

The angels develop an abiding affection for their human associates; and you would, if you could only visualize the seraphim, develop a warm affection for them. Divested of material bodies, given spirit forms, you would be very near the angels in many attributes of personality. They share most of your emotions and experience some additional ones. The only emotion actuating you which is somewhat difficult for them to comprehend is the legacy of animal fear that bulks so large in the mental life of the average inhabitant of Urantia. The angels really find it hard to understand why you will so persistently allow your higher intellectual powers, even your religious faith, to be so dominated by fear, so thoroughly demoralized by the thoughtless panic of dread and anxiety (1243).

For the remainder of this section I will deal exclusively with the way in which fear, its presence and absence, was a factor in Jesus' life and ministry. One of the mandates, regarding Michael's seventh bestowal as he was advised by his brother Immanuel, specifically addressed itself to man's fears and how Jesus' life should be aimed toward liberating man from them.

"5. As concerns the planet of your bestowal and the immediate generation of men living thereon at the time of your mortal sojourn, I counsel you to function largely in the role of a teacher. Give attention, first, to the liberation and inspiration of man's spiritual nature. Next, illuminate the darkened human intellect, heal the souls of men, and emancipate their minds from age-old fears. And then, in accordance with your mortal wisdom, minister to the physical well-being and material comfort of your brothers in the flesh. Live the ideal religious life for the inspiration and edification of all your universe" (1328).

One outstanding example of Jesus' trying to help man allay his fears is when he spoke to the young man who was afraid. "My friend, arise.' Stand up like a man! You may be surrounded with small enemies and be retarded by many obstacles, but the big things and the real things of this world and the universe are on your side. The sun rises every morning to salute you just as it does the most powerful and prosperous man on earth (1437) You and your problems of living are real; you cannot escape them as long as you live... Set your mind at work to solve its problems; teach your intellect to work for you; refuse longer to be dominated by fear like an unthinking animal. Your mind should be your courageous ally in the solution of your life problems rather than your being, as you have been, its abject fear-slave and the bond-servant of depression and defeat. But most valuable of all, your potential of real achievement is the spirit which lives within you, and which will stimulate and inspire your mind to control itself and activate the body if you will release it from the fetters of fear and thus enable your spiritual nature to begin your deliverance from the evils of inaction by the power-presence of living faith. And then, forthwith, will this faith vanquish fear of men by the compelling presence of that new and all-dominating love of your fellows which will so soon fill your soul to overflowing because of the consciousness which has been born in your heart that you are a child of God... Arise, young man! Say farewell to the life of cringing fear and fleeing cowardice. Hasten back to duty and live your life in the flesh as a son of God, a mortal dedicated to the ennobling service of man on earth and destined to the superb and eternal service of God in eternity" (1438). Fortune was the name of the youth that Jesus spoke to, and in hearing this same uplifting message, we too are fortunate.

From the Sermon on the Mount we learn that: Strong characters are not derived from not doing wrong but rather from actually doing right... The happy and effective person is motivated, not by fear of wrongdoing, but by love of right doing... moral worth cannot be derived from mere repression-obeying the injunction "thou shalt not." Fear and shame are unworthy motivations for religious living (1572). From the lesson on self-mastery we can see that: The new law of the spirit endows you with the liberty of self-mastery in place of the old law of fear of self-bondage and the slavery of self-denial (1609). And during his farewell discourse we recognize: the difference between the old religion and the new. The old religion taught self-sacrifice; the new religion teaches only self-forgetfulness, enhanced self-realization in conjoined social service and universe comprehension. The old religion was motivated by fear-consciousness; the new gospel of the kingdom is dominated by truth-conviction, the spirit of eternal and universal truth (1951). This difference was further elaborated upon during Jesus' lifetime when he spoke to the apostle Nathaniel about the Scriptures, from which the old religion drew its authority: "But the greatest error of the teaching about the Scriptures is the doctrine of their being sealed books of mystery and wisdom which only the wise minds of the nation dare to interpret. The revelations of divine truth are not sealed except by human ignorance, bigotry, and narrow-minded intolerance. The light of the Scriptures is only dimmed by prejudice and darkened by superstition. A false fear of sacredness has prevented religion from being safeguarded by common sense. The fear of the authority of the sacred writings of the past effectively prevents the honest souls of today from accepting the new light of the gospel, the light which these very God-knowing men of another generation so intensely longed to see" (1768).

At another time, in response to a question, Jesus not only clarified the Scriptural history with regard to "fear of the Lord," but stated that the purpose of his life was to change that relationship.

It was at Gamala, during the evening conference, that Phillip said to Jesus: "Master, why is it that the Scriptures instruct us to 'fear the Lord,' while you would have us look to the Father in heaven without fear? How are we to harmonize these teachings?" And Jesus replied to Phillip, saying:

"The 'fear of the Lord' has had different meanings in the successive ages, coming up from fear, through anguish and dread, to awe and reverence. And now from reverence I would lead you up, through recognition, realization, and appreciation, to love. When man recognizes only the works of God, he is led to fear the Supreme; but when man begins to understand and experience the personality and character of the living God, he is led increasingly to love such a good and perfect, universal and eternal Father. And it is just this changing of the relation of man to God that constitutes the mission of the Son of Man on earth.

"Your forebears feared God because he was mighty and mysterious. You shall adore him because he is magnificent in love, plenteous in mercy, and glorious in truth. The power of God engenders fear in the heart of man, but the nobility and righteousness of his personality beget reverence, love, and willing worship. A dutiful and affectionate son does not fear or dread even a mighty and noble father. I have come into the world to put love in the place of fear, joy in the place of sorrow, confidence in the place of dread, loving service and appreciative worship in the place of slavish bondage and meaningless ceremonies. But it is still true of those who sit in darkness that 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.' But when the light has more fully come, the sons of God are led to praise the Infinite for what he is rather than fear him for what he does (1675).

"The father naturally loves his child, but the child must develop his love for the father from the fear of what the father can do, through awe, dread, dependence, and reverence, to the appreciative and affectionate regard of love... You have been taught that you should 'fear God and keep his commandments, for that is the whole duty of man.' But I have come to give you a new and higher commandment. I would teach you to 'love God and learn to do his will, for that is the highest privilege of the liberated sons of God.' Your fathers were taught to 'fear God--the Almighty King.' I teach you, 'Love God--the all-merciful Father'. Cease, then to fear God as a king or serve him as a master; learn to reverence him as the Creator; honor him as the Father of your spirit youth; love him as a merciful defender; and ultimately worship him as the loving and all-wise Father of your more mature spiritual realization and appreciation" (1676).

"Fear not" was Jesus' constant admonition, and it remained the nucleus for many other remarks. "Hate is the shadow of fear; revenge the mask of cowardice" (1632). "Fear is man's chief enslaver and pride his great weakness; will you betray yourself into bondage to both of these destroyers of joy and liberty?" (1596) "Much of man's sorrow is born of the disappointment of his ambitions and the wounding of his pride... All too many of man's troubles take origin in the fear soil of his own natural heart" (1674). Rodan of Alexandria echoes that when he remarked: "The great mistake is that, when life problems excite our profound fears, we refuse to recognize them. Likewise, when the acknowledgment of our difficulties entails the reduction of our long-cherished conceit, the admission of envy, or the abandonment of deep-seated prejudices, the average person prefers to cling to the old illusions of safety and to the long-cherished false feelings of security"

(1773).

At this time I would like to focus on those who only briefly came in contact with Jesus, the apostles who lived with him on a daily basis, and the role fear played in shaping their perceptions. The Son of Man was always a well-poised personality. Even His enemies maintained a wholesome respect for him; they even feared his presence (1102). The Jewish leaders were increasingly blinded by fear and prejudice, while their hearts were hardened by the continued rejection of the appealing truths of the gospel of the kingdom (1672). There were many reasons why Jesus was able publicly to preach in the temple courts throughout the days of the feast, and chief of these was the fear that had come over the officers of the Sanhedrin as a result of the secret division of sentiment in their own ranks (1789). His enemies hesitated to denounce him openly for fear of his friendly believers, while his friends feared to acknowledge him openly for fear of the Jewish leaders, knowing that the Sanhedrin was determined to put him to death (1790). Herod never had fully recovered from the fear that cursed him as a result of killing John the Baptist. Herod had at certain times even feared that Jesus was John risen from the dead. Now he was relieved of that fear since he observed that Jesus was a very different sort of person from the outspoken and fiery prophet who dared to expose and denounce his private life (1992-3).

While the apostles were aware of some of these things, and oblivious to others, this accumulation of fears, from within and without, would eventually converge and have a profound effect on all of them. Early on they had made the important discovery that many human perplexities are in reality nonexistent, that many pressing troubles are the creations of exaggerated fear and the offspring of augmented apprehension (1611). But this was not the case when they were concerned for their master 5 life.

Knowing that the Sanhedrin had sought to bring Jesus to Jerusalem for trial and recalling the Master's recently reiterated declarations that he must be subject to death, the apostles had been literally stunned by his sudden decision to attend the feast of tabernacles. To all their previous entreaties that he go to Jerusalem he had replied, "The hour has not yet come." Now, to their protests of fear he answered only, "But the hour has come."

During the feast of tabernacles Jesus went boldly into Jerusalem on several occasions and publicly taught in the temple. This he did in spite of the efforts of his apostles to dissuade him. Though they had long urged him to proclaim his message in Jerusalem, they now feared to see him enter the city at this time, knowing full well that the scribes and Pharisees were bent on bringing about his death.

Jesus' bold appearance in Jerusalem more than ever confused his followers. Many of his disciples, and even Judas Iscariot, the apostle, had dared to think that Jesus had fled in haste into Phoenicia because he feared the Jewish leaders and Herod Antipas. They failed to comprehend the significance of the Master's movements. His presence in Jerusalem at the feast of tabernacles, even in opposition to the advice of his followers, sufficed forever to put an end to all whisperings about fear and cowardice (1789). But the great mistake of Judas was: Time and again, when Jesus would send his apostles off by themselves to pray, Judas, instead of engaging in sincere communion with the spiritual forces of the universe, indulged in thoughts of human fear while he persisted in the entertainment of subtle doubts about the mission of Jesus as well as giving in to his unfortunate tendency to harbor feelings of revenge (1751).

Every time Jesus went to Jerusalem, his apostles were filled with terror. They were the more afraid as, from day to day, they listened to his increasingly bold pronouncements regarding the nature of his mission on earth (1790). Being acutely aware of this Jesus spoke to them and said:

"Soon, very soon, will the things which our enemies now plan in secrecy and in darkness be brought out into the light and be proclaimed from the housetops. But I say to you, my friends, when they seek to destroy the Son of Man, be not afraid of them. Fear not those who, although they may be able to kill the body, after that have no power over you. I admonish you to fear none, in heaven or on earth, but to rejoice in the knowledge of him who has power to deliver you from all unrighteousness and to present you blameless before the judgment seat of a universe.

"Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And yet, when these birds flit about in quest of their sustenance, not one of them exists without the knowledge of the Father, the source of all life. To the seraphic guardians the very hairs of your head are numbered. And if all of this is true, why should you live in fear of the many trifles which come up in your daily lives? I say to you: Fear not; you are of much more value than many sparrows (1820). In this sense Jesus wanted his apostles to live as though they were already citizens and ambassadors of the completed heavenly kingdom (1582). The master knew all that was to befall him, and he was unafraid. After he had bestowed this peace upon each of his followers, he could consistently say, "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid"

(1955).

In current American slang, Jesus not only talked the talk, but he walked the walk and fearlessly faced the realities of existence (1102). Aside from his crucifixion, this next episode provided one of his finest moments. After Jesus' arrest in the garden that night, his first trial before the Sanhedrin ended at 4:30 in the morning.

"Thirty prejudiced and tradition-blinded false judges, with their false witnesses, are presuming to sit in judgment on the righteous Creator of a universe. And these impassioned accusers are exasperated by the majestic silence and superb bearing of this God-man. His silence is terrible to endure; his speech is fearlessly defiant. He is unmoved by their threats and undaunted by their assaults. Man sits in judgment on God, but even then he loves them and would save them if he could."

The Jewish law required that, in the matter of passing the death sentence, there should be two sessions of the court. This second session was to be held on the day following the first, and the intervening time was to be spent in fasting and mourning by the members of the court. But these men could not await the next day for the confirmation of their decision that Jesus must die. They waited only one hour. In the meantime Jesus was left in the audience chamber in the custody of the temple guards, who, with the servants of the high priests, amused themselves by heaping every sort of indignity upon the Son of Man. They mocked him, spit upon him, and cruelly buffeted him. They would strike him in the face with a rod and then say, "Prophesy to us, you the Deliverer, who it was that struck you." And thus they went on for one full hour, reviling and mistreating this unresisting man of Galilee.

Throughout this awful hour Jesus uttered no word. To this gentle and sensitive soul of humankind, joined in personality relationship with the God of all this universe, there was no more bitter portion of his cup of humiliation than this terrible hour at the mercy of these ignorant and cruel guards and servants, who had been stimulated to abuse him by the example of the members of this so-called Sanhedrist court.

The human heart cannot possibly conceive of the shudder of indignation that swept out over a fast universe as the celestial intelligences witnessed this sight of their beloved Sovereign submitting himself to the will of his ignorant and misguided creatures on the sin-darkened sphere of unfortunate Urantia.

What is this trait of the animal in man which leads him to want to insult and physically assault that which he cannot spiritually attain or intellectually achieve? In the half-civilized man there still lurks an evil brutality which seeks to vent itself upon those who are superior in wisdom and spiritual attainment. Witness the evil coarseness and the brutal ferocity of these supposedly civilized men as they derived a certain form of animal pleasure from this physical attack upon the unresisting Son of Man. As these insults, taunts, and blows fell upon Jesus, He was undefending but not defenseless. Jesus was not vanquished, merely uncontending in the material sense. He endured the situation with the intelligent courage of a full-grown man, whose faith had grown to such heights of trust that it was devoid of fear (2089).

These are the moments of the Master's greatest victories in all his long and eventful career as maker, upholder, and savior of a vast and far-flung universe. Having lived to the full a life of revealing God to man, Jesus is now engaged in making a new and unprecedented revelation of man to God. Jesus is now revealing to the world the final triumph over all fears of creature personality isolation. The Son of Man has finally achieved the realization of identity as the Son of God. Jesus does not hesitate to assert that he and the Father are one; and on the basis of the fact and truth of that supreme and supernal experience, he admonishes every kingdom believer to become one with him even as he and his Father are one. The living experience in the religion of Jesus thus becomes the sure and certain technique whereby the spiritually isolated and cosmically lonely mortals of earth are enabled to escape personality isolation, with all its consequences of fear and associated feelings of helplessness (1984-5).

In closing this historical sketch of fear throughout the ages, I find it curious that the one person in history whose life and goal was to liberate us from fear, is even to this day the primary cause of an even greater one.

Primitive man lived a life of superstitious bondage to religious fear. Modern, civilized men dread the thought of falling under the dominance of strong religious convictions. Thinking man has always feared to be held by a religion. When a strong and moving religion threatens to dominate him, he invariably tries to rationalize, traditionalize, and institutionalize it, thereby hoping to gain control of it. By such procedure, even a revealed religion becomes man-made and man-dominated. Modern men and women of intelligence evade the religion of Jesus because of their fears of what it will do to them--and with them. And all such fears are well founded. The religion of Jesus does, indeed, dominate and transform its believers, demanding that men dedicate their lives to seeking for a knowledge of the will of the Father in heaven and requiring that the energies of living be consecrated to the unselfish service of the brotherhood of man.

The religion of Jesus stands as the unsullied and transcendent spiritual summons, calling to the best there is in man to rise above all these legacies of animal evolution and, by grace, attain the moral heights of true human destiny (2083).

COURAGE

In Jesus' telling us that hate is the shadow of fear, he is also saying that love is the light of courage. And inasmuch as we try to love our fellow man, we are all taking courageous steps. Webster defines courage as: The ability to conquer fear or despair. Others have defined it as the willingness to be afraid and to act anyway. However you define it, most people's attitude towards it is similar to love, there's always room for more. Sometimes people act courageously because they've decided that the consequences of not acting are far worse. In this sense, working through your fears can be less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness. If you have to walk through a dangerous mob to get to safety on the other side of the street, you'll do so when you're convinced that the consequences of standing still are more dangerous than moving. Until then, any talk of courage or bravery is meaningless.

In the last issue of The Circles (Spring-Summer 1992) there were various articles dealing with courage. The first one I would like to share with you is from Kaye Cooper and is entitled “Seven Lessons in Courage.” In A Lesson in Necessity she goes on to say that:

A Lesson in Necessity

You can do what you have to do

It sounds easy, but this is something one has to experience to really know. When the time comes, you can do whatever it is you must do.

A Lesson in Procrastination

Put off worrying until the problem actually occurs

This has become a habitual reaction for me. At the first sign of worry, I think, "I'll wait until I'm sure I need to worry." All that worry is nothing but fear which saps my courage to face the uncertain future.

A Lesson in Focus

Concentrating on self immobilizes; concentrating on others frees

This lesson has deepened through the years. It is a profound truth.

A Lesson in Perception

It was by getting to know people well and discovering their personal fears and failures that I learned a lesson in perspective: Courage is not in the eye of the beholder. What is easy to one person may require consummate courage from another. So long as we are discovering our own fears and surmounting them, we are growing in courage.

A Lesson in Economics

Nothing ventured, nothing gained

I cannot count the times in my life since then that I have weighted the economics of courage and realized that the benefits of action in the face of fear were worth the cost.

A Lesson in Power

Fear empowers the “monsters”; courage empowers me

My fears were actually making stronger the "monsters" in my life--the things I feared. In the years since, it has become obvious that choosing courage empowers me to do more than I had though myself capable of.

A Lesson in Sources

Courage is a gift from God

Although I may be only an infant in courage with infinitely more lessons to learn, I have faith that God's gifts of courage will continue, that when I need his courage, I will have it.

The second article I enjoyed was entitled "The Beginnings of Courage" by Mary Huggins. The last lines are: "Our ignorance does not change the facts. It takes courage to make moral decisions; it takes courage to have faith when others are doubting; it takes courage to move unknown steps closer to an unseen God."

Below is a poem by Mary entitled "Courage is..."

COURAGE is...

the strength to do what you fear the most

the wisdom to say the right words at just the right moment

the power to let go of your favorite pains and problems

the patience to wait

the faith to leap blindly into God's invisible arms

the desire to love the unlovable

the urge to be like God our Father

the eye of calm surrounded by the howling storm of chaos

the instant prayer-thought in the urgency of the moment

the insight to see others from an eternal perspective

the ability to love the person as he strikes out at you

the humility to say "I’m sorry, forgive me"

the guts to face those deep inner issues

the trust to say yes to an untested eternity.

The third article was "The Harvest of Courage" by Sharon Lanier. In reading it I recalled the passage on p. 1002:

"No bird can soar except by outstretched wings." Her article states: "We plant the seed of courage by taking on those things that we find bard to do--and by doing them again and again. The baby bird is not born knowing how to fly, but that is his destiny. Between the birth and soaring flight comes many small steps--new and uncomfortable steps, but necessary ones. It is not necessary for the baby bird to leap from the safety of the branch into the unknown air all at once. The baby hops, leaps, flutters his wings, makes small trial flights only inches off of the ground. Step by frightening step he grows toward success. Then one day there comes a flight far above the ground from one branch to another.

"Our growth in courage can come in just such small steps. Each time we stretch beyond what is comfortable, God can supply us with that small courage we need to do what is hard for us. It is as if God's gift of courage flows through us and on the way through, some of it sticks. Each challenge we meet builds our stock of courage.

"Each hard thing we face is actually an opportunity to try our tiny wings of courage."

The fourth article was entitled "Courage: Study Notes" by Kaye and Bill Cooper. They ask us to examine our own efforts in how we have encouraged others. Their article reads:

"Here we have an example of spiritual encouragement. Jesus inspired Anaxand to have the courage to approach his cruel and unjust foreman and lead him to a new spiritual life. What was Anaxand risking? What was the danger he faced? Increased cruelty and injustice perhaps, or ridicule. How many of us are inhibited by much less? We may have similar opportunities in our lives and fail to recognize that we need the courage to act. There may be many people in our lives who can be led to God if we are courageous enough to speak to them."

Aside from these articles, there is one other book I would like to share with you before getting into the Urantia Book more specifically. Its title is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.

The topic discussed is the Win/Win relationship that all of us can foster and participate. This will help to explain the 4-squared box labeled consideration/courage. Win/Win is the habit of interpersonal leadership. It involves the exercise of each of the unique human endowments--self-awareness, imagination, conscience, and independent will--in our relationships with others. It involves mutual learning, mutual influence, mutual benefits.

It takes great courage as well as consideration to create these mutual benefits, particularly if we're interacting with others who are deeply scripted in Win/Lose.

Maturity is the balance between courage and consideration. If a person can express his feelings and convictions with courage balanced with consideration of the feelings and convictions of another person, he is mature, particularly if the issue is very important to both parties... While courage may focus on getting the golden egg, consideration deals with the long-term welfare of the other stakeholders. The basic task of leadership is to increase the standard of living and the quality of life for all stakeholders.

Many people think in dichotomies, in either/or terms. They think if you're nice, you're not tough. But Win/Win is nice... and tough. It's twice as tough as Win/Lose. To go for Win/Win, you not only have to be nice, you have to be courageous. You not only have to be empathic, you have to be confident. You not only have to be considerate and sensitive, you have to be brave. To do that, to achieve that balance between courage and consideration, is the essence of real maturity and is fundamental to Win/Win.

If I'm high on courage and low on consideration, how will I think? Win/Lose. I'll be strong and ego bound. I'll have the courage of my convictions, but I won't be very considerate of yours.

To compensate for my lack of internal maturity and emotional strength, I might borrow strength from my position and power, or from my credentials, my seniority, my affiliations.

If I'm high on consideration, and low on courage, I'll think Lose/Win. I'll be so considerate of your convictions and desires that I won't have the courage to express and actualize my own.

High courage and consideration are both essential to Win/Win. It is the balance that is the mark of real maturity. If I have it, I can listen, I can empathically understand, but

I can also courageously confront.

Earlier we defined maturity as the balance between courage and consideration. Seeking to understand requires consideration; seeking to be understood takes courage. Win/Win requires a high degree of both. So it becomes important in interdependent situations for us to be understood.

You can exercise the courage in interdependent situations to be open, to express your ideas, your feelings, and your experiences in a way that will encourage other people to be open also.

You can value the difference in other people. When someone disagrees with you, you can say, "Good! You see it differently." You don't have to agree with them; you can simply affirm them. And you can seek to understand.

Insecure people think that all reality should be amenable to their paradigms. They have a high need to clone others, to mold them over into their own thinking. They don't realize that the very strength of the relationship is in having another point of view. Sameness is not oneness; uniformity is not unity. Unity, or oneness, is complimentariness, not sameness. Sameness is uncreative... and boring. The essence of synergy is to value the differences.

This would seem to be in total accord with the Urantia Book p. 159: "Monotony is indicative of immaturity of the creative imagination and inactivity of intellectual co-ordination with the spiritual endowment... Monotony is not part of the Havona career. Love of adventure, curiosity, and dread of monotony--these traits inherent in evolving human nature--were not put there just to aggravate and annoy you during your short sojourn on earth, but rather to suggest to you that death is only the beginning of an endless career of adventure, an everlasting life of anticipation, an eternal voyage of discovery." (Tickets please!!)

But getting back to courage, the Urantia book shows that our ancient ancestors were not lacking in it, especially during the evolutionary races of color. The struggles of these early ages were characterized by courage, bravery, and even heroism. And we all regret that so many of those sterling and rugged traits of your early ancestors have been lost to the later-day races. While we appreciate the value of many of the refinements of advancing civilization, we miss the magnificent persistency and superb devotion of your early ancestors, which oftentimes bordered on grandeur and sublimity (729).

With regard to Jesus, man has been profoundly influenced by the character of the heroes whom he has chosen to honor. It is most unfortunate that those who have come to venerate the divine and risen Christ should have overlooked the man--the valiant and courageous hero--Joshua Ben Joseph (1013).

His courage was equaled only by his patience. His courage was magnificent, but he was never fool hardy.

His bravery was lofty and his courage often heroic. But this courage was linked with discretion and controlled by reason. It was courage born of faith, not the recklessness of blind presumption. He was truly brave but never audacious (1103). Fidelity was a cardinal virtue in his estimate of character, while courage was the very heart of his teaching... the teachings of Jesus constitute a religion of valor, courage, and heroism. And this is just why he chose as his personal representatives twelve commonplace men, the majority of whom were rugged, virile, and manly fishermen (1582).

"But who told you that my gospel was intended only for slaves and weaklings? Do you, my chosen apostles, resemble weaklings? Did John look like a weakling? Do you observe that I am enslaved by fear?

"Because my Father is a God of love and delights in the practice of mercy, do not imbibe the idea that the service of the kingdom is to be one of monotonous ease. The Paradise ascent is the supreme adventure of all time, the rugged achievement of eternity. The service of the kingdom on earth will call for all the courageous manhood that you and your coworkers can muster. Many of you will be put to death for your loyalty to the gospel of this kingdom. It is easy to die in the line of physical battle when your courage is strengthened by the presence of your fighting comrades, but it requires a higher and more profound form of human courage and devotion calmly and all alone to lay down your life for the love of a truth enshrined in your mortal heart.

"Today, the unbelievers may taunt you with preaching a gospel of nonresistance and with living lives of nonviolence, but you are the first volunteers of a long line of sincere believers in the gospel of this kingdom who will astonish all mankind by their heroic devotion to these teachings. No armies of the world have ever displayed more courage and bravery than will be portrayed by you and your loyal successors who shall go forth to all the world proclaiming the good news--the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men. The courage of the flesh is the lowest form of bravery. Mind bravery is a higher type of human courage, but the highest and supreme is uncompromising loyalty to the enlightened convictions of profound spiritual realities. And such courage constitutes the heroism of the God-knowing man. And you are all God-knowing men; you are in very truth the personal associates of the Son of Man" (1608).

Extend sympathy to the brave and courageous while you withhold overmuch pity from those cowardly souls who only halfheartedly stand up before the trials of living. Offer not consolation to those who lie down before their troubles without a struggle (1766).

"All of you who have had the courage to confess faith in my gospel before men I will presently acknowledge before the angels of heaven; but he who shall knowingly deny the truth of my teachings before men shall be denied by his guardian of destiny even before the angels of heaven" (1820).

With regard to our earlier review of 7 habits and the courage/consideration boxes, consider what Jesus says here after his talk with the Greek philosopher:

The apostles were a bit disconcerted by the open manner of Jesus' assent to many of the Greek's propositions, but Jesus afterward privately said to them: "My children, marvel not that I was tolerant of the Greek's philosophy. True and genuine inward certainty does not in the least fear outward analysis, nor does truth resent honest criticism. You should never forget that intolerance is the mask covering up the entertainment of secret doubts as to the trueness of one's belief. No man is at any time disturbed by his neighbor's attitude when he has perfect confidence in the truth of that which he wholeheartedly believes. Courage is the confidence of thoroughgoing honesty about those things which one professes to believe. Sincere men are unafraid of the critical examination of their true convictions and noble ideals" (1641).

But these beliefs, convictions, and noble ideals are the products of intelligent thought, philosophical introspection, and spiritual searching. Moral cowards never achieve high planes of philosophic thinking; it requires courage to invade new levels of experience and to attempt the exploration of unknown realms of intellectual living (1114). Only a brave person is willing honestly to admit, and fearlessly to face, what a sincere and logical mind discovers... the solution of life problems requires courage and sincerity. Only honest and brave individuals are able to follow valiantly through the perplexing and confusing maze of living to where the logic of a fearless mind may lead. And this emancipation of the mind and soul can never be effected without the driving power of an intelligent enthusiasm which borders on religious zeal (1773).

Religious habits of thinking and acting are contributory to the economy of spiritual growth. One can develop religious predispositions toward favorable reaction to spiritual stimuli, a sort of conditioned spiritual reflex (1095).

The God-knowing individual is not one who is blind to the difficulties or unmindful of the obstacles which stand in the way of finding God in the maze of superstition, tradition, and materialistic tendencies of modern times (1126).

The God-knowing soul dares to say, "I know," even when this knowledge of God is questioned by the unbelievers who assemble objections and magnify difficulties about believing in God. It requires no great depth of intellect to pick flaws, ask questions, or raise objections. But it does require brilliance of mind to answer these questions and solve these difficulties. To every such doubter the believer only replies, "How do you know that I do not know?" (1124-5) This is, however, not to be confused with the priest who asks, "But how can you be so positive that God does not exist? To which the atheist replies: "A man has to believe in something.'" The intellectual earmark of religion is certainty; the philosophical characteristic is consistency; the social fruits are love and service (1126).

When thinking men and women look upon Jesus as he offers up his life on the cross, they will hardly again permit themselves to complain at even the severest hardships of life, much less at petty harassments and their many purely fictitious grievances. His life was so glorious and his death so triumphant that we are all enticed to a willingness to share both. There is true drawing power in the whole bestowal of Michael, from the days of his youth to this overwhelming spectacle of his death on the cross (2019).

Pentecost, with its spiritual endowment, was designed forever to lose the religion of the Master from all dependence upon physical force; the teachers of this new religion are now equipped with spiritual weapons. They are to go out to conquer the world with unfailing forgiveness, matchless good will, and abounding love. They are equipped to overcome evil with good, to vanquish hate by love, to destroy fear with a courageous and living faith in truth.

Pentecost endowed mortal man with the power to forgive personal injuries, to keep sweet in the midst of the gravest injustice, to remain unmoved in the face of appalling danger, and to challenge the evils of hate and anger by the fearless acts of love and forbearance. Urantia has passed through the ravages of great and destructive wars in its history. All participants in these terrible struggles met with defeat. There was but one victor; there was only one who came out of these embittered struggles with an enhanced reputation--that was Jesus of Nazareth and his gospel of overcoming evil with good (2064).

STRENGTH

Webster defines it as: the quality of being strong: ability to do or endure: power. I believe that much of our strength is the cumulative result of successful acts of courage in overcoming our fears toward achieving goals. We may look to outside sources for inspiration and role-models, but it is ultimately important that we develop this from within. Our borrowing of strength builds weakness. It builds weakness in the borrower because it reinforces dependence on external factors to get things done. It builds weakness in the person forced to accept, stunting the development of independent reasonin₉, growth, and internal discipline. And finally, it builds weakness in relationships. Fear (our old friend) replaces cooperation, and the people involved become more irrational and defensive. But inasmuch as we have Jesus as a guiding inspirational reality, our internal Thought-Adjusters, the Seven Adjutant Mind-Spirits, and the Seven Psychic Circles, we carry within us a spiritual reservoir that constantly nourishes and refreshes us on our journey.

It is the presence of the divine Spirit, the water of life, that prevents the consuming thirst of mortal discontent and that indescribable hunger of the unspiritualized human mind. Spirit-motivated beings "never thirst, for this spiritual water shall be in them a well of satisfaction springing up into life everlasting." Such divinely watered souls are all but independent of material environment as regards the joys of living and the satisfactions of earthly existence. They are spiritually illuminated and refreshed, morally strengthened and endowed.

In every mortal there exists a dual nature: the inheritance of animal tendencies and the high urge of spirit endowment. During the short life you live on Urantia, these two diverse and opposing urges can seldom be fully reconciled; they can hardly be harmonized and unified; but throughout your lifetime the combined spirit ever ministers to assist you in subjecting the flesh more and more to the leading of the Spirit. Even though you must live your material life through, even though you cannot escape the body and its necessities, nonetheless, in purpose and ideals you are empowered increasingly to subject the animal nature to the mastery of the spirit. There truly exists within you a conspiracy of spiritual forces, a confederation of divine powers, whose exclusive purpose is to effect your final deliverance from material bondage and finite handicaps.

The purpose of all this ministration is, "That you may be strengthened with power through His spirit in the inner man." And all this represents but the preliminary steps to the final attainment of the perfection of faith and service, that experience wherein you shall be 'filled with all the fullness of God," "for all those who are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God."

Such spirit-guided and divinely illuminated mortals, while they yet tread the lowly paths of toil and in human faithfulness perform the duties of their earthly assignments, have already begun to discern the lights of eternal life as they glimmer on the faraway shores of another world (381). [BEAUTFIUL PASSAGE!!]

The sincere religionist is conscious of universe citizenship and is aware of making contact with sources of superhuman power. He is thrilled and energized with the assurance of belonging to a superior and ennobled fellowship of the sons of God. The consciousness of self-worth has become augmented by the stimulus of the quest for the highest universe objectives--supreme goals.

The self has surrendered to the intriguing drive of an all-encompassing motivation which imposes heightened self-discipline, lessens emotional conflict, and makes mortal life truly worth living. The morbid recognition of human limitations is changed to the natural consciousness of mortal shortcomings, associated with moral determination and spiritual aspiration to attain the highest universe and superuniverse goals. And this intense striving for the attainment of supermortal ideals is always characterized by increasing patience, forbearance, fortitude, and tolerance (1100).

At this time I would like to focus on two not so well-known aspects of Jesus with regard to strength.

On Saturday afternoon, December 3, of this year, death for the second time struck at this Nazareth family. Little Amos, their baby brother, died after a week's illness with a high fever. After passing through this time of sorrow with her first-born son as her only support, Mary at last

and in the fullest sense recognized Jesus as the real head of the family; and he was truly a worthy head.

For four years their standard of living had steadily declined; year by year they felt the pinch of increasing poverty. By the close of this year they faced one of the most difficult experiences of all their uphill struggles. James had not yet begun to earn much, and the expenses of a funeral on top of everything else staggered them. But Jesus would only say to his anxious and grieving mother: "Mother-Mary, sorrow will not help us; we are all doing our best, and mother's smile, perchance, might even inspire us to do better. Day by day we are strengthened for these tasks by our hope of better days ahead." His sturdy and practical optimism was truly contagious; all the children lived in an atmosphere of anticipation of better times and better things. And this hopeful courage contributed mightily to the development of strong and noble characters, in spite of the depressiveness of their poverty (1400).

This next one refers to the misguided notions of the frailty of Jesus that we see illustrated in museum paintings.

The picture of Jesus have been most unfortunate. These paintings of the Christ have exerted a deleterious influence on youth; the temple merchants would hardly have fled before Jesus if he had been such a man as your artists usually have depicted. His was a dignified manhood; he was good, but natural. Jesus did not pose as a mild, sweet, gentle, and kindly mystic. His teaching was thrillingly dynamic. He not only meant well, but he went about actually doing good.

The Master never said, "Come to me all you who are indolent and all who are dreamers." But he did many times say, "Come to me all you who labor, and I will give you rest--spiritual strength" (1590).