"I Am the Joy of the Lord!"
"I Am the Joy of the Lord!"
Wouldn't it be wonderful if exquisite never-ending joy were your deepest truest nature?
In the Holy Bible, Jesus seems to teach just this. And those who have followed Jesus with full endeavor, allowing themselves to release all defenses and really open up spiritually, have found inside themselves overwhelming joy which might as well be called the joy of Jesus Christ: "These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be [experienced] in you, and that your joy may be full [experienced fully]. (John 15:11)
Because Jesus tells us the heavenly kingdom is here and now joy, we have every reason to believe Christianity is destined to become the saving religion of all mankind on earth.
Consider the alternatives.
Could Christianity appeal everywhere in the world if Christians were asked to join in a Jihad and make themselves blown away martyrs (splattering of flesh and blood) in this life for the promise of 72 virgins in another life? Talk about the reward not matching the effort. As soon as you partake, the virginity is gone. How appealing can a religion be which worships death and offers in exchange such short-lived pleasure?
But if death is too easy, maybe long suffering is the answer. Have you ever heard the notion that world-wide appeal of Christianity could be the result of some mysterious Christian ability to endure suffering. Who is trying to kid who? If suffering were the way to heaven, we would all drag cowardly minds and bodies into the religion of Marxism, where high priest slave masters know how to create suffering that makes the old American plantations seem like paradise.
However, if neither death nor suffering is appealing enough to bring salvation to the world, maybe earth-encompassing Christianity will come about because Christians learn to achieve a state of no experience whatsoever. You've heard of the Way. Maybe there is a religion called "No way!" Unlike God-denying Marxists, God-ignoring Buddhists have been known to find peace. But what if Buddhist peace is only the kindergarten beginning? Could there be an experience that starts with peace and then is magnified a million billion times over? How about the experience of joy so overwhelming you are blown away not to death but to everlasting life right here and now?
Yes, the Holy Bible touches upon the outrageous joy Jesus offers. But human Bible interpretation is rather like an ant trying to comprehend the Milky Way galaxy. To have even an inkling of the magnitude of joy possible it is necessary to quit fighting against the modern 21st century teaching of Jesus, A Course in Miracles, which elevates our understanding of the Bible as no human interpretation could hope to approximate even in our wildest dreams.
What does Jesus tell us in his course?
"The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Joy. It is the call to return, with which God blessed the minds of the separated Sons. This the vocation of the mind. It had no calling until the separation, because before it had only being, and would not have understood the call to right thinking. The Holy Spirit was God's answer to the separation, the means by which the Atonement could repair until the whole mind returned to creating. The Atonement and the separation began at the same time. When man made the ego, God placed in him the call of joy. This call is so strong that the ego always dissolves at its sound." (ACIM: Text Chap. 5)
Maybe you sensed the Adam and Eve story hiding between the lines of the above passage from Jesus' course. If so, you might be starting to have an inkling of how Jesus uses his new revelation to explain the underlying teaching of the Jewish Torah as never before.
Yet the joy-filled experience Jesus would lead us to is far beyond teaching and learning, wouldn't you say?
"No one on earth can grasp what Heaven is, or what its one Creator really means. So turn to one who laid all limits by, and went beyond the farthest reach of learning. He will take you with him, for he did not go alone. And you were with him then, as you are now. This course has come from him because his words have reached you in a language you can love and understand. Jesus has come to answer your needs. In him you find God's Answer. Do you, then, teach with him, for he is with you; he is always here." (ACIM: Manual for Teachers)
Jesus is here ... and through his modern revelation, A Course in Miracles, he speaks directly to you:
"My holy brothers, think of this awhile; the world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. It merely represents your thoughts. And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind and choose the joy of God as what you really want. Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable forever and forever. (ACIM: Lesson 190)
Thank you, Jesus Christ, for this exhilarating good news of Christianity:
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