Jesus brought to God, as a man of the realm, the greatest of
all offerings: the consecration and dedication of his own will to the majestic
service of doing the divine will. Jesus always and consistently interpreted
religion wholly in terms of the Father’s will. When you study the career of the
Master, as concerns prayer or any other feature of the religious life, look not
so much for what he taught as for what he did. Jesus never prayed as a
religious duty. To him prayer was a sincere expression of spiritual attitude, a
declaration of soul loyalty, a recital of personal devotion, an expression of
thanksgiving, an avoidance of emotional tension, a prevention of conflict, an
exaltation of intellection, an ennoblement of desire, a vindication of moral
decision, an enrichment of thought, an invigoration of higher inclinations, a
consecration of impulse, a clarification of viewpoint, a declaration of faith,
a transcendental surrender of will, a sublime assertion of confidence, a
revelation of courage, the proclamation of discovery, a confession of supreme
devotion, the validation of consecration, a technique for the adjustment of
difficulties, and the mighty mobilization of the combined soul powers to
withstand all human tendencies toward selfishness, evil, and sin. He lived just
such a life of prayerful consecration to the doing of his Father’s will and
ended his life triumphantly with just such a prayer. The secret of his
unparalleled religious life was this consciousness of the presence of God; and
he attained it by intelligent prayer and sincere worship — unbroken communion
with God — and not by leadings, voices, visions, or extraordinary religious
practices.
In the earthly life of Jesus, religion was a living
experience, a direct and personal movement from spiritual reverence to
practical righteousness. The faith of Jesus bore the transcendent fruits of the
divine spirit. His faith was not immature and credulous like that of a child,
but in many ways it did resemble the unsuspecting trust of the child mind.
Jesus trusted God much as the child trusts a parent. He had a profound
confidence in the universe — just such a trust as the child has in its parental
environment. Jesus’ wholehearted faith in the fundamental goodness of the
universe very much resembled the child’s trust in the security of its earthly
surroundings. He depended on the heavenly Father as a child leans upon its
earthly parent, and his fervent faith never for one moment doubted the
certainty of the heavenly Father’s overcare. He was not disturbed seriously by
fears, doubts, and skepticism. Unbelief did not inhibit the free and original
expression of his life. He combined the stalwart and intelligent courage of a
full-grown man with the sincere and trusting optimism of a believing child. His
faith grew to such heights of trust that it was devoid of fear.
The faith of Jesus attained the purity of a child’s trust.
His faith was so absolute and undoubting that it responded to the charm of the
contact of fellow beings and to the wonders of the universe. His sense of
dependence on the divine was so complete and so confident that it yielded the
joy and the assurance of absolute personal security. There was no hesitating
pretense in his religious experience. In this giant intellect of the full-grown
man the faith of the child reigned supreme in all matters relating to the
religious consciousness. It is not strange that he once said, “Except you
become as a little child, you shall not enter the
kingdom.” Notwithstanding that Jesus’ faith was childlike, it
was in no sense childish.
Courtesy of Urantia Book
Adonai
Michael of Nebadon
Michael of Nebadon
