Powerful theme of the Gospel of John: Jesus Sees Father doing and he does, Jesus Hears Father saying and he says

Jesus says to them, My food is that I should do the will of him that has sent me, and that I should finish his work.
 John 4:34


Jesus therefore answered and said to them, Verily, verily, I say to you, The Son can do nothing of himself save whatever he sees the Father doing: for whatever things he does, these things also the Son does in like manner. John 5:19


I am able to do nothing of Myself. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My will, but the will of the One having sent Me. John 5:30


because I have come down out of the heaven, not that I may do my will, but the will of Him who sent me. John 6:38


So Jesus told them, "My message is not my own; it comes from God who sent me..." John 7:16

I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but he that has sent me is true, and I, what I have heard from him, these things I say to the world.  They knew not that he spoke to them of the Father.  Jesus therefore said to them, When ye shall have lifted up the Son of man, then ye shall know that I am [he], and [that] I do nothing of myself, but as the Father has taught me I speak these things.  And he that has sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, because I do always the things that are pleasing to him.  John 8:26-29

I don’t speak on my own authority. The Father who sent me has commanded me what to say and how to say it. And I know his commands lead to eternal life; so I say whatever the Father tells me to say.” John12:49-50

Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

Jesus replied, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don’t know who I am? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking me to show him to you? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me. Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do.

“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father..." John 14:8-12


He that loves me not does not keep my words; and the word which ye hear is not mine, but [that] of the Father who has sent me. John 14:24 


"... But that the world may know that I love my Father, and just as my Father has taught me, so I have done. Rise up, let us depart from here.” John 14:31

This is love: we lay down our lives for our friends

From my perspective,
Jesus said the highest practice of,
how we are IN and we Share 

Real Love:

We Lay Down our Lives for our Friends...
and for God, for ourselves, and for the well-being and coming-to-fruition of All our Relations...

We lay down our lives.

We lay down our ego, our habits, and our identifications.
We lay down all of God's promises and blessings.
We lay down all the ways we want to impress people, and be a success.

We lay down our lives.

We lay down everything we rationally believe. 
We lay down everything that makes us, us - in our own concept of ourselves.
We lay down our understanding of ourselves, of this world, of God, and of what we think God wants for us.

We lay down our lives.

We lay down our health and our illness, our wealth and our poverty, our wisdom and our folly, our worth and our worthlessness, our rightness and our humility.
We lay down our relationships - our loves and our hates.
We lay down how we wish the world was, how we think things should be, and the difference we want to make.

We lay down our lives.
Everything past, present and future - on and on I could list it all - we are called to lay it Down...

We lay down our lives.

And from here:

• we can more and more see what The Progenitor (Father) is Doing spiritually (in Heaven) - and we can begin to DO that on Earth.
• we can more and more hear what The Progenitor is Saying spiritually (in Heaven) - and we can begin to Say that here on Earth.

(All this, just as Jesus did... but, in our own unique way, with our own unique call)

.

And from here,
sooner or later...

we run cross-ways to the powers and principalities of this World, 

This is always the way.The Progenitor does not bow-to to the petty beliefs and limits of the 'Authorities', the rule-makers and enforcers
- whether they be Religious, Political, Martial, Economic, Cultural, Familial, etc.

Matter of fact, Jesus seems to be doing an inordinate amount of healing On the Sabbath; 
neener-neener to religious sensibilities.

And like Jesus, eventually, as we do as God calls us to do, 
we also end up doing/ being the unpopular, unacceptable, unsuccessful, verboten...

And, like Jesus, we take the consequences - both the enjoyable ones, and those that are not.
.

And from here, we keep going, until we go round again...

When we follow Jesus, we pick up our cross.
We die daily - on a soul level.

And (praise God) we also rise (on a soul level) in the Glory of God,

to love and serve God and our neighbor
...There is no end to this practice.

.
This is love:
we lay down our lives for our friends.

It took me a long time to realize:

• it doesn't mean to please my friends, be nice to my friends, do what my friends want me to do.
• it doesn't mean to be a happy-little-martyr, putting up with BS, letting people treat me like a doormat.
• it doesn't mean to try to save them from themselves, from their lessons, from the pain of their challenges or from the pain of their Glory.

Laying down our lives for our friends;
Means:
- Dying to flesh - to our physically-focused self; and
- Rising in spirit - to our spiritually-focused self; and
- Being constantly born again into:

• I AM Love - fed and led Directly by God, more and more, in who we Be and what we Do
• the Way, Truth, Light, Life, Love... which shines through us more and more clearly into the world
• beholding and reflecting as a mirror the Glory of God, more and more into this world, from Glory to Glory...

.
Our friends may like this, or they may not.
Our friends may judge and resist this, or they may not.
Our friends may recognize and support us, or they may not.

It doesn't matter whether our friends experience this as Love!
- As we BE and DO Love - they are blessed.
- As we follow the Living God in each step, and become who we Really Are in God - they are blessed.
- As the world shifts, and more and more of us come to our maturity spiritually - they are blessed.

Our friends:
our intimates, our play-friends, our families, our co-workers, our church-friends, our neighbors...
may not recognize Love when they see it, or enjoy it when they experience it.
might think we are crazy, or mean, or (OMG! ;) inappropriate.

And you know what, we can become ok with that.
Fortunately, we are getting into the habit of dying-daily
- so we can get unstuck from needing-to, having-to please them, to live-into their expectations...

.
And, of course we do not have to do any of this!
We have a choice.

We can follow The Progenitor
or not.

We can live as Jesus lived, in our own unique way,
or not.

We can engage our unique Process of Soul Maturity, Teleios,
or not. 

We can do any other thing, follow any other way, and miss the mark, or not.
We can follow the World, the Flesh, the Devil... or not.

.
We have a choice:

• We can follow Spirit and Actually Love our Neighbor, truly, deeply, spiritually.

OR

• We can have a shadow of Love, a pretense of Love, a striving to Love; a purely human, limited kind of love.

.
It may seem strange, but culturally we are not clear about what Love is, spiritually.
We don't always rationally or emotionally or relationally grok Love.
That's ok, spirit is not flesh, and the carnal cannot Know God.

But spiritually, as we lay down our lives, we start to expereince the wild ride of Love.
And no one and nothing will ever be the same, again.
Jesus did this, let us follow his lead.

.
this post has a similar theme, if interested: When we Follow God: Everything Must Go!

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BTW this post is my response, to this useful post by Michael Green: 
How Orthodoxy Wages War Against Orthopraxy (And Causes Us All To Miss The Point) 

Personally,

I do not care at all about orthodoxy, or about 'right' rational beliefs

... Except how they affect things that matter spiritually,
i.e. our Practice and Experience of:

• the Presence and Love of God,
• the Reign-Kingdom of Heaven,
• our direct communication and relationship... healing, filling, maturing, dancing, co-creating with the Living God.

I'm not a fan of "attaching" to doing-thinking anything 'Right',

rather

• going in a direction that is useful to catch the scent of the direct, present-time leading of of the Living God, and
• walking in the way I am led, best I can.

>>>

With this in mind 

From my perspective

love, laying down our lives, dancing with the Divine in our soul and into the world - in real-time...

leaves right-belief in the dust.

My perspective is 

our calling to love may look different than we humanly think believe, feel, usually see modeled. 

our calling to lay down our lives for our friends, 

includes laying everything down,

including our ego, beliefs, religion...

and doing/saying as we perceive the Divine doing/saying 

- I would call this doing the will of God, bringing heaven to earth 

- the CORE of the Lord's Prayer, IMO. 

This is love, the way of Jesus, from my perspective 

way beyond being nice, following rules, or any traditional ideas of orthodoxy

thanks for playing! 

your feedback appreciated 

: ) Wendy

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Reading and hearing about spiritual reality is only a hint of the Real Thing

I go on and on, talking about spiritual reality.

Most of the time, folks don't know what I am talking about.

We don't know, what we don't know.

What is it like to not access spiritual reality?

I just got this picture, which gives a small taste of it:

It is like hearing about a great band, how sweet and powerful the music, how magnetic the musicians, how fun the concerts...

What would it be like to hear from your friends about this amazing music

- but never hear it yourself, because you can't hear music - any music.

How would it feel to see the materials, read the song lyrics, immerse in the pictures, etc

- but never be able to expereince the band - any band.

Reading and hearing about spirit and spiritual reality is only a hint of the Real Thing,
a finger pointing to the moon.

Let us all more and more, intend, play, practice, learn to enjoy the Music, Dance and be moved at the Concerts!!

Let's Hear, See, Touch, Savor the Delicious, Nutritious, Glorious music... of Spirit.

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Rest in God: with Master Jesus: Freewill Donation Meditation Workshop, January 10th, 6:30-9pm - private residence in Freehold, NJ

In this Meditation Workshop, we will offer the opportunity to:

Say Hello to Master Jesus

• Clear other's opinions about Jesus, get to know him deeper, in present time, for yourself.
• Learn from Jesus spiritually, to shift into more Harmony with Jesus. 

Let Jesus lead you to Rest in God

• We will practice letting go of striving, trying, effort, willpower - I just wrote some thoughts about this here
• Let Jesus show you how to more easily Let Go, and Let God! 

Overall:

• Learn and practice some basic meditation techniques.
• Share your experience, if you choose, a couple times during this session.
• Mostly, quietly enjoy sitting in a chair, letting go and experiencing your inner world.

Details:

• Bring a snack to share if you would like.
• Please tell your Friends.
• Freewill Donation  - this workshop is usually $35, please give as you are led.  
• Please register on Facebook, or e-mail me that you are coming. We will get you the address.
   

in Life, Wendy

Come unto me, all ye labouring and burdened ones, and I will give you rest, take up my yoke upon you, and learn from me, because I am meek and humble in heart, and ye shall find rest to your souls, for my yoke [is] easy, and my burden is light.’ - Matthew 11:28-30

Willpower (flesh) OR Free Will & True Power (spirit) - choose

Willpower is the best the world has to offer
regarding how to get from here to there.

Folks say they are blessed, healthy, wealthy, wise, fulfilled, successful...
because of their willpower.
But, I see willpower as a fool’s errand.

From my perspective, all the hype about willpower leads to a dead end.
We cannot run on willpower, forever - it runs out!
WE wear out, we come to the end of our rope…

Ultimately, running on willpower is
running in the wrong direction,
and using the wrong fuel.

If we truly want to be love, joy, peace… in the world.
If we truly want to be free,
If we truly want to be true to ourselves, to our God, to our calling,
If we truly want to be IN the world, but not OF the world…

Then willpower has our eyes on the wrong prize.
And the fruit will not be delicious or long-lasting.

I could go on and on - because the world has us hypnotized about this.
Most of us are totally programmed to Strive under our own power - even in our spiritual lives…
But there is hope

2 blessings from God really help us get back on track, I believe:
our Spiritual Free Will and our True Spiritual Power.


Instead of willpower, we Must get our Spiritual Free Will back

We must get our free will back;
back from where we squandered it, lost it, gave it away.

We can get our spiritual authority back, from others, from religion, from social conventions, from media’s programming…

We can establish spiritual dominion in our own space, taking our own choice back from our lovers, friends, parents, children, family, teachers…

We can be spiritually the captain of our ship, no longer tossed around by our thoughts, our emotions, our impulses of survival, sexuality, control…

We can get back our free will, to spiritually be ourselves, do our thing,
and as we choose, to BE in alignment with our Source
- our God, our Gifts, our Blessings, our Path…

Before we get our free will back, spiritually we cannot follow God, we cannot consciously do God’s will - we do not have choice - we are victims to someone else, something else.

Spiritually, we Must get our Free will back, if we are to get free of the lie of willpower.
Of course all this, by God's Grace, and our soul choice.


Instead of willpower, we Must get our True Spiritual Power back

We must get our Spiritual Power back;
back from where we squandered it, lost it, gave it away.

We can get our True Spiritual Power back, from others from religion, social conventions, media’s programming…

We can be empowered in our own space, taking our energy back from our lovers, friends, parents, children, family, teachers…

We can allow the spiritual force of the Universe, the River of Life, to flow through us, enliven and empower us, Truly.

We can get back our True Spiritual Power to be ourselves, do our thing,
and as we choose to ACT in alignment with our Source
- our God, our Gifts, our Blessings, our Path…

Before we get our True Spiritual Power back, we cannot spiritually follow God - we can only pretend,
we cannot consciously spiritually do God’s will - we can only act like it.

We can only use force, striving, trying, effort
until we line-up with God in our flow of True Spiritual Power

Spiritually, we Must get our True Power back, if we are to get free of the lie of willpower.
Of course all this, by God's Grace, and our soul choice.

.

so to re-cap

Ultimately, running on willpower is

running in the wrong direction,

and using the wrong fuel.

The world has us hypnotized about this.

Most of us are totally programmed
to Strive under our own power - even in our spiritual lives…

But there is hope

These 2 blessings from God:

our Spiritual Free Will and

our True Spiritual Power

really help us get back on track.

From here we can engage our Unique Process of Soul Maturity, Teleios 

This is my expereince, what is yours?

Blessings on your Unique Path!
Wendy

I just noticed, back in the Spring, I wrote about the necessity of getting out Free Will back, I hope you check it out!