The God I Know Chapter Ten

THE GOD I KNOW

Chapter Ten

LEVELS OF LAW

The God I know has levels of communicating with us which meet the needs of our levels of progress. The law which governs each level covers us within that law. We are protected from seeing beyond the truths we are able to live so that we are not ever held accountable for sinning where we do not understand.

The TRUTH – ultimate truth, all truth, pure truth, truth free from opposition – is part of God’s being. They abide the law which encompasses every good and desirable thing. Their love for us guarantees a plan which allows us to grow toward the place where They are, at the rate we choose to grow. We are always covered by God’s mercy, grace and love. We are safe in God’s hands, regardless of the opposition by which Satan tries to damn us. Satan does not know the ways of God. He does not comprehend the power of God’s love. The purpose of mortality is that we might make choices between good and evil, in order to comprehend a fullness of truth. An environment in which opposition is constantly present makes that possible. Satan is part of that environment. He unknowingly serves God’s purposes.

There are many principles of truth which we must learn in order to be comfortable living with God. We cannot learn all of them at once. Each thing we do learn enlarges the scope of our comprehension of all truth, so that it becomes progressively easier for us to see the whole picture of truth as God sees it.

There are four clear-cut levels of law – levels of communication and perception – which God uses in teaching us truth. Any given principle of truth is comprehended with increased light as we progress through the experience of communicating with God on each of these four levels. We cannot comprehend the fullness of any of God’s truth until we are living that truth on the level where God abides. We cannot progress from one level to a higher level until God has performed the miracle of lifting the veil which protects us against seeing more than we are prepared for, and the miracle of endowing us with the change of heart which strengthens us to be ready for more. We can choose to change, and we can struggle to change. We can do a limited amount of “overcoming” within the boundaries of each law. But we cannot change ourselves with the quickening which is necessary in order to move into a new state of law. Only God can bestow that gift, and only God knows when we are truly ready to receive it. The God I know does not make any mistakes which would allow us to fail. Their timing is perfect. In harmony with our free choice, God opens the windows when our eyes can see; God plays the music when our ears can hear; God touches our hearts when our hearts can understand.

As we are miraculously lifted to be able to abide in each new level of law, the previous laws become not dead, but fulfilled in our lives. Jesus Christ did not come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. That is what happens in each of our lives as we accept the endowments of Christ which lift us into higher laws. Lesser laws are fulfilled for us, which means that in our communications with others we can use information from any level of law which we comprehend, and we will have the wisdom to know how and where to use those facts. But the law cannot use us. We are not ever subject to live by any lesser law than the one we have been endowed by God to abide.

The four levels of law, communication, and perception are:

(1) The Law of Innocence, where God’s method of communication is symbolism, which we perceive as a mystery.

(2) The Law of Obedience and Sacrifice, where God’s method of communication is knowledge (thought), which we perceive in our minds.

(3) The Law of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, where God’s method of communication is feeling, perceived in our hearts.

(4) The Law of Consecration and Love, where God’s method of communication is to quicken us to an awareness of Being One with Them, which we perceive with our whole being – mind, heart, and soul.

When Christ, by the power of His love, has quickened us through these four states of being – from innocence through justification, through sanctification, through purification – we DO understand the Fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and ARE One with Him.

On any given day in our mortality we can have experiences with principles of truth from any levels of law where our choices take us. If we are seeking God, we will have encounters with truths from higher laws than we are abiding, and we may have revelations of thought or feeling or being from higher laws. We will not fully understand these experiences, however, until we are abiding in the law of their origin. We do not learn all truth on one level and then move on to learn all truth on the next level. Rather, our growth is a process of evolving gradually through each separate truth, and coming to understand how that truth functions in each law. Because of the Lord’s personal knowledge of each of us, He will teach each of us differently, in the ways and at the times He knows we are receptive – always subject to our free choice to let Him teach us. Of course as we embrace light and truth, there is an automatic chain-reaction explosive effect, by which means the different truths begin to mushroom into harmoniously beautiful all-inclusive truths.







The Law of Innocence


On the first level of God’s law, truth is presented in symbolism. God’s word to us is given in symbolic representations: “the tree of knowledge of good and evil,” “The Tree of Life,” “the living water,” “the lake of fire and brimstone,” etc. As long as our understanding of God’s law remains on this level, we are in a state of innocence. God’s words are mysteries to us.

In this state of innocence we have an equal chance of accidentally doing something right as we do of accidentally doing something wrong. That is, we cannot choose between good and evil because we don’t know the difference. We are not aware that we have a carnal nature and a divine nature. Whatever circumstances of our heredity and environment are visible and tangible, we accept as the limits of our reality. Like children, we do what we feel like doing without consideration or consequences.

Our forms of worship on this level are ritualistic and paganistic. We impose our own superstitious meanings onto the word of God. We pay idolatrous or fearful homage to symbols – worshipping certain trees, or crosses, or sacred water, or fire, or lightning, or the sun or stars – sometimes in the name of Christ, sometimes in the name of other “dieties,” sometimes in the name of science, but always in blind ignorance.

Our faith in God on this level is blind faith – faith without questioning, faith without reasoning, and so faith without understanding. Consequently our faith is a passive force.

Innocence was the state of Adam ad Eve in the Garden of Eden, and it is our own state with respect to the laws of God until we use our free agency to choose to progress to a higher law. When we become uncomfortable in our own being with our limited amount of knowledge; when we become discontented with blind faith and symbolic worship; when we seek truth, when we ask questions – then we are lifted by the Lord to the next level of God’s law.


The Law of Obedience and Sacrifice
(Justification)

The next level of God’s law is Obedience and Sacrifice, sometimes called the Law of Works. Living in this law is an experience in gaining knowledge – by physical and mental effort, by trial and error, by experimentation, by questioning, thinking, reasoning, and by receiving inspiration and revelation.

We have made the choice to know what God’s symbolism means, and we are on an active search for knowledge. One of the first things we learn is that “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” is not a symbolic tree. It is a real happening! Our eyes are opened to the realization that we are facing opposition, and we can make choices about what we want to accept and what we want to reject. Because our self-preservation instinct is still strong, we will for a time perceive opposition as being only a force outside ourself which makes us uncomfortable. It takes considerable experience before we know that we are our own greatest opposition, that what is evil in us (our carnal nature) is contending with what is good in us (our divine nature).

The Law of Works takes over at this point, as we try to overcome our own tendency toward evil by being obedient to the commandments of God – as well as we understand them. We also become aware of our “conscience,” but instead of recognizing it as our divine nature and using it as a positive guideline, we tend to use it as a guilt mechanism.

We learn the principle of obedience and reward: if we set a goal and are obedient to the rules by which that goal is achieved, we will obtain the reward of arriving at the goal. Many good things are accomplished for ourselves and others by the “works” we are able to perform using this principle. We behave responsibly in comparison to our former childlike irresponsibility.

Our feelings on this level get in the way of our doing, so one of our methods of trying to overcome obstacles is to suppress our feelings. We do not have enough under-standing to separate our carnal feelings from our divine feelings, so whenever we consider our feelings of love, they are suppressed to a degree by our fear of our feelings of lust. Yet we know, in our minds, that love is one of the things necessary to a positive and happy existence.

Our intellects can find explanations for our behavior, and even methods to change behavior. Our minds can discover reasonable explanations for the symbolisms of God which previously were mysteries to us. “The tree of life” and the “living water” are translated to become the Love of God, and we experience this love, partially, in our love of nature, our sensitive response to the arts and sciences, our successful personal relationships, and our undeniable spiritual experiences with God. The “lake of fire and brimstone” becomes a real happening too, which is experienced in our struggle to free our divine aspirations from the evil in us which damns us frombeing what we want to be.

Under the principles of the Law of Works, we feel personally responsible for our own behavior. We are self-righteous and self-condemning. We are justified in taking the reward for our good behavior, and we are justified in punishing others for their bad behavior. We can live with the concept of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” As far as our own bad behavior is concerned, if we recognize it as being bad, we are wracked with guilt and weighed down by the burden of repentance – often manifested as depression. Our pride in our own works tells us that “repentance” means to overcome our wickedness by our own power. Our bout with opposition is a physical battle to willfully control ourself. It is something of an ego trip. To rely very much on God is looked upon as a sign of our own weakness. We resist God. We may draw near to Them with our lips, but our hearts are far from Them. We do not really worship God; we worship and glorify ourselves in the name of God. In fact we cannot perceive God to be more than our knowledge convinces us that we are. Consequently, God’s behavior in this law is to withdraw Their influence in direct proportion to our choice to worship ourselves. They make Themselves manifest to us or come to our aid only when we exercise our free will and call upon God in faith.

In this law though, it is very difficult for us to humble ourselves to the place where our faith allows God to intervene in our behalf. Our faith is manifest primarily by our doing. We measure faith by visible works. We have to prove that we have faith by our actual physical behavior, and we require God to prove His (Their) existence by His actual physical behavior. In order for us to believe that we had enough faith to move a mountain, a mountain would have to physically be transferred from one place to another place in a manner which we could see with our eyes and record with statistics. In this law we do not let God have much power which we ourselves do not have as either a provable fact or an attainable possibility. Our faith is not really in God, but in ourself, and so becomes a force which motivates us to work harder.

Our intellects are able to reason out intelligently a lot of things about God: If we are made in His image and we have bodies, parts and passions, then He must have a body, parts and passions too. If we were made male and female in His? image, then God might be male and female too. Our own experience and the evidence from others’ testimonies prove that He (She?) does answer prayers. Numerous written records give evidence that Jesus Christ did live and that He was a great teacher –
even that he was (well might have been) resurrected (what that means is open to conjecture). Statistics prove that what Jesus taught really works. Etc. God is a provable theory in our store of knowledge. They are not a living reality. Our pride
in our own knowledge, in our own obedience to law, and in our own works does not allow us to need God very much or to acknowledge God’s real power.

Most organized religions abide chiefly in the Law of Obedience, where teaching fear of punishment and hope of reward allows the leaders to keep control. Academia abides there too, being obedient to the laws of reason, proof and mind power.

The time may come when we find that intellectual knowledge is not enough for us, that even though our mind is packed with information, our heart is not content. Some of the symptoms of this yearning for more enlightenment are: We are lonely and feel alienated from God and from our fellowmen. We feel unloved and unlovable. We recognize that even when we are doing all we can do to repent of our sins, we cannot undo the sins nor repair the damage the sins have caused. We see that in spite of all our working and toiling and trying, we are not really any closer to God than when we came into the Law of Obedience and Sacrifice; we have just had enough experience to be wiser. We begin to ask different questions – “Am I really being obedient to all of God’s laws? What have I really sacrificed?”

We start to recognize that there is a difference between the LETTER of God’s law and the SPIRIT of that law. The taste of our lifestyle becomes stale and flat, as we realize that the things which we are able to accomplish by our obedience to the letter of the law and by virtue of our intelligent use of knowledge, are not the things that really matter in our relationship with God, or in our relationship with our neighbors, or in our relationship with our own self. We realize that our sacrifices have been only superficial – making monetary donations to charity; going to church instead of sleeping or playing; baking cookies for a sick neighbor; being late to the movie because we helped somebody in a stalled car. We have become wise and honest enough to admit that superficial sacrifices are not “the acceptable sacrifice,” because they are not really sacrifices at all. They are works with built-in rewards. We wonder how it would be possible to make an honest sacrifice.

The acceptable sacrifice is symbolically called “a broken heart and a contrite spirit.” The happenings which occur inside of us to make that symbolism alive with meaning are: (1) We dare acknowledge feelings to be an important reality, and we break down and sacrifice to God, in faith, the protective walls we have built around our heart as we struggled to overcome the world” by our own effort – so that our heart is open to RECEIVE the Lord. (2) We sacrifice our ego, by admitting there are things we cannot do, there are things about ourselves that we do not understand. We open our spirit to RECEIVE as a living reality the gift of the Holy Ghost, the first comforter.
(3) We acknowledge that God can do things we can’t do, and we ask God for help.

When we have made this acceptable sacrifice, we are born again, by the grace of God, into the next level of law, the Law of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the law of the heart, the law of the spirit. The law of mercy.


The Law of the Gospel of Jesus Christ
(Sanctification)

This is the law which Jesus Christ brought to the world. It is the law by which He fulfilled the Law of Moses. It is the law in which our old carnal nature can be made new in Christ. It is the place where Christ’s atoning sacrifice becomes a personalized reality. In this law we feel the relief of being freed from our sins and the peace of being forgiven of them. It is the law where we are able to understand our knowledge and so use it more beneficially. It is the law where we acknowledge that it is by GRACE we are saved, after all we can do.

On this level of law all our knowledge is translated into feeling and becomes alive in our awareness. The Lord, Himself, becomes our translator. The symbolic “Tree of Life, which our mind knows to be the Love of God, now becomes a feeling inside us. We partake of its fruit. We are able to feel God’s unconditional love for us. We become happily bewildered recipients of the grace of God.

Our knowledge convinces us that we are totally unworthy to be loved with such magnificent passion. Even though we have done all we can do, we have not done anything which could be remotely interpreted as having earned that love. It is an unmerited gift. As we begin to get accustomed to the warmth of bathing in the Lord’s love, we recognize another overwhelming feeling surging up inside s/. It is our love for the Lord. “We love Him because He first loved us!”

We are now able to use our knowledge freely, as a tool, rather than being bound by its limitations. We are free to understand that God, being perfect, could not love us with such perfect love unless we also had the potential to be perfect. Almost as soon as we are aware that we have sacrificed our ego (our proud carnal nature), the Lord of love performs in us the miracle of letting us see our divine nature as a possible reality. He gives us a new life for the old one. Our security in our knowledge is replaced with security in our goodness. This is a healing and comforting restoration. We begin to have experiences in which the goodness of our divine nature is a greater reality for us than the guilt and fear of our carnal nature. This greater understanding of ourself lets us look with hope to see the goodness in others. Our “works” become the works of Christ, motivated by unselfishness rather than hope of reward.

While in the state of innocence we do not feel accountable at all, and in the state of works we feel accountable only to ourselves, in the state of grace we feel totally accountable to God. We know God is greater than we are, and we know why. We stand in awe of Their power and beauty, not with a feeling of innocent fear, but with a feeling of knowledgeable gratitude. We feel God’s presence as a life-giving force inside us, and we rejoice in the grace which allows us to feel so blessed even while we are still behaving in the patterns of our fallen nature and know we are not “worthy” of such grace. The Lord then teaches us His definition of worthy – and suddenly we FEEL worthy; we feel of worth to the Lord, worth His Life!

The joy of feeling new and clean and good is so wonderful that for a time we become zealots crying to the world, “See! See! See what God can do!” Of course the miracle which has happened inside us is not visible to the world, so our cries are in vain. The world becomes our opposition. “Hell” is now experienced from outside ourself. We are at peace with God, but at war with the world. We are “in the world, but not of the world.”

Faith on this level of law is a very peaceful force. We are able to trust the Lord with all the inner burdens which had previously weighed us down with guilt and fear and worry and frustration and emotional instability. We have confidence in God’s power to help us, in Their willingness to help us, and in Their wisdom to help us in Their ways, even though we do not understand all Their ways. Our faith is truly in God. We feel God in us by means of the Second Comforter, Jesus Christ.

It is comfortable and peaceful to abide in the Law of Grace. Even though we may be persecuted by the world (people in lesser laws), we have a sure inner sanctuary with the Lord. In this place of peace the old wounds which have caused us to be defensive and hard-hearted are being healed by Him, at the same time He is helping us to honestly examine the heart of our spiritual self, thus revealing to us our divine nature.
Because the Lord has sanctified us with His love, we dare FEEL enough to acknowledge our own love-needs instead of suppressing them. We begin to know what love really is – having experienced the Love of God – and we are no longer ashamed or afraid of our needs to love and be loved.

We see and we understand and we feel the whole force of Satan’s wicked world fighting against love, and twisting every good thing into evil. And we find ourself once again with a broken heart. This time it is not because of our own pain we are troubled, but because of the pain and perversion in the whole world. We see how ineffectual are all man’s attempts to fight poverty, prejudice, corruption, ignorance, inequality, sickness and death. Our hearts convince us that only the Love of God which has healed us can also heal the agonized world. We yearn to be instruments through whom the love of Christ can flow as a blessing to others. And so by our own choice, we are born yet again into a new law, the Law of Love.

The Law of Consecration and Love
(Purification)

Jesus said, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”

In the Law of Love all the laws of God are made plain and pure.

“Charity never faileth. But whether there be prophecies they shall fail, whether there be tongues they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. Foe all things must fail. But Charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him. Wherefore, my beloved, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which He hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons and daughters of God; that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as He is pure.”

These are beautiful words, attributed to Paul in the Bible and/or Mormon in the Book of Mormon, testifying of the purification that occurs in the Law of Love. Everything which could precipitate confusion or opposition is done away, and everything which allows love to abide is quickened and made alive! “Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain,” are Isaiah’s symbolic ways of saying that opposition ceases when the Law of Love is fulfilled. Evil is replaced by good.

While all the other laws provide methods and ways for our becoming, the Law of Love provides the environment for our being all that it is possible for us to be. When we are purified by God to a full endowment in the Law of Love, we HAVE BECOME. We ARE the sons and daughters of God, true followers of Jesus Christ. We see Him as He is because we are like Him. The feelings which came alive in us in the Law of Grace are refined and purified into a sure place of righteousness. When we feel something is right, it is right. We know the truth, and we are free in the truth, because we are the truth. Our divine nature, our godliness, is our only reality, and in that goodness we stand with God against evil.

If this miracle of purification occurs in us while we are still mortals living in the environment of opposition, we do indeed become pilgrims in a strange land. We stand surely in our place with God on the side of righteousness, so the opposition cannot hurt us in an eternal sense. We have “endured to the end” – God being the beginning and the end.

However, our physical body is still very much in the world, and not being like the world, we will be subject to rejection and persecution, as was Christ in the world. God’s abiding love sustains us through whatever pain he world inflicts upon us.

In the Law of Love we are not accountable to anybody. We are One with God. We think, feel and move in complete harmony with Them. We worship God as Christ does – giving Them all the honor, all the power, all the glory, and acknowledging Them as Head of the Kingdom. At the same time we know and feel and are part of Their power and glory. We have consecrated our will and our Being to God, and we are quickened with the will and Being of God. We are in the Father-Mother, having given ourself to Them in love, even as the Father-Mother are in us, having given Themselves to us in love.

We do consecrate ourself to God – not in symbolic idolatry, nor blind obedience, nor fearful submission – but with full knowledge of all its implications, with clear understanding of its commitments and responsibilities, with the total freedom of having made an intelligent, heart-felt choice. We give God our will, our intelligence, our being, because we love Them with all our heart, mind and soul. That is all we have to give, and we give it for the only acceptable reason – Love. God gives us all that They have to give – Their glory, power, truth, beauty, light, joy – Their Love!

Our relationships with one another in the Law of Love are so glorious that we cannot truly comprehend such joy here in mortality, except as the Lord performs in us the miracle of quickening us with an infinite experience in loving someone purely. When there is no lust, no opposition, no perversion in our love, relationships between people provide the ultimate experience of fulfillment and joy. When we are purified by God we will automatically abide the order of God. In the flawless design of the Law of Love, purified beings do not desire a sexual relationship with anyone except the husband or wife given to them by God. Therefore we are free to explore every other facet of one another’s personality without ever being trapped or damned by feelings of lust. We love freely and purely. We are able to give all of our uniqueness to another and receive all of his or her uniqueness and rejoice in the new creation of our togetherness. Everyone who is abiding the Law of Love has perfect hope for infinite eternal, total fulfillment, so there is no jealousy or competition.

Progress in the Law of Love is creating. We are – so we create. Once we have become like God, there is no place for us to go in the direction of becoming. When we have received all the glory of God, then we do something with it. Our energy (God’s energy in us combined with our own unique personal-intelligence energy) flows outward, responding, quickening, creating, blessing. In the Law of Love, faith is an assurance within us of our ability to create, to actually do the works of God. Faith becomes the moving force behind our actions and creations.