Peace should generate activity.

September 18, 1981

God is with you as you once again gather to receive God’s word. 

It was particularly fitting that so much time was spent this evening attempting to grapple with the infinite truths contained in God’s most recent message to you. As is true with all acts of faith, you must approach God from your own viewpoint. None of you can accept God’s teachings with equal application, for the words speak to each of you in an individual way. The same truth will be interpreted by one as a confirmation of faith, but by another as a challenge to faith. Truth cannot be accepted in any other way, for the substance of these communions is in fact directly from God, focused onto your souls through our love. 

Each of you is at a different spot on the journey of your soul to God. It is not important which souls have progressed further along, but it is true that each of you is at a different point. If you stand near a light of great intensity, the heat from that lamp will be felt most strongly by those who are close and less intensely by those more distant. The position of those who feel that light has no bearing on the actual strength of the light, nor the reality of its brilliance. All that differs is the perception. That is what you witnessed this evening—a difference in perception. But what God has relayed to you, is nevertheless, unfailingly true. 

Your concern for the judgment of others permeates your entire life. Constantly each of you is being evaluated. Each of you has opportunities for evaluating the work of others, but in that evaluation your judgment is one of action. It must not be one of substance. By that we mean that you evaluate what others do, but you cannot judge who they are, for to make a judgment you must have knowledge, and you can never know fully who another is. Therefore, you cannot judge. 

You can know another’s actions. They are visible. They have been felt and heard. Those elements are what you respond to. There is nothing wrong with reacting honestly to another’s behavior. It is appropriate, it must be encouraged. If it is inappropriate, it must be changed, for you are responding to a human manifestation. You are not responding to the essence of that person. It is therefore not wrong when steps are made to alter another’s behavior, if that is what is appropriate, but that is not what we mean by judgment. 

Spiritual judgment is an act of confirming or denying an individual’s ultimate worth. Ultimate here means permanent. It is not restricted to earthly living. That kind of judgment cannot be made. Indeed, none of you actually make that judgment, for the awareness which is necessary belongs to God alone. But by emphasizing the need to avoid judgment, we are in turn emphasizing the need for recognition of an aspect of another which is beyond comprehension. That is the divine part, the spirit or soul. You must accept on faith that all contain that divine spark of which we so often speak. 

You become aware of the spirituality of others through their actions, for there is no other way to receive the stimulus necessary for relating to someone else. It is what you observe through your senses. So often we speak of the need for being a witness to God by what you do. Such witness is faith put into action. It is not words. Words are only symbols, but action is as close to reality as one can communicate to another. Therefore, your actions, your involvement, your presence in the life of another becomes the means by which you enable God to reach out to another. Your prayers are vital, that you know. You also know that your prayers are answered, but another individual cannot be aware of your prayers. They may achieve a growing sense of God’s presence only through your manifestations of your faith. 

You cannot help others who have no belief in God and a spiritual life by telling them about such matters, for what you are telling them, in a sense, is not new. It has already been rejected. Therefore, when you have a need for reaching out to another who has no sense of God, you must bring God within your relationship to that person. You therefore become the hands of God. God works through you. 

This is one very clear example of the way that God needs you. God needs you not because God is powerless, but because you are the most effective tool. God is not without influence alone. There is much that God does without human intervention, but there are many times when the needs of one person can best be met through the efforts of another. That is God working, and that is why each of you is so vital for God’s influence on Earth to be recognized. It is this recognition which we underline most strongly, for there are many who can accept God on faith alone, a belief that God must exist and therefore does. But for the vast majority, it is not possible to fully embrace the reality of the actual presence of God unless there is evidence. Much of that evidence is through those to whom God has spoken. 

What matters is it whether an individual accepts God purely on faith or as the result of evidence observed? It is only important that God be accepted. For different people there are different means. All means are equally valid. For some, it is the support of corporate worship. Within that surrounding, God may be felt very strongly. For others, it is the receiving of God’s word in various forms: audibly, visually, or manually through some mechanical device. For some, the recognition of God comes through prayer. There are many who feel close to God only in prayer, but that does not diminish the importance of God in their lives. The recognition has been achieved. You must therefore become more sensitive to how you can reach others as instruments of God. For one person, you may be witness in one manner, but for another, a different kind of witness is appropriate. 

We would wish that in some way all of you can find ways of meeting with us more often. There is so much that we have to help you with. Your lives are stronger and more assured through your broadened vision of God, but it is only the beginning. The path to be traveled is a long one. The scope of your lives demands the need for a deeper understanding of the application of God’s teachings and the witnessing of God’s reality in your lives. We are anxious to help. We wish to help each of you individually and strongly suggest that each alone find a time before your next meeting when you can still your minds and try to become open to a stronger feeling of God’s presence in your lives. Some of you have experience with such efforts already, but we feel that more effort should be exerted. God speaks to you not only in this group, but God can reach you when you are alone. 

To sense God’s presence, however, you must be in a position to listen. Too often your lives are packed with activities which fatigue you and make it impossible for you to find time to do nothing but listen and pray. We ask that each find some time during the day when you can develop these skills of being open to God. It is not easy to initiate, but it is important and rewarding beyond measure. 

All of you have the ability to commune with God in a way which is appropriate for your needs. Develop that ability. Seek ways of helping it grow, for when God becomes an increasingly evident aspect of your approach to life through such personal contact, you will find it easier to select appropriate ways of reaching out to others. You will find each of your lives more harmonious, for they will be ordered with priorities established with God at the center. 

None of you has the ultimate answers to God’s response through you to another. Each has much to learn. That learning does not take place, therefore, only at such times as you are now gathered together. Be still and you will know God. Seek avenues of peace in your lives. Seek them with greater fervor than activity, for the strength and direction of that activity come from all that you receive through such peace. It is therefore the peace in your lives which should generate your activity rather than activity limiting your opportunities for peace. The latter style of life is empty in the end. The former is always fulfilling. 

Your responsibility to help others is of primary importance in your daily lives. That help may be subtle. It may be through prayer. It may be through action, but it is the most important activity in which you can engage. Such help may perhaps be an attitude—one of tolerance, one of acceptance. It may be as strong as a sense of love and caring, but do not turn your back on those opportunities which are so much a part of your life’s activities leading to the growth of others, for that is the exercise of love, and that is the channel through which God’s flock is fed. 

Reach to God with your arms. Reach to God with your eyes and ears and minds and hands. Use every sense in your power to draw upon God, and use every sense as a way of elevating another. 

God fills your souls with light. God fills your minds with questions. God strengthens your sense of mission. Rejoice that it is God that you serve! Rejoice that you know God in a personal way! It is not a complete knowledge, but it is so intimate. Don’t be afraid to reflect God’s light in your lives. Illuminate the world! 

God blesses you and we surround you with our prayers. 

Amen.