Hello Agnieszka......God bless you....

Hi...I believe that in order to know God as being personal to us and wanting to know us is that the first thing we got to do is Believe...this is the first step and is not an easy one...after we get to know God personally we see by what He does for us in our lives that builds our faith....if you have any shadow of a doubt in His existence then God will not work for you..

I always kind of knew God did exist because I took such an interest in nature when I was very young ...I was always interested why things were the way they were...like the rivers never running out of water....how the ocean is always there and stays it boundries, how bumble bees can fly ...but according to their size they should not be able to ...how the platapus looks like an animal and then like a duck....these things interested me a great deal..

I would often look at the night sky and get excited to think those millions of stars could be other planets like this one....now that I am older I understand more of what creation is because I believe in God as that Creator...looking at the world now and all the explanations of how things work , just interest me so much more...imagine if you could see the energy that the moon pulls on the tides..when the moon pulls the tides the earth actually buldges to pull the water ....awesome...no one else could make this creation of heaven and earth...it is to designed...to intelligent to have happen just at random...

These are some of the things I search into when I have doubt God exists...google earth has so many pictures of the univese...how awesome and huge it is full of galaxies, stars, suns and other planets...it all just seems to demand more answers...how does our solar system stay when out in the universe super nova are exploding....

I believe that a lot of people do not find God because they have doubts about His existence and do not give Him a 100% chance before making up their minds...when I first found Jesus .....I did so .one because my son had been praying for my salvation for years...to have that kind of love is awesome....and when I took the step with God (as nothing else worked in my life)..I decided to do this with both feet...it takes Great Faith...and then once you believe then God Himself will show you how to get close to Him...

Once you have given your heart to God...then we must also believe that the bible is a Divine Living example of Gods Love...it transpires through time and space...when we read the prayer Jesus said for us in John 17...we realize how the Christ can be Living now for that prayer was said two thousand years ago for us now who would believe in Him...it passed through time and space to me...awesome God ....and I got the message...He is Alive and Living inside us all.....once you start reading the bible it starts to reveal to you things about yourself only you thought you knew ...this is the beginning of trusting God is there and knows you and has long before our time put plans for you together to be here now...

Following the principals He sets out in the bible is the beginning....how do we follow Jesus well, we first become like Him...it may seem impossible to do this ...but Jesus Himself said we would do more than He did ......I made a list of what I thought God was..God being the Trinity...Father, Son, Holy Spirit.......the bible gives you all the information you need to research each one out ....for example in Gen..God says Let Us make man in our Imagine..well this would have to mean the three of them...with the angels help of course..these are the scriptures you dig out and find...in Gen...it says God made the day and the night and the seasons and time....these are the things to search out and have Faith that this is the work of God....

So if we have Faith that God is real...then we become like him...as we are made in His image...not an easy job...it takes work each and every day...but after awhile you become like Jesus having a Christ mind...what is He ....The Lord God  is Love, Kindness, Mercy, Grace, Patient, Happy, Joyful, Healed, Generous, Giving, Helpful, Caring ....and the Attributes of God just grow as you learn to wear each one upon you....this wont work if you dont work at it .....but it is fun and exciting to see Gods work...we must ask Him for all things.......for strength, comfort, healing, wisdom, knowledge...we must ask the Lord to provide this when we need it.....we must ask for wisdom and knowledge every time we pick up the bible ....these are things we do each day...so each day we work on one of them until we get the whole list down...wearing it upon us .....

Which ever attribute you find the hardest work on that one...and dont give up until you accomplished it to the point that it is part of your personality...if for example you are cranky in the mornings and it drives your family crazy...well start there....each day when you feet hit the floor ask the Lord , please give me your peace that bypasses human understanding (know scriptures)...the Lord tells us we must die to self...why do others say we are lost.....we must strip ourselves down of all the things sin has done to us and start new....with all the loving things we really are...this comes from the esssence inside us put there by God before we were born...we all have this self inside us ...but we must work to get it out into the open...the world and sin has buried it deep inside of us ...not good...

One day at a time add a new attribute to the day...my motto is if you dont have something good to say ...dont say anything....this may take a walk away from things or just learning to keep our mouths silent instead of blurting things out ...once a bad things is out it is out..it cannot be taken back ...this is not love but means of hurting others because we have been hurt etc...believe me when I say if you want the fire of Jesus upon you this is how to start....walk His walk ...become like Him and pretty soon your confidence in your self will improve and you will have seen when you ask (pray) you receive...this is how I started....the more scripture you know the easier it is .....for it is the scriptures that replace the bad things you are trying to change...Faith is no good without action...a lot of people dont know God because they dont want to make decisions ...well with decisions comes change....and how people hate change....me I love it ....it is exciting to never know what is in store for me today....

Jesus is our Brother , He is the One who came to earth to show us ..we can do this ...He did it the whole time He was here not sin...this is what we work for sin perfected which in turn gives us redemption....we can become perfect....as we work more and more towards God....but it is a trip of a lifetime...for sure....Awesome God we Worship...if you have read any of my thread or postings you will see the Holy Spirit is on me at all times...this is because I work daily to please God and work to become in His Image....I count my wonderful blessings ...my hubby, a roof over my head, food, clothing all the things He provides for me.....all things come from God whether it is a job for money, Canada Pension, Disability, Welfare, Foodbanks....all of these things are provided by Him. so any person who works for a living is no different then someone who is on Disability..it is Gods way of taking care of us....

As we become....love, peace, wise, knowledgable, merciful, graceful, grateful , kind, patient, healed, generous, compassinate, we learn to have purpose, vision when we work to be these it changes us and changes all who are around us ...side effects lol  lol...we must learn to be accepting of others, stop judging, stop arguing, stop insulting, stop being selfish....this is not  the Mind of Christ ...believe me when we change a day at a time...God becomes more and more personal...

I will add that I am no different then anyone else....I have lost loved ones, grown tired of suffering with health problems, not having any energy to do what I want....I too have trials and troubles in my life....but I have Faith God will bring me through all of this and I will come out on top...for God has a purpose for me....and for all others who want to get to know him....I know Agz...this is a lot to take in ...but I also know from being on wondercafe ...that you know God....You know the Scriptures, your are a kind wonderful person....I have taken in your advice more than once and have applied it to my life...you seem to have a relationship with God I and others can see that...but I also know how it feels when we have our times in the desert and it seems Jesus is just not there...but He is and always will be like the poem Footprints...

But we just cannot change a few things we must always strive to be the best we can be and get rid of the side of us othes may call...ego, shadow, pride etc...what would Jesus do in this situation....He would ...what ?....Pray to the Father for all things..there are so many things that bring us close to the Lord ...and I am searching out God every chance I get...the more we search the more we find....

Well sorry Agz....to make this so long .....but God entails so much....

In Jesus Love Betty-Jean....

Hello Agnieszka:

After one winter spent almost entirely in meditation and contemplation, I knelt down on the eve of the Spring Equinox and fervently and earnestly asked Jesus Christ to reveal God to me.

What I experienced, beginning four hours later, was a six hour vision of cosmic evolution that began with nothing and ended with the world as it is today.

Ever since, Jesus Christ has been my foremost Mentor and Guide, my Saviour and Sage. Athough I don't use quite the same language as Betty-Jean to describe my relationship with Jesus, my feelings about Jesus are very similar to hers.

You are here to kneel

Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more

Than an order of words, the conscious occupation

Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.

And what the dead had no speech for, when living,

They tell you, being dead: the communication

Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living. 

-T.S. Eliot

Hello, Agneiszka -

For me, Jesus is relationship with other people. I always have before me "If you have done it for one of the least of these, you have done it for me." Jesus may or may not have actually said those words - but the message is clear and important. All of Jesus' teachings were about how we live in relationship to every other person we meet.

So for me, the "second coming" of Jesus is not a literal return of the person of Jesus into the world. He was human, and died; but we do speak of "seeing the face of Jesus in everyone we meet", and Jesus being visible in us. He is reborn again and again in every human being, in every part of God's creation.

In the Pentecost story, all the disciples could understand other tongues and other languages, and "spoke in tongues". That speaks to me of transcending our linguistic and cultural differences, to see the holy in the other, and understand them.

So for my experience, learning to live in loving relationship with others means a relationship with Jesus as well.

Fran

Hello all.....God bless you.....

Amen and Amen........+

When you are praying to Jesus, do you believe that there is a supernatural presence of Jesus there with you?  I don't have much experience with this kind of experience, so it's hard for me to envision this.  I mean, I do believe in positive loving presences around us - saints, angels... Is Jesus like that for you?  When you are asking Jesus or praising Jesus or just talking to Jesus... do you think Jesus is there?? 

I understand that when I am serving my children and my family, I am serving Jesus... or when I am connecting with other people in general.  But in my prayer life, I really yearn to be connected to Jesus the way practitioners of yoga might be connected with a guru... with affection and respect and a mutual connection.  Am I sounding bonkers?  I might be... I used to have this kind of relationship with the Holy Virgin (I was raised Catholic) and She was such a powerful presence for me, holding me up in difficult times... She still does, but not as much now because it's Jesus that I desire to serve and be close to, as well as Mary...

Anyway... this is a bit of a rant.  I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Blessings,

A.

Hi Agnieszka:

I don't believe in the supernatural; I think everything is natural, even though we may have no plausible explanations for it.

The "Christ," to me, is the experience of cosmic unity and synthesis. Words pale in comparison to the experience! But, from my Christ experience, the experience is best achieved by turning away from the outward distractions of life, and turning inward in prayer, meditation, contemplation or meditative practice. Then we experience the actual "is-ness" of being, an all-unifying experience of peace and love, of at-one-ment with everyone and everything, including God, and of unititve awarenss, compassion, consciousness and conscience.

Praying directly to someone, such as Jesus, who has attained this state perfectly, may help. But it is not those sages that bring about the experience. The experience is achieved by our own efforts, and is unique for each individual seeker. No-one can tell anyone else what their experience of the Divine ought to be like! Every one of us experiences God uniquely, and God experiences ITself uniquely in and through every one of us!

We are innately linked with God. The barrier between us and God was not errected by God, but by us. It is therefore up to us to remove the barrier. Praying to those who have successfully removed the barrier and achieved a profound union and communion with the Divine may help, but prayer alone will not bring about the union. At least this is my experience, but other people experience differently, and interpret their experience differently.

Listen to your own inner wisdom, your own intuition!

In Cosmic Unity,

Arminius

Hi Agn.....God bless you....

The Kingdom of God is inside us and we must bring it to the surface...although we might know all the scriptures all the principals ..we change ourselves from the inside out by the Love Of Jesus.....renewing Our Minds to be Christ Minds...it is in us ...but it just got buried...that is why when we make the choice to Follow the Lord we begin by knowing Him....I started reading the New Testament...the birth , baptism, ministry, arrest, betrayel, death and of course His Resurrection....when I meditae on any of the scriputures I believe they are from the Father, through the Son, to the Holy Spirit unto me...thus the kingdom inside....but again we must Believe without a doubt God lives...and is with us here and now....

This may sound dumb to you Agn...but when I ask God to forgive me for something ...I actually hear His voice say yes bygraceiam..I forgive you..it is not a voice as such but a feeling inside my heart I hear...how do we know He forgives , He always acknowledges me when I ask for forgiveness...

I pray always in the name of Jesus..

I become the attributes of the Christ learning from Him..this is how to know Jesus ...He is in our Hearts...waiting to bloom us ..lol lol...are we all of these things, love, peace, joy, security, wise, knowledge, honesty, forgiveness, patient, kind, fair, right, happy when we become these we are working towards perfection of sin...Awesome...this make you the Character of the Lord God.......check out 1 Corth. 13..on Love ..it is not as easy as it seems....

I wish I could explain it better but it is more of a heart feeling .....

Just Have Faith in Your Imagination...I apply the Blood of the Lord over all my house, my health and of course all the others I love in my life...I use Gods angels and call upon them to minister to me or others when in need...I ask the angels to always watch over my loved ones on trips...using these things brings the Lord Gods ..supernatural, mystical side to us ...it is a mystery ...how God works...

IJL:bg

Hi again Agnieszka -

No, you aren't sounding bonkers at all. You are grappling with some difficult things, and in that space, nothing sounds bonkers. So don't worry about that...

I don't speak to Jesus in the way you are thinking - my prayer is more what Arminius talks about, a turning inward and meditating, contemplating and trying to live life with as much compassion as I am able.  So I have experienced the presence of God - or the presence of the divine, however we describe it - in a Buddhist service of memory for my father-in-law. I have experienced something indescribable in a vision/insight which opened the universe and opened my awareness of what we call "supernatural" because it is ordinarily outside our realm of concrete human experience.

Fran

Hi Fran: Yes, supernatural as in supranormal: outside the scope of ordinary human experience. I'd go for that definition!

Light and darkness, up/down, right/wrong all the differential poles that separate us from a sense of unity. They are just words that describe our experience with something beyond our full awareness. Is this myth, none sense or just the unknown mystery of "Love"?

Now love is an unmentionable thing in a Roman world where hate is the supreme emotion ... otherwise how could you go to war with that entity and not have great conflicts within? Is this a bare enlightenment of what it is like to destroy something of a great creative tendancy? No wonder Caligula was considered a little "off"!

How do each of us experience awareness ... what is named in theology as ontology ... and often made taboo space by many theologian, authoritarian sorts? Does it vary from our time space and roots ... what a geneticist theologian told me, is DNA that controls everything. I argue that with him ... the thought generated in the mind seems to be outside the lump of DNA. Can one overide the other? Now there's a quantum experience that can rest on the individuals powers to reach outside the past for answers.

Damn wouldn't that be Pan Door's Box and we ... as Pagans aren't supposed to go there? It would be stepping beyond the bounds ... outside the edges of the mortal limits! That's my twist on thought and inbred emotions; right/wrong, up/down ... I'll consider stuff beyond the limits ... the shiyr edge. I may trash some of those observations (Occum's Razor) as not good for the whole body of that anima we call human that is mostly asleep and wouldn't question anything from a past authority that they took as a God. That seems to define a past love that has no light to shed on a future vision in a dark space.

Could something give Revelations in a wet fiery pool ... like an Eire of sorts? (Eire is the old Celtic word for the sole/mind/whatever sort of duality you might attach to a loving, thinking psyche. Now if pure thought is chilling would a bit of care and light warm it to a melting, moulding, amour fuss state of a giggle?

A loving thought ... given ... is like that ... a grace, like James Joyce's Daedalius ... a morph of the word dadaelians; a term for the "father" of a non-material process ... like the soul in a recovering state after striking it up with a primal love that would cause someone to forget any intelligence? It is something that creates out of nothing ... a mythical logic ... that is beyond all reason!

You do think about it a lot after the explosive incident. Consider the rheum er's of the Big Bang, for something in alien space like a mind of consciousness ... it makes for a dreamy initiations with consequences. Humans deny consequences for their actions ... just like children of Gods ... what some definitions state as daemons.

The Gospel Of John pushes the word as primal ... then how many of us really know the state of words and how they have morphed and twisted through the ages? I know I have just touched the fringe of the Sea and there are in excess of 650,000 according to one source. The average person uses less than 600, and will demand that he has the infinite in hand. Now is that funny or what about knowing an infinite love of communion?

Does the language of an infinite Love change or is that just linguistic alter Ego? The other side of the cosmological sole integral?

I haven't replied because I'm thinking.

But here is something I wanted to speak to.  It's from Arminius:

"Praying directly to someone, such as Jesus, who has attained this state perfectly, may help. But it is not those sages that bring about the experience. The experience is achieved by our own efforts, and is unique for each individual seeker. No-one can tell anyone else what their experience of the Divine ought to be like! Every one of us experiences God uniquely, and God experiences ITself uniquely in and through every one of us!"

See, when I was a dedicated yoga student (dedicated but not in an "official" way), I learned that I was a "bhakti" yogini, which basically means that my style of spiritual path/seeking is that of worship.  I know I am also a contemplative by nature, but worship does bring me to a greater openness to the Divine... 

The other thing is that,  I would question whether the experience of the Divine is achieved by our own efforts.  I wonder whether  efforts help us become open to the Divine and as for the actual experience  I'm inclined to believe that the experience is actually a result of Grace... and Grace comes from the Divine!  As to what or how this experience will be like, no, no one can tell another that... yet, our temperaments might play a role in that...

Would an open-mind, open-heart assist? That wouldn't be a normal human process would it? Perhaps the reason for the fall ...

If ideas that strike us from the shadows were shared openly perhaps we could gather some thoughts ...

perhaps in another dimension of time, space, light ... whatever!

Hi Agnieszka:

I think Grace is unconditionally available to us—if and when we are open to IT. We have to create the conditions for that openness, and open ourselves, by turning away from outward distractions and turning inward. Some achieve this by a "centering prayer," others through meditation or contemplation or contemplative practice. Every seeker has to find out for him or herself which meditative practice suits them best.

Our world of concepts is not the ultimate, godly reality. It is difficult to turn away from our world of concepts, because we think it is the only reality there is. However, to experience the unfathomable reality which is God, we have to turn away from our conceptual reality, and open ourselves to the godly reality, which is always there, waiting for us to open ourselves to IT.

Anyway, that's what I think and feel. It may not be so, but it is the best explanation I have at the present time.

Keep on seeking!

Hi, Agnieszka -

This statement really caught me, and I had to say yes. In the period before my spiritual "epiphany", as it were, several other things had occurred over about a year. First, I spent a week in a Transformational Leadership course - away from home, in intense sessions each day as well as small groups, and worship. Then I was invited to be one of 100 people who spent a week in a vision process for the United Church, with our then-moderator Peter Short. A few months later I took the Kalachakra Empowerment when the Dalai Lama was here in Toronto.

When I began to speak of the spiritual experience to my Buddhist mentor, and commented that I'd never had such an experience before, and was surprised - he said that probably the previous processes had been instrumental in opening me in such a way that it could happen.

Your quote:

"The other thing is that,  I would question whether the experience of the Divine is achieved by our own efforts.  I wonder whether  efforts help us become open to the Divine and as for the actual experience  I'm inclined to believe that the experience is actually a result of Grace... and Grace comes from the Divine!  As to what or how this experience will be like, no, no one can tell another that... yet, our temperaments might play a role in that..."

As for Grace - it is given by the Divine, but yes, we have to be open to receive it - and perhaps what Arminius says is helpful here - that by turning inward we prepare a space, or "shift" something inside, so that the Grace can be received.

Hi,  I believe that God is in all of us and we can feel Him in our hearts and follow Him if we wish to obey Him.  When we serve Him we can serve Jesus in every person we meet.  What we do to each person we do to Jesus in each person.