| Answer
from Jesus:
As you will see from my answer
to another question, there
is indeed more than one true and valid religion. In reality, the true
religion is the religion that opens your heart to God and helps you
rise to a state of consciousness in which you can see and fully accept
that you are indeed a son or daughter of God who is worthy to enter
your Father's kingdom.
I am sure you can see that the process of getting from your current
state of consciousness to the state of consciousness that I am talking
about must take place inside yourself. We are not talking about becoming
a member of an outer organization, swearing allegiance to its outer
doctrines or participating in its outer rituals. There simply is no
organization on Earth that can guarantee your salvation. There never
was such an organization and there will be—no matter how many
claims are made to the contrary.
One of my most important statements, as they are found in the current
Bible, is the statement that the kingdom of God is within you:
20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom
of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God
cometh not with observation:
21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the
kingdom of God is within you. (Luke, Chapter 17)
You will see that I said
that the kingdom of God comes not with observation. It cannot be found
through outer activities; it can be found only by purifying your heart
and transforming your state of consciousness.
So the right religion for you personally is the one that opens your
heart to God and helps you manifest the higher state of consciousness
that truly is the kingdom of God, the inner kingdom. On this website,
and during my mission in Galilee, I called this state of consciousness
for the Christ consciousness. However, you can use any name you prefer,
because the name is not important. It is the state of consciousness
itself that is important.
There are many of the religions found on Earth that have indeed produced
people who attained the consciousness that allowed them to enter the
kingdom of Heaven. There are also people who have attained this state
of consciousness without belonging to any formal religion. You will
note that I said that blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall
see God. When you purify your heart, you attain the state of consciousness
that allows you to see that you are one with God because God created
you as an individualization of himself. This realization can come only
when you attain conscious contact with your Christ self and your I AM
Presence.
Contrary to the beliefs held by so many orthodox people from virtually
every religion, God is not concerned about which religion you follow.
God is no respecter of persons, and therefore God is no respecter of
people's beliefs about which religion is the only true religion. In
fact, I can assure you that the entire idea that there can be only one
true religion never originated from God or from the Ascended Host. It
originated with the serpentine consciousness that wants to prove God
wrong, as Mother Mary has explained in her beautiful
discourse.
This entire serpentine state of consciousness, which I often refer to
as the carnal mind, wants to believe that there is an outer salvation,
an automatic salvation, a guaranteed salvation. This is the false path
that I talk about in another
discourse and which the Bible refers to in the saying that there
is a way that seems right unto a man but the ends thereof are ways of
death [Proverbs 14:12].
You will see that I often chastised the lawyers, the scribes and the
Pharisees for following and promoting this outer path. You will see
that I chastised people for doing their alms in public and for giving
their prayers in public. I warned about rote repetition, not because
repetition is wrong but because a ritual that is performed without engaging
and opening the heart has little value in the eyes of God.
The serpentine mind wants you to believe that salvation can be attained
through outer means; that it is a mechanical process. In other words,
if you follow certain rules and believe certain doctrines, then God
simply has to save you. So many religious people are literally trying
to strike a deal with God, yet God gives salvation freely to all who
will accept it. The problem is that you cannot accept God’s gift
while you are trapped by the carnal mind. As explained in my parable
about the wedding feast [Matthew 21:1-14], you cannot enter the wedding
feast without putting on the wedding garment. The wedding garment is
the Christ consciousness, and nothing less will gain you entry to the
kingdom of God.
The serpentine mind also wants you to believe that once you have attained
salvation, it is a state of no change and you need never strive again.
Yet in reality, God is the eternal creator. God never stands still because
God is constantly creating. The only way God can create is to transcend
himself and his sense of identity. Therefore, as a son or daughter of
God, you are meant to be a co-creator with God, and therefore you cannot
stand still either. You must be willing to constantly self-transcend,
and this is indeed the key to the kingdom of Heaven. Therefore, you
can never stand still while on Earth—and neither can you stand
still in Heaven.
You cannot simply find a church that you define as the one true church,
accept its doctrines and follow its rituals and then think you will
make it to Heaven. You must continually strive to expand your understanding
of the spiritual side of life, to purify your heart and to raise your
state of consciousness, so that you can express more of your divine
individuality every day. There are people who have made great strides
on the spiritual path for decades and who come to a point where they
feel like they have done enough, and now is time to relax and rest on
their laurels. Because of the downward pull of matter itself, combined
with the serpentine consciousness, such people will immediately, and
often without realizing it, begin to slide back into a lower state of
consciousness. If they are not alert, they can eventually lose much
of the spiritual attainment that they had gained through their decade-long
efforts.
The true religion is one that opens your heart to God and keeps it open,
so that you can continue to transcend yourself and express more of God
every day. I am aware that many orthodox religions promote the serpentine
lie of an outer salvation. Yet within all of those churches there are
still people who manage to see beyond this lie and open their hearts
to me and to God. I honor such people no matter which religion they
follow, and I only hope that more and more people will discover the
inner path to Christhood. This is truly the key to transforming the
old, stale religions into living churches that can once again be open
to the winds of the Holy Spirit. God is a Spirit and those that worship
him must worship him in spirit and in truth [John 4:24].
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Copyright
© 2004 by Kim Michaels |
