SPIRITUALITY: 2010

What's Your Spiritual Type?

In our biodata or resume we usually include religion as an item of information about ourselves. And in many government forms, as in that for the census, religion is also put as an item.

We usually put in this item of information the religion we are affiliated with. Some put Roman Catholic, others put Protestant, still others just put Christian, or Muslim, or Hindu, or Buddhist or other terms like agnostic or atheist or none.

But today where more and more no longer enter the church or practice their religion or who prefer to be called “the unchurched”, it seems that it will become useless to ask their religion because it does not describe them as to their religious beliefs.

Religion or Spiritual Type?

A better term to put in this item might be “spiritual type”. But since this term is rather new to most people, it will take some time before this item will be put in our biodata or on government forms, if it will be put at all.

The term “religion” refers to what religious group a person belongs to. But the term “spiritual type” refers to his or her spiritual orientation.

Quizzes on Spiritual Types

There are quizzes on spiritual types. Some are serious. Others are just for entertainment. I took one for entertainment. After completing the test I was rated as confident believer. There are eight categories in the results of this quiz, from hardcore skeptic to candidate for clergy.

Another quiz has these categories in the results: sage, prophet, lover, mystic.

How about you? What is your spiritual type?

There are many ways of classifying spiritual types. Here are some of them and you may rate yourself accordingly.

Western Oriented or Eastern Oriented or Both

Your spiritual type is either western oriented or eastern oriented or a combination of both. You are western oriented if you subscribe to the writings in the Western part of the world, like the Christian Bible or the Muslim Qur’an. You are eastern oriented if you prefer to get ideas from the writings in the Eastern part of the world, like the Bhagavad Gita of the Hindus or the Tripitaka of the Buddhists. It is possible that you combine both types, believing in all these sacred writings. After all it is not impossible to be a Christian and yet believe also in reincarnation or practice yoga. Some Christians think that this is impossible to combine, Christianity and belief in reincarnation. But Jesus himself said that John the Baptist was the reincarnation of Elijah the prophet.

Theistic or Atheistic or Agnostic

Your spiritual type may be theistic or atheistic or agnostic. It is theistic if you believe in God, atheistic if you do not believe in God, or agnostic if you do not care about this belief or profess that you cannot know anything about God.

Beginner or Proficient or Perfect

In the classical treatment of western spirituality there were basically three spiritual types which were really stages in prayer. These were the beginners, the proficient, and the perfect. The beginners were those who have decided to renounce the world and made a resolve to practice the discipline of prayer. The proficient was one who was already practicing the discipline of prayer and is already progressing in this exercise. The perfect was the one who attained already the contemplative level in prayer, where he or she no longer prays with words or ideas but only with a loving desire focused on God. I want to add here a fourth level, the non-beginners, those who have not yet resolve anything as regards their spiritual life.

A More Useful Classification of Spiritual Types

Perhaps a more useful classification of spiritual types would be: a) The non-conscious seeker of the Spirit; b) The purposeful seeker of the Spirit; c) The finder of the Spirit; d) The sharer of the Spirit.

a. The non-conscious seeker of the Spirit is one who has no idea yet of the spiritual life or spirituality. The majority of people would fall under this category.

b. The purposeful seeker is one who has already begun his or her search for the things of the spirit in a conscious manner. He or she knows that he or she is in pursuit of the things of the spirit and wants to continue.

c. The finder of the Spirit is one who has already found the connection with the Spirit and has a constant communication with him. The spiritual life is not a continuous search for what we cannot find. It has to end in a “eureka”.

d. The sharer of the Spirit is one who leads others to the Spirit. We have here the spiritual teachers who guide others safely to the things of the spirit.

My question is: What is your spiritual type? If you are reading this most probably you are a seeker. Or you may be a finder already. Think about your spiritual type and if you are not yet a sharer of the Spirit, learn more about him. He will guide you to share him with others.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.

What Are the Spiritual Qualities That Make Up Our True Identities?

It is strange that when a person is looking for something that will bring him or her true and lasting happiness, the question that will always bother him or her is: “Who am I?” It is a question of his or her identity. He or she wants to know who he or she really is. It is because his or her happiness ultimately depends on the knowledge of his or her true identity. If a person knows who he or she really is, he or she would be satisfied and would find true and lasting happiness.

We Have Different Identities

But this leads us to a fundamental truth of our identities. Each of us is different from one another. If the question were “What am I?” we could answer it in the same way: “I am a human being with flesh and blood and a bundle of needs and desires.”

But the question is not “What am I?” but “Who am I?” And each one of us has to answer differently just as each of us has a different name with a distinct thumb mark.

In other words we have different identities.

Imitation or Cultivation of Our Unique Identity

It is a waste of time imitating the identities of other people. But when we were children we tended to do this. We imitated our father, our mother, our teacher, our mayor in town, our village chief, or anyone we admired.

But now as we grow older we have a life of our own and we have our own identity. Or rather we form our own identity.

Personal identity is not something that is given to us. Nor is it something that we discover as we stumble along life’s way. It is something that we form by ourselves with the help of other people. And this brings us to our most relevant question: What are the spiritual qualities that make up our true identities?

Implicit in this question is the principle that if we want to know who we are and if we are the ones who form our identities, then we have to cultivate certain qualities which make up our true identities. Let us look for those qualities. Cultivate them. In so doing we shall discover who we really are.

Portland psychiatrist Dr. Philip Shapiro, M.D. has a list of 100 spiritual qualities in alphabetical order. The list is of course not exhaustive. For example he does not have anything under the letter z. He ends with the letter w. The list I suggest here is different from his list. For one thing my list is much, very much shorter.

I suggest that the following are the spiritual qualities that make up our true identities. Cultivating them will lead us to form and consequently “discover” our true identities.

Passionate Love for the Truth

This is first, a passionate love for the truth. Because of this passionate love we search for the truth of our self, of our neighbors, of our world. This involves study, not the study that we experienced in schools which was mostly memorizing, but a search for the causes and effects of what is happening around us and in us.

Courage to Take Risks

Second is the courage to take risks in our life projects. We all want to do something important in our life, whether it is in our personal life, our family, our community or even country and the world. And we dare to do the un-attempted yet in order to blaze a new trail. We subscribe to the motto “Nothing dared, nothing done.”

Willingness to Admit Mistakes and Correct Ourselves

Third is the willingness to admit mistakes and correct ourselves. In our endeavors sometimes we succeed, at other times we fail. We commit mistakes. The mistakes if accepted will lead us to where there are no mistakes.

Willingness to Listen to the Spirit

The fourth quality I suggest is the willingness and ability (which will come about if there is first the willingness) to just be still, silent and listen to the Spirit who created this world and fills this world with himself. With the unerring guidance of this Spirit we will truly form our identities.

Perseverance

And the fifth is perseverance. Nothing happens to the man who does not persevere. Many have been an inch away from the fortune they were seeking if only they persevered. We go on cultivating these spiritual qualities in our lives and sooner than later we shall form, find, discover and enjoy our true identities.

Passionate love for the truth, courage to take risks, willingness to admit mistakes and correct them, willingness and ability to be still, silent and listen to the Spirit, and perseverance: these are the spiritual qualities that make up our true identities. Cultivating them will help us to form our true identities and consequently lead us to true and lasting happiness.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Is Your Spirituality an Ultimate Reality?

Everywhere people seem to search for that which is ultimate: ultimate gadget, ultimate happiness, ultimate enjoyment. The other day I saw an advertisement for the ultimate straightened hair. There is an advertisement for the ultimate guitar. Sooner or later everything has to come to an ultimate end.

And the search goes on for the ultimate reality. That is why the book OUR ULTIMATE REALITY by Adrian Cooper is so popular. Since its release in 2005 it has attracted more and more readers.

The question I want to ask and answer is: Is your spirituality an ultimate reality?

It would seem that your spirituality is an ultimate reality because spirituality has to do with things of the spirit, the things which last, which have no end, the things which cannot be seen but which control our material universe and anything beyond it.

But on deeper reflection we know that your spirituality as well as mine cannot be an ultimate reality.

Many Spiritualities But Only One Spirit

Spirituality is only a stance, an attitude toward the things of the Spirit. As such, every one has a spirituality, even those who deny the existence of the spiritual.

Throughout the centuries there have been many spiritualities. In the Western tradition we have the spirituality of the desert fathers, the hermits and monks of Egypt in the third and fourth centuries. Then there was the Benedictine spirituality. This was followed by many more.

In the Eastern world we have in the main Hindu and Buddhists spiritualities. These in turn are subdivided into different spiritualities. We have the Brahmanic spirituality. We have the Hinayanic spirituality. We can even speak of a Confucian spirituality, how Confucius and his followers regarded the things of the spirit.

As the world has now become global and the demarcation between East and West is blurred more and more people are searching for a spirituality that they can benefit from, one that will not only give them enlightenment on spiritual matters but one that will fulfill their deepest yearnings.

There are signs of spiritual hunger all around us. Some have satisfied their spiritual hunger and are spiritually awakened. As more and more people are spiritually awakened, we will discover more and more kinds of spirituality. We have already the word “Cooperian” associated with spirituality, referring to the ideas of Adrian Cooper, the author of the book Our Ultimate Reality.

But not one of these spiritualities is ultimate in the sense that it is the one, last way (since ultimate means last) to the knowledge and enjoyment of the things of the spirit. They are all attempts to capture the ultimate reality of the spirit.

Only the Spirit is the ultimate reality. Spiritualities, yours and mine and anybody else’s, are only ways to approach this ultimate reality. They are only gateways, as it were, to the ultimate reality.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Spiritual Guidance Is Life's Roadmap To Better Days

Spiritual guidance is no longer a luxury for ordinary people like you and me. It is no longer just for monks and religious people who intend to live a more intense spiritual life. Spiritual guidance has become a necessity for people whose basic concern is just to live and earn a living. For spiritual hunger activates even those who just want to live simple lives. Perhaps this is because they are living at a time of spiritual awakening that has come upon us, even if they are not fully aware of this.

Spiritual Guidance Is For All

We realize now that this guidance of the Spirit, for that is basically what spiritual guidance is, is a necessity in our day to day ordinary normal life. We need this guidance to get our food, clothing, shelter, education, health, and more, even the better things in life.

Before our era almost all human beings thought that the basic things in life like food, clothing and shelter, can be ours by our own effort, by working for them, and by acquiring them in one way or another. But now more and more people are becoming aware that these things, material as they are, have their source in the Spirit who brought everything into existence. This is the reason why those who teach people how to get rich always emphasize constant gratitude to the Spirit as the starting point of every acquisition of real and lasting wealth.

Contrast Between Those Who Have Guidance and Those Who Have None

We see so many people, countless in fact, who work from dawn to dusk, break their backs in never-ending toil, but have less in life than others who seem to just relax and play with their hobbies. Most of them do not even have the basic necessities in life, like enough and nutritious food.

On the other hand, we see a few who have more than enough of this world’s goods and yet do not exert as much as one fourth of the effort of those who break their health in working but have not enough. The difference then is not in the amount of work. Working much does not necessarily produce much.

The difference is in the pattern of their lives. Those who have sufficiency and more are guided by a Spirit higher than themselves who can enable them to produce more with less effort. Those who have not—even the basic sufficiency—rely on their own guidance and effort.

Look at the successful people, even in showbiz. When they are asked to comment about their wealth, they always refer to a higher power who gave them their luck. On the other hand, those who live in misery are also contented that such is what fate gave them. In other words, both of them acknowledge the source of their fortune or misery is from outside of themselves.
If such is the case, why don’t people get guidance from the Spirit on how to conduct their lives for the better? It is because they are not fully convinced that there is this guidance and that they can avail of this.

Spiritual Guidance Is Available For All

Hence people have to be reminded that there is such a spiritual guidance available, a guidance from the Spirit who can guide them into better days, into times of sufficiency, even of abundance, of less stress and of greater enjoyment of the fruits of their labor.

Indeed spiritual guidance is life’s roadmap to better days. Get it from him who created all and who loves you so much as to give you everything for your enjoyment.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

How To Use Your Spiritual Gifts To Glorify God

Spiritual gifts are what they are, they are gifts from the Spirit. Because they are gifts, freely given, they can be withdrawn by the giver, the Spirit. They are temporary, for use only while we are on this planet earth. If you want to use them for quite some time to benefit others and you, use them to glorify God. How do you do this, how do you use them to glorify God?

Ways to Use Your Gifts to Glorify God

First, do not charge others for the use of your gift. If you have the gift of healing, do not charge even 1 cent for being used to heal people. You can charge for the incidental expenses, like for the transportation to the place of your patient, but do not charge for the healing itself. Freely you have received, freely give also.

Secondly, never use them to harm other people. Use them only to benefit other people. An example may illustrate this. You have the gift of interpreting languages. But you may be called sometime to interpret a language for someone whom you do not like, maybe one who has avoided you for so long. Do not give a wrong interpretation because you do not like the person who would use that interpretation.

Thirdly, make yourself available to people who may need your gift. Do not leave your house when you know people are coming to your house to make use of your gift, whether it is healing or giving a beneficial advice to them.

Fourthly, develop your gift. If you have the gift of healing, study human anatomy. This will help you explain to your sick patients what is happening to their bodies. If you have the gift of speaking in a foreign language, study the grammar of that language. If you have the gift of generosity, build a business that can benefit others, so that they do not have to ask money from you. They can earn money by themselves. In this way you are multiplying the value of the gift given you.

Fifthly, if you find it inconvenient to use this gift, return it to the giver. There may come a time when because of danger or because of your profession you may be extremely inconvenienced if you exercise your gift. If this happens, there is no harm in returning the gift to the Spirit who gave it to you. Let me cite an actual example.

A person had the gift of healing. But he noticed that there were times when he would be called in the dead of night to heal somebody a few kilometers away. Going to the sick person would make him leave his family which might face dangers from robbers. He realized that this was no longer good for his family or for other people. He returned his gift of healing. Today he no longer exercises this gift.

These are some of the ways you can do to use your spiritual gifts to glorify God. As you get in touch with your spirituality, you will discover your spiritual gifts and you will help in the spiritual awakening happening all around us. You will be giving glory to God.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Spiritual Gifts - How To Determine Your Spiritual Gift

You have a spiritual gift. I am sure that you have a spiritual gift if you are a human being. And if you are reading this article, then you are a human being and you have a spiritual gift. But if you do not know what it is, you are not going to benefit from it. In this article I will show you how you can determine or discover your spiritual gift.

It is one of the signs of spiritual awakening that people are searching for a way to find out what spiritual gifts they have received from the Spirit. The people’s spiritual hunger activates them to search for the gifts which the Spirit has given to them. If you are trying to discover or determine what is, or are, the gifts the Spirit has given you then you have come to the right place.

The Three Signs of What Your Gift or Gifts Are

There are three signs which show you what your spiritual gift or gifts are. These three signs are: 1) an activity which is easy or enjoyable for you to do; 2) an activity which you do well, it produces results; 3) it is of benefit to others and, consequently, to you.

Those are the three signs but those do not include how you actually discover the gift. I will discus this later. Let us first discuss the three signs above.

You Enjoy Doing It

The first sign that you have this gift is because you are doing an activity which is easy or enjoyable for you to do. It may be singing or dancing or healing or speaking in another language. The first two examples I just gave may be also talents. But talents are different from gifts. Strictly speaking, talents are inborn. Gifts are given when you are already of age or are mature enough to make use of the gift. But some so called talents may also be given as gifts. In other words they arrive late in your life, as in the example I give of singing and dancing.

You Do It Very Well

The second sign is that you do this activity well or are effective in this activity. You lay your hand on a sick person and that sick person gets well. You have the gift of healing. You sing and persons are moved to tears. You have the gift of singing. If you sing and people give you an applause, you may only have the talent of singing but not the gift.

It Benefits Others and You

And the third sign is that the activity helps or benefits other people and consequently it benefits you. You heal people and so you become helpful to others. You become a helpful person.

These three signs must appear together, not one at a time. They are present in every activity that is your gift.

How Do You Discover the Gift Given You?

Usually a gift is discovered during a crisis situation. You do not go around testing this activity or that activity to find out if you have this or that gift. You do not go around hospitals to lay your hands on sick people to find out if you have the gift of healing. If you do this, the hospital administrators may compel you to leave the hospital as a nuisance.

What usually happens is that you are faced with a crisis situation. For example, your neighbor is sick and the doctors cannot find something wrong with that sick person. And you called in just to visit. Before you leave the sick you say a prayer and as a gesture of help you lay your right hand on the head of that person. The person gets well, instantaneously or after a while. You do this again with other persons and the same effect happens. People are cured. You have the gift of healing.

I gave the example of the gift of healing because it is quite common and there are some who are of the opinion that each of us has the gift of healing. I also give this example because it is a gift which I myself have experienced.

But there are other gifts.

So, how do you determine the gift that has been given to you? Talk with the Spirit. Ask him what gift he has given you. Then go on helping other people. When you meet a crisis situation, you will discover the gift that has been given to you.

Another example. This guy pitied those who do not have a good, stable shelter. He built a housing project for a poor, depressed community. It got publicity. Soon other persons helped him with his project of giving shelter to people. He has the gift of providing shelter to homeless persons. In fact he has gone around the world providing shelter to people. You may know who this person is, because he is famous.

Discovering or determining your gift is like spiritual awakening. You wake up to the reality that you have a gift which can be most helpful to others.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Spiritual Gifts - What is Your Spiritual Gift?

You have received a precious gift. Yes, you have received a precious gift, whether you know it or not, whether you agree with me or not. It is a gift from the Spirit and the general name of this gift is that it is a spiritual gift, because it comes from that Spirit.

A Gift Can Go Unnoticed and Unused All Your Life

If you know this gift you are able to use it for your benefit and that of others around you. If you do not know what this gift is, it will lie there, unopened, unlooked, unused and you will go through life all the poorer because of your failure to make use of this wonderful gift.

It is like an inheritance. A parcel of land was awarded to an heir as an inheritance. But if she does not know about this deed of inheritance, she will go through life without getting the benefits of this inheritance.

Ephesians 4:8 says that gifts were given to human beings, not just to members of the Church. This means that whether you are a Christian or non-Christian, a Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, atheist or agnostic, or whatever else, if you are a human being, a gift was given to you by this Spirit. It may be one gift or may be more than one gift. But at least there is a gift that was given to you.

So, what is your spiritual gift? Let us have a rundown of some of these gifts.

A Listing of Some of These Gifts

Do you have the gift of prophecy? This does not necessarily mean that you can foretell things in the future, but that you are able to speak forth for God.

Do you have the gift of ministry or serving others? Some people just have the knack of helping others voluntarily without thinking of any compensation. Are you one of these?

Do you have the gift of teaching, showing others clearly and forcefully what you want to say? Some who took up teaching as a profession have this gift, but the majority seem not to have it. They can only repeat what the textbooks and other teachers said before them.

Or do you have the gift of exhortation, giving energy to those who seem to be lacking the drive to do a certain thing?

Do you have the gift of giving? Many philanthropists have this gift. But you need not be a well-known philanthropist to have this gift. You can give in your own little way.

Do you have the gift of ruling or managing things. Some have the knack of delegating work to others. They have this gift of ruling or managing.

Do you have the gift of showing mercy? There are people who are naturally compassionate. They cannot even kill a fly. They have mercy even unto the least of animals.

Do you have the gift of wisdom, saying the right word at exactly the needed time?

Or do you have the gift of knowledge, able to understand some of the hidden things around us like the mysterious laws of nature?

Or do you have the gift of faith so as to perform miracles?

Or do you have the gift of healing so as to cure diseases of body and mind?

Maybe you have the gift of discerning of spirits so as to know what spirit is working in the lives of people, whether the spirit is good or bad?

Or do you have the gift of speaking in a tongue foreign to you or of understanding a foreign language? Some people seem to learn a language very quickly. They have this gift.

Or you may have other gifts not mentioned here. There are plenty of other gifts. Like the gift of arranging things, the gift of cleaning things, the gift of humor, the gift of acting, the gift of singing, etc. Language itself, knowing how to speak in verbal or sign language, is already a gift given to you.

What Is Your Spiritual Gift?

It is time for you to reflect upon your life and recognize what gift or gifts have been given to you. It is time for you to have a spiritual awakening so that you can recognize the gift given you and take benefit from this gift. Your spiritual hunger activates genuine spirituality within you. As you are getting in touch with your spirit you will know the gifts given to you.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Great Advice Regarding Spirituality

At a time when spiritual hunger activates people to search for something that is permanent we see the signs of spiritual awakening. This is spirituality at its best. People are indeed spiritually awakening, are waking up spiritually, are conscious of the whole new world of the spirit. Some of you are getting in touch with your spirituality, are getting in touch with your spirit. And you are looking for a great advice regarding spirituality. I hope to give you this advice in this article.

Everyone And Everything Is Getting Old

You and I are getting old. In a couple of years we will be so old that our body systems will fail to function and we have to leave our bodies to this planet earth.

In the face of this reality we ask, Is there something that remains permanent, that does not grow old? If we only look at the world with our physical eyes we will have to answer that there is none. There is nothing we see that remains permanent and does not grow old.

But then we also realize that we cannot see everything with our physical eyes. There are things beyond the vision of our physical eyes. The love that exists between two lovers cannot be seen by the eyes. The depth of sorrow a person feels at the loss of a beloved cannot be seen by our eyes. The joy a father feels at the birth of a son cannot be seen by the eyes.

Indeed there are many things that cannot be seen by our physical eyes and it is among these things that we can find something that endures, something that is permanent and does not grow old.

Things That Do Not Grow Old

We begin with mathematical concepts which we learned during our high school days. In our class in geometry we learned that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. This was true in the time of Euclid who wrote this proposition 300 years before Christ. It is still true today, more than 2,000 years from the time of Euclid, and will be true centuries from now, although according to the theory of gravitation there cannot be an actual straight line because the gravitational force will always bend that line.

That concept or idea of a straight line is something that is permanent and does not grow old.

The same holds true with the rules of logic which we learned in college. Those rules remain true, permanent and do not grow old.

We immediately notice that these things which are permanent and do not grow old are ideas. They are not objects our senses can see, but ideas only our mind can understand.

But then we ask: Where do these ideas come from? If such ideas are permanent and do not grow old, their origin or source logically also does not grow old, is permanent.

The Source of Things That Do Not Grow Old

And this is where my great advice regarding spirituality comes in. My advice to you is: Search for the source of these ideas that do not grow old, that are permanent. If you find this source you will also realize that there is something in you yourself that does not grow old, but is ever young, ever permanent.

This something in you that is ever young, ever permanent is not your body because you know it is getting old every day and every year. It is not your mind, because you know that your mind is changeable. What you love today you may hate tomorrow.

If the source of ideas that do not grow old, that are ever young, that are always permanent is not your body or your mind, it must be something else. There can only be one answer. It is the spirit.

You Can Always Be Young

The spirit never grows old, is always young, always permanent. And when you live your life according to this spirit there is a part of you that is forever young, forever permanent.

Search for this spirit, live with him, talk to him, get ideas from him. He holds an infinite number of ideas and will always go on creating worlds around you. By living in the spirit you will always stay young, ever young with the passing of time even unto eternity.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

A Few Spiritual Messages We Can Need

Do you want to enjoy your life to the full? Do you want to be happy beyond all your expectations?

There are some messages you need to learn in order to be happy beyond your wildest dreams. They are only a few, but they are spiritual messages. These messages have taken on a more relevant turn because of the signs of a spiritual awakening among us. More and more people have spiritually awakened. They want more from life than just the best of material things, like fine houses and the latest cars. They want more substantial things and they turn to the things which cannot be seen, but which they hunger for, the things of the spirit.

Here are those few spiritual messages we can need during these times of spiritual awakening.

Message 1. Everything that there is has come into existence by an Intelligence superior to any and all intelligences. We just call this the Intelligence. We do not call him the most intelligent being, since labeling him “most” can mean that he can be compared with other intelligences and he belongs to the superlative degree. There is just no way of comparing him with others. We do not even call him the most superior or supreme intelligence. These terms denote comparison and there is just no way of comparing him with others. He is totally unique, the Intelligence, from whom all came into being.

Just look at the arrangement of things around you and you see beauty, a plan, a symmetry, an orderliness that cannot just happen by chance. If you still want more of the wonders of creation you can peer into the microscope to see how even tiny particles of matter hide such great beauty and symmetry. Or you can glance through the telescope at the colossal wonders of the sky beyond.

There is no need to prove the existence of this Intelligence. It is most obvious. We can only acknowledge its existence, not prove it. The philosophers spent centuries to prove his existence when there was no need to prove it. It is like proving to you that what you are reading right now came from me. There is no need to prove this. You simply acknowledge that I wrote this, what you are reading right now.

Message 2. This Intelligence who brought everything into being cares about you and the minutest details of your life. He has even numbered each strand of your hair, according to the Christian scripture. In other words, he is a most loving Intelligence. Again words fail to describe him. He is Love itself. There is no need and there is no way of comparing his love with others. He loves to the uttermost degree we cannot even think of.

What is the meaning of this? It means that he wants us to be the best, to have the best, to experience the best stay on this planet earth and beyond.

Message 3. The third message is a consequence of the second. This Intelligence wants you to enjoy life to the fullest. He does not want you to be sad or sorrowful. He does not want you to experience pain or privation.

Despite all the poverty, the suffering, the chaos we see in the world all around us, the truth is that this Intelligence does not want these things for us. He wants us to experience freedom from poverty, victory over suffering, order out of chaos.

Message 4. This Intelligence is not just most powerful, but is all powerful. He is able to do what he wants to do, except contradict himself. Because he is powerful he is willing and most able to free you from all the sufferings and privations and persecutions you may be undergoing through right now. All he needs is only for you to contact him, to listen to him and to obey.

We hear all kinds of accidents all around us. This airplane crashed. That bus went headlong after losing its brake, plunging to death all its passengers. A storm is raging and flood ensues, drowning thousands of inhabitants. An earthquake strikes, toppling buildings burying their occupants alive. All these are happening around us but this is not the will of this Intelligence. They do happen because we do not listen to him. Most people are ignorant of this Intelligence. They put up a god of their own who cannot deliver them from these dangers.

Message 5. This Intelligence guides you the best way so you can enjoy life to the fullest. You need only listen and obey.

He has a way of delivering you from all the dangers surrounding you, if you allow him to do so. You need only to be careful to listen to him and obey.

How many times I have experienced this myself. One time while riding a van I heard a great explosion. I saw that the front windshield of the van was shattered. I expected blood to be splashed all around. I was most surprised that I did not see even just one drop of blood. A big stone had crashed into the front of the van from a delivery truck. But no passenger was hurt. The stone hit the head rest of the front seat. The Intelligence had spared us. The incident gave a lesson to delivery truck owners to cover their cargo with canvass so that nothing flies out of them.

Message 6. Our destiny is to enjoy the company of this Intelligence who will reveal to us everything that he knows, even his very own self. We are naturally curious. We want to know this, we want to know that. A time will come when we will know all the mystery of this universe. We will then know how many planets in the universe are like our own, why this universe seems to be expanding like a mat being spread out. Not only will we know completely what is happening all around us, we will know this Intelligence as we would know our spouse. He will reveal his own life and very self to us. What more can we desire?

Message 7. All of us are interconnected with one another, with all the elements, plants and animals, all thoughts and all ideas, organically so that the life of this Intelligence flows through and in all of us. Only rejection of this Intelligence makes our life miserable. All the evils, dangers, sufferings we see in this world and will ever see or experience come from the rejection of this Intelligence and his guidance.

All the uneasiness and spiritual turmoil we see around us, people taking in drugs of all sorts, crimes of greater magnitude being committed everyday, terrorism just lurking around the corner are all warnings for all of us to wake up spiritually, to listen to what this Intelligence tells us and to follow him.

It does not matter to what religion we belong, this Intelligence works in all religions, among all kinds of people. He is no respecter of tribes or nations. He does not speak only to Christians or only to Muslims or only to Hindus. He speaks even to those who are very far yet from civilization of any kind, who still only gather fruits and dig out root crops for food.

Reading these messages may give you the impression that life is simple. Indeed it is. It is only human beings who have made it complicated. Learn more about this Intelligence, know more of him, feel his love and care for you for he is able to take care of you in all your needs. When you cross the other side of life you will see his smiling welcome. Then you will conclude it was worth your while to know him and live with him while you were on planet earth.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Getting Spiritually Clean - Where to Go For a Spiritual Cleansing

There is a natural tendency for us to choose that which is clean and generally we prefer to be clean ourselves physically. We want to eat clean foods, to drink clean water and wear clean clothes.

When a person has spiritually awakened, there comes a time when he wants to be clean not only physically but also spiritually. He wants clean living. If he has engaged in taking illegal drugs, he now wants to get rid of this habit. If he has taken alcohol compulsively he now wants to stop this slavery to alcohol. He wants clean living. And he asks, How or where can he get spiritual cleansing?

The Meaning of Spiritually Clean

We have to know first the meaning of being spiritually clean. We know what it means to be physically clean. There is no dirt in our body, no foreign object or stain or particles in our body like dust or grease. We know also what it means to be mentally clean. We do not have a dirty mind, we are not thinking of something that is not supposed to be in our mind, like evil thoughts.

In the same way by spiritually clean we mean that there is nothing dirty or foreign to our spirit, something that is not supposed to be there. And the two things that are not supposed to be there, which make our spirit unclean, are hatred and fear. If a person has these or one of these, he has an unclean spirit.

Why do hatred and fear make our spirit unclean? Because they are foreign to the nature of the spirit. Watch those who we say or describe as full of the spirit. The two qualities which they exude more than all other qualities are those of love and boldness. These latter belong to the spirit as natural qualities, whereas their opposite, hatred and fear are most foreign to the spirit and make it unclean.

Where To Go For Spiritual Cleansing

So, where do you go for spiritual cleansing? Of course you go to the Spirit of purity, the one who is clean, who has no evil thought, who has no hatred and no fear. If you are near him and you are one with him you will not experience this dirtiness or uncleanness of the spirit. You associate with this Spirit and follow his directions on how you may be cleaned spiritually, because by yourself you cannot get rid of these two emotions that make your spirit dirty.

Why We Cannot Make Ourselves Spiritually Clean

There is a story in southern Philippines which illustrates to us how deep-seated hatred is in us.

The story relates that in some communities if you have offended a member of that community, the member or his relative will plant a bamboo. This bamboo will remind the community that you have offended its members and so they will take a revenge against you for this offense, no matter how distant in the future is the revenge.

And here is the reason why they plant a bamboo and not a tree. The tree grows old and it dies after so many years, even if takes hundreds of years. But the bamboo never dies of its own. It spreads its roots and multiplies its shoots and grows more and more. You cannot kill it by just felling it down, not even by burning it. After the burning young shoots will germinate and start all over again the growth of the bamboo.

The bamboo will remind the community of your offense forever and the community will take steps to take its revenge on you.

That is how deep seated hatred is in us. We may not plant a literal bamboo, but the hatred goes deeper than the roots of the bamboo, into our deepest consciousness, making our spirit unclean, destroying our life.

That is why we need the Spirit to uproot this hatred from our life. It is interesting that both Hinduism and Christianity portray the Spirit as a cleansing spirit. In Hinduism we have Shiva, the destroyer of the universe, of the impurities in our world. In Christianity the Spirit is represented as fire. Fire destroys and purifies metals.

The Spirit is the one who purifies us, who makes us clean. The purification is painful, because it is as if by fire, but the fruit of this is spiritual purity, we become loving and bold. If you are a Christian you can trust in the shed blood of Jesus as the agent that has cleaned your spirit of all dirt and impurities, making you bold and loving. But if you say that you are a Christian and that you trust in the blood of Jesus to clean your spirit, but you have not experienced being bold and loving that blood is still useless to you. You are not clean spiritually. It is all theory to you.

Again fear is most natural to us and we cannot get rid of it. When as children we heard the roar of the thunder we naturally got afraid. We are naturally afraid to die. As we grow we experience so many other fears, fear of height, fear of people, fear of darkness, etc., even fear of ourselves. We are not confident. We are unclean spiritually. Fear is not supposed to be in our spirit.

Again, where do we go for getting rid of fear? To the Spirit of boldness. It is told that the Apostles became bold and fearless when the Spirit descended upon them. As we associate more with this Spirit we become bold and fearless, that is, clean spiritually.

Sexual Activity Of Itself Does Not Make Your Spirit Unclean

This spiritual cleanness has no negative relation with sexual activities. There are some people who think that sexual activity makes the spirit unclean. When Watchman Nee got married, some of the Christians around him got offended because they did not expect that such a spiritual man should marry, engage in sexual activity. They did not realize that sex of itself does not make a person spiritually unclean. If sex is done in hatred and fear, then the spirit is made unclean, not by the sex but by the hatred and fear that accompany it. But if it is done in love and with confidence, it does not make the spirit unclean.

You Can Be Spiritually Clean Always

Now that you know what spiritual cleanliness is, how to get clean, where to go to be cleaned spiritually, it is for you to be always in communication with the Spirit of spiritual cleanliness if you want to be clean spiritually. He will clean you, meaning he will make you bold and loving. Only he has the power to do this. He is the only one who plants in you that uneasiness and spiritual hunger for spiritual cleanliness. That is why you go to him. He will wake you up spiritually and cleanse you. No amount of water washing can clean your spirit. At best water washing can only remind you of the spiritual washing, the spiritual cleansing.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

A Step-By-Step Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

You are about to wake up spiritually. You come from a condition of spiritual darkness to that of spiritual light. There are signs of spiritual awakening in you. When you are spiritually awakened you look for light to enlighten you as you continue with your life. You need and want a step-by-step guide to spiritual enlightenment. Here is what I can offer you if you are one of these persons who are in the situation of spiritual awakening but may not know how to go about getting spiritual enlightenment.

Step 1. Contact the Spirit of Enlightenment. The very first step you are supposed to do is to contact the Spirit of enlightenment. If you want spiritual enlightenment you need him who can give you spiritual enlightenment, no other than the Spirit of enlightenment.

And it is not difficult to contact him because he is always available. It is not like contacting an important personality, like a nation’s president, who is too busy to attend to you. This Spirit is always available. It is you who may not be available. In fact he is always waiting for you to contact him.

How then do you contact him? This is very simple to do, but it takes discipline. Make yourself available to him by giving him a definite time and a definite place in your life. Choose a time during the day for him when you are least disturbed. If you cannot choose any time, then make that time. Some people have it best very early in the morning or late at night, but not very late. When I began this exercise the best time for me was from 6 to 6:30 in the evening. Thirty minutes of your time will do.

Concerning the place, again choose a place where you are least disturbed. It can be your bedroom, your office room, a chapel near you, or whatever. Some construct a small room where there are an electric fan, light and chair and no other furniture. In my case when I started I used a chapel. People usually do not disturb you when you are in a chapel.

Just sit there in that place during the time when you make yourself available to the Spirit. That is step one.

Step 2. Allow him to communicate with you. As you sit there just allow the Spirit to communicate with you. He communicates with you among many means through three main methods. The first method is by the inward word. As you sit there ideas will comes to you. If you have the intention of being available to him, he is the one already communicating to you through these ideas. Do not think that those ideas still come from your self through your brain. They are already the ideas of the Spirit. He is already communicating to you.

The second method is by the word in creation. Creation outside of you is used by the Spirit to communicate with you. This may be a beautiful flower you are gazing at on your table, or it may be the wall you are facing, or the mountain beyond seen through the window. The Spirit communicates through that item of creation. He may impress you about its beauty, its durability, its greatness.

The third method he ordinarily uses to communicate with you is by the word in some books. This may be a Bible, a Qur’an, a Buddhist or Hindu scripture or any other sacred book in any religion. Open it and read it as he impresses upon your mind the ideas from the book.

Step 3. Listen to him. Do not just keep on reading, or wondering at the flower, or hearing inwardly the interior word. Listen to the Spirit. In other words, listen attentively. Concentrate on what he is saying to you. Spiritual enlightenment is not a frivolous matter. It is serious business.

Step 4. Think about what he tells you. Then think about what the Spirit tells you. This is called by some as meditation. It is going over and over in your mind the ideas and words he tells you. Relate these words to your life, to your work, to your dealings with your family members, with your companions in work and leisure.

This is now the time for talking with the Spirit. Talk with him. If you follow the steps carefully you will no longer be talking with yourself, you will really be talking with the Spirit of enlightenment. Remember he is more interested in talking with you than you to him. There is no room for deception here as long as you follow the steps carefully.

Do not be afraid that another spirit is talking with you. This can only happen if you have a preconceived idea of what to think when you enter that place and time which you make available for him. As long as you are open to him, he will not deceive you nor allow you to be deceived by other spirits.

Step 5. Do what he bids you to do. Then, the next step is most important. Do what he bids you to do. It may be just to come back to that place the next day at the same appointed time. It may be to become more loving to your wife and children. It may be just to be more considerate of those people you work with. Whatever he tells you that you do.

Step 6. Record your experience with him. It is best to keep a written record of your experience with the Spirit of truth who enlightens every person in this world, no matter what your religion is. Write down some of the ideas he shares with you. It need not be extensive. It can be brief summaries of the ideas the Spirit impressed upon your mind. Some people call this journalizing or keeping a diary.

The advantage of having a written record of these ideas is that later you will be able to see the pathway or pathways the Spirit has led you along, as you read this. Then you can thank the Spirit. In this way also you will have some idea where the Spirit is leading you.

Another benefit you can have in writing down these impressions from the Spirit is that you can show it to a friend whom you trust and share with her the ways of the Spirit. In this way you help your friend and you also help yourself, because your friend may give you some comments about your journal.

Just write the date when you write the ideas. I usually write the day and date and then I encircle these so that it can be easily located in my notebook. Like for example today I would write as Th101021, meaning Thursday, 2010 of the 10th month of the year and the date is 21.

When I began this practice I used to have one notebook only for this purpose. Later on I have a big notebook for all the notes that I write and I put my journal as only one topic in my notebook. I entitle this portion of my notebook as Spiritual.

Step 7. Be faithful to these steps until they become a habit in your life. Finally, be faithful to this practice even when you do not feel doing it. In the beginning you may get excited. So many ideas will flood your mind. Later you may wonder that you do not feel going through the exercise and the ideas seem to be fewer and fewer. Just persevere. But do not force yourself. If you need to rest from the routine, take a rest. Later come back to it.

As you begin to be faithful to this exercise of making yourself available to the communication of the Spirit you will notice that your life is becoming well ordered and new and useful ideas come to you. You will be more and more enlightened.

The Spirit sooner or later will guide you to fuller and fuller enlightenment and you will be able to enlighten others also. That is the pathway of spiritual enlightenment.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Spirituality - How Meditation Can Make You Spiritual

If you want to wake up spiritually, paradoxically one of the first things you have to do is to slow down your life and take stock of the things and images around you.

When we physically wake up in the morning, we rise up and use our eyes to look around and see what is there around us. In the spiritual life that is also what happens. We rise up using our mind to look around us. That is basically what meditation is, a looking around us, using our mind, not just our eyes.

And meditation can make you spiritual during these times when there are signs of a spiritual awakening because of the uneasiness and spiritual hunger of very many who are dissatisfied with the fast pace of modern life. Indeed there is spiritual awakening happening around us and those who are spiritually awakened help the others who are just groping around to get their bearings in life.

Many Meanings of Meditation

To find out how meditation can make you spiritual, you need first to know more what meditation is. If you read books and articles about meditation you will notice that there are so many meanings of meditation—from thinking to no thinking at all. Again we shall know more about it by getting rid of meanings which have been applied to it but are not really descriptive of it. And we know what meditation really is only by going through it, by doing it, by experiencing it, not by talking or writing or reading about it.

What Meditation Is Not

Meditation is not introspection, a mental examination of one’s feelings, thoughts, condition, situation, sensations. This is nearly brooding. And brooding is not related to meditation, except that both are processes of the mind.

Meditation is not mere thinking, either, even deep thinking or planning. One can think deeply about a project proposal he intends to send to a funding agency but that is not meditation. Meditation is a relaxing experience, not a heavy burden on our mind.

The Levels of Meditation

There are many grades or levels of meditation. It starts with awareness of yourself in relation to others. Then it graduates to awareness of the world in relation to you. Finally, if you are a Christian, it ends with the awareness of God as your loving Father. If you are a Muslim, it may end with the awareness of God as Most Compassionate, Most Merciful to you and others. And if you are a Buddhist it may end with the awareness of ultimate freedom from rebirth and constant rebirth. Other religions also have their end point in meditation, all valid and relevant to their practitioners.

This is the kind of meditation that can make you spiritual, an ever growing awareness of yourself in relation to others, of the world in relation to you and of God in relation to all. And what do we mean by spiritual? Basically it means that you are a loving person. For our whole existence is summed up in love.

And how can meditation make you spiritual?

First, by slowing down the pace of your life. No matter what meaning you take of meditation, as long as it is not introspection and mere thinking but basically an awareness of relationships, to yourself, to others and to God, it takes time out of life to view and think of these relationships. Slowing your life means that you are able to think of others and help them.

Secondly, meditation connects you with the whole of creation and non-created reality. In this interconnectedness of all things you realize the oneness of all.

And thirdly, meditation makes you loving. Have you noticed the Buddhist monks? They are so compassionate, even toward animals. Compassion is the fruit of genuine meditation.

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Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Leading a Spiritual Life

In an age of spiritual awakening such as we are going through, there are more and more people who are spiritually awakened and they would like to lead a spiritual life. Somehow they are dissatisfied with their present state of life in religion and want something more relevant in their lives. There is a sense of uneasiness and spiritual hunger in their hearts. This is just one of the signs of a spiritual awakening happening right before our very eyes.

People Turn to Spirituality From Religion

The traditional churches are mostly empty in North America and in Europe, places where once religion mightily flourished even to the shedding of blood. Why? Because people are looking for something substantial, something they can truly make use of in these times of exploding information overload.

And rightly they turn to spirituality. And they seek spiritual leaders, men and women who are leading a spiritual life.

This article describes what leading a spiritual life is. Hopefully the reader will realize that this is the kind of life she is searching for. And she will have some ideas how to lead it herself.

By showing what a thing is not, we may be able to easily grasp what it really is.

What Leading a Spiritual Life Is Not

Leading a spiritual life is not the same as leading a religious life. There are many religious people who are not manifestly leading a spiritual life. If you are a Catholic, just observe the many daily church goers, attending Mass every day, whose lives do not show any improvement in the way they deal with people, even with their household help.

If you are a Protestant, observe how many of those who go to a preaching service also go to the midweek prayer sessions. Very few indeed. And still observe those who go to the midweek prayer sessions. Listen carefully to what they speak and how they speak. They do not talk about their Lord but about this and that thing which needs to be done, to be improved, to be changed.

These people are religious indeed, but manifestly not spiritual.

Leading a spiritual life is not the same as leading a moral life. A person may be totally morally upright according to human standards and yet not be spiritual. He may observe all the commandments he knows but fail to be spiritual.

The best example I can think of right now of a person who was moral but not spiritual is Immanuel Kant. He was a totally upright man as far as human standards are concerned. He put forth a moral maxim which he faithfully followed and I render it here as: So behave that your action becomes a norm of universal law. This means that if you follow this maxim you are always following moral laws, the best of moral laws, because they are part of the universal law. And Kant just did that. He never hurt anyone, did not bother anyone, and most probably did not also love anyone. He died a bachelor.

Leading a spiritual life is not the same as leading a theological life. There are many theologians who day and night ponder over the Bible and their volume upon volume of books. But many of them are not necessarily spiritual. How do I know? You approach them and they begin to talk to you and spin out so many theories related to theology. But they leave your heart empty.

Leading a spiritual life is not the same as leading a philanthropic life. You may be giving millions of dollars to the poor or not so poor, but you may not be able to give them your heart.
Leading a spiritual life is not the same as leading a healthy life. There are many saints of God who were poor in health but spiritually they were rich.

Leading a spiritual life is not the same as leading an intellectual life. There are many scientists and philosophers who devote their lives to intellectual pursuits, to research work both speculative and practical, but their lives are not necessarily spiritual by this. Some of them do not even respect life. They want to change our life processes by the so-called genetic engineering.

So, if leading a spiritual life is not all this, what is it? In a sense the answer is very simple, and yet it cannot be understood by someone whose mind is not attuned to spiritual reality.

What Leading a Spiritual Life Is

Leading a spiritual life is being concerned with the things of the spirit.

The religious person is concerned with the doctrines, practices and rites of her religion, the moral person is concerned with morality, with living uprightly, the theologian is concerned with the fine points of theology, the philanthropist is concerned with how to distribute his wealth, the health fanatic is concerned with keeping herself young and active, the intellectual elite is concerned with discovering more and more knowledge.

They are all concerned with something that is not necessarily spiritual. But the spiritual person is concerned with the things of the spirit and she leads her life accordingly.

And what are the things of the spirit? Basically it is loving the self and others as they ought to be loved, to care for them, to have compassion for them. This is easily said than done.

So simple and yet so impossible to do, because we have a fallen nature. Fallen nature simply means that we are naturally concerned about ourselves than others. Perhaps too overly concerned about ourselves. We are pre-occupied with our Ego in capital letters.

That is why we need a guide to lead us out of ourselves to the needs of others. Because even the most fundamental needs of others we cannot know unless the eyes of the spirit are opened: the need to love and be loved. But those who are willing to lead a spiritual life are now ready to wake up spiritually.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

Jesus' Home Life — Now Revealed

Most Christians do not bother about Jesus’ home life, the so-called hidden years of Jesus in Nazareth. They think that what is important for them is his public life, the last 3 to 4 years of his life when he preached, taught, suffered and died. They do not realize that Jesus’ hidden life or home life is as important as his public life to us. Why is this?

Jesus’ Hidden Life Is As Important As His Public Life

This is because it is his home life that most of us Christians can imitate. Most of us do not go about preaching, teaching, healing the sick, fighting the religious authorities of our day, as Jesus did in the last 3 to 4 years of his life. Most of us stay at home at night and go to our work during the day. We work at our respective places in the business or agricultural world. Therefore we cannot imitate his public life unless we are a wandering evangelist. And most of us are not.

Since most of us labor in our work places, we need to look at how Jesus labored in his own work place so that we can imitate this life, our model life.

A Very Good Objection

The objection that is immediately put up is: But we know so little of his home life. How can we imitate it?

This objection is due to the fact that on superficial reading of the Bible we discover very few verses which deal with his home life or hidden life. But if we open wide our spiritual eyes we will see that there is more than enough description of this home life.

More Information About Jesus’ Home Life

First, we go to 2 verses which summarize Jesus’ life. They are found in the Letter to the Hebrews. It says in one verse that Jesus was made like us in all things and again in another verse it says that he understands our feelings, our weaknesses, our infirmities because he was tried in every respect but he did not sin. These verses describe a lot about Jesus. He was as human as we are.

As a child he played as all children play. We do not have to believe the apocryphal gospels about the games he played, like fashioning a clay into a live bird.

As a young man he sang, danced, drank wine, reveled during feast days. How do we know? Because he behaved like any normal young man behaved.

Some may ask: Was he sexually attracted to the opposite sex? Sure, he was, because he was a normal human being. But he had no thought of having a sinful relationship with a girl around his own age.

Some think this was not fitting for Jesus to experience, a sexual attraction to the opposite sex. But he could not be like us in all things if he did not experience this attraction. And the Word of God is clear: He was like unto us in all things, only he did not sin. And there is nothing sinful in sexual attraction. It is inbuilt in our human nature by God himself. It is a most natural feeling.

Secondly, from the Gospels we know how Jesus started his day. He started his day very early, rising up long before the dawning of the day, then he would go out to a lonely place and there prayed, that is, conversed with his heavenly Father.

We also know how he closed this day, again with prayer, conversing with his heavenly Father.

Thirdly, still from the Gospels we know what Jesus did during the day in his home. He worked as a carpenter: building and repairing houses, making and fixing furniture, fashioning farm implements. According to Justin the Martyr, plows and yokes made by Jesus were still in existence during his time, that is, around 120.

Fourthly, still from the Gospels, we know that every Sabbath day or Saturday Jesus went to the local synagogue (like our chapel) and he would read the Scriptures publicly.

Fifthly, if we are genuine Christians this home life of Jesus is being relived in us as we live from day to day. For the real life we live as Christians is his life. We merely continue the home life of Jesus in our own home life.

Jesus’ Home Life Revealed

Now we know how Jesus lived in Nazareth. He rose up very early in the morning to converse with his Father God. Like us he ate and drank, and he worked as a carpenter and before retiring at night he conversed again with his Father God. During Sabbath or Saturdays, instead of working, he went to the synagogue to read God’s Word publicly.

Finally, Jesus lives his home life again in us, making us imitate him in those hidden years of his life in our own hidden life. Now we know the home life of Jesus. It is also our home life lived in him.

Click Here!

Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

The Missing Years of Jesus' Life — Now Found

What did Jesus do between the ages of 12 and 30 years? This question has been the subject of many speculations. And there have been many answers, some of them purportedly based on scientific research.

Some of the answers say that he went to India, to England, to Alexandria, and to other places as well. They say he studied Buddhism, Hinduism, Egyptian wisdom, etc.

Those Years Are Not Missing

It is not true to say that those years are missing. When we say that something is missing what we usually mean is that it cannot be found or it is lost. For example, we say that we miss our pet dog, meaning that we cannot find it or it is absent from where we are. We also say, We missed the train, meaning we lost our chance to ride that train.

But in the case of Jesus those 18 years between the time he was 12 years old and 30 years old, are not really missing because they are not lost and we can easily find them. Those years are recorded properly. First, Luke wrote that he was 12 years old when he was lost to his parents and then found in the temple. Then a little further he wrote that when Jesus began his ministry he was about 30 years of age. 30 minus 12 are 18 years. We found those 18 years by simply deducting 12 from 30. They are not lost years.

What is missing is not the years but the description, as most readers would want it in a story, of what Jesus did during those years. This is what we do not find in the Gospels of the Christian Bible.

The Gospels Are Not Mere Stories

The desire to know what happened in Jesus’ life during those 18 years arises from a misunderstanding of the Gospels as we have them in the Christian Bible. Our tendency is to read these Gospels as stories about Jesus’ life or his biography. We do not realize and perhaps we will never realize that these are not ordinary stories or biographies of Jesus, unless somebody tells us so, and shows us why they are not stories or biographies.

Those Gospels are what they are, gospels, not biographies.

The meaning of Gospel is announcement of good news. That is what the accounts of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are. They are announcements of the good news of Jesus. They are not a collection of stories about Jesus’ life to merely inform or entertain us. They are a public announcement of events and words which if believed benefits the listener in a life-changing way.

How I Discovered That the Gospels Are Not Mere Stories

I myself did not grasp this fact about these gospels although I had a formal training in theology. In my theological studies about the Gospels I was taught that they are indeed Gospels. But still the idea persisted in my mind that they were stories or portions of the biographies of Jesus.

The realization that the Gospels are announcements of the good news of Jesus came to me much, much later in life. It dawned on me while I was listening to an audio version of the Gospel according to Mark. I heard this Gospel read on the Internet and the tone of the reader was that of a person who was announcing a very important, life changing news. There and then I realized what is meant that the Gospel of Mark is an announcement, not a story telling. As a boy I read it like a Bible story. During the time I listened to this audio version the words were still the same, but now they were proclaimed as components of a good news.

The So-called Missing Years Are Fully Contained in the Gospels

Viewed as an announcement the 18 years of Jesus are fully contained in this description of Luke: And he went down with them (his parents) and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them; And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and years, and in favor with God and man.

The So-called Missing Years Are Present In Us

Secondly, those years are not really missing when we relate our life to that of Jesus. We carry those years within us. The reason for this is because Christ is our life, as Paul says in his letter to the Colossians. If Jesus is our life, the life of Jesus is in us, and therefore his life before the creation of this world, his life after creation including his human life, is also our life and those years, from the time he was 12 to 30 years old, are also within us. This will take another full article to explain but for now we can see already the truth of this, if we have indeed the life of Jesus in us.

Jesus said that he is the vine and we are the branches. In a plant the same life flows from the vine to its branches. The same life of Jesus the vine flows to us the branches, including his life the time he was 12 years old to 30 years old.

The so-called missing years of Jesus’ life are no longer missing. We have found them if we realize the Gospels are announcements of good news and if we realize that the life of Jesus still flows in us and through us.

So, those 18 years are not really missing. We found them by subtracting 12 from 30. What Jesus did during those years is fully proclaimed by Luke in 2 verses in the Christian Bible. And the reality of those 18 years is within us. We have found those 18 years. They are in us. We continue living them.

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Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:

http://bit.ly/spiritdev for your spiritual growth

http://bit.ly/alterhealthcare for your health

http://bit.ly/novotrends for learning about the new trends around us

http://bit.ly/bepaidonline for earning some income from the Internet

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