The Insights of Faith
Greetings and good morning brothers and sisters. This is Dr. James Perry continuing with our series
where we seek to explore the deeper meanings of our relationship with Jesus Christ. Over the years,
the heavenly Father has revealed many revelations of spiritual truth to me, and I want to share them
with you. This morning we seek to understand the insights of faith.
And now, sit back and listen to today's message.
The Insights of Faith
"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God."
Ephesians, Chapter 2, Verse 8.
Brothers and sisters, before directly addressing the problem of faith and insight, we must make some
assumptions. First, we must acknowledge that we have not created ourselves, nor the world or the
universe in which we live. We must assume the existence of a Creator. We must also acknowledge
our Creator as being rational even as we are rational. We must also acknowledge our Creator as
being a person since we are persons. Only another person can produce another person.
Since we have will, mind, and the ability to make decisions, we must also assume that our Creator
has these attributes. Since we love, dream, have aspirations and faith, we must also assume that our
Creator has these qualities as well. We must also assume that our Creator has a purpose in creating
us, and that he can and does communicate with us, and that we are capable of discerning his will.
To these attributes and qualities, we also add that the nature of our Creator must be absolute, infinite,
and eternal, that He must also be a spiritual person. Revelation as well as personal experience reveals
to us that this being is love, and loves as a Father. We are in fact his spiritual children. His spirit lives
within us; therefore it is better to facilitate and understand our relationship with him if we refer to
Him as our heavenly Father. This concept also facilitates communication since only persons can
communicate with each other in the true sense of the word and helps us to understand why
discerning His will is a progressive experience.
As we grow and develop morally and spiritually just like all children, we are able to discern more
and more of his will. But even in our present state, we can discern his will as spiritual children, for
what is his will other than to love Him with all our heart, all our mind and all of our soul, and to love
our neighbor as we love ourselves? And we can begin to see immediately that as we grow and
develop, this love will change in value and meaning as we discover deeper meanings as time goes
by.
To love the heavenly Father with all our heart, mind and soul is to worship Him. To worship the
Father is to become like Him, and to become like Him is eternal life. To love our neighbor as our
self is to recognize that the heavenly Father is the father of all of his children and that we are in fact
brothers and sisters. We learn to love our brothers and sisters in our human family by intimate
contact with them. We come to understand them, to understand their struggles and ultimately to love
them. We also learn how to love our spiritual brothers and sisters by intimate spiritual contact with
them.
Since we are children, it is apparent that the Father wants us to grow up spiritually, even as we must
grow up materially. Children, material or spiritual, have tremendous potential. Human parents
recognize this and provide a variety of experiences for actualizing these potentials. These potentials
require adequate stimuli for development, and parents provide increasingly difficult intellectual and
physical obstacles to offer resistance to the intellectual and physical aspects of ourselves.
And as you have probably surmised by now, the heavenly Father also provides adequate stimulus
for the development of our moral and spiritual natures. This is done by providing unique experiences
for us that challenge our sense of duty and values. We are literally thrown into situations that require
us to choose the highest decision, morally and spiritually. This causes quite a bit of commotion
internally as the internal self begins to mobilize itself. Overcoming the moral and spiritual inertia
can be quite painful and confusing at times as many a soul has fled to their knees seeking guidance
and spiritual power to overcome the obstacles.
And like an earthly father who watches his children grow, the heavenly Father has nothing but
compassion and mercy for his struggling children. But He does not remove them from the struggles
anymore than a wise human parent would remove their child from the intellectual and physical
struggles that are so necessary for their development. The Father offers inspiration to the struggling
spiritual child even as the earthly father offers encouragement to his earthly child.
As the spiritual child begins to have successes, the faith of the child grows in its ability to overcome
ever more difficult challenges. Inherent in this scheme of progression is the necessary shadow of
failure and disappointment to fall over the spiritual child, those powerful tools for imparting wisdom
and course adjustments, those powerful stimulators of faith and insight. These tools of growth create
insight because they encourage the spiritual child to look inside for guidance and direction. It teaches
him to seek to know the Father's will.
Faith must grow and it must be divested of all material contamination; it must be purified so that it
stands purely for the relation of the spiritual child with the heavenly Father. And while error creates
a longing and increased capacity for the reception of truth and while evil creates a longing and
increased capacity for the appreciation of goodness, disharmony creates a longing and increased
capacity for the appreciation of beauty. These divine values when united in love constitute the reality
of the presence of the heavenly Father. It requires time for the spiritual child to realize that he lives
in a world of spiritual values and meanings, and the realization of doing the Father's will is no more
or less than the progressive acquirement of these divine values and meanings.
Now let us take a philosophical review of what we have stated so far. The Father's will is His Divine
spirit that dwells within our minds and souls. The divine spirit is the Father's purpose. So when we
say we desire to do the Father's will, we are in fact saying that we wish to share his purpose. When
we desire to share that purpose we come under the influence of His purpose. As we continue to bathe
in this spiritual influence, more and more our human desires are elevated and spiritualized until they
approximate and eventually match those of His spirit.
The spiritual influence of the Father's spirit is the most subtle yet most powerful force in existence.
An influence operates over long periods of time, slowly by changing the very nature of a person. A
direct force may compel someone to perform a certain act but cannot change the nature of the person.
This spiritual influence is the altruistic urge in our minds and souls. It unfailingly urges us to be other
mindness, to relate ourselves to others in a way that they receive the highest benefit in any given
situation. As you can see, this urge requires that we use intelligence and wisdom in executing it.
Many an evil has been perpetuated by executing the Father's will without the necessary wisdom and
patience. We must learn how to execute it. We only learn wisdom and patience by reacting to
disappointment.
To do the Father's will, then, becomes the process of becoming Godlike. When we choose to do the
Father's will, we are in effect choosing to become like He is. Since God is eternal, the persistence
in doing His will makes us eternal. The passport to eternity is the eternal doing of the Father's will.
So we ask, how does a temporal being make an eternal decision? When a person decides to do the
Father's will, this in itself is an eternal decision since the Father's will is eternal.
This concludes today's message on understanding insights of faith. We hope you find something in
this message to ponder and pray about as you go about your day. Until next time, this is Dr. James
Perry.
Inspirational Messages
By Dr. James Perry
Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done!
The Insights of Faith
