"You hold the key to love and fear, all in your trembling hand."

(Jesse Colin Young)

We have considered the results of misplaced faith. We have also considered how the scientist on Earth would go about systematically understanding the physical universe and by analogy we have seen how high art foreshadows things Spiritual. Now we will see what constitutes a healthy faith even a new faith and we will continue to apply the lessons learned from the physical universe to further increase our understanding of Spiritual things, meanings and values.

The faintest flicker of faith is serviceable. And, just as the human concept of faith is multifaceted, living faith has many dimensions. As you might expect, each of the terms commonly used to describe the various aspects of faith has a transcendent quality of its own. To fully define faith, or any of its component parts, would be like attempting to calculate the value of pi to the last decimal place.

Faith implies assurances, certitude, loyalty, fidelity and so much more. It is not only difficult to define, it is impossible to dissect because, unless it is vibrantly alive, it is not faith. Faith is easier to differentiate than to define because it picks up where mere belief leaves off. Belief may be static, but it represents a spark with tremendous potential. It says "Ok, you've convinced me, now what?"

Faith is belief in action. To act on one's belief is to step out in faith. Faith is the primary ingredient in the making of a great actor. It is also the final determinant between a weak act and a great witness. Faith cannot be fully understood through some crystallized, conceptual model. It is inseminated, propagated, variegated, perpetuated and disseminated through actual experience.

Somewhere between the slumber of dead intellectualism on the one hand, and a frenzy of rampant emotionalism on the other, stands the believer. Through the act of intelligent self-surrender, unreserved consecration and unfailing responsiveness to the divine leading, the believer moves to join the ranks of the faithful and is thereby transformed into an effective minister of the Gospel of Jesus.

Any understanding of an effectual working of Divine Power presupposes a relatedness, as with the vine to the branches. The Gospel of Jesus, as taught by Jesus, centers on the great Truth of the parent/child relationship. The Gospel about Jesus, as taught by His apostles, focuses on the facts associated with His death and resurrection.

These facts make no sense whatsoever unless the Truth concerning the relationship is first understood. The absence of this prerequisite is a great impediment to many due to their confusion about the Only Begotten Son and those of us who must be "re-born" to even see the Kingdom within.

"Path, follow path. Gate, open gate, through gate, close gate." While a programmer's sterile approach to instruction may often fail to inspire, learners have come to welcome the emphasis upon foundations, structure and logical sequence.

A good teacher is a builder. A good conceptual framework always rests on a solid foundation and great care must be taken to insure that growth can be supported without being restricted. Such growth should be anticipated and any framework should serve as a platform rather than an enclosure.

Inspiration is not a process of reverse engineering. It is rather an unleashing of potential. It uses seemingly inadequate resources as springboards. It sees reputedly outworn models as stepping stones. And, it recognizes that generational energy always has the advantage of incumbent DNA.

Recall the testimony of C.S. Lewis and specifically the Whit-Sunday sermon that he preached at Mansfield College Chapel in Oxford. He gave this address the title "Transposition" as he worked to illustrate what we know as the sub-spiritual disadvantage in comprehending the Spiritual. I quote the lecturer;

"If the richer system is to be represented in the poorer at all, this can only be by giving each element in the poorer system more than one meaning. The transposition of the richer into the poorer must, so to speak, be algebraical, not arithmetical. If you are to translate from a language which has a large vocabulary, into a language that has a small vocabulary, then you must be allowed to use several words in more than one sense. If you are to write a language with twenty two vowel sounds in an alphabet with only five vowel characters then you must be allowed to give each of those five characters more than one value. If you are making a piano version of a piece originally scored for an orchestra, then the same piano notes which represent flutes in one passage must also represent violins in another.

As the examples show we are all quite familiar with this kind of transposition or adaptation from a richer to a poorer medium. The most familiar example of all is the art of drawing. The problem here is to represent a three-dimensional world on a flat sheet of paper. The solution is perspective, and perspective means that we must give more than one value to a two-dimensional shape. Thus in a drawing of a cube we use an acute angle to represent what is a right angle in the real world. But elsewhere an acute angle on the paper may represent what was already an acute angle in the real world: for example, the point of a spear on the gable of a house. The very same shape which you must draw to give the illusion of a straight road receding from the spectator is also the shape you draw for a dunces' cap. As with the lines, so with the shading. Your brightest light in the picture is, in literal fact, only plain white paper: and this must do for the sun, or a lake in evening light, or snow, or human flesh.

It is clear that in each case what is happening in the lower medium can be understood only if we know the higher medium. The instance where this knowledge is most commonly lacking is the musical one. The piano version means one thing to the musician who knows the original orchestral score and another thing to the man who hears it simply as a piano piece. But the second man would be at an even greater disadvantage if he had never heard any instrument but a piano and even doubted the existence of other instruments. Even more, we understand pictures only because we know and inhabit the three-dimensional world.

If we can imagine a creature who perceived only two dimensions and yet could somehow be aware of the lines as he crawled over them on the paper, we shall easily see how impossible it would be for him to understand. At first he might be prepared to accept on authority our assurance that there was a world in three dimensions. But when we pointed to the lines on the paper and tried to explain, say, that "This is a road," would he not say that the shape which we were asking him to accept as a revelation of our mysterious other world was the very same shape which, on our own showing, elsewhere meant nothing but a triangle. And soon, I think, he would say, "You keep on telling me of this other world and its unimaginable shapes which you call solid. But isn't it very suspicious that all the shapes which you offer me as images or reflections of the solid ones turn out on inspection to be simply the old two-dimensional shapes of my own world as I have always known it? Is it not obvious that your vaunted other world, so far from being the archetype, is a dream which borrows all its elements from this one?"

I have asked you to reconsider this testimony to remind you of the difficulties attending an approach to understanding from below, as from a sub-spiritual realm. Quarantined earth is such a realm. Lucifer was clearly in a position to exploit, for his own purposes, the perceptual disadvantage of an immature, sub-spiritual humanity. And he was almost successful in extinguishing those few monotheistic religions on earth existing at the time of Our Beloved Sovereign's Incarnation.

Lewis' "creature" lacked depth perception and thereby was unable to comprehend just one more dimension in a material world. How then is the materialist to comprehend the multidimensional simultaneity of progressive ascendancy? How do human beings adjust to Infinity and Eternity? Certainly they don't by relying upon the hop-skippety-jump logic of some early twenty-first century scholars. Statements of higher purpose are intended for "he who has ears to hear," those inclined to be appreciative and thereby responsive to divine leading. There is no reaction more psychotic than to deny the very source of all reality, no belief system more idiotic than that psycho-gumbo called atheism.

Even the lowliest of creatures enjoy the gift of depth perception, a benefit that flows from possessing and interpreting information gained from two distinct vantage points. Of course human beings are favored with more than two eyes just to the extent that they can communicate with one another in a meaningful way. The Incarnation reveals a technique of divine parenting. It is the spiritual equivalent of getting on the floor to see things from your child's perspective. It places great emphasis on understanding by the experiential viewpoint of one with imperfect or immature understanding. Understanding our brothers and sisters in this way is an important part of what Jesus meant when he said, "Love one another as I have loved you."

Jesus, while on earth, taught using a series of short stories. In every case, Jesus laid a proper foundation for his teachings. As the earlier example shows, Atanasoff and Hamilton have clearly adopted the same teaching style for the benefit of sincere truth seekers.

Of course it has always been much more than just a question of where to place emphasis. The Apostles walked with the Master. They had the benefit of a foundational teaching. They understood their relationship with Our Creator Father as Jesus revealed it. Yet, in their preaching and teaching some of the Apostles chose to lead with the lessons of the cross whereas Jesus always emphasized the Love of God the Father along with the Brotherhood and Sisterhood of human kind. The shift in emphasis is understandable given the special circumstances as viewed through the apostolic experience.

Following the death and resurrection of Jesus, the frightened apostles after weeks of seclusion and now conscious of a new spiritual endowment of insight and power, emerged to proclaim that which vindicated their devotion to the Master. As Peter stood up to preach what is now known as The Pentecost Sermon, the good news, the best news he could think of was the news of the risen Messiah. And this new gospel had great persuasive power. While it was not the Gospel of Jesus, it expressed the feelings of triumph over forces that sought to destroy Jesus and His message.

The Atonement Doctrine, uncoupled from the foundational teachings concerning the character of God, risks portraying the Father as an offended monarch who must be persuaded to show mercy through the substitution of an innocent sufferer for a guilty offender. Humanity was never sold into slavery, was never the property of Lucifer, Satan, the Devil or any of the other fallen personalities. Jesus never suggested that salvation must be purchased or that any ransom must be paid. To the contrary, in his story of the Lost Sheep, the shepherd went out looking for the lost. In his story of the Prodigal Son, Jesus spoke of a father who was overjoyed by his son's desire to return and there were no other conditions attached.

Just as the prodigal concluded on his own that he would assume the status of a hired hand, it was the immature races that assumed virgins, young animals and precious metals as sacrificed would somehow buy favor with God. These material offerings, as presented, have had about as much use to God as they did to the Sinai volcano. And the base motivation behind many sacrifices throughout Earth history has often been unworthy, little more than attempts at bribery and the purchase of self-righteous exclusivity.

These sacrifices were of no use to God though man grew to crave them. With the latter's long history of sin and violence there has been a need for closure in some form, to pay the fine or do the time. Even the non-believer of today will acknowledge, if ever there was a perfect sacrifice, Jesus was undoubtedly it. Born in Bethlehem, where the chief agricultural activity of the time was the breeding of Passover lambs, he lay in a manger that was likely used for the birthing of these same lambs. He was presented for death in virtually the same crossbeam position as the burnt offerings of Jewish tradition. Jesus was truly the Lamb of God dying for, and by the hand of, sinful man.

However misguided the impulse for this type of sacrifice, great persuasive power flows from a sincere mind and heart. The gospel about Jesus was successful despite its shift in emphasis because Jesus is genuine and the enthusiasm of his followers is also genuine. His faith in Our Father never faltered, although his recitation on the cross, of the twenty second, psalm has been used to portray him as doubting.

The new gospel about Jesus was not the Gospel of Jesus but it was also not inconsistent with the Gospel of Jesus. Close examination reveals that the great volitional horsepower of the early church was derived from a sincere desire to serve in accordance with the Divine Will. Experience has shown that the Father will grant the desire of our hearts unless this desire runs contrary to His will, contrary to truth, beauty and goodness as they emanate from His character.

Human beings have long been taught that faith without works is dead. The flip side of the faith equation yields "unclean" works or things not readily useful in the grand scheme of things. Many humans are disheartened to find that the fruits of intense labor are seemingly composted even before they are ripened. After all, they thought they were acting in accordance with the will of God and now it appears that their efforts are not appreciated.

Why such a disconnect? Why? Because the Father's love for you is best understood in the context of the larger family. And, because it is not enough to yield, perhaps grudgingly, to His will. Many pray as if resigning "Thy will be done if Thou must." Indeed, the most popular prayer on Earth at the time of these presentations is expressed in one word; "Whatever."

In contrast, the most potent prayer is born of the union of wills between God and human kind through the superimposition of Divinity upon Supreme Desire. This is the secret of applied volition. It is enthusiasm personified where enthusiasm is defined as en Theos, God within. It joyfully declares "It is my will that your will be done."