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The highest expression of human freedom is to fulfill our first, best destiny. This is achieved through consecration of our individual, personal will to that of the divine, that unifying and coordinating quality of Deity. God’s will is expressed as “Be you perfect even as I am perfect.” The rewards attendant upon pursuing perfection are made possible through the mind endowment. By using all the resources of our personality, to condition our spiritual reflexes and develop our soul power, we thereby take control as the true arbiters of our eternal destiny and truly become a being of light.
In the prose of Jesus we were told: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and be led to glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
If we, as individuals, are ever to stand in the personal presence of the Father in His likeness as a perfected being, it will be because of our decisions and our efforts. It will be because we have begun, in the here and now, to move towards perfection in obedience to the Jesusonian command: “Love one another as have loved you.”
Achieving the goal of the ages means that we will have reached perfection. If, on the other hand, we reject responsibility for our thoughts, decisions, and actions, we will give up our control. We would react pathetically to the circumstances of life without making any real progress. Our lives would become chaotic, our physical systems would become discordant, our societies would show evidence of disorder, a lack of harmony, and regression as it pertains to all of the most meaningful qualities of life.
In such dysfunctional societies the center cannot hold. The irreflexive members are unaccountable for their actions. They have embraced a false liberty. Within their supposed freedom to do whatever they want, without taking any responsibility for the result, is the seed of a sure and certain outcome. It will be just as foretold long ago: “Whoever sows iniquity shall reap calamity; they who sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind.”
The only realm, or range of choices, in which we can truly exert complete control, is that through which we traverse as we struggle to achieve self-mastery. When we choose the higher path, we are thereby becoming independent of the material world, its situations, its appearances, its contradictions, its incessant wants, and all of its false priorities. When we mature, as a child of God, we forsake childish things.
When we can think independently of such a world and all of its distractions, we will be truly liberated, free to choose the higher path, free to achieve our highest and best destiny, free to realize the most complete and replete expression of our being. To understand the will of the Father is to know the love of a Divine Parent. For every true parent desires only the most promising, most fulfilling career for each of their children.
Fidelity of mind and a unified personality are the prerequisites for quality thinking. “By their fruits you shall know them”. And those who also reach for the values of the most real, most abundant life, are your cohorts, your fellow travelers for the long journey ahead. If you are becoming an individual capable of navigating the confusing currents of this world without losing sight of the guiding star that will bring us into an era of light and life, then you are helping to move all of us along the way to the brightest possible future.
Jesus once asked: “Why do you call me good?” And then he said: “There is no one good but God.” He also told us that ‘He who rules his own spirit is mightier than he who takes a city’. When you choose the path that leads to eternal life, you will be transforming your whole being into one filled with the truth, the beauty, and the goodness that can only come from God. The highest creative achievement of human life is one of mutual collaboration between God and each human being. Our Heavenly Father is far more than just your upstairs advisor. He is truly your partner in life.
We can nitpick. We can experience theological hiccups. We can fret about things that didn’t go our way. But, in the final analysis, the only thing that matters is our faith because it is our faith that truly says it all. Faith is, first and foremost, loyal. The highest form of loyalty is manifest when we pray to God saying “It is my will that your will be done.” The certitude about our future that stems from such loyalty is rooted in the knowledge that Our God is, in all respects, faithful.
While the non-believers and the unfaithful do their little dance, as marionettes of destiny within the fiction of self-determination, we must remember: False liberty is unintelligent, unconditioned, and uncontrolled. It is a cruel form of self-deception. True liberty is found in the reach for our highest and best destiny and this is only enjoyed through the embrace of living truth.
When all is said and done, we are truly the arbiters of our own destiny.