God is All of it (part one)
All of us have a part in the process of oneness. God made his own; a whole world of us. God has plainly demonstrated his preferences. He chose a people for himself out of all the world and tested his people's character. Many failed the test, but overall, God established the model of obedience. Then, God set new rules, and called a new people from the obedient, and proved them through faith and love. The model for this new people is Christ Jesus. In Christ is demonstrated the nature of God, a spirit not outside of man, but within. The coming was proclaimed, and it falls to the faithful and obedient to that inner nature to do their part. Matthew 3:3 “For this is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
We should not only see the voice of John the Baptist out in the wilderness. Yes, he was one among many, and he played his part. Any wilderness is a place that is not straight; it needs to be prepared like a farmer works his land. Any one of us, as an individual, may play our part, but there are many of us. We are a prepared and growing body. We who are obedient and faithful are like a snowball rolling downhill, gathering speed and mass. We are no longer individual flakes, drifting around. We are a oneness calling for oneness. When we see an expression like 'the voice of one,' we may read it as the voice of oneness calling itself together in a wilderness of the unintegrated. The farmer's first furrow calls for the second, and the second calls for the third. The plowed field, once begun, calls for completion. Mark 1:3 “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
God is in the snowball as the forces that hold it together and move it forward. God is one; all we gather to him and hold fast. The voice of one is the voice of God. The voice of one is the voice of us who are gathered to one. We are the prepared soil in which the seed of the spirit has been planted. There is no space between the Father and the Son. There is no space between the Son and the disciple. There is no space between the voice of the one calling and those who are called. But, there is a great gulf fixed between the oneness and those who deny their inner nature. That inner nature is the same nature found in Jesus Christ. It is the seed of the father that remains in us and makes all of us one. God is one. God is the voice, not only the spirit of the message but the spirit of the messenger. All who come to the father must accept the inner spirit of the son. Father, Son, and extended family; we are one. Luke 3:4 “The voice of one crying in the wilderness.”
Look closely at the following verse. Matthew 12:6 “But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple.” It may also be read in this manner: in this place, One is greater than the temple. The temple was the center of Judaic life. Men found a deep sense of connection in the law, the temple, and the performed rites. Jesus came along and said what he said, now, Christians interpret Matthew 12:6 to mean that the Son of God is greater than the temple. We must remember that the son is one with the father. Jesus said also, I and my father are one (One.) The Father/Son oneness, then, is greater than the temple, which represents obedience as a work outside the nature of oneness. To follow that line of reasoning, we may see that the Father/Son/disciple oneness is greater than the temple. Of course, it follows that everyone brought into that oneness is greater than the temple. That oneness, that spirit, that nature, that very God is in the body whole. Nature is the key here. Neither greatness nor oneness may be found in idle words. Empty are all incantations, all invocations, all memorized prayers if the nature of One is not present. Vain is all bowing and scraping and physical gestures if the spirit of the Son of God is not predominant.
Many religions and religiously maintained non-faiths taut a similitude of solidarity in their ideology or party line. Oneness is not found there; the nature of One is absent. In a grander, more cosmic application, oneness may be likened to a dairy farm. There are many buckets of milk sitting in the barn, but the milk is not one, even though similar. What rises to the top of the milk, the best of the milk, is gathered as special. The farmer may take the milk and feed it to his children, or he may feed it to the pigs. He might sell it, give it away, or throw it away. The cream is that special essence that is found in the diversity. There are many in the world, but the many are not the one. A large number of us reject that special essence that makes us who we are. God is in all of us, but many reject that special essence within. There are buckets in the barn that have deliberately spilled their cream. They will not accept cream from another bucket. In a bigger sense of who we are, God is all in all. We are spiritual beings drawing our spiritual nature from a single source: One. Ephesians 4:6 “One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.”
God is all of it. Apart from God, there is nothing. We may choose between One and nothing. If you cut an arm or a leg away from the body, it dies. It is no longer able to partake of the health of the body, and in a very real sense, is no longer a part of the body. The severed limb grows cold and decomposes. In the end, it is nothing. The body, however, maintains its health and lives. Judaism does not, like Islam, and certain among the Christian faith, view God at the cosmic level. To those, God is reduced to an ideology or party line. For them, God is what separates them from others. Oneness and separation are opposites. Jews, Muslims, and Christians, among the many, fail to see that all of us are the same. We are spiritual beings who draw our natures from the nature of the One. We are spiritual brothers and sisters. We can no more keep the one true God to ourselves than we can hold back the rivers from joining the seas. Mark 12:29 “And Jesus answered him, the first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord.”
Let us remove God from the limited framework of exclusive groups. The spirit of oneness was always outside those limitations. Let us set free the universality of our spirits. God can not be contained in a temple or a mosque. God can not be summoned and manipulated with prayer rugs or beads. There is one God; all of us are a part of him. Judaism is a severed leg. Islam is a severed arm. The arm and the leg must be attached to the body for either of them to be viable. Do you really think your exclusive belief ensures God's reality? He is above that. If temple sacrifices failed to do the job, will prostrating on a rug succeed? Will folding your hands together do anything? Will fingering beads work? There is no disbelief that can invalidate God. There is no single exclusive religious format that will come out on top. Oneness calls to oneness, therefore, only oneness will work. Exclusivity must be stripped away from our thinking. Ephesians 4:5 “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.”
Let's think about baptism. Is it only for one religion? It is a physical token, like folding hands, or counting beads. A physical thing, by its own nature, is not a spiritual thing. Is there, then, a cleansing that is spiritual? Is there a rising up out of that really gets the job done? A true spiritual baptism is a cleansing from exclusivity. A true spiritual baptism is a rising up out of all narrow-minded worldly mindsets. Can there be a good Christian, or a good Jew, or a good Muslim when they hold themselves apart? Neither goodness nor justification may be found in separation. They are found in the union of our spirits with the nature of the Son of God. The Son of God is one with the Father. All goodness is found in One. Matthew 19:17 “And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God.”
The severed limb that rejected the body dies from want of nutrition. Having separated itself from the body, it may no longer draw from the health of the body. But a tick may attach itself to the body and draw from the oneness. The body whole is where the health is found. There is life in joining and death in detachment. God is One. If you are a part of that, you will share the goodness. No one is good, but God is good. God is the only one in which we may find the good that will sustain us. Mark 10:18 “And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God.”
An accepted mindset from early times is that it takes more than a single witness to establish the truth in a dispute. It takes two or three witnesses. In our modern courts, great effort is placed into the delivery of proof. A line of facts is established by multiple witnesses, and it is then supported by actual facts like photos, and 911 call logs, by texts and emails. As to those witnesses, there must be agreement. By that, I mean they were all there, they all saw it go down, they are all aware of and/or are part of the same event. Those elements of agreement are the foundation of a case; the facts seen in photos, texts, emails, etc., all support the agreement. Again, the foundation is found in the agreement, and by that agreement, a truth is established. 1 John 5:7 “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”
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