WHAT IS SIN?
SIN IS THE RESULT OF IGNORANCE, SELFISHNESS AND SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS
To be FREE, we must obey the LAW. To be a free member of society, we must obey the laws of society. To be a free member of spiritual society or Heaven, we must obey the laws of Heaven. If we do not obey the laws of society, we end up in prison. If we do not obey the laws of spiritual society, we end up in spiritual prison or hell.
We are released from our spiritual prison by wisdom, repentance, forgiveness and gratitude.
The personal ego is so self-righteous that it prefers to suffer and stay in prison than to repent, forgive and be free.
You must eventually make a choice: would you like to be RIGHT and remain in spiritual darkness or would you prefer to be FREE?
We must stop glorifying suffering, guilt, shame, poverty, disease, death and begin to glorify God.
God is Light, Life, Truth, Love, Peace and Reality. The world of the self-righteous ego is death, lies, illusion, fear, selfishness, resentment and confusion.
The universe is founded on freedom. We can choose to remain in prison or we can begin to free ourselves by repentance and forgiveness.
TO MISS THE MARK
The word used in the Bible literally means to "miss the mark." This refers to a marksman who is shooting at a target and misses the target.
Paul says: “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). This means that the target is the glory of God.
Our purpose is to reveal the glory of God. What is the glory of God? God is spiritual consciousness and this spiritual consciousness is Divine Love and Intelligence.
So, the whole universe that we sense is God in manifestation. If we see anything other than God in the universe, then we are missing the target.
We must understand the Truth of consciousness and manifest it in our life. And we know that very few people really understand the Word of God, let alone manifest it in their life.
Most people are living in spiritual darkness and missing the mark. If you can't see the target, there is no way that you can hit it correctly.
Therefore, to live in sin is to live in selfishness, ignorance and fear. To do the will of God is to live in compassion, understanding and love.
When we choose to live in fear, ignorance, self-righteousness, condemnation and selfishness, we create the prison of sin. But when we choose compassion, forgiveness, gratitude and understanding, we live in the freedom of unconditional Love.
THERE IS NO SADNESS IN HEAVEN
Some people think that those who do God's will have to be sick, sad, poor and miserable in the world. The opposite is true.
Why? Because these are signs that you are in a state of spiritual darkness.
And God wants you to be close to Him in spiritual Light.
If you were in a state of spiritual Light, you would heal, you would be joyful, you would attract wealth and you would be loved.
CHOOSE LIGHT
In the Bible, God says: "I create Light and darkness...." then He says: "Choose Light..."
To sin is to choose to remain in spiritual darkness.
The problem is that we have wandered so long in the dark that we think that is all there is.
It is like a man who was born and lived most of his life in a dark cave filled with spiders, cobwebs and mice. When he discovers the entrance to the cave and attempts to get out , he cannot bear the Light and inevitably returns to his miserable but comfortable surroundings.
God wants us to get out of our cave and bask in the sunshine and open spaces of Heaven.
We sin because we are in spiritual darkness and do not understand the Truth. But where is the Truth? The Truth is in consciousness. We must take our attention away from appearances and experience the Truth that is within us.
For example, we are envious because we erroneously believe that we live in a competitive universe and certain rich persons have appropriated everything for themselves and left nothing for us. The Truth is that God's supply is infinite and God has never witheld anything from us. "Son, all that I have is yours." We must just understand how to ask, seek and find in consciousness. We must release all our wants and realize that consciousness/love itself is our supply. And if we are conscious of this Truth, consciousness will manifest as whatever we need at the appropriate time. We cannot hoard or accumulate spiritual substance. In fact, when the children of Israel were in the desert, they received manna every day. But whatever they did not use during that day, they could not accumulate because it became spoiled. In the same way, we must not withhold what we have for the future. We must use it for the benefit of all. Elijah told the widow who only had a drop of oil to bake him a small cake. After she did, her jar of oil filled miraculously. This is how we keep the spiritual substance flowing by giving generously and freely to all. And we should not take thought for our future needs. We must just make sure that we have the substance of Love within our own being.
We are slothful because we think we will be happy if we sit around and do nothing. This is a false belief. Real joy is only derived from being creative and useful.
We engage in lust because we erroneously believe it will make us happy. We think we will be happy if we have sex with some new and exciting person. This is a false belief. Yes, we will be happy for about 3 seconds and then we will be compelled to find a new candidate. Lust only causes us to fall into a vicious cycle of suffering.
We become greedy because we think money will give us power and make us happy. To love money for its own sake only causes us to retract into the darkness of our egotistical self. Money is just a symbol for spiritual goods. And all spiritual goods come from God and must be used to do God's will. If money is hoarded, wasted and misused, it only brings misery. To love money for its own sake is a sin. But to desire money to do what is creative and useful is good.
We become angry because we do not trust in the Providence and infinite intelligence of the universe. We think we are smarter than God. We must forgive every one and leave revenge to God. "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord."
Eating brings us satisfaction. And so we think that, if we eat more, we will be even happier. We mistake our spiritual hunger for physical hunger. What we need more of is spiritual food. We need to understand something new every day. The Wisdom and Love of God is infinite; it is the food of the angels.
Now, man's original sin was pride or arrogance. He thought he could be happy by using his own intelligence and forgetting about God. He descended into the darkness of the ego. But the ego is a lie or negative entity that only brings misery. All Good and Truth comes from Heaven. Spiritual Light or Wisdom is a substance that is emanated from Heaven. And spiritual warmth or Divine Love is the only substance though which we can live and heal. Without Divine Love and Wisdom, our soul begins to die. This is why God implores us to choose Light or Life.
Our real self is united with God. When you ask human beings for their name, they usually answer: "I am John, I am Mary or I am Andrew.." They do not realize that "I AM" is the name of God. We must get in touch with this real "I AM" and do its will.
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