With suggested questions to discuss
By Kaye Cooper
For our material lifetimes, the Kingdom of heaven is not a place, a government or an organization. It is connection and relationship. It is the spirit of God teaching and leading the soul of man. It is spiritual and it is real but it is not material. UB 1536:6 /.137:8.9
How does the process of entering the kingdom begin? What is the prerequisite to entering the kingdom?
You initiate this process of living in the kingdom by wanting to be like your Heavenly Parent. Wanting the values that express God’s goodness. Seeking to know what is spiritually real. Yearning for loving relationships. Delighting in the beautiful and the good. UB 1536:5 / 137:8.8
Jesus said that our striving to be like God must be done with the faith and trusting dependence of a little child. What is the faith of a little child?
Simply trusting, without the doubts that experience and adulthood in the material world tend to develop in us. The complete trust that all that you need will be provided lovingly. You will be cared for. UB 1536:5./ 137:8.8
What does it feel like to have the trusting dependence of a little child in your Daddy God? (your Mother God, your friend God)
Secure. Filled with assurance that comes not from the mind but from a place at the center of my chest. A strength that holds me and won’t let in the fear that waits just outside that strength.
Jesus said, “If you would but believe that my Father loves you with an infinite love, then you are in the kingdom of God.” How do you know your Heavenly Mother-Father-Friend loves you with an infinite love? What is it within you that makes you believe this? UB 1537:4 / 137:8.17
That feeling of being loved. An affirmation from that place at the center of my chest. Sometimes it is in words, but more often it is in a feeling (for want of a better word) that my mind interprets into words.
What effect does this love have on you?
Stabilizes, strengthens, uplifts, calms, reassures, and affirms me. My desire to be like God constantly grows stronger and deeper as a result. God’s love pours through me and to others – changing the way I see them, changing the way I feel about them, changing the way I treat them.
Once we faith-discover ourselves as cherished children of our Heavenly Parent (Friend), we will desire to be taught and led by the spirit of God. It happens naturally as a result of the experience of being loved. How are you taught and led by the spirit of God? What do you experience?
Feelings, confirmations, words, pictures, the voices or examples of other people, media articles, books, coincidences, surprises, unconscious direction, changes of mind during sleep. All of these teach me. The experience is mostly experience of insights and meanings falling into place.
What are you taught? What are you led to do?
What I am taught: how to see through the superficial to the real person or the real situation, how to see people as weak rather than wicked, compassion, objectivity, strength of character, patience, interest in people rather than what they can do for me, to laugh rather than get upset, to be aware of the people around me, to think in terms of needs. These are all lessons in being more loving.
What I am led to do: to listen, to watch for needs, to give with joy.
What we are led to, expressed in one word, is “service.” We are attracted to it, not coerced by guilt. It is not a test we have to pass. To be led to service is a spiritually natural outcome of the changes within us. Jesus said it this way, “And when the feelings of service for your fellow men arise within your soul, do not stifle them; when the emotions of love for your neighbor well up within your heart, give expression to such urges of affection in intelligent ministry to the real needs of your fellows.”
UB 1745:1 / 157:2.2