0:00:00 - 0:00:20 Trust in God part three blessings are driven by trust in God. We're continuing a discussion of topics that are expanded upon in the two books. The Glory of God is intelligence and seek ye this Jesus. You can purchase both of those for print costs on amazon.com or on Kindle at Amazon and you can get a 0:00:20 - 0:00:48 free PDF at upward thought.blogspot.com. Trust in God dictates blessings. I alluded to this a bit in a previous presentation, but we'll dig into this whence are the blessings. Where do blessings from God come from? There's a prevailing belief in Christianity that blessings come arbitrarily that God is 0:00:48 - 0:01:13 capricious, that you have to cater his favor and that he blesses people uh willy nilly arbitrarily based on mood or something like that. And that God has a magic wand and that's how he works well, that's all rubbish. And it turns out that God operates on the principle of cause and effect otherwise known 0:01:12 - 0:01:42 as law. So the real sticking point here is that God cannot reveal to you how things really work beyond the degree to which you trust him. And there are reasons for this. But Paul, for example, he described that I have not seen nor ear heard the blessings that God has in store for those that love him 0:01:41 - 0:02:08 . But why not? Why can't he just show people that, um, there are a few reasons, one reason is that our awareness determines how much we can comprehend. So, in other places, I've referred to this principle as, uh with the phrase Windows of Truth. But basically, wherever you are right now sets the limit 0:02:07 - 0:02:29 on what you can comprehend. And it's just beyond what you presently comprehend. It's kind of like if you're um if you're driving up a hill and you come to the crest of the hill, what you can see on the other side of the hill expands as you get to the top of the hill. And that's kind of like it is when 0:02:29 - 0:02:53 it comes to awareness, that's the way it works. The other reason that this doesn't happen is that it isn't enough to know what's possible to know what's possible. You can know things without appreciating them, you can know things without enjoying them. And the reason is because you can know things without 0:02:52 - 0:03:24 comprehending them. So if you have never been to heaven before, odds are that if you were magically transported to heaven, you would be very, very unhappy. In fact, you would call it hell. And the reason is because that existence, um it comes with a degree of awareness and in fact, it's uh driven by 0:03:23 - 0:03:46 a degree of awareness that is far beyond what you are presently aware of and all your belief systems and your character and your desires and appetites and everything else. Chances are, if you're in the condition that I described that you've never been there before, chances are that all those things are 0:03:46 - 0:04:10 calibrated to this life and you could call that glory if you would like or intelligence or light and truth or whatever. But everything you are and everything you have is based on what's here. And were you to go to a place where the law was different, where reality existed, um, in such a way that your 0:04:10 - 0:04:37 awareness is, is beyond how limited it is here, you'd be very unhappy because everything you desire and everything you are and uh every aspect of your character would be in conflict with the way things are there. What, what can I use to compare this to? It would be like, uh, how in life you go through 0:04:37 - 0:05:02 life and maybe some catastrophe befalls you like a child dies or you get bone cancer or whatever you lose your job or, um, these sorts of things. Well, that feeling you have of everything that you thought was stable and permanent being ripped away from you all at once and, and then it cascades to everything 0:05:02 - 0:05:24 that's not in question because if this sure thing that you thought you'd, you'd, you'd just be healthy the rest of your life and now all of a sudden you have four days to live or something or you have to face the rest of your life in, in absolute physical misery or whatever, if that thing can be called 0:05:23 - 0:05:49 into question and be up in the air, what can't and that sort of thing. So psychologists call this ego death, that is the feeling that you would have in hell or in a place in heaven that you're not prepared to go to. And so that's why God can't show you these things that I have not seen nor ear heard 0:05:49 - 0:06:16 yet. This is why, because you would not appreciate them, you would not enjoy them and you would really struggle to understand how it's a good thing. And uh being a God is an acquired taste, I'll put it that way. So the father lives in such a state that uh we would not want to live that way until we're 0:06:15 - 0:06:39 prepared to appreciate what that is and why it's good. And um that is the purpose of the Gospel is to get us to that point. The existence of the gospel is proof of this idea because were it not? So what will we need to prepare for? We could just sort of say, oh, I believe in Jesus and then the magic 0:06:38 - 0:07:00 wand waves and all of a sudden we have all the blessings that God offers to the righteous and some ignorant people believe that's really the way it works and you can see them with um illusory happiness where they think that they're happy in this life and then some tragedy befalls them and they fall to 0:07:00 - 0:07:23 pieces or maybe on their deathbed, they're just full of anguish and worry about dying. And you say, oh, I thought you had all this faith and it turns out that their faith is incredibly shallow and it's just an illusion based on some very wrong understandings about how things work anyway. In order to 0:07:23 - 0:07:44 get to the point where He can show you and can give you these blessings, there are three steps and these are the same steps of trusting God that we talked about in the last presentation. Step. One is you do the things He tells you that makes sense to you. This is the some things in the box level of trust 0:07:43 - 0:08:09 in God. Step two is you do the things you are tricked into doing by minimizing what it will take to get there. This is interesting. So um a lot of times the good things we do are done in partial understanding, in other words. So this is one of the big blessings that come from the commandments of God 0:08:09 - 0:08:29 . And why He does things that way is that He can give you a commandment. And if you trust Him, you'll do the commandment without really getting why. So when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden of Eden, God instructed them to offer sacrifices, animal sacrifices. And Adam did it for a long time 0:08:29 - 0:08:47 without realizing why he was doing it. He just did it because he was told. And then eventually it was explained to him why he needed to do that. And he got it and got the full benefit of it. But in the meantime, he, he was able to obtain the blessings of obedience to that principle, even though it was 0:08:47 - 0:09:10 beyond his understanding, through his trust in God and faith, he was blessed without having yet obtained the understanding. This is like that. So you do things you're tricked into doing by minimizing what it will take to get there. So this is uh this is important because since our awareness is limited 0:09:10 - 0:09:29 , we're not going to frequently uh comprehend the full scope of what's required to get to where we need to be. Nor will we really understand where we need to be. It's just one step at a time. And so step two is being willing to take the next step because we fool ourselves into thinking it's a short journey 0:09:28 - 0:09:51 and that the price is low. Step three is to trust God completely. This is unconditional trust again. And this is when um you truly believe that whatever He tells you to do will be good because your definition of good is God. And you know that God is good and that's all there is to it. You know, that 0:09:51 - 0:10:12 eventually if you follow that path. You will see things that as he does and it will all make complete sense because in smaller chunks, that's exactly the pattern you've seen fulfilled in your life so far. So if you want to test where you are in these three steps, uh consider this, suppose that God came 0:10:12 - 0:10:35 to you and he said, I will bless you with a blessing that you can't currently comprehend. It'll be so great. But if you could understand the situation, you would desperately desire this, the challenge is it's gonna take 20 years of hell to get you there. I don't mean literal hell. I mean, here hell on 0:10:35 - 0:10:55 earth like it's gonna be really rough for 20 years. It's gonna be worse than you can even imagine. But trust me, once you get out of that tunnel, it's gonna be great. And I can't even really describe how it's gonna be because you won't understand. But do you trust me enough to make that deal? And if 0:10:55 - 0:11:14 you're honest about it, most of you, the answer is absolutely not. It's like I don't have to think about it. There's no way like I'm not even willing to face tomorrow, let alone 20 years of hell. And I just don't trust you enough. So sorry, this is what we're talking about, right? This is why Paul says 0:11:14 - 0:11:40 that those blessings have not been seen or heard. It's because he can't tell you about them and he can't show you them because you're not willing to trust him and it would, it would seem unattractive to you and not worth the price, but he knows he knows it's worth it. So, here's a question for you. When 0:11:39 - 0:12:08 was the last time you were reading in scriptures? And you came across some marvelous situation of, you know, people caught up in fire or people moving mountains or people being miraculously healed or even just people having some deep fountain of uh fortitude during very challenging experiences. When 0:12:07 - 0:12:31 was the last time you read uh something like that in the scriptures? And noted that you don't have those experiences. When was the last time you followed that up with a question to God saying I'm doing all you've told me to do, but I don't have that. What am I missing? So it turns out that for whatever 0:12:30 - 0:12:53 reason, no one seems to think this way. I don't understand why we know that God is no respecter of persons, meaning that uh He operates by cause and effect and anyone who engages in the same causes will get the same effects. He's consistent and he's fair. But uh for some reason, we don't connect the 0:12:52 - 0:13:13 dots and follow that up with this question. So one thing to ask yourself, um are you not asking this question because you know that you're not doing everything you've been told to do? Are you afraid that He will point out those things that you have lied to yourself about and told yourself that you're 0:13:13 - 0:13:33 doing, but you're not doing. And when I say doing, I mean, just reconciling to God, whether that's doing something or not doing something. But are you actually aligning with God as far as you understand him in your character and all things at all times? Because if you're not clearly, there will be effects 0:13:33 - 0:13:56 that you do not experience second question. Do you dare ask this? Do you dare ask, what am I missing? So even if you're completely reconciled, all, you know, the odds are that there's a huge gap between what you know and what this person in the scriptures knew. So if you ask, what am I missing, you're 0:13:55 - 0:14:16 asking him to send it to you. And a lot of times we're, we're not trusting in Him enough to face those things. We don't trust him enough. So I invite you to think about these things and reflect honestly on your situation to think about the blessings that God has reserved for you and what's keeping you 0:00:00 - 0:00:20 Trust in God part three blessings are driven by trust in God. We're continuing a discussion of topics that are expanded upon in the two books. The Glory of God is intelligence and seek ye this Jesus. You can purchase both of those for print costs on amazon.com or on Kindle at Amazon and you can get a 0:00:20 - 0:00:48 free PDF at upward thought.blogspot.com. Trust in God dictates blessings. I alluded to this a bit in a previous presentation, but we'll dig into this whence are the blessings. Where do blessings from God come from? There's a prevailing belief in Christianity that blessings come arbitrarily that God is 0:00:48 - 0:01:13 capricious, that you have to cater his favor and that he blesses people uh willy nilly arbitrarily based on mood or something like that. And that God has a magic wand and that's how he works well, that's all rubbish. And it turns out that God operates on the principle of cause and effect otherwise known 0:01:12 - 0:01:42 as law. So the real sticking point here is that God cannot reveal to you how things really work beyond the degree to which you trust him. And there are reasons for this. But Paul, for example, he described that I have not seen nor ear heard the blessings that God has in store for those that love him 0:01:41 - 0:02:08 . But why not? Why can't he just show people that, um, there are a few reasons, one reason is that our awareness determines how much we can comprehend. So, in other places, I've referred to this principle as, uh with the phrase Windows of Truth. But basically, wherever you are right now sets the limit 0:02:07 - 0:02:29 on what you can comprehend. And it's just beyond what you presently comprehend. It's kind of like if you're um if you're driving up a hill and you come to the crest of the hill, what you can see on the other side of the hill expands as you get to the top of the hill. And that's kind of like it is when 0:02:29 - 0:02:53 it comes to awareness, that's the way it works. The other reason that this doesn't happen is that it isn't enough to know what's possible to know what's possible. You can know things without appreciating them, you can know things without enjoying them. And the reason is because you can know things without 0:02:52 - 0:03:24 comprehending them. So if you have never been to heaven before, odds are that if you were magically transported to heaven, you would be very, very unhappy. In fact, you would call it hell. And the reason is because that existence, um it comes with a degree of awareness and in fact, it's uh driven by 0:03:23 - 0:03:46 a degree of awareness that is far beyond what you are presently aware of and all your belief systems and your character and your desires and appetites and everything else. Chances are, if you're in the condition that I described that you've never been there before, chances are that all those things are 0:03:46 - 0:04:10 calibrated to this life and you could call that glory if you would like or intelligence or light and truth or whatever. But everything you are and everything you have is based on what's here. And were you to go to a place where the law was different, where reality existed, um, in such a way that your 0:04:10 - 0:04:37 awareness is, is beyond how limited it is here, you'd be very unhappy because everything you desire and everything you are and uh every aspect of your character would be in conflict with the way things are there. What, what can I use to compare this to? It would be like, uh, how in life you go through 0:04:37 - 0:05:02 life and maybe some catastrophe befalls you like a child dies or you get bone cancer or whatever you lose your job or, um, these sorts of things. Well, that feeling you have of everything that you thought was stable and permanent being ripped away from you all at once and, and then it cascades to everything 0:05:02 - 0:05:24 that's not in question because if this sure thing that you thought you'd, you'd, you'd just be healthy the rest of your life and now all of a sudden you have four days to live or something or you have to face the rest of your life in, in absolute physical misery or whatever, if that thing can be called 0:05:23 - 0:05:49 into question and be up in the air, what can't and that sort of thing. So psychologists call this ego death, that is the feeling that you would have in hell or in a place in heaven that you're not prepared to go to. And so that's why God can't show you these things that I have not seen nor ear heard 0:05:49 - 0:06:16 yet. This is why, because you would not appreciate them, you would not enjoy them and you would really struggle to understand how it's a good thing. And uh being a God is an acquired taste, I'll put it that way. So the father lives in such a state that uh we would not want to live that way until we're 0:06:15 - 0:06:39 prepared to appreciate what that is and why it's good. And um that is the purpose of the Gospel is to get us to that point. The existence of the gospel is proof of this idea because were it not? So what will we need to prepare for? We could just sort of say, oh, I believe in Jesus and then the magic 0:06:38 - 0:07:00 wand waves and all of a sudden we have all the blessings that God offers to the righteous and some ignorant people believe that's really the way it works and you can see them with um illusory happiness where they think that they're happy in this life and then some tragedy befalls them and they fall to 0:07:00 - 0:07:23 pieces or maybe on their deathbed, they're just full of anguish and worry about dying. And you say, oh, I thought you had all this faith and it turns out that their faith is incredibly shallow and it's just an illusion based on some very wrong understandings about how things work anyway. In order to 0:07:23 - 0:07:44 get to the point where He can show you and can give you these blessings, there are three steps and these are the same steps of trusting God that we talked about in the last presentation. Step. One is you do the things He tells you that makes sense to you. This is the some things in the box level of trust 0:07:43 - 0:08:09 in God. Step two is you do the things you are tricked into doing by minimizing what it will take to get there. This is interesting. So um a lot of times the good things we do are done in partial understanding, in other words. So this is one of the big blessings that come from the commandments of God 0:08:09 - 0:08:29 . And why He does things that way is that He can give you a commandment. And if you trust Him, you'll do the commandment without really getting why. So when Adam and Eve were kicked out of the garden of Eden, God instructed them to offer sacrifices, animal sacrifices. And Adam did it for a long time 0:08:29 - 0:08:47 without realizing why he was doing it. He just did it because he was told. And then eventually it was explained to him why he needed to do that. And he got it and got the full benefit of it. But in the meantime, he, he was able to obtain the blessings of obedience to that principle, even though it was 0:08:47 - 0:09:10 beyond his understanding, through his trust in God and faith, he was blessed without having yet obtained the understanding. This is like that. So you do things you're tricked into doing by minimizing what it will take to get there. So this is uh this is important because since our awareness is limited 0:09:10 - 0:09:29 , we're not going to frequently uh comprehend the full scope of what's required to get to where we need to be. Nor will we really understand where we need to be. It's just one step at a time. And so step two is being willing to take the next step because we fool ourselves into thinking it's a short journey 0:09:28 - 0:09:51 and that the price is low. Step three is to trust God completely. This is unconditional trust again. And this is when um you truly believe that whatever He tells you to do will be good because your definition of good is God. And you know that God is good and that's all there is to it. You know, that 0:09:51 - 0:10:12 eventually if you follow that path. You will see things that as he does and it will all make complete sense because in smaller chunks, that's exactly the pattern you've seen fulfilled in your life so far. So if you want to test where you are in these three steps, uh consider this, suppose that God came 0:10:12 - 0:10:35 to you and he said, I will bless you with a blessing that you can't currently comprehend. It'll be so great. But if you could understand the situation, you would desperately desire this, the challenge is it's gonna take 20 years of hell to get you there. I don't mean literal hell. I mean, here hell on 0:10:35 - 0:10:55 earth like it's gonna be really rough for 20 years. It's gonna be worse than you can even imagine. But trust me, once you get out of that tunnel, it's gonna be great. And I can't even really describe how it's gonna be because you won't understand. But do you trust me enough to make that deal? And if 0:10:55 - 0:11:14 you're honest about it, most of you, the answer is absolutely not. It's like I don't have to think about it. There's no way like I'm not even willing to face tomorrow, let alone 20 years of hell. And I just don't trust you enough. So sorry, this is what we're talking about, right? This is why Paul says 0:11:14 - 0:11:40 that those blessings have not been seen or heard. It's because he can't tell you about them and he can't show you them because you're not willing to trust him and it would, it would seem unattractive to you and not worth the price, but he knows he knows it's worth it. So, here's a question for you. When 0:11:39 - 0:12:08 was the last time you were reading in scriptures? And you came across some marvelous situation of, you know, people caught up in fire or people moving mountains or people being miraculously healed or even just people having some deep fountain of uh fortitude during very challenging experiences. When 0:12:07 - 0:12:31 was the last time you read uh something like that in the scriptures? And noted that you don't have those experiences. When was the last time you followed that up with a question to God saying I'm doing all you've told me to do, but I don't have that. What am I missing? So it turns out that for whatever 0:12:30 - 0:12:53 reason, no one seems to think this way. I don't understand why we know that God is no respecter of persons, meaning that uh He operates by cause and effect and anyone who engages in the same causes will get the same effects. He's consistent and he's fair. But uh for some reason, we don't connect the 0:12:52 - 0:13:13 dots and follow that up with this question. So one thing to ask yourself, um are you not asking this question because you know that you're not doing everything you've been told to do? Are you afraid that He will point out those things that you have lied to yourself about and told yourself that you're 0:13:13 - 0:13:33 doing, but you're not doing. And when I say doing, I mean, just reconciling to God, whether that's doing something or not doing something. But are you actually aligning with God as far as you understand him in your character and all things at all times? Because if you're not clearly, there will be effects 0:13:33 - 0:13:56 that you do not experience second question. Do you dare ask this? Do you dare ask, what am I missing? So even if you're completely reconciled, all, you know, the odds are that there's a huge gap between what you know and what this person in the scriptures knew. So if you ask, what am I missing, you're 0:13:55 - 0:14:16 asking him to send it to you. And a lot of times we're, we're not trusting in Him enough to face those things. We don't trust him enough. So I invite you to think about these things and reflect honestly on your situation to think about the blessings that God has reserved for you and what's keeping you 0:14:15 - 0:14:21 from them because it's not Him, it's you and it's your level of trust in Him.