The Lord's Prayer - its meaning and practice.

The Parable of the Unclean Spirit The requirement that you have to be baptised by water (cleansed) and then baptised with the Holy Spirit (reborn in the spirit) means that at any one time very few Christians will make it through the narrow gate to heaven. But take careful note of the immense power of the Lord's Prayer! No! It is not in the passive praying! Sunday Mass 28/7/13. Luke Gospel 11:1-13. Explaining the purpose, meaning and the practising of the Lord's Prayer; and the need for persistence to achieve effectiveness in practice. Explaining the hidden gem of the 'Holy Spirit' within the Lord's Prayer. Explaining the 'kingdom of God' in us. Explaining what is the 'unclean spirit' and how our 'spirit' son of God is trapped in our worldly body reaping what we sow with our worldly deeds; and thus is more often than less, defiling or desecrating our 'spirit' son of God. Explaining why and how our 'unclean spirit' returns as retribution for our past worldly karma; and thus we are as 'angels' entrapped in and going up and down Jacob's Ladder. Our 'spirit' will not be 'cleansed' until the 'lamp' of our body "is full of light, and no part of it is in darkness, then it will be as full of light as a lamp illuminating you with its brightness. Say, Today's Gospel Reading is from Luke Gospel 11:1-13. As you know, I am basically a John Gospel and Matthew Gospel person. I read Luke mainly for its parables that do not appear in the others. Luke Chapter 11 however is one exception. This is because this chapter has passages that parallel those in Matthew. In this case Luke 11:1-4 about the Lord's Prayer has its parallel in Matthew 6:9-15; and Luke 11:24-26 about the Return of the Unclean Spirit has its parallel in Matthew 12:43-45. If it were not for Luke Chapter 11 containing so many key elements of Christian epistemology comprised and inter-linked within it, the 'kingdom of God' within us would not have been so readily revealed with its full profound glory and splendour. It is for this reason that I will go beyond the homily given in church which was basically about the sanctity and the power of the Lord's Prayer, and attempt to cover the full spiritual purport of Luke Chapter 11 beyond the Lord's Prayer. First, I would recommend that you read the entire Luke Chapter 11. Once you are familiar with it you will find that the verses are basically broken into the following topics: 1-4 Lord's Prayer 5-8 Persistence of Prayer 9-13 Effectiveness of Prayer 14-23 Jesus is not the Demon Beelzebub 24-26 Return of the Unclean Spirit 27-28 True Blessedness 29-32 Demand for a Sign 33-36 Simile of Light 37-54 Denunciation of the Pharisees and the Scholars Let us begin with the Lord's Prayer. This is the version in Luke 11:1-4 - "Father, hallowed be your name,your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone in debt to us,and do not subject us to the final test. I have on previous occasions explained the Lord's Prayer in detail particularly on the aspect of forgiveness of trespasses (refer Matthew's version in Matthew 6:15-16). I like to stress once again that within the Lord's Prayer there is a quid pro quo covenant that God will forgive us for our trespasses against him if we in return on our part forgive men who trespass against us. Let me refer you to what Jesus said when he appeared after his resurrection to his

disciples, on the occasion when Doubting Thomas was not present, in John 20:19-23: 'In the evening of that same day, the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, "Peace be with you," and, after saying this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy at seeing the Lord, and he said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father sent me, so am I sending you." After saying this he breathed on them and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven; if you retain anyone's sins, they are retained".' I want you to take note of what I underlined as it is critical to spiritual understanding. Take special note that in John 20:22-23 that we have a resurrected Jesus - as a Spirit. Firstly, we are not dealing with a 'Shalom' greeting from man to man or Man to man but from Spirit to man. Jesus, as resurrected (in the) Spirit, not therefore as the incarnated Son of Man, is giving his peace of the Holy Spirit to his disciples. Secondly, we are dealing with an instruction from him (as resurrected Spirit) about forgiveness amongst men, that relates between man and man; and not in the normal context of the Lord's Prayer - wherein man (as a supplicant) is asking God to forgive him (man), and promising or covenanting that he as a man will promise to forgive other men. Here John 20:23 deals solely with the supplicant's latter quid pro quo promise or covenant (in the Lord's Prayer) to forgive his fellow men. If a man does not forgive another man; then the 'sin' of 'not forgiving', of 'not reconciling', of separation remains. This sin of 'separation' of 'man from man' at the worldly level is what the 2nd Commandment - LoveYour Neighbour is about! At the 'spirit' level, it is translated into the 'Sin' of separation of 'man (the supplicant) from God', of the spirit son of God 'not reconciling' with the Spirit Father, which is what the 1st Commandment Love God with all your heart, mind, body and soul is about! This is why the expression 'forgive us our sins' in the Lord's Prayer in Luke 11:4 is clearer in spiritual meaning than the expression 'forgive us our trespasses (or debts)' in Matthew 6:12. For debts are not worldly debts but in spiritual terms 'trespasses', 'infringements' and other disputes or disagreements that 'separate' us from our brothers in 'spirit'. By the same token, spiritual 'sin' is not what we perceive them to be in worldly moral terms, for moral sins would vary from culture to culture, nationality to nationality, and person to person, in terms of ethics and sense of moral righteousness or correctness. As I have just said, spiritual sin is about 'separation' from God as in the 1st Commandment and 'separation' from one's 'neighbours' as in the 2nd Commandment. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 5:23-24 - "So then, if you are bringing your offering to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your offering there before the altar, go and be reconciled with your brother first, and then come back and present your offering." It is all about 'reconciliation' in the 'spirit' between 'man and God' and 'man and man'. I reiterate - think of trespasses and debts in the Lord's Prayer not as worldly sins of moral turpitude but as the spiritual sin of separation from God and from one's neighbours (spirit siblings). Our moral turpitude, as we shall see later will be accounted for by the Immutable Law of You Reap what You Sow and reflected or incarnated in or as the Return of the Unclean Spirit. Revert to Matthew Chapter 6 - the Sermon on the Mount, for guidance on what the 'prayer' in the Lord's Prayer is. Prayer does not mean passive one-sided incantation or invocation or intercession but rather what in modern day terms we call personal private meditation, contemplation, reflection and spiritual cultivation and practice; akin to a private 'heart to heart' or 'soul to soul' or 'heart and soul' conversation or proactive dialogue with God; out of which arises a mutual spiritual covenant or commitment or undertaking. We must also be selfless and egoless; and not appear to parade ourselves or be ostentatious. Refer to Matthew 6:3-8 - "But when you give alms, your left hand must not know what your right is doing; your almsgiving must be secret, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not imitate the hypocrites: they love to say their prayers standing up in the synagogues and at the street corners for people to see them. In truth I tell you, they have had their reward. But when you pray, go to your private room, shut yourself in, and so pray to your Father who is in that secret

place, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you. In your prayers do not babble as the gentiles do, for they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard. Do not be like them; your Father knows what you need before you ask him." God as Spirit Father is not therefore directly interested in worldly things or this world. He is only interested because his spirit son of God (in its plurality) is lost in this world. The expression 'Your Kingdom come' in the Lord's Prayer does not relate to any geographical location or GPS manoeuvring or logistical exercise, or in something coming to you or you going somewhere. It relates and concerns the 'Kingdom of God' that is inherent and within you. You seek God within the 'Kingdom Of God' that is the spirit son of God in you. If you are God-righteous, rather than worldly false self-ego righteous, then God's Righteousness is in you, in the spirit son of God in you! That is what Jesus meant when he said - "But seek first the kingdom Of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." in Matthew 6:33. Let us refresh our thoughts. Spirit spiritual sin is when our spirit son of God is 'separated' from God, the Spirit Father; when it is still 'lost' waiting to be found in our worldly personam and existence; and that is the substance of the 1st Commandment. Worldly spiritual sin in a spiritual practice sense is when we are 'separated' from our sibling spirits in our worldly neighbours, whether they be the stranger in the Parable of the Good Samaritan or the younger sister in the case of Martha and Mary. We are essentially concerned with the welfare or liberation or enlightenment of our 'spirit' as in our spirit son of God. It is in that sense that we speak in terms of being 'reborn in the spirit' as in the message to Nicodemus in John 3:1-6; or being 'baptised with the Holy Spirit' (Luke 3:16). So, when we say - "Give us each day, our daily bread", we are not talking about worldly bread but about spiritual bread required by our spirit. This spiritual bread is the WORD of God; or as Jesus put it John 6:63 - "It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life" and earlier in John 6:35 - "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst" And, of course 'each day' or 'day to day' and daily means 'always' or 'ever supply' or 'on demand'. There is no time or space in the spirit world! In eternity only the result or the objective is relevant and important. In terms of the objective of the Lord's Prayer, I pause here for you to wonder about the 'Holy Spirit'; as in our prayer closure of 'In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? What does the 'Holy Spirit' represent in a metaphorical sense? Verses 5-8 deal with Persistence of Prayer. It has nothing to do with the 'quantity' as for instance in the number of hundreds of lines I had to write in detention for talking to you in class in primary school. That did not stop me from ever being the class delinquent! But take careful note of the allegory here of the 'friend' knocking on your door asking for bread for another 'friend' making a 'journey' which required 'bread'. Persistence is when you keep on knocking on doors or continue seeking going from door to door, until you get find what you want or need. Do not lose track or focus on the word 'bread'! Do not automatically assume that here the allegory or parable has anything to do with a benevolent or generous God who will spoil you by giving you whatever you ask for just by knocking on the door. The good father should never spoil his son! The father who loves his son will not spoil his son! The 'friend' making his 'spiritual' journey in this allegory is fact our spirit son of God, and the 'bread' required is spiritual bread; and the person whose door is knocked on is God. The 'journey' referred to in the allegory is the Journey Home of the Lost Prodigal Son; the journey to be 'reborn in the spirit'; and journey to be 'baptised with the Holy Spirit'; and the journey to seek 'the kingdom of God and His righteousness'. To go from worldly knowledge to spiritual knowledge so as to understand the parables, and indeed everything that Jesus said, you need solid faith, dedication, devotion, perseverance, assiduousness and endurance. It is akin to climbing a mountain, running a marathon. It is akin to a willingness to learn, a desire to be literate, a quest for knowledge and a desire to finish the race. It requires effort and commitment and undertaking. It is like a covenant of the Lost Ark! So the Lord's Prayer is not strictly about praying! It is a secret spiritual code to achieving the desired effect of being 'baptised with the Holy Spirit' to be 'reborn in the spirit'. For how else is our 'spirit' going to make it through the 'narrow

gate' (Matthew7:13); or the 'eye of a needle' (Matthew 19:24)! Take note! We have been deceived for too long! It is no easy path or faith to be a Christian. Jesus made this very clear in his parables. The Lord's Prayer is not an invocatory passive prayer or intercession. It requires deciphering, comprehension and active spiritual practice through meditation, contemplation, reflection with mind, body and soul that is compliant with the Twin Commandments. Do not be like a Buddhist sitting passively inanimate with a comatose mind under the pipal tree trying to emulate Buddha. Buddha's enlightenment was not attained through a vacuous inert mind! Neither is the Lord's Prayer an inert vocal recitation. The Lord's Prayer has to come alive for the spirit to come alive! How can it come alive if we are not directly conversationally connected with God and having a heart and soul dialogue with him. Without this proactive engagement, how then do we work out the strategy and steps to implement the mutual covenant ? - that you forgive me if I forgive others; you and I will reconcile if I reconcile with others; and I will not 'separate' from you just as I will not 'separate' from others; so that we are 'all in one and one in all' in the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (when we are 'reborn in the spirit' and 'baptised with the Holy Spirit'). There has to be connectivity in this type of proactive communication. Pray like the way Jesus did in his Last Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (see later). Do not expect a dead telephone line or a 'parrot' at one end of the line to provide a means of communication. Christians at large! Stop pretending! Christianity is not a picnic! Christianity is about carrying your spiritual 'cross' and 'suffering'! Our suffering in carrying our own spiritual cross is our transcendence to the humble filial piety of our spirit son of God. No! It has nothing to do with worldly suffering! I reiterate - God as Spirit Father is not directly interested in worldly things or this world. It is about your spiritual cross and your spiritual suffering. In your worldly being, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's! In your worldly karma, reap what you sow! God the Spirit Father is only interested in reconciling with his spirit son of God (in it plurality). Verses 9-13 deal with the Effectiveness of Prayer. But again, please note that the metaphor and allegory is within the context of a Spirit Father and His spirit son. Scrutinise the verses - "What father among you would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him" Again, I reiterate, the Lord's Prayer is all about the reconciliation between the Spirit Father and the lost spirit son of God. It is about sending out an SOS or a GPS marker to help the Spirit Father locate the lost Prodigal Son. You have to be a 'sheep' to hear the Master's voice! When a 'goat' is baptised by water, he is 'cleansed' or re-indoctrinated to become a sheep; but the sheep is still a lost sheep! The sheep has to be psychologically 'debriefed' for want of a better word. The sheep still needs to be 'baptised with the Holy Spirit' to get his sense of bearing. What do verses 9-13 tell us? It takes two to tango! There has to be a Father and there has to be a son! There has to be a loving father searching for his lost son! There has to be a lost son who has 'awakened' to his vagrant wanton prodigality and filial impiety and who wish to go home but do not know the way home. Both father and son are 'asking' and 'seeking' and 'knocking on doors'. God has no ego nor is he judgemental in seeking his only lost son (sheep) rather than someone else's son (goat). A father only seeks his son just as the shepherd only seeks his sheep! By the same token, only if the lost son is 'reborn in the spirit', is 'baptised with the Holy Spirit', can he be egoless! If he still retained his 'ego' he will be proud and arrogant like a 'goat'! How can a shepherd find his sheep if all he sees are goats? We will skip aside verses 14-23, other than to explain that Jesus told the crowd that he was not the demon Beelzelbul or Satan but that he was driving out the demons to release the spirit son of God (metaphor - the kingdom of God); that was tempted and now psychologically trapped like a drugged addict in the web of deceit of the egoistic paradise of Satan. Why, he asked, would Satan release the Adam, son of man, the 'demon' that Satan has created out of Adam, the spirit son of God? - "And if Satan is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?" (Luke 1:18).

Let us get straight to what Jesus said about the 'Return of the Unclean Spirit' next in Luke 1:24-26 - When an unclean spirit goes out of someone, it roams through arid regions searching for rest but, finding none, it says, I shall return to my home from which I came. But upon returning, it finds it swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and brings back seven other spirits more wicked than itself who move in and dwell there, and the last condition of that person is worse than the first. When as worldly mortals we die, with unexpired karmic residue and consequences, and we are or were still trapped and clinging to our worldly ego, in the sense that we never wanted our worldly being and personam to die, we will still retain the 'goat' in us. That is, we are or were not 'cleansed', as in 'baptised by water', for we were still before our death creating more adverse karma. Nor were we 'baptised with the Holy Spirit', which is 'reborn in the spirit'. Simply put, we were ignorantly and naively wishing to be worldly reborn in heaven.This is even when no worldly persona exist in heaven - that is, there is no me or you or Dick, John or Harry or any husband or wife or brother or sister etc. (refer Matthew 22:23-30). In fact by deduction, there are no Buddhists, Hindus, Moslems or Christians or Atheists or others of whatever creed. There are no 'words' or 'labels' nor is there a need or want for identity or anything! There is no halfway house or 'purgatory' of a sick ward in the sense that we understand it in Catholic terms, where we are in hiatus and in hope and wish for others' (our loved ones') prayers in plea to clean our soul or spirit. But why speculate or invent the state of 'purgatory', when Jesus never ever mentioned it? We will talk about 'self-cleansing' later. Jesus is quite specific in this very passage about what happens to the or our 'unclean spirit'. Our 'unclean spirit' is the spirit son of God in us that is still tainted by the temptation of Adam of the Tree of Knowledge, still caught in the web of deceit of Satan and thus our going up and down Jacob's Ladder in numerous countless worldly existence. The seven companion spirits more wicked than our unclean spirit are none other than the various split personalities of the 'goat' in us - i.e. the five senses, the mind and the worldly self-consciousness - i.e. the false Ego. All seven companion evil spirits are experts on the clinging and grasping, possessing and attaching, lust and desiring of the ego 'I'! They are the ones responsible for our prodigal profligate vagrancy. Pause and think of the sin of separation from God - 'Thou shalt have no idols before Me'! Guess what then is separating us from the Spirit Father? Guess who is the bad influence or 'bad company' that we keep that is responsible for our (spiritual) sin of separation of our spirit son of God from our Spirit Father? And guess further, why and how we as our 'spirit son of God' are trapped going up and down Jacob's Ladder? Remember what our parents said about not mixing with bad company? When they smoke or take drugs we end up doing the same. That is what happened with our otherwise pure spirit son of God when we end up with our seven 'more evil' spirit companions. We are lost in their hallucination and drugged in a world of egoistic, sensual and materialistic delights; which as most drug addicts know, eventually end up in despondency and despair when the 'high' is over! In our 'high' we are intoxicated with the clinging and grasping, possessing and attaching, lust and desiring of the ego 'I'! Think of the Chinese Buddhist Parable of The Journey West. There by analogy the good 'spirit' is represented by the Buddhist acolyte Tripitaka. He has three travel companions, Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy; the threesome representing the different aspects of ignorance or corruption or immorality of the worldly human mind and consciousness. Basically, Monkey represents 'Ego', Pigsy represents covetousness and Sandy the sandfish represents the ignorance of just living in and for this world. But do not get lost in the hype. It does not really matter what the 'hallucinated' spirit son of God thinks he is, lost in his dream or hallucination. He could think he is a dog or cat or butterfly or superman, but all are just as irrelevant. The crux of the issue is that he should stop thinking that he is his alter ego, the worldly false self-ego Adam son of man and that it is this alter ego that is lost and seeking to go to heaven! Wake up! Be awakened in your spirit son of God. It is not the worldly false self-ego Adam son of man that is 'lost'; it is the spirit son of God in you that is 'lost'; it is lost within our alter ego the worldly false self-ego Adam son of man!

If you turn now to the next two verses (Luke 1:27-28) you will note Jesus' response when someone in the crowd said to the effect - blessed is the mother of Jesus. Jesus said - "Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it. True blessedness is not about Mother Mary as the natural mother or God as Spirit Father. True blessedness is when the spirit son of God hears the word of God; i.e. when the lost sheep hears its Master's voice! True blessedness is individual personal blessedness. Like a golf game, do not worry about another's game. You are actually competing against yourself! Worry about your own game, not others'. When you smile, the whole world smiles with you. When you are sad, how do you expect to make others happy? So, how can we talk of salvation, when we do not know how to be saved? How can we be reborn in our spirit son of God, if we do not really know what the Lord's Prayer is all about? How can we speak of salvation if we do not know how to 'cleanse' our unclean spirit? We will come to the 'cleansing' or 'self-cleansing' part in a little while longer. Let us for convenience stick to the sequence of the verses and now discuss 'The Simile of the Light' in Luke 1:33-36. Focus on verse - "If your whole body is full of light, and no part of it is in darkness, then it will be as full of light as a lamp illuminating you with its brightness. Behind the metaphors, our spirit is the lamp! Whether our 'spirit' lamp is 'light' or 'darkness' has nothing to do with it being 'dirty' or 'clean'. We speak in terms of 'light' or 'darkness' because with a 'spirit' we are not dealing with matter or body or substance! Jesus used the metaphor of the wind in his conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:7. But even the wind has greater form or presence than the spirit. The 'spirit' is more like 'nothing'; more like 'emptiness'; but it is a different kind of emptiness though; it is more like emptiness that is not empty! It is a 'nothing' that desires nothing; has nothing to want or best described as the perfect nothing of perfect bliss! The spirit lamp in our body has nothing to do with worldly things or worldly right or wrong or worldly good or bad. 'Light' and 'Darkness' are metaphors for the attributes or characteristics of the 'spirit'! Light here simply represents the 'eternal life' of the spirit. Darkness represents mortality and death of the worldly false self-ego Adam son of man. When you have to perpetually go up and down Jacob's Ladder, reincarnating all the time, in numerous countless worldly existence, and not conscious of your true eternal spirit being, you are in darkness. You are trapped in the 'darkness' that has enveloped or shrouded the 'light' of your 'spirit' lamp. In your 'darkness' of your worldly false self-ego Adam son of man, you seek immortality of your worldly false self-ego Adam son of man! But how can such a false imagination of a 'darkness' become 'light'? How can what is impermanent become eternal? How can a mortal become immortal? How can something worldly become a spirit? Most of all, what eternity is there for an eternal spirit to seek? Our 'spirit' son of God is already eternal! It is merely 'lost' waiting to be 'found'! Its two different worlds! An apple is not an orange or a 'goat' a 'sheep'! Now to the last verses in Luke 11 in 37-54 dealing with the 'Denunciation of the Pharisees and the Scholars', which will give us the climax in this discourse about our 'unclean spirit'. I will just pick out two key verses. Let us start with Luke 11-39 - where Jesus said - Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil." Our 'unclean spirit' is like that or in that situation. We think we can clean it like we clean our body like "the outside of the cup and the dish". But the eternal spirit is inherently 'pure' and does nor require cleansing! Our 'unclean spirit' is 'unclean' in a totally different sense! It is 'unclean' in the sense that it is enveloped or shrouded in 'darkness', in the manner explained earlier of ignorance of our true eternal spirit being, and thinking that we are in spiritual reality, our worldly false self-ego Adam son of man! We cannot clean our 'unclean spirit' the same way that we clean our body or our house or our car! The so-termed 'unclean spirit' is self-cleansing (if it knows how) over time or more exactly, over many reincarnations! All we have to do is stop any further 'dirtying' from the wrong sort of sowing and thereby the wrong sort of reaping in each worldly existence. How is this done in practical terms? It is like remodelling bad delinquent behaviour through persistence and discipline like in

dog training. It is about controlling or getting rid of bad habits; in the case of our worldly false selfego Adam son of man - lust, desire, covetousness, clinging, grasping, attachment and possessiveness. People spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on dieting or cosmetic surgery to make themselves physically or bodily beautiful. But they do not care to spend the same amount for 'the inside of the cup and the dish', for internal beauty. What can be more beautiful than our spirit son of God that is total bliss and purity? That raises the point that unlike what we are normally taught or told Jesus never said anything about redeeming our sins. Do not be misguided and misinterpret what Jesus said, about us having everlasting life or saving us if we believe in him or, strictly speaking, his words (refer John 3:14-21),as the redemption of our sins. Assuming that Jesus would redeem our sins is simply not understanding what 'sin' really is in 'spirit' terms; and not understanding the metaphorical parabolic meaning of and between 'light' and 'darkness'! In the same vein 'repentance' has nothing to do with alleviating your 'guilty conscience' by feeling of remorse or regret. When water has flowed under the bridge, it is gone, it is past memory, it is history! You cannot turn back the clock! Feeling remorse or contrite does not give you a jail pass. Repentance has to do with the future and not the past! Spiritual repentance means turning your life around, turning over a new leaf, to be reborn, to be a new person different from the one that you were, to be like a rehabilitated prisoner. It is all to do with being 'baptised by water' and 'baptism with the Holy Spirit'. Nevertheless this requires you to be contrite like a 'sheep' in its characteristic meekness, obedient and subservient in humble filial piety to the Good Shepherd's call. That said, you have to be awakened in the 'sheep' in you to be 'contrite' like a 'sheep'. Repentance has nothing to do with penance and penitence or wrath of judgement which falls within the karmic auspices of the Immutable Law of You Reap What You Sow; which only impacts on the worldly false self-ego Adam son of man. In Matthew 9:13 Jesus said - "But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.' For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Read 'judgment' for 'sacrifice'; 'self-righteous' for 'righteous' and 'sin' as in 'separation from God' and 'separation from sibling spirits' and 'repentance' as 'turning over a new leaf'. That is why the Lord's Prayer ends with the phrase - do not subject us to the 'final test' which means 'judgment'. God is about 'mercy' and not 'judgment'! God did not grant Adam will-power only for God to redeem his trespasses (as distinct from forgiveness, which is about reconciliation). Otherwise it would be like a father serving his son's prison sentence or getting hanged in his stead! It would make a mockery of what Jesus expounded in the Immutable Law of You Reap What You Sow! You shit what you eat! You make your bed, you sleep in it! It is in that sense that Jesus said that he did not come to condemn the world (humans)(John 3:17); that "Do not judge so that you will not be judged." (Matthew 7:1) and by demonstrating this key attribute in not judging the adulteress about to be stoned by the mob (John 8:1-11). As I said earlier above, do not worry about another's golf game! You sit for the exam, do not worry about another's efforts or marks in the same exam! This is a very bad trait of most Christians, always judging others and having this condescending self-righteous 'I am holier than thou' mentality! Christianity should never be worn as a badge of honour or fashion statement or status symbol! There should be no ego, pride, arrogance, pomposity or ostentatiousness. Christianity is just humble filial love and piety and reverence of the spirit son of God for his Spirit Father! Christianity is not about this world; it is about the reconciliation between the Spirit Father and his spirit son of God (in its plurality). Accordingly, repentance is by way of self-cleansing by way of stopping the bad habits of our worldly false self-ego Adam son of man; the 'goat' in us; that continues to entrap us on Jacob's Ladder. The salient point is not to let history repeat itself! Do not create bad karma ever again! That is what 'baptism by water' means. 'Baptism with the Holy Spirit' is when you are reborn as the spirit son of God and ready to embark on the Journey Home of the Prodigal Son. You are home when you meet the criterion expressed by Jesus - "If your whole body is full of light, and no

part of it is in darkness, then it will be as full of light as a lamp illuminating you with its brightness. I shall briefly discuss Luke 11-52 where Jesus said - "Woe to you, (Pharisees and) scholars of the (religious) law! You have taken away the key of (spiritual) knowledge. You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter. I think Jesus expressed it better in Matthew 23:13 "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the the kingdom of heaven (the spirit son of god) against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in." Who do you think the modern day Pharisees and scholars of the scriptures might be, who have taken away the 'key' to spiritual knowledge and the spirit son of God in us? Ask yourself this who teaches you that heaven is a place outside of your 'self', and that going home is rising into heaven up in the skies? If that were so, every astronaut would have gone to heaven and back! Just remember that people who know not the 'Truth' cannot show you the way. Jesus said - "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." (John 14:6). What I am discoursing here is the truth, according to what Jesus said. Trust me! The Journey Home of the Prodigal Son is within our 'self'; the kingdom of God is within us, that is why it is 'near', as I have explained in a recent discourse; it is here and now within us! The people who know not the 'Truth', the modern day Pharisees and biblical scholars, are the same stock who strive on literalism, fixed form liturgical rituals, when to sit and stand, standard invocations and incantations; in short, all manner and form but no substance; for they do not enter and get into the spirit of things. They preach by telling you what the Bible say, by repeating the same words that you can read for yourself, and giving the 'literal' meaning, as if spiritual knowledge is the same as worldly academic knowledge, when it is the esoteric meaning of the parables that is required. In short, we should ask, what do the parables means? What is the spiritual instruction behind the Lord's Prayer? For simply put, it is not a prayer. It is a verbal covenant of proactive commitment and undertaking to be 'baptised by water' and to be 'baptised with the Holy Spirit'. God does not want you to kneel in subservience. God wants you to carry your cross and start walking; start 'cleansing' so that you can put on your 'wedding garments' (Matthew 22:11-12), when "your whole body is full of light, and no part of it is in darkness" and it will then be "as full of light as a lamp illuminating you with its brightness.! For that, we have to follow the Twin Commandments - Love God with all your heart, mind, body and soul and love your neighbour. Remember, earlier in the piece I asked you to ponder about the 'Holy Spirit' in the Lord's Prayer. If you understand the above discourse, you will then understand Jesus' Final Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane (John Chapter 17). It will reveal the Holy Trinity of the 'All in One and One in All' of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (which includes all who are 'baptised by water' and 'baptised with the Holy Spirit'). Words in brackets below added by me for elucidation. 'After saying this, Jesus raised his eyes to heaven and said: "Father, the hour has come: glorify your Son so that your Son may glorify you; so that, just as you have given him power over all humanity, he may give eternal life (getting the 'lost' 'baptised by water' and 'baptised with the Holy Spirit') to all those you have entrusted to him. And eternal life is this: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me with that glory I had with you before ever the world existed (before the Fall of Adam and the Original Sin). I have revealed your name to those whom you took from the world to give me. They were yours ('spirit son of God' (in the plurality)) and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now at last they have recognised that all you have given me comes from you for I have given them the teaching you gave to me, and they have indeed accepted it and know for certain that I came from you, and have believed that it was you who sent me. It is for them that I pray. I am not praying for the world but for those ('spirit son of God' (in the plurality)) you have given me, because they belong to you. All I have is yours and all you have is mine, and in them I am glorified. I am no longer in the world, but they are in

the world (as worldly false self-ego Adam sons of man), and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us. While I was with them, I kept those you had given me true to your name (awakened in the 'spirit'). I have watched over them and not one is lost except one who was destined to be lost (those 'unclean spirits' destined to continue to expiate their worldly karmic consequences of the false self-ego son of man on Jacob' Ladder), and this was to fulfil the scriptures. But now I am coming to you and I say these things in the world to share my joy with them to the full. I passed your word on to them, and the world hated them, because (as spirit son of God (in the plurality)) they belong to the world no more than I belong to the world. I am not asking you to remove them from the world, but to protect them from the Evil One. They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. Consecrate them in the truth (that their true self is as eternal spirit son of God (in the plurality) and not as false self-ego son of man); your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate myself so that they too may be consecrated in truth. I pray not only for these but also for those who through their teaching will come to believe in me. May they all be one, just as, Father, you are in me and I am in you, so that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me. I have given them the glory you gave to me, that they may be one as we are one. With me in them and you in me, may they be so perfected in unity that the world will recognise that it was you who sent me and that you have loved them as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they may always see my glory which you have given me (and them) because you loved me (and them) before the foundation of the world (before the Fall of Adam and the Original Sin). Father, Upright One, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you have sent me. I have made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and so that I may be in them." ' Send this discourse to all your friends and people you know well. If they are Christians it would teach them to be better Christians. If they are not, they will have a newfound respect for Christianity; that it is not airy-fairy, racist, male-chauvinistic, supremacist, judgemental or hegemonist, that Christians are not out to proselytise; for a Good Samaritan of any religion is already a good Christian. The Good Shepherd searches for his lost sheep and is not concerned about what the sort or type of 'goat' there is, that is camouflaging his sheep! To be 'baptised by water' and to be 'baptised with the Holy Spirit' might appear to be stock of trade phrases of expression for Christians; but these are just Christian jargon or slang. Simply put, it is just a simple case, in any religious language, of exhorting a delinquent son to turn over a new leaf, to stop mixing with bad company, and to return to the family home, no questions asked. God Bless! Chuan 28/7/13