Our Foundation<\/strong><\/a>\nThursday, December 28, 2017<\/strong>\n<\/iframe><br \/>\nIf we are going to rebuild Christianity \u201cfrom the bottom up,\u201d what is the foundation upon which we\u2019re building? Love is our foundation and our destiny. It is where we come from and where we\u2019re headed. As St. Paul famously says, \u201cSo faith, hope, and love remain, but the greatest of these is love\u201d (1 Corinthians 13:13).<\/p>\n<p>St. Augustine (354-430) said, \u201cThe church consists in the state of communion of the whole world.\u201d [1] Wherever we are connected, in right relationship\u2014you might say \u201cin love\u201d\u2014there is the Christ, there is the authentic \u201cBody of God\u201d revealed. This body is more a living organism than any formal organization.<\/p>\n<p>My hope, whenever I speak or write, is to help clear away the impediments to receiving, allowing, trusting, and participating in a foundational Love. God\u2019s love is planted inside each of us as the Holy Spirit who, according to Jesus, \u201cwill teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you\u201d (John 14:26). Love is who you are.<\/p>\n<p>Only God in you can know God. You cannot know God in an intimate, experiential way with your mind alone. You are going to need full access knowing, which many of us call the contemplative mind, or even the \u201cmind of Christ\u201d (1 Corinthians 2:16).<\/p>\n<p>Great religion seeks utter awareness and full consciousness, so that we can, in fact, receive all. Everything belongs and everything can be received. We don\u2019t have to deny, dismiss, defy, or ignore. <em>What is, is the great teacher.<\/em> The purpose of prayer and religious seeking is to see the truth about reality, to see <em>what is.<\/em> And at the bottom of <em>what is <\/em>is always goodness. <em>The foundation is always Love<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Enlightenment is to see and touch the big mystery, the big pattern, the Big Real. Jesus called it the reign of God; Buddha called it enlightenment. Philosophers might call it Truth. Many of us see it as Foundational Love.<\/p>\n<p>The central practice in mature spirituality, therefore, is that we must<em> remain in love <\/em>(John 15:9). Only when we are <em>eager to love<\/em> can we see love and goodness in the world around us. We must ourselves remain in peace, and then we will find peace over there. Remain in beauty, and we will honor beauty everywhere. This concept of remaining or abiding (John 15:4-5) moves religion out of any esoteric realm of doctrinal outer space where it has been lost for too long. There is no secret moral command for knowing or pleasing God, or what some call \u201csalvation,\u201d other than becoming a loving person in mind, heart, body, and soul. Then you will see what you need to see.\u00a0 Jesus did not say, \u201cThou shalt be right\u201d; Jesus said, \u201cThis is my commandment, \u2018Love one another\u2019\u201d (John 13:34, 15:12; Matthew 22:39).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gateway to Silence:<br \/>\n<\/strong>You make all things new.<\/p>\n<p>_______________________________________________________<\/p>\n<div class=\"row title-row\">\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"utmost-devo-title col col-sm-12 col-xs-12\">\n<h2 class=\"entry-title\">Continuous Conversion<\/h2>\n<h4>By <a href=\"https:\/\/utmost.org\/oswald-chambers-bio\">Oswald Chambers<\/a><\/h4>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"clearfix\">\u00a0\u2026<strong>unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. \u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?version=31&search=Matthew+18%3A3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Matthew 18:3<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n<div class=\"row entry-meta\">\n<div class=\"col-sm-4\">\n<div class=\"top-sharing\"><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"top-rule\"><\/div>\n<section class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"post-content\">\n<p>These words of our Lord refer to our initial conversion, but we should continue to turn to God as children, being continuously converted every day of our lives. If we trust in our own abilities, instead of God\u2019s, we produce consequences for which God will hold us responsible. When God through His sovereignty brings us into new situations, we should immediately make sure that our natural life submits to the spiritual, obeying the orders of the Spirit of God. Just because we have responded properly in the past is no guarantee that we will do so again. The response of the natural to the spiritual should be continuous conversion, but this is where we so often refuse to be obedient. No matter what our situation is, the Spirit of God remains unchanged and His salvation unaltered. But we must \u201cput on the new man\u2026\u201d (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Ephesians+4:24\">Ephesians 4:24<\/a>). God holds us accountable every time we refuse to convert ourselves, and He sees our refusal as willful disobedience. Our natural life must not rule\u2014 God must rule in us.<\/p>\n<p>To refuse to be continuously converted puts a stumbling block in the growth of our spiritual life. There are areas of self-will in our lives where our pride pours contempt on the throne of God and says, \u201cI won\u2019t submit.\u201d We deify our independence and self-will and call them by the wrong name. What God sees as stubborn weakness, we call strength. There are whole areas of our lives that have not yet been brought into submission, and this can only be done by this continuous conversion. Slowly but surely we can claim the whole territory for the Spirit of God.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Bottom Up: Summary Our Foundation Thursday, December 28, 2017 If we are going to rebuild Christianity \u201cfrom the bottom up,\u201d what is the foundation upon which we\u2019re building? Love is our foundation and our destiny. It is where we come from and where we\u2019re headed. As St. Paul famously says, \u201cSo faith, hope, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16316"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16316"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16319,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16316\/revisions\/16319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}