How the Divine Love enters into the soul of a man

I am here, Jesus. 

I am here according to promise, and desire to write you on a subject that all men should be acquainted with. "How the Divine Love enters into the soul of a man."

As I have told you before, man is a creature of God, having a body, spirit and soul; and all these are necessary to make the perfect man.

But these three parts of man are different in their characteristics and functions, and are separate and distinct, and have qualities that are unlike in their composition as well as in the duration of their existence.

The body, as you and all men know, has an existence which lasts only during the life of the mortal on earth, and after that life ends, dissolves into its elements, which no more can form the same body either in the mortal world or in the spirit world, for these elements are merely things of matter and may be and are used to form other bodies and manifestations of the material of nature; not necessarily in the form of human beings, for they enter into other forms both animal and vegetable, and are so disseminated that never again will they become parts of a resurrected body.

Your orthodox do not teach this truth, but think in some mysterious way that the mortal body will sometime be resurrected.

No, the body when it has performed its function of maintaining and shielding the soul and spirit of man during his earth life, is no longer and cannot thereafter be a part of that man, and may be considered as something that is no longer a part of him.

This body though, as a matter of fact, even during the life of the mortal is not the same body during that life, for continually is there changes in the elements that compose that body; and one element or set of elements, gives place to others and becomes lost or absorbed in the great sea of elements that help form or constitute the universe of God.

By operation of the laws of attraction and repulsion, these elements, as they replace others which disappear, conform themselves to the general appearance or outline of the parent body, so that the identity of the body as well as of its appearance is preserved; and as a man grows older, the laws which make the changes in his appearance cause these new elements to conform to these changes, so that, even while the material continues to envelop the spirit during the short span of a man' s life, yet that material is not the same for any length of time. 

I make this preliminary statement merely to show that the material part of man is not at all connected with the real man, so far as the persistent nature for him is concerned, and this material need not be considered in discussing the subject that I desire to write about.

The spirit part of man is that part which contains what may be called the functions of life and the force and power existing in him and which immediately control him in his conduct and living. This real, existing principle of life, unlike the body, never dies, but continues to live after the spirit drops its envelope of flesh.

This spirit part of man contains the seat of the mental faculties and reasoning powers, and uses the organs of the material body to manifest these attributes. These faculties live and exist, even though the physical body may be in such imperfect condition that the spirit may not he able to make its manifestations in such a way as to enable the mortal to perceive or sense the material things of nature, as they are called. 

To specify, even though the material organs of sight may become impaired or destroyed, yet in that spirit body, which is within the physical body, exists the actual sight just as perfectly and completely as if these impaired or destroyed organs were doing their functioning; and the same is true as regards the hearing and the others of what are called the five senses of man.

And as to the reasoning faculties and mental qualities, they exist in the perfect state whether the brain is healthy or not, or whether it performs its work or refuses to do so. These qualities do not depend upon the soundness or perfect workings of the organs of the physical body in order that these spirit qualities may exist in a perfect condition, but the proper workings of the physical organs, or rather the proper and natural movements and manifestations of the brain, and the conscious operations of the mental faculties, do depend upon the spirit faculties being able to use these physical organs in a proper way and in accordance with the harmony of the creation of the relative and correlative parts of man.

These spirit faculties, which man calls the intellect and the five senses, are a part of the spirit body which is enclosed in the material body and which in turn encloses the soul. When the material body dies, the spirit body continues to exist and live on in the world of spirit, and with it and as continuing parts of it, these intellectual faculties, performing all their functions free from the limitations that the physical organs placed upon them. 

And when this change takes place, these mental qualities, notwithstanding that they have not the material organs through which they functioned when in the mortal frame, can conceive thoughts of things material and hear and see things of the material just as they did, and even more perfectly, when they were enveloped by the environments of flesh and blood.

So you see when the mortal dies, the only thing that dies and is left behind is the mere physical body, and with the spirit body survives all those things which can be said to be the real man, so far as the mind is concerned. Hence, man never ceases to remember and to progress and to know that he is a being which death cannot destroy or change into something that he was not before death came to him.

And thus I answer the question: "When a man dies shall he live again?" He never ceases to live, and his living is not a new life, but merely the continuation of the old life with all the things of mind and conscience that were his in the old life.

In the purely spirit life the spirit body continues to contain the soul and will be its protector and covering so long as that spirit body shall last. But this body then begins to change, and by disintegration into what we may call spirit elements, and the formation of new elements to replace the disappearing ones.

This change in this body is not caused by the same laws that operated to change and disintegrate and replace the physical body, but by the law controlling the development of the soul which the spirit body contains.

The soul is the real man because it is the only thing or part of man that may become immortal, the only part of man that was made in the image of its Creator, and the only part of man that may become a part of the Substance of its maker and partake of His Divine nature.

I say may, for that is an important part of this great possibility. I know this possibility of the soul becoming immortal by partaking of the Divine nature of God, is true; for it is a proven fact in the case of many souls who are now in the Celestial Heavens.

I also know that there are many souls in the spirit world, who have been there for many centuries, who have never received this Divine nature and consciousness of immortality. Whether such souls who have not received this Divine nature shall become or are immortal, has never been demonstrated.

This I do know, that in the economy of God's plan for the forming of His Kingdom, at some time - when, I don't know - this privilege of partaking of His Divine nature and the certainty of immortality will be withdrawn from the souls of men and spirits, and then, whether these souls who suffer this condemnation will partake of immortality no spirit knows, only God.

There are other things that I know and here tell you, and among them is this: that so long as the soul does not receive this Divine nature, the mind, which I have described as being a part of the spirit body, continues to exist and dominates both soul and body; and in its progress it may attain to a condition of purity and perfection such as were possessed by the first created living souls - our first parents. Many spirits now are in this condition, but yet are mere men, and their souls remain only in the image of God - nothing more.

While God is mind, mind is not God, and also while God is spirit, spirit is not God. So that when men teach that mind is God, and that men must seek to attain to that mind, and thus become like God, they fall far short of the truth. The mind is only an attribute of God, and beyond and back of that mind is the real God - the personality, and that is Soul, from which emanates all these attributes and manifestations which mortals as well as spirits may be conscious of.

But while God is Soul, yet that Soul is a thing of Substance with a nature Divine, and the seat and fountainhead of all the great attributes that belong to Him, such as love and power and life and omniscience and mercy. 

And here I must state one fact which may startle those who believe and teach that mind is God, and that is, that which is called the human mind is not a part of the mind of God, for this human mind and all its faculties and wonderful qualities are mere special creatures just as are the spirit body and material body of man. 

As I have said, man was created in the image of God only as regards the soul; and here always bear in mind that the creation was only an image.

The mind of man was a special creation, just as were the minds of the lower animals, differing only in degree. And if God had not given to man a soul and the spirit body to envelop it, and in which he placed this mind of man, when man died the death of the physical body, that would have been the end of him ; as such death is of the body, which is not a part of this soul image of God.

As I have heretofore written you, when God created man and made him in His own image as to the soul, he also gave to man the possibility of obtaining the Substance of the Father; that is, of having that soul which was a mere image become that soul which is of the Substance of the Creator.

I have also explained to you how man, by his disobedience, lost that possibility, and for long centuries was deprived of this great privilege, and how it was again restored to him at the time of my coming to earth, so that he now and for nineteen centuries past has had the possession of this great gift or privilege of partaking of the Substance of the Father.

Well, when man, by the way that has been pointed out to him, becomes possessed of the Substance of the Father's Divine nature, even in an initial degree, his soul commences to change and lose its character as a mere image, and to progress towards the attainment of that condition when this image disappears and the Divine Substance takes its place; and as the progress continues he receives so much of the Substance that his soul takes on the Divine nature of the Father, and his at-onement with the Father becomes so perfect that he becomes an inhabitant of the Father's Kingdom.

This occurs when he becomes fitted to enter the first Celestial Sphere . And just here occurs another thing which may startle those who teach that the mind is the essence of God, and that is that the mind which man, both as mortal and spirit, possesses up to that point in the progress of the soul where the transformation into the Divine nature takes place, becomes a thing of naught; or rather becomes absorbed in the mind of the soul, which is the real mind of the Father. And then and ever after, only this mind of the soul is that which enables the real Divine man to understand the things of God, to help him in his progress.

I will continue later. You are tired. But remember that I love you and you have me with you at all times to help and sustain and comfort you.

Good night my dear brother, Your friend and brother,

Jesus

Nero - tells of his experience in the hells and how his soulmate helped him progress

January 16th, 1917

Received by James Padgett

Washington D.C.

I am here, the spirit of one who lived on earth the life of a wicked man, and a persecutor of the Christians, and a blasphemer of God and everything that was pure and holy; and when I had lived the life to its end and shuffled off the mortal coil and became a spirit, I also became a dweller in the lowest hells where all is darkness and torment, and the abode of devils and everything that tends to make the spirit unhappy and at variance with the loving God. 

I introduce myself in this way in order to demonstrate to you the wonderful power of the Divine Love, for now I am an inhabitant of the Celestial Spheres, and know that this Love is not only real, but is capable of making the vilest sinner a partaker and owner of the Divine Essence of the Father. 

My sufferings were beyond all description and I was the most desecrated of mortals, and was almost worshipped by the devils of hell because of the great injury that I had done to the followers of Jesus, who, in my time, were possessed of this Love and faith, which even the terrors of the wild beasts of the arena, or the torches of my own evil designs could not cause them to renounce - in this great religion that the Master had taught them, and the disciples were still teaching when I put so many of them to death. 

The devils loved me for the very evil that I had done, but strange to say the spirits of those who I had sent unto the spirit world before their time were not revengeful to me, or came to me with their imprecations or cursings. Then when I had been in the spirit world a sufficient time to realize my surroundings and the nature of these evils, these spirits of the martyrs, which I had made, came to me in sympathy and pity, and in fact, tried many times to help me out of my great sufferings and darkness.

I did not understand all this unexpected kindness and evidence of love, and I would not for a long time believe that these spirits were sincere; and so I suffered for year after year, and century after century, and became convinced that my condition was fixed, and that for me there was no hope, and that the God that I had heard of was not my God, and that devils were the only companions that I was destined to have through all eternity. 

And so I endured, wishing to die, but I could not.

Oh, I tell you it was horrible and beyond all conception of mortals! The law was working and I was paying the penalty, and there seemed no end to the penalty.

I could find no consolation among those who surrounded me, and the pleasures that I first enjoyed, became to me mere things of mockery and derision, and my darkness and torment became the greater.

How often I called upon God, if there be a God, to strike me dead, but the only answer to my call was the laughter of the grinning devils, who told me to shout louder as God might be asleep, and may be deaf. 

What to do, I knew not, and so I became isolated as best I could from these terrible associates, and many years of my living were spent in the darkness of lonesomeness with never a ray of hope, or the whisper of one word to tell me, that for me there might be a fairer destiny. 

And so time went by and I waited in my misery for some kind power to come and annihilate me, but I waited in vain. During all this time the recollections of my earthly deeds were like hot irons scorching my soul, and burning my body, as I thought, and the end came not. 

Well, I suffered the tortures of the damned, and it seemed to me that I was paying the penalties for all the sins and evil deeds that had ever been committed by all the wicked kings and rulers and persecutors of earth.

Many times the shrieks of the Christian children and the groans of the men and women as they were being torn asunder from limb to limb, or burned as living torches which I had made of them, came to me and increased my torment. 

I lived the life of centuries of torment in a few moments, as it seemed to me, and not one cooling drop of water was mine.

It may seem impossible that I should have continued to live in this ever increasing suffering, but I did, because I was compelled to. 

The law did its work and there was no one to say "enough". I might write a volume on this suffering of mine, and yet you would not comprehend its meaning, and so I will pass it by. 

In my loneliness and suffering there came to me on an occasion, a beautiful spirit, full of light and love, and all the beauty of early womanhood, as I thought, and with eyes of pity and longing, and said,

 "You are not alone, only open your eyes and you will see the star of hope, which is the sign of the Father's Love and desire to help you. I am a child of that Father and the possessor of His great enveloping Love, and I love you, even though you took from me my young life when you threw me to the wild beasts to satisfy your desire to gratify your thirst for innocent blood, and see the suffering and hear the groans of your victims, yet, I love you, not because I am a human with a kindly nature and a forgiving disposition, but because I have in me this Divine Love of the Father which tells me that I am your sister, and that you are a child of the Father, just as I am, and the object of His Love just as I was the object of His Love.


You have suffered, and while you suffered, His great Love went out to you in sympathy and desire to help you, but you, yourself, prevented it from coming to you and leading you to light and surcease from sufferings. And now I come to you, your young and innocent victim, who had never done you any greater harm on earth than to pray for you, and ask the heavenly Father to take away from your heart, the great wickedness that caused so many of my people to suffer persecution and death. 

We all prayed for you and never asked our Father to curse you, or do anything to you to make you suffer. And we have prayed for you often since we came to the spirit world, and we are now praying for you, and this because we love you and want you to be happy.

Look into my eyes and you will see that love is there, and what I tell you is true. And now, can you not love us a little and open up your soul to our sympathy, and let your feelings of gloom and despondency leave you for a moment, and realize that in this world of spirits there are some who love you?" 

Well, to say that I was surprised, does not express my feelings, and as I looked into the lovelit eyes of that beautiful spirit, I felt the great sins of my earth life overwhelm me, and in my anguish, I cried, "God be merciful to me, the greatest of sinners," and for the first time in all my life in the hells, tears came to my eyes, and my heart seemed to have a sense of living; and there came to me feelings of remorse and regret for all the evils that I had done. 

It would take too long to tell what followed this breaking up of my soul, all shriveled and dead, and suffice it to say that from that time, I commenced to have hope come to me, and to get out of my awful condition of darkness.

It took a long time, but at last, I got into the light, and this Love which the beautiful spirit first told me of gradually came into my soul, until, at last, I reached the condition of bliss in which I now am. 

And during all the time of my progress, this radiant loving spirit came to me very often with her words of love and encouragement, and prayed for me, and never left me when I became, as I did at times, doubtful and discouraged.

And as my awakening continued, the Love came into my soul, and as she told me of the heavenly things that would be mine as I progressed and reached the soul spheres, where beautiful homes and pure bright spirits are, I became more and more bound by my love to her. 

After a while I got into the third sphere, and realized that what she had told me was true, only I had not been able to comprehend the greatness of the truth. 

She then commenced to tell me of the happiness of the beautiful spirits of the two sexes, that I so often saw together, and explained that they were soulmates, and that their love was the greatest of all the loves except the Divine Love, and that every spirit in all the spheres had its soulmate, and at the proper time would find it. 

My love for this loving spirit had then become so intense that in the very depths of my soul, I wished and prayed that my soulmate might be such a one as she; and, at last, I became so filled with my love for her, that I told her that the only thing in all the heavens that I needed to make full my happiness was she as my soulmate, but that I realized that that desire was hopeless as I had destroyed her life, and of course she could not be my soulmate. And oh, how I suffered when I realized that she could not be mine, but was another's. 

As I told her of these longings and hopeless feelings of my soul, she came close to me and looked into my eyes with such burning love, and threw her arms around me, and said, 

"I am your soulmate, and knew the fact a short time after you came to the spirit world and entered your hells of darkness, and during all the long years I prayed and prayed for the time to come when I could go to you with my love and awaken in your dead soul the response to my great love. And when the time came that I could go, I was so thankful to the Father, that I almost flew to you, with some dread of disappointment I confess, to tell you that you were not neglected or unthought of, but that there was some love in the spirit world that was going to you. Of course, I could not tell you of my soulmate love, for you would not then have understood, but as your soul awakened and the Love of the Father came to you, I became happier and happier, and have waited so anxiously for this moment, when I could tell you that this love that had been consciously mine for so long, is all yours." 

Well, I will draw the veil here, but you can imagine what my happiness was, and as I progressed from sphere to sphere, my happiness and love for her increased and increased. 

Thus I have told you the story of the life in the spirit world of the wickedest man that God ever permitted to live and gratify his feelings of hatred and revenge. 

And I, who have passed through this experience, and realized all that it means, say, that the Divine Love of the Father is able to and does save the vilest sinner, and transforms the chiefest of devils into a Celestial Angel of His highest spheres. 

I have written long and you are tired. I thank you, and will say good night, and subscribe myself. 

Your brother in Christ, 

 Nero

The Love of Man and the Mother's Love

I am here, Jesus. 

I want to write tonight on the love of man.

This love is one that is not understood by humanity in its most important particular. I mean that this love is not one that is sufficient to give man the highest degree of happiness which he may obtain in either the mortal life or in the life to come. 

This love is of a nature that changes with the change in the ideas and desires of man, and has no stability that will serve to keep him constant in his affections.

No man who has only this love can ever be in condition to say that he will continue to have this love for a longer time than the present; and when he thinks that his love can never change, or leave him, he is only giving wish to the thought.

But this love is one that may last for a long time, and sometimes it seems that it can never die or grow less; yet, in it's very nature, it has not that constancy which ensures its lasting longer than a moment of time.

I do not mean to say anything disparaging of this natural love, for it is undoubtedly the greatest gift that the Father has bestowed upon mankind, and without it, men would be in a very unhappy condition.

Yet, it is not the Great Love of the Father which all men may receive, if they will only seek and strive to obtain it by prayer and faith.

This natural love is that which unites men and women in unity while on earth, and enables them to approach nearer to a life of happiness than does any other human quality; but still it has the danger always accompanying it, that some time, in some way, it may cease to exist.

The Mother's love is the strongest of all loves given to mortals, and apparently it can never end or grow old, yet a time may come when even that love will die or cease to retain all its vitality or beauty.

I know it is said that love never dies; but that is not true as regards this natural love; and no man can say that his love of today will remain his love of a few years hence.

Yet, there is a love that may be called the natural love that will last forever, providing these souls seek and obtain the Divine Love, and that is the love that God has implanted in two souls that he has designed to become one in spirit life.

This love is in reality not the love of two souls, but one and the same love manifested in the two opposite sexes, and which is only a complete one when these two apparently independent souls come together in perfect unity.

This is what is commonly called the love of soulmates, and which is that essence of spiritual love which makes the happiness of the two spirits or mortals seemingly complete.

Yet this love is not of a Divine nature, but merely the highest type of the natural love. But still not God's Divine Essence.

So, when men speak of the love of one mortal for his fellow man, it means merely the love which his human nature is capable of having and giving to another mortal.

I do not wish to be understood as in any way implying that this love is not a great boon and blessing to mankind, for it is, and without it, there would not be the harmony that exists on earth even to its present extent; when hatred and anger seems to have taken its place in the hearts of many men who are now striving to kill and destroy.(World War I)

But this is only for a season; the war will cease and then men will realize, more than for a long time that only their love for one another can make the earth a happy and desirable place to live on.

Love, I know it is said, is the fulfilling of the law, but no man can thoroughly understand this until he knows what love is. I do not mean that in order to fulfill every law man must have the Divine Love of the Father, because there are laws that govern the Divine existence, and laws that govern the human and merely spiritual existence; and the Love of the Divine is the fulfillment of the former laws, and the natural love is the fulfillment of the latter laws.

So you must see that only as men have the Love of the Divine can they fulfill the laws of the Divine existence; and so, as they have the natural love only, can they fulfill the natural laws.

But this natural love will not suffice to make them at-one with the Father, as I have before written; and the utmost of its powers and functions is to give them that happiness which they will receive in living the life of a spirit or man unredeemed.

I will not say that man should not cultivate this love for his fellow man to the greatest possible degree, for he should; and if that should be the only kind of love that he may have, either on earth or in the spirit world, the more of it that he possesses the happier will he be, and the greater will be the happiness of his fellow man and fellow spirit.

So when I said, while on earth, that men should love their God and love their fellow men as themselves, I meant that they should do so with all the possibilities of whatever love they might possess.

Yet, if men would only learn, as they can, that there is no necessity for them to have only the natural love, but that they can all seek the Greater Love, and obtain the correspondingly greater happiness, and immortality. Men do not realize this, though, and seem to be satisfied with this natural love and the pleasures that ensue from its possession.

I would not have them do anything that would lessen this love or shut their hearts to its influence, when it is pure and good; but yet, I cannot help trying to impress upon them the great desirability of having this higher Love in their souls.

I am a lover of all men, and I want them to feel the happiness of the inflowing of the Divine Love, and thereby learn what the Love of God means, and what they may have if they will only seek.

This love of the purely natural will not suffice for the temptations that beset men on earth; and, also, will not insure against temptations when they become spirits. I know this, and hence I say it with the positiveness of one who knows - you may say, with authority.

As you are tired I must stop. 

With all my blessings and love, I am,

Your brother in spirit, Jesus