Chapter 16

The Way of Life I

WHAT is Our Lord’s teaching, or what is the message that He bears to men? Our Lord came not only to reveal God to us as Love, but also to tell us of the Kingdom and to help us find it and enter into it. The Kingdom! What is this Kingdom of God or Heaven? Is it the discovery of inward powers, as our New Thought friends teach or infer? No. Is it the attainment to immortality in the flesh? No. Is it some place which can be found by dying? No. Is it immortality and eternal life? No. The Kingdom is something far greater. It transcends them all, even eternal life. The Kingdom of God is so great it cannot be described at all, and the more we try to do so, the more inadequate our words become. Yet we must endeavour to say something about it, in the hope that it may direct our readers’ thoughts into the Way of Life, wherein they will have revealed to them, by the Spirit, the great secret of the ages.

The Kingdom of God or Heaven is Divine Union, nothing less. How can we speak about anything so sacred, so wonderful, so sublime, except with bated breath? It is true, although so impossibly wonderful. Nothing less than at-one-ment with God, mystically spoken of as being sons of God, joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

So our ever blessed Lord, who belonged to this Kingdom, and Who forever was and is its glorious King, came to seek and to save them that were and are lost. He came to conduct us into His own Kingdom of union with God. Our Lord is still with us to help and sustain by His Spirit. He is transcendent in Heaven, yet He is immanent with us. Bless His name.

The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of the Spirit. It is entirely different from the Kingdom of the World. The Temporal Kingdom can never be the Spiritual Kingdom. Because of this the beloved John wrote: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.”

The Kingdom of the Spirit can be entered only by those who are lovers of the Spirit. In the Spirit we are all lovers, all brothers, lovers of God, of one another, of our fellow men, even though they be our persecutors and slanderers. In the Spirit we all speak the same language, although outwardly we may differ as the poles as regards religious belief or doctrine. In the Spirit we are all one.

How precious and wonderful is our Lord’s teaching; how rich the treasure that He has to offer. It is the pearl of great price, the hidden treasure, the lost piece of silver. Those who are in search of it give up everything in order that they may acquire this great treasure of Heaven. They leave what they are doing—their ambitions, the baubles of life, worldly fame and glory, in order to search diligently until they find that which is precious above rubies.

How then can the Kingdom of Heaven be found? Simply by following the teaching of our blessed Lord. Like the prodigal son we get disgusted with the husks of the life of the world and the senses. Pleasures become as ashes: sensation brings only satiation and regret. Then, like the prodigal, we arise to go to our Father, to confess our own unworthiness. “Father, I have sinned and am no more worthy to be called Thy son,’’ is the burden of our cry. And when we are yet a great way off, our Father meets us, forgives us and admits us to His own house.

But it is a long journey back. We can be admitted only when we have become entirely at-one with the Father’s Will. “Not everyone,’’ said Jesus, “which saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the Will of My Father which is in Heaven.” Neither will belief in dogma or doctrine obtain us entrance, for, said our Lord, “Whosoever heareth these saying of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: and the rains descended, and the floods came, and the wind blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.’’ (Matt. 7: 24, 25.)