Our Contribution (This is Four)

Our lives are the Divine's Life in Its becoming manifest. This is not magic we are learning, not voodoo conjuring for self-gratification. We are in service to the ineffable Most High (...?) Itself, for this is Its Life. It has become us, that we might become It manifest. If you would, this is the process of producing the picture of the Ineffable. The very name Adam in the ancient Aramaic language (Genesis 2:7 per Alexander) is Adam-tha: "portrait." The picture is the priority. Being God's portrait--presenting His picture--is what we live for.

What is our contribution to the process, our role and our function? We imagine--believe is, assume--that which It becomes. We set the course and sail the ship as It manifests as our projection. It is not without reason that we are to think on and advocate "those things that are true, modest, righteous, pure, merciful, praiseworthy, and those acts of glorification and virtue" (Philippians 4:8 Alexander). We think on those good things to literally replace these bad things, things that are unlike God. Jesus' thoughts on the cross, forgiving the religious leaders who crucified Him, like Jehoshaphat's praise army, destroyed the enemy--their unlike-Godness.

We are on the cross. That is what life in the flesh is, initially. The Son of God CREATES the heavens and the earth, but the created things are ignorant of what they are when they first come into existence. In this they are unlike God. Ignorance rules until God-likeness comes forth, until He is seen in and as the Manifestation. Being of like mind as God in what we think and do is our war. Getting God-likeness assumed is our contribution; getting our assumption manifest is His. We are to cooperate with the rest of the One. We pitch, He hits.

So, what are we to do? Pray without ceasing, rejoice continuously, praise God with hearts full of gratitude and thanksgiving for what we believe IS, think and assume God-likeness in place of every instance of God-unlikeness. Advocate for right, be gentle and merciful, help and teach the poor, provide and share--you know the drill of being good and loving, teaching and preaching the Word, and giving your other tunic. Let your hands be Milta's (Miltha's)--God's hands--and lay them on the sick that God might heal them. Be in the Bible world while dwelling in this world. Hold onto your evidences of God in faith for strength, forgiving those who do not yet see them, while you change those who persecute you. They will see. Eventually, they certainly will.

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PS Edit: It occurred to me, what is the life-review most near-death experiencers of death say they go through after they die ("and then my whole life flashed before my eyes")? Could it be a look for instances of our having presented God's portrait in our lives? We don't want to be an "I never knew you" (Matthew 7:23). Give 'em something to look at.

From Rabbi Manis Friedman on our purpose in the universe.