I hope these six truths will astonish and excite you. They do these things for me each time I thoughtfully review them.
- “Personal Religion”
Your personal religion is unique to you and subject to your control. Yes, you have one. It is a system of values that you live by.
- It may be designed by you.
- It may merely have accumulated in the process of living.
- It may have been taught to you.
It can be your religion even though it does not honor higher values or hold goodness as an ideal. It can be misdirected. It may foster the value of accumulating wealth or power or popularity. It may support the pursuit of fun.
However, even a misdirected personal religion may evolve to seek the goal of spiritual growth to become more like God.
- “Purpose of Life”
This life is the important beginning of your eternal spiritual career, not a purposeless occurrence. This is only the beginning of a very long life of personal growth. You are being offered an eternal career of becoming like God and in the process, helping God achieve God’s goal of uniting the entire cosmos through the attractive power of loving service for others. Building strong character based on higher, love-related values is the function your personal religion can perform in this process.
- “Spiritual You”
Right now, you are both material and spiritual in nature. The material part of you is temporary. It will age and eventually die. The spiritual part of you survives and continues to grow forever. What you achieve now toward spiritual growth is real and lasting.
- “Child of God”
Spiritually you are a first-generation, direct descendant of the one God of all creation and all power. You already have within your soul your pattern of Godlikeness which you are destined to unite with. Consequently, it is reasonable to expect that you will grow progressively to be like God. That is God’s plan and his will for you. It is your choice whether to participate in God’s plan or not. Eventually, your acceptance or refusal of this opportunity will have consequences for your eternal future.
- “Guaranteed Success”
God has provided an extensive and highly effective experiential school to educate and train you to be like God. Your success is guaranteed if you follow God’s leading. There are as many “do-overs” as you need.
- “Assisting Each Other”
Because we are all children of God, we are brothers and sisters and partners in each other’s lives. God intends for us to be linked to one another by love, caring and respect. Not just as relatives but as mutually loving and supporting family.
