Jesus Writes About God and His Personality

April 7, 1919
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, Jesus.

Let me write a few lines. I see that you were much interested in what the preacher (Dr. Swain) said tonight about God and His personality, and that you gave him several questions, which he could not answer. This must be expected, for to men is not given ordinarily a true conception of God, or who or what He is, and only by the development of their souls by the Divine Love can they obtain any conception of His being. As their souls thus develop, they become a part of His Divinity, and their soul perceptions become opened up to a realization of who God is, to a small degree at least, and then they know that He is something more than an all enveloping energy, supplemented by a purposeful will.

The preacher has not these soul perceptions and cannot conceive of God, the Soul, but can only express to you the truthfulness of the evidences of God's existence, such as the energy that he spoke of.

As you know, this energy is His Spirit, although the preacher has not the exact conception of what this Spirit is or how it operates. He confuses the soul and spirit, and makes the mere instrument by or with which God expresses His energy to be the real true substance of God, the Soul. He is right when he says that he cannot go back of this energy to find God, for his soul perceptions have not yet been awakened to a cognition of that from which the energy proceeds, or which is the very source from which flows all the manifestations that, to his mind, constitute God.

He is like the theologians and philosophers, who believe that these manifestations and energies and forces are the only God, the only personal God; and he may be shocked to hear that his teachings amount to only this. But it is true, and to him there is no more personal God than to the others, with this exception; that he attempts to believe that in some manner and in some way connected with this energy, there is a Will which has in it a purpose of love or kindness or fatherly care; but the real personal God, with his Great Soul of Love which is being always bestowed upon the individual man, he does not conceive of or make his own.

God is Soul, and only Soul, which has in it all the attributes of Love and wisdom and thought for the welfare of His creatures. He is a thinking and seeing God, and all the energies of His Soul are used to make men better and happier. As is the natural father of the man a personal father, so is the Great Soul of God, a Personal Father to all His children; and men when they have the development of their souls in the Divine Love will know that God is personal - something more than an all enveloping energy or force or mere manifestation of His existence.

The preacher says, in substance, that God is everywhere, and His presence may be realized by all who are willing to receive that manifestation, and that whether they are or not willing, that presence exists just the same. This is pantheism, toned down a little by his beliefs in a more personal God, but still pantheism, and wholly wrong and violative of God's being.

The source of things can never be the things themselves, although the things as they flow from the source have some of the qualities of the source itself, and so these manifestations of God's existence, while they are of His qualities, yet they are not equivalent of His presence or the source from which they flow. God is not everywhere, but in His Heavens, and all these expressions of His powers and will and energies are merely evidences that there is a source from which they all come, and they are not that source itself.

And again, the preacher said that God created the body of man and not the spirit, as he calls it, meaning the soul, so that the body is a creation by itself and cannot contain in it the spirit or the spirit body, but that this spirit is outside of the human body and is, in a general way, a part of one Great Spirit that is universal and everywhere and that, therefore, all men, no matter what their conditions may be in the earth life or in the eternity part of life, are brothers, and God is the Father of them all.

Well in this the preacher is mistaken, for every man has his own individual spirit and soul, and on the state or condition of that soul depends the happiness or misery of the man; and he is merely the brother of other men because he is a creature of God and made in his image, and not because he is a part of the universal spirit, which the preacher believes permeates everything and exists everywhere. And God is the Father, because these children are His creatures, the objects of His creation, and individualized, each working out his own destiny. As we have told you, some of these children will always remain the merely created children, while others will partake of His Divine Love and become a part of His divinity and inhabitants of the Celestial Spheres.

The preacher has many things to learn, and as he believes in the search for the truth, if he will let the Divine Love flow into his heart and transform his soul into the very essence and substance of the Father's divinity, he will be able to learn many things spiritual as well as of things material are governed by law, and unless the soul gets into a condition that enables it to see and realize the higher truths of the spirit world, it can never obtain knowledge of things spiritual, and one of the objects of such knowledge is God.

Well, I have written enough and will stop. With my love, I will say good night.

Your brother and friend,
Jesus

Ann Rollins Writes More on the True Nature of God

January 31, 1915
Received by James Padgett
Washington, D.C.

I am here, your Grandmother.

You must not think that because the Master said that God is a personification of love, power, and wisdom, that there is no real God, but merely an abstract being representing these attributes. He is a real being, and these attributes are His, and not the combination of the attributes. He exists, and without Him, there would be no love, wisdom, or power. He is the Creator of these principles and not their creature.

As Jesus said: He is without form or substance, such as mortals and spirits have; yet, He has a spiritual substance, and that is real, and not shadowy or non existent. Pantheism is different from what God is.

While His attributes are everywhere, yet, He is of an identical substance of spirit. So do not let the idea possess you that He is not a being, for He is, and even though we cannot see Him, or feel Him as a spirit, yet He exists as His one true self. So believe in a personal God in that sense.

I know that it is hard to comprehend the true conception of His being, but the higher we get in the scale of Love, the more apparent becomes His real existence as a being. Do not let your inability to grasp the true meaning of this description of God and His nature, lead you to think that He is a mere essence. He is real, and to us who have received a large amount of His Love and essence, He becomes as real as if we could see and feel Him with our spiritual eyes and hands.

I know the difficulties in the way of your finite mind to grasp the true conception of His being, but as Love draws you closer to Him, the mind gives way to the perceptions of the soul, and God appears as a real existing being, the Creator of all.

I want to tell you further that God, while He works through His Angels, yet He, Himself, comes into our souls by His direct communication. The Holy Spirit is His messenger that causes the souls of men to hear and receive this soul communication; yet God's Love comes direct from Himself, and when man was created in the likeness of God, he was given a soul that was capable of receiving the soul essence of the Father. Neither in his physical nor spiritual form was man created in the image of his Father, because the Father has no such forms. But in the soul essence, the image was made alike.

Yet, man is of such a great degree in God's creation that he can refuse to receive this soul essence, if he so wills. His soul is capable of receiving it, but is not compelled to do so, and while man has the image, yet if he neglects to receive the substance, he will never become at-one with the Father. That image will never be more than an image only.

God is so good that He implanted in man's soul what may be called the natural love; and that love is sufficient to make him comparatively happy, and in the great day when sin and error shall be destroyed, man's natural love will be able to cause this happiness.

But man will not be at-one with the Father in the larger sense and will not take on the Divine Nature of his God. So you see the necessity of seeking this wonderful union with the Father.

I must now stop.

Your Grandmother