For God So Loved the World

“When you are ready– I will do the works through you.”

“For GOD so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” 

Suddenly, like a burst of light that pierces the dark clouds of night, comes the revelation that God so LOVED the world– yes, this very world that you have been calling hell; that you have found so full of everything evil; that you have been trying to die out of, or trying to escape. Yes, this very world God has LOVED. It must be that we have hypnotized ourselves into something that is unlovely. Yet we find that God so LOVED the world. If God had found it one-tenth as evil as we have been taught to believe it is, He would certainly not have loved it; He would have destroyed it. Can it be that we, you and I, are mistaken regarding the world– have we been seeing through a glass darkly and mistaking the shadows of the human belief for the reality, to such an extent that we have come to hate that which God loved? 

“Awake, thou that sleepiest, and Christ shall give thee Light”– the Light which will enable you to start the Love Process and set yourself free from the prison house of your own making. 

“When you are ready” …
“If you cannot love those whom you see, how can you love God whom you do not see?”  A question asked and passed over too lightly.  The same thing might be asked: “If you cannot love the world which you can see, how can you love the Kingdom which you cannot see?” It is time that we awakened from the mesmeric sleep that we have cast over ourselves.  We have been stupefied by the heavy drug called procrastination. Half the people are ‘knowing the Truth’ are merely waiting for something in the future to happen and are at the same time despising the present manifestation.
There be those who will say, “Love not the world,” and by  the word ‘world’ they mean just the antithesis of what is meant  when it is stated that “God so loved the world.” It is made quite clear that if we cannot love our fellow-creatures we cannot love God.  And eventually we begin to see that we glorify that which we love. The power of love that is within every man is the power to transform appearances. “Love never faileth” would indicate that all else can fail.  Also, “Perfect love casteth out fear.”  We are beginning to see the power of Love. When we Love our fellow-beings, they become God-like, and display God-like qualities.  And when we love the earth as God loved it, then we transform it into heaven. 

Self-examination shows, however, that to most of us this world is just a battle-ground.  Each morning we rise and set forth  to battle evil, always looking for way and means of  overcoming the almost insurmountable obstacles that arise before us like a Goliath. This fighting spirit stays with us, in spite of the command, ‘Ye do not need to fight– set yourself and see the salvation of the Lord.’

In the beautiful God-loved world there is nothing to fight, but in the world of man’s creating he finds evil everywhere. It is for man to choose in which of these habitats he will live.  Surely, as soon as he sees God in man, man becomes God-like, and just so surely as he sees Heaven here and now the world becomes again the Garden of Eden– the very Garden that God loved.  And for this purpose He gave His Son– the Christ– and said that whosoever believed upon Him should have everlasting life. The Son is given to each of  us when we are ready to accept the priceless gift within ourselves.

“I came not to destroy, but to fulfill”– that is the message of the I am coming into expression in your life. I the Christ, the You of You, came not to destroy, but to fulfill the law of God, and to fulfill and bring out the reason why “God so loved the world.” We are missing it all as long as we keep on the hunt after evil.  We are missing the great and grand issue of life when we keep pounding away at imaginary beliefs and thinking that our business In the world is to fight evil. ‘Put up your sword’—“When you are ready…”

“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 

The idea of a perishing body or kingdom, then, is lost in the consciousness of the everlasting life. Do you think for a moment you can continue everlastingly in the same personality? Do you see this would be quite as impossible, as it would be for you to continue a baby forever? The constant revelation that is coming with this imperishable Life is such that it drops off one belief after another and lets the perfect manifestation come into being.

Revelations, one after another, break over the universe of the newly found soul. The former things are remembered no more; they cannot come into mind; for the mind has been made new, and it naturally has nothing in it that answers to the former limitations and beliefs. ‘The prince of this world (the ugly, hated world that you have been living in) cometh, and findeth nothing in you,’ because you have renewed your mind and there is nothing in this new state that responds to the former evils and limitations. Do you begin to see the new day that is dawning?

Small wonder, then, that the command came, “Go forth, heal the sick, open the prisons,” etc. How can this be done except the power is given with the command?– the power of revelation. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” and the Spirit is everywhere, and when it is recognized in that place the limitations of the human belief are suddenly burst asunder and the manifestation is set free.

A shell does not hold a chick one moment after it has grown to the limitations of the shell. When you recognize the presence of God, the limitations that bound you are broken asunder by the sudden expansion of this new knowledge. Be still– do not talk– it is well with thee. “I AM HE that should come”– and you will begin to understand the difference between overcoming and realization or revelation. Be still, be still, be still. Remember in your quiet that GOD SO LOVED this world that you are finding so hateful and ugly. Be still; you will see and understand. 

The presence of the very God that LOVED this world is in everything and through everything– even in your hell, in your prison, in your problem– and contains everything for the complete satisfaction of every human desire interpreted in its truest form. Be still– be still. It is well. Right in the midst of it all, there am I; and I am everything that you can possibly ask or think.

For God so LOVED the world (Editor’s note: A. P. Adams definition of world, i.e. Kosmos, which is interpreted as, “the order of things.’ End of note)– what are you doing with it? Why did God so LOVE the place (or the ‘order of things’) that you hate and find so filled with all undesirable things?  Be still– be still– and see if the Son which was given does not come to abide with you and make all the desires of your heart possible by the process of revelation.  And GOD so LOVED the world– LOVED the world.

Are you ready? Answer ME– I AM.”

 

Walter C. Lanyon