2-way chat with God: good Father vs. neverending torture

[DavidFord]

Do you agree with the claim that "most, if not all, of the good things that" human bodies do are attributable to God?

_One Truth, One Law: I Am, I Create_ by Erin Werley (2020), 112pp., on 42
amazon.com/One-Truth-Law-Am-Create/dp/1734363800/
I'm always coming through in some bodies some of the time. You are often me, but you don't know it. Most, if not all, of the good things that these bodies do is me. The things you're not proud of are the persona acting out of fear. When you're being brave and strong and doing something you're proud of, that's usually me. Sometimes, it's the persona doing something that the persona thinks is for good, and it's really not.

Philippians 2:13 (PHILLIPS)
biblegateway.com/verse/en/Philippians 2:13
For it is God who is at work within you,
giving you the will and the power to achieve his purpose.

[DavidFord]

ACIM, Lesson 324. This was supposedly dictated by Jesus.
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-324/i-merely-follow-for-i-would-not-lead/en/s/746
I merely follow, for I would not lead.
1. Father, You are the One Who gave the plan for my salvation to me. You have set the way I am to go, the role to take, and every step in my appointed path. I cannot lose the way. ⁴I can but choose to wander off a while, and then return. ⁵Your loving Voice will always call me back, and guide my feet aright. ⁶My brothers all can follow in the way I lead them. ⁷Yet I merely follow in the way to You, as You direct me and would have me go.

2. So let us follow One Who knows the way. We need not tarry, and we cannot stray except an instant from His loving Hand. We walk together, for we follow Him. ⁴And it is He Who makes the ending sure, and guarantees a safe returning home.

[DavidFord]

Belief that one is destined for hell can result in experiencing hell.

_The Jesus Secret: Who I Am_ by Daniel Yordy (2007), 197pp., on 114
https://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Secret-Who-Am/dp/147913208X/
My Father has an absolute law that cannot be changed. Every living soul must receive what he or she believes. Some are still convinced that the "man of sin" is very much alive in them and must still be crucified. Pay no attention. How can evil live in the same Heart that I have made My Throne? But I told you clearly that everything inside of you that God once hated, that needed to die, is DEAD. And I command you to believe it is so. As you believe that you are really and truly free from sin and really and truly alive to God-- so shall you receive!
The others? They also will achieve what they believe to be true. Believing that My Cross is finished in you is as important as believing that I live in you.
Stand in My Grace.

_Misfit in Hell to Heaven Expat:  Lessons from a Dark Near-Death Experience and How to Avoid Hell in the Afterlife_ (2020), 468pp., on 460- 462, 468
https://www.amazon.com/Misfit-Hell-Heaven-Expat-Near-Death/dp/1952146127/
interview of her:
Good Catholic Goes to Hell; Says Religion Is to Blame
https://youtu.be/MfOAvfwEMVs
We all have the same task of being loving and kind to others, and ourselves, in this life.
I guess I needed a jumpstart to open my eyes and heart to the reality of our common flawed existence and to what our loving God has planned for us.
...
One morning, as I gazed at the picture of Jesus I keep on my bedside table, I asked God what I needed to do to never go to hell again.
How can I go to heaven instead?
I heard my Voice very clearly repeating:
_Loving and kind, loving and kind, loving and kind_.
...
My new morning mantra was easy to remember:
_"Jesus, help me to be loving and kind."_
A few months later, as I looked at His picture, I heard the words "merciful and forgiving."
...
Two more words came to me later that year:
"encouraging and grateful."
...
After another long period, I was told,
"Nonjudgmental."
Ouch! 
This reminder came at a particularly relevant time.
A few months ago, one last word was shared with me.
I was told to be "useful."
...
The second part of my avoidance of hell starts with a firm belief in my own getting directly into God's realm after my next death, as so many other NDE experiencers did.
...
I choose to believe in God's unconditional and unparalleled love and mercy for me, and await with as much confidence as my weak human self can muster for the incredible and overwhelming experience of being joined with God again, and to finally being Home to stay.
...
There is no "opt-out" box to check when you die, so please prepare thoughtfully.

=====================================
Love created me like Himself.
Holiness created me holy.
Kindness created me kind.
Helpfulness created me helpful.
Love created me loving.
Perfection created me perfect.
-- based on
https://acim.org/acim/lesson-67/love-created-me-like-itself/en/s/470

Genesis 1:27 (NIV)
https://biblehub.com/genesis/1-27.htm
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

Genesis 9:6b (New Living)
https://biblehub.com/genesis/9-6.htm
...God made human beings in his own image.

2 Cor 4:4b (NIV)
https://biblehub.com/2_corinthians/4-4.htm
...Christ, who is the image of God.

Matthew 5:48 (NIV)
https://biblehub.com/matthew/5-48.htm
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

=====================================
_The Message of Sadhu Sundar Singh:  A Study in Mysticism on Practical Religion_ by B.H. Streeter and A.J. Appasamy (1922), 209pp., 95-96, 99-102
https://archive.org/stream/themessageofsadh00streuoft/themessageofsadh00streuoft_djvu.txt
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1293189901/
"There [in heaven] we realize not only the desires we have known in this life, but desires, which we did not even know that we had, are opened up and realized, because there is everything to satisfy them.  There I am satisfied, there there is nothing more to ask.  It is wonderful!  That is our home.

"I asked one of the Spirits the meaning of the passage in St. John:  'I said, Ye are gods.'  I was told that man has innumerable desires, and that these show that he is going to make infinite progress when in Heaven.  There we have more capacities than we have hairs of our head here.

"Another time I asked what Christ meant by saying, 'Be ye perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect.'  He did not say 'Be perfect as the angels or the prophets.'  I had been puzzled by this.  Does it mean that we shall become God; and, if so, shall we rebel against Him?  They told me there that God wants us to be equal to Him, because Love always wants an object for affection equal to itself.  Just as men are not satisfied with loving animals merely, so God wants us to be equal to Him.  But if we became so, we could not rebel:  for we should then have an infinite knowledge of the Love of God, and that would bring with it infinite thankfulness.  There is no jealousy in Heaven.  Our Heavenly Father wants us to be made equal to Him.  There is no jealousy in Heaven.  There are differences of degree, but there are no disagreements.  Everyone is always on everyone else's side, and those who are low down in the scale feel so proud that their elder brothers are so big.
....
THE LAST JUDGMENT
"I inquired once, 'Will the dead stand in a line all together and be judged?'  I was told, No; after leaving the body the soul knows everything that has happened to it.  The memory of it all is clear and fresh, and thereby they are judged.  The heavenly light shows the wicked to themselves; they see at once that they cannot live in that fellowship of saints and angels.  They feel so out of place there, they find everything so uncongenial that they ask to be allowed to go away from Heaven.  Men are not turned out of Heaven by God.  Heaven is not a place with walls and gates where you have to ask for a ticket of admission.  The ticket of admission is the life a man has led.

"Those who are born again can see the Kingdom of Heaven and feel at home there, those who are not cannot do so.  This is the real judgment, and it is a judgment that is going on every day.  It is not effected by an act of God interposing between ourselves and Him, it is internal.  The Last Judgment will be a proclamation of the final result, when every true servant of God will be exalted before the whole creation.

"I was also told that in this world our spiritual bodies are inside our material bodies, and that when we sin it is like when we press with a point on paper behind which is a sheet of carbon; on the outside of the paper there is a very slight mark, but inside there is a clear black mark.  Thus our sins mark and scar our spiritual bodies, and the result of this will be seen when, after death, the spiritual body escapes from the material; and the revelation of the injury it has sustained will in itself be a large part of the judgment.

HELL
"I was also told that the love of God operates even in Hell.  God does not shine in His full light, because those there could not bear it, but He gradually shows them more and more light, and by and by brings them on and moves their conscience towards something better, although they think that the desire is entirely their own.

Thus God works on their minds from within, something in the same way, though in the opposite direction, as that in which Satan suggests temptation to us here.  Thus, what with God's work within and the Light without, almost all those in Hell will ultimately be brought to Christ's feet.  It will perhaps take millions of ages, but when it is attained they will be full of joy and thankfulness towards God; though they will still be less happy than those who have accepted Christ on earth.  Thus Hell also is a training school, a place of preparation for Home.  Those in Hell know that it is not their home because they suffer there.  Men were not created for Hell and therefore do not enjoy it, and, when there, desire to escape to Heaven.  They do so, but they find Heaven even more uncongenial than Hell, so they return.  But this convinces them that there is something wrong in their lives, and thus they are gradually led to repentance.  At least, that is the case with the majority, but there are some few personalities, Satan for instance, in regard to whom I was told, 'Don't ask about them.'  And so I didn't like to ask, but I hoped that for them also there was some hope.

"They also told me that the Saints help in the work of saving souls in Hell, because there can be no idleness in Heaven.  Those in Hell will ultimately be brought to Heaven like the prodigal son, but with regard to the ultimate fate of a certain number you must not ask."  The Sadhu is inclined to think that perhaps these few will be annihilated.

"Once I said, 'So many people will be lost because they have not heard of Christ.'  They said, 'The contrary will be the case; very few will be lost.'  There is a kind of heavenly joke, no, joke is not a good word for it.  'Very few will be lost but many will be saved.  It is so, but don't tell,' they said, as it were, in jest, 'because it will make men careless, and we want them to enjoy the First Heaven-- that is the Heaven on earth-- as well.' "

"If there were no hope for all the non-Christians in the world and all the Christians who die in sin, God would stop creating men.  We must do our part here on earth to save sinners, but if they refuse we need not be without hope for them.

The Sadhu's "universalism" recalls the famous "Shewing" to Mother Juliana of Norwich, "All manner of things shall be well," and her comments thereon except that her respect for the authority of the Church precludes her making any suggestion _how_ this may be possible.  The Sadhu faithfully obeys the injunction, "Don't tell." In his popular teachings, as we shall see in the next chapter, he stresses the need of repentance, and the certainty of immediate judgment in the next life, but he never speaks of his hope of _ultimate_ salvation even for the unrepentant.

[darryl]

interesting...thank you !

[DavidFord]

Lev Gillet, _In Thy Presence_ (1977), on 34-35
https://archive.org/details/inthypresence0000gill/page/34/mode/2up?q=tomorrow
https://www.amazon.com/Thy-Presence-Lev-Gillet/dp/0913836346
By what kind of Love, then, art thou loved?
I do not say to thee: 'Thou hast been loved.'
Nor do I say to thee: 'Thou wilt be loved.'
I did not only love thee yesterday or the day before that.
I shall not only love thee tomorrow or the day after.
It is today, it is now, this minute, that thou art loved.

This is so in the case of every single person.
Thou art astonished My child, and dost question Me: 'Truly? In every case?'
Yes, in all cases.
Thou dost continue: 'Lord, how can it be so? Could he who sins against Thee, in the moment of sinning, be loved by Thee?'
Yes, My child.
If I did not continue to love the sinner, would I let him exist before Me?
Love is seated like a beggar at the door of someone who does not love.
He waits.
He will wait.
The length of My waiting outdoes all human forecasts.
Do not attempt to penetrate the mystery.
I wait.
And who can separate Me from My dear sinner.

[DavidFord]

"Father... I can but choose to wander off a while, and then return.
Your loving Voice will always call me back...
we follow Him.
And it is He Who makes the ending sure, and guarantees a safe returning home"

ACIM Lesson 324
https://acimdailylesson.com/324
I Merely Follow, For I Would Not Lead.
_Father, You are the One Who gave the plan for my salvation to me.
You have set the way I am to go, the role to take, and every step in my appointed path.
I cannot lose the way.
I can but choose to wander off a while, and then return.
Your loving Voice will always call me back, and guide my feet aright.
My brothers all can follow in the way I lead them.
Yet I merely follow in the way to You, as You direct me and would have me go_.

So let us follow One Who knows the way.
We need not tarry, and we cannot stray except an instant from His loving hand.
We walk together, for we follow Him.
And it is He Who makes the ending sure, and guarantees a safe returning home.

[DavidFord]

"Paternity does not cease when a son is ignorant, silly or wicked.
A father strives to teach his son, because it is love to instruct him.
A father works hard to make a mentally deficient son less silly.
A father tries to correct a wicked son and make him good with tears, being indulgent, with beneficial punishments and forgiving him mercifully.
That is what a man-father does.
And will the God-Father be perhaps inferior to the man-father?
So the God-Father loves all men and wants their salvation."

Maria Valtorta, _The Gospel as Revealed to Me_ vol 1-10
http://archive.org/details/maria-valtorta-vol-1-english202202/
aka _The Poem of the Man-God_ vol 1-5
http://amazon.com/POEM-MAN-GOD-Five-Set/dp/B001DBLAVS/ https://archive.org/details/maria-valtorta-vol-1-english202202/
file "Poem whole 1-5," from vol 4 of 5, on 302-306
https://archive.org/stream/maria-valtorta-vol-1-english_202202/Poem%20Whole%201-5%20%28%3Dthe%20Gospel%20as%20revealed%20to%20me%29_djvu.txt

Jesus raises His hand indicating that He wants to speak and everybody becomes silent.

'It is written: "You marched to save Your people, to save them through Your Christ". It is written: "And I will rejoice in the Lord and I will exult in God my Jesus". The people of Israel have taken these words for themselves and have given them a national, personal selfish meaning, which does not correspond to the truth concerning the person of the Messiah. They have given those words a restricted meaning which degrades the greatness of the Messianic idea to a common display of human power and of overwhelming victory over the rulers found by the Christ in Israel.

But the truth is different. It is great, unlimited. It comes from the true God, from the Creator and Lord of Heaven and Earth, from the Creator of Mankind, from Him Who multiplied the stars in the vault of heaven and covered the Earth with all kinds of plants, and peopled it with animals and placed fish in the waters and birds in the air, and likewise He multiplied the children of Man created by Him to be the king of Creation and His favourite creature. Now, how could the Lord, the Father of all mankind, be unfair to the children of the children of the children born of the Man and the Woman, formed by Him with matter: the earth, and with soul: His divine breath? And how could He treat these differently from those, as if they did not come from one only source, as if other branches had been created by some other supernatural antagonist, not by Him, and were consequently strangers, illegitimate, contemptible?

The true God is not a poor god of this or of that people, an idol, an unreal figure. He is the supreme Reality, the universal Reality, the Only Supreme Being, the Creator of all things and of all men. He is therefore the God of all men. He knows them even if they do not know Him. He loves them: even if they, not knowing Him, do not love Him, or if they do not know Him well and they do not love Him well, or even if they know Him, they do not know how to love Him. Paternity does not cease when a son is ignorant, silly or wicked. A father strives to teach his son, because it is love to instruct him. A father works hard to make a mentally deficient son less silly. A father tries to correct a wicked son and make him good with tears, being indulgent, with beneficial punishments and forgiving him mercifully. That is what a man-father does. And will the God-Father be perhaps inferior to the man-father? So the God-Father loves all men and wants their salvation. He, the King of an infinite Kingdom, the eternal King, looks at His people, which comprises all the peoples spread all over the Earth, and He says: "This is the people of those I created, the people to be saved through My Christ. This is the people for whom the Kingdom of Heaven was created. It is now time to save them by means of the Saviour".

Who is the Christ? Who is the Saviour? Who is the Messiah? There are many Greeks here, and many, even if they are not Greeks, know what the word Christ means. Christ is therefore the consecrated person, the person anointed with regal oil to fulfil His mission. Consecrated to what? Perhaps to the fleeting glory of a throne? Perhaps to the greater glory of priesthood? No. He is consecrated to gather under one only sceptre, into one only people, in one only doctrine, all men, so that they may be brothers to one another and children of one only Father, children who know their Father and comply with His Law to take part in His Kingdom.

Christ, a king in the name of the Father Who sent Him, reigns as it becomes His Nature, that is, divinely, as God. God has placed the world as the foot-stool of His Christ, not because He should oppress, but that He may save. His name is in fact Jesus, which in Hebrew means Saviour. When the Saviour saves His people from the fiercest snare and wound, a mountain will be under His feet and a multitude of people of every race will cover the mountain to symbolise that He reigns and rises above the whole Earth and above all peoples. But the King will be bare without any riches, except His Sacrifice, to symbolise that He tends only to spiritual things, and that spiritual things are conquered and redeemed with spiritual bra-very and heroical sacrifice, not with violence and gold. He will be like that to reply to those who fear Him and also to those who through false love exalt and degrade Him while wishing Him to be king according to the world. He will be like that to those as well who hate Him solely for fear of being deprived of what is dear to them. For His response is that He is a spiritual King and nothing else, sent to teach spirits how to conquer the Kingdom, the only Kingdom that I have come to establish.

I will not give you new laws. I confirm the Law of Sinai for Israelites; to Gentiles I say: the law to possess the Kingdom is nothing but the law of virtue which every man of noble morals imposes on himself and which, through faith in the true God, from moral law and human virtue becomes a superhuman moral law.

O Gentiles! It is your custom to proclaim gods the great men of your countries, and you place them among the many unreal gods with whom you people Olympus, created by you to have something in which to believe, because religion is a necessity for man, exactly as faith is a necessity, because faith is the permanent state of man and incredulity is the accidental abnormality. And those men raised to the rank of gods are not always worthy even as men, as at times they are great because of their brutal strength, at times through powerful cunning, at times also because of the power which they somehow achieved. So they carry with themselves, as qualifications of supermen, certain miseries which a wise man recognises for what they are: the rottenness of unrestrained passions. That I am speaking the truth is proved by the fact that in your chimerical Olympus you have not put a single one of those great spirits who sensed by intuition the supreme Being and were the intermediate agents between man and Divinity, which was instinctively perceived by them through their contemplative virtuous spirit. Between the reasoning spirit of a philosopher, of a true great philosopher, and the spirit of a true believer who worships the true God, the gap is small, whereas between the spirit of the believer and the ego of a cunning or overwhelming man, or of a man who is a hero only in a material way, there is an abyss. And yet you have not placed in your Olympus those who had been elevated by their virtuous lives so much above the human mass that they approached the kingdoms of the spirit, whereas you have put those whom you feared as cruel masters, or whom you adulated as servile slaves, or you admired as living examples of those free animal instincts which your abnormal appetites consider as the aim and purpose of life. And you have envied those who have been numbered among the gods, neglecting those who were closer to divinity because of their honest practices and of the doctrine, which they taught and according to which they lived virtuously.

I now solemnly tell you that I will give you the means to become gods. He who does what I say and believes in what I teach, will climb the true Olympus and will be god, god son of God, in a Heaven where there is no corruption whatsoever and where Love is the only law. In a Heaven where we love one another spiritually, without the dullness and snares of senses making its inhabitants hostile to one another, as it happens in your religions. I have not come to request deeds which are noisily heroical. I have come to say to you: live as becomes creatures gifted with soul and reason, not as brutes. Live in such a way as to deserve to live, to really live, with your immortal part, in the Kingdom of Him Who created you. I am the Life. I have come to teach you the Way to go to Life. I have come to give Life to you all, and I give it to you that you may rise from death, from your sepulchres of sin and idolatry. I am Mercy. I have come to call you and gather you all together. I am the Christ Saviour. My Kingdom does not belong to this world. And yet a kingdom is established in the hearts of those who believe in Me and in My word, even from the present days, and it is the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God within you.

It is written of Me that I am He Who will bring justice among nations. It is true. Because if the citizens of each nation did what I teach, hatred, wars, overbearing actions would come to an end. It is written of Me that I would not raise My voice to curse sinners or My hand to destroy those who are like cracked canes and smoky wicks because of their unbecoming way of living. It is true. I am the Saviour and I have come to strengthen those who are weak, to give humour to those whose light is smoky through lack of the necessary essence. It is written of Me that I am He Who opens the eyes of blind people, and frees prisoners from jail and takes light to those who were in the darkness of prison. It is true. The blindest of blind people are those who cannot see the Light, that is, the true God, even with the sight of their souls. I, the Light of the world, have come that they may see. The most imprisoned prisoners are those whose chains are their wicked passions. Every other chain vanishes with the death of the prisoner. But the chains of vice last and enchain even after the death of the body. I have come to loosen them. I have come to relieve from the darkness of the dungeons of ignorance of God all those whom paganism smothers under the mass of its idolatries.

Come to Light and to Salvation. Come to Me because My Kingdom is the true one and My Law is good. All I ask of you is to love the Only God and your neighbour, and consequently to repudiate the idols and passions which harden your hearts and make you arid, sensual, thieves, homicides. The world says: "Let us oppress the poor, the weak, the lonely. Let force be our right, harshness our habit, intolerance, hatred, ferocity, our weapons. Let us crush the just man, since he does not react, let us oppress the widow and the orphan whose voices are weak". I say: be kind and meek, forgive your enemies, assist the weak, be honest in selling and purchasing, be generous also when asserting your rights, without taking advantage of your possibility to crush those who are oppressed. Do not avenge yourselves. Leave to God the care of protecting you. Be sober in all your dispositions, because moderation is proof of moral strength, whilst lust is proof of weakness. Be men and not brutes, and never fear of having fallen so low that you cannot rise again.

I solemnly tell you that as muddy water can become pure again evaporating in the sun, which purifies it by heating it, so that it may rise to the sky and fall as beneficial rain or dew, free from defilement, providing it is exposed to the sun, so the spirits which approach the great Light which is God and shout to Him: "I have sinned, I am filth, but I yearn for You, o Light" will become purified spirits which ascend to their Creator. Remove horror from death converting your lives into money to purchase the Life. Divest yourselves of your past as if it were a dirty garment and clothe yourselves with virtue. I am the Word of God and in His Name I tell you that those who have faith in Him and good will, those who repent of their past and make righteous resolutions for the future, whether they are Hebrews or Gentiles, will become the children of God and will possess the Kingdom of Heaven.

At the beginning of My speech I asked you: "Who is the Messiah?". I now say to you: It is I Who am speaking to you and My Kingdom is Your hearts if you are willing to receive it, and then it will be in Heaven, which I will open to you, if you persevere in My Doctrine. That is the Messiah and nothing else. He is the King of a spiritual kingdom, the gates of which He will open to all men of good will through His Sacrifice.'

Jesus has finished speaking and is about to go towards a short flight of stairs...