Notice how Jesus can give the final word on a matter and yet hearing it doesn’t decide matters finally for us.
“There is no such thing as ‘failure.’ It is just another aspect of the illusion that you use to beat yourself up – or others! Just let it go, like all other forms of judgment which serve only to distract you from being yourself — namely Love.
“That is what you are; you have just forgotten and have come to believe that you need to receive It, when in fact you always have It in abundance. If you do not experience It, that is because you have chosen to judge yourselves as being without It, in need of It, and by making that judgment you have effectively chosen to block It out, believing yourselves unworthy of It. And so you seek It, frequently in ways that cannot possibly help you to find It.
“How could you possibly be unworthy of the substance of your being? You were created in Love, by Love, from Love – there is nothing else – which is just another word that signifies God, the Source of all that exists, and of which every sentient being is an essential and inseparable part. Separation from that Source is inconceivable, unachievable, utterly impossible. You are constantly and eternally one with God, period. No further discussion of this divine truth has any meaning. You are all eternally loved and cherished by your heavenly Father, and nothing can change that, ever.” (1)
I agree that that’s about as final a description of the matter as I can conceive of reading. If the final word could do it to me or for me, that passage would have done it. But it can’t. It doesn’t. What more is needed?
The difference between the word “Love” and the thing-in-itself is probably a good place to start. “Love” is not the answer. But Love is. Actual, real Love streaming up from inside of us in exactly the way Jesus describes it here is undoubtedly the answer, but simply reading about it is not, not of and by itself.
That’s what growth leaders were wanting to tell us years ago when they said things like “you think the map is the territory and the menu is the meal. You’ve been eating the menu for years, instead of the meal. Now don’t get me wrong. You need your concepts. There’s just is no experience of aliveness in them.” (2)
So, if we want to experience the truth of the final word, we have to move from hearing the words to experiencing the Love they point to.
Similarly, I noticed earlier today that not every insight I receive from guidance leads to mastery of that insight. My guidance can reveal anything at all to me, but the revelation is not in itself the mastering of that insight.
There’s a gap between receiving it and mastering it. And sometimes that gap may never be closed.
There’s work to be done between reading the word and experiencing what it points to. There’s work to be done between getting the insight and mastering it.
Footnotes
(1) Jesus, “How Could You Possibly be Unworthy of the Substance of Your Being,” April 12-19, 2013, at https://wp.me/p1B8dY-dk.
(2) est Communications Workshop Leader Jed Naylor, October 1980.