Quote from jem:
I asked you to explain your statement --- the only reason to pray was for forgiveness.
But to answer your question takes a little background -- the whole point of the bible is that Adam and Eve fell because they disobeyed God - since the bible shows God to be true to his word - upon disobeying god they had to die - since they separated themselves from God.
The only back in was for God to send his Son to be the sinless sacrifice for all mankind. so his blood to cover their sins. To have him stand in our stead we must have faith and act on our faith.
Now Jesus forgave us for putting him through the terrible tribulation of the cross and told us to forgive others.
I guess thats the least we could do. But that is not the only reason for praying.
Jesus prayed to his father and he taught us the Our Father.
Yes, it will require a broader background to grasp the concept of forgiveness. I did not expect you to get it this time around...but you will eventually, and so will everyone.
The story you described is problematic because its not really true. And because it is not true, it does not make sense and so cannot be understood.
The story you described is actually a story of unforgivingness. You are saying that my Father held a grudge for some thousands of years against everyone for some small infraction that no one can prove or verify.
The fact is, you don't know why you seem to die. Such stories are attempts to explain why. Being untrue, they visit death upon every generation that believes them.
Only truth delivers you from what appears to die.
Forgiveness is simply to allow what is true be true.
What is true?
You - and everyone - is innocent. So whatever you think they did to you...they did not do. You remain as you were Created. So your innocence can never be changed to guilt.
Likewise, whatever you think Adam and Eve did to God, or to their progeny...they did not do. What you think you did to our Father, you did not do. The way to realize you've done nothing to God is to forgive his Son what you think he has done to you. His Son is appearing to you in disguise: as your neighbor.
Adam and Eve are innocent.
Adam and Eve are symbols, of course, like everything else that is perceived. As bodies, they symbolize the loss of innocence. As such, they could not have been created by my Father...because his Creation is unchangeable forever....and he does not Create in limited form, or limit his Creations.
But our Father's creations can think themselves separated and therefore guilty of separating from our Creator. And when such thought is empowered with belief, the mind begins to play tricks on itself.
Thinking it possible to separate from God, bodies were invented to actualize separation....but they are merely symbols of an idea that is ultimately not possible.
Bodies were the result of a series of decisions to consider seriously the untrue...the impossible.
Thus, bodies ARE evidence of a "fall". It is the Creation - the Son of God - that has fallen in thought process. "Man" is the evidence of the Son's mistaken decisions based on the erroneous idea of separation. . Man is a mistake. Man is a seriously insane notion [acronym: SIN]
The prime mistake is that he thought he could separate from his Father. I have illustrated this clearly in the parable of the Prodigal Son. The Atonement tells you that separation is impossible and that the will of the Father and the Son are the same. Because separation is impossible, it never happened. Accept this, and you've accepted the remedy for all your problems.
You underestimate the power of the Son's mind. It is equal to his Father's...and he has will-power equal to his Father's.
As I said, the Father gave the Son EVERYTHING. What else does the Father have to give but Himself? How then, can the Son be anything except equal to his Father?
The world is an attack on God, and bodies are made to limit love. As such, they are a limit on God's Creation. Because you are God's Creation, you are love...so bodies are a limit on YOU.
Adam and Eve are not the work of our Father. They symbolize shabby shelters erected by a wandering Son in a far-out land of make-believe.
Because bodies are built on laws opposite and antithetical to the way our Father truly creates...what else can they do but die? As such, bodies were NEVER MEANT TO LIVE! Bodies are to give the impression of "life"...only to prove that death is master over life.
Bodies are to "prove" the Son of God can be killed. And if the Son can be killed, then his Father can be killed and so God can be killed. This is where the logic of separation leads.
What you call Adam and Eve are symbols of an attack. Because attack is ultimately impossible within the one mind of the Son, bodies are invented to give the impression that attack is possible.
With bodies, the one Mind attacks itself. As it attacks itself, it weakens itself. "A house divided against itself cannot stand". This is the "fall". Bodies - ie.. Adam and Eve - are how the fall is perpetuated. With bodies, grievances are bound to multiply, binding the mind of the Son to tiny, bleak, weakened and separated existences.
Forgiveness unbinds the mind, freeing you from this trap.
To forgive, you must see things as they are, and let them be true. If you are seeing bodies, you are not forgiving the Son of God. To see bodies is to twist our Father's Creation into an idea of your own making. You are simply not allowing what is true to be true! In other words, to see bodies is evidence that you are still not forgiving. Bodies are the equivelent of a witch who turns you into a toad. So long as she deems to see you as a toad, she does not forgive you. This way, she binds herself and you to a limited existence. This is not God's way.
Adam and Eve are symbols of unforgivingness...an unwillingness to see the Son of God as he is: innocent.
When you have mastered forgiveness, you will have no more use for bodies because you have no more use for attack.
Without bodies, you return to your natural state of innocence.
Innocent, you discover that you have everything, and never lost anything the Father gave you.
Having everything, you cannot "gain" anything (ie. "Gilbert + 1")...nor can you lose anything. You can lose sight of what you have...you can lose sight of your "soul"...but you can never lose it.
Because you have sacrificed everything for the world, you think you have lost. So you think there must be something to gain.
Brother, our Father has saved your inheritance for you. Merely return Home to your rightful place as the Son of God.
You will never leave this world through death. You will only leave it through the truth. Forgiveness let's the truth be true. What else can it be?
Death is a kind of indecision. Decide for truth and live.
Jesus
