Quote from Ransom L. Webster:
During those years, I always preached the standard gospel message of the "necessity of the new birth," based on the foundation of an "inerrant" Bible. I gave altar calls, held evangelistic and missionary conferences, sent the young people to Christian camps, etc., etc. But despite all this, which of course included an active personal prayer life, I became more and more concerned about the truth and validity of what I was doing and what I was saying.
To help quiet my ever-growing uneasiness, I decided to return to formal studies, eventually graduating from Westminster Theological Seminary (Philadelphia, PA) with a Th. M. degree. Two years later, I again returned to the books, entering the Ph.D. program of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln ("Big Red" territory).
A happy learner should never feel guilty for learning. This is so essential to learning that it should never be forgotten. The guiltless learner learns easily because his thoughts are free. Yet this entails the recognition that guilt is interference, not salvation, and serves no useful function at all.
There is no compromise you can make with guilt, and escape the pain that only guiltlessness allays. Learning is living here, has creating is being in Heaven. Whenever the pain of guilt seems to attract you, remember that if you yield to it, you are deciding against your happiness, and will not learn how to be happy.
Each day, each hour and minute, even each second, you are deciding between the crucifixion and the resurrection; between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego is the choice for guilt; the Holy Spirit the choice for guiltlessness. The power of decision is all that's yours. What you can decide between is fixed, because there are no alternatives except the truth and illusion. And there is no overlap between them, because they are opposites which cannot be reconciled and cannot both be true. You are guilty or guiltless, bound or free, unhappy or happy.
Guiltlessness in invulnerability. An innocent mind cannot suffer.
There is much "theology" that is a
magnet for those who are choosing guilt, and are attracted to it. Yes, there is an attraction to guilt, offering benefits to a mind gone insane. The guiltless mind is not attracted to such theologies, and therefore does not suffer pain from them. To teach any form of guilt is an attack, and the attacker will be attacked in return.
Those who accept the Atonement are invulnerable. But those who believe they are guilty will respond to guilt, because they think it is salvation, and will not refuse to see it and side with it. They believe that increasing guilt is self-protection. And they will fail to understand the simple fact that what they do not want must hurt them.
All this arises because they do not believe that what they want is good. Seek not to appraise the worth of God's Son whom He created holy, for to do so is to evaluate his Father and judge against Him. Obviously, if you cannot see your brother as God's Son, you are liable to fall into this trap. And you
will feel guilty for this imagined crime, which no one in this world or Heaven could possibly commit.
The Holy Spirit teaches only that the "sin" of self-replacement on the throne of God is not a source of guilt. What cannot happen can have no effects to fear. Say to the Holy Spirit only, "Decide for me".
Look now how little is asked of you. Say only the following words in italics, offering it as a little gift to the Holy Spirit, and see how He can now give you everything. See how one tiny change of mind changes one's crucifixion into resurrection. And being true, it is so simple that it cannot fail to be completely understood. Rejected yes, but not ambiguous. And if you choose against it now, it will not be because it is obscure, but rather that this little cost seemed, in your judgement, to be too much to pay for peace.
This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:
I am responsible for what I see.
I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve.
And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked.
Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what happens to you. Acknowledge but that you have been mistaken, and all effects of your mistakes will disappear.
It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events outside of him. It is impossible that happenings that come to him were not his choice. His power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which he seems to find himself by chance or accident. No accident or chance is possible within the universe as God created it, outside of which is nothing. Suffer, and you decided sin was your goal. Be happy, and you gave the power of decision to Him Who must decide for God for you.
This is the little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit, and even this He gives to you to give to yourself. For by this gift is given you the power to release your savior, that he may give salvation unto you.
Begrudge not this little offering. Withhold it, and you keep the world as now you see it. Give it away, and everything you see goes with it. Never was so much given for so little. Here is the world you do not want brought to the one you do. And here the one you do is given you because you want it. Yet for this, the power of your wanting must first be recognized. You must accept its strength, and not its weakness. You must perceive that what is strong enough to make a world can let it go, and can accept correction if it is willing to see that it was wrong.
The world you see is but the idle witness that you were right. This witness is insane. You did this to yourself. See only this, and you will also see how circular the reasoning on which your "seeing" rests.
Perhaps you do not see the need for you to give this little offering. Look closer, then, at what it is. And, very simply, see in it the whole exchange of separation for salvation.
Peace,
Jesus
