The Great Gospel of John
Volume 9
Jesus' Precepts and Deeds through His Three Years of Teaching
The Lord in the region of Caesarea Philippi
- Chapter 209 -
The dangers of ceremonial religion and ceremonial prayer.
I said: "Friend, you have well spoken now, and My heart feels refreshed on the good intention of your words. So it is right when a person who prays and thanks for something, will behave as you have explained it now. But then man should always have fully the same attitude as yours, and only attach importance to the inner value of life, and the outer only as if dragging it along as a burden, making it less important than his inner power. To pray, to thank and to honor in this manner would, as said, be very right and good and well pleasing to Me.
2
But people are not staying like you now before Me. They all too soon attach more importance to the outer gestures than they should according to the truth of the inner life, and the only true interior that does not go together with the exterior they regard as insufficient and finally even as worthless. And then it easily can come to the point that priests, who are so called initiated, and chosen and called by God, will mislead the people by saying that it is sufficient for a common person to only respect the interior as prescribed by them, and to honor it highly. For according to them the individual inner word that the people are personally directing to God in a praying or thanking manner, is without any value in God's eyes and is useless because God is absolutely not pleased with that, and He is only justly dissatisfied since such independent inner praying, asking and thanking is considered by God as a brutality and blasphemy.
3
And what will finally become of all that? Look, the people are leaving God more and more, instead of coming ever closer to Him in their heart, in the love and in the true, living faith and trust. The trusting, true and pure love changes into a spooky fear, and the living faith in the truth changes into a dark heathenish superstition by which the lazy priestly caste, which is capable of every deceit, is doing very well in earthly respect. By this, the so called common people are often desperately suffocating in all kinds of spiritual need and despair, darkness, poverty and blindness by which often also their body cannot take up anymore the nourishment that it needs, for the priests, who are so called the only ones who are called by God, who multiply like flies, who are lazy and work-shy while they make all kinds of promises to the people about heavenly pleasures in the beyond and still more often horrible threats with eternal hellish punishments, torments and pains, truly rob away all things before the mouth of the common people and fatten their belly with it. And this you can see now with the Pharisees, as well as with all pagan priests.
4
And look, all this will gradually come from the outer gestures while asking, thanking and praying, which initially seemed of course very innocent and even morally suitable. And then God must finally call out and shout to the people again through the mouth of newly awakened prophets: 'Look, this people honors Me with the lips and with idol and dead worldly ceremonies, but their heart is far away from Me.'
5
So remember the following and make it as a permanent guide for your life: God is a Spirit in Himself, full of love, truth, wisdom and power, unchangeable since eternity, and can thus only be worshipped in the spirit and in the truth that is within man.
6
So if someone has a request, namely if God, the only true Creator and Father of all men and angels, would like to help him in this or that, then he should not direct his request to a temple or a synagogue, and also not go to a priest, but should go alone in a little room - namely that very quiet little room of his heart - and pray there to God, and ask Him, the most loving Father, for the right help. Then the Father, who hears and sees everything, even in the most hidden place, will always gladly give what is justly asked to the one who will only actively pray in the right manner and in the spirit of truth. You can all be completely assured about that. But over an open prayer that is given as performance in the presence of people, by which the heart often feels very little, the Father in Heaven will never speak out His almighty 'amen'.
7
Understand and remember this very well, and act also accordingly if you do not want to see your descendants fall into an even darker heathendom than is now common everywhere among the people on this Earth.
8
Making charming gestures can seem to be something valuable to the vain, blind, proud and greedy people, but to the One who is the eternal Love and Truth Himself and who always perceives what is living in the deepest and what is truthful within the spirit, the gesture does not count, but only the living, most inner truth of life.
9
If you ask something to the Father, then do not ask Him so much for the goods of this Earth, where the blind and foolish heathens and also the God-forsaken Jews and Pharisees strive for, but rather ask Him for the imperishable treasures for the soul and the spirit. Then these will never be refused to anyone. However, what concerns the goods that are necessary for the temporal livelihood, they will simply and freely be given on top of it to everyone whose striving and asking and seeking is only directed to the Kingdom of God and its most loving justice.
10
The one who has become strong in the spirit, and therefore in the Kingdom of God, will also be a lord over the things of the world and will never have to endure a great want of food for his body. But it is better - also for those who are awakened in the spirit - to revel in the goods of the Heavens of God and to endure a small lack of the goods of this Earth. Remember this also and observe it with deeds."