[vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_single_image image=”1287″ img_size=”full”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][button border_radius=”2″ title=”Listen” link=”http://urantiabookprojects.libsyn.com/welcome-to-urantiabookprojectsorg”][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/2″][button border_radius=”2″ title=”Watch” link=”https://youtu.be/jruNKtRnb30″][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]Welcome to Urantia Book Projects! This site is being created to replace ubquestionsandstudies, which is a Google site; and as of sometime in 2020, Google will stop supporting complex sites. The major difference between these two sites—other than the technology and the design—is the weblog, to which I hope to contribute by posting roughly once a month.
This site is organized around the projects to which I have devoted the past 45 years of my life. The Urantia Book mentions diverse projects that are important for the advancement of civilization. Indeed, God is active on physical and intellectual levels as well as in the spiritual realm; so balanced growth requires that we not distort our lives and become one-sidedly “spiritual.” But my focus here is on the projects that I believe are most directly relevant to promoting a spiritual renaissance. These projects are complementary, but each has its own specifications; they should not be jumbled together and confused.
The first of these projects is holistic personal growth, the quest for perfection. It is presented in the introduction to Paper 1 of the Urantia Book:
God-knowing creatures have only one supreme ambition, just one consuming desire, and that is to become, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Paradise perfection of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy.
It would be a crushing burden to lay that thought on anyone without preparation.
That preparation begins in the first sentence.
The Universal Father is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and beings.
In this sentence, the author introduces us to the God of all creation. I call it the handshake sentence. If we read this sentence in full responsiveness, we meet God in new clarity, authority, and revelation “for the first time.” The Universal Father is the personality of the First Source and Center.
This sentence will become increasingly meaningful to us. For example, the fact of our being centered in God is amplified when we realize that the fragment of the Father that indwells us is our spirit nucleus. And the Father’s personality circuit, “the bosom of the Father,” reaches out to each individual personality so that every one of us has a one-to-one, person-to-Person relationship with the First Source and Center.
The intelligent, receptive, and responsive study of the first paragraph prepares us to transition into the second paragraph. There we find a phrase that begins to answer the major philosophical question of what it means to be a human being. We are “intelligent creatures, beings who could know God, receive the divine affection, and love him in return.”
Knowing God is not the same as knowing about God. The isolated intellect can become so full of knowledge about God that it neglects to use that knowledge to enhance our personal knowing of God. To be God-knowing is something wonderful and powerful.
When we activate our knowing of God, we are ready to receive the divine affection. Some people do this openly, easily, freely. If we find that we have obstacles to receiving that affection, we should intelligently work through them with God. The more that affection fills us, the more we are motivated to love God in return. This is the first circuit of love.
When our knowing of God is mobilized and the first circuit of love is activated, then we are ready for the transition into the third paragraph, where we find that revelation that is so all-embracing that it is strange to call it a project. Once again: God-knowing creatures have only one supreme ambition, just one consuming desire, and that is to become, as they are in their spheres, like him as he is in his Paradise perfection of personality and in his universal sphere of righteous supremacy.
Once we have come alive to the quest to become and be like God, the following projects may be introduced more simply. How can we become in our sphere like God is in his sphere? An answer is implied in the project described in the last four paragraphs of Paper 2, The Nature of God.
The religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness.
This project leads us into a new level of living.
The third project is the gospel movement. This is the project to which Jesus devoted himself during his public career as a teacher. The authors of Part IV draw our attention to this project by using term “the gospel movement” three times. It has gotten off track in various ways; and it is our privilege to cooperate with others, seen and unseen, to get the gospel movement back on track. No matter what projects may predominate in our lives, all believers are called to participate in this movement; and we do well to grow continually in our understanding of the gospel, our ability to live it, and our ability to communicate it effectively.
The fourth project I call the ecumenical movement. It is highlighted a few paragraphs before the end of Paper 195.
The great hope of Urantia lies in the possibility of a new revelation of Jesus with a new and enlarged presentation of his saving message which would spiritually unite in loving service the numerous families of his present-day professed followers.
It would be easy in a section that begins with these lines—which are essential to interpreting what the project means for us today: “The world needs to see Jesus living again on earth in the experience of spirit-born mortals who effectively reveal the Master to all men.”
The last project has no key sentence or group of paragraphs that define or direct it. The Urantia Book movement nurtures all the other projects, but it is distinct from them. Instructions for it must be culled from all four parts of the book.
Once again, welcome! I pray for the visitors to this site, that you may be divinely guided as you explore and advance your intelligent and wise participation in the projects that have your name on them.
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