| Quotations from Jesus | ||
| Life Essentials List | ||
|
List assembled by Maria Eileene LeBaron of United Jesusonians. |
||
| 1 | If you truly want to find God, that desire is in itself evidence that you have already found him. | |
| 2 | Become interested in your fellows; learn how to love them and watch for the opportunity to do something for them which you are sure they want done. | |
| 3 | It is a marvelous and transforming experience to become the living channel of spiritual light to the mortal who sits in spiritual darkness. | |
| 4 | To become acquainted with one's brothers and sisters, to know their problems and to learn to love them, is the supreme experience of living. | |
| 5 | The true teacher maintains his intellectual integrity by ever remaining a learner. | |
| 6 | Everything must await the coming of its time. | |
| 7 | You may be surrounded with small enemies and be retarded by many obstacles, but the big things and the real things of this world and the universe are on your side. | |
| 8 | Be brave of heart as well as of hand. Dare to do justice and be big enough to show mercy. Compel your lower nature to obey your higher nature as you obey your superiors. Revere goodness and exalt truth. Choose the beautiful in place of the ugly. Love your fellows and reach out for God with a whole heart, for God is your Father in heaven. | |
| 9 | You cannot reveal God to those who do not seek for him; you cannot lead unwilling souls into the joys of salvation. | |
| 10 | Mercy ministry is always the work of the individual, but justice punishment is the function of the social, governmental, or universe administrative groups. | |
| 11 | Though human beings differ in many ways, the one from another, before God and in the spiritual world all mortals stand on an equal footing. There are only two groups of mortals in the eyes of God: those who desire to do his will and those who do not. | |
| 12 | Give the milk of truth to those who are babes in spiritual perception. In your living and loving ministry serve spiritual food in attractive form and suited to the capacity of receptivity of each of your inquirers. | |
| 13 | Unless you seek entrance into the kingdom with the faith and trusting dependence of a little child, you shall in no wise gain admission. | |
| 14 | For has not the Father said of his children of the world, `It is my will that they should eventually be perfect, even as I am perfect.' | |
| 15 | If you would but believe that my Father loves you with an infinite love, then you are in the kingdom of God. | |
| 16 | Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who despitefully use you. And whatsoever you believe that I would do to men, do you also to them. | |
| 17 | Do not forcibly resist injustice; put not your trust in the arm of the flesh. If your neighbor smites you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Be willing to suffer injustice rather than to go to law among yourselves. In kindness and with mercy minister to all who are in distress and in need. | |
| 18 | You are commissioned to save men, not to judge them. | |
| 19 | Make not the mistake of trying to pluck a mote out of your brother's eye when there is a beam in your own eye. Having first cast the beam out of your own eye, you can the better see to cast the mote out of your brother's eye. | |
| 20 | If you would guide others into the kingdom, you must yourselves walk in the clear light of living truth. | |
| 21 | Present not that which is holy to dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample your gems under foot and turn to rend you. | |
| 22 | By their fruits you shall know them. | |
| 23 | In gaining an entrance into the kingdom of heaven, it is the motive that counts. My Father looks into the hearts of men and judges by their inner longings and their sincere intentions. | |
| 24 | You must judge your fellows by their deeds; the Father in heaven judges by the intent. | |
| 25 | You shall return good for evil. | |
| 26 | Do your good deeds in secret; when you give alms, let not the left hand know what the right hand does. | |
| 27 | And when you pray, go apart by yourselves and use not vain repetitions and meaningless phrases. | |
| 28 | The lamp of the body is the eye; if, therefore, your eye is generous, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is selfish, the whole body will be filled with darkness. If the very light which is in you is turned to darkness, how great is that darkness! | |
| 29 | Seek first the kingdom of God, and when you have found entrance thereto, all things needful shall be added to you. | |
| 30 | A wrong is not righted by vengeance. Do not make the mistake of fighting evil with its own weapons. | |
| 31 | What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? | |
| 32 | Be as wise as serpents but as harmless as doves. | |
| 33 | It is more blessed to give than to receive. | |
| 34 | In the kingdom you must be righteous in order to do the work. | |
| 35 | The kingdom of heaven consists in these three essentials: first, recognition of the fact of the sovereignty of God; second, belief in the truth of sonship with God; and third, faith in the effectiveness of the supreme human desire to do the will of God—to be like God. And this is the good news of the gospel: that by faith every mortal may have all these essentials of salvation. | |
| 36 | When God's will is your law, you are noble slave subjects; but when you believe in this new gospel of divine sonship, my Father's will becomes your will, and you are elevated to the high position of the free children of God, liberated sons of the kingdom. | |
| 37 | It is not wise for the host to participate in the family troubles of his guests; a wise parent never takes sides in the petty quarrels of his own children. | |
| 38 | Resist not evil treatment of one's personality, evil injury to one's feelings of personal dignity. | |
| 39 | Lead men into the kingdom, and the great and living truths of the kingdom will presently drive out all serious error. | |
| 40 | You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. | |
| 41 | The Paradise ascent is the supreme adventure of all time, the rugged achievement of eternity. | |
| 42 | He who rules his own self is greater than he who captures a city. | |
| 43 | Self-mastery is the measure of man's moral nature and the indicator of his spiritual development. | |
| 44 | Salvation is by the regeneration of the spirit and not by the self-righteous deeds of the flesh. | |
| 45 | Ask and it shall be given you; seek and you shall find; knock and it shall be opened to you. For every one who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks the door of salvation will be opened. | |
| 46 | Genuine faith will remove mountains of material difficulty which may chance to lie in the path of soul expansion and spiritual progress. | |
| 47 | Hate is the shadow of fear; revenge the mask of cowardice. | |
| 48 | I have come forth from the Father; if, therefore, you are ever in doubt as to what you would ask of the Father, ask in my name, and I will present your petition in accordance with your real needs and desires and in accordance with my Father's will. | |
| 49 | True and genuine inward certainty does not in the least fear outward analysis, nor does truth resent honest criticism. | |
| 50 | You should never forget that intolerance is the mask covering up the entertainment of secret doubts as to the trueness of one's belief. | |
| 51 | No man is at any time disturbed by his neighbor's attitude when he has perfect confidence in the truth of that which he wholeheartedly believes. | |
| 52 | Sincere men are unafraid of the critical examination of their true convictions and noble ideals. | |
| 53 | While you cannot observe the divine spirit at work in your minds, there is a practical method of discovering the degree to which you have yielded the control of your soul powers to the teaching and guidance of this indwelling spirit of the heavenly Father, and that is the degree of your love for your fellow men. | |
| 54 | The important thing is not the rapidity of your progress but rather its certainty. Your actual achievement is not so important as the fact that the direction of your progress is Godward. What you are becoming day by day is of infinitely more importance than what you are today. | |
| 55 | Better by far to have a small but living and growing faith than to be possessed of a great intellect with its dead stores of worldly wisdom and spiritual unbelief. | |
| 56 | Grow in grace by means of that living faith which grasps the fact that you are the sons of God while at the same time it recognizes every man as a brother. | |
| 57 | Evil is the unconscious or unintended transgression of the divine law, the Father's will. Evil is likewise the measure of the imperfectness of obedience to the Father's will. | |
| 58 | Sin is the conscious, knowing, and deliberate transgression of the divine law, the Father's will. Sin is the measure of unwillingness to be divinely led and spiritually directed. | |
| 59 | Iniquity is the willful, determined, and persistent transgression of the divine law, the Father's will. Iniquity is the measure of the continued rejection of the Father's loving plan of personality survival and the Sons' merciful ministry of salvation. | |
| 60 | Do you not comprehend that God dwells within you, that he has become what you are that he may make you what he is! | |
| 61 | Anger indicates your lack of tolerant brotherly love plus your lack of self-respect and self-control. Anger depletes the health, debases the mind, and handicaps the spirit teacher of man's soul. | |
| 62 | Let your hearts be so dominated by love that your spirit guide will have little trouble in delivering you from the tendency to give vent to those outbursts of animal anger which are inconsistent with the status of divine sonship. | |
| 63 | Seek not, then, for false peace and transient joy but rather for the assurance of faith and the sureties of divine sonship which yield composure, contentment, and supreme joy in the spirit. | |
| 64 | The goodness of God leads to repentance; the beneficence of God leads to service; the mercy of God leads to salvation; while the love of God leads to intelligent and freehearted worship. | |
| 65 | Love God and learn to do his will, for that is the highest privilege of the liberated sons of God. | |
| 66 | You do well to be meek before God and self-controlled before men, but let your meekness be of spiritual origin and not the self- deceptive display of a self-conscious sense of self-righteous superiority. | |
| 67 | By faith you are justified; by faith are you saved; and by this same faith are you eternally advanced in the way of progressive and divine perfection. | |
| 68 | You cannot buy salvation; you cannot earn righteousness. Salvation is the gift of God, and righteousness is the natural fruit of the spirit-born life of sonship in the kingdom. | |
| 69 | You are not to be saved because you live a righteous life; rather is it that you live a righteous life because you have already been saved, have recognized sonship as the gift of God and service in the kingdom as the supreme delight of life on earth. | |
| 70 | To him who has shall be given more, while from him who has not shall be taken away even that which he thinks he has. | |
| 71 | It is not that which enters into the mouth that spiritually defiles the man, but rather that which proceeds out of the mouth and from the heart. | |
| 72 | Be of good cheer! | |
| 73 | My kingdom is founded on love, proclaimed in mercy, and established by unselfish service. | |
| 74 | In all that you do, become not one-sided and overspecialized. | |
| 75 | If you, by truth co-ordination, learn to exemplify in your lives this beautiful wholeness of righteousness, your fellow men will then seek after you that they may gain what you have so acquired. | |
| 76 | The measure wherewith truth seekers are drawn to you represents the measure of your truth endowment, your righteousness. | |
| 77 | The extent to which you have to go with your message to the people is, in a way, the measure of your failure to live the whole or righteous life, the truth-co-ordinated life. | |
| 78 | Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of my brethren, you did it to me. | |
| 79 | The religion of the spirit leaves you forever free to follow the truth wherever the leadings of the spirit may take you. | |
| 80 | Never forget there is only one adventure which is more satisfying and thrilling than the attempt to discover the will of the living God, and that is the supreme experience of honestly trying to do that divine will. | |
| 81 | All things are sacred in the lives of those who are spirit led; that is, subordinated to truth, ennobled by love, dominated by mercy, and restrained by fairness— justice. | |
| 82 | Divine truth must not be discounted because the channel of its bestowal is apparently human. | |
| 83 | It is not so important that you should know about the fact of God as that you should increasingly grow in the ability to feel the presence of God. | |
| 84 | When you once begin to find God in your soul, presently you will begin to discover him in other men's souls and eventually in all the creatures and creations of a mighty universe. | |
| 85 | My Father will ever respond to the faintest flicker of faith. | |
| 86 | Do not allow yourselves to become blinded by prejudice and paralyzed by fear. | |
| 87 | The old and the inferior will be forgotten in the love for the new and the superior. | |
| 88 | It is not the purpose of true religion merely to bring peace but rather to insure progress. | |
| 89 | He who has seen me has seen the Father. | |
| 90 | For whosoever would save his life selfishly, shall lose it, but whosoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's, shall save it. | |
| 91 | In the time of testing, a man's soul is revealed; trial discloses what really is in the heart. | |
| 92 | I declare that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety and nine righteous persons who need no repentance. | |
| 93 | The Father in heaven loves his children, and therefore should you learn to love one another; the Father in heaven forgives you your sins; therefore should you learn to forgive one another. | |
| 94 | Freely you have received the good things of the kingdom; therefore freely give to your fellows on earth. | |
| 95 | Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any man will open, I will come in. | |
| 96 | Nothing which human nature has touched can be regarded as infallible. | |
| 97 | Love your neighbor as yourself. | |
| 98 | I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life. | |
| 99 | Come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am true and loyal, and you shall find spiritual rest for your souls. | |
| 100 | The teacher of truth attracts only those who hunger for the truth and who thirst for righteousness. | |
| 101 | It is not a sin to have honorable wealth; but it is a sin if you convert the wealth of material possessions into treasures which may absorb your interests and divert your affections from devotion to the spiritual pursuits of the kingdom. | |
| 102 | If you dedicate your lives to the work of the kingdom, all your real needs shall be supplied. Seek the greater thing, and the lesser will be found therein; ask for the heavenly, and the earthly shall be included. The shadow is certain to follow the substance. | |
| 103 | Peace on earth will not come until all are willing to believe and enter into their glorious inheritance of sonship with God. | |
| 104 | Even if the door to the way of life is narrow, it is wide enough to admit all who sincerely seek to enter, for I am that door. And the Son will never refuse entrance to any child of the universe who, by faith, seeks to find the Father through the Son. | |
| 105 | Many who are first will be last, and those who are last will many times be first. | |
| 106 | I am the door, I am the new and living way, and whosoever wills may enter to embark upon the endless truth-search for eternal life. | |
| 107 | The Father causes his rain to fall on the just and the unjust; the sun likewise shines on the righteous and the unrighteous. | |
| 108 | In the matter of sickness and health, you should know that these bodily states are the result of material causes; health is not the smile of heaven, neither is affliction the frown of God. | |
| 109 | When it comes to the bestowal of spiritual gifts, the Father is limited by man's capacity for receiving these divine endowments. Although the Father is no respecter of persons, in the bestowal of spiritual gifts he is limited by man's faith and by his willingness always to abide by the Father's will. | |
| 110 | Forget not, every one who exalts himself shall be humbled, while he who truly humbles himself shall be exalted. | |
| 111 | You see, then, that the Father gives salvation to the children of men, and this salvation is a free gift to all who have the faith to receive sonship in the divine family. There is nothing man can do to earn this salvation. | |
| 112 | Works of self-righteousness cannot buy the favor of God, and much praying in public will not atone for lack of living faith in the heart. Men you may deceive by your outward service, but God looks into your souls. | |
| 113 | Marriage is honorable and is to be desired by all men. The fact that the Son of Man pursues his earth mission alone is in no way a reflection on the desirability of marriage. | |
| 114 | It is the divine will that men and women should find their highest service and consequent joy in the establishment of homes for the reception and training of children, in the creation of whom these parents become copartners with the Makers of heaven and earth. | |
| 115 | Divine forgiveness is inevitable; it is inherent and inalienable in God's infinite understanding, in his perfect knowledge of all that concerns the mistaken judgment and erroneous choosing of the child. Divine justice is so eternally fair that it unfailingly embodies understanding mercy. | |
| 116 | When a wise man understands the inner impulses of his fellows, he will love them. And when you love your brother, you have already forgiven him. This capacity to understand man's nature and forgive his apparent wrongdoing is Godlike. | |
| 117 | Your inability or unwillingness to forgive your fellows is the measure of your immaturity, your failure to attain adult sympathy, understanding, and love. | |
| 118 | Love is the outworking of the divine and inner urge of life. It is founded on understanding, nurtured by unselfish service, and perfected in wisdom. | |
| 119 | He who selfishly loves his life stands in danger of losing it; but he who is willing to lay down his life for my sake and the gospel's shall enjoy a more abundant existence on earth and in heaven, life eternal. | |
| 120 | He who walks in the darkness knows not where he goes; but if you will choose to walk in the light, you shall all indeed become liberated sons of God. | |
| 121 | Be patient! doubt not that this gospel of the kingdom will triumph over all enemies and, eventually, be proclaimed to all nations. | |
| 122 | The downfall of nations, the crash of empires, the destruction of the unbelieving Jews, the end of an age, even the end of the world, what have these things to do with one who believes this gospel, and who has hid his life in the surety of the eternal kingdom? | |
| 123 | Kingdom builders, the accredited citizens of the heavenly worlds, are not to be disturbed by temporal upheavals or perturbed by terrestrial cataclysms. What does it matter to you who believe this gospel of the kingdom if nations overturn, the age ends, or all things visible crash, since you know that your life is the gift of the Son, and that it is eternally secure in the Father? | |
| 124 | When you have by faith once established yourself as a son of God, nothing else matters as regards the surety of survival. | |
| 125 | My Father requires all his children to grow in grace and in a knowledge of the truth. You who know these truths must yield the increase of the fruits of the spirit and manifest a growing devotion to the unselfish service of your fellow servants. | |
| 126 | Those who know the gospel only in the mind, and who have not experienced it in the heart, cannot be depended upon for support when real trouble comes. | |
| 127 | When I invite you to love one another, even as I have loved you, I hold up before you the supreme measure of true affection, for greater love can no man have than this: that he will lay down his life for his friends. | |
| 128 | If you will only love one another as I am loving you, you shall be my friends, and I will ever speak to you of that which the Father reveals to me. | |
| 129 | I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. I am the vine, and you are the branches. | |
| 130 | You must abide in me, and I in you; the branch will die if it is separated from the vine. As the branch cannot bear fruit except it abides in the vine, so neither can you yield the fruits of loving service except you abide in me. | |
| 131 | If you abide in me and my words live in you, you will be able to commune freely with me, and then can my living spirit so infuse you that you may ask whatsoever my spirit wills and do all this with the assurance that the Father will grant us our petition. | |
| 132 | You are in this world, but your lives are not to be worldlike. | |
| 133 | No man goes to the Father except through me. All who find the Father, first find me. | |
| 134 | Forget not that I will stop at nothing to restore self-respect to those who have lost it, and who really desire to regain it. | |
| 135 | Life in the Father's eternal creation is not an endless rest of idleness and selfish ease but rather a ceaseless progression in grace, truth, and glory. | |
| 136 | Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. | |
| 137 | You will learn to love your brethren more when you first learn to love their Father in heaven more, and after you have become truly more interested in their welfare in time and in eternity. And all such human interest is fostered by understanding sympathy, unselfish service, and unstinted forgiveness. | |
| 138 | Our kingdom is a realm of order, and where two or more will creatures act in co-operation, there is always provided the authority of leadership. | |
| 139 | You all know that we have one Father in heaven, and that there is but one gospel of the kingdom—the good news of the gift of eternal life which men receive by faith. | |
| 140 | As you rejoice in your loyalty to the gospel, pray the Father of truth to shed abroad in your hearts a new and greater love for your brethren. | |
| 141 | You are all the children of light; therefore stumble not into the misunderstanding entanglements of mortal suspicion and human intolerance. | |
| 142 | As I have revealed the Father, so shall you reveal the divine love, not merely with words, but in your daily living. | |
| 143 | Let faith reveal your light to the world; let the revelation of truth open the eyes blinded by tradition; let your loving service effectually destroy the prejudice engendered by ignorance. | |
| 144 | By so drawing close to your fellow men in understanding sympathy and with unselfish devotion, you will lead them into a saving knowledge of the Father's love. | |
| 145 | It is the love of God that impels men to seek salvation. Love is the ancestor of all spiritual goodness, the essence of the true and the beautiful. | |
| 146 | Do not neglect to minister to the weak, the poor, and the young. | |
| 147 | Let experience teach you the value of meditation and the power of intelligent reflection. | |
| 148 | It is your faith that saves your souls. Salvation is the gift of God to all who believe they are his sons. | |
| 149 | But be not deceived; while salvation is the free gift of God and is bestowed upon all who accept it by faith, there follows the experience of bearing the fruits of this spirit life as it is lived in the flesh. | |
| 150 | The fruits of the divine spirit which are yielded in the lives of spirit-born and God-knowing mortals are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace. | |
| 151 | You may enter the kingdom as a child, but the Father requires that you grow up, by grace, to the full stature of spiritual adulthood. | |
| 152 | There is always joy in the presence of the angels of heaven over one sinner who repents and returns to the Father's fold. | |
| 153 | Let every man make sure that the intellectual and moral foundations of character are such as will adequately support the superstructure of the enlarging and ennobling spiritual nature, which is thus to transform the mortal mind and then, in association with that re-created mind, is to achieve the evolvement of the soul of immortal destiny. | |
| 154 | Your spirit nature—the jointly created soul—is a living growth, but the mind and morals of the individual are the soil from which these higher manifestations of human development and divine destiny must spring. | |
| 155 | I have come to show you that, while you are seeking to find God, God is likewise seeking to find you. | |
| 156 | For every one who exalts himself shall be humbled, but he who humbles himself shall be exalted. | |
| 157 | Take lessons from those who make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness, and likewise so conduct your lives that you make eternal friendship with the forces of righteousness in order that, when all things earthly fail, you shall be joyfully received into the eternal habitations. | |
| 158 | I affirm that he who is faithful in little will also be faithful in much, while he who is unrighteous in little will also be unrighteous in much. | |
| 159 | You cannot stand still in the affairs of the eternal kingdom. My Father requires all his children to grow in grace and in a knowledge of the truth. | |
| 160 | Again I say there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over the ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance. | |
Comments, corrections,
suggestions to the almanac editor at:
neuferprojects (at) gmail (dot) com