Grace Is Not Particular, It Simply Is
Unraveling Religion
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The grace we search for is within us…
What if we all receive unceasing unmeasured grace? Even better, what if we are grace, with no religion needed? Of course, this is spoken particularly to those who think or have been told they don’t merit divine favor. To those who live grace, or desire to from the very breath of their soul, you might find the following exposition intriguing; while for those still immersed in religion, it is about unraveling religion to fathom the relevance of amazing grace for everyone.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary: Grace is unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification; a virtue coming from God; a state of sanctification enjoyed through divine assistance.
Grace is the basis for the Christian faith where sinners are said to be saved by faith through grace, and where this grace is usually defined as undeserved favor given to sinners. Yet is it really the case that people are undeserving or is that a contrived erroneous idea religion has instituted? Is there a vital understanding of grace that applies to everyone and not just the religious-minded?
Moving beyond grace as it is commonly understood, at the very least we could say that Grace simply is. Grace is always happening, always emanating from pure Love in the Consciousness of I AM (Prime Being who we will refer to as God). And through this ever-present grace we become more awakened to it within our individuated unique consciousness during embodiment in our incarnated journeys.
Let’s consider how choice fits into a grace scenario.
If we recognize a Prime Being, we can establish that any and every option for choices we might have are all within the parameter of this God. Since we have our being in his Being, I think the question is whether or not we are essentially automatons — God’s own imagination playing out its fantasies? Or is God great enough to individuate his own Being so that within the context of his Being (which harbors his creation) his likenesses can make choices which to some extent surprise and delight him?
This brings us to limitation which is what embodiment in world scenarios and our choices in them is all about. By entering into embodiment, we limit our awareness and our apparent range of choices. We are the extensions of God experiencing amnesia of our true identity. This allows us to make choices along a range of options leading to experience from the brightest most providential to the deepest gloom. These experiences, these hero’s journeys, are our pre-embodiment choice and of our own making. We appear to like drama!
In essence, we as humans are manifesting narratives that allow us to be receptive or resistant to God’s grace—to the pure nature of love—a grace that is always present, yet often forgotten.
We might ask ourselves: Are we mostly receptive or resistant to God’s grace?
God’s grace and the capacity of his likenesses to choose for or against it is irrespective of any religion instituted in any community. This capacity to choose is a reflection and aspect of God working in his own creational beings. What many have discerned over eons is that as we in our individuated manifestations incline toward indulgence in—even addiction to—the manifestation of earthly drama, God’s love in us inclines us toward him. This is the tension and dilemma that is the architecture of freedom of choice within the limitations of our world. To which will we surrender? To our individuated indulgence in manifestation? Or to the goodness within our own soul-oneness with God?
Considering that grace is always present and a factor in architecture of world drama, let’s briefly look at the question of whether we deserve it or not.
I actually find it very liberating to realize I don’t deserve anything, that in fact deserving is not a thing. Deserving as we commonly think of it is an aspect of the drama of this world—a world of duality, of good versus evil, of us versus them, of conditional love. When we begin to realize unconditional grace, we find it liberating to simply be, and do, and flow with grace. No longer when some appliance breaks do we need to puzzle about whether or not we deserved the crisis. It is a relief to know when someone is rude to us, it isn’t because we deserve it but simply because they chose that behavior. Now we can be kind to people and even to ourselves without questioning whether we deserve it. We can be full of grace!
Grace is God’s active love.
Like the sun, grace is always being shed upon the righteous and unrighteous (however that may be understood). As Jesus exemplified, it is for us to respond to that radiance and grow in wisdom and stature and favor; and his disciple Peter said to increase in that grace, implying that being a recipient requires attention on our part. Active love invites relationship — which is perhaps the core stimulus for Source Consciousness individuating itself to know itself.
So, in our incarnated manifestation, how do we recognize grace?
It takes seeing from the eyes of our God-likeness soul to recognize and comprehend grace, which is something world-conformed perception cannot do. We may have had a glimpse or taste or acquaintance with pure grace, yet we don’t actually know grace until we surrender to it. When we do, we no longer function exclusively from the world’s rational mental operating system.
Grace is a divine upgrade where the old paradigm of good versus evil vanishes and peace reigns in our own human life. It is where we rest in knowing our being as soul-consciousness instead of as a world-forged ego. It is where we know and operate from unconditional love and a higher wisdom. Grace is the activity of God’s nature of love not simply lived through us, but with us in that we are one spirit with God.
So how do we shift into this consciousness of grace?
Can we facilitate this grace upgrade? Or are we dependent upon some otherworldly assistance, some grace from beyond ourselves? If we can fathom that we are already in full possession of grace and that it is our worldly mental perceptions that veil this knowing, we can set an intention to have a change of mind where we become conscious of living congruently, so our head matches our heart.
This is where we unravel the earthly framework of religion from grace, casting religion aside as it cannot serve grace. Grace is an entirely intimate personal phenomena of the oneness of the soul with Source. We experience it to the degree we know that oneness, to the degree we open and live from our heart.
In the earthly venue of existence, becoming congruent, becoming whole, getting the coordinates of how we think to agree with how we feel, allows us to be authentic. Authenticity is when we live from our true being (which I am referring to as soul) instead of reflecting the world drama. In this world, the mind and heart are often at odds. To overcome this, we can become aware of internal conflicts between heart and mind and resolve them. It’s a choice to live congruently, to live true to our inner life. We begin with quiet calm observation, realizing it is our soul who is observing.
Do you truly want grace?
If so, then let it flow through you in persistent heartfelt kindness to others, your head and heart in agreement, and grace will be your experience. Grace is the active, operational, effectual love of God. It is God making his pure nature known in his likenesses. And grace is always a revelation of the love that is the very nature of Source, of All That Is.
And once an aspect of revealed truth is apprehended by a person, the conviction of it is faith. Faith is the confirmation given us by the God we are one with working in us. This is why it is said that faith works through love, and why it can be said both grace and truth come through Christ. This Christ I speak of is an awakening awareness, a messianic process, a coming. This christ or messiah consciousness can be understood simply as increasing awareness of who we are.
Minds conformed to legalism don’t understand grace and always attempt to press it into conventions of law, rules, and dogma. You can’t argue them into grace. Those minds need the kind of eye-opening that comes intuitively through the heart from their divine soul.
Many people simply default to the idea that God is first and foremost concerned with judgment and holiness.
This means, the moment grace enters the conversation, these religious people contrast it with their supposed idea of the nature of God. What they overlook is that the gospel writer John identifies God’s nature with unconditional love. Period. And Jesus is identified with grace and truth. This is a key aspect of the New Testament good news. It points to God’s pure nature of love and grace as not only his attitude but his behavior.
It is when a religious person comes to intimately know the non-condemning love of God through his extension as their soul, that they finally apprehend the eternal merciful activity of his nature — Grace. Until then, religious folk will persist in seeing grace as an adjunct to judgment. At this point I think it’s worth remembering we are all on a journey to discern our true eternal nature which is resident in, though perhaps for most hidden to their perishable world-conformed persona. So, let’s try not to judge too harshly or at all those who are at any stage of the process.
Grace and truth come through our pure soul consciousness as opposed to the collective consciousness of the world.
I don’t think that ever changes. Grace is quintessential to the consciousness of Source and characterized by kindness and compassion. What has been called sin or ungodliness — which could be said to be hurtful choices influenced by the world drama — is expressed through humans until grace has completely rewired a person to live by partaking and manifesting their own pure nature. Meanwhile, ungodly attitudes and behavior in the world give cause for grace to be evident and recognized by people who walk in and dispense it naturally to each other, and moreover dispense it to those who are caught up in the world drama.
I think we need to be clear that transferring our attention and allegiance to active love or simply being the love that we truly are does not make us automatons or nullify our freedom to choose. It is pure Spirit we are one with who intuits to our bodily mind good options to choose, so we don’t need default to earthly opinion and peer culture. That is our soul mission — to be true to and to live from our own pure nature.
Practicing this discernment between worldly rational thought and the love that we are improves intuition which is our faculty for communication with higher levels of understanding and results in serendipity — that propitious synchronicity often called grace.
By now we might agree that the power we search for is within us. We may also have discerned that everything we do or say is an act of creation. And in this marvelous grace, we may recognize we have complete permission to immerse ourselves in the world drama, or to set our intention to choose the most graceful options imbued by pure love—and in so doing we are part of transforming our world accordingly.
I hope you enjoy my MidJourney Art & Mindfulness. I would love to hear your comments or questions!