What Is Your Heritage?

WED., MAY 14, 1997, 8:48 AM
OFFICE, PULLIAM

I shall follow up on your almost statement of the morning concerning the Jewish heritage you Christians claim you have. That Old Testament is certainly about Jews, with their Commandments rather quickly broken… under My direction. You often feel, as suggested by this affirmation, that this Old Testament heritage is no more important than teachings from other religions and spiritual paths. And I wouldn’t be surprised if you averred that you feel comparably about a lot of the Christian story. It is closer to your path, but there is much of it that seems quite inapplicable to you.

I have told you repeatedly that you are in the mystical “tradition”. Therefore this is your heritage. Practically speaking it means that you hear regularly and fairly clearly from Me, the Holy Spirit. I was active in the Old Testament stories, though not always identified as such. I was with Jesus during His whole ministry… for I am inseparable from Him, as well as separate. When your heritage is mystical this is quite an acceptable “way of thinking”.

The Old Testament story is a saga, but quite interlaced with mystical happenings. In the part of the story your group is now studying I, as Almighty God… Yahweh to the Jews… proclaimed that Moses would not lead his people into the promised land, and that Joshua would. Moses accepted this. So did Joshua… and so did the people, as the story is told. This is quite a mystical change of leadership, wouldn’t you say?

Joshua is now hearing Me, and I let him know that the Ark of the Covenant has mystical powers. Having given these people the Ten Commandments (not the Ten Suggestions) I now order or allow them to break at least two of them. I hold back the Jordan river so the Ark can be carried across on dry ground, and how that was done is more than a bit mystical. (And you might note that some… probably many… Christians can accept these evidences of the mystical, but not that you hear directly from Me, the Holy Spirit.)

You don’t know much about this mystical tradition, and in a way you are being true to it in not becoming an “expert” on others who have “qualified” as mystics in years past. Just know that there have been mystics in every religious movement, as well as some outside of religion. And, of course, there are some who claim to be part of this heritage who are not, and a number of these are fully sincere in considering themselves as mystics. I like diversity even in this seemingly quite serious aspect of earth life.

It “doesn’t make sense” that I should identify you to be in the mystic heritage and then tell you to continue to be a Presbyterian Christian. Yet one “core affirmation” of this Reform tradition is predestination (even as it is rather embarrassing to most present Presbyterians). It tends to be rejected because it is basically mystical. You were destined to be a teacher… to have Lenore as your life partner… to be born again… and then again to intimate relationship with Me. You could not have turned Me down. And it is mystical that one raised and educated as you were accepts this as “the way it was… and is”.

But then I tell you about eternal, everlasting life in a way that is not Presbyterian. Part of your destiny is to accept this revelation about continuing life and yet continue as an enthusiastic, dedicated Presbyterian. As Jesus I promised the Holy Spirit to My disciples, and now, nearly 2,000 years later I come to you, as if the promise had been to you. (And was it?)