Elyon Group 11/30/97

[Rick P. Giles]

November 30, 1997
*       Elyon (Jonathan TR):  I welcome you again to another session
in the classrooms of the melchizedeks.  I am Elyon, your friend,
even more so than your teacher.  I continue our discussion of
grace and how it plays out in your life, for I detect interest on
your parts in this recognizable element of the Father.  
        You have understood the reality that love cannot be
contained; it must be bestowed even as it is received.  Of course
the implication is not that you do not retain love, for love and
its flow may be likened to a reservoir in a river.  Much love
pours into you that you may retain, but as you are filled it
spills into the lives of others.  Grace is quite the same.  
        When one prays, "Father, grant me the grace that I might..."
it is best to approach your petition with the understanding that
the grace will arrive during the interval of its need.  You must
apply your own faith and trust up until the very moment wherein
the grace becomes active.  Wisdom grants you the sensibility that
you are prepared for new situations in your life, for you can
review the array of experiences you have undergone in order to
apply yourself, in order to act on the light and enlightenment
you have gained.  Unselfish service entails having no possession
of grace until the moment it is utilized, for this gift is the
Father's.  
        I referred to myself as a platter upon which grace is
served.  As your guide I may fill this function.  As a servant in
the master's kingdom, you likewise are platters for the service
of grace.  The result of the bestowals of grace upon your own
life is the acquirement of virtues and nobility and righteousness
of character to transform itself into the manner of being that
Michael revealed to you.  I seek to convey to you that grace is a
mechanism whereby the Father interacts in your life rather than a
possession.  What you possess are gifts; how you receive is
grace.  It is similar to the helping hand of a friend who boosts
you up over a fence.  The lifting itself is grace.  The gift is
your attainment of altitude.  When grace appears again in your
ascent it is anew.  
        (long pause)
        I cautiously approach my next comments because I do not wish
to convey a misunderstanding that the Father seeks that you be
troubled in your life at His doing, for the Father takes pleasure
in your growth rather than your chastisement.  However, there are
times when His grace may appear to be exactly the opposite, a
lack of grace.  Sometimes the Father does throw salt upon the
dance floor that you may move easily.  At other times He sweeps
it clean that you may exert yourself from its absence and
accomplish the very acts you seek with the aid of grace. 
        As one who serves in the ministry of truth to this world,
you understand your function is to allow grace to function
through your life.  You can provide it, offer it on your platter. 
You are then released from all responsibility subsequent, for it
is up to another to lift the grace from the dish and receive the
offer.  However, in your own ministry to your own being, it is
not enough to recognize the grace you receive, but you must also
lift it off and take it in to yourself.  This is a difficult task
to both recognize its forthcoming into your life and to continue
in the process and receive it.  Many of you understand the
barriers encountered at the time such as a lack of worthiness, a
sense of guilt, of separation, of a form of selflessness that
allows you only to grant the arrival of grace for others and not
for yourself.  However, if you take a factual approach, it is
obvious to you that grace is present at your doorstep, and who
among you would leave a guest standing at the door?  Welcome its
arrival in your life; receive it with open arms.  Watch this
dynamic crystalize into talents that you become.  You will
observe yourself being transformed from a human of Urantia into a
child of heaven.  If you were to assess the composition of your
being, much of what you are is already the bestowal of heaven. 
Only a small portion of you is of animal origin.  Though the
dimension in which you are exercising your willpower as a son of
God seems to limit you to this small aspect of yourself that is
coarse, trust the vast resources you already have within you to
adequately handle your exercise of living a mortal life.
        I might use another analogy.  Being your holiday wherein you
consume pies, to many a human being their view of self is as a
pie dish with a single slice, that being your crude, human,
flawed self.  There is great hunger to acquire the rest of the
pie and fill the dish.  But I relate to you that from our
perspective the dish is full.  The human life is temporary, and
we see in your eternal career, in a sense,  a pie with a single
slice missing.  That slice is your sense of alienation or
separation from the divine family.  This we would like to see you
remove.
        I would continue to counsel that we in no way devalue your
human condition, for in this pie, in order for it to be truly
complete, all slices must be present.  All ingredients within
this pie, though distinct as ingredients, when blended take on a
wholeness and, when baked in the experience of life, blend into a
oneness.  
        When the master said, "Peace I bring you" and "Peace I leave
with you" it was his hope that you end the war between yourself,
the alienation between you and God and others, and allow the
merging of all ingredients into a completed, exalted being.
        As you have been so interested in this lesson, I extend my
thanks.  I would receive your feedback at this time.  
        Evelyn:  In thinking back over our earlier discussion, it
sounds like Kirk's experience of seeing grace as the Teaching
Mission, and his growth was in receiving it, that sounds like it
blends with what you are saying more than patience and courage
(put forth by others as instances of grace in our lives).  Grace
is the situation more than it is our patience or courage in
dealing with it.  Am I getting closer?
*       Elyon:  I have compared grace to love because, as you are
aware, love is felt through its repercussions, be they
compassion, affection, even guidance.  The love is intangible,
but its outworking is concrete.  Grace is likewise in that you
receive and are aware of your gift, a gift which came through
grace.  You might view this as you have spoken of Kirk's
experience; grace was the opportunity, the gift the mission, the
growth the acceptance.  They are linked together.  
        Grace is a carrier wave.  You know that God is love.  When
God acts, it's grace.  The one is a state of being, the other a
state of acting.  Patience is a result of grace but more properly
is viewed as a conjunction of the idea of gift and the idea of
growth.  You may have develop in your life the opportunity for
patience along with the spirit presences within you to rise to
the ability to be patient.  But the critical and most important
aspect of this entire situation is your choosing.  This choice
turns patience into a reality within you.  
        Do you have more to comment upon?
        Evelyn:  You said the evidences of grace are those virtues
we acquire, that righteous character.  That would be the patience
or courage, the evidence of grace, the acting out.  
*       Elyon:  Yes.  I would restate this process in another way,
that grace is similar to the idea of invisibility, and the
acquirement of talents and the reception of specific gifts is the
visibility of grace.  Where experience with the Father in your
life yields the fruit of the spirit such that others in your life
witness this, gifts and talents are the fruits of grace.  
        Very little in your realm is morontia in nature, but the
presence of morontia realities becomes apparent in the de-
velopment of soul in you all and the interaction of souls among
souls.  This is how you foretaste the manner of life that you
will be involved in when you leave this world.  
        Other comments?
        Tom:  That's what last night was all about, wasn't it? 
(There had been a party and session of 12 TeaM folk.)  
*       Elyon:  Could you please specify your perspective?
        Tom:  The soul to soul, the interaction between the souls at
the gathering.  
*       Elyon:  You are quite right.  Interaction has many levels
wherein it may take place.  You are all being guided into higher
understanding of the significance of interaction.  Mortal life
can be on the lowest level no greater interaction than to be
bumping into one another.  As you are infused with the
sensitivity of the methods of morontia, you begin to elevate your
interactions into higher circles of love, of grace conduits.  
        Not to be misinterpreted but to take a casual approach, I
would say that the truest interaction is the sharing of the Fa-
ther, and you can do this joyfully much as you pass the
volleyball back and forth.  The Father becomes the center of all
your attention, and your greatest, keenest orientation is to be
on the alert as to where the ball is, when it comes your way, and
how soon you can pass it on.  I also would continue by saying you
know the damaging effects of spiking the Father at another!  
        Let us take a moment to turn our attention to the source of
grace.  May we be receptive to the love of the Father that pours
upon us in this form of grace that becomes evident in our lives
as we grow in spirit standing.  
        Father, we welcome You this moment; we aspire to be welcom-
ing of You at every moment.  We acknowledge that you are and have
been with us all moments, even when we were yet unaware of You. 
In this we are ever grateful.  
        As you have received much to ponder over these last 24
hours, I would bid you adieu.  Again, I am grateful to have such
inquisitive students, ones who do apply themselves throughout the
week.  I would in a sense report that you have given your Father
Fragments much to do.  There is not an idle moment because of
your enthusiastic desire to be a better citizen in this
universe... and rise as is the Father's will... of personal
being.  Until next time, farewell.  (Tape flipped losing a little
at the end.)