Elyon Group

[Rick P. Giles]

Coeur d'Alene Teaching Mission Group
Topic: Exchange
Teacher: Lantarnek

December 27,1998
*	Lantarnek (Jonathan TR):  Greetings, dear friends.  It truly is remarkable
to all of us how you express with joy your struggles, your difficulties, and
your
endeavors to overcome them.  It is heartening to us all to witness this for
difficulties and struggles in your life can be exhausting.  To see you laugh, to
see you so upbeat as you exchange your experiences gives us cause to believe
that
all of humanity will one day find this same joy and peace you experience
even yet
while you are incomplete and imperfect.
	My message to you today is on exchange; perhaps it is fitting following
Christmas.
	You are familiar with the phrase that you can, if you are discontent with
your own mind, trade it in for the mind of Christ.  We have repeatedly
encouraged
you to function as apostles, ambassadors of the spirit kingdom on this
world, and
you have each accepted the position and are willfully undergoing the training
needed to become able.  To be effective in ministry one must develop the ability
to receive as well as to give truth.  The receptive ear, the open heart, has a
reciprocal effect upon the other individual expressing himself to you.  It opens
their door.  Genuine interest can transform another individual.  It can appear
quite difficult to conceive of the implications  and meaning of the phrase
"exchanging your mind for the mind of Christ".  But a simple and practical
application is to receive from others as if your were receiving from Michael
himself and to likewise receive from others as Michael would receive from them. 
In this manner you increase the value of your fellow, for we all do take great
note of what Michael says to us, and we all believe that every individual
has the
right to be in the presence and fellowship of Michael.  By placing this value
upon a friend you can likewise do so for yourself when in prayer and worship
with
the Father.  If you are capable of listening sincerely to another, how could it
be not so with the divine Parent?  Even when you see the glaring flaws of
yourself, why would not the Father hear you sympathetically and compassionately
when you are capable of doing so for another?
	These morning gatherings are great laboratories for you to practice this
exchange with your closest loved friends, and we do witness that you each are
developing this skill.  It is naturally spilling over into your other
relationships.  We witness the rise of those who can live the gospel.
	Michael will someday return to this world for all to witness, humans as
well as the celestials, but his method for doing so is to first return
within you
and to be expressed as you.  Then he will return to greet himself, in a
manner of
speaking.  This is the fellowship he seeks with all.
	You are once again approaching the close of another calendar cycle.  It is
fitting to reflect upon your goals and ideals as well as to recognize and work
towards eradicating those factors of yourself you wish to discard that are
acting
as unnecessary weight on your flight to Paradise.  These culturally based events
are effective in rejuvenating the inner work, though we would encourage you to
consider every day as the New Year day.  To take on a fresh perspective means to
slough off the worn-out view.  It is difficult to become enthused over reaching
to a higher level when you are disturbed by the continued presence of that which
you wish to discard. But an event such as the turn of the year, and  as I have
said, each day can be this way, you are better enthused to do that very thing,
accept the new and let go the old.  Disappointment and depression follow
from not
making this clear distinction, this cut and dried change.  The guilt of
remembering that which hangs on is truly an illusion if you have chosen to step
forward.  When Michael on your world realized his mission of ministry to his own
people was being rejected, he altered his course and reached broader and more
widely to those who would receive.  He while doing this never lost the love and
compassion he had for those of his own kind, the ancestral race that he was born
into.  Yet it did not pull him down; he reached for new avenues for ministry
while yet attempting every time to help his own kind.  I bring this up to
illustrate that, while you do reach for your higher goals, you must not simply
ignore your faults, for they do require a degree of diligence and energy to
overcome, but the focus is to be upon the broader and greater horizon.  If your
faults reject your efforts, be not so concerned with them, but seek the higher
ground.  Find the better avenues.  Let your faults starve if they won't receive
your ministry.  It is in a sense the choice of your animal nature to rebel, but
it is not the obligation of your higher self to cater to this rebellion.  By
doing so you are exchanging yourself, your mind, your awareness for that of
Michael.  When you give up all that you are you receive all that he is.  This
process is not the negative process of erasing your worth, but rather the
positive of you becoming the worth of  even a divine Creator Son.
	I am Lantarnek.  I have great hope for you all, for I have witnessed the
work you have undertaken.  Though we continually complement you for your    
efforts, though we act as your cheerleaders as well as your coaches, and though
oftentimes you wonder why we give you such encouragement repeatedly, it is
because it is rare on a confused planet such as Urantia.  Given another
world you
would be simply ordinary people.  And so when you do receive our complements and
it does make you squirm, realize you are simply ordinary people in the normal
workings of he universe.  But just as a single drop of water in the dry sands of
a vast desert is simply a single drop of water, it becomes quite special
when all
around the conditions are extremely dry.  We do see, in a sense, the storm
clouds
of a great rain storm coming upon you and this world is being refreshed.  The
teachers and ministers of many orders of beings are like the sheets of rain that
are falling upon this world, and you are all the new grass sprouting and growing
and giving life and vitality.  The rebellion has ended.  the cultivation has
begun.  The harvest of light and life will soon follow.  We welcome the day; you
welcome the day.  Let us together, in arms, hand in hand, marching in step, take
this good news to the rest of the world.
	Though my encouragement to you may seem monumental, the world is simply for
you the arena of your daily life.  Every individual has great influence in that
small arena.  For you it is your neighborhood, your schedule of daily events. 
For others it does mean an entire planet, and for still others it means systems
and constellations of systems.  Now that would be a big task.  But we are all
assigned to the task at which we are capable of effecting change.  As you take
Michael's message into the world, you can assure yourself that that one
individual you meet in one day, that you minister to, is as significant as the
entire world itself.
	It is my pleasure to speak with you and I am always available for your
questions.
	Evelyn:  We don't seem to have any questions, but you have hit on our
discussion about working on our own shortcomings and how they seem so stubborn. 
I appreciate what you said about receiving from others as Michael would receive,
that if we listen to others we appreciate that God listens to us and takes us
seriously.
*	Lantarnek:  Great benefit can be derived for oneself in this manner for you
do realize how strongly compassionate you can become when hearing the plight of
another as they share their struggles.  This ability to do so with another
can be
applied to yourself in that your own struggles, when they can come crying to
you,
can receive your sympathetic ear.  As I have indicated, you then are able to
trust that Michael likewise cares and listens when you strive and fail.
	I will take my leave this day.  I thank you for receiving me.