“Giving Up the Belief in SIN” by Rev. Christine 3/7/2021
We are continuing with the series for Lent based on “Giving up our Beliefs” to help propel us to the next level of consciousness. We can use this season to give up our human beliefs that no longer serve us, and that lead to suffering. Today’s talk is titled “Giving Up our Belief in Sin.”
Metaphysically in the Bible, every personal name represents attributes of character, and names of places represent a state of consciousness. Every story is about our spiritual unfoldment in this journey we call life on earth. Think of the stories as going on within your own consciousness. Every player, item, place represents an aspect of our soul. Much like a dream; its all symbolic speaking to our soul.
The following are some meanings and translations of the word sin. This is an Old English word which means “separation, division.” It came from the Greek word which means “to miss the mark.”
Sin was a moral or religious offense, misdeed. The idea of Original Sin started after the 2nd Century. It was linked to Adam and Eve in not obeying God, and this sin was passed down through generations. Christians grew up with sin as one of those words we find repellant. We think of sin as some horrible evil, connected with endless guilt, and eternal damnation.
In “The Revealing Word” authored by Charles Fillmore of Unity: SIN is missing the mark; that is falling short of divine perfection. Sin is man’s failure to express the attributes of Being - life, love, intelligence, wisdom, and the other God qualities. Sin (error) is first in mind and is redeemed by a mental process, or by going into the silence. Error is brought into the light of Spirit and then transformed into a constructive force. “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Roman 12:2.
Jesus the Christ shared the parable of The Prodigal Son in Luke 15:11-32. Paraphrased, there are two brothers. The younger brother requests their father to give them their share of inheritance, and the father divided his wealth with them. The younger son left for a far away country, and there he squandered his inheritance on riotous living. All his so called friends quickly abandoned him. Being without friends or money, he soon became hungry. He got a job caring for swine, and ate and slept with the swine.
Then he came to his senses, and remembered “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.”
And he arose and went to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost and is found. And they began to make merry.
Now the elder son came near the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what this meant. And he said to him, Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him safe and sound. But he was angry and refused to go inside.
His father went to him, and he said to his father, Lo, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your commands; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who lived foolishly and returned broke, you celebrated him and gave gifts. And he said to him, Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.
Metaphysically we can see this as all of humanity; as we each leave what represents God’s house or heaven, with our inheritance when we journey to this life on earth; a far away country. Our birth inheritance are the attributes of God as love, life, joy, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and power.
In our ignorance we may squander what has been freely given to us, or we are unaware of the gifts we truly have to make good with in our life here. When times get tough we believe we are separated from our source. Then we feel guilty, and believe that we are unworthy of God’s love. By doing so we unconsciously create conditions of suffering. This is also called karma.
Then in humbleness we pray. A realization comes, and we remember our source, our connection with God. Guidance comes to us. Now the Law of Grace takes over. Once we have learned from our mistakes, there is no more karma, there is no punishment for prior actions. Instead we are celebrated for the great lessons learned on our adventure we call life. The robe, ring and shoes represent this new spiritual understanding. And, we are blessed.
The elder brother, represents when we are just going through the motions of life. Living but not truly living in the fullness of life and joy. When we play it safe, we miss out on what greater good there is for us. I call it being comfortable in our uncomfortableness. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. All we ever need to do is to take that next step in asking for guidance, and it is freely given. In Matt. 7:8 “For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened.”
The two sons represent this division in consciousness of our mind. Both are believing in separation, and experiencing it in different ways. Yet both are feeling a sense of lack or incompleteness. In judging others or our self keeps us separated. Yet God is never finding fault, just knows the good. In God we are one in love, joy and plenty. Our good is always at hand. For in Truth all is one, all is good, and all is love.
The message is that there truly is no sinner in the mind of God. All are equally God’s beloved children. That we are the ones naming what is sinful and unworthy - not God. And, this keeps us from our good, our blessings overflowing.
Mystically this is about going into prayer, connecting with the Divine within, and experiencing a greater joy than any physical life experience can give. We must make the choice to leave this worldly scene, to dive deep into the silence; past the images, through the darkness, to the light where we commune with our Christ Self and go directly to the Beloved Presence of God.
Here we are showered in blessings of the spirit, and given a new understanding; the ring, robe and shoes. Or, we may do all the right things, follow the commandments, but still feel something is missing, and never know the true joy of having a personal relationship with the Beloved Presence of God.
Dr. Richard Bartlett author of Matrix Energetics and workshop leader gave the definition of SIN as an acronym: Separate, Identify, Name. The first step into our misconception of Self, is separation, a sense of separation from God, or another.
By making everything separate from our self we are not realizing our true identity as an expression of God; not just a reflection or a little spark of light within us, but our whole self; mind, body, soul is light. There is nothing outside of God, therefore everything is of God; one consciousness expressing itself in many facets of expression - I Am That, I Am. All God!
We begin with our own sense of separation from God, our self, and then identifying it. We are given a name. Then we look out in this world and we too identify.
We see it as something else from our self. We see its form. We see its activity. We see it as separate life and form. Our mind projects, then sees it and identifies, and categorizes it. Yet in Truth, it is all pure light, invisible Spirit, Spirit Substance manifested as visible and physical.
Then we name it. Our parents named us, and then we learn the name of everything living and created. If we discover something new, then we get to name it. But mostly we name something good or bad. This labeling sets up our belief system and is written into our genetic code. It then drives how we respond to life - to our experiences. Is the cup half empty or half full? Do we see this as a loving world, or a world to fear?
In Divine Science, we teach of there being no original sin, That we don’t inherit from our earthly parents, but rather we inherit directly from God. In God there is no such thing as sin. In the Seven Days of Creation, God created the heavens and earth, and saw all that was created, and called it good, and very good.
Our true nature then is Good. What we have then is amnesia, we have forgotten our true nature - our Oneness, and are hypnotized into believing in what we see is separate from us. I remember when taking a Divine Science class with Dr. David Alkins, he said, “If you must have an original sin, then that would be spiritual laziness.” I also see it as our belief in separation.
Missing the mark then is when we forget our oneness with God; and thus we forget to love God, our self, all others, and all life. We can only love others at the level we love our self. Believing we are sinners takes away our ability to truly love our self or anyone else which includes God. Instead we have fear, shame and guilt which gets projected into our manifest world, and experienced as pain and suffering.
To truly love our self, begins with loving God, loving the God within us - the Christ consciousness within. We begin by having a relationship with the Divine within us. We nurture our true Self. We do this by first taking our focus away from the error conditions. Then we silently go within to unite with our True Self, which is Spirit or God; we turn our consciousness away from the outer world of appearance, and just be in the stillness. Be in that presence of Spirit, of pure Being. It is relaxing into a receptive, listening state of mind of pure peace.
We then can’t help but be that which is recognized and realized within our consciousness. Our behavior matches, what we see out in the world also matches - and all is love and all is good. Now we are truly loving God with all our heart, mind and soul, and our neighbor as our self.
I’ll close with the story of Two Wolves; A Cherokee Legend of a grandfather teaching his grandson: “A fight is going on inside me.” The grandfather says to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continues, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one I feed.”