Personal Religion of Jesus 

The religion of personal spiritual experience is the religion that Jesus himself practiced, and the religion that he taught to his followers. This revolutionary religion is based on the reality of personal spiritual experience with God in connection to the gospel of the kingdom: The reality of the Fatherhood of God and the resulting reality of the brotherhood of all mankind. Jesus founded the religion of personal experience in doing the will of God the Father and serving the human brotherhood.

In the years subsequent to his life, crucifixion, and resurrection, this religion OF Jesus was transformed into the religion ABOUT Jesus, i.e., the religion of the risen Christ. But to really follow Jesus, while one may preach a religion about him, one must inevitably live the religion that he himself taught and lived.

Jesus’ personal religion is rendered practical for the individual when it is based on the gospel of the kingdom: The reality of the Fatherhood of God, and the resulting corollary, the brotherhood of mankind. But first, we must discover God in order to enjoy personal spiritual experience with him. God lives within each of us as a guiding Spirit presence and Jesus understood and taught this reality. God is accessible to each of his children through this indwelling Spirit.

Jesus revealed God’s love and care for mankind as that of a loving father; this is the cornerstone of his religion and of the heavenly kingdom. And this doctrine of God’s fatherhood makes the practice of seeing all other humans as brothers and sisters obvious and imperative. And so, the worship of God and the service of mankind is really the sum and substance of his religion.

When we discover God as our Father and our fellow humans as brothers and sisters, and we accept this reality through faith, we enter the kingdom of heaven as spirit-born mortals. In this kingdom, we are liberated from the fear of God and fear of our fellows. We strive to find and do the perfect will of God which is activated by love. And the natural outcome of such an acceptance of sonship with God is increasing evidence of the fruits of the spirit in our lives.

Almost all of the fruits of the spirit are manifested in our relationships with others. And these fruits of the spirit are: loving service, unselfish devotion, courageous loyalty, sincere fairness, enlightened honesty, undying hope, confiding trust, merciful ministry, unfailing goodness, forgiving tolerance, and enduring peace. Bearing the fruits of the spirit brings increasing happiness and growing inner peace.

Our lives are made happier and richer through this religion of the spirit; we become closer to God through intelligent prayer and worship and closer to our fellows through love and service. It is this evidence that constitutes personal spiritual experience.

When we study the life of Jesus on earth, we discover that Jesus practiced a new and higher type of religion that is based solely on the individual’s personal spiritual relations with God. The authority of such a religion is validated by genuine personal experience that accrues over time, transforming even our initial faith into solid knowing.

Said Jesus: "We ... begin the bold proclamation of a new religion—a religion which is not a religion in the present-day meaning of that word, a religion that makes its chief appeal to the divine spirit of my Father which resides in the mind of man; a religion which shall derive its authority from the fruits of its acceptance that will so certainly appear in the personal experience of all who really and truly become believers in the truths of this higher spiritual communion."

Regarding religion of the spirit, Jesus said: "I have called upon you to be born again, to be born of the spirit. I have called you out of the darkness of authority and the lethargy of tradition into the transcendent light of the realization of the possibility of making for yourselves the greatest discovery possible for the human soul to make—the supernal experience of finding God for yourself, in yourself, and of yourself, and of doing all this as a fact in your own personal experience. And so may you pass from death to life, from the authority of tradition to the experience of knowing God; thus will you pass from darkness to light, from a racial faith inherited to a personal faith achieved by actual experience; and thereby will you progress from a theology of mind handed down by your ancestors to a true religion of spirit which shall be built up in your souls as an eternal endowment.”

"Your religion shall change from the mere intellectual belief in traditional authority to the actual experience of that living faith which is able to grasp the reality of God and all that relates to the divine spirit of the Father. The religion of the mind ties you hopelessly to the past; the religion of the spirit consists in progressive revelation and ever beckons you on toward higher and holier achievements in spiritual ideals and eternal realities."

Prayer is a powerful technique that we can use in finding God and experiencing communion with him. It is not in the memorized or standardized kind of prayer that we can achieve communion, but in the heartfelt, sincere desire to open our soul to finding God that we will find greater success. Said Jesus: “Did you ever sincerely endeavor to talk with the spirit of your own soul? …Every honest attempt of the material mind to communicate with its indwelling spirit meets with certain success…”

While that success may not be overwhelming at first, every sincere attempt is a step towards greater God-consciousness. And the more we try to contact our indwelling Spirit, the more personal experience of his presence and his love we will gain. This kind of prayer does not depend upon intellectual understanding, religious background, social level, cultural status or any other purely mortal attributes. The sincere prayer of faith provides an immediate and personal result in the inner life of the one who prays. Sincere prayer has the power to take us to the threshold of a realm where we can communicate with our Maker, through the ministry of the indwelling Spirit.

Jesus attained an idealistic religious life in the very midst of a realistic world and so can his followers.

Jesus promoted and followed a religious method not unlike that of the scientific method, except that one’s own personal experience provides the proof and the authority. The means by which Jesus tested his religion was through the leadings of spiritual insight, fueled by the love of the good, the true, and the beautiful in life. But above all, love – love of God and love of others – is the prime motivator that helped Jesus to achieve that insight.

The practicality of this religion is seen in the natural outworking of this experience of God in the inner life as it manifests fruits of the spirit through God-consciousness and daily spontaneous ministry to others.

Earthly kingdoms usually have a king, and subjects who may or may not be in alignment with the king. When Jesus spoke of the kingdom of heaven, it was his practice to substitute the concepts of a heavenly family for the kingdom and the heavenly Father for the king. The liberated children of God are engaged in voluntary and joyful service to their brothers and sisters instead of being merely loyal subjects. And there is also the primary element of intelligent worship and connection to God the Father.

The gospel of the kingdom consists of 1) the truth of the fatherhood of God and 2) the correlated fact of the brotherhood of man. Jesus taught that if one accepts this gospel, it will liberate that individual from the bondage of fear of God and fear of others and will enrich each human life with the following seven additions of spiritual liberty:

1. When one believes that s/he is a beloved child of God and part of a universal family, this belief leads to the possession of new courage in life and gives the believer spiritual power. This belief sets one free from worn-out tradition and crystallized dogma and inspires one to live a life of originality and freedom.
2. This gospel brings a sense of confidence and consoles the individual even in the midst of poverty, sickness, or other adversity.
3. This gospel provides a new standard of moral values and a new way of measuring human conduct. The Golden Rule, or as Jesus called it, the “Rule of Living,” is the cardinal guide to human conduct. It is the ideal that can result in a new order of human society because when we see one another as spiritual brothers and sisters, we place them on a different and higher plane of perception and want only the best for each one. We can learn to love even those who do not love us through this elevated concept of universal brotherhood.
4. This gospel emphasizes the value of the spiritual as compared to a purely material way of life. It holds up spiritual reality as a superior guide and exalts superhuman ideals and values – values that originate beyond human consciousness and validate our belief in our sonship with God and make our altruistic feelings for our fellows more than a merely human ideal.
5. The gospel promotes spiritual attainment as the real goal of life; it lends a new dignity to human existence. We are far more than isolated personalities adrift in an uncaring world.
6. When we strive to conduct our lives according to this gospel, our lives take on new meaning because we recognize the nobility of our and others’ existence – and the possibility of an eternal life for all of us.
7. When we accept this gospel, we grasp the fact that God has a far-reaching purpose for our lives that we can fulfill – not only here on earth, but in an endless life of love and service in the hereafter.

The religion of Jesus provides the joy and peace of a spiritual existence to enhance and ennoble the life which we now live in the flesh. Personal experience in the practice of the religion of Jesus is the sure path whereby individual seekers can escape feelings of spiritual loneliness and personal isolation. In the kingdom of heaven – our heavenly family – one can feel a valued part of a vast spiritual civilization that encompasses not only this earthly existence, but a universal and eternal reality. Our fears are calmed as we realize that we belong to something far greater than ourselves; we are no longer helpless and isolated in an uncaring world.

As we become more and more conscious of our heavenly Father through sincere seeking, and more sensitive to our connection to our brothers and sisters, our lives take on a new meaning and a new purpose. Our growing experience assures us that our direction is toward a happier, more fulfilling earthly existence and a grand and noble destiny in the hereafter.

Jesus taught that the believer enters the kingdom through faith, and that step can be taken now. We can enter the kingdom now by simply believing through faith. And this faith is one of the essential elements for entrance into the kingdom. But it has to be a sincere, childlike faith in which one accepts sonship with God as a gift and commits oneself to the doing of the Father’s will, seeking that will as an open-minded child, ready to be taught by the indwelling Spirit.

The other essential for entrance into the kingdom is a hunger for truth and a thirst for righteousness; a willingness to have a change of mind and a decision to find God and to become more like him.

Embracing these elements of the kingdom with a whole heart - accepting our sonship with God and willingness to learn - results in the rebirth of the spirit, a rebirth that is crucial to one's progression in the kingdom and in the religion of the spirit.

The traditional religions of earth are religions of authority. And many people find comfort in such religions as a safe way of staying in God's favor. It is sometimes preferable when individuals are tormented by uncertainty to put their faith in a set of dogmas and rules that will supposedly keep them safe from evil. But by doing so, they sacrifice the thrill of actually seeking and finding God for themselves; the God of love who lives within them and who is accessible by an act of faith.

Jesus' religion of the spirit means effort, struggle, conflict, faith, determination, love, loyalty, and progress. The theology of authoritarian religions requires little or none of these exertions from its believers.

The religion of Jesus demands living spiritual experience. The teaching of the Master requires the attainment of actual levels of real spirit progression. Other religions require acceptance of dogma, theology, philosophic concepts, or priesthoods. But the religion of Jesus is a transcendent experience of the reality of God, and this experience is personally attainable by every mortal who chooses to enter the kingdom of heaven here on earth. And the ticket to this kingdom is a sincere faith acceptance of sonship with God and brotherhood with all mankind. There are no middlemen or intermediaries. The religion of Jesus is a direct spiritual experience between God and his believing child.

Jesus taught that the great difference between most earthly religions and the religion of the spirit is that man-made religions are upheld by ecclesiastical authority and the religion of the spirit is wholly based on the authority of human experience in the inner life. The religion of Jesus is a new gospel of faith to be proclaimed to struggling humanity. This new religion is founded on faith, hope, and love.

The contrast between these approaches was summarized by Jesus when he said: “While the religion of authority may impart a present feeling of settled security, you pay for such a transient satisfaction the price of the loss of your spiritual freedom and religious liberty. My Father does not require of you as the price of entering the kingdom of heaven that you should force yourself to subscribe to a belief in things which are spiritually repugnant, unholy, and untruthful. It is not required of you that your own sense of mercy, justice, and truth should be outraged by submission to an outworn system of religious forms and ceremonies. The religion of the spirit leaves you forever free to follow the truth wherever the leadings of the spirit may take you. And who can judge—perhaps this spirit may have something to impart to this generation which other generations have refused to hear?”

Primitive man was a superstitious being; he was in bondage to the fear of the unknown. In modern times, civilized beings are still fearful of that which they do not fully understand. Falling under the dominance of a strong religious faith seems daunting; rational mortals have always feared to be held by a religion. So mankind dogmatizes and institutionalizes religious leanings, hoping to gain control of them. Even modern men and women may fear the real religion of Jesus because of what it might do to them – or with them. And there is some basis to this fear. This religion of Jesus truly dominates the individual who dedicates his/her life to its practice. It truly transforms the individual, demanding a search for God and his will in his/her life and consecration to the unselfish service of the brother/sisterhood.

But the time is coming when mankind will become so disillusioned by the pursuit of a purely material existence and the sterile nature of institutionalized religion, that the searching children of God will turn with a whole heart to the gospel of the kingdom and the religion of Jesus of Nazareth. And in this new religion, mankind will find true happiness and spiritual freedom.

When Jesus was on earth, he had occasion to teach the truths of his personal religion to a young Indian boy whose name was Ganid. Ganid formulated a compilation of what he believed as a result of this teaching. It is reproduced here and provides a prayerful meditation on the essential elements of the religion of personal experience with God, the gospel of the kingdom, and the brotherhood of all mankind. Ganid called it "Our Religion."

The Lord our God is one Lord, and you should love him with all your mind and heart while you do your very best to love all his children as you love yourself. This one God is our heavenly Father, in whom all things consist, and who dwells, by his spirit, in every sincere human soul. And we who are the children of God should learn how to commit the keeping of our souls to him as to a faithful Creator. With our heavenly Father all things are possible. Since he is the Creator, having made all things and all beings, it could not be otherwise. Though we cannot see God, we can know him. And by daily living the will of the Father in heaven, we can reveal him to our fellow men.

The divine riches of God’s character must be infinitely deep and eternally wise. We cannot search out God by knowledge, but we can know him in our hearts by personal experience. While his justice may be past finding out, his mercy may be received by the humblest being on earth. While the Father fills the universe, he also lives in our hearts. The mind of man is human, mortal, but the spirit of man is divine, immortal. God is not only all-powerful but also all-wise. If our earth parents, being of evil tendency, know how to love their children and bestow good gifts on them, how much more must the good Father in heaven know how wisely to love his children on earth and to bestow suitable blessings upon them?

The Father in heaven will not suffer a single child on earth to perish if that child has a desire to find the Father and truly longs to be like him. Our Father even loves the wicked and is always kind to the ungrateful. If more human beings could only know about the goodness of God, they would certainly be led to repent of their evil ways and forsake all known sins. All good things come down from the Father of light, in whom there is no variableness nor shadow of change. The spirit of the true God is in man’s heart. He intends that all men should be brothers. When men begin to feel after God, that is evidence that God has found them, and that they are in quest of knowledge about him. We live in God and God dwells in us.

I will no longer be satisfied to believe that God is the Father of all my people; I will henceforth believe that he is also my Father. Always will I try to worship God with the help of the Spirit of Truth, which is my helper when I have become really God-knowing. But first of all I am going to practice worshiping God by learning how to do the will of God on earth; that is, I am going to do my best to treat each of my fellow mortals just as I think God would like to have him treated. And when we live this sort of a life in the flesh, we may ask many things of God, and he will give us the desire of our hearts that we may be better prepared to serve our fellows. And all of this loving service of the children of God enlarges our capacity to receive and experience the joys of heaven, the high pleasures of the ministry of the spirit of heaven.

I will every day thank God for his unspeakable gifts; I will praise him for his wonderful works to the children of men. To me he is the Almighty, the Creator, the Power, and the Mercy, but best of all, he is my spirit Father, and as his earth child I am sometime going forth to see him. And my tutor has said that by searching for him I shall become like him. By faith in God, I have attained peace with him. This new religion of ours is very full of joy, and it generates enduring happiness. I am confident that I shall be faithful even to death, and that I will surely receive the crown of eternal life.

I am learning to prove all things and adhere to that which is good. Whatsoever I would that men should do to me, that I will do to my fellows. By this new faith, I know that man may become the son of God, but it sometimes terrifies me when I stop to think that all men are my brothers, but it must be true. I do not see how I can rejoice in the fatherhood of God while I refuse to accept the brotherhood of man. Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. If that is true, then all men must be my brothers.

Henceforth will I do my good deeds in secret; I will also pray most when by myself. I will judge not that I may not be unfair to my fellows. I am going to learn to love my enemies; I have not truly mastered this practice of being Godlike. Though I see God in these other religions, I find him in ‘our religion’ as being more beautiful, loving, merciful, personal, and positive. But most of all, this great and glorious Being is my spiritual Father; I am his child. And by no other means than my honest desire to be like him, I am eventually to find him and eternally to serve him. At last, I have a religion with a God, a marvelous God, and he is a God of eternal salvation.