Religious Freedom and Sexual Freedom

Below is a quote from Denison Forum regarding the retirement of judge Anthony Kennedy. His comments about religious freedom in his majority opinion statement seem to be important for all religious folks to know and remember.

Anthony Kennedy is best known as the "swing vote" on many rulings across his tenure. One biography describes him as "a surprising and unpredictable justice on the Supreme Court, displaying thoughtful independence that at times, fails to reflect any particular ideology."

Most significantly, he wrote the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark 2015 five-to-four ruling guaranteeing the right to same-sex marriage. His vote not only legalized gay marriage in this country—it also opened the way to the escalating conflict between religious freedom and sexual freedom we are witnessing today.

In his opinion, Justice Kennedy stated: "It must be emphasized that religions, and those who adhere to religious doctrines, may continue to advocate with utmost sincere conviction that, by divine precepts, same-sex marriage should not be condoned."

He added: "The First Amendment ensures that religious organizations and persons are given proper protection as they seek to teach the principles that are so fulfilling and so central to their lives and faiths."

New World

We are always standing on the edge of the New World.

God's mercies are "new each morning."  We are "new creatures" in Christ. We only need to wake up.

Every moment is universally unique.

We overcome ALL in the Holy Spirit of Christ Jesus.  All oppression. All fear, worry, guilt, remorse, shame. Everything that drags down the soul. In Him we rise perpetually upward, move beyond old horizons, into the New World. Welcome to the New World!

We cannot strain or work or figure our way into the Freedom Place. We can only wake up. Wake up!
Love and be free! The universe is a manifestation of Love. You are a manifestation of Love. You have problems because of Love. When you realize this, you are free with a perfect and growing freedom.

Body and Spirit

If we don't seek we don't find; we drift in the darkness of unknowing where we unconsciously inflict ourselves and others with unnecessary suffering.  All the enlightened ones see this and feel sad about it. ( Mt 23:37). But what the enlightened ones have discovered by seeking engulfs that sadness like a macrophage engulfs and devours harmful bacteria in the body, restoring, in this case, their minds and hearts, to the health of knowing the Truth. The Truth sets you free--even from being dragged down by the sadness of unnecessary human suffering. [John 8:32] That sadness is sublimated into the only meaningful activity in the human realm: Love.
The Spirit of Christ may be compared to the immune system of the human body. Jesus said His Way would be like "leaven" or yeast in a lump of dough, enhancing it and bringing it to life. His Spirit in humans causes them to be safe and life-enhancing for societies in the way that macrophage cells protect the human body from infection. The Church, in its reality, is the earthly, collective embodiment of the Spirit and Truth of Christ. But we see in the Church, as in the physical body, evil, as pathogens, invades the healthy body and replicates itself therein. Here you have the cults. Here you have greed, lust and even hatred disguised as religion. The Spirit of Christ has departed from these, no matter if His Name is spoken, shouted and lauded a thousand times in their contexts.

"In their role as a phagocytic immune cell macrophages are responsible for engulfing pathogens to destroy them. Some pathogens subvert this process and instead live inside the macrophage. This provides an environment in which the pathogen is hidden from the immune system and allows it to replicate." (Wikipedia).

When this happens in the human body, physicians do not treat the pathogen-invaded cells the same as the healthy cells--they try to destroy them to protect the body. The human body is not "tolerant" of everything that enters it because it has innate wisdom to protect the overall health of itself--ultimately the consciousness that it carries--from  being destroyed by lesser, pathological organisms. There is a hierarchy of value. The human body does not value--in fact it seeks to destroy--pathogenic cells. This is not selfish or unjust of the body. It issues from a higher wisdom that seeks to preserve consciousness at a higher-than-cellular level. This higher wisdom is not motivated by hatred or fear of those pathogens; it is motivated by love for life and all that is good in it. It recognizes that there is good and evil: that which enhances and that which destroys the good. Disease is a manifestation of evil because it is parasitical to a higher form of consciousness.Good manifests as cosmic Love that generates kindness, harmony, peace, good will, and joy in the human family. Enlightenment recognizes that the entire universe is a manifestation of Love, [1John 4:8]
[John 1:1-3] and we come Home when we surrender to and align ourselves with this Love--the Love of Christ. In this place of Love is a progressively clearer vision of life as it is--in other words, Ultimate Truth. There is no arrogance here, and no compulsion. But there is a sincere and holy desire to see this Love-Truth propagated in the human family. This is true evangelism, or the motivating factor behind it. This Love is recognized as Life itself--like the energy contained in atoms. As we connect with and release this energy within ourselves,  we create heaven for ourselves. [Jn 14:20] If we do not discover this Reality on the Spiritual level, we may destroy ourselves by its physical equivalent in the material world. [See Gen MacArthur's speech, at the surrender of Japan, spoken from the U.S.S. Missouri].
https://ussmissouri.org/learn-the-history/surrender/general-macarthurs-radio-address#

Seeker's Petitions; Savior's Response

I desire You, O Lord.

       I am in you.

My soul thirsts for You.

      Come and drink from the Fountain of Living Water and thirst no more.

I long to be with You.

      I am with you always, even to the end of the world.

My soul strains toward You.

      Draw near to Me, and I will draw near to you.

I am seeking.

      You will find.

I am asking.

      You will receive.

I am knocking.

      It will be opened to you.

I open my heart to You.

      I fill you with My Holy Spirit.

Please stay with me always.

      I will never leave or forsake you.

I am unworthy.

     I give you My righteousness.

I am unclean!

     My Blood cleanses you from all unrighteousness.My Blood

I rejoice in You!

     Your joy may be full!

I bow to You.

      I am your Friend.

I praise Your Holy Name!

      I give you peace and freedom from all oppression.

Creating Your World

Our minds are amazing beyond comprehension. Think of what has come out of the human mind. All human experience is created by our minds--even our responses to happenstances in the environment are a product of the mind--people respond differently to identical external stimuli. Our minds fill up over time with stories about usually random life experiences. These can become the filter through which we view "reality", ourselves, others, relationships and life. Because of this filter, we are creating, so speak, our world. I've given the example before of two men on a hilltop overlooking a beautiful farm in the valley below, sun setting on the horizon beyond. One is thinking, "I know the man who owns this farm. He never worked an honest day in his life. Inherited all his money from his wife's family. I could've had a place like this if my investments had gone better," etc.
Inside he feels deprived, diminished. The other man is thinking, "My God! How beautiful!" Inside he is filled with awe and gratitude. Each man is creating a different world for himself in response to the same environment.
When we extrapolate that, we see that the psycho-spiritual evolution of the human family is a matter of the mind of humans generally. What we (humans) are setting our minds upon is manifesting in the outer world--the world of form and physical substance; and more importantly, the world of human experience. We create wars. And we create harmony. But we are mostly unaware that we are doing this, or the internal motivating factors that drive us. How many humans on this planet would boastfully assert that they desired warfare? That it is something we should pursue? Then what set of intra- and interhuman dynamics drives such behaviors?
Answering this question is an aspect of our psycho-spiritual growth. It is what Christ leads us into. And as we are transformed by the Truth of Christ--the Truth that He claims to be--we transform the world. We become Light in the darkness from which all violence, hatred and fear derive. We discover and inhabit the freedom that is God-given; we experience it as a progressive inner reality. The energy field that we are generating, and that others resonate with, is transformed toward peace and compassion. We have good will toward all, even our "enemies".  We can confront spiritual blindness [evil] courageously, without fear or hatred. We begin to create heaven on earth.