The Kingdom of God

This temple promise is really to build up my experience of God

Great insight!

As much as I disagree with you about the mall situation, I agree completely with you about this vision of the kingdom of God – and I really don’t like the conflation of the kingdom of God with the Church itself.

21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

Funny how the LDS Correlated Guide to Scriptures didn’t mention this verse in explaining the Kingdom of God as being the church.

What’s your take on the JST of these verses?

21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God has already come unto you / is among all of you.

What’s your take on the JST of these verses?

21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God has already come unto you / is among all of you.

I think the kingdom or realm/experience of God is among us – & within each of us, yet I think the JST is partially misleading.

When I feel or experience God, it is not past tense – not “already.”

I can’t experience yesterday, only today, right now.

God is “I AM that I AM”…( not: “I was that I was”.)

This opens up a whole other topic of whether Jesus was the only Christ, as if Christ were his last name, or if he taught us to truly follow him & “put on the mind of Christ.” (1Cor 2:16)

Christ simply means ‘annointed one’, or the one annointed to be a king or queen, priest or priestess. The meaning should be self-evident. even in my first time i experienced this, that meaning was much more clear than the masonic symbols that followed.

Many are the names of god and christ; but like you point out, when Moses asked for the personal name, the only name under heaven that really mattered, God (the person of the premortal Jesus) gave him ‘I AM’. “Tell them ‘I AM’ hath sent you”. This was probably a remarkably true statement, perhaps a dimension of confession that Moses had, for in the state of being transfigured (enlightened, fully realized), he was one with God, and therefore, fully and truly god and being in one. That which was revealed to his mind and heart in that moment on Sinai was the word of the lord: the I AM of all creation.

After having this experience, when that oneness with god was over, Moses fell to the ground, unable to get up. When he came to his strength again, he realized that without “I AM”, man is nothing, or more appropriately man is ‘not’. Indeed his realization that ‘the power of god’ is everywhere, in everything, and is the light and life of all things.

to realize that oneness with the power of god is what makes a god a god…

to realize that the power of god is within…

to realize that we can be one with the power of god that is within us…

to realize that oneness with the power of god within us is what makes the god within the god of all creation…

indeed, yes, the kingdom of god is already come within us; we are annointed to be gods and godesses, kings and queens, priests and priestesses. the physical church only gives us the annointing to become such: the symbolism of the annointing is not the annointing event, it’s purpose is to awaken a reality that already exists within. to ‘be’ requires us convert a future promise into a daily reality, fully ‘being’ authentically in the present and one with the Way/power of god within.

Be still and know that I am God.

What manner of [people] ought ye to be? Even as I AM.

Interesting point, it’s like the quote from Jesus where he says that the temple will be ripped down for three days and then rebuilt. He means himself.

Think also of the quote – “My body is a temple.” Even our church teaches that to an extent.

Thank you for all of the awesome insights – I love discussing things like this! 🙂

The stage I feel like I’m at now is what some call, “the shadow self” or “dark night of the soul.”

Actually, I don’t think it’s so much a stage – but a recurrent life-time process – of exploring the kingdom of God within.

When I’ve been able to let down some “ego” layers, I’ve gotten glimpses of God/Love/Wholeness.

But more often, my ego (which is absolutely necessary to function) gets in the way.

I just want to be perfect, NOW darnit!

And I want others to be perfect too!

But that’s not reality and fighting it doesn’t help.

Such a push-pull/tug of war – paradox… striving to improve, while accepting “as is.”

Maybe this is why our spirits are considered vibration – constantly changing it’s mind of which way it wants to go. 😆

The stage I feel like I’m at now is what some call, “the shadow self” or “dark night of the soul.”

Actually, I don’t think it’s so much a stage – but a recurrent life-time process – of exploring the kingdom of God within.

When I’ve been able to let down some “ego” layers, I’ve gotten glimpses of God/Love/Wholeness.

But more often, my ego (which is absolutely necessary to function) gets in the way.

Well, as I’ve said elsewhere, this might be part of your own evolution. Or maybe you’ve gone “walkabout”, like the young aborigines in Australia, who go off into the Bush to survive and gain spiritual insight by the time they return to their tribe…

Yeah, that’s a good point, Sam. A poster (SPG) explained how change can only happen through isolation (thus the veil).

He explained how we are protected from truths we couldn’t handle… Some are obvious like developing in our mothers’ wombs, or living in the protected atmosphere of this earth. Truth is often seen as threatening to us, because we don’t want to believe how weak & vulnerable we really are (or who we think we are). It takes constant work to embrace the paradoxes of truth – like we need others, but it’s not life or death need. A soul is as mature as the truths they don’t need to hide from.