Sincerity – Key of the Kingdom
The keys of the kingdom of heaven are: sincerity, more sincerity, and more sincerity. All men have these keys. 39:4.14 (435:7)
I had an encounter recently that deepened my appreciation of the meaning and significance of the word sincerity.
Sincerity is a very interesting thing. One might be sincere and be wrong or one might be sincere and be right; whether you are right or wrong you can be sincere.
The difference is, when a sincere person discovers that they are wrong, that they have erred, they “repent” of that error and do a “turnabout”, committing themselves to never making that error again. They learn to appreciate not only their own foolishness, but how we can all sleepwalk into error. Thus enlightened they learn to “more humbly walk before the Lord.”
We see the tragic conspiracy of events to which poor Peter fell victim, and that upon realizing his error how bitterly he wept. But, the authors of The Urantia Book inform us, Peter was possessed of “a great and noble character.” He “having started out wrong,” turned about and went right. The teachings of the book admonish us that:
All too often one’s own mind tends to justify continuance in the path of error when once it is entered upon. 184:2.12 (1981:6)
In Paper 53 we learn of the folly of Lucifer: “At some point in this experience he became insincere, and evil evolved into deliberate and wilful sin.” (53:2.5) Mischief-making pride, especially when coupled with insincerity, makes a concoction that is toxic to the soul and perilous to our eternal prospects.
We are taught about the levels of evil, sin, and iniquity. Evil is when one does something out of ignorance, the harmful consequences of which are not apparent to you. However, when you realize the “error of your ways” and you thereafter choose the better way, this is seen as virtue—voluntary (spiritually intelligent) conformity with divine ideals.
Conscious good is, technically, of higher value than unconscious good, in the same way that conscious evil is a far darker reality than mere unconscious evil. It is probably for this reason that there is more rejoicing among the angels over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine that have no need of repentance, because the penitent has acquired a personal insight into the true nature of things, has felt the sting of transgression and therefore understands in a deeper way the merits of the good. Conversely, when a person knows a thing is wrong and yet they persist in that error, that act evolves from being a mere evil into spiritually corrosive sin.
The key here is for the realization of truth to be followed by repentance that then leads to personal consecration, the commitment of oneself to one particular path and not another, to a determined decision that when presented with two options, you will always choose the greater.
We see, then, that sincerity is a special spiritual virtue which creates the capacity for the repentant fool to receive absolution.
The teachings instruct us that men advance in spirit status:
…by decisions, by more decisions, and by more decisions. The highest moral choice is the choice of the highest possible value, and always—in any sphere, in all of them—this is to choose to do the will of God. If man thus chooses, he is great, though he be the humblest citizen of Jerusem or even the least of mortals on Urantia. 39:4.14 (435:7)
How the Truth Frees
The truths of these teachings were brought home to me in quite a poignant way recently and a new appreciation was born in me of the teaching: You shall know the truth and it will make you free.
Once you come to realize truth you are freed from the grip of error, you are freed to make better choices—but you must be sincere. If you are insincere, if you are self-deceiving, you become increasingly resistant to the lure of truth and instead of trending towards healing, wholeness, and salvation you careen into hurt, disintegration, and final doom.
I realized that very often our personal pain is not inherent in the structure of life but, all too often, is born of our own warped perspective on life. We each have a unique perspective, one formed and framed by our experiences, be they positive or negative. Agony warps our perspective and, if it is intense enough, can blind us. Cognitive performance is inversely related to stress, indicating that our ability to think coherently is adversely impacted by pain and trauma. Indeed, depending on how early our sufferings begin, we can be cursed with a horrifically distorted vision of reality leaving us with minds driven demented by trauma. I think that this is why Jesus looked so tenderly on people, seeing them as “more distraught than depraved,” and “weak rather than wicked.” (196:2:9)
However, if we can pull back, if we can learn to rise above our pain, misfortunes, and sorrows, and learn to see things in their true perspective, if we can learn to appreciate the facts, we can be freed of much of our sorrows and pain and find true healing for our fractured souls.
What Wrong Turns Did I Take?
I will give some examples. As a young man, I was wracked with emotional agony. I felt cheated, betrayed, broken, forgotten, forsaken. In attempting to escape from this wretchedness I had gotten myself into a pretty dark hole. There seemed only one way out.
But then I stopped and reflected. How did I get into this state of endless self-pity, resentment, and suffering? What steps did I take in my life, what wrong turns did I make along the way, that caused me to become so lost in this darkness? I wasn’t always this miserable. Why am I in pain now? What caused this? I learned to listen to my pain and it helped me find my way to healing.
Slowly but surely I began to work my way backwards and endeavored to see things in their true perspective, not just what I had come to believe, but to view things with a more forgiving eye. I asked myself along the way: Why do you believe that? Where did you get that idea from? Is that idea fundamentally true or is it false?
I discovered that I had acquired considerable conditioning in my lifetime. The ideas I had, I had acquired uncritically from books and movies. I was born at a certain time, in a certain place, to parents similarly conditioned. Their education, life experiences, and challenges were different to mine. They were victims of their own times, traumas, and Nature’s inevitable shortcomings, and above all they were incredibly young. As I began to appreciate these truths and to understand their limits and imperfections, I became less accusatory and judgemental. It was no longer possible to justify my resentments, and my disposition towards them became more forgiving and tender. The realization of the truth was setting me free and healing me in the process.
Eventually, I came to realize that I had unrealistic expectations of life. Then I began to ponder from whence came these expectations by which I measured all and sundry and found it wanting? I realized, rather shamefully, that youthful idealism, unchecked and unfamiliar with the sobering realities of life, had a lot to answer for. I was being led into deeper humility.
Craving to Know Truth
As I realized these truths I began to crave to know truth with an almost all-consuming fervor. I never realized that this was a holy fervor, a divine fire growing in my heart that was leading me to experience an encounter with Divine Truth that would ultimately free me from the erroneous notions that I had fallen prey to and the suffering to which they led. So replete was this healing that it filled me with the desire to assist others in their healing journey, and so I write in the hopes that the healing light that so transformed my life might touch the lives of others.
This weekend I discovered a hidden dimension to sincerity. In the teachings of The Urantia Book, and present in the world today, we read about people carrying out what seem to us heinous acts but, in accordance with their level of light, are perfectly acceptable, even commendable. We read, for example, of honor killings—where family members will kill other family members for bringing dishonor on the family: fathers murder their children because of perceived disgrace. We read of ancient religions in which the adherent sacrificed the lives of their own children to bring back the Sun or to appease a wrathful volcano god.
The Urantia Book warns us not to judge the moral standards of bygone ages by our own, instructing us that posterity will one day look back upon us and scoff even as we now do the flat-earthers. However, I often wonder what the world would be like if the deluded were suddenly made to see the error of their ways. Undoubtedly, the sincere would turn about and choose differently, live more nobly. There is so much liberating truth to find that if the sincere of the earth were to come to know it, the whole earth would be transformed.
I was heartbroken to hear that a lad to whom I was once very near had, as a result of much trauma, fallen into deep darkness and is now in a battle for his life. I appreciate the roots of his pain. I know that it wasn’t his fault, that it was just the hand he was dealt. Unfortunately, he had no one there to help talk him through it.
After experiencing repeated rejection, he has succumbed to the confusion of his trauma and conflated perceived rejection with the idea that it was somehow his fault, that he’s to blame, that there is something wrong with him. That if he could only change himself then the world would react differently to him, treat him better. That he might get the love he has craved so achingly for so long.
Deep, fundamental change is possible, but it must come from within. Changing external factors is like moving the furniture on the Titanic, a pointless exercise that’s ultimately doomed. I realized that if he could see that truth, he could be freed from much of his pain.
It was then that I came to the frightening realization about sincerity. What if he had embarked upon this perilous path but upon realizing the truth, didn’t possess the wherewithal to accept it. What if he was insincere? What if he had no love for truth?
The teachings tell us: The solution of life’s problems requires courage and sincerity. Courage AND sincerity, the courage to change when you realize you were mistaken. There’s nothing wrong with being mistaken, sin only evolves when you refuse to go right even when the error has been made plain.
Come as a Little Child
Jesus taught that, by faith, the believer enters the kingdom now. In the various discourses he taught that two things are essential to faith-entrance into the kingdom:
1. Faith, sincerity. To come as a little child, to receive the bestowal of sonship as a gift; to submit to the doing of the Father’s will without questioning and in the full confidence and genuine trustfulness of the Father’s wisdom; to come into the kingdom free from prejudice and preconception; to be open-minded and teachable like an unspoiled child.
2. Truth hunger. The thirst for righteousness, a change of mind, the acquirement of the motive to be like God and to find God.
The thirst for righteousness is sincerity. It is an awakening to the truth of one’s own imperfections and choosing instead to perfect your character, to make it into the similitude of the character of God, to endeavor to reflect in your life the perfection and divinity you find in the Father. It is the honest consecration to do the best you can with what you’ve got, and a fearless commitment to incorporating the highest truth of which you can conceive into your life as soon as you are made aware of it. This is hard to do if you cannot admit to being wrong, to being in error, to have made a mistake—then you are in spiritual danger. There’s no shame in making mistakes but there is when one refuses to admit them and to learn from them.
We can see the wisdom of the teaching that instructs us that: “Sincerity is most serviceable in the work of the kingdom when it is wedded to discretion.” (181:2.21) Given the context outlined, the thirst for righteousness (sincerity) is laudable but it must be wedded to discretion. If we are to progress in kingdom realization and divine self-actualisation then humility and the pursuit of wisdom will be our bulwarks, as these will enable us to change quickly and to change rightly.
How pleasant then, is this teaching:
By the time you reach Havona, your sincerity has become sublime. 26:4.6 (290:3)
Barry Culligan may be reached at strangepreacher@gmail.com