Archangel Michael on Free Will

You cannot have true free will until you overcome learned behavior. Most choices are not really free will. Each place of work has its own rules with choices within those rules until you are on your own. The world has no rules that make sense. Knowing how to make a choice is very important. Tom is confused coming out of stress or trauma. When you respond in a certain way it is learning. A choice is when you decide to do something other than what you have learned. You must challenge the premise of what you have learned.

The origin of stress or trauma comes from this place of learned behavior. You cannot make a choice because you are confused. True choice means you have exercised your free will to reject the learned responses.

A Message From Archangel Michael

Notes from a meeting with Archangel Michael – January 7, 2013

Archangel Michael came to talk to us as an answer to our prayers. These are a summary of his suggestions to us on how to fulfill our prayers. He made it clear that Angels only answer prayers. They suggest what we could do in order to live according to our prayers. There is no enforcement of any kind. If one has big prayers, the suggestions to him or her will be different than if one has small prayers. All are equal. There is no judgment from Heaven on what we “should” do. Free will is respected at all times and each one has to choose for him or herself what he or she wants to do and how he or she wants to live.

The question for people is how to live, die, and love close to God in this world. We are like Paul. After we experience God in an undeniable way, we have to learn how to walk again and talk again because we have been “born again.”

In ancient times in Germany, the goal was to do whatever it took to have an experience with God. The people lived with nature and made small offerings on a daily basis. The key was for them to believe in themselves and have faith. Most of Christianity today came from Germany.

Everyone’s prayers have been answered by the way one came into this world and where one was born. Most times, however, to really see yourself you have to see yourself through others in a foreign way – in a stark contrast. Most of us can do well anywhere if we see ourselves for what we really are and know what we can do. 

There are three types of cultures in this world. The conquered, those transitioning to being conquered, and the conquerors. In the world of the conquered (Michael talked about Africa and Native Americans at the Pine Ridge Reservation), there is unlimited need because the conquerors took a fully functional society and completely changed the way these indigenous people lived. Now nothing happens easily or well. Before being conquered, the people were free to worship and live as they chose and had a life style that suited them. Now their lives have been constrained. Their old ways were denied them by the conquerors and their future now makes no sense. Theirlives are difficult because what they have been taught by the conquerors is not of them. They ask for money because that is what they have learned from the conquerors. Their old cultures did not have money but now that is what they ask for because they have been forced to believe it is necessary. However, it is not of their nature. Their kingdoms now have been filled with the beliefs and cultural rules of the western world. So the questions are, “How do you teach them to walk again? How do you get them to understand they can do it themselves?”

For those places in transition (Nepal for example), an ancient culture is being forced to become modern. The Nepalese are trying to discern how to live but it is a place of battle. In Nepal, they will not ask you for money because they have not yet been conquered. Yet they are selling their daughters into sexual slavery for money.

Missionaries have taken the dominant culture’s society to indigenous people. They bring them medicine and other things the indigenous people need, but then ask for something in return - to profess belief in a God named Jesus. The problem is that the indigenous people already know how to live within their world. Unwittingly, the western world wants to take their very essence from them. 

The battle is in all places. The conquered need to be liberated from the oppression of the culture these people were forced to embrace. Those in transition need to embrace their past and reject the culture being forced on them. The conquerors need to reassess their own culture and find their true selves. Europe is still strong in the world’s eyes because it once conquered the world.

The battle is helping each culture understand its own history. You do not have to be what you are not. This should be the focus of education. Education will give each culture its own perspective. School equals perspective and is an alternative to the current self-destructive activities such as selling daughters into prostitution in Nepal. A computer is very cheap these days and will open a window into what once was. However, wherever children gather, predators will come and you have to be on guard. A secure system needs to be established and implemented to keep the children safe.

The challenge is to build the model for those at the bottom of society to be self sufficient. Once they are no longer hungry, they can think about God. However, this dependence on government (or NGO’s) provides control and those in charge do not want to lose their control. For example, a man in Bangladesh pioneered micro loans to the women who were then freed. The government did not consider this development positive and he will be executed shortly. If you can change the women, then the world will change. If a woman does not believe she is safe, then she cannot exercise the power necessary for society to change. For instance, if you started a school for women in western Pakistan you would be killed. The challenge is to get people to understand their own power.

Native Americans were prohibited by the U.S. government from praying the way they have always prayed. The dominant culture told them they could only pray in a place called a church to a God named Jesus. For this, they had no reference and therefore could no longer feel as they once did. In order to feel, they introduced a hallucinogen that allowed them to feel again. The U.S. government told them as long as they prayed in that way, then they would be protected. So in Pine Ridge, they started the Native American Church. Each ceremony begins with the Eagle feather fan because that is the way they used to invite their relatives to the ceremony. With the fan they invite Jesus as one of their relatives into the Native American Church. A Native American will ask you to join his or her “church” but never to go to the sweat lodge with them. They never proselytized in their old culture because there was nothing to join. In true prayer there is never control and people must be liberated from the chains they have been taught to embrace. Therefore, each person has to be taught to go back before he or she can go forward. You have to understand each culture’s history to know how to pray to fix it. 

In Ghana, 1.5 million slaves went through Cape Coast and most did not make it out. This is part of what must be understood to heal that culture.

Free is a concept. Churches are not free because they expect something in return. That is not of God. What is of God is building something to help others with no expectation of something in return, including a tax deduction. This is why 501(c)(3) organizations are not perfectly aligned with God. The picture below depicts what I am saying. The four small circles are the four corners of your world. God is the large circle in the middle. The goal is be on the line depicted by God. If you are outside God’s circle, then you are of the world. You can be partly or completely of the world by the approach taken. If it is about the self, you are in the world completely. Total selflessness, puts you next to God. If you want to be of God, then the goal is to be a cup in which to pour out God into this world.

God’s methods are sustainable. The world has reached its apex of food production using man’s methods. However, the goals have been wrong. The key to sustainability is quality not quantity. An indigenous banana tree that produces 10 bananas is better than a banana tree from the Philippines that produces 20 bananas because the nutritional make up is completely different. Your science does not yet understand nutrition. Each of you are comprised of microbes from thousands of creatures using those same microbes for eons. Microbes need nurturing. The present lives on the past. This is sustainability as God created it. Production does not equal nutrition. Rather focus on quality instead of quantity. This is why it is better to eat organically grown food rather than GMO alternatives.

People do not want to offend God. Certain Native American tribes such as the Lakota do not believe in traditional farming for two reasons. First, God chooses where everything is to grow perfectly and, second, because the earth is sacred when farmed traditional, the Lakota thought that scarring was sacrilege. The Mohawks (who lived in upper state New York) farmed using traditional methods but they farmed next to a river. Because the ground they farmed was constantly renewed with each flood, there was no scarring. With this knowledge, you now know the Lakota would embrace hydroponic farming methods but not traditional methods. Each culture’s history is to be respected.

God

GOD

Introduction

God is a name that evokes responses within us. For some it is denial, for some fear, for some praise, and for some it is a combination of fear and praise. Philosophers in the middle ages spent much time trying to describe who God is as well as identifying God’s characteristics because there was little public skepticism then. Anselm of Canterbury in 1078 in his work, Proslogion, defined God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” Anselm was on to something with his definition because we will never be capable of understanding the breadth and depth of God’s power, knowledge, creativity, and, most importantly, love.

In our present culture, we unwittingly bring to the subject of God our prior experiences with those who say they know God. We also learned about God from those who had authority over us. For a moment, I want us to ignore this background information and begin our quest to find God anew so we are unencumbered by our past. Let us also momentarily forget the teachings of the Bible as some of these teachings intermingle fear with knowledge because multiple translations through the centuries have allowed misinterpretations to occur. If a single God exists, then let us assume this God is the creator of all things both in this world and beyond. If this is true, then this means God is a force and an intellect beyond anything we can imagine or conceive[1]. It does not matter whether we start with the science of biology to try to understand the cell and its components or start with the science of astronomy and try to understand how our universe and world were created. If God created everything both large and small, then God inhabits it all, which means God is in the science of quantum physics, the science of chemistry, and every other science we have created because each discipline studies a small aspect of God’s creation. If we acknowledge God exists and did create this world, the next question is whether this God is a personal God. Each person can only answer this question with faith. If your life tracks mine, you have had experiences that prove God is real and here for you when you allow yourself to feel love unencumbered by fear. This article is my attempt to help you remove fear from any experience you have had concerning your concept of God. If you do this, you will find the true God who has always been a part of your life.

For the moment, let us stay in the world of wonder. Did you ever consider the miracles at work when an egg and a sperm combine to ultimately create a human body that is perfectly designed to hold your soul? Before you spend much time there, step back and consider just the miracle of your soul inhabiting a body. Science is very good at finding answers to minute aspects of God’s handiwork, but it can never understand the miracle of life itself or the miracle of you being you. Yet these are miracles we take for granted with every birth. God has created a world where we are completely surrounded by God but we can live our entire lives denying God’s existence. I have been told we are beings of light who are avatars in human form living in a carbon-based world for just a moment in order to learn more about love. None of our lives is easy but each life can be very rewarding if (and when) we learn more about love, compassion, and forgiveness. This alone demonstrates God’s genius in creating a world that provides us these opportunities to learn. 

Evil’s presence in this world makes it easy for us to deny God’s existence; but, if we only dwell on evil, we miss the point of our being here. God knows we have to be tested if we are to learn about love so God created a world where we are challenged. God’s goal is for us to learn to respond in love when we are confronted with fear. This article contains information that will help you if you want to take the same journey my wife and I are taking.

I have been asked by Heaven to share answers to existential and metaphysical questions many have. The beginnings of my story are contained in a book I wrote that can be downloaded for free at aplacetofeelgod.org. If you choose to read this book, please focus on God and the answers God has given me as you begin your journey to rediscover God without fear. The information contained in that book and this article will answer many questions about why you are here and why your life is being lived as it is. It is my prayer that this information will allow you to embrace God anew and marvel at what God does for you daily. The true God is not bound by any human-invented religion, which is why God can be found by anyone regardless of his or her religious background or lack thereof because the true God is available and accessible to all. In God’s universe, no one is abandoned and no one is forced to believe any specific sacred text or doctrine. 

In my own journey, God found me and saved me with love. What I had previously done or thought was irrelevant to God because God’s love is always unconditional. This same love is available to all. God had to use supernatural experiences to reach me because God knew nothing else would have worked. I was so lost I did not know I was lost. I got to that state because I had accepted lies as the truth. I think most of us arrive at a similar position because we are products of our cultures. Once the dark gets our culture to embrace concepts as true that are really false, we unwittingly embrace these lies and confirmation bias[2]then keeps us in this lost state. It is my hope and prayer that this article will help to reach those who are as lost as I was. 

My suggestion is that you remain open to consider and evaluate new knowledge and feelings that validate that knowledge because both the information and the feelings are critical if you want to appreciate God’s gifts to you in this world. Knowledge without feelings will not work and feelings without understanding their significance will not work. While this article contains new information, you will not really know God until you feel God’s presence within you while simultaneously understanding that what you are experiencing is God.

God specifically designed our bodies to feel, which is why the dark wants us to shut down our natural feelings[3], ignore them, or mask them with artificial feelings created by stimulants, alcohol, or legal and illegal drugs. God’s gift of free means we are free to choose these alternative paths, but if we do, we have unwittingly limited what we can accomplish for ourselves and for others while here. 

In this article I frequently use the words “the dark” or “evil.” In philosophy and theology, there is discussion as to whether evil is an active agency or a passive one resulting from an absence of love and light. Based on my experience, I know the dark is an active force that is intent on harming us and our loved ones while we are in this world. A good summary of this issue is in Yuval Noah Harari’s book Sapiensat page 220:

Polytheism gave birth not merely to monotheist religions but also to dualistic ones. Dualistic religions espouse the existence of two opposing powers: good and evil. Unlike monotheism, dualism believes that evil is an independent power, neither created by the good God, nor subordinate to it. Dualism explains that the entire universe is a battleground between these two forces, and that everything that happens in the world is part of the struggle.

Dr. Harari’s summary is not correct when it asserts that God did not create the independent “evil” entity. It is also incorrect when it ascribes “power” to evil. God created the entities that have turned against God. God granted them free will and they used their free will to reject God and God’s love. The nature of free will is that everyone has a choice. One area where the dark has been successful is in convincing us that it actually has power. The only power the dark has is to tempt us into following it but that is not real power. Later in this article, I use the analogy that if we are comparing the power of God to that of evil, then God has the power of the sun while the dark has the power of an ant. However, this analogy is deficient in that it gives too much credit to evil. God is the creator of all things while the dark, which is comprised of entities dedicated to rejecting God and leading us astray, is comprised of entities God created. Created entities never have independent power. I deal later in this article with the concept that God always knew what evil would do before evil did. 

The best description I have for God is that God is love. This simple three-word phrase conveys all we need to know about God. But because God is so big and we are so small, it is hard for us to relate to God. A good place to start is to picture a woman holding her newborn child. The joy she demonstrates and feels as she holds her gift of new life is exactly how God loves each of us. The enormousness of God’s capacity for love is beyond our comprehension. The closest example we have been given is the love Jesus demonstrated for us when He willingly walked to the Cross. This is why the dark tries to make Jesus and His life controversial. 

For our purposes, I would ask that you divorce Jesus from the teachings of institutional Christianity and only examine His life and those sayings attributed to Him that are based solely on love. God’s love is always present in the lives of those who place others above themselves. We find happiness and fulfillment in selflessness because selflessness is love in action. Selflessness is also found in forgiveness and compassion, which is why both are critical components of love.

In this world, our relationship with God is challenged given evil’s constant onslaught. We are further challenged because we cannot feel God’s love when we allow fear to influence us. Evil resides in fear and this is why we cannot feel God’s love when fear is present. Love and fear are incompatible. Evil knows how God designed our bodies so the dark uses this knowledge to trick us into separating ourselves from God. We do not realize that God’s gift of free will means we can control whether we allow ourselves to feel God and God’s love or whether we allow ourselves to feel fear. Once we allow fear inside, we have unwittingly asked God to leave. While God never really leaves us, we cannot feel God’s presence when we are filled with fear.

This is the state of our world where a battle between love and fear continually rages and where it often appears that fear is winning. In truth, fear never wins but that is not obvious when your perspective is limited to this world. Fortunately, the time is coming when we, with God’s help, will vanquish fear but that time is not yet here. I suggest that our objective should be to help God accelerate that date by learning and practicing in our lives the principles described in this article.

Many believe that evil’s presence reflects poorly on God, provided God even exists. This mindset is based on the belief that if God were truly omnipotent, then God would just eliminate evil. Because evil is here, this binary if-then argument concludes that either God is not omnipotent or God doesn’t care. A philosophical and theological belief that is based on the concept that God doesn’t care is Deism. Under Deistic theology, God exists and did create this universe but God quit interacting with this world after its creation. Under Deism, God is thought to be the great “clockmaker” who created this world, wound it up, and then left to allow it to run on its own. The God of Deism is not a personal God because Deism’s God left. It is easy to understand how this belief came into being given the continual assaults everyone experiences from evil.

In order to further understand God’s genius, I want to begin by exploring the concept that God should just eliminate evil as there are multiple problems with this thinking. First, any use of force is based on fear and God does not use fear. Second, control by any means, including force, is incompatible with free will. That leaves us with the dilemma that philosophers and theologians have wrestled with for centuries - how do you reconcile a loving and omnipotent God with the effects of evil we see? Oneproblem with this dilemma is its underlying assumption that God has not already given us the power to eliminate evil ourselves. Another problem is that the dilemma does not recognize God’s omniscience. If God is truly omniscient (which God is), then God knew what evil would do before evil did. This means God has reasons to allow evil to run its course in this world and we need to understand and explore them further. One obvious reason is that evil is an effective tool to teach us about love. If we can learn to forgive those who have hurt ourselves or our loved ones while simultaneously having compassion for the ones spreading evil, we have just started to learn about love. While evil is not necessary for us to learn about love, the effect of evil’s presence is to accelerate our understanding of love’s dimensions. Once we acquire this knowledge, our souls advance because we move closer toward God when we understand more about love. This is the real prize for enduring the dark’s assaults in this world.

While we are incapable of understanding God’s capacity, we often presume to know what God should do because God has given us free will. This gift means we are free to be wrong. One of our errors is believing we should tell others what to do or think even though God never does that to us. Given that God lives by this rule, I suggest we need to rethink whether we should tell God (or anyone else for that matter) what to do. In the Alcoholics Anonymous world, there is a saying – attraction rather than promotion. Said another way, lead by example rather than preaching. One who exudes love will convey its benefits more fully than one proclaiming rules to be followed. Jesus lived His life embracing this concept and look what He accomplished. 

Seven Principles to Guide Your Life

As you begin your journey to understand more about God, please be open to the following principles I have been taught[4]because they will help you better understand evil as well as understanding why you are here. These concepts will also help you to appreciate God’s genius in creating both this world and the opportunities this world provides to everyone who comes. 

1.    No one is here by chance. Everyone in this world prayed to God to come here as God’s servant in order to learn more about love and fight that which is far from God. The youngest soul in this world is over one million years old, which means this world was never designed for the very young. Everyone here is an immortal being of light who chose to come inside a carbon-based body inside a carbon-based world to serve God for a moment. Everyone knew that God would heal everything the dark did to him or her while here because, ultimately, this world is just an illusion where everything is transient except each person’s soul and what each person learns from the experience.

2.    Most of this world is part of Heaven and always has been. Hell was “created” by the dark because it cannot abide in Heaven. Hell is where the dark lives in fear, which is why it is a place where love cannot be felt. You may be surprised to learn that Hell’s physical location is in our minds. God’s gift of free will gives the dark the opportunity to trick us into creating a space within us for the dark to reside. Our real enemy is fear and this is why a spiritual battle is always raging whether we want to acknowledge it or not. Hell is a place we can move in and out of many times a day. It is also a place where some are tricked into going after that have “passed from flesh.” Fortunately, hell is not permanent for those who have chosen to go there after having “died.”

3.    Fortunately, sins are not graded; but, if they were, the worst sin would be the “sin” of self-judgment. This sin is so harmful because it keeps us from feeling love and hearing Heaven clearly. Self-judgment is based solely on fear, which is why it puts us in hell and keeps us there. It is also the sin that nullifies our ability to serve God effectively. Jesus went to the Cross to help us overcome this sin. God knew we needed a visible representation of unconditional love in order to overcome the lack of self-worth that had been imprinted within us through the dark’s continual assaults. These assaults include what has been done to us as well as what we have been tricked into doing to others. This is why Jesus “atoned” for our sins on the Cross. Jesus’ extreme example of selfless love will pull you toward God when you allow it regardless of whether you are a member of the Christian faith. 

4.    In answer to Archangel Michael’s prayer, God sent Jesus whose mission was to change the world’s paradigm on relating to God without fear. This is why Jesus’ life was based solely on love. God always loves and that love is stronger than any force we can understand or comprehend. By definition, love encompasses both compassion and forgiveness and not judgment. This is why God loves us unconditionally and never judges us in the manner we understand judgment. 

5.    One of God’s greatest gifts to us is the ability to live in this world without fear. Once we understand that we can control the level of our own fear and then act on that knowledge, we are truly “born again,” just as Jesus proposed and demonstrated. When we come into this world from Heaven, we have no fear because we have just left Heaven. Fear has to be taught to us by the dark, which means we can learn to reject it. Part of Jesus’ mission was to demonstrate how. While counterintuitive, I have recently been taught that only a small part of each person’s soul is inside his or her body. This means most of each person’s soul still resides in Heaven. Our objective before coming into this world was to learn to bring as much of our true selves as possible from Heaven into this world during our time here. This can only be accomplished when we learn to reject fear. Jesus learned to totally reject fear and so He is our supreme example regardless of whether one adheres to the principles espoused by the institutional Christian faith.

6.    No human created religion has a monopoly on God’s wisdom and love. Our diversity of cultures and races was deliberately created by God to give everyone here the opportunity to learn more about love as we interact with those different than ourselves. It is this very diversity that allows us to have experiences in this world that are not possible in Heaven; but, this same diversity is what the dark uses to create fear within us in order to try to separate us further. 

7.    Never use your free will to limit God or God’s ability to use you to effect change in this world. The power of love is unlimited when you volunteer to become a servant for God because, as God’s servant, you are filled with God and God’s Heavenly Host. This is why you should never doubt your capacity to serve regardless of how much the dark has hurt you. Such thoughts are brought by the dark to reduce your effectiveness. When you understand that the dark has no intrinsic power, then you will know the dark is not something to be feared. Rather it is something that needs your prayers. The dark’s essential impotence is on display when you realize how often it has to assault you to destroy your effectiveness while God only needs a moment to totally erase the effects from the dark’s sustained attacks. 

I will now address each of these concepts in more depth.

Principle 1: Who We are and Why We Are Here

No one is here by chance. Everyone in this world prayed to God to come here as God’s servant in order to learn more about love and fight that which is far from God. The youngest soul in this world is over one million years old, which means this world was never designed for the very young. Everyone here is an immortal being of light who chose to come inside a carbon-based body inside a carbon-based world to serve God for a moment. Everyone here knew that God would heal everything the dark did to him or her while here because, ultimately, this world is just an illusion where everything is transient except each person’s soul and what each person learns from this experience. 

Think about the ramifications of this information. Your life did not begin when your body was conceived in this world. Everyone who has chosen to come here looked down from Heaven and saw the pain people were experiencing in this realm. Each soul then prayed for God to send him or her here as a “warrior for God to fight that which is far from God.” This means that those currently being attacked by the dark (Lucifer and those who serve him), actually prayed to come here to serve God through bringing more of God’s love into this world.

For reasons unknown to me, God has determined that now is the time to share certain truths with those currently in this world. Once these truths are known and accepted as true, we will understand that we, with God’s help, have always had the power to defeat evil; but, the defeat of evil will not come through the use of force. It will only come through the use and the presence of unconditional, selfless love. Unconditional, selfless love is the strongest “force” in this world as it only exists in God. When we summon this type of love, we are asking God to come inside us. This is why we reconnect with Heaven and the immortal when we feel God’s presence. Fear resides in the mortal world. Each soul who comes into this world completes his or her journey home when he or she decides to leave the mortal world of fear and return to the immortal world of love - Heaven. Each soul’s individual journey is an answer to that person’s prayer before coming. It does not matter whether that soul only lives for hours, days, or weeks inside a woman’s womb or lives for a hundred years. God knows before anyone comes here how that soul’s journey will be an answer to that soul’s prayers before coming. Life is that personal and that wonderful. While we have absolute free will, God knows exactly how we will exercise our free will while here.

We in bodies think in binary terms. If I am in my body, then no one else is in here with me. This world is more nuanced because we are never alone. God is life and there is no life without God. That means that God is always with us and inside us regardless of whether we recognize this fact or feel God’s presence. The fact that our bodies are porous also means we can allow the dark inside us. The dark, which presents as fear, moves in and out of us continuously depending on our state of being. If we are focused on love, the dark must stay away. If we are focused on fear or any of its manifestations, then the dark comes in. Fear presents in many forms such as anger, resentment, greed, jealousy, rage, low self-esteem, or self-judgment. The dark is cunning and gets us to unwittingly allow it inside of us. The more time we give to the dark, the more the dark’s presence within us feels normal. This is why it is so hard to reverse the feelings of “normal” and learn to reject the dark’s presence.

This world is porous in the same manner our bodies are. Our brains have been designed by God to simultaneously access both this world and the spiritual realm. The spiritual realm always surrounds us and is sustained by God’s energy but it is not visible to us in bodies[5]. The spiritual realm, which is where Heaven resides, is in another dimension that we cannot see with our eyes in this world. However, our minds can access that realm with love. God’s helpers and agents, whom we call angels, reside in the spiritual realm but permeate this world too and can access all life forms. We cannot see angels but they always surround us. Unfortunately, some of these angels (as well as other souls) have been tricked into fighting against God within our world. The dark controls the actions of these souls and this is why they continually encourage us to turn against God and hurt both ourselves and others. It is very important to understand that the dark has no intrinsic power. All the dark can do is tempt until such time as it has turned one completely against God and God’s principles. Once completely turned, that soul loses control of his or her own body because there has been a total surrender of free will to the dark.[6]I was told once that “the very best you get from the dark, you get at the first meeting.” A good example of this is addiction. As one continues to follow the dark’s suggestions in attempting to find the great pleasure experienced at the first meeting, the soul is led down the path to enslavement. An obvious substance that has this effect is heroin whether from the street or as opioids in its legal form. Alcohol can have that same effect on those who are chemically addicted. For alcoholics and addicts, free will is ultimately lost during their continual search for that initial “feeling.” Once enslaved, the alcoholic or addict does not care whom he or she hurts to get momentary relief from the insatiable craving, which is the mark of enslavement. Another rarely discussed aspect of addiction is selfishness. An addict is only concerned about him- or herself during the quest for self-pleasure. Fortunately, it takes time for the dark to get one to this point; but, once this point is reached, the soul cannot regain his or her free will without help from Heaven. 

If angels[7]in Heaven could heal this world alone, they would have done so long ago; but, one of the lessons God is teaching is selfless love. Selflessness by definition means that someone else is being prayed for. This is why more is accomplished when we work together “two by two.” For angels to effectively work in our carbon-based world, they need the help of those who are here in bodies.[8]The angels’ dilemma is that they cannot be seen and are rarely heard but they are always available to assist when called upon. Unfortunately, if they are not called upon, there is nothing they can do because angels will not violate our free will. This is the challenge God created when God devised this world.

When a soul prays to come here, God shows him or her a small portion of the life that awaits, a life that presents the necessary circumstances to allow that soul to have his or her specific prayers answered. This knowledge includes who will be in that soul’s family, which gender he or she will be, and to some degree how difficult his or her life will be. Nothing in this world happens by chance. For those of us who live in the West and know how difficult living in the third world can be, we need to be in awe of those souls who volunteer to go to the third world to serve God. But we do not just have to look to the third world. Those souls whose prayers bring them as African Americans living in the under privileged areas of large cities are equally challenged. The obvious question is, “Why would anyone accept such a challenge?” The answer is that you can begin to learn to love as God loves when you learn to forgive those who are heaping judgment on you for your supposed life choices and living circumstances.

We rarely appreciate God’s genius in creating this amazing world with its infinite opportunities to learn about love. While most of our journeys are difficult, they are also rewarding. This degree of difficulty, though, is why God designed a world where we are only here for a moment. If we think about it, everything that happens here is dirt interacting with dirt. Our bodies are formed from “dirt” and they return to “dirt” when we leave them. God created this world to allow us to have these experiences in order for us to grow as souls. While our bodies are extremely limiting, the opportunities God provides us for growth are infinite.

Another aspect of God’s genius is that we come here without a memory of who we really are, what we prayed for, and where we are from. God specifically designed this world so that we are not sure of anything. All here wanted the challenge of finding faith in a war zone where the dark exists and is continually trying to harm us. If this world were not opaque,we would not have the experiences that we wanted. Remember, everyone comes directly from Heaven knowing the challenges and opportunities this world provides. This world gives us choices that permit us to learn more about love. In Heaven, everyone is a being of light. Here, each soul inhabits a body that is different from everyone else’s. This is why there are multiple races, religions, sexual orientations, and genders. All of these differences provide us the opportunity to learn to accept and embrace those different than ourselves. It is this process of bodies interacting that creates the opportunities to learn more about love, compassion, and forgiveness. Our experiences in this world are not possible in Heaven, which is why God created this world. This world is God’s gift to us even with its challenges and difficulties. We do not give God enough credit if we think God should just vanquish evil because evil is a great teaching tool. But the pain of living with evil is also why we are only here for a moment.

When you understand that everyone prayed to God to come to this world, I hope your outlook changes. This principle means that no one would be here without evil’s presence. It also means that no one here is a victim. Before we chose to come into this world, we looked down from Heaven and saw the pain and suffering that the dark was inflicting on those here. We believed we could help and so we prayed to God to be given the chance to assist God in this world. This is why Heaven calls us “warriors for God who came to fight that which is far from God.” The ultimate gift of this world is learning to fight fear with unconditional, selfless love. Fear is the real enemy because fear is the dark’s lifeblood. This is why fear cannot coexist with love. 

Heaven is governed by love. When Lucifer fell, he could not remain in Heaven and therefore had to create a space for himself - a space governed and controlled by fear. I will discuss this more in the next section and the last section but this is why we cannot feel Heaven’s presence clearly when we allow fear inside ourselves. The corollary, though, is that once we learn to live without fear, we can reside in Heaven even if we are still in this world. These rules define the spiritual battle that is always raging. God is guided solely by love while the dark is immersed in fear. This world gives us the opportunity to choose between the two every moment we are here and this is why the angels call this world a “war zone.” There is no stasis in this world as there is constant movement from Heaven to hell and back as one lives his or her life. 

To assist us in our quest to understand more about love, one of God’s rules is that if you do not forgive the one who assaulted or offended you, you will then become like that person. Lucifer constantly uses this rule to enlist many to help him. One obvious example of this rule at work is in politics. The party in power criticizes the zeal of its opponents only to use those same tactics when it is in the minority. If you look, you will see this rule at work in our culture wars too. The only escape from this morass is love and forgiveness but that approach is rarely considered and so Lucifer “wins” for a moment. Fear divides and love unites with our politics and culture wars proving this principle every day. Unfortunately, this same principle is also on display within our religious institutions.

The 2016 presidential election gave fear a place to sit in many. This outpouring of fear is part of the dark’s last stand. The dark will not be vanquished until we learn that love, forgiveness, compassion, and faith are the only answers. Once again, God’s genius is on display.

Principle Two: Hell and How We Get There

Most of this world is part of Heaven and always has been. Hell was “created” by the dark because it cannot abide in Heaven. Hell is where the dark lives in fear, which is why it is a place where love cannot be felt. You may be surprised to learn that Hell’s physical location is in our minds. God’s gift of free will gives the dark the opportunity to trick us into creating a space within us for the dark to reside. Our real enemy is fear and this is why a spiritual battle is always raging whether we want to acknowledge it or not. Hell is a place we can move in and out of many times a day. It is also a place where some are tricked into going after that have “passed from flesh.” Fortunately, hell is not permanent for those who have either chosen to go there after having “died” or after acquiring seven or more lost children of God.

Most of this world is already part of Heaven or God’s angels could not be here. The part of this world that is not fully Heaven is inside us. When we allow fear inside, we have unwittingly given the dark a place to sit. Our challenge is to find and embrace God while constantly being attacked. This is why this world is one of God’s most difficult worlds because one can absolutely lose sight of God for a time. That state of being is called hell and hell is a place of the dark’s “creation.” Hell is where love cannot be felt as hell is controlled by fear. Fortunately, a soul never goes straight from Heaven into hell. Rather it is a process I will now explain. To avoid confusion, this section deals with the hell we have been taught to be afraid of. This is the hell that one can find after “passing from flesh” or acquiring seven or more “lost children of God” while here.  One can also temporarily find hell when rage or anger consumes you but you leave that state when you reject that rage or anger and return to your natural equilibrium.

God specifically designed this world for us to learn certain lessons. Part of that design revolves around how our bodies act in various circumstances. When we first enter our bodies, we do not understand God’s design but the dark does. This gives the dark an initial advantage in its quest to separate us from God. God is teaching us more about love while the dark’s survival requires it to invoke fear in us. This makes fear our ultimate enemy. The dark’s enlisted men have been named “demons” by Lucifer to make us afraid of them. Archangel Michael, who is known by other names in different world religions, calls these souls “lost children of God[9].” The beginning of our separation from God occurs when we unwittingly allow these lost children inside us.

Our progression away from God is based on fear. The extent of fear a person has at any moment is based on the number of lost children that person has let inside. The number of lost children at any moment is just a fear gauge. The more lost children the farther the separation from God. This gauge is never static and can change in micro-seconds. However, once someone has acquired seven or more, that person cannot move back under seven without intervention from God. Fortunately, most do not make the complete journey to seven or more during their lives here. The following explanation makes us uncomfortable but is necessary to understand how this world works. Jesus spoke of demons in the Bible but no one really understands how they work. This information will change that.

1. The first lost child comes in because we do not understand that we have space inside of us to fill. The lesson God is teaching is that we exist and can choose whom to allow into our space except there are only two choices – God (love) or the dark (fear). God designed our minds such that we can control our own space even if we do not initially understand this. When one does not understand that this control exists, the first lost child will come in. 

2. The second lost child comes in because this second one abates the attack of the first one. We are rewarded for allowing the second lost child in because the attack lessens but we now have two. This is a perfect example of how the dark uses its knowledge of how the system works against us.

3. The third lost child is another positive reward. There is less attack as we seek basic needs such as food, clothes, shelter, etc. At this third level, though, the desire has to be for something we need versus something we want.

4. The fourth lost child comes inside when our desires change from what we need to what we want. 

5. The fifth lost child is allowed inside as our wants multiply. This is when we begin living in the “world” and travel further from who we really are. The fifth and sixth levels are where we try to obtain happiness from the world of things versus service to God and others. This is why the rich are never satisfied with the things they possess. Each new thing will distract for a brief period but then the desire to acquire another new thing will return. This is also why when a rich person owns a hundred-foot yacht, he or she wants an even larger yacht when an acquaintance acquires a yacht bigger than the current one he or she owns. This also explains the insatiable quest to obtain happiness from the things of this world.

6. The sixth lost child is allowed in when we believe that society has a place for us (good or bad) and we identify with others who are similarly situated. Everyone at this level acts a certain way to become a part of his or her accepted “tribe.” This is the genesis of gated communities and country clubs[10]where access is restricted to those who have the traits the tribe requires for membership. Gangs were created at the opposite end of the socioeconomic spectrum for the same reasons. These are the extreme ends of the spectrum, but many have six lost children even though they are not in country clubs or gangs.

7. The seventh lost child is allowed in when we are focused on controlling another. Once someone has allowed seven (or more) lost children inside, he or she has been captured by the dark and cannot reverse his or her situation without help from God. The trait of this seventh “demon” is the trait that stays with one depending on the reason the seventh lost child was acquired. There are souls on the other side whose feelings align with different patterns of negative behavior such as hate, murder, rape, kidnapping, prostitution, or lust for power. Once the seventh lost child is inside, the person flips from being persecuted to being the persecutor and remains stuck in a continuous loop of pain associated with the fear that allowed this seventh child in. 

The dark has to use each of these steps to capture you and these steps are not instantaneous. Most souls do not get to seven or more on their journey through this world. Those that do cannot leave this world on their own and are trapped serving Lucifer because they have been tricked into rejecting love and, in the process, have learned to hate themselves. They have also accepted the lie that God will never love them again because of what they have done. It is just a lie but “perception is reality” in this situation.

The above describes how the dark captures those in flesh. The dark can also capture you after you have left your body. If you commit suicide, unfortunately you immediately go to hell. You can also end up in hell under the following scenario. When a person passes from flesh, he or she will see a light. If the soul moves toward the light, that soul then meets Michael, the angel in charge of this world. Once you are in Michael’s presence, Michael asks you whether you want to review your life with him. Standing right next to Michael is Lucifer. Lucifer is a very beautiful angel. His name “Lucifer” means angel of light. Lucifer immediately explains that it will be extremely painful to look at your life and then he offers you the option of taking his hand. If you take Lucifer’s hand, you immediately travel to hell where you are shown whatever you did not want to look at. Hell is a loop and the scene you wanted to hide from is replayed constantly as you experience the pain you inflicted on another. For example, if you had raped a woman and did not want to look at that event, in hell that rape is all you see except you experience the pain you caused the woman during the rape as well as the pain she experienced the remainder of her life as a result of your actions. While this rape is replaying and you are feeling her pain, Lucifer is there telling you that God will never love you because of what you have done. This is the fire the Bible speaks of when it describes hell. It is always intensely personal and only works because of your own self-judgment. Hell is a prison cell where the door is locked from the inside.

What I have just described are the paths to hell and they are the opposite of the paths to heaven. In hell, you have lost the ability to feel love because you have unwittingly been tricked into eliminating the feeling of God from your life. You can only return to your true self with help from Heaven when you are ready to understand how you were tricked. The healing process is the inverse of the process the dark used to get you. At each stage out, you must confront how you were tricked and why. Once you have done this, you will be in a position where you can release the fear and pain to God and begin your healing. In this process, you understand that you are a warrior for God and that you were never a victim. This world is a war zone and all are bruised during their round-trip. The concept of victimhood keeps you from healing because you believe you cannot change your circumstance by yourself. No one here is a victim as all prayed to come and all are in control of their own destinies. God would not have designed this world any other way.

Returning to the lost children and their influence in our lives, it is rare for anyone to reach seven or more. Most people live their lives somewhere between three and less than seven lost children living with them. When you have less than seven influencing you, the movement of lost children in and out is instantaneous and in constant flux. More fear means more lost children while less fear means fewer lost children. The number of lost children you have at any moment is just a gauge reflecting how far you are from God. At times, everyone has one or more. When you pray and ask God into your life, the lost children have to leave. As your thoughts reenter the world and you allow fear back inside, the lost children return because they are the ones who bring the feelings of fear. Your life with lost children is a constant ebb and flow depending on your state of mind. Nothing is static or lineal and the number can change many times a second. Fortunately, that number never defines you because it is merely a momentary marker of your current relationship with God. 

Our relationship with lost children and God is the world we inhabit and the world God designed to teach us more about love. This world was never created for perfection because it is this world’s “imperfection” that creates the opportunities for us to learn more about love. The final hurdle on our journey is learning to forgive ourselves. It is always easier to forgive others but forgiving yourself is the basis for your prayers being answered. I will deal more with this in the discussion in Principle 3.

Evil’s influence in this world has tricked many into not seeing the presence of Heaven even though Heaven always surrounds us. God never abandoned this world after Lucifer’s fall. God is still in charge and always has been. Philosophers and theologians have mistakenly placed Lucifer and God on the same power plane with each fighting the other. That is absolutely wrong and gives Lucifer too much credit. If comparisons are helpful, think of God as the sun and Lucifer as an ant; but, even that does not give God enough credit. God is the Creator and Lucifer is a creature. All Lucifer can do is trick you into using your free will to move away from God for a time. This trick has no effect on God’s love for you or God’s continuing presence in this world. God’s angels, the Heavenly Host, constantly surround everyone here and are always focused on getting each person’s prayers answered. They always come when you have faith, no fear, and selfless love for others. That is the wonder of this world. Evil continually attempts to lead us away from God while God’s agents are constantly in our midst trying to guide and protect us. It is we who get to choose every moment which side we will embrace. And this is why the angels call this world a “war zone” and everyone here a warrior.

Principle Three: The Sin of Self-Judgment

Fortunately, sins are not graded; but, if they were, the worst sin would be the “sin” of self-judgment. This sin is so harmful because it keeps us from feeling love and hearing Heaven clearly. Self-judgment is based solely on fear, which is why it puts us in hell and keeps us there. It is also the sin that nullifies our ability to serve God effectively. Jesus went to the Cross to help us overcome this sin. God knew we needed a visible representation of unconditional love in order to overcome the lack of self-worth that had been imprinted within us through the dark’s continual assaults. These assaults include what has been done to us as well as what we have been tricked into doing to others. This is why Jesus “atoned” for our sins on the Cross. Jesus’ extreme example of selfless love will pull you toward God when you allow it regardless of whether you are a member of the Christian faith. 

When Lucifer fell, he could not abide in Heaven as Heaven is filled with God’s ever abiding love. Therefore, he had to “create” a space for himself that is separate from love. That place is what we call hell and it is a very small space surrounded by Heaven. A good example is a black hole without any energy. As explained in Section 2, hell is located in our minds as that is the seat of our free will. God created our minds such that we have total free will. Free will is consistent with love because control is based on fear. So, this is the juxtaposition of this world. We are surrounded by Heaven and love but we can choose each instant whether to leave love and embrace fear. The nature of the dark is that it cannot abide in the light. Therefore, for it to win any battle, it has to be deceitful because no one would ever knowingly choose fear and misery. This is why the dark has to trick us in order to lead us astray and why the dark never presents itself openly.

C.S. Lewis wrote a wonderful book about hell and the dark named The Screwtape Letters. The theme of the book is a seasoned devil mentoring a younger devil as he leads a human “patient” astray. The older devil is named Screwtape and the book contains the letters he has written to his apprentice. Professor Lewis was a genius at identifying the dark’s tricks and how they operate. Throughout history, we have wrongly believed that the dark actually has power equal to that of God’s because of the carnage we see before us; but, the dark has no intrinsic power. Its only capacity is to trick us into giving it “power” but that is not real power. It is effective, though, because the results are obvious while the trick is not. 

The dark’s ultimate trick is for us to believe that we are unworthy of being loved because of the things the dark has tricked us into doing. Self-judgment is based on fear and it is this fear that keeps us from feeling the unconditional love that always surrounds us. Remember, God will respect our free will even though we have embraced a lie. The gift of free will means that we are the only ones who can save ourselves from this self-imposed lost state. Two principles are at play. First, God will never force us to love ourselves and, second, we are not perfect. This is the challenge in this world - to love ourselves in spite of our mistakes. The angels call this self-regard. Most of the time our mistakes are the result of traps the dark set for us anyway.

Ask yourself for a moment why God sent Jesus[11]to this world. I know it was to change our relationship with our self. Once you have been tricked into believing you are unworthy, it is hard to reverse course. We are always harder on ourselves than we are on others because we believe we have all of the facts when dealing with ourselves. We do not, but we believe we do. Given that dynamic, how does God intervene in a very dramatic way without violating our free will? God solved this dilemma by sending His Son whose mission was to show the world God’s true nature of love. Jesus’ life demonstrated not only the power of God’s love but that both compassion and forgiveness are inseparable aspects[12]of love. The Bible uses the word “sin” to describe our mistakes[13]. These mistakes can be deliberate or accidental. Unfortunately, institutional religious organizations have used our fear of punishment for past sins as a means to advance their influence and gain worldly riches while preserving the institution. One example of this technique was the sale of indulgences by the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church needed money and sold absolution from sin to raise it. This is a perfect example of how Lucifer works to hurt those seeking to get closer to God.

The following is an excerpt of an article from the Encyclopedia Britanicaon the history of indulgences: 

The granting of indulgences was predicated on two beliefs. First, in the sacrament of penance it did not suffice to have the guilt (culpa) of sin forgiven through absolution alone; one also needed to undergo temporal punishment (poena, from p[o]enitentia, “penance”) because one had offended Almighty God. Second, indulgences rested on belief in purgatory, a place in the next life where one could continue to cancel the accumulated debt of one’s sins, another Western medieval conceptionnot shared by Eastern Orthodoxy or other Eastern Christian churches not recognizing the primacy of the pope.

From the early church onward, bishops could reduce or dispense with the rigors of penances, but indulgences emerged in only the 11th and 12th centuries when the idea of purgatory took widespread hold and when the popes became the activist leaders of the reforming church. In their zeal, they promoted the militant reclamation of once-Christian lands - first of Iberia in the Reconquista, then of the Holy Land in the Crusades- offering “full remission of sins,” the first indulgences, as inducements to participation.

Papal pronouncements, oral and written, were often vague, however, and raised many questions among the pious. To clarify all these issues, the Scholastictheologians of the 12th and 13th centuries worked out a fully articulatedtheory of penance. It consisted of three parts: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. The debt of forgiven sin could be reduced through the performance of good works in this life (pilgrimages, charitable acts, and the like) or through suffering in purgatory. Indulgences could be granted only by popes or, to a lesser extent, archbishops and bishops as ways of helping ordinary people measure and amortizetheir remaining debt. “Plenary,” or full, indulgences cancelled all the existing obligation, while “partial” indulgences remitted only a portion of it. People naturally wanted to know how much debt was forgiven (just as modern students want to know exactly what they need to study for examinations), so set periods of days, months, and years came gradually to be attached to different kinds of partial indulgences.

One did not, however, have to do it all by oneself. Medieval Christianitywas a vast communityof mutual help through prayer and good works, uniting the living and the dead in the Church Militant on earth, the Church Suffering in purgatory, and the Church Triumphant in heaven. The good works of Jesus Christ, the saints, and others could be drawn upon to liberate souls from purgatory. In 1343 Pope Clement VI decreed that all these good works were in the Treasury of Merit, over which the pope had control.

This highly complicated theological system, which was framed as a means to help people achieve their eternal salvation, easily lent itself to misunderstanding and abuse as early as the 13th century, much sooner than is usually thought. A principal contributing factor was money. Paralleling the rise of indulgences, the Crusades, and the reforming papacy was the economic resurgence of Europe that began in the 11th century. Part of this tremendous upsurge was the phenomenon of commutation, through which any services, obligations, or goods could be converted into a corresponding monetarypayment. Those eager to gain plenary indulgences, but unable to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, wondered whether they might perform an alternativegood work or make an equivalent offering to a charitable enterprise - for example, the building of a leprosarium or a cathedral. Churchmen allowed such commutation, and the popes even encouraged it, especially Innocent III (reigned 1198–1216) in his various Crusading projects. From the 12th century onward the process of salvation was therefore increasingly bound up with money. Reformers of the 14th and 15th centuries frequently complained about the “sale” of indulgences by pardoners. And as the papacy weakened in this period, seculargovernments increasingly allowed the granting of indulgences only in return for a substantial share of the yield, often as much as two-thirds. The princes got most of the money, and the popes got most of the blame.

People also wondered whether they could gain an indulgence for someone who had died and was presumed to be in purgatory. If so, in acting out of charity for someone else, were they then obliged to confess their own sins, as they would if they sought to obtain an indulgence for themselves? Although these concerns were surfacing as early as the 13th century, it was only in 1476 that Pope Sixtus IV declared that one could indeed gain an indulgence for someone in purgatory. Sixtus, however, left unanswered the problem of the necessity of personal confession. This profound uncertainty surrounding penance threatened to sever completely the nexus between the confession of sin and the achievement of salvation.

Once people believed that the Catholic Church had the power to remit the consequences of sin, the stage was set for abuse. For those who have not had the opportunity to study church history, the Protestant Church came into being after Martin Luther objected to the Roman Catholic Church’s selling of indulgences.

Lucifer is especially talented at hurting those trying to get closer to God. The travails of the Catholic Church as it became intertwined with the world is a perfect example of how the dark is able to evoke fear to harm all. Once the Catholic Church begin selling indulgences as a fundraising technique, the Church expanded their alleged power to cover future sin. Those who were rich used their money so they could continue to sin believing they were protected. In truth, the indulgence was worthless and everyone involved had to ultimately look at what they had been tricked into doing even though everything started with the best of intentions. 

In my discussion of Principle 1, I said that this world is an illusion. I want to expand on that thought. If we think about it, everything in this world is transient. This means our bodies are only here for a moment. God uses molecules to form cells that form organisms that grow and then decay until they have returned to molecules and the process begins again. If we look at the Bible, Genesis 2:7 tells us our bodies are formed from dust. This means we are composed of dirt and when we die our bodies return to dirt. As such, our time here involves dirt (which contains an immortal soul) interacting with other dirt (that contains another immortal soul). Sin is the result of fear and that fear separates us from God. Because there is no life apart from God, the “wages” of sin is momentary separation from God, which truly is death just as the Bible states at Roman 6:23. When we embrace love, we immediately regain life as love is the only thing that is real. 

This is the illusion we inhabit where nothing is permanent except our souls and what we take from our experiences. God created this world to give us experiences that are not possible in Heaven. Our time here seems very real. We come without a memory of where we are really from and live for a short time in this world where everything is temporary. A friend calls this world “earth school” and this perfectly describes God’s intent. Much is made of sin but sin is not real because only God’s love is real. Sin is a great teacher but it does not define us for eternity. Sin is just a momentary lapse while God’s love is capable of healing all transgressions.

The ultimate consequence of sin is separation from God until we learn more about love through forgiving ourselves or those who have hurt us. Origen of Alexandria (c.185–c.254) was correct about the universality of salvation. Our time in this world can result in a temporary separation from God but it is only temporary. What are a few years in hell compared to immortality, especially if you grow as a soul in the process?

Theologians have argued for centuries about the meaning of Jesus’ Crucifixion. There are four primary theories: ransom theory, Christus Victor theory, satisfaction theory, and moral influence theory. Books have been written about these theories but I am going to describe each with a single sentence. The ransom theory originated with Origen and had Jesus’ death as a ransom sacrifice to Lucifer. The Christus Victor theory has Christ defeating the powers of evil. The satisfaction theory was developed by Anselm of Canterbury and has Jesus satisfying our debt to God. The moral influence theory has sin breaking God’s moral law and Jesus substituting for us to atone for our sin. The actual arguments are more nuanced than these brief summaries. The closest theory to being right is the Christus Victory theory. Lucifer had convinced us that our sin “permanently” separated us from God. Jesus’ actions were not to change God’s mind about us for how can you change the mind of perfection that knows everything. Jesus’ actions were to change our minds about ourselves. We are the ones who were lost and in need of this supreme example of selfless, sacrificial love. Because God will not violate our free will, we have to change our minds ourselves. This becomes possible when we see God’s love for us as reflected in His Son. This is why we should always forgive ourselves along with those who have hurt us. Once this is done, we are capable of returning to the battle to help those who still believe they are unworthy of receiving love. Love is the only answer as it is this same love that sustains us for eternity. 

Those who have been tricked into believing they are unworthy of God’s love are in hell and live in the world of mortality. Those in hell return to Heaven and immortality when they finally find the faith that they can be loved again. It only takes a moment and this is why prayers for the “lost” are never wasted. Please pray for those who have been hurt in this spiritual battle as those prayers are needed to fully change this world back to Heaven. The world will change when the lost again find the light. Jesus’ message, illuminated through His life, is that no one is beyond redemption - not even those who nailed Him to that Cross. 

Principle Four: Why Jesus Came

In answer to Archangel Michael’s prayer, God sent Jesus whose mission was to change the world’s paradigm on relating to God without fear. This is why Jesus’ life was based solely on love. God always loves and that love is stronger than any force we can understand or comprehend. By definition, love encompasses both compassion and forgiveness and not judgment. This is why God loves us unconditionally and never judges us in the manner we understand judgment.

Archangel Michael is the angel God placed in charge of this world. The name Michael means “one like God” and, while Michael is perfectly named, Michael is not perfect as this story he told me about himself demonstrates. Did you ever wonder why Jesus came to this world when He did? The answer is that Jesus came in answer to Michael’s prayer. While unknown to us, Heaven is not uniform. Certain souls in Heaven are more advanced than other souls because advancement is based on a soul’s learned capacity to love. As you learn more about love, you move closer to God but it is more than that. You also move closer to God when you learn to use your free will to avoid impure thoughts. Some souls in Heaven are extremely close to God while others have more to learn. It is a place not unlike this world where those who love each other and enjoy each other’s company work together. Also, not everyone in Heaven can come to this world inside a body. If a soul is “large” in Heaven’s terms, then this world is not suitable for that soul because that soul has already learned the lessons this world is teaching. Michael is one of those souls. Because God did not design the bodies of this world to hold a soul of his magnitude, Michael assumed no one his size or larger could come.

For many thousands of years after Lucifer’s fall, Michael and the Heavenly Host watched their brother (this is how the angels in Heaven refer to Lucifer) hurt everyone who came to this realm. While Michael never feels fear, he told me that he did not understand why God continued to allow this to occur. As Michael continued to pray for this world and its inhabitants, one day over two thousand years ago Michael realized he had been limiting God with his prayers and so he immediately changed his prayers. As soon as Michael’s prayers changed, God sent His Son Jesus – a soul who was too large to come inside a body unless God decreed it. The lesson in this explanation from Michael is that nothing is impossible for God. This is what God was teaching Michael and it is the same lesson God will teach anyone here when he or she embraces what Michael was taught. 

Think about this story for a moment. The angels in Heaven are in constant prayer. Angels are created beings and are not perfect. They pray for guidance and help just as we do. They also make mistakes just as we do. None of this changes God’s love for them or us. God is perfection and is constantly teaching new lessons to God’s creatures regardless of how advanced they are. You never reach infinity while in this world or in Heaven as God always has more to teach. How wonderful is that!

One of God’s lessons is that God always allows us to limit God because that is free will in action. However, when we change our prayers everything changes. We cannot have true free will until we overcome learned behavior because choices that have been taught and ingrained in us are not the result of free will. Each place of work has its own rules with choices permitted only within those rules. When we respond a certain way within such a system, it is the result of learned behavior and not the exercise of free will. A real choice is made when we decide to do something other than what we have learned. Until we challenge faulty but learned premises, we will not exercise free will because we cannot make a choice when we are confused. True choice comes when we have exercised our free will to reject learned responses.

I mentioned earlier in this article that Jesus came to change our minds about ourselves. These beliefs about ourselves are part of the learned behavior we have to reject. According to Archangel Michael, Jesus said the following:

If you are loyal to my manifestation, you are truly my disciples. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. Whoever commits sin (lack of faith in the Father, not following what the Son illuminated, or denying the Father) is the slave of sin and the slave is forever unable to hang onto his home, but the way of the Son establishes you till eternity.

After Michael quoted Jesus’ words to me, he then said:

To pause in Faith is to allow in fear. Fear is not of God and through it [God’s] will cannot be done. Faith should not be paused, but allowed to govern life and action. Embrace the truth of which Jesus spoke and taught, and follow His above words for your prayers to be answered. Do not falter and do not look to yourself but to the needs and prayers of others, as did and does [Jesus] and as do we.

Rather, embrace the world through the eyes of a child. Let all prejudice and pain be swept before you, for to be born anew is truly to learn anew. For the truth is beauty and light and love and compassion and joy. That comes from a place of selflessness and a place of willingness to let others love you.

My brother [Lucifer] has but one trick with many faces – fear. Fear can cause His children to freeze movement towards God.Affection breaks through the hardest of fears, and love transcends them all. For that is the real trick my brother is playing, to render you unworthy in your own eyes.The key lies within, and through living and loving in the truth, rather than in the sin of fear. When you withdraw from love and its truth, my brother wins. No longer be a slave to the sin of fear, for Faith in all things is always worth it, if you understand it is the way of and to God. (Emphasis mine.)

These are words for everyone. We have been hurt as well as taught lies about ourselves. Jesus came to expose those lies through shining the light of God’s love. Jesus did not come to start a religion named Christianity. Jesus came as God’s Son to help all here regardless of their cultural religious belief systems. This is why Jesus is the Universal Savior. One of Jesus’ sayings that have caused much confusion is found at John 14:6:

I am the way and the truth and the life, nobody comes to the Father except through me.

Institutional Christianity has interpreted this to mean that Jesus requires people to convert to Christianity to be saved. There are two problems with this. First, when Jesus said this He was a Jew living in a Jewish community. Second, Jesus was speaking metaphorically and not condemning those who had not adopted a specific human created religious system that was not in wide acceptance until the fourth century. Jesus came as God’s representative for this world – God’s Son. God is love and Jesus embodied God’s love in human form. Jesus is telling the world that love is the way and the truth and the life and that nobody will find God without love. This is why Jesus life was lived solely in love whether you look at His admonitions on forgiving seventy times seven or His words asking God to forgive those who crucified Him. This is the same message Michael delivered to me as Heaven is always consistent.

The dark is continuously trying to get us to condemn ourselves with fear while God is always shining God’s light of love. Jesus came to this world in answer to Michael’s prayer to give the world an unambiguous message about God, God’s nature, and God’s love. This is why Jesus was disruptive to the cultural order of His day and why Jesus is still disruptive today notwithstanding how the dark wants us to perceive Him. When we learn to forgive ourselves and embrace the truth, this world will no longer hold a place for the dark to sit.

Principle Five: The Gift of Being Born Again

One of God’s greatest gifts to us is the ability to live in this world without fear. Once we understand that we can control the level of our own fear and then act on that knowledge, we are truly “born again,” just as Jesus proposed and demonstrated. When we come into this world from Heaven, we have no fear because we have just left Heaven. Fear has to be taught to us by the dark, which means we can learn to reject it. Part of Jesus’ mission was to demonstrate how. While counterintuitive, I have recently been taught that only a small part of each person’s soul is inside his or her body. This means most of each person’s soul still resides in Heaven. Our objective before coming into this world was to learn to bring as much of our true selves as possible from Heaven into this world during our time here. This can only be accomplished when we learn to reject fear. Jesus learned to totally reject fear and so He is our supreme example regardless of whether one adheres to the principles espoused by the institutional Christian faith.

We have lived with fear for so long, it is inconceivable to most that a life can be lived without fear. Many justify their fear by saying it is helpful because it protects them. We have been with fear for so long it is now institutionalized and feels normal. The more complex our societies have become, the more fear is unwittingly taught. “Helicopter” parents[14]believe they are protecting their children but what they are really teaching them is fear. The body definitely has a fight or flight mechanism based on learned fear; but, the mind can overcome this response. Fear has a spiritual origin that we ignore. Look at Michael’s message in the last section: My brother has but one trick with many faces – fear. Fear can cause His children to freeze movement towards God. I will list just some of the many faces of fear that Michael is talking about: greed, anger, rage, jealousy, hate, self-judgment, envy, lust, gossip, bragging, and bullying. All have their origin in fear, which is why these emotions do so much damage not only to the one experiencing these emotions but to those around them. These emotions are part of Lucifer’s circle of pain for us in this world.

The defining aspect of each of the emotions I listed in the previous paragraph is selfishness as they are all directed inward. They are based on what the “I” perceives it wants or are responses to a perceived threat to the “I.” God knows that we generally cannot learn the right way until we have learned the emptiness of trying the other ways. So, God designed a world that would teach us these lessons. This world is for teaching and learning, not perfection, and the most important lesson is that only selfless love coupled with faith works. Regardless of your political or cultural beliefs, take a moment to honestly assess how the world’s systems are working. I only see fear, hate, resentment, jealousy, division, etc. with everyone miserable. Our current governmental systems are not based on God’s laws and so they will fail. Now is the time for all to focus on changing the world’s frame on relating to God and to each other. God sent Jesus to create the template so we already have been shown the path. We just need to follow it.

Lucifer has worked 2,000 years to try to create dissension surrounding Jesus’ lessons because Jesus’ path is the path to immortality and the only way to extricate ourselves from the web of lies spun by the dark. I want to re-emphasize that Jesus’ path is not exclusively for those who embrace institutional Christianity. There is nothing wrong with that choice but Jesus’ path is also for those who follow other human created religions or no religion at all. Jesus’ path is one of selfless love for all. It is even for those who try to stop you from following Jesus’ path. Fear will be pervasive until we can look at it honestly and then fight against it appropriately with selfless love. It is then that we open the door to Heaven so all there can help us on our quest. Nothing is ever accomplished without God’s help. 

Jesus said that no one could see the Kingdom of Heaven until he or she is born again. Being born again means you have learned to reject fear in all its forms. There is no fear in Heaven because Heaven is a place of total love, total joy, total support, and total knowledge about others and yourself. That does not describe this world. We are here because we prayed to God to come here to help others. Each person’s circumstance is an answer to that person’s very specific prayers. Everyone wanted the challenge of finding God and faith in a world where everyone knew that very quest would result in continual attack. There is much pain and suffering here but it is only temporary. God can heal all the dark does and we knew that before we signed up for this journey. Jesus’ use of the phrase “born again” means you have rejected the mortal world of fear and embraced the immortal world of love. You can do this while still in a body or you do it after you pass from flesh and talk to Michael. 

This world is more nuanced than we realize. Our true selves, our souls, are so much more complicated than what we understand through science. Science does not even understand life. How then can it explain our souls? Look at the discussion in Principle 1. The youngest soul in this world is over one million years old. What God creates is immortal. None of us will ever die. Sure, our bodies will cease to hold parts of our soul when we leave them, but our true selves will live for eternity. How wonderful is that? Our time in this world in bodies is just a moment in our real existence - a moment that God has given to each of us in answer to our prayers. Everyone came here to serve God knowing the risks associated with this journey. This is why Heaven does not judge those bruised in the battle. Everyone ultimately has to look at his or her actions, however painful that may be, but Heaven does not condemn anyone. Love is the only answer and the more we understand about love, the more of our true selves enter the realm of Heaven.

Jesus learned to totally reject fear in His life and came to demonstrate that living without fear is possible. This is why the dark tries to make Jesus’ teachings exclusionary and divisive. If you begin on a quest to reject fear, never doubt God’s genius in putting you in the perfect place for your prayers to be answered. You may not see God’s genius until you reach the other side, but never doubt God’s plan for your life.

Principle Six: God’s Church is Not Exclusive

No human created religion has a monopoly on God’s wisdom and love. Our diversity of cultures and races was deliberately created by God to give everyone here the opportunity to learn more about love as we interact with those different than ourselves. It is this very diversity that allows us to have experiences in this world that are not possible in Heaven; but, this same diversity is what the dark uses to create fear within us in order to try to separate us further.

This lesson will be difficult for those most committed to their particular religion. The dark is amazingly successful at getting each religion (and sects within each religion) to adopt a tenant that says there is only one path to Heaven. This is just one way the dark hurts those who want to get closer to God. Never forget that God created this world and everyone here with love. By definition, love that strong cannot be exclusionary. This then is the conundrum - how can each human created religion be true to itself and still recognize that it is not the only path to God?

Free will means we can each worship God in our own way. Technically, each person’s relationship with God is different than anyone else’s because no one else has had the exact life experiences. God’s love for each of us is that specific and unique. Notwithstanding, our uniqueness, we inherently want communities where we are safe and have access to others. This same impulse is why we have created religion. Religion creates spiritual security as well as being an aid to help us regulate our collective and individual behaviors. Religions are cultural in that they both help create culture and are shaped by culture. Religious doctrine and theology changes over time as the culture changes. This is fine because religion is important in a community’s stability. What is unfortunate is that most religions proselytize. The reasons are basically twofold. First, the institution wants to survive and needs both money and new members. Second, once you accept your religion is the only path, you instinctively try to get those you love on the path you believe is correct.

My experiences with Heaven have taught me that the only correct path is selfless love. Once love becomes selfless, you cease to be part of the equation. This means that what others choose to do or believe is up to them and that is fine. God’s ability to love is infinite and God’s love never tries to control us. We need to emulate God on this point and quit trying to control what others think or believe. One of love’s defining aspects is compassion. We need to use that compassion to allow others to believe what they want without our intervention. Once we learn to truly love, this becomes much easier.

The dark is always trying to bring fear to our interactions with those different than we are. This is when we need to overcome that fear and remember we came here to learn more about love. Part of that education is learning to appreciate cultures and beliefs that are different from our own. God is so large no human created religion can possibly understand God’s depth or breadth. Each religion contains only a portion of God’s wisdom and love for this world. Once we learn to appreciate those who are different and actually learn from them, everyone benefits.

I want to emphasize that this world needs organized religion. If properly led, the church becomes an anchor in turbulent times. However, the church should not proselytize or judge. Everyone will make up his or her own mind about religion and which one or more to follow or none at all. Respecting each person’s free will is part of our learning to live without fear. Control and compulsion are based in fear and this is why they should have no place in anyone’s life. Jesus met with people in homes because He knew the pressures that would come if the church built its own buildings or became an institution. We can see how the dark has used the institution to bring fear inside the church. We need the church and the church needs us but, in this instance, less is more. If resources are focused externally on those in need, then all will benefit. 

Principle Seven: Never Limit God

Never use your free will to limit God or God’s ability to use you to effect change in this world. The power of love is unlimited when you volunteer to become a servant for God because you are filled with God and God’s Heavenly Host when you act as God’s servant. This is why you should never doubt your capacity to serve regardless of how much the dark has hurt you. Such thoughts are brought by the dark to reduce your effectiveness. When you understand that the dark has no intrinsic power, then you will know the dark is not something to be feared. Rather it is something that needs your prayers. The dark’s essential impotence is on display when you realize how often it has to assault you to destroy your effectiveness while God only needs a moment to totally erase the effects from the dark’s sustained attacks.

Let’s return to what Michael told me as recounted in the discussion for Principle 4. God taught Michael never to limit God and that is the same lesson we need to learn ourselves. This is why Michael told me his story. God is limitless, which means God is infinite in all aspects. No one can love more or know more or feel more. Nothing exists outside God’s purview and nothing that happens in this world surprises God. Whether it is the most horrendous rape and torture or the most magnificent triumph, God knew it would happen before it happened. God knew before time exactly how this world would be abused by us as well as how we would abuse each other while here. There are no secrets here that are hidden from God.

This brings us full circle to ask “why?” Why would God allow the worst to occur and why would God allow the suffering we see daily? The answer is because God knows what these experiences ultimately teach us about love. This world is a “war zone” and we who are here chose to come to serve God and learn more about love. If the dark were not here, we would not be here. All here knew the dark would hurt them because all knew the dark has the capacity to trick everyone into actually losing sight of God for a time. There is risk with every endeavor so why take this risk? Because all here are warriors who knew that God would ultimately heal them from everything the dark was able to do.

If your frame of reference ends in this world, nothing will make sense because suffering is part of our experience here. If your reference is based in faith in God, which it was before you chose to come, then you know what ultimately awaits you when you learn more about love and move closer to God. Our time in bodies seems very limiting because it is. What we often fail to appreciate are the myriad opportunities God always provides for our growth as souls while we are here. Can we can learn to forgive those who rape, murder, or harm our loved ones? Can we learn to forgive those lost children who entice souls to kill church members in worship or their classmates in schools? In these circumstances, the dark has not only stolen the earthly lives from those who have been killed but also stolen the continuing relationships those killed had with their loved ones. This is tolerable only because this world is just a moment in the lives of these souls. Never forget that this world is ultimately an illusion God has created for us to learn about love. We must always remember that we do not have the knowledge, the reference point, or the capacity to see what God sees. This is where your faith must surface if you are to find any peace or joy while here. We all know grief is real and that for any healing to occur that grief has to be addressed spiritually, physically, and emotionally. Also, for healing to occur, one must bring faith, selfless love, compassion, and forgiveness to the problem. No one here lives a trivial life. The world may not recognize the significance of an individual’s life, but because everyone’s life involves suffering, no life is trivial from Heaven’s perspective. As each lesson is learned, that knowledge furthers that soul’s development for eternity.

When Jesus was here in a body, He did not know what He had accomplished. The Bible recounts that Jesus asked God from the Cross, “Why have you forsaken me?” I have been told that this quote is wrong. What Jesus actually asked was, “Have I done enough?” Jesus had to use His own free will during His life and was never told while in a body whether He had accomplished His mission for God. God’s rules do not change for anyone. You will not know what you accomplished for yourself or others until you reach the other side. Otherwise, Heaven would have interfered with your decisions and life while here.

Never doubt that God feels the same pain you do just as the angels in Heaven do. You are never really alone while here in a body. God designed this world where you can feel loneliness but know that loneliness is necessary for you to learn the lessons you wanted to learn. In reality, you are always surrounded by more love, compassion, and joy than you know are possible. Once you find the faith to reach out with selfless love, faith, and no fear, you will always feel Heaven’s presence.

Let me return to God’s rules for a moment as well as God’s genius. Our judicial system works sporadically at best. Many times, guilty people go free while innocent people do not. Such is not the case with God’s system. The Bible says much about God’s wrath and judgment; but, have you ever asked why God would judge anyone when God knew beforehand exactly what that person would do? With God’s foreknowledge, God could “damn” you before you ever left Heaven. Why would God wait for your actions to play out here on earth where you hurt others too? The answer is, God does not damn anyone. This world is an illusion God has created for us to learn more about love. “Earth school,” if you will. Under God’s rules, no one leaves this world and returns to Heaven without first reviewing his or her life with Archangel Michael. Every significant thought or action is reviewed and discussed with Michael in a loving manner to teach you more about love. In the process, you learn to forgive those who have hurt either you or your loved ones. You also re-learn to forgive yourself for your actions that have hurt others. At this meeting, there is no hiding from the truth as everything is exposed to the light because Michael already knows everything you did or thought just as God does. There are no secrets in this world that God and Heaven do not already know.

As I said earlier, those in hell have been tricked into going there whether during life or after. I explained how you get there during life; but, you can also get there after you die. When you pass from flesh, you will see a light. If you go to the light, you will meet Archangel Michael who tells you that it is time to review your life. Standing beside Michael is Lucifer who offers you his hand if you do not want to review your life. A small percentage take Lucifer’s hand. Hell is a place of complete self-judgment and self-hatred except that God did not damn you, you damned yourself. God knows you can learn much from having gone to hell even though it is very painful. This is why it is so important to pray for those who are deceased and why self-less love (which includes forgiveness and compassion), faith, and no fear are the only answers to any problem. God’s system is perfect just as one would expect. God’s genius is on display when you realize this world was created in such a way that nothing is obvious. It is this opaqueness that grants us the opportunity to learn what we wanted to learn before we came.

Once you understand that hell is place of self-judgment, you realize how dangerous that emotion is. Heaven permeates this world in ways we will never understand. Once you eliminate fear, which includes self-judgment, you can become God’s eyes, hands, and feet in this world if you willingly become God’s servant. God’s energy will flow through you when you align with God.  At that point, everything can change in an instant because nothing is impossible with God and nothing is impossible for you when you are filled with God’s love. No one is inadequate when God is present. I was once told that those who become God’s servants are the point of a spear that is held by the Holy Spirit and thrown by God. Another way to present this is, “Once more into the battle my sons and daughters.”

As I have said repeatedly, the dark has no real power. This is why the dark has to continually attack to keep you cowering. However, the wounds will begin to heal once you can accept love. It is a perfect process, which is just what you would expect coming from God.

This world is not an easy place; but, it is a perfect place to learn more about love. Everyone here is an immortal being of light residing for a moment inside a body. Nothing here is permanent except our souls and the lessons we learn. Pray for Lucifer and those who follow him when you pray for this world because you are only here because of Lucifer’s presence and past actions. You knew Lucifer would hurt you while you were here and, yet, you were so intrepid you asked God to send you to a world that desperately needs to see God’s love in action. You are a “warrior for God who came to fight that which is far from God.”  Never doubt your capacity to serve in spite of everything the dark has done to you.

The time is coming when the dark will be vanquished from this world. God is removing the curtains to expose Lucifer as the ultimate “Wizard of Oz.” This date of transition comes closer every time you learn to reject fear and start spreading self-less love to those in need. God placed all here in answer to their prayers. Now is the time to embrace those prayers and learn to change so everyone can find true free will. Once that free will is found, healing will come as all move closer to God. 

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[1]This is a link to an article describing the statistical probability life came from non-life without outside intervention: http://www.benotconformed.org/odds-of-abiogenesis.htm. While the author is a Christian, I am not proselytizing for institutional Christianity. Your religious faith is personal and always up to you. I have included this link just so you can contemplate the math.

[2]Confirmation bias occurs when we ignore or deny information that conflicts with our existing beliefs.

[3]When I use the phrase “shut down our natural feelings,” I mean we try to eliminate or suppress the natural joy or exuberance that comes when we are attuned to the love that permeates this world.

[4]Ireceived the information contained in this article directly from God’s Angels. I chronicled my journey in a book that is available for free at aplacetofeelgod.org. This article is both a restatement of and an expansion of some of the information contained in that book.

[5]Archangel Raphael gave the following information to a friend who has shared it with me.

a)    All matter, from inert to speed of light, is in sacred motion. Inert matter is just moving very slowly, while the speed of light - and beyond – is extremely fast. Faith, no fear, and selfless love can take us out of the observable zone between inert and the speed of light. Beyond the observable zone is the physics of God, which mystics through the ages learned to travel through.

b)     Our body functions as a transducer. Our experience is limited to this “frequency” or “vibration.” (These are not the right terms but some cultures have created words to try to explain this). The fastest item we can see is light, so angels sometimes appear as light or orbs. In their own dimension, they can slow down and appear solid. At a certain speed, atoms will appear as solids (like furniture), but they will disappear when sped up. Atoms dissolve into a non-solid at a certain speed. Energy is mass at a certain speed, which is why it appears solid at low speeds. Angels do not devolve into solids here because they are dimensionally moving so much faster.

c)      In our bodies, there is much space between atoms and this is the space our soul occupies. Angels can share this space with us because, at their dimensional speed, our bodies have plenty of space. 

d)     A river is a space between the space. It separates our dimension and their dimension. The moon is full of life, just at different speeds, which we cannot measure.

e)      Form can reconstitute because energy and mass are interchangeable. Memory in the energy creates the form. Just like water/ice/vapor, everything can change.

f)      Your energy, which is your soul, doesn’t dissipate. It just changes form because its speed changes. Your body is a transducer that stays in its present form by slowing down. When you plug your soul back into heaven, which is its natural connection, your soul steps out of its transducer to speed up.

g)     Physical location is irrelevant to God. This is why you can connect to someone in another country through prayer. Our souls are faster than light and can leave our bodies (just our transducers) and connect to anyone anywhere. Our transducers (our bodies) are just bio-electro-chemical machines that permit us to experience life in this dimension because all here have slowed down. However, all here can reach around the world simultaneously because our true natures are so much faster. Angels can slow down enough to show up as orbs in photos. Orbs are part of God’s intercession between dimensions. It is like a wormhole connection. The soul exists within the physics of God, which is functional infinity. We exist in both dimensions simultaneously, and our spiritual structure can extend to connect to others.

h)     Healing occurs when your soul regains its infinite capacity to be close to God. Illness is the absence of the nature of God.

[6]I will explain how this process happens at Principle 2.

[7]Thisworld is more nuanced than science has taught us about our carbon-based existence. We have not yet developed instruments that are sensitive enough to measure the energy in the spiritual realm; but, our digital cameras can capture pictures of angels within our realm. Angels are beings of light and appear as orbs in digital photographs. You can search the Internet for pictures of orbs or have someone pray and then take a picture of them while praying with a digital camera. You may see orbs in the picture. If you do, those are angels sent by God to help answer that person’s prayers. There are currently more angels in this world than there are souls in bodies.

[8]Angels can also use animals to help us. Heaven only moves through love and the two animals that generate the most love for us are dogs and horses. This is why equine therapy works as it does and why we frequently hear stories of a dog helping someone escape from a burning building.

[9]Souls in purgatory are not lost children. These are souls who are just confused and have not yet gone toward the light.

[10]Afriend who read this section criticized this concept by saying some of the most philanthropic people he knows belong to country clubs. Even if this is true, it does not change the nature of fear. You can give money away and help people while still being filled with fear. For example, if you do not believe you are worthy and try to compensate with charitable deeds, this does not change your state of mind. We do not understand how much these lost children affect us when we are also trying to do the right things. 

[11]For Christians, Jesus is God’s Son. For those of other religious faiths, Jesus was a prophet. For this article, it does not matter what your belief about Jesus is. Just look at the principles He taught and lived during His life and emulate them in your life.

[12]Just think of the lessons of love presented in the parable of the prodigal son or the parable of the good Samaritan.

[13]Archangel Michael once told me Heaven’s definition of sin: lack of faith in the Father, not following what the Son illuminated, or denying the Father.

[14]The term “helicopter parent” was first used in Dr. Haim Ginott's 1969 book Parents & Teenagers by teens who said their parents would hover over them like a helicopter; the term became popular enough to become a dictionary entry in 2011. Similar terms include “lawnmower parenting,” “cosseting parent,” or “bulldoze parenting.” Helicopter parenting refers to “a style of parents who are over focused on their children,” says Carolyn Daitch, Ph.D., director of the Center for the Treatment of Anxiety Disorders near Detroit and author of Anxiety Disorders: The Go-To Guide. “They typically take too much responsibility for their children's experiences and, specifically, their successes or failures,” Dr. Daitch says. Ann Dunnewold, Ph. D., a licensed psychologist and author of Even June Cleaver Would Forget the Juice Box, calls it “overparenting.” “It means being involved in a child's life in a way that is overcontrolling, overprotecting, and overperfecting, in a way that is in excess of responsible parenting,” Dr. Dunnewold explains.