1. "You, God, are alone; there is none beside you. You have created the heaven and the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts; you preserve and control them. The Creator covers himself with light as with a garment and stretches out the heavens as a curtain." [Psalms 104:2] [1:0:1]

2. The earth is inhabited with beings who can know God, receive the divine affection, and love him in return. "God created the heavens and formed the earth; he established the universe and created this world not in vain; he formed it to be inhabited." [Isaiah 45:18]  You, God, are the eternal maker and infinite upholder of all creation. [1:0:2,3]

3. From the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the supreme mandate: "Be you perfect, even as I am perfect." [Matthew 5:48] In love and mercy the messengers of God have carried this divine exhortation down through the ages, even to such lowly creatures as the human races of Earth. [1:0:3]
    This magnificent and universal injunction to strive for the attainment of the perfection of divinity is the first duty, and should be the highest ambition, of all the struggling creature creation of the God of perfection. This possibility of the attainment of divine perfection is the final and certain destiny of all man’s eternal spiritual progress. [1:0:4]
    Urantia [earth] mortals can hardly hope to be perfect in the infinite sense, but it is entirely possible for human beings, starting out as they do on this planet, to attain the supernal and divine goal which the infinite God has set for mortal man; and when they do achieve this destiny, they will, in all that pertains to self-realization and mind attainment, be just as replete in their sphere of divine perfection as God himself is in his sphere of infinity and eternity. Such perfection may not be universal in the material sense, unlimited in intellectual grasp, or final in spiritual experience, but it is final and complete in all finite aspects of divinity of will, perfection of personality motivation, and God-consciousness. [1:0:5]

    This is the true meaning of that divine command, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect,” which ever urges mortal man onward and beckons him inward in that long and fascinating struggle for the attainment of higher and higher levels of spiritual values and true universe meanings. This sublime search for the God of universes is the supreme adventure of the inhabitants of all the worlds of time and space. [1:0:6]

4. Man's Choicest Gift to God.
    The Universal Father never imposes any form of arbitrary recognition, formal worship, or slavish service upon the intelligent will creatures of the universes. The evolutionary inhabitants of the worlds of time and space must of themselves—in their own hearts—recognize, love, and voluntarily worship him. The Creator refuses to coerce or compel the submission of the spiritual free wills of his material creatures. The affectionate dedication of the human will to the doing of the Father’s will is man’s choicest gift to God; in fact, such a consecration of creature will constitutes man’s only possible gift of true value to the Paradise Father. In God, man lives, moves, and has his being; there is nothing which man can give to God except this choosing to abide by the Father’s will, and such decisions, effected by the intelligent will creatures of the universes, constitute the reality of that true worship which is so satisfying to the love-dominated nature of the Creator Father. [1:1:2]
    Note: Therefore, blood sacrifices, or any other kind of material sacrifices, are totally unnecessary. But fear-driven primitive man, believing that his gods were just like himself, only more powerful, could think of nothing better with which to attempt to appease his numerous gods.

    Christians of today would do well to heed the warning Isaiah gave to the spiritually depraved cities of Sodom and Gomorrah: [Isaiah 1:10-16] "Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats." [Chapter 1, Verses 10 and 11] Isaiah then enumerated a list of additional practices also not pleasing to the Lord. [Verses 12-14] Apparently the Jews were not listening, and neither are present-day Christians. During the times of Jesus blood sacrifices by the thousands were still practiced in the Temple. Paul conceived the erroneous concept that Jesus was the last blood sacrifice needed for the redemption of mankind. Christians are only too willing to believe that the blood of Jesus will wipe away their sins. [Given the proclivity of theologians to engage in circular reasoning they have found a detour around Isaiah's plainly worded warning.

    Many times I have pondered the question: What is true worship? How do I engage in true worship? We constantly engage in true worship by diligently striving to do God's will on a daily basis.

5. God is neither man-like nor machine-like. He is universal spirit, eternal truth, infinite reality, and father personality. He is absolute, eternal, and infinite, but he is also good, divine, and gracious. God is spirit; God is love. [1 John 4:16] He is a saving person and a loving Father to all who enjoy spiritual peace on earth, and who crave to experience personality survival in death [resurrection in heaven]. [1:2:1,2] [1:3:8]
    Notwithstanding that God is an eternal power, a majestic presence, a transcendent ideal, and a glorious spirit, though he is all these and infinitely more, nonetheless, he is truly and everlastingly a perfect Creator personality, a person who can "know and be known," who can "love and be loved," and one who can befriend us; while you can be known, as other humans have been known, as the friend of God. He is a real spirit and a spiritual reality. [1:5:8]
    It is literally true: "In all your triumphs he triumphs in and with you." "In all your afflictions he is afflicted." [1:5:16] [Exodus 3:7] [Isaiah 63:9] [Acts 7:34]

6. The existence of God can never be proved by scientific experiment or by the pure reason of logical deduction. God can be realized only in the realms of human experience; nevertheless, the true concept of the reality of God is reasonable to logic, plausible to philosophy, essential to religion, and indispensable to any hope of personality survival [resurrection in heaven]. [1:2:4]
    The infinity of God is such that it eternally constitutes him mystery. Nevertheless, mortal men have something from God himself which actually dwells within them: the Indwelling Spirit [Thought Adjuster]. This Indwelling Spirit is a fragment of God, a part and parcel of divinity. [1:4:1,2] [Romans 8:14] [1 Corinthians 2:12]
    The physical bodies of mortals are “the temples of God.” Notwithstanding that the Sovereign Creator Sons [such as Jesus] come near the creatures of their inhabited worlds and “draw all men to themselves”; though they “stand at the door” of consciousness “and knock” and delight to come in to all who will “open the doors of their hearts”; although there does exist this intimate personal communion between the Creator Sons and their mortal creatures, nevertheless, mortal men have something from God himself [the Indwelling Spirit] which actually dwells within them; their bodies are the temples thereof. [1:4:2] [1 Corinthians 3:16] [Revelation 3:20] [John 12:32]

    When you are through down here, when your course has been run in temporary form on earth, when your trial trip in the flesh is finished, when the dust that composes the mortal tabernacle “returns to the earth whence it came”; then, it is revealed, the indwelling “Spirit shall return to God who gave it.” There sojourns within each moral being of this planet a fragment of God, a part and parcel of divinity. It is not yet yours by right of possession, but it is designedly intended to be one with you if you survive the mortal existence. [1:4:3] [Psalms 104:29] [Ecclesiastes 12:7]

    Those who know God have experienced the fact of his presence; such God-knowing mortals hold in their personal experience the only positive proof of the existence of the living God which one human being can offer to another. The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the God-presence of the Indwelling Spirit that indwells the mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of God the Father. [1:2:5]
    The Paradise spirit, the Indwelling Spirit, that indwells the minds of the mortals of time and there fosters the creation of the immortal soul of the surviving creature is of the nature and divinity of God the Father. These Indwelling Spirits are the will of God abroad in the universe. Sent by God, they are a part of the infinity of God, the Father of Fathers. [1:3:6]

7. "God is spirit." [1 John 4:24] "God is love." [1 John: 4:8,16] He is a universal spiritual presence. The Universal Father is "the sovereign, eternal, immortal, invisible, and only true God." [John 17:3] [Deuteronomy 6:4] God the Father is an infinite spiritual reality; he is the sovereign, eternal, immortal, invisible, and only true God. The God of universal love unfailingly manifests himself to every one of his creatures up to the fullness of that creature’s capacity to spiritually grasp the qualities of divine truth, beauty, and goodness. [1:3:1]
    [Note: John 16:13 states: "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth . . ." Based on this statement by John, it appears that we can logically conclude that the Bible is not necessarily the final revelation of God. If a mortal is willing to be led by the Indwelling Spirit and the Spirit of Truth on a daily basis, and if his spiritual capacity permits, then God always stands ready to provide him with an increased revelation of truth.]
    God is not invisible because he is hiding himself away from lowly man. Rather, says God: "You cannot see my face, for no mortal can see me and live." No material man could behold the spirit God and preserve his mortal existence. The spiritual luminosity of the Father's personal presence is a "light which no mortal man can approach; which no material creature has seen or can see." [I Timothy 6:16] But it is not necessary to see God with the eyes of the flesh in order to discern him by the faith-vision of the spiritualized mind. [1:3:3]
    [Note: When Elijah fused with his Indwelling Spirit, his physical body was instantly consumed by the fusion so that he disappeared "in chariots of fire." (2 Kings 2:11)]
    Said the prophet of old: Lo, he goes by me, and I see him not; he passes on also, but I perceive him not. [Job 9:11?] [1:3:2]
    Do not permit the magnitude of God, his infinity, either to obscure or eclipse his personality. "He who planned the ear, shall he not hear? He who formed the eye, shall he not see?" [Psalms 94:9] God cannot possibly be anything less than eternal, infinite, true, good, and a beautiful personality. [1:5:1,2]
    The immensity and grandeur of the divine personality is beyond the grasp of the unperfected mind of man. He "measures the waters in the hollow of his hand, measures the universe with the span of his hand." [Isaiah 40:12] [1:5:3]

    "It is he who sits on the circle of the earth, who stretches out the heavens as a curtain and spreads them out as a universe to dwell in." [Isaiah 40:22] "Lift up your eyes on high and behold who has created all these things, who brings out their worlds by number and calls them all by their names"; and so it is true that "the invisible things of God are partially understood by the things which are made." [Isaiah 40:26] [Hebrews 11:3?] [1:5:3]
    God so loved the world as to provide for the eternal spiritual progression of earth's lowly inhabitants; he "delights in his children." God is lacking in none of those superhuman and divine attributes which constitute a perfect, eternal, loving, and infinite personality. [1:5:4]

8. "Touching the Infinite, we cannot find him out. The divine footsteps are not known." [Job 37:23] "His understanding is infinite and his greatness is unsearchable." [Psalms 145:3] The blinding light of the Father's presence is such that to his lowly creatures he apparently "dwells in the thick darkness." [I Kings 8:12] Not only are his thoughts and plans unsearchable, but "he does great and marvelous things without number." [Job 5:9] "God is great; we comprehend him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out." [Job 5:9] "Will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, the heavens cannot contain him." [I Kings 8:27] "How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out!" [Romans 11:33] [2:1:1]
    "There is but one God, the infinite Father, who is also a faithful Creator." [I Corinthians 8:6] "The divine Creator is also the Universal Disposer, the source and destiny of souls. He is the Supreme Soul, the Primal Mind, and the Unlimited Spirit of all creation." "The great Controller makes no mistakes. He is resplendent in majesty and glory." "The Creator God is wholly devoid of fear and enmity. He is immortal, eternal, self-existent, divine, and bountiful." "How pure and beautiful, how deep and unfathomable is the supernal Ancestor of all things!" [2:1:2] [I Chronicles 29:11?]
    "The Infinite is most excellent in that he imparts himself to men. He is the beginning and the end, the Father of every good and perfect purpose." "With God all things are possible; the eternal God is the cause of causes." No thing is new to God, and no cosmic event ever comes as a surprise; he inhabits the circle of eternity. He is without beginning or end of days. To God there is no past, present, or future; all time is present at any given moment. He is the great and only I AM. [2:1:2,5] [Matthew 19:26] [Mark 10:27]

9. God is spirit--spirit personality; man is also a spirit--potential spirit personality. Jesus of Nazareth attained the full realization of this potential of spirit personality in human experience; therefore his life of achieving the Father’s will becomes man’s most real and ideal revelation of the personality of God. Even though the personality of God can be grasped only in actual religious experience, in Jesus’ earth life we are inspired by the perfect demonstration of such a realization and revelation of the personality of God in a truly human experience. [1:6:8]

     The following information is quoted verbatim from Paper 34, Section 7.

34:7.1 The flesh, the inherent nature derived from the animal-origin races, does not naturally bear the fruits of the divine Spirit. When the mortal nature has been upstepped by the addition of the nature of the Material Sons of God, as the Urantia races were in a measure advanced by the bestowal of Adam, then is the way better prepared for the Spirit of Truth to co-operate with the indwelling Adjuster to bring forth the beautiful harvest of the character fruits of the spirit. If you do not reject this spirit, even though eternity may be required to fulfill the commission, “he will guide you into all truth.” [John 16:13]

34:7.2 Evolutionary mortals inhabiting normal worlds of spiritual progress do not experience the acute conflicts between the spirit and the flesh which characterize the present-day Urantia races. But even on the most ideal planets, pre-Adamic man must put forth positive efforts to ascend from the purely animalistic plane of existence up through successive levels of increasingly intellectual meanings and higher spiritual values.

34:7.3 The mortals of a normal world do not experience constant warfare between their physical and spiritual natures. They are confronted with the necessity of climbing up from the animal levels of existence to the higher planes of spiritual living, but this ascent is more like undergoing an educational training when compared with the intense conflicts of Urantia mortals in this realm of the divergent material and spiritual natures.

34:7.4 The Urantia peoples are suffering the consequences of a double deprivation of help in this task of progressive planetary spiritual attainment. The Caligastia upheaval precipitated world-wide confusion and robbed all subsequent generations of the moral assistance which a well-ordered society would have provided. But even more disastrous was the Adamic default in that it deprived the races of that superior type of physical nature which would have been more consonant with spiritual aspirations.

34:7.5 Urantia mortals are compelled to undergo such marked struggling between the spirit and the flesh because their remote ancestors were not more fully Adamized by the Edenic bestowal. It was the divine plan that the mortal races of Urantia should have had physical natures more naturally spirit responsive.

34:7.6 Notwithstanding this double disaster to man’s nature and his environment, present-day mortals would experience less of this apparent warfare between the flesh and the spirit if they would enter the spirit kingdom, wherein the faith sons of God enjoy comparative deliverance from the slave-bondage of the flesh in the enlightened and liberating service of wholehearted devotion to doing the will of the Father in heaven. Jesus showed mankind the new way of mortal living whereby human beings may very largely escape the dire consequences of the Caligastic rebellion and most effectively compensate for the deprivations resulting from the Adamic default. “The spirit of the life of Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of animal living and the temptations of evil and sin.” “This is the victory that overcomes the flesh, even your faith.” [Romans 8:2] [I John 5:4]

34:7.7 Those God-knowing men and women who have been born of the Spirit experience no more conflict with their mortal natures than do the inhabitants of the most normal of worlds, planets which have never been tainted with sin nor touched by rebellion. Faith sons work on intellectual levels and live on spiritual planes far above the conflicts produced by unrestrained or unnatural physical desires. The normal urges of animal beings and the natural appetites and impulses of the physical nature are not in conflict with even the highest spiritual attainment except in the minds of ignorant, mistaught, or unfortunately overconscientious persons.

34:7.8 Having started out on the way of life everlasting, having accepted the assignment and received your orders to advance, do not fear the dangers of human forgetfulness and mortal inconstancy, do not be troubled with doubts of failure or by perplexing confusion, do not falter and question your status and standing, for in every dark hour, at every crossroad in the forward struggle, the Spirit of Truth will always speak, saying, “This is the way.” [Isaiah 30:21]

Note: Most statements in this paper were quoted verbatim from the source.