We are Born of Spirit

“… He will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even before he is born.” Luke 1:15

In Unity, we teach that Jesus is our way-shower, our example. Therefore, what is true for Jesus is true for us. Jesus expressed his divinity: Our divine potential is waiting to be claimed and used in our own unique way. Jesus ‘was filled with the Holy Spirit, even before he was born.’ He knew his relationship with his Father. We are remembering ours. In this way, I suggest we, too, are born of Spirit.

As part of my talk at our April Sunday service, ‘Life is Eternal’, I shared my current beliefs about our eternal life. I share them here – they may, or may not, support you. As always, in Unity we say, take what works for you and leave the rest …

-         Before birth, we are of Spirit – limitless, formless, but present with consciousness of our self within the one Life. Being conscious, we choose to come into form to experience life and its many colours and variations. 

-         At some point before our birth, our soul, our consciousness, joins with the baby in the womb. Now we are aware of sensations, sounds, vibrations, mostly feeling safe and secure, connected to our mother. 

-         The baby is born – often traumatically, shockingly. Now separate from its mother, it begins to be aware of itself as a separate identity. 

-         Without words, we experience feelings – smiling, laughing, crying or angry – all to help us relate to our physical world that seems to be separate, out there, yet where we need to fit in to feel safe and loved. 

-         As a child and young adult, we pick up our family and cultures belief systems. We find ways to cope with life, be accepted; thinking and communicating to make sense of life and our experiences. We develop coping mechanisms, which become our core beliefs and identity, so deeply embedded they become unconscious in us. They become the way in which we relate to the world. Over time, we learn to identify only with our physical world, often losing our consciousness connection to our Spirit and God-awareness. 

-         In Luke 2: 41-52, Jesus is described at the age of 12, as being in his Father’s house, asking questions of the Rabbi’s, aware of his divine connection. For many of us, by age 12, this is less so. Yet I believe, we are still of the Spirit – we are never separate from our True Self, we only think we are. 

-         We life our lives, get closer or not to God and our Christ consciousness, eventually leaving our bodies and returning back to Spirit, limitless, formless, and perhaps wiser and more loving through the life just lived. 

In Christianity, Jesus’ resurrection is understood to mean that if we take Jesus as our saviour, we return to the Father when we die. We go to heaven. Yet Jesus also said, the kingdom of heaven is in our midst, now. Therefore, my long-held beliefs are – yes, we return to the Father, to Spirit, but all of us do, for truthfully, we never left. Spirit is always here – we are of the Spirit. It is simply that the physical world took all our attention for a while.

This is my belief and my vision, inspired by my experience and by Spirit within.
What is Spirit calling you to know and be?

Rev Kimerie Mapletoft
Director of Silent Unity and Daily Word UK