Worldwide Brotherhood and Sisterhood
To have more brotherhood and sisterhood, longer term spiritual perspective must be added to shorter term mortal perspective.
By Leland E Pulley
Throughout the world, there are many types of individuals, and different groups of people. Along with this, we have different cultures, languages, and skin color. Traditions and customs vary, and so do religious beliefs. Forms of government have varied over time and with geography. Is it possible to see through all this diversity and determine what we all have in common?
The first thing we share is basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. Marriage is found in all cultures and having children too. Education and skill development are needed in all groups. Everyone needs a way to make money and pay bills or barter to obtain what is required to sustain themselves. Along with this, there is always some form of government. Various types of transportation are need in every society. The photo above shows a busy train station being utilized by all types of people. What these things should tell us is we have a lot in common, far more than we generally recognize and utilize for the benefit of everyone. The challenge is to stress more of what we have in common, rather than merely our differences. We can learn to utilize both unique and common things for the improvement of conditions in cities, states, countries and continents. Since this is not occurring as much as it should, another incentive is needed.
It is important to consider perspective. Most people have short term perspective. They view earth life as merely a short time period between birth and death. This type of perspective affects individual choices and decisions, ethics and values, and goals. Both vision and judgment are not as clear and accurate as they could be. With limited perspective, it is easy to stress competition over cooperation. The emphasis is generally on yourself and not on others. However, even with short-term perspective, people can do much to understand and help one another. There can be cooperation and progress in addressing social issues.
For true brotherhood and sisterhood to exist and thrive in families, communities, and nations, longer-term perspective is needed. Some of this can come from experiences over a lifetime of earth life. But most will come from learning spiritual truths and applying them in your life. Longer-term perspective leads to better decisions, proper priorities, positive attitudes, achievable goals, and stronger relationships. It considers both the temporal and spiritual needs of individuals. As more people gain longer term perspective, more brotherhood and sisterhood is experienced.
The best way to gain long-term perspective is to understand the plan of life God has laid out for us.
Premortal Life - We all share is a spiritual origin and nature. Every man and woman who has lived on this earth in the past, who is living today, and who will be living in the future is literally a spiritual brother and sister to one another. How can this be? Before being born in this world, each of us was either a male or female spirit. (There was no homosexuality.) A spirit looks just like a human body, but is composed of different material. Indeed, we were all children of our heavenly parents, God the Father, and His wife. In this premortal life, we were unique individuals. We all spoke the same language. We had agency or freedom of choice. Some spirits made more progress than others. We were all healthy spirits without physical and mental health problems.
Earth Life - When we came to this earth through physical birth, our spirits were combined with a physical body. And now, as mortal beings, we are subject to all types of influences, good and bad. Through the body we can have diseases. and even experience early death. We can feel pain. Through the body we have children. But what most people do not understand is the spirit can and should always control the body. When this occurs, it is called self-control or self-mastery.
Spirit World - We are all going to die, or go through physical death. Once this occurs. our spirit leaves the body behind and goes into the Spirit World. There we will still be unique individuals, just as we are here in earth life, and as we were in premortal life. We will keep individual appearance so we can recognize one another. There we will be healthy spirits again. We will not look old but appear as young adults. We do not carry over physical health issues from earth life. Differences in skin color or races or ethnic groups will be gone. Each of us will have our memories. There we will continue to learn and grow and develop, just as we are doing during Earth life.
Resurrection - The time will come when each of us will be resurrected. Our spirit will be reunited with a perfect physical body, never to be separated again. A judgment will take place. Then we will be assigned to one of the three eternal kingdoms (lowest, middle, highest} where we will live forever.
As you should see from this discussion, all the differences that we notice in Earth life are temporary when viewed from an eternal perspective. For example, 10,000 years from now how important is an argument with a neighbor; being laid off on the job; or dying in war? These are temporary, earthly things. We should live the best we can by doing good things for ourselves and others, and avoiding bad things like lying, cheating, stealing, abuse, immoral sexual behavior, crime, conflicts, etc.
I challenge you to reach out to God and learn the truthfulness of the words in this article. Pray about it. Beyond this, seek more true information to increase your understanding. As this occurs, your life will change in many positive ways. Some different choices will be made. Better decisions will be made too. Priorities will change, and so will goals. In essence, your desires and goals should become more and more like our Heavenly Father would want for you. In other words. we are to become more like God in our character, in our marriages and family life, in our citizenship, our employment efforts, and in every other facet of our lives. This is all possible because God respects laws and obeys them. Everything he does is in accordance with eternal laws. As we obey more laws, we become more like him.
The goal is to combine wise earthly perspective and spiritual perspective in the lives of more individuals. This will lead to true brotherhood and sisterhood for more people. As we do this, there will be less abuse, divorce, lawsuits, crime, corruption in government, war, and other such things. If we do not follow this approach, we will have to wait for the Millennium to experience worldwide brotherhood and sisterhood. At that time Christ will come to this earth and reign for 1000 years. The wicked will be removed during his 1000-year reign.
Seriously reflect upon this material. Then slowly but surely make positive changes in your life. Over months and years, major changes will occur. This will help you become the person you are capable of being.
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