Messages 2001

John Mark on faith and looking within.

October 29th, 2001

Received by H.

Cuenca, Ecuador

[Judas:]

Please, calm down, H___, everything is alright. Yes, I know, you have seen another spirit, a boy and an adult man. Yes, they are one and the same spirit. We tried to project those images into your mind, and he is here now. I also know that you did not receive the image of the grown-up well, but you will receive it. He is here now and wishes to deliver a message, not directly for you, but for one of your friends. But it is a valuable message for you and for everyone. Allow him to speak. You will not be disappointed.

I would like to say in addition that you have already had an experience with an unknown spirit which caused you some bad sensations, and you simply cut the communication. This is fine. The kind of communication depends on you, and you can decide. That is why you need not fear. If you do not feel comfortable, simply break the contact. But in this case now, you do not feel bad, you feel surprised. Don’t worry. He’s going to speak now:

[The unknown spirit:]

Hello my brother. I am sorry that I have caused you some inconvenience. This was not my intention. I would also like to thank you for the time you are giving me.

Before I start, I would like to introduce myself. I am John Mark. Yes, that John Mark. I lived on earth at the time of Jesus. I was born in Jerusalem, and I met the Master when I was still a boy. I enjoyed the privilege of seeing him personally, of speaking with him, and I feel favored, because this personal relationship with Jesus allowed an unbreakable faith to grow inside me, a faith which accompanied me and grew inside me when I followed Barnabas, Paul, and Peter, and when I lived in Rome and in Alexandria, during all my life, until the present time.

Yes, I have been a privileged man, and I know that for many people things are not so, and I know that for many people things are not as clear and definitive as they were for me.

I would like to address my dear brother, D___, who now suffers from problems and doubts, which I never knew in my own life as a mortal, but which I do know from my many experiences with mortals whom I have tried to help during all those years of my existence, both on earth and in the spirit world.

D___, I am not your personal guide, although I know you well, and I have often been with you. But we have concluded that it would be the best if I directed some words to you, because you are a very kindred person to me, and also, I have to admit it, because the name of the spirit who communicates may give much weight to what he has to say. There are many millions of Celestial spirits, and they all have the qualification of being able to lend good and safe guidance. And one of these spirits accompanies you permanently. You don’t know him by his name, but he is with you, and you can feel him.

It is sad that you should have written: “I end up thinking that all this is the fruit of my readiness to believe and that all the rest is an ‘overheating’ of my imagination, and that in reality there is nothing more to it than my own imagination. I have asked for some proof that I am mistaken and I have attempted some communication (for a proof), but I have failed.”

It is true, you are ready to believe. But it is not true that you have failed in establishing some communication. In fact, you are receiving it continually. How do you imagine this communication to be? How should it be?

Do you expect that a spirit will materialize in front of you? Do you expect to hear a voice with your physical ears delivering a message? Well, if that is your expectation, I must disappoint you. That won’t happen.

You are receiving messages, your very own personal messages. You feel them in the form of impulses, ideas, inclinations, “desires,” etc. You are where you are now because you have followed this advice, and these messages, in part. You are seeking and finding because you are following our guidance.

You have your proof in front of your nose and yet you don’t see it. And all the proofs will be of this nature. Religion, as we have stated repeatedly, is the mortal’s or the spirit’s own relationship to God. Religion, therefore, is a soul to Soul relationship, personal and very own in its character for each person. And so are the proofs, personal and very unique. What you consider a proof for another person won’t be any proof, because they are personal experiences which cannot be measured or weighed or expressed in mathematical formulas.

You wrote that you could only accept as a proof so far that you have felt very well inwardly, that everything around you also felt well. But there are others who “seemingly” are also OK or even better than you (irrespective of the economic situation), and they don’t even believe in the existence of God.

Very true words. At the material level they are OK, even better perhaps than you. But at the spiritual level are they also? How do you know this? You should ask them in some decades when the moment approaches to say good-bye to this world, and see if their happiness and easiness continues in the same way.

Every person lives in their own world, a world that they build according to their beliefs, and therefore, whatever they believe and think fits marvelously into their world. But their world is not the real world, but an artificial one. The moment comes for each person when the personal world has to give way to reality. And then the walls crumble and everything lies in ruins.

But that is not the point. The idea is that you should not look for your own happiness in comparison to other people. Compare what was inside you with what is inside you today. When you are with God you feel well, but when doubts come and you go away, you feel bad.

Yes, it is a matter of faith. Faith means to know, to comprehend. There is no space in it for doubt. Faith is the knowledge of reality that goes beyond the world built by us. When that world crumbles in the face of reality, it is faith which remains, because it is part of the universal reality.

You cannot acquire that faith by reading messages, not through the Padgett messages, nor through the Urantia book, nor through any other literature. Faith is an interior knowledge. The messages are only crutches helping you to move along. Those crutches are not the end point, they are only a means.

It is not wrong to read messages, it is not wrong to seek information. But look for whatever is in agreement, and discard whatever is in contradiction. There is no perfect message, all those writings take the indelible print of the mortal who receives them, as in the case of this mortal, through whom I am now writing. He leaves his imprints on all the messages he receives, his salt, his spice. But there is an authentic foundation for Padgett, for the Urantia Book, for the Bible, for the Bhagavad-Gita. This authentic foundation is the existence of a loving God, Who loves all His creation, and Who guides people “that walk with Him.” He guides along ways that are not necessarily easy, but optimum.

If you want to compare, compare yourself with yourself, with your condition some years ago and with your present condition. Another indication is to measure the personal progress in the development of perceptions. In practically all people the perception of spirit presence grows. They can feel them in some way. And the most important thing is that they can perceive their inner voice more clearly.

You can perceive it, everybody can do this, but you must become more aware of it. That voice can tell you the same things the messages tell you, and even more. And that development allows you to separate the pearls of Truth from those “adornments” around them, those of little value. What the inner voice conveys to you is the idea of an external being, one which enables you to perceive foreign ideas, but in the form of your own voice.

Remember, your faith is your perfect vision of what is, your knowledge it is your vision of what seems to be, the vision in the mirror, devices that at the time when Paul wrote his famous phrase, were made of polished metal, thus producing a blurred and distorted image.

I hope that my words may be useful to you. Seek God and your religion within you. It is there where you will experience His manifestations, it is there where you will accumulate that durable knowledge we call faith. Use the appropriate instrument, namely prayer. Understand that what your eyes are seeing now is but a fleeting moment in a long chain of events. What seems to be happiness now may collapse like a house of cards tomorrow. If you seek the lasting things, don”t look for them in this world. The lasting things you have inside of you.

You have received the Love of God. It is like a flame needing fuel. Give it this fuel, keep it ablaze. It is true, it will never fade away completely, but neither will it warm you if you don’t make your contribution.

With these words I will say good-bye. Thank you, H.., for your time. Thank you D___, for your request. It is the desires of your soul which are calling us. Listen to your soul because it knows.

[Judas:]

You received it well, H. I am glad. I just want to tell you that John is an extraordinarily developed spirit. Of course he is an inhabitant of the Celestial Heavens, with a development which exceeds that of many of the apostles, and certainly mine. He lives very near the Master.

Yes, I called him John and not Mark. John, or Yohanan, was his real name. When he finally lived in Rome, he adopted the name of the family where he stayed, Marcus, and for that reason he sometimes appears in the Bible under the name of John, sometimes as Markos, the Greek form of the Roman last name, and sometimes with the double name. They are so many “Johns” in Hebrew, so that it may be preferable to use his double name.

OK, I will also say good-bye. It has been a message out of our schedule, but it has been worthwhile.

We will continue tomorrow. Until then, with my blessings,

I am your brother in the spirit,

Judas of Kerioth.