 Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Lovely to see you all again. Yeah, we're going to continue on with our God's Not Dead movie series. And I'm really looking forward to seeing this one. And for those who are new, I'm Peter. I'm going to be the host today. And I'll just let you know the flow of the day. So we start the movie with David. And then afterwards we'll have a 10 minute break. Then we have breakout rooms where you can share any emotions or experiences. And then we'll have a 45 minute break. And then the Q&A session with me. So I'm going to pass it over to you now, David. Thank you, Pete. Hi. Hi, everyone. Oh, we're, we're taking a deep dive into the kingdom of heaven today. I promise you, you will not even feel the same after we get through with this. You, we're going bye bye to the world today. This is like, whoa, we're going down, down, down into the kingdom of heaven. So I hope you all are ready, you know, I'm ready. I'm just swirling with all this joy and happiness. And I think all of us have this deep love in our hearts. That's just full to say it's been covered over with a fog or covered over with the mesmerism of time and space. But today we're just going to go dip down under the fog and just go into the blazing light. No time to fool around anymore. So some of you know, we're, we're really going to use the Christian symbols and the Christian mysticism symbols. And we've got a whole line of great movies to do this with, but today we're going to use the movie God's not dead to. And this is a beautiful touching dive into the core of Christ, and Christ is who we are. So when we are diving into the core of Christ, we are answering the call of the ancient Greeks who said, know thyself. We are, we are going with all the great mystical traditions, the Advaita Vedanta traditions, all the deep non dual traditions in India and China. Because that was all about self realization. And what we learned from a course of miracles was Jesus was the first one seemingly in time to awaken to eternal reality. And he came close and there's been many great mystics and saints afterwards and it really doesn't matter because we understand now that Jesus is just a symbol in time and space of our Christ mind. So really, people don't wake up is it's the mind wakes up and realizes that the body and history doesn't even exist. Some people say, I don't like that to hear that Jesus was the first are you comparing Jesus to Buddha and no we're not we're just saying that history doesn't even exist, and it won't exist. Jesus says if you didn't keep making the same mistake in the present. So, so even our avatars and our saints and our mystics, those are just little sparkles of light that are reminders to our one mind to remember our oneness, that's all they are, you can't compare and contrast mystics and saints. It's the ego trying to play some more tricks because bodies don't wake up the mind that realizes it wasn't a body. It was never even in a body. That's what we're talking about spiritual awakening. How's that for your avatar, your, your own mind realizing you were never in a body. Your mind realizing that nobody ever did anything wrong to you or right to you because you were just mistaken about your main identity. So, 2000 years ago, some of you remember reading it in the Bible in the red letters. There's a part in the Gospels where, where actually Peter is there with Jesus. Here you have Jesus Christ, who is just will say the perfect child of God in the nose, without a doubt that that the identity is purely spirit and not a body at all. And then there's these two men 2000 years ago sitting there, and then Jesus calmly and softly turns to Peter, and says to Peter, who do you say I am. Well, imagine if you had a perfect reflection of divine love. Basically, the I am presence, I and the father are one. And then Jesus is asking a rhetorical question because, of course, Jesus already knows who he is. Don't you love these rhetorical questions. He's just asking a rhetorical question to Peter. Who do you say that I am and Peter doesn't hesitate he says you are, you are the living Christ you are the, the son of God. And then Jesus very calmly says, it was not man that spoke. That's not even a conversation between two men. Who do you say I am rhetorical question. Peter says you are the son of God you are the, you are the living Christ. And then Jesus says it was not man that spoke saying, Oh good the Holy Spirit's coming through you loud and clear. I would say for all human beings. We're simply dealing with that same question. Every moment of every day, we're dealing with an identity issue. And really the core question underneath us is, who do you say that I am. Regardless of what history has shown, regardless of what your situation seems to be in the world yourself concept of being a man or a woman young or old, beautiful or ugly, you know, this country of origin that country of origin. Well, none of that really matters in the end, because your spirit, and you've always been spirit. And every time we take anything of time and space seriously, we just forget that we're the Christ and we just reinforce in our mind that we're some kind of a person, some we've identified with the puppet, we've identified with the marionette, and we've, we've forgotten the glorious light, the I am presence that's before time and space that is our natural reality. So what you're going to love about the movie today is this movie, God's not dead to just like the first one. And just like the third one which I'll show next week and then the fourth one, which I'll show the following week after that. All of these movies were made using experiences that Christians have gone through actual court cases actual events seemingly in time and space. And then they put them together into a teaching device. Thank you. Thank you for all the work that went in to put these amazing teaching devices because it, it makes my job easy. I feel like I am sitting in the happiest seat in the world, using these spectacular teaching devices, just so we can remember who we are in the present moment. It's got, there's nothing easier than that. So for me, this I have such gratitude for that because, because the symbols of the world are only parables and symbols that point to the light that we are, just like the old parable of the Zen master who, who's pointing at the moon, and then all the students are are admiring the finger of the of the Zen master, and the Zen master is like going. No, no. I'm just pointing to the light. Don't take me as the light. I'm just pointing to the light my actions my behaviors are just demonstrations of kindness of sweetness of laughter of joy, but the light is who we all are. You know the light is who we've always been and, and that's what we're waking up now to finally remember. So, you're going to see some of the same characters carrying over from last, last week. We still have Pastor David, Pastor Dave is still going to be in this movie God's not dead to and he'll be there in three and four as well. We have remember Martin, the Chinese man who, who was in the class with Professor Radisson and, and Josh Wheaton and then how he was the first one to stand up and and say God's not dead. Well, we get to see him continue on because in this movie. He's just a brand new Christian who's just starting to have a relationship with Jesus and connect to this vest Christ awareness, and he's going to seek out Pastor Dave, and he's going to say I have some questions, and he has written down 147 comprehensive questions for Pastor Dave. Sounds like the story of my life. I've been on the world for two, two and a half decades and people have been asking me more than 147 questions, maybe more like a close to 147,000 questions I have fielded in my happy time on planet Earth. Basically, what I'm doing is the same thing the pastor Dave's doing he's going to have to simply simply answer what the spirit gives him and learn and grow from being truly helpful. Teach what you would learn, you know, teach as a means of conversion in your own mind so that you let the spirit of God speak through you with every person you meet with every place that you go. Suddenly, you realize that you're one with God that you're the light, and you've always been the light and game over for ego. Jesus is telling us the good news is game is already over for ego. Now all you have to do is is devote your mind to the light and the light will show you that it's game over. It's game over when the Holy Spirit is on the scene the game is over the game of ego is over. Light and darkness cannot coexist perfect love cast out fear. Once you identify with the Holy Spirit game over for the ego. No more fear. No more guilt. No more challenge. No more struggle. Strike three ego. Oh, you're out of there. Go and sit down because the game is over. Today, once again, today's movie will be a very, very, very deep practical teaching that involves a school teacher named Grace. And what a great name for a school teacher she's going to be Grace and she's a history teacher. And in this movie she's going to be in her class teaching history. And then there's a student named Brooke who has a question. And basically, she's just teaching about she's teaching about Gandhi. And then there's a mention of Martin Luther King. And then this woman, young woman Brooke who's a student in the class, who is not a Christian but she's just asking a curious question about about Jesus. And so, Grace being a history teacher starts to share a few things about Jesus as well. Now, this is beautiful because Gandhi is mentioned and I find all beautiful expressions of love and light are so open minded. Gandhi, even though he was raised as a Hindu Gandhi studied the Bible, and Gandhi really thought Jesus was a cool guy. He really liked the teachings of Jesus. Gandhi was inspired by other teachers and writers in India and even in like Russia Tolstoy was a writer in the 1800s and the early 1900s. And Gandhi was really influenced by the writings of Leo Tolstoy. Martin Luther King was very inspired by Jesus, but Martin Luther King was also inspired by Gandhi. You see, the ones that wake up to the reality of truth are inspired by the symbols of the bright symbols in this world that come in with clear thinking. Non judgmental thinking you see it's religion is was never meant to be exclusive. Any religion that says this is the only way. That's the ego speaking. There are many pathways to God. And in these many pathways to God you start to realize wow it's my own state of mind that is my religion. If you're peaceful. You are religious in the true sense, your spiritual in the true sense. When you are peaceful when you are joyful when you are happy, you are demonstrating the essence of religion because the essence of religion is peace and love and joy. It doesn't matter the theology. It doesn't matter the culture. It doesn't matter the language. When you are peaceful you are demonstrating that the highest essence of religion and the highest essence of philosophy and the highest essence of psychology. You're demonstrating the highest essence of music, the highest essence of art. When you are peaceful you are the representation of God, and God is one, and one is love, and that has no barriers, no limits, no concepts that that to hold the truth. There is one truth and Jesus tells us in the course the truth is true and only the truth is true but that truth is pure love and light. So we try to attach that word truth to some kind of theology or philosophy or worldly concept, because our state of mind is everything. Once you open yourself to this day to mind you can just let go safely of the rest, because the rest was just scaffolding. The rest was just steps to come to the experience of who you really are. This week you voted on some themes and these are going to be the themes that we are going to dive into today and go all the way down the rabbit hole into an actual experience of God's love. The next theme is let the miracle convince my mind. Let the Holy Spirit use miracles to convince you that you're the one. You know in the matrix, Morpheus tells Neo you're the one, you are the one. Then Neo still has to go through a lot of experiences. That's what the whole first matrix movies about he's facing all his challenges, all his doubts all his temptations. But what we're saying with this first theme is let the miracle convince my mind. Let the Holy Spirit use miracles to convince me that nothing can harm me. Let the Holy Spirit show you that you are invulnerable untouchable when you are in alignment with the Holy Spirit that nothing of this world can touch who you are. In fact, there's one part in the course of miracles where Jesus said that basically this world is is is nothing more than an opportunity to realize who you are. As you are the goal the world is searching for. Try that one on. Try that one on you are the goal the world is searching for. In the Bible Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is within you in a course of miracles Jesus says the word within is actually unnecessary. The kingdom of heaven is you. And chopping off the within part. Now he's not talking about your personality self. He's talking about your, your Christ self that the abstract love and light and joy that's, that's what the goal of the world is that's what the, that's the kingdom of heaven is who you are as the Christ. So, the second theme is I am under no laws but God's. Now in this movie, we're going to find that this very sweet history teacher named Grace. She's going to be accused of trying to mix religion with education. Although she's just a history teacher and she's just answering a question. She's basically invoking Gandhi and then she mentions Martin Luther King and then she mentions Jesus but when she mentions Jesus. She's going to become under question under investigation she's going to be actually eventually put on trial for just mentioning Jesus, and a couple of his sayings in her history class. So, a lot of you will probably agree with me like come on if you can't even talk about historical figures in your history class. What good is the history class if you're not even allowed to bring up some historical figures. Well, she's, she's going to be threatened with losing her job for mentioning Jesus in a history class. Some of you are familiar with this term separation of church and state in the United States that seems to be a big deal separation of church and state. I want to go back and give it a little bit of historical context so you can understand these things, because Jesus seemed to come to planet Earth about 2000 years ago. And if you can understand the context that all of time and space was made by the ego, and all of time and space is a projection of the hatred and darkness of the belief in separation. So the big bang didn't come from God. The big bang comes from the ego, the ego invented time and space I know this is goes against Genesis, you know that God created the heavens and the earth but actually Jesus is saying everything of time and space was made by the ego. There is no time and space in heaven. This is a projection of guilt. It's a projection of hatred and fear. So, the world was made by the ego and then suddenly this beam of light that's so brilliant and so bright seems to appear as Jesus Christ. It's a beam of light, a spot of light that's so brilliant that if you would go into this spot of light you would find that everything is light. You would find that you prick a hole in time and space and you go into eternity, just through this little keyhole. And this again is just was a symbol keyhole, because truth is not a man or a woman and truth doesn't appear in time and space and the word of God, which is the Christ actually never comes into time and space but Jesus is a reflection of that bright light. Just imagine like if a giant meteor of light hit the earth. That's kind of what happened 2000 years ago in Galilee was this vast light seemed to prick and hit planet Earth. And then after that, there were the apostles of course, and then the teachings of Jesus and then as the centuries go on. You start to see the ego adapting and adjusting and distorting the Christ teachings. The ego is like, well, we got to do something about this light now and we can't let this catch on in the darkness so let's just interject into the Jesus let's just interject sacrifice and penance and suffering. And let's turn that story of Jesus into a suffering man who died on the cross for the sins of the world you see how the ego just adapted the story and adapted the teachings for its own purpose, because the ego is a death wish only in the death wish could invent suffering, penance punishment only a death wish could come up with that that had nothing to do with what Jesus was teaching. And then, as the centuries go on. Some of you are from, who of you are in Europe, let me have the Europeans raise their hand, you're in Europe, right. Okay. Yeah, you're in the Middle East that that's pretty close to. Well anyway, during the periods as we go on through the centuries that the Christian church starts to become so seemingly powerful that in some cases the Christian church is ruling the people. So jump ahead to St. Francis in the 1200s in Europe there in Italy in a CC St. Francis now he lives in the time, the time of the Crusades, but also a time where I told you last week that St. Francis built a church stone by stone. He built an old church, which was just rubble, and send a mano, and he basically, he rebuilt the church and then I told you that the bishop and the church sent the soldiers I know this sounds pretty strange church having soldiers. But that just shows you how wacky the ego is. The church sent its soldiers to burn down St. Francis's church. And that is because the church grew to be a very powerful institution and a powerful entity and still is to this day, I'd say the Roman Catholic Church, so to speak, very influential very powerful the pope, the Cardinals, the bishops, the archdiocese and so on and so forth. It's an institution. But when the United States was formed, the, the Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and the founders of the United States. They all got together and they're, they're, they're Christians, the most of them are Christians and they just said, we can't let happen in the United States what happened in Europe. So, we don't really want the church running the people, let the people choose their religion, let them choose their own religion. Let's have freedom of religious expression. So the United States was founded on the belief and freedom of religious expression. And let's not do what happened in Europe throughout the ages and let the church become the ruling body of ruling people. Because the ego will rule through guilt. The ego will play good cop bad cop, it will say you're a lowly sinner, and you need to be punished but good thing we have the church to save you. Just give us some money. You see, that's not exactly a very good pathway to God that's actually a pathway in hell. And a lot of people have, have had a lot of trouble I see my friend Antonio over there from Portugal. We have a good friend Miguel and to this day Miguel says Fatima was just an alien's coming from another place. It denies that he denies that the Virgin Mary actually appeared in Portugal and Fatima and on and on, because people are so resistant when you listen to the ego you can't even believe in miracles. The ego wants to snuff out miracles, wants to snuff out Jesus, snuff out Mary Magdalene snuff out the angels, and just displaying everything based on aliens or science or something you know just wants to snuff out God. And so the United States was formed on the principle of freedom of, of religious expression. Well, just like in Europe. The ego was like, hmm, that's not good. I don't like a country being based on freedom of religious expression so let's just snuff that out too. You're going to see laws and you're going to see them today. You're going to see laws of legal laws that are meant to prevent religious expression. And this is all because of a sense of trying to maintain a separation between church and state. What the news is, is separation isn't real. And, and nowhere in the Bill of Rights of the United States and nowhere in the Constitution of the United States doesn't say the church and states should be separate. And this is just what psychologists would call reaction formation that the people of the United States were so afraid of what they perceived happened in Europe that they just got really tight, really restricted. And let's make sure whatever we do we maintain a separation of church and state. It's not in the Constitution it's not in the Bill of Rights. For many, many years we could say these last couple centuries in the United States. When it was founded on religious expression there still has been the ego actively trying to shut down anything that would allow the discovery of God, because the ego is a death wish. It doesn't believe that there is a God. The ego is the belief that there is no God, or in the movie they call it God is dead. But we're going to see through the teachings of Jesus that everything that's real and true is coming from God. Everything of this world of time and space. I mean, everything of this world of time and space is a veil drawn over the mind to keep the mind from waking up to eternal love and light. So all of history is simply an attempt for the ego to protect itself and to keep God out. If you want to know an acronym for ego is edging God out ego ego edging God out, making sure that the mind can never come in contact with his true reality. So that's what the ego is attempting to do. Third theme of myself, I can do nothing. You're off the hook as persons because you never reach God through the personal. There's nothing a person can do or not do to reach God. It's all through prayer. Jesus said that in the course he said prayer is the medium of miracles so he's not saying that you're supposed to try to be a do gooder and do the right thing and act your way back into heaven. He's saying pray to the Holy Spirit and then listen to the Holy Spirit. And if there's anything the Holy Spirit guides you to do you'll be told of it and actually Christ will do it through you won't even be doing it yourself. The presence of love will come through through you automatically. If you don't have to figure this out all you have to do is pray for help to say I need help. I need help here. And then that's it that prayer is is answered. In my defenselessness my safety lies. That's our fourth theme, coming in with 39 votes. It's going to be shown today because this teacher is very, very sweet, but she just feels like she was in her history class and as a history class. You know, she's just answering a curiosity question from one of her students about Jesus. She doesn't feel like she's done anything wrong. She, she feels like she's just doing what history teacher supposed to do is when students ask you a question then you answer. But in terms of the legalities of her school board and we're going to see the ACLU, which is Civil Liberties Union, you know, basically they're going to get involved and we're going to start to see a clash between legal rights and freedom of religious expression, freedom to believe and worship as you feel in your heart. We're going to see a clash there. And ultimately it's not a real clash, because when you really do pray and you're in line with Jesus, you don't have anything to oppose. Nothing can affect you is the Bible says if God is with me who can be against me. If you merge with the Holy Spirit, you are safe and you are defenseless because nothing can interrupt your connection with God. But to the extent you believe you're a human being, watch out. If you may find yourself clashing against laws that the ego made up, you may find yourself clashing against other people who aren't really other people, there's only one of us here. So if you think you've got a disagreement going with another person. That's a mistake. Well, it's a mistake. We can correct that. No problem. But if you think you have an interpersonal conflict going on, then that's just, that's just ego arrogance. Because, because if there's only one of us, there can be no conflict. The last one is called stay grounded in my innocence. Grace is going to have to keep praying to God. God help me. She's going to have to keep praying to remember her innocence because even though she feels like she was just doing her job teaching her class and just answering a basic simple question. So the Holy Spirit and Jesus are going to use the entire situation for one central lesson, which is who do you say that I am. Who am I beyond a man or a woman, beyond a history teacher, beyond this religion or that religion or this country in that country. Who do you say that I am. And Jesus is telling us in the course he's saying you're the Christ, you are the Christ you are the holy child of God, perfect in love and light. And the whole point of this world is to let go of what you believe about yourself. If you believe anything else other than forgiveness and seeing the falsity of the world and the truth of your true identity. If you believe anything else than that will be brought up for for healing. And that's, that's where we light up into the truth and things. Pay attention in this movie because you're going to see some of the characters from God's not dead one. Martin our student from China is going on off the deep end, trying to experience the love of Christ. We saw in the first movie his dad. He called his dad several times and his, his dad was not so happy that his atheist son was devoting his life to Jesus. We saw in the first episode we saw Amy she was a reporter, you know that had the car that was all smashed up the mirror and the class. And she was the one that had the bumper sticker on the back of her car, it said, meet is murder. She was a vegetarian activist. But remember in the first movie she was diagnosed with cancer. In this movie she's going to come out she's going into remission, and she's still starting to feel her way with her new spiritual awakening. She still has some of the old ideas in there and, like many she's just afraid of the Christ, we could say that the whole world is a projection of the fear of the Christ the I am this of the light. We'll see that there's. Pester Dave is still struggling but he has his sidekick Pester Jude from Nigeria is back and, and then we're going to find a new cast of characters coming into that basically are going to lead us towards. Maybe a tear joker today, but it's not a sad movie. This is the tears of joy are meant to stream down your cheeks. When you start to say to yourself, who do you say that I am. Aim that question at Jesus and see what kind of answer you get and see if you can stop the tears of happiness from rolling down your face. See if you can stop the tears of joy rolling down. Another thing I think this movie is good for is, you know, I've been going to course of miracles groups now for, or like 2025 30 years. I've been going to course of miracle groups and sometimes I'm in the course group. And I noticed that there's a little bit of Christian bashing that goes on in course groups. I was like, I was like kind of surprised the first time. Somebody comes in from the course group and they go, Oh, I was having such a good day I was having so many miracles and then this fundamentalist Christian attacked me and started talking to me about sin and sacrifice and penance. I was having a very happy day I was practicing my course lesson and then some missionaries Jehovah Witnesses came to my door and they were insistent that they come into my living room and then they come in my living room and I lost my peace. These damn Christians. Well listen, if you have any reaction to any Christian ever. Buddy, we talked about this last week right. If you have any reaction to any Christian, it's simply from the belief in your own mind and sacrifice in your own mind and punishment in your own mind in. There's only one way to God if you if you don't if you get frustrated by hearing well there's only one way to God and it's through the blood of Jesus, and you have an emotional reaction to that. It's coming from the Christian that's coming from your own mind believing in sacrifice. So what Jesus is teaching us is everyone who comes is coming representing the Christ. And if you don't feel that love towards any of them, you are actually holding on to the ego belief system. Because if you really saw them as who they really are Jesus is saying you would weep, you would cry tears of joy. You would, you would embrace that Jehovah Witness you would embrace anyone if you really knew who they really were. And that's what this movie is going to help us do today. Sometimes, also I go to Course in Miracle group and, and people would put down Christians, kind of in a, in a way as if Course in Miracles was superior to Christianity, or as if the course book was superior to the Bible. And Jesus is just laughing. He's like going, Oh, you missed everything I'm teaching. If you think certain Course in Miracles students or teachers are more superior than Christians, he said boy you just missed the whole boat right there. Because in the Christ love, there is no order of difficulty of miracles, and there is no time involved. It's the present moment is where you experience that Christ love. So, a Course in Miracles is not superior to the Bible. And sometimes people will say, I thought it was and I say well, have you ever read the story of all the Christian mystics from from Jesus and all the way through all the Christian mystics. What is one thing that all these Christian mystics throughout history have in common. None of them were Course in Miracles students. That's right. I hate to say it, but St. Teresa of Avila, St. Teresa of Lizzu, St. Francis, no, no Course in Miracles student there. Jesus wasn't even a Course in Miracles student. All the Christian mystics, Mother Teresa, no. Even the modern day ones like Richard Rohr, no. Thomas Merton, no. No Course in Miracles student. So, all I'm saying is you've got a book called Course in Miracles that is a very helpful tool for you to realize there's no order of difficulty in miracles, and that you don't actually need a book to reach God. You need prayer to reach God. You need prayer to reach God, that the words are going to fall away and there's going to come a point even with your Course in Miracles practice where you're going to go. Oh yeah, Jesus, I see what you mean. Our use for words is almost over now. Now it's time to pray, pray, pray, pray all through the day. Let's pray and pray and pray and pray and pray. And then you'll go, whoa, that's really good. Our use for words is coming to an end. So I think you're going to see that in the movie today because it's a tear-jerker in the best way. We're going to see true innocence bursting out. We're going to see true love bursting out. We've been praying for a long time. So sit back, enjoy the movie, and take it all in because this is all for us. This is all for us.