Posted by Roberta Grimes • October 28, 2023 • 34 Comments
Afterlife Research, Jesus, Understanding Reality
The best things in life are free. But you can give them to the birds and bees!
I want money. That’s what I want. That’s what I want.
Your love is such a thrill. But your love won’t pay my bills!
I want money. That’s what I want! That’s what I want!
Money don’t get everything, it’s true. What it don’t get, I can’t use!
I want money! That’s what I want! That’s what I want!
I want money! I want lots of money!
In fact, I want so much money! Give me your money! Just give me money!
– Berry Gordy Jr. & Janie Bradford, from “Money” (1959)
The nineteen-nineties brought the first flutters of the tech boom, and the earliest young tech nouveaux riches. We weren’t yet seeing tech billionaires, but we were beginning to feel the first giddy effects of so much sudden wealth in youthful hands as the earliest dot-com startups were being bought up by larger companies, or they were going public. And with it all came an extraordinary lesson in what it means to be a follower of Jesus. I wish I could remember this fellow’s name. I was paying so little attention at the time that I don’t recall now whether I read an article about him, or if I only saw him on a television segment, tracked down and dodging away from cameras as he said a few indignant words and rushed on. What I best recall is my wonderment that here was someone who was absolutely taking Jesus at His literal word. Omigod. Would I ever be able to follow Jesus to this man’s extent?
If I am remembering this whole story correctly, they were a group of college friends who had written a program and started a company that had been bought up by some bigger tech startup. Now they were suddenly what in those days passed for very rich indeed! I think they may have made as much as a hundred million dollars apiece. There were three of them standing there in the spotlight, raising glasses for the cameras and grinning. And there also was that odd man out, who was refusing to be interviewed, and who oddly was determined to give away almost all of his windfall. When a reporter tracked him down, he indignantly said that he would keep a small part of what he had earned, but he could never justify before God keeping all that money. Wow. Just… Wow.
Your first instinct may be to protest that since that young man had fairly earned his money, he had a perfect right to keep it. But in fact, the most difficult challenge that we can set for ourselves as part of any life-plan turns out to be wealth. Almost no one handles wealth successfully from a spiritual perspective. The late nineteenth century was another economic boom-time when there also were many newly wealthy people. And I recall that when I first was reading those many hundreds of communications received through deep-trance mediums more than a century ago which first convinced me that our lives are eternal, there was one poor fellow who stuck in my mind. He had chosen great wealth as his primary life-challenge, and then he had been devastated by just how badly he had handled his wealthy life-experience. He said to his family in the early twentieth century through a deep-trance medium soon after his death, “I really thought I could handle it! I thought I could do it! But I have set myself back by eons!” So, yes, that young man in the nineteen-nineties who was going to give away most of his wealth had fairly earned that money. True enough. But on the other hand, he was probably wise to have seen so much sudden wealth for the distracting spiritual poison that it was.
What follows the Lord’s Prayer in the Sixth Chapter of the Gospel of Matthew is so important that we are going to spend a little time now with Jesus’s next words. He clearly means those words to support the Lord’s Prayer, and to literally be almost a part of the most popular prayer ever said by anyone. And furthermore, the words themselves are so beautiful! We shortchange ourselves if we don’t pause and savor them. Okay, so Jesus has just finished reciting the Lord’s Prayer for us for the very first time. And now He goes on to say:
14 “For if you forgive other people for their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15 But if you do not forgive other people, then your Father will not forgive your offenses.
16 “Now whenever you fast, do not make a gloomy face as the hypocrites do, for they distort their faces so that they will be noticed by people when they are fasting. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 17 But as for you, when you fast, anoint your head with oil and wash your face, 18 so that your fasting will not be noticed by people but by your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then, if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.
25 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is life not more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the sky, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather crops into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more important than they? 27 And which of you by worrying can add a single day to his life’s span? 28 And why are you worried about clothing? Notice how the lilies of the field grow; they do not labor nor do they spin thread for cloth, 29 yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these! 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! 31 Do not worry then, saying, ‘What are we to eat?’ or ‘What are we to drink?’ or ‘What are we to wear for clothing?’ 32 For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided to you.
34 “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (MT 6:14-34)
Now Jesus stops speaking. And we sit with His words, feeling vaguely stunned by them. Can He really mean what He has said to us here? Actually, and quite literally, yes, Jesus does mean precisely what He has just said. Jesus considers wealth to be a nuisance distraction that risks coming between us and our ability to grow spiritually. And achieving optimum spiritual growth is the whole reason why we undertake these lives on earth in the first place! So before people of wealth can be welcomed by Jesus to be His followers, He first directs them to give away all their wealth. Just give it away. We see this happening repeatedly in the Gospels! Jesus sees wealth as a useless burden, a cancer, just a child’s shiny toy. Wealth to Jesus is a valueless distraction.
After those kids fresh out of college with their mega-windfalls first made their big news in the nineties, eventually the tech billionaires who followed them became a normal part of the twenty-first-century landscape. So by now, if we care to notice them, we can find examples here and there of the wisdom of Jesus’s warning about the distraction that wealth can be in people’s lives. We read about billionaires who own even three or four mega-homes and a mega-yacht besides. All because, I guess, why not?
The thing about having so much money is that it likely feels as endlessly abundant as time feels to us when we are very young. If you are so extremely wealthy, perhaps you just want to use up some of that money. But for all of us who are born on earth, life itself turns out to be amazingly brief. And it is briefer by far when you look back at it from where I am now than you can possibly imagine that it will be! Six decades. Nine decades. What is that? It is nothing, really, in the scheme of things. And if you have filled that time first with building wealth and then mostly with buying things, what kind of satisfaction is that going to bring when you look back at it after all the sands have slipped through the glass? As a friend of mine wisely says, “We spend the first half of our lives accumulating stuff, and the second half of our lives getting rid of it.”
And Jesus says, 15 “Not even when one is affluent does his life consist of his possessions.” 16 And He told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man was very productive. 17 And he began thinking to himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘This is what I will do: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and I will store all my grain and my goods there. 19 And I will say to myself, “You have many goods stored up for many years to come; relax, eat, drink, and enjoy yourself!”’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is required of you. And as for all that you have prepared, who will own it now?’ 21 Such is the one who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich in relation to God” (LK 12:15-21).
So that is the real problem with owning wealth. Wealth is a distraction from what is our lives’ real purpose, which is to raise our personal consciousness vibration so each of us can grow spiritually as rapidly as possible in the little bit of time that we will spend on this earth. The problem isn’t so much that it is shameful for you and me to be eating so well when in Africa the children are starving. It is our own free choice whether we will notice and be bothered by whatever is happening elsewhere in the world. No, the problem is that each day of our lifetime on earth is so precious because our whole life here is going to be so brief! The most vigorous and productive part of our life consists really of just a handful of years. And if you have spent your first few decades in building fabulous wealth, and then you spend another few decades in building and furnishing homes, until suddenly one night your life is required of you? What then really, in the end, was the point of your life?
Some years back, I interviewed a guest on my Seek Reality podcast who ran a European hospice. She just had written a book about what the people there had been saying to her at the ends of their earth-lives. And what fascinated me was that her patients, as they were approaching their deaths, didn’t regret never having had the luxuries that they never could have afforded to buy. Not at all. No, what they regretted, and often bitterly, was that they had not done more in their lives for other people.
And that is the worst word in the English language. “Regret.” It is the worst word in any language, no matter how you might translate it. Our Jesus would gently remind us that, yes, my dear ones, you do have forever in which you can grow spiritually! You always have been and you always will be.
But on the other hand, here on earth is the only place where you can find the great spiritual stressors that will help you to rapidly achieve real spiritual growth. And gaining another body on this earth in which to live some future lifetime when you might take more seriously the words of Jesus and your personal walk with God might not be such an easy thing for you to do. There are so many waiting beings now who seek to live earth-lifetimes that your wait for a new body to be born on earth may be a long one.
So please don’t waste this precious earth-lifetime on playing with the petty distraction of wealth! Instead, please raise your consciousness vibration now, and joyously, while you are here and you can do that so amazingly easily! And then, my beloved, when you arrive back home to your real life, which many of those on earth call the afterlife, you will have gained the spiritual power to easily mind-create a palace of solid gold to live in forever, if doing that still matters to you. Although, of course, Jesus is pretty sure that it never will matter to you at all. Not once you have raised your consciousness vibration enough to spread your spiritual wings and eternally own the whole sky!
Bravo, Roberta, Ideally needed to rad that.
Welcome, my dear Brent! I’m so glad this hit the spot for you, and I’m sure that Jesus is delighted as well!
Dear Roberta, Sigh, I just flat out have to disagree about wealth.
Perhaps there is no real disagreement, because you are writing about becoming filthy rich, like Buffett; but Buffett handles it well with charity and a modest life style. Several years ago, after my wife and I got into our car after grocery store shopping, we observed an old lady poking thru store garbage, and failed also to get out and help. Just yesterday, as we sat outside a Chinese restaurant waiting for take out to be brought to us, we watched as a middle aged lady walked over to a an open garbage container between two restaurants and started poking around. We need money for decent shelter, food, and medical care. Our dependents often need money in a pinch. How much wealth is too much? While working for the fed gov on modest pay, I was sued when an auto dealer decided that he wished to recover his money two years after he contracted for a lease with ability to buy, because he had run into financial difficulty. After two years of discovery, I ran out of money for attorney fees as we headed to trial, and had to represent myself; sure would have been nice to have been able to afford an attorney at trial (actually, I did so well that the judge asked me to visit afteer I won to say I gave the best opening he had in fifting years on the bench, so I then went to law school for the fun of it).
Money is good. How much is too much? I sure would like to have enough to hand out every time I see a need.
Oh my dear beloved Jack, I am with you on this one! The world was a simpler place, I think, when Jesus said these words, but my job is to present His case here. I surely can see His points, but in our present complex world, it really isn’t so simple!
Loved your story about going to law school for the fun of it. I really enjoyed law school, and I love being the kind of lawyer that I have been for lo these many years – no courtroom cases, but estate planning and drafting documents and offering advice and knowing how the system works. Pontificating. Love it!
Hi Jack,
This topic is most definitely a conundrum.
I agree with all of your points. On the flip side, when do we stop trying to attain more? Is 30k a year enough? 100k a year? Say we have a billion dollars. How much time, effort and worry do we put into investments so we don’t lose that money?
For a lot of us, the wealth starts to own us. The fear we may lose it can take over.
I’ve seen plenty of videos of younger people thinking they need to make 200k and more to feel like they are “getting by”. It’s getting a little crazy.
On the other side, some people do use their wealth to help others. So it can be used for good. Is that the norm or the exception?
To bring up a past blog, it seems our souls follow similar traits back home. It still disappoints me to be honest. To come here to experience pain and negativity so we can grow spiritually would seem like a good idea. To do so in order to show off our heightened vibrations through being taller, or wearing special tokens doesn’t seem so different to what we are doing with attaining wealth while here.
My dear Thomas, it has bothered me too to find that the afterlife is so status-conscious, with the belts and hats and the sixth-level beings being so tall. I love the fact that Jesus, who outranks everybody by a lot, chooses to present as maybe 5’8″ and with a plain rope belt and no hat, just plain curly hair. I love that!
My hair started to recede in college. I knew there would be a time when I would shave it off. No way will I cover up the luxurious hair I plan on conjuring up when I return home. I may even walk around in socks and sandals with a sign asking for some extra love.
Dear Thomas, you have made me giggle. What’s with the sign, even? And will it be on a beach?
Hi Thomas, Yes, wealth may own us as we grow concerned about its loss, and any possessions may also own us, e.g., a new, undented auto (I’ve been getting the F 150 for years now, so I snear at the dents she makes), and the bricabrac in our house/apartment that forces us to hold on to it. Keeping the ego in check is a full-time job for our souls.
Dear Jack, you make a good point about the accumulated junk. We have been been trying so hard to downsize for years, but it’s primarily the books that have defeated us. Even just the afterlife-related books! Good grief!
My Gramma used to have me come over to help her “downsize” because she knew I was ruthless about getting rid of stuff, Lol! I am a minimalist by nature but I realize that not everyone can live like that, especially folks with children. I often joke that when I die, it’ll take my family all of 10 minutes to divvy up my stuff, if they even want any of it.
Much love to you and everyone here,
JenniferK
Very good message. I’m so hesitant about those people today who talk about the law of attraction just to gain wealth they probably can’t handle if they succeed.
And hesitant about all those so-called psychics who make promises to magically transform your life for the better, find your soulmate, make lots of money, of course for a fee. And more fees if you want to know more. Websites use artificial intelligence to get you hooked to their services.
The only law of attraction I am really interested in is the desire to perfect the divine heart of love planted in my soul.
Oh my dear Adrian, I do so much agree with you. But what Jesus taught makes raising your vibration so easy! I’m thinking about perhaps finding the time to teach it, since not enough people are finding my book.
Roberta,
Thank you for sharing your wisdom!!
Chris B.
Oh my dear wonderful Chris, it’s not my wisdom, but it is Jesus’s wisdom. And He really is right! But as our wonderful Jack says, I don’t know how to hit that balance with wealth. Perhaps, as Jack says, someone like Warren Buffet might be a good example of a billionaire who doesn’t go overboard?
I was a hippie sans drugs and subsisted on beans and rice and coffee. I worked in college bookstores,lived in a bedroom
equipedw/toilet and refrigerator. –After my BA, I kept taking courses so I
was occupied and hadn’t committed sloth.!
In the nineties I got my 1st credit card and then I had put my foot in the real world. I began teaching and bought alot of junk. etc etc etc!
Finally I paid off all my cards and was left w / my bank debit card.
Free again
I didn’t know what ‘online’ was for years
Anyway I live with guy I’ve known for years and we mostly keep our differences to ourselves.
I do not accept the prevalent idea that earth is a testing
ground.
For me, it is beautiful, has animals, birds and trees. I love being here. I love being in my body. I am not intent on chalking-up points for Heaven My borrowed saying -from some sage is,”Death will take care of itself. ”
Earth is not vibratory pile on.
For me,no rules just love.
Well, yes, dear Erica, love is really what it is all about. Earth is not for testing, but it is for stressing and stretching so we can learn and can grow….
Hi Roberta,
I loved your blog regarding Jesus and Wealth. Here is my stance, I don’t want to work my butt off to be a millionaire nor billionaire. I have relatives that have done so and at tender age of 50s look really old. The stress to attain the wealth or work long hours…Just to own a bigger and better house, or more cars.
To me it wasn’t worth it. Being on the autistic side and with dyslexia I could not handle that type of stress.
Being that I am single and no family, my only fear is saving up enough money for when I get terminally sick, I don’t die in a horrible place.
There are so many professionals selling many in society fear with regards of not having saved up for a 401k so forth…Its hard not to buy into the fear of dying in a poop hole.
I say praise God every day for whatever your make and if you can pay it forward to help someone who is hungry, then do so!!!!
What is weird, when reading your blog, tears started flowing down my cheeks when I heard this in my mind, “Follow me” and a picture of your Jesus popped in my head. It could be because I love the series “The Chosen”….
I would rather live modest, and you are right our lives are so short….
Litsa
My dear Litsa, I think I really would enjoy The Chosen, but Thomas won’t let me watch it. He says it would confuse me – he doesn’t want to put any false ideas in my mind. But I do love that apparently people are being given a nice, positive idea of Jesus!
Well, The Chosen really is portraying Jesus as man who wants to heal people, who loves to dance, celebrate and drink wine with his disciples and loves Mother. So far he really is teaching us to LOVE one another and to forgive
He also wants to help the poor and the sermon on the mount part was especially touching. Isn’t this the Jesus you and Thomas know who existed 2000 years ago?
This mite be going off topic and kind of made me cringe is when Jesus talks to Nicodemus about being “born again” and the connotation of Jesus having to die for our sins.
Nonetheless, I truly appreciate your blogs and love to read all of the blog “posts”.
Nope. Not Jesus. He wasn’t the dancing wino type, so I can see why Thomas doesn’t want me watching it; but it plays well on TV, so it’s fine. And if He talks about having to die for our sins, then of course that is crappo. I’m working on the Nicodemus story right now, actually. Being “born again” is, ahem, a literal thing, as you will see….
Roberta, one thing you mentioned scared me a lot: when you said there was a ‘waiting list to reincarnate. I got the impression that if you didn’t devote your life to raising your
Consciousness,there be a bottleneck
of people at the portal
of descent.
Of course I want to be a better person, but I don’t like to think I have to rush. That sounds like something I shouldn’t know. Like The Chosen for you. I feel my
genuineness is threatened and I am frightened.
Hi Erica,
Imagine you need to sweep the kitchen floor, but have 10 years to do so.
You wouldn’t feel very rushed.
I think it’s more about taking the opportunity to grow as much as possible while we are here. If we do well, then that is great. If we don’t? Oh well, we will try it again when the opportunity is available. Until then, we will just have to continue growing while enjoying our beautiful home. No time there so how would we know 10/50/100 years have passed?
My dear Thomas, for most people – and especially for people like Erica, who really haven’t done anything much wrong – spiritual growth needn’t be very hard. The need is for knowledge, really, and for a simple, focused way to do it and fit it into our lives. I’m working on that now.
Roberta
Thanks yes I’m pretty much plain vanilla!
Need focus, not fear.
And knowledge and intelligent lists.
l’ve read some of your book on — make a fist and swish it up and throw it but I forget the -get outta my life- words
Going to read the whole teachingsbyjesus.com
and make a list and it helps me, I will share it with you guys!
Thomas Oh yes that makes sense!Thanks,!
Oh my dear, that is right, except that we generally leave our eternal home eager for spiritual growth, so then we return home frustrated that we haven’t made more progress while were here. It is ever thus!
My dear beautiful Erica, just how many abortions are there each year in the United States, and in other Western countries? And each of those children murdered in utero could have been a body in which someone could have lived an earth-lifetime. People much prefer to reincarnate in cultures which are familiar to them because that makes the adjustment back to earth much easier, so yes, my dear, sadly now there is a considerably longer wait for bodies into which to reincarnate.
But the very good news is that spiritual growth really isn’t hard, once you know what you are supposed to be doing! I am taking a course now on how to design a course. Let’s see if I can do this….
How can there be a waiting “time” to reincarnate when there is no time in the afterlife? Moreover, I am not concerned about the “bottleneck” there may be to reincarnate. Whatever happens is God’s plan for me.
I don’t want to live my life in fear that my vibration won’t be high enough in the afterlife and that I will have to come back to Earth. How can your vibration be high when you are fearful that it isn’t high enough? Also, if my vibration is high enough, and I don’t have to come back, I don’t want to be fearful that I am not tall enough or wearing special tokens etc. in the afterlife. I imagine that would lower your vibration and make another Earth visit necessary. My brain hurts just thinking about these things, which are, honestly, rather silly when you think about it.
I agree with what someone else said above. The Earth can be a brutal place, but I choose to see it as amazingly beautiful, filled with wondrous things like sunsets, puppies, babies, mountains, raindrops, flowers and yes, even suffering. We need to reframe our perspective on suffering to see it as a blessed gift from God that helps us grow and become more loving. It’s certainly not easy, especially for those living tragic lives, like the poor children who are sex trade victims and are brutalized every day . I try to remember that my suffering pales in comparison to the suffering of others and enjoy each blessed day that I am here. Anything that causes me to feel fear, makes me stop in my tracks and refocus myself. I choose to accept the trials of life as small gifts and to help others through their tribulations whenever I can, even if it is with just a smile or kind words.
I think we confuse ourselves with so much talking and left-brained, analytical thinking rather than FEELING. It all boils down to one thing. LOVE. Keep asking yourself: Is this a loving thing to do? Then you will know how to act. Of course your actions won’t always be loving. After all, we all have egos that challenge our eternal, loving, souls by being selfish and afraid of every perceived “danger”. But just keep asking yourself that question on a daily basis throughout the day, and I bet you will feel a lot calmer, happier and peaceful. It is difficult to love sometimes, but there is no other alternative. Love is truly the answer.
Oh my sweet beautiful Dawn, I truly wish it were all so simple! I would love it for everything to be precisely as you imagine it to be. But there is in fact a finite number of new bodies being born on earth, and with so many fewer babies being naturally conceived in recent years worldwide, and with so many abortions happening in the US and some other countries, if you want to incarnate into those countries, there is in fact a very limited choice of available bodies. There is a waiting line. Just a fact. No, there is no time in the astral. But when you want to do something on earth – like being born here – then you sync up with earth-time. Another fact. And a third fact is that God does not plan your life, but you take responsibility for planning your own life in consultation with God and with your guide for your planned future lifetime and with others as well. We actually do at this point know a very great deal about the greater reality and about what actually happens.
Yes, the earth is amazingly beautiful, but it is only the palest shadow of our eternal home! Nobody really wants to come back here, except to experience the stressors and the negativity that give us the chance to grow spiritually, which we really cannot do at home. My dear, and everyone, please never for a moment forget that our eternal home is ALWAYS glorious! It is the best day of your entire life here, EVERY day, and ETERNALLY.
But nearly everyone there is at level three or level four at best, out of seven aggregate levels, and we soon start to pine for greater spiritual growth. We crave it as we never have craved anything. When people from the higher levels come down to teach us, and they talk about the greater glories we have never experienced, that makes us crave spiritual growth even more, so eventually we want to try again. We all do. You simply can’t raise your consciousness vibration without the earth’s stressors until you are at least near the top of level five, so that is why every single one of us is here on this earth. And unfortunately, the big Catch-22 is that we forget everything I have said above as part of the process of coming here. (So, how do I know it? A lifetime of study, plus Thomas’s teaching – I am meant now to teach it to you).
Roberta brought up a great point about population growth and why it will take longer for many to reincarnate.
It’s happening all around the world. China’s population is getting bad. Japan’s population has been going that way for some time.
For many, at least in the USA, feel like they can’t afford to have and raise children. Like I said to Jack, younger people believe they need to be making 6 figure yearly income in order to “get by”.
The future is looking like Robots will be taking care of humans. Maybe the robots will make people feel safe in having and raising more babies? Or maybe they will take some incentives away? I know in one particular country, part of the reason to have many kids is for them to take care of you when you get older. They don’t have the support structure outside of family.
My sweet Thomas, if only we could reincarnate into robots. Problem solved!! 🙂
Thank you, Dawn, for your comments and Thomas who I “get” right. ( really appreciated your example taking 10years
to sweep the floor.🌞
And Roberta I just hadn’t thought of the.. mechanics of growing…And I always thought God’s universe was endless so l thought there was room and He wouldn’t like a crowded
line of not-there-yets !and all the varying buzzing of all his children !
I feel frustrated because I have this feeling l am inbetween
levels and I am stalling blah blah blah♥️
Oh my dear Erica, you aren’t stalling at all, my dear one! Simply continue to live your beautiful life in loving kindness to others, and you can make this your last earth lifetime.