The Lord's Prayer & The 10 Promises (Part 3)

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.


"Thou shalt not kill."
"Thou shalt not commit adultery."


This verse of our Lord's Prayer seems especially relevant to these two commandments - or promises - about our relationship with God, and therefore with each other.


God never tempts us to "kill" the pure - unadulterated - sense of ourselves or of others any more than He would tempt us to literally kill ourselves or someone else.

God is Life. His assurance to us is: "I am come that [you] might have life, and that [you] might have it more abundantly." And this abundant Life includes no adulteration and no murder.

Why? because God is Life itself - and you are God's image and likeness.

Think of it:

* God made you inately and completely pure, like Him. God never leads you to be tempted into adulterating that purity.

* And God made you to live and live abundantly, like Him. You are not made to be tempted into murdering that joyous Life, whether with harsh words or a bullet - either yours or anyone else's.

God feeds your famished affections - not your famished lusts - and He feeds you with grace, abundant grace, for today.

God forgives your debts, your mistakes, your willfulness, as you live your practice, as you live His Love and share it with others.

God leads you into "paths of righteousness for His name's sake" and delivers you from sin, disease, and death - because God is love. And "when we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we're free of worry on Judgment Day—our standing in the world is identical with Christ's."

God leads you - not into trials - but delivers you from the trial of sin, the trial of sickness, the trial of death - and even from the temptation to believe those "trials" are any part of His will or His reality for you. Because they aren't.

Jesus knew this. And Jesus repeatedly proved that God doesn't send us evil by healing everyone he encountered of sin, disease, or even death! And his prayer affirms this: God never leads you into trials and tempations, but always delivers you from every belief of evil, every tempting sense of separation from your true authentic healthy whole and holy being.

Every time you pray the Lord's Prayer, you are praying the spiritual Truth that Jesus actually thought and understood. You are dwelling with the Mind of Christ. You are living at the point of Truth, Life, and Love. You are experiencing God's reality: home & heaven. Here. Now.

And as Jesus' Prayer shows you, you are already purely whole, holy, and safe.

What exactly are we being saved and delivered from anyway?

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

Temptation sounds kinda fun. But a lot of Bible translations use the word "trial" where the King James version uses "temptation." "Trial" doesn't sound like much fun. That's because what Jesus is talking about here in this verse of the Lord's prayer is very pointedly exposing evil for what it is: NOT fun. In fact, just the opposite. Evil is what would - if it could - suck the life and love and joy right out of you. It would love for you to think that "temptation" is kinda fun, because then you'd voluntarily give up your life to it. But Jesus tells us evil is a "liar and the father of it". Don't buy the lie.

And what exactly is the lie?

Sin = is thinking you want to be separated from God, that you are better off being separated from God;
Sickness = is thinking that you must be separated from God because of contagion, heredity, circumstances, "world beliefs."
Death = is thinking you are finally separated from God because sin and sickness cause death - the ultimate lie of separation from Life, God.

Fortunately for us, Jesus gave us his prayer that proves God never leads us into evil, never leads us into these evil lies, but delivers us into holiness, health, and wholeness of life.

So what is this wholeness / holiness thing then? Is it some "better than you" goodie-goodie human perfection? Does it require you to become some ascetic mystic wrapped in self-denial and a vow of poverty? Is it being morally pure and always "doing the right thing"?

No.

It is the opposite of such human ego-trips and moralism.

Does that shock you?

It shouldn't. Human moralism puts "what is right" ahead of what is spiritually true. It judges by the letter of the law instead of the spirit. It is all about appearances instead of substance.

What Jesus taught is God's reality being made manifest. Jesus always put spirituality first. He constantly broke human "moral" law - often to prove the point that living the letter but not the spirit was a phony, and dangerous and usually hypocritical way of living.

Jesus always acted from what is true about God. And he always acted from what is true about us as His image and likeness. He always lived and acted from the point of God as Spirit, of God as Love.

Here's how Jesus categorically shut down human "moralism":

Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

And then he silenced moralism for all time by saying:

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Right and wrong are not based on following dietary codes, religious traditions, tribal or national customs, or even things your parents told you.

There are only these 2 commandments.

And - if you are able to live your life from these two points, you will have fullfilled "all the law and the prophets" - all other ethical and moral standards.

Why?

Because you will be living out from the Christ, from the truth about who God is, and about who you are, and about who your neighbor (which includes the world) is as His creation, His reflection. You will be living out from a fundamental spiritual Truth: God actually is Love. And you and everyone you encounter actually are His image and likeness.

So love God - be utterly grateful that God is good, is Love itself. And then recognize His image and likeness - love His image and likeness - in every one you meet. And you will be fulfilling your own identity - living out from your core purpose - as His image and likeness - the living breathing acting image and likeness of Divine Love itself. Because that is who you really are.

None of this has anything to do with your national culture, your upbringing, your heredity, human character, what you've been taught, or human "morality" good bad or indifferent. You can't "make" yourself holy (which is what moralism claims). But you can awake to it - since it is already your everpresent natural state of being.

Huh?

Yes. If God is good (and He is), and if you are made in His image and likeness (and you are), then yes, holiness is your natural state of being. It is your God-given Christliness. It is the fulfillment of "Be ye holy; for I am holy." It is the opposite of moralism. It is living out from the Holy Spirit always.

Jesus lived his divine holiness - even though he was repeatedly accused of being immoral. And according to the literal understanding of the Law, he was. He routinely broke the sabbath by healing people. He and his disciples ate with unwashed hands. He spoke to Samaritans. He touched lepers. The world's "morality" is a dim shadow of the spiritual Truth of being that Jesus lived, taught, and demonstrated. In fact, it was that worldly "morality" that crucified him. But he proved that literal morality to be false and powerless with his resurrection and ascension.

Jesus' entire life proved the spiritual truth found in the 1st chapter of Genesis, the 10 Commandments, and the Sermon on the Mount. His morality was always an outgrowth of his spiritual understanding. His actions were always the expression of his deepest conviction that God is Love. And he summed up "all the law and the prophets" in those two short commandments:

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.... And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

This is also your natural state of being here and now. Jesus proved it so you may live it. His holiness - His salvation - is this spiritual awakening made manifest in your life. This spirituality lived is the true morality Jesus expects of us.

God never leads us into temptation, into firery trials and torturous self-denials, into sin, disease, and death, but always only delivers us into Love, Truth, and Life as His living likeness!

Hallelujah!

Being delivered by recognizing Christ

To recognize a song, you have to have heard it before.

To recognize a face, you have to have seen it before.

To recognize Christ, means you already have a relationship to the Christ. Christ in already your heart.

And what is amazing, is that everyone is already capable of recognizing the Christ, no matter who they are, or what kind of life they've led. Everyone has an intuitive sense that awakens when you recognize something spiritually good. And that can only happen because the Christ is already within you, already known in your heart-of-hearts.

When Mary Magdalene (see Luke 7) barged univited into Simon the Pharisee's house to wash Jesus feet with her tears, dry them with her hair, and anoint them with perfumed ointment, she was proving this very thing. She recognized the Christ because that Christliness was already within her. Had that not been the case, she would have never acted like she did. Fear or shame or ignorance would have kept her out. But her impulsive actions acknowledged something that even the priestly Simon couldn't: that Jesus was the Christ. Mary knew it.

Her devotion and love of Christ was "Love being reflected in love" - her debts, her sins, being forgiven - forsaken - in the awakening of her native state, her original Christliness, her natural likeness to God. The tears she shed were her painful past being released in the joy of her awakening to her true relation to God. And she received the blessing that Simon missed, because "she loved much" because much was forgiven her. While Simon clung to his pride and position, Mary dropped her mistaken sense of self (ego) in her love for the Christ.

She entered that house - not as the prostitute (though that is all Simon saw) - but as the daughter of God. And to paraphrase Mrs. Eddy: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect [woman], who appeared to him where sinning mortal [woman] appeared to [Simon]. In this perfect [woman] the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct [Christly] view of [her healed and sealed her own Christly awakening].

Mary Magdalene continued to sit at Jesus feet the rest of her life. That was her true life purpose. She recognized the Christ because it was already within her, and she went on to live and to learn and to love much.

This Christ is also already within you. Right this moment. May you seek"...Truth, Christ ... like Mary Magdalene, from the summit of devout consecration, with the oil of gladness and the perfume of gratitude, with tears of repentance and with those hairs all numbered by the Father.

And may you recognize your own Christliness, be awakened by it, redeemed by it, changed by it, impelled by it, and in so doing, awaken that Christly recognition in everyone you meet.

Riff on "And lead us...deliver us..."

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death."

And God does not lead us into:

...unwillingness to work, failure to work, and unemployment - because Principle delivers us into creative purpose;
...disbelief, ignorance, and unconsciousness - because Mind delivers us into intelligent being;
...ridicule, contempt, and ingratitude - because Soul delivers us into deepest bliss;
...restriction, limitation, and materiality - because Spirit delivers us into limitless ability;
...idleness, weakness, and death - because Life delivers us into enduring joy;
...cheating, deception, and corruption - because Truth delivers us genuine reality;
...disobedience, apathy, and hatred - because Love always, always delivers us into wholeness and holiness: Love-reflected-in-love!

"And lead us... And deliver us..."

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

And God leads us...

Just stop for a minute and think about what that means.

God leads us. He's there in front showing us the way, the Good Shepherd guiding and guarding, His staff and rod at hand to comfort and to correct. His watchful eye always and only looking out for your welfare, leading you out of the dream of trials and tempatations - whatever would cause you to stray from Him - to think that you are separated, or ever could be separated, from Him.

And God delivers us...

Think: God actively, purposefully, delivers us from every evil - every lie - about our true nature, our true will, our true identity. God delivers you from whatever would cause you to stray from your true purpose, weaken your true calling, or try to kill off your true likeness to Him.

He delivers you from sin: the mistake of thinking that you can enjoy a lie.
He delivers you from sickness: the mistake of thinking that you can suffer from a lie.
He delivers you from death: the mistake of thinking that a lie can be fatal!

Jesus called Satan - evil - "a liar." A liar would trick you into believing his lie is actually the truth. But it never is. It never has any power. It can only "suggest" its lie. And therefore, it can only seem to be true (i.e., real) if you believe the lie!

But in this verse of the Lord's Prayer, Jesus awakens you to understand that you never have to be tempted to believe evil's lie. Never. Instead Jesus awakens you to the fact that God only ever leads you to, delivers you to, Truth.

And Truth is the antidote - the cure - for every lie. Truth always exposes the lie for what it is. Truth, understood, immediately annihilates the "power" of any lie, no matter how big and scary the lie seems to be - whether it calls itself sin, sickness, or death. It is still just a lie. Without power. Without reality. Without effect. Why? because sin, sickness, and death are evil. They are never from God. And so they can never survive exposure to God's Truth any more than the night can survive the sunrise.

"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."
And God never leads us into the temptation to believe in - or experience - any evil, any "lie," but already - right now - truly delivers us wholy, holy, healthfully, blissfully, vigorously, at-one with Life!

And lead us...

"And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"
And God leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.

And lead us not inot the tempation to think we are nice little egos, "independent workers, personal authors, and even privileged originators," but deliver us from this evil parading as a personal id and ego, a mortal being, an animal self, separated from God. Deliver us from this evil - this mistaken upside down view of who we really are.

Instead, think more about being - reflecting and understanding - God's true nature instead of patting your "ego" on the back for how clever and creative and smart it is. God is the great I Am - not you. Don't get your relationship to God confused: you are not God. You are God's reflection, God's expression, God's inseparable manifestation. You are God-being.

Focus on that.

Ask yourself: how much "being" am I doing? How vibrant is my reflection of God's nature? How active is my expression of Love? How rich and fruitful and alive is it? How conscious am I of Mind? How much do I listen to divine inspiration, to the inspired intuition that is constantly present in thought?

The answer may depend on how clean your mental "window pane" is. Is your thought clear and clean for the Light of God to shine through you, as you? Can you see it? Does everyone around you see it? Do you share it freely? or do you think you can hoard it to yourself? think that it's personal to you? think it needs to be guarded or doled out only to those whom you deam "worthy."

If the latter, then you have things horribly backwards. Let that go, and reverse course! Take your light out from under that dismal bushel basket of the human ego and let the Light of God shine! This is not only your true purpose, it is your divine right.

God never leads us into the temptation to think we are separate little egos that must fend for ourselves. Therefore we can rejoice that God delivers and awakens us to our true purpose: to reflect the unconditional, glorious, Light of Divine Love - to everyone, everywhere.

Aspects of Forgiveness, Part 6

"And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."
And Love is reflected in love.

Forgive us for trespassing - walking over the sacred ground of another's spiritual identity with our muddy boots of criticism, accusations, blame, anger, and annoyance! Oh please forgive us!

As you let Love, God, be reflected in your heart by being loving - as you yield your projected (yes, projected) and mistaken (yes, mistaken) views of others, for the only view that really matters - that's really true - then you make space for forgiveness. You make space for God's crystal-clear view of things to take precedence. And that then gives you a clearer view of His already perfect spiritual likeness - right where "sinning mortal man appears to mortals."

And remember, you have complete authority over what criticisms, accusations, blame, anger, and annoyance - what thoughts - you let into your consciousness! God gives you dominion - and that includes having complete authority over what you accept into your thinking. You have complete God-given authority to stop trampling over someone else's soul, over their sense of worth, over their sense of peace. And that means you also have complete authority to stop doing those same things to yourself!

All the sorrow and meloncholy, all the deeply felt losses of relationships, jobs, pets, friends, lovers, parents, money, health, joy - if not guarded against - all these can trespass on your true spiritual identity, and your views of others' true identity. Don't do it! Don't get sucked into wallowing there! Snap out of it! Declare the Truth that God actually exists, that God actually is already Love, and that God actually is already All here and now. And since this is actually true, everything is possible!

"God is Love. Can we ask Him to be more? God is intelligence. Can we inform the infinite Mind of anything He does not already comprehend? Do we expect to change perfection? Shall we plead for more at the open fount, which is pouring forth more than we accept?"

So stop pleading and whining and for Heaven's sakes stop blaming other people for your situation! Accept the love that God pours forth for you! and then reflect it, shine it back out, share it, live it! This is your authentic purpose. God will not leave you wallowing in the egotism of self-pity or standing pridefully in the egotism of self-importance! Just as God wouldn't let that whale of egotism swallow Jonah, so He will not let it swallow you! God will stir you, stir you, stir you to action and wake you up to live His Love and let it shine! And God will give you the voice you need to fulfill His mission for you, as you.

Love is always reflected in love, never in criticism, accusation, blame, anger or annoyance! And you are called to reflect that Love. God insists on it! You are Love's witness and Love will not be silent!

Love is always reflected in love (Part 3)

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

In the dream, you might be beaten and abused. But only you can let that touch your spirit by reacting with hate.

Refusing to react with hate, but instead with love, is following your Master, Jesus. He knew that your spiritual identity can never be touched by hate. He more than just knew it. He proved it. And you can only seem to be touched by hate when you yourself think hate is a solution - or a defense. It isn't. It NEVER is. Only Love can protect you. Only Love is power.

So be willing to let go of the grudge. Be willing not to react - but to act, to act from the highest sense of Love you can muster. That highest sense might only be silence. It might only be a willingness to not replay the offense over and over in your thought. It might be only a willingness to work off your anger with a good run, a good workout, a good cry, or even a good scream. But none of these ultimately will help you. Because what you really need to do is wake up.

So again, be willing to let go of the grudge! Why? because it keeps you from moving forward, from getting to the point of forgiveness, from waking up. The grudge may feel good for the time being - may even feel justified - but the grudge is your enemy. It punishes you be keeping you in the loop of hatefulness. It monopolizes your feelings and your thinking. It sickens you worse than the original offense ever could.

So refuse to let that offense have that kind of impact on you. Snap out of it! Quit being your own worst enemy! Put your trust in God. He will correct every and any evil situation. And love God enough to listen to your intuition. And if it says "Get out!" then get out. And if it says "Stay and face this!" then stay and face it.

And let your clearest, strongest sense of Love move you. "Love your neighbor as yourself" implies that first must love yourself! Love what is true about you, love what God made you to be, and love how God expects you to act. Then, desiring - praying - to do the best you can, move forward with Love for your "enemy." That intuitive sense of Love will guide you, guard you, heal what needs healing - just as surely as a light turned on will expose the darkness for what it is: nothing. No thing. No person. No power.

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is always reflected in love.

Love is always reflected in love (Part 2)

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

Forgive us our withholding love, as we forgive those who we think have withheld love from us.

There is only one way your lack - debt - of love is paid: it is by being loving. It'll never be paid by withholding it or by being stingy. Divine Love requires reflection - requires that you mirror forth in your life the love that God is pouring out on you non-stop like sunshine.

Love is always a declaration of what is spiritually real and true - right in the face of hate. And withholding love is hateful. Withholding puts you in a position of indebtedness, of lack, of the poverty of absence. Why? because Love is presence. Without it, you have nothing. You have absence. And the absence of Love, is hate.

Just as the presence of Light annihilates darkness, so the presence of Love annihilates hate. This is Love's power. Love's somethingness (abundance) fills that nothingness (debt) called hate just as light does when it enters a dark room. Instantly. Effortlessly. Completely.

Love insists on lighting you up. Love insists on being expressed. Love saves you from the dark indebtedness of withholding love: which is any form of hate. And when you let yourself live Love, its light wipes out that dark indebtedness. You awake to Love's everpresent abundance.

Love is always reflected in love.

Feed the famished affections (Part 2)

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today. Feed the famished affections.

Chew the Word of God. That is, think about it deeply. Ponder it. Mull it over. Work and pray to feel its inspiration, its power and meaning. Understand it so you can live it and work it and be it and see it and share it and be revealed by it, in it. Chew it!

There is no danger of decay doing this, no build up shellacking your thought, your consciousness of His Word. There is only strength and growth and purifying and wholeness in the action of His Word in your thought and life.

"O taste and see that the Lord is good."

So go ahead and chew His sweet and salty Word. Savor it. Digest it. Enjoy it. It is your daily bread. It's inspiration is your holy wine. Let His Word feed you, forgive you, deliver you, and lead you. Because it surely will, with divine results.

Love is always reflected in love (Part 1)

God would never torment you with something good that is bad for you, or something bad that is good for you. God does not dangle what you need out in front of you like some lucious peach and then make you walk over broken glass to get it. Nor does He make something pleasurable for you that is evil.

God's goodness is free and overflowing, is always withn reach and always available because it is always in consciousness. Recognize that first and then see that all that God gives, is yours. It is yours for the giving and always yours for the receiving.

Are you feeling unloved? alone? Then go and love someone and keep them company.

Need your famished affections fed? Then go feed the famished affections of others.

Don't know anyone who needs such help? Oh yes you do. Can't find them? Oh yes you can.

Just look across the table, or across the room, or across the street, or across town! There is always someone who could use a little love and kindness. And maybe they're waiting for someone just like you to be their angel.

Ghandi said: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Ghandi probably would've also approved of "Be the love you wish to see in the world."

Why? because Love is transforming. Divine Love is always blossoming in you. As you! Where does it bloom first? In consciousness - first in your thoughts, then in your words, your deeds, your life.

And you can only learn love by being loving. You must exercise Love! you must "put some skin on it" - make it alive and active!

And your love is needed. And your love will always be reflected back to you, pressed down and running over.

Don't you think that you've waited long enough? Don't you think that you've spent enough time feeling all alone, or out on your own, having to fend for yourself, somehow separated from Love, God?

Snap out of it! You are the very image and likeness of Love itself! You have a natural God-given ability to love and be loved! Get your love-light OUT from under that bushel! Quit feeling sorry for yourself and get out there and live the love God gives you! Live it openly, honestly, freely, joyously! Do it! No more whining and waiting around for someone else to love. Get up! Get going! and GO LOVE.

Aspects of Forgiveness, Part 4

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

"Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."

Do you think Jesus saw people to forgive? people who had sinned, done evil things, people who were bad and hurtful and maybe even unforgivable?

What did Jesus say to the crowd about to stone the woman caught in the act of prostituting herself? "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."

The Gospel records that crowd was convicted by their own conscience - not by Jesus, whose pure view of them awakened their inherent natural humility that their self-righteousness had hidden.

And what did he say to the prostitute?

"...he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."

"Go and sin no more."

Go and be who you really are: not someone who needs to sell themselves to survive, but God's perfect child, dearly loved and cared for, whose very hairs are all numbered by the Father.

How could Jesus have said such a thing?

Because he saw things differently. He saw things spiritually. He "beheld her - and the crowd - in Science". He saw every situation - including this intense one - from God's perfect perspective. And this correct view not only saved the crowd from committing murder, it saved the prostitute from an adulterated life of sin.

This gives you something vital to understand and to practice.

Real forgiveness is seeing things differently. It is seeing others - and yourself - from a higher, more Christly perspective. It is putting that seeing into action in your life. It is yielding to God's unbounded grace and allowing that to feed your famished affections. It is living your natural state of being as the perfect reflection of God a moment at a time.

Love - true seeing - is always reflected in love - true being.

Awakening

All the mistakes I've made, all the people I've hurt, all the lies I've told, all the love I've taken for granted or (worse) completely neglected, all the failures to live up to what I know is right, all the bad things that have happened in my life, and even just my day today -- all this history, it is all being washed away by glimpsing that "Love is reflected in love."

To the extent I put aside my ego, the debts, the failures, the separation, the personal sense of myself and of others - of the dream - and take even just a small soulful step in awakening to what I really am as God's, Love's, likeness by being loving, to that extent forgiveness washes over me, washes me clean of the dream of being a "personal author and privileged orginator" of heart-break and hurtfulness. And that Love awakens me to intuitively sense that all real being is actually the emanation of the Great I Am, of God, of Love itself.

Ituitively I sense that Love is the only real power. Love being reflected in love, is a "law of annihilation" to everything unlike itself - to all sense of forgetting, failure, mistakes, hurtfulness, hate, malice, indebtedness, evil. And as this intuition takes hold, the light of Christ begins to dawn and the nightmare begins to disappear. I find myself begining to wake up.

Wake up to what?

To what has always been true: that Love actually is powerful and real. Good actually is the foundation of our authentic nature. We actually are capable of living out a life of love. In fact, we're more than just capable of that. We're made for it.

Forgiveness is always an awakening. Forgiveness is Love, God, kicking over our complacency and idle human do-gooding. Forgiveness demands that you snap out of it! and get your life more loving. Forgiveness shakes you up! Forgiveness makes you think about what's right and wrong, what's good and evil, and most importantly: what's a lie and what is true, what is a dream and what is reality.

Forgiveness never leaves us where it finds us. It forces us to discover what's true - both about ourselves as well as our "debtor." It requires us to repent - to re-think - about what we assume is our perfect little lily-white life.

And in that cold sometimes uncomfortable self-examination, we must become humble before God. We realize that our personal sense of love - of being a nice forgiving person, a self-sacrificing little human, or even a stubborn old goat - that we can of ourselves do nothing. Our words of forgiveness may be well-intentioned but too often are hollow and self-serving. And they alone cannot right any wrong. They cannot heal the hurt.

And so you may find that only on your knees do you finally wake up.

And forgiveness is always an awakening. Awakening from what? From the dream of many big egos and little minds, of good and evil, of separation from God, divine Love itself.

And what does this awake you to?

To the only thing that really matters: Love is All-in-all.

Forgiveness forces you to reconsider everything so that you can wake up to the fact that Love really is actually All-in-all. Your debt to others - and your so-called debtors' debts to you - cannot survive this awakening. Why? because Love forces you to confront your true nature: that you are just like God: loving. And your debtor's true nature? Yes. Also just like God: loving.

And it is this awakening that annihilates the dream of good and evil, of separation, of personal egos in debt. And by accepting this awakening - actually living out loud the love that forgiveness requires in your thinking and in your daily life - true forgiveness happens. In fact, spiritually speaking, the only thing anyone ever really "owes" - is in debt for - is to love.

Living as Love's, God's, loving reflection, is completely natural for you. In fact, it is (believe it or not) your only authentic state of being and (believe it or not again!) the only authentic being of everyone around you. Love is the only real state of being there is. Love is always reflected in love. Feel it. Accept it. Act on it. This is the practice. Get busy.

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

Aspects of Forgiveness, Part 3

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

What about all the evil that is in the world? All the hatred, destruction, malice? sin, disease, death? How can these evils possibly be forgiven? How can you expect to forgive someone who's hurt you? Or do good to someone who taken advantage of you? Or love someone who is a just plain evil?

Again, you must look to Jesus for your answer. He proved by his life what true Love is - and the power it has over evil. He never ignored hatred. He never tolerated evil. Just the opposite, he destroyed evil and its effects wherever he went. How? Because Jesus understood something extremely powerful: God, good, is real. And evil is God's opposite: unreal.

Hear his words of rebuke to evil-doers: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."

Mrs. Eddy put it this way: "The notion that both evil and good are real is a delusion of material sense, which Science anihilates. Evil is nothing, no thing, mind, nor power. As manifested by mankind it stands for a lie, nothing claiming to be something,--for lust, dishonesty, selfishness, envy, hypocrisy, slander, hate, theft, adultery, murder, dementia, insanity, inanity, devil, hell, with all the etceteras that word includes."

Saint John gives us this perspective: "This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."

To truly overcome evil, you must start from the right vantage point. You must start from understanding the reality and power of God, good, and the unreality and impotence of evil. You must see that God is Light - reality - and evil is darkness - absence of reality, the lie. And light always overcomes darkness. Always.

To demonstrate this however means to see with new eyes, a new perspective, the perspective Jesus had. It means witnessing for the Light - for the Truth of being, not witnessing for the darkness - not worshipping, bowing down, obeying evil - the liar and the father of lies.

That is why this verse of our Lord's prayer has such a strong connection to the 9th Commandment: "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor."

Look at a spectacular example of how this verse - and its relation to the 9th Commandment - played out in this remarkable story from John's Gospel:

"And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.

So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.

And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?

She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

The mob had what they thought was the right perspective - a moral perspective - and so no doubt felt justified in condemning this woman to death. But Jesus had a much different perspective. He had a spiritual point of view. He saw things the way God sees things. As it says in Genesis: "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Good, like Him, like His image and likeness.

The mob thought to kill the sin of adultery by killing the adulterous sinner. It was the way things had always been done. In fact the Old Testament is full of such examples. The woman was caught in the act of adultery! How much more obvious an open-and-shut case could there be? The woman (like the mob) no doubt also thought of herself as a sinner - because she believed (like the mob did) in the reality of evil. She might have even thought she deserved to be stoned. The mob certainly did.

But the problem - as Jesus clearly knew - was that they had all believed a lie.

Jesus knew that the woman's true God-given spiritual identity was completely separate from any lying claim of evil. Instead of seeing her as doomed to live in original sin, he saw her true birthright of original wholeness, holiness. When he looked at her, he saw "God's own likeness" and this correct view forgave her, redeemed her, literally saved her.

Jesus was always the true witness. He always saw through the lie, because he knew the Truth, the Truth that God's creation is intact, pure, holy. And in this situation, he so perfectly fulfilled the Divine Love underlying the 9th Commandment by witnessing what was spiritually true. His seeing was literally the "light of life" for everyone involved - both the woman - and her accusers! His simple loving Word not only redeemed the woman from breaking the 7th Commandment "Thou shalt not commit adultery, " it saved the crowd as well from breaking the 6th Commandment "Thou shalt not kill."

This is a turning point in spiritual history. The whole of the Old Testament is full of examples of killing sinners to kill the sin. But Jesus came with a new testament, a new promise from God: to save sinners, not kill them, to save them from the lie of evil, to awaken them to their true being, their true likeness to God. Jesus destroyed the sin, not the sinner. This is a radical change.

And he demonstrated something even more fundamentally important: spirituality must always come first. If morality comes first, the letter of the law would trample on the spirit of the law. The letter kills. The spirit saves. Morality - without spirituality coming first - is always wrong. It is exactly what tried to stone the woman. But the spiritual Truth is always saving. And it must always come first. Without the Spirit, there is no real morality. There is only the cultural mores, traditions, and opinions of fickle fallible people - and most of those are fatal to anyone not sharing them.

So look at the miraculous result of the good and just perspective of Jesus: his perfect spiritual view of the woman shone so brightly that it exposed that dark moralistic self-righteousness - that evil false witnessing - of the mob.

And his potent question not only exposed the hypocricy of that false witnessing, it made that hypocricy felt. His quiet true witnessing fell like righteous rain on the just and the unjust - with equal potency. And the eldest - perhaps the ones with the least stomach for yet another religiously sanctioned murder - felt it first. Then the rest, one by one had that light of Jesus' word dawn in their conscience so they too saw their almost fatal mistake.

As it says in Science & Health (p. 476:32):
"Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortalman appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."

Jesus bore true witness of God's creation wherever he went - and this correct view of people, helped them, healed them, raised them, forgave them, awakened them, and saved them.

This true witnessing is Love reflected in love. It is God, Love, being reflected in love to your neighbor. It is God's view of His creation being witnessed to by you in every encounter you have with humanity. It is Divine Love unconditional shining on the evil and the good, the just and the unjust - because those labels mean nothing when viewed from the divine perspective.

To the extent you put aside a personal sense of "ego" in favor of recognizing your role as the reflection of the Great I Am, you will be following Jesus' example of true witnessing.

To the extent you put aside the dream of debts, failure, the mortal-minded personal sense of yourself or others is to take even just a step in awakening to who you really are: God's witness.

To that extent forgiveness washes over you, washes you clean of the dream of a personal ego, of being the personal author of evil, the privileged originator of heart-break and hurtfulness. And you awake to demonstrating that all real being is actually already the emanation of the Great I Am - of Love itself, of God.

And you behold in Science the perfect person where sinning mortal people appear to mortal minded ways of thinking, seeing, and being.

And in this perfect Christ-like view, you witness Divine Love at work. You see Love, reflected in love.

This is the ultimate of forgiveness - for in the Allness of the Light of Love, there is no lie of evil, there is no darkness, there really is nothing left to forgive.

Aspects of Forgiveness, Part 2

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors"
And Love is reflected in love.

Jesus prayer requires something more of you than just generic "forgiveness." He requires you not to just forgive, but to actually love your enemies. To bless them that curse you. To do good to them that hate you and pray for those who would dispitefully use you and persecute you. (See Matthew 5: 43 - 45)

This may seem like a very difficult teaching. It's one thing to forgive, but another to actually love someone who hurts you, curses you, hates your, dispitefully uses you. It may even seem more difficult if it's you yourself who needs forgiveness.

But consider this: forgiveness never really happens until there is love. Forgiveness without love is not forgiveness. It is just one personal ego saying "I forgive you" to some other supposed personal ego. Maybe your saying is heartfelt and sincere. Maybe not.

But without love, even that heartfelt forgiveness leaves a taint. And that's because you still harbor the belief that the evil happened to you (or them) in the first place. And as long as that belief remains, the dream remains, and so the forgiveness is not yet complete. The dream of good and evil, of human wills, of multiple minds, of more than one power, more than one God, still goes on.

Mrs. Eddy had this startling insight into how Jesus was able to break that dream: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."

Jesus saw things differently. He had a Christly view. Jesus knew what others did not: that the human view of reality - with its sinning, sick, dying, evil, mortals - was incorrect. That in the Christly, true, spiritually scientific view - God's view - things are very different. Jesus saw wholeness, holiness, and Life where everyone else saw just the opposite. Jesus saw divine Love at work. Where everyone else saw sick and sinful humanity, Jesus saw healthiness, wholeness, holiness. That's because Jesus had a higher - spiritual - perspective. Jesus looked out on the world with the loving eyes of God.

And the result was always healing. It was always forgiving. It was always Love-made-manifest. The result was a demonstration of what is really spiritually true. What is always really going on: God's will being done in earth just as it is already done in heaven.

That is why this verse of Jesus' prayer is so important to study and understand. Mrs Eddy's spiritual sense of its Christly meaning alerts you to the complete healing of all sense of being wronged that Jesus is offering you when you pray this verse.

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." And Love [God] is reflected in [your] love - your beholding in Science the perfect man (or woman, or situation, or circumstance) where sinning mortal man (or woman, or situation, or cirumstance) appears to mortals (personal egos, evil people, human history).

But moving from mere human forgiveness to actually loving your apparent enemies with the power of divine Love, takes some practice (to put it mildly!).

So look to Jesus' example.

To love as Jesus loved is to start with what is spiritually true about God, about you, about your so-called enemy, and about God's complete creation. It is to acknowledge that God is your Father - and the Father of your apparent enemy. "Our Father." That He is in complete control. That His name and nature are completely Good - and the only reality there is. "Hallowed be Thy name." That you - and everyone (including your "enemy") are perfectly made in His image and likeness - are His perfect creation right where "sinning mortal man" appears to you.

This higher, spiritual perspective has a powerful healing effect. When sincerely felt and acknoweldged, you can't help but rejoice that God's kingdom is here now - and that His presence is the only real presence there is. "Thy kingdom come."

His will is being done right here, right now, right where you are - and where your so-called enemy appears to be - just like His will is done in heaven. And God's will is always good - always a blessing for both you and what appears to you as your enemy. "Thy will be done in earth [right where evil appears to be] as it is in heaven [the true Christly view of God's creation].

This statement from Science & Health will help you understand how to move from forgiveness to Love: "Truth has no consciousness of error. Love has no sense of hatred. Life has no partnership with death. Truth, Life, and Love are a law of annihilation to everything unlike themselves, because they declare nothing except God."

Rejoice that God's Love is a law of annihilation to everything unlike itself. This is not the good-and-evil dreamland of little egos trying to hurt each other - or forgive each other. This is the bright shining power of God filling the universe!

Just as light annihilates darkness, so Love annihilates all hate, spitefulness, manipulation, persecution, all evil. Why? Because Love is real, is light, is presence, and evil is actually unreal, is darkness, is absence. And where Love is present, there is no darkness at all.

Acknowledging this truth helps wake you up to actually experience it in reality, in your daily life.

Jesus could give us the command to love our enemies because he knew the power of divine Love. He knew that, though the human dream seems to see enemies everywhere, being awake to God - to Truth, Life, and Love - destroys that dream. Just like light destroys darkness.

When you practice living this powerful love of Love, you begin to "behold in Science" that there actually is only God's creation. You start to understand that Love's omnipotent goodness sees no enemies, that Love is real, that Love is the only real power there is. The sense of being hurt or hated is more than just eliminated. It is annihilated by the light of Love.

What seems like someone hating you, spitefully using you, manipulating you, persecuting you - is actually only an absence - a darkness - of thought that the light of Love annihilates. Love frees you from a personal sense of evil. Love is always - and only - reflected in love. When you yield to this possibility, you begin to see as Jesus did, to see your "enemy" in a new light, see "the perfect man where sinning mortal man" used to appear, and to love that perfect reflection of God.

Then you feel the bright fresh awakening of the holy Love that wipes clean any sense of hurt or pain or loss or evil. You're awake to Love. There is no dream of evil. There is no enemy.

"Forgive us our own dream of indebtedness as we forgive those who we think are in debt to us."
And Divine Love is always reflected in love that restores, fulfills, awakens.

Aspects of Forgiveness, Part 1

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

Jesus' prayer requires you to practice forgiveness.

But this is more than just a tit for tat kind of forgiveness. And it is not a "Get Out of Jail Free" brushing it all off kind of forgiveness. And it's certainly not a self-sacrificing "it's always all my fault" kind of forgiveness either. It is something much more than that.

Mrs. Eddy's spiritual sense of this verse is "Love is reflected in love." That gives you a strong sense that something much deeper is going on when true forgiveness really happens. There is a divine law at work. The law that Love, God, is always reflected in love - in love expressed, in love made manifest, in love that has an impact, in love that awakens.

OK so maybe you're asking if God, good, is the source of all being, then what is it that needs forgiveness? What is it that needs redemption? What is it that needs correction? Certainly not God's creation! but our view of it - and hence our experience of it - does.

Doesn't the belief in duality, the dream of life in matter (matter as limitation, separation, personal "ego", sin, sickness, death) constantly suggest that there are evil people? evil circumstances? fatal errors? terminal mistakes? lost hopes? horrible tragedies? a world full of evil and hatefulness needing to be corrected, redeemed, forgiven?

Yes.

And the kind of forgiveness that Jesus is asking you to experience does not ignore evil. But it does ask you to raise up your point of view. It does ask you to look at the world with a holier perspective. It does ask you to see the way Love, God, sees.

Mrs. Eddy expressed it this way:

"Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."

The kingdom of God is intact? universal? and man is pure and holy? Huh?

Not to your limited human way of seeing things. But consider this: Suppose you are asleep and you have a dream. And in this dream a friend does something wrong, maybe even evil, to you. In the dream you might get upset, angry, maybe even try to get even.

But then your alarm goes off and you wake up.

Do you then start praying to forgive this dream of wrong-doing? No. You of course realize that it was just a dream. Your friend was completely innocent. And nothing had ever actually happened to offend or hurt you. You see the entire experience for what it is: a dream, an illusion, a misconception. You would never hold a grudge against your friend because of what happened in a dream. By waking up, you realize not only that you are safe, but also that your friend is innocent.

This hints at the healing way Jesus saw those around him. Where you may see a debtor, a tresspasser - an enemy, Jesus beheld in Science (in the spiritual Truth of Being) - what?

God's own likeness.

Right where you see someone (or maybe even yourself) needing to be forgiven, right there - in spiritual truth - is God's own likeness, God's own activity, God's own reality.

And in God's own reality, there is nothing to forgive.

This may seem at first to be counter-intuitive. It may seem like you're just trying to mask over the evil in the world, the hurtfulness others to do you - and that you do to yourself and to others. And yes, the world is constantly parading a showcase of evil being done everywhere in the world.

And here in his prayer, Jesus is asking you to forgive. Why?

Jesus saw all creation as God sees it: perfect. But he never shied away from calling a spade a spade - of denouncing evil whenever and wherever it showed it's hideous malicious face. What Jesus never did however was make evil a reality that could overpower him, that could manipulate him, that could cause him to act in turn like evil. He never strayed from acting like God's Likeness, like God's Son, like Christ.

And though in spiritual reality there is nothing to forgive, Jesus knew that for those deep in the human dream of good-and-evil, there is an enormous power in forgiveness. He knew that forgiveness is a spiritual alarm clock. It wakes you up. It stirs you to reconsider things. To ponder who it is that actually needs forgiveness. It prompts you to start loving the way God loves, unconditionally. And most importantly, it alerts you that you are dreaming. Dreaming of personal egos. Dreaming of multiple minds. Dreaming, instead of adoring the one infinite God, good, and His perfect spiritual creation.

And by just yielding to the idea of forgiveness you are forced to reconsider everything. Maybe you need as much forgiveness as the one you think is in the wrong! Maybe you begin to understand the value of the way Jesus beheld everyone. Maybe you become a little bit more like him. Begin to see the value of looking with new eyes. To open yourself to that intuitive sense that there is actually something more going on. That Love, God, is expecting to be reflected in the love you express.

There is an awakening spiritual Truth right where the dream of wrong seems to be. There is something Good right where evil seems to be. There is God's own likeness right where "sinning mortal man" seems to be. God's own likeness is actually all that's really there. And Jesus proved beyond any doubt that his correct view actually forgives - corrects, redeems, heals - you and anyone from any seemingly evil experience. God and God's likeness are Love and love expressed - nothing to forgive, but everything to rejoice in.

Jesus knew that God's creation is perfect, whole, healthy, holy. And he did more than just know it philosophically or intellectually. He knew it practically. He healed every instance of sin, sickness, and death that he encountered. His "correct view" is God's view - and the healing impact his view had on the world is still shaking and awakening and redeeming - claiming for God what is His. And that is all of creation.

Your part in this is to follow him, to shake up your own perspective, to wake up! and to forgive.

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive those we think are in debt to us." Love is always reflected in love because all is Love and its infinte manifestation, for Love is All-in-all.

Considering Grace and Forgiveness

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.

"And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

Grace and forgiveness are beautiful concepts to consider.

Forgiveness seems fairly straight-forward. But have you thought of forgiveness as absolution? as acquittal? as allowance, amnesty, benevolence, clemency, compassion, condolence, destigmatization, dismissal, exculpation, excuse, exoneration, favor, feeling, forbearance, forgetfulness, heedlessness, humanity, kindness, leniency, mercy, mitigation, pardon, pity, purgation, relief, remission, reprieve, sympathy, tolerance, vindication, and yes, even grace?

And dictionaries give the word grace at least 9 different shades of meaning: There is the aspect of grace that includes kindness and good will. The aspect that means effortless fluidity and power of movement. And that which shines with inherent beauty. But the most important is the aspect of grace is that one which relates to God: the grace of unconditional love.

And it's this concept of grace, this unearned unconditional love, that both sustains and forgives.

Consider Jesus' words:

"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust."

This is not an invitation to be a doormat. No. Just the opposite. Nor is it an invitation to think you're better - or worse - than anyone else. No. It is an invitation to understand something surprisingly much more important:

Unconditional Love is an irresistable everpresent power.

And it's yours to live. And it's yours to give.

God pours out this sunshine and rain - this power - His Love - to everyone (including you) unconditionally.

You don't earn it. You don't have to obey some bunch of human rules or bribe some hierarchy or bow down to some organization or win some special merit or favoritism. No. There is no earning of God's Love. God's love is always unconditional. And it's powerful. It has the power to sustain. It has the power to heal. It has the power to forgive. And it is a power that Love gives you.

This is humbling. You are being given this gift without conditions. You are being given it not because you are better than anyone else. Nor because you are worse than anyone else. You are not more deserving or less deserving. You are not more able or less able. The Love of God is a gift. To you. Right here and right now. Yield to it. Accept it. It really is yours for the living. It really is yours for the giving.

Jesus said, "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another."

Imagine: you should love others as God loves - unconditionally. His love sees no evil versus good, no just versus unjust, no enemy versus friend. Neither should you. He sees only His perfect creation. So can you.

As it says in Genesis:

"And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."

Such are the eyes of Love with which God looks out upon His creation. Such are the eyes of Love with which God sees you. Such are the eyes with which God asks you to see your neighbor.

God's beautiful grace, His warmth and light are shining on you, through you, as you, right this moment. His refreshing rain is awakening you to see cleanly and clearly all that you - and everyone - are as His likeness. You are already Love's loving-in-action. This is your real state of being. Here and now. Accept it. Feel it. Act on it. Rejoice in it! There is grace to be lived and famished affections to be fed! Get busy!

Give us this day our daily gracefulness.
Give us unconditional Love today; feed ours and everyone's famished affections.

And forgive us our debts as we forgive those who we think are in debt to us.
And Love is always reflected in love.

Aspects of Reflection (Part 2)

Definition of Reflection
...
6: a thought, idea, or opinion formed or a remark made as a result of meditation
7: consideration of some subject matter, idea, or purpose

To think deeply in a focused attentive way on some thought or idea is to reflect upon it. Meditating - reflecting - upon that thought or idea means you are considering all of its many aspects. You ponder them. You pay specific attention to them. You are consciously alive with them. This gives you insight and understanding of the thought or idea. It awakens in you a deep appreciation. The thought or idea becomes alive to you.

Don't you think that when Mrs. Eddy talks about you as the reflection of God, of divine Mind, that this sense of reflection is included? Not just the passive reflection of a mirror, but the actively engaged reflection of Mind. This is an aspect of reflection. This is how God, divine Love, considers His creation. This is how God, divine Love, thinks about you. Specifically. Attentively. Deeply.

You are consciously alive to your Father-Mother God. And by reflection, your Father-Mother God is alive to you.

"And Love is reflected in love."

Feed the famished affections (Part 1)

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today. Feed the famished affections.

"And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.

"God setteth the solitary in families:" it says in Psalms. God delivers you from loneliness and into love. How? By giving you the grace - the love, the fluidity of thought and the movement of perspective that, what? Awakens you to your authentic purpose: that you are the active expression of His Love in the world. You are Love alive in the world. You reflect that Love that feeds the famished affections. You are the living proof that Love is unconditionally forgiving. You are "Love reflected in love."

Because Love is your true nature, you're naturally attracted to Love's expression, naturally appreciative of it, and naturally connected to it - even while glimpsing that it is something bigger than just any one person. In fact, it isn't personal at all. God's Love is divine, even if it seems humanly expressed and experienced.

As you become more conscious of, feel, appreciate - embrace - this divine sense of Love, you realize that this is why you're here: to live Love, to live to give Love - not live to get love (which is the lie spoken by loneliness). Living to give Love embraces Jesus' command to "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Living to give is "Love ... reflected in love."

Gently embrace this idea of living to give Love. Your intuition will show you opportunities. Expectancy helps you see them. Faithfulness helps you act on them. And as you practice living to give, living God's precious "grace for today," you'll see that it's for a reason: Because the way God feeds your famished affections is by having you feed someone else's.

"Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, 'Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.

"You will learn that in Christian Science the first duty is to obey God, to have one Mind, and to love another as yourself."

Yes. It is actually your duty to love at least one other person as you would yourself.

Yes. You get to be the answer to someone else's prayer for love.

This is Love reflected in love. This is obeying God. This is letting "this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:" This is adoring the Divine Name of Love by being loving. This is striving to know and reflect God's true nature in your relationship to everyone and everything around you.

This isn't necessarily though all easy-peasy. It usually involves some hard work letting go of maybe some not too God-like ways of acting. Because to withhold love is to be in debt. To take love without giving it is to be in debt. To ignore, belittle, mock love is to be in debt.

So if you feel in debt, challenged, by the idea of living to give Love, and want a good example of how this is done, take a look at the life of Jesus in the Gospels. You'll see that Jesus' followers weren't perfect either. Far from it. But you do need to do the same thing they did: follow his incredibly challenging but loving teaching and example as best you can.

And as you do, you begin to understand what Jesus knew implicitly: that that which is the cause and creator of everything, that which is the most fundamental primary power, that which we call God, is actually Love itself. And Love impells expression. Love must be lived.

So the only way to pay off that debt is to do likewise, to live your God-given purpose as His Love-light rejoicing no matter what the circumstances, shining from the top of the hill, bright and active and radiant and loving impartially and universally.

This is not theoretical. It is practical. It can be challenging. It can be difficult. You might resist it. This resistance is the cross. Take it up! This work is the practice. Bring it on! Love is imperative. It has to be seen and felt. It has to be made manifest. It can't just be talked about or thought about or wished for. As an old friend of mine used to say about living Love: "Put some skin on it!"

Sticking to the Love that is God, you find yourself - and all around you - held in His arms, safe, satisfied, rejoicing. And there is never any loneliness or famished affections there, for living in Love is living in the presence, the power, and the glory of God, forever.

Awaking to this as your actual state of being, you'll be too busy loving God and your neighbor as yourself to ever be suckered into that lie of loneliness again.


"Give us this day our daily companioning."
Give us unconditional Love for today. Feed the famished affections of us, our neighbor, and the world.

"And forgive us forgetting to love as we forgive those who we think have forgotten to love us."
And Love is always reflected in love.

Give us this day our daily Communion

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.

At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God.

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

In this simplicity, and with such fidelity, we see Jesus ministering to the spiritual needs of all who placed themselves under his care, always leading them into the divine order, under the sway of his own perfect understanding.... To the students whom he had chosen, his immortal teaching was the bread of Life.

Give us this day our daily bread, our daily communion with God, our daily companioning with God.

But to accept this bread, this communion, this companioning, you have to come home to God, enter the house - the consciousness - of God. How? The Bible says "Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

So this is how you enter the house of God: through gratitude. And what is true gratitude if not the conscious acknowledgement of the true nature of God as omnipresent Good? How do you know that God is Good? Because God gives us the gift of grace - "he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." You don't earn God's love. God is just Good, universal Good, unconditional Good. You don't have to beg for the bread at His table. It is His 24/7 gift.

Recognizing this opens your thought to actually accepting His gift, to accepting what God really is, what His nature really is: all-harmonious, infinite good, divine Love. This is "Hallowed be Thy name" kind of thinking. This is adoring the Adorable One. And adoring is effortlessly lovingly hanging on every Word of God, is acknowledging Him, is entering into His courts with thanksgiving.

And what do you find there?

Your Father-Mother God's table set, your daily bread - specific to your daily needs - set for you. This is God's gift of "grace for today" feeding your famished affections - and calling on you to feed the famished affections of your neighbor. And maybe even the world.

You can always sit down with God. You don't have to earn it. You don't have to dress a certain way or say certain things or even believe certain things. And you certainly don't have to be "perfect". You just have to be willing.

Come to God as the disciples did to Jesus, after his resurrection, at their morning meal beside the Sea of Galilee.

There, they left their fishing nets, came ashore, broke bread and communed together with their risen Master. What an astonishing experience it was for them (see John's gospel and Science and Health). His ascending thought raised them out of grief and disbelief, forgave their fears and failures, awakened them to their true purpose, and so fed their real hunger - not just with bread and fish, but with the overflowing awakening here and now that God is Love.

This communion was also their companioning with Christ, with that True Bread which comes down from Heaven. So this too is how you commune with God: by leaving your nets - your tangled obligations, thinking you always have to fend for yourself, letting go of your burdensome duties, all those things that nag you and snag you and drag you into ways of the world. Christ calls you to leave all that. Christ calls you to sit in humble grateful adoration, letting divine Life and Love feed you, forgive you, lead you, deliver you.

In fact, Christ is calling you right now to give up your daily distractions for your daily Bread.

So sit still a moment. Open your thought up with gratitude. Let yourself enter that sacred space in your heart where God is. Let Him give you your daily bread, your daily grace, your daily communion, your daily companioning - your daily oneness with divine Love. Let "this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:"

As you do, you will wake up to see that divine Love is always with you. You have never been empty, never been famished, never been alone, never separated from God - but always only ever at one with Him, your perfect Mind, always welcomed and seated at His table, communing, companioning with "Our Father which art in heaven" - with our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious, forever.

So yes Father, give us this day our daily bread, our daily communion, our daily companioning with You. Give us that beautiful gift of Love's saving grace for today. Let it feed our famished affections, and help us share Your Love to feed the famished affections of those around us.

Obeying his precious precepts,--following his demonstration so far as we apprehend it,--we drink of his cup, partake of his bread, are baptized with his purity; and at last we shall rest, sit down with him, in a full understanding of the divine Principle which triumphs over death.

My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.

Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.

Work and Reflection - the Activity of God

"Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven."
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today. Feed the famished affections.

Life is effortless because it is reflection. It only becomes a pain when the "little ego" claims it is responsible for everything and has to do everything itself.

God is omni-action. And you are that Omni-action's perfect effortless reflection.

Think about this: there is no pain in reflection. There is no stress, no effort, no curse, in reflecting God, divine Love.

"All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all" - and all-harmonious. Honest labor and deeds of kindness are therefore effortless, all-harmonious, because they reflect God's good omni-action. This truth is a law of annihilation to every mortal belief in pain, in work being a pain, in work being painful, trying, tedious, difficult, fruitless.

Your work is the unfolding of Mind and its idea. It is an inspiration. It is a reflection. It is a revelation. Look for that. Listen to your intuition about what you do or don't do. Act from the point of view that God is working with you. Move from your spiritual sense - from that intuitively good perspective, from that one that includes the kind of expectancy and faithfulness which grows into a spiritual understanding. That perspective creates productivity because it is demonstrating - manifesting - Reality. In fact, your work - rightly seen - is to bear witness to Mind, God, in action as you. This witnessing is effortless, as powerful as Truth understood and as fruitful as Love lived.

"Let there be light" is how God works. God "spake and it was done" is how God works. And by reflection, this also your proper relationship to what you are called to do. This is how you truly do your work. This is how you truly live your purpose. This makes your activity light - brilliant - as well as light - weightless. Let there be light! Let your work be light. Let your light be shining. Let who you are as God's child pour out of the core of your being. Let your calling be made manifest, your purpose spoken, your work tangible. Let everything you are and do be all a reflection of God's activity in you, as you.

"As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being. The Scripture reads: "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being." "

And your being includes everything - your relationships, your supply, your purpose, your activity, your work. In Him you live, and move, - and work - and have your being.

You only get into trouble when (to paraphrase Mrs. Eddy) you think you are an independent worker, personal author, or ever a privileged originator. But you're not. You are a reflection. God is the Cause. You are the effect. Your job is to be a reflection. Your job is to shine. Your job is to make manifest the action of Life, the light of Truth, the warmth of Love. In fact, spiritually speaking, this is already what you are and what you do.

Don't think so? Then shift your point of view. Shift it away from the fanatasy of a personal human "ego" and over to the reality of the Great I Am - the Divine Ego. What does that mean? Think about it. Think about the implications. How would you work and act if you actually understood yourself to really be the divine reflection - expression - of the Great I Am, the infinite One Mind? of the Holy Spirit? of Eternal Love? Try it! See what happens. As you do, step by step you'll demonstrate your action-as-reflection. Step by step you'll see what Love has already prepared for you. Step by step you will witness God at work through you, as you.

Think about this paraphrase of an amazing sentence from Science & Health (the original is here):
Jesus beheld in Science the perfect work where sinning mortal work appears to mortals. In this perfect work, the Saviour saw God's own Action, and this correct view of work healed the sick, labored, failed, boring, frustrated, painful, overwhelming sense of work.

"God rests in action. Imparting has not impoverished, can never impoverish, the divine Mind. No exhaustion follows the action of this Mind, according to the apprehension of divine Science. The highest and sweetest rest, even from a human standpoint, is in holy work."

God rests in action.

And by reflection, so do you.

Thy work be done in earth as it is in heaven.
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God's work is omnipotent, supreme.

"Give us this day our daily ideas."
Give us graceful activity for today, support our awakening purpose.

Give us this day our daily Grace: Seeing what Love has prepared for you

Some years ago I’m driving my old 1968 VW camper bus with my friend Scot up to visit his grandpa on his homestead along the Wind River in Wyoming. My VW has a habit of occasionally eating its fan belt, so I always carry a couple spares. I am between jobs so I figure it’s cheaper replacing the fan belts than repairing the problem.

Scot and I’ve been driving non-stop for hours now across the vast lonely open spaces of eastern Oregon when suddenly the VW’s warning lights come on. It ate a fan belt. We pull over, open the engine hatch, I pop on another, and we’re on our way.

A half hour later the warning lights come on again! What?! Another fan belt’s gone. I know I have one more, so I fix it. But now I’m nervous. We haven’t passed a town or a gas station for a long time and the idea of being stuck without help and maybe missing out on visiting Grandpa is disconcerting to say the least.

I’m thinking “well, if it’s right to see Grandpa, it’ll work out.” But it’s Wednesday night and Scot suggests that we have our own little testimony meeting (as is common in Christian Science churches) and so we do. I’m reluctant at first, but Scot starts off and soon we’re sharing things we’re grateful to God for and my anxiety lessens dramatically.

Until the dashboard lights up again.

We’ve burned through 3 fan belts in the space of 60 miles. Plus now there are mysterious metal shavings coming off the pulley. Ugh. I rummage around anxiously and – find one last spare fan belt. It feels like a minor miracle.

We put it on, get back in the VW, and both of us start to pray.

Praying trusts our deepest desires to God. It turns us away from the fatalistic resignation of “if it’s right, it’ll work out” kind of thinking. Knowing that God is Love and that Love is power helps us let go of fear, let’s us become still, let’s us see the solution – the salvation – Divine Love has already prepared for us.

And that’s exactly what happens to Scot and me. Praying lets me glimpse that if God really is Love, and if God really is power, and if God is really actively present in our lives, then I can be a witness to that. I cling to this idea. You could say I “stand still” on it, because it is a solid Biblical truth. Not an “if it’s right it’ll work out” kind of thing. No. Solid. It helps me actively look and see what Love has prepared for us, right here and right now. That’s all I need to do, just see what Divine Love has prepared for us.

What a wonderful feeling that is, to know that my job right now is just to be a witness of what Love has already prepared for us. It’s actually fun to think about - because you know it has to be good. Mrs. Eddy – whose life was full of such witnessing, wrote: “Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love.” And so it is about to be proven.

So we drive on. And on. And in the growing twilight we see some buildings up ahead. We’re on the outskirts of Boise already! And there, just off the road is… a VW dealership!

It’s almost 9pm now and we figure we can just pull in there, sleep in our bus for the night, and wait until morning to get help. But then we notice that the back door of the building is open. I start to worry “what if no one’s there” or “what if someone is there, but they don’t want to help us.” Then I remember, no! Let's just see what Love has prepared for us.

So we park and walk through the open door. There are five mechanics busily putting things away and cleaning up and obviously getting ready to leave. I start to worry again about burdening them with our problems but then remember again “just to see what Love has prepared” and I hear myself asking “Can you help us?”

One of the mechanics comes over, wiping his hands off on a red shop rag, he asks us what’s the problem. We tell him the story, how we’re on our way to visit Scot’s grandpa, how the VW ate three fan belts and now there are these metal shavings and we weren’t sure why. He comes out to our VW bus and looks at the engine. Then quietly goes back inside and starts looking through a junk box. My mind is filling again with “what if he can’t find what we need” and then immediately I go back to that solid thought of just trusting that God is present, blessing all of us, that we can see what Love has prepared.

He pulls out a pulley wheel and rummages around some more and – in the midst of this big box of all kinds of junk – finds a tiny shim, the missing little piece of metal that wedges the pulley wheel correctly in place. Then he looks around under a shop bench, finds a box of fan belts and pulls out one that had come off an old Chevy. “This’ll fit” he says, then goes back out to our VW and installs everything, sliding in the missing shim, torquing the pulley bolt correctly, and putting on the belt just right.

Then the worrying thoughts start to come back again: We hardly have any money. How much is this going to cost? How am I going to pay for this? But I stop. And then I go back in my heart, remembering to just stop being afraid and see what Love has prepared. He looks up at us and says “That oughta do it” and I ask him how much we owe him, and he says “Nothing. Just go have a good visit with your grandpa.”

Maybe all of twenty minutes have passed and, after shaking his hand and thanking him profusely, we are back on the road to Wyoming – rejoicing to be witnesses to the wonderful kindness that Love had prepared for us.

I’ve leaned on this lesson many times since that trip. And it has made me realize how important it is not to resign my thinking to fatalism, to the “if it’s right, it’ll work out” kind of wishful thinking that has nothing to do with the way Jesus taught us to pray and rely on God. Jesus taught us to silence that kind of wishywashy fearful approach. He taught us instead actively pray, to be expectant that God's goodness for us is present, to leave fear behind, to stand still with Love, and then go to that place inside where we can see the salvation of the Lord – where we can feel ourselves being an active witness to what Love – not fear, or fate, or history, or circumstances - has prepared for us.

Mrs. Eddy wrote: “Immortal Mind is God, immortal good; in whom the Scripture saith ‘we live, and move, and have our being.’ This Mind, then, is not subject to growth, change, or diminution, but is the divine intelligence, or Principle, of all real being; holding man forever in the rhythmic round of unfolding bliss, as a living witness to and perpetual idea of inexhaustible good.” Misc. 82:28

So why give in to thinking “If it’s right it’ll work out" when God is already holding you in His arms? When you are already His “living witness to… inexhaustible good”? Divine Love has great things in store for you. Don’t be afraid. Listen to the intuition that guides you to trust in God. Silence the fear and stand with your thoughts still and focused on witnessing divine Love in action. This is seeing the salvation of the Lord. This is receiving your daily bread - your daily grace. This makes your life a great adventure of giving as well as receiving Love’s blessings.

Oh, and by the way, Scot and I had a great time at Grandpa’s ranch, a safe drive home, and my VW bus never ate a fan belt again.

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.