Give us this day our daily Bread of Life

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

If you think, in this verse, that Jesus is just talking about getting your "3 square meals a day," you're not thinking - or praying - deeply enough.

Remember when Jesus fed the 5000? A miracle of "daily bread," yes. But what did Jesus say to that crowd when they came searching for him the next day?

"Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed."

He rebuked the crowd for simply looking to fill their stomaches again (and for free) because they were missing the much greater lesson:

• God is actually always present to feed every need, solve every problem, cure every ill, redeem every sin, raise every deadened life to purpose and fulfillment.

So we too need to wake up and listen to this rebuke!

This verse of Jesus' Prayer is talking about so much more than just asking God to meet our daily human needs. Jesus is asking us to understand that the real "daily bread" we should be praying to receive is the Bread of Life, the Christ!

"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."

Humanity focuses on material food. Jesus challenges us to focus on our spiritual food. He knew that "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need." And though it may appear as bread and fish, it is the profound reality behind that which is vital to "eat." And it is a huge spiritual truth:

• When the Bread of Life - the Christ - comes to your conciousness, it will feed your heart, your soul, your thought with the ideas, intuitions, inspirations that you specifically and individually need to live and prosper.

Do you get this? Do you grasp that this daily Bread of Life is what makes you alive? that makes your life worth living? that inspires you to live and give and grow into what God is making you?

This Bread of Life is so much more than something you'd eat for lunch. It is your literal companioning with God, your individual communion with God, your at-one-ment with God, your "taste" of God, your actual experience of God!

And this True Bread feeds your need with an awakening! An awakening to understand that your life is His - Spirit's - likeness! That, as far as God is concerned, you are already complete, that the True Bread is already present with you, already feeding and nourishing you, abundantly satisfying you with the Love of God, with your individual experience of Him, with your spiritual sense awakening to what Divine Love has already prepared for you: fulfillment, completeness, satisfaction.

This True Bread is the Christ, Emmanuel, God-with-us. And God's Love for you is always made manifest in practical ways. But it is the cause - the Christ - that we must seek first, not the effect - the loaves and fishes.

And the cause is the Bread of Life, the Christ, Truth, our Redeemer.

"Give us this day our daily bread."
Yes! give us grace - the unconditional love of God - today! feed all famished affections - and we know Your Grace will also feed all the stomachs that go with them.

God leads us NOT into tempation

"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.

What a relief it is to know that God does not lead us into temptation, but just the opposite: He delivers us from evil - all evil! - including all sin, all disease, and even death.

What a relief it is to know that God does not dangle goodness - anything that is desirable - out in front of you just to cruelly snatch it way. God does not sucker you into wrong choices. He does not "wire" you to want what's bad for you, or make your heart's desire a sin, a sickness, or (especially) a death of your true nature.

"God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all." God has no dark intentions, no dark conflicted will for you, no dark malice, no dark humor laughing at your efforts to live and love. In Him is no darkness at all.

Yes. "God is Love." And as your Father-Mother, He creates in you a clean heart, a complete heart, a heart that beats steadily and constantly for Him. You are not cursed. You are not created as something dispicable, unworthy of love, undeserving of life, incapable of truth! God makes you in His own image and likeness, as His own reflection. The spiritual qualities you embody are reflections of Him. And He adds no sorrow with it.

Therefore, you have the divine right to reject any thought you might have of yourself as worthlessness. You have the divine right to reject every single suggestion of self-hate. God makes you to be His likeness, to live His Love, to love His Life, to be His Truth made manifest, to run with His Spirit, to live - not die! neither by age nor by 1000 cuts nor by suicide.

Wake up to see that self-love and self-hate are just positive and negative forms of egotism. It is not you. It is just a subtle suggestion that you are somehow separated from God. This "separateness" is easy to accept if you're not alert to it. It can feel good (the personal ego loves to be fed attention) but don't be duped! Egotism would love to control you, derail your life, silence your gifts, terminate your natural joy, destroy you. Don't let it! See egotism for what it is: always just a suggestion being presented to your thought. Refuse to accept it! It is your divine right to reject it! And instead, embrace your true status as God's image and likeness, a unique expression of His being. In fact you could say, you are God-being.

So don't hide under a bushel. Shine! Be the light of Light! This is your divine right and nothing can stop what God is making you to be.

"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.

God enables you to know your perfect being, and He enables you to see it and be it.

Amen!

Hymn of Joy

You are God's song.

He sings you with joy
He sweeps your heart-strings
And tunes your voice
And makes you a hymn of miracles!

You are God's song.
He is singing you.

Listen!

Your rhythms are vibrant,
Your harmonies deep,
Your melody bright.

You are God's song.

Listen!

He is singing you
with such love

And His performance
of you

is flawless.

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This came to me when I was praying the Lord's Prayer last night. It was unexpected, but just what I needed to know. I hope it blesses you also.

Thinking about forgiveness (Part 2)

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

Accept the forgiveness of God by living it out, by living the unconditional love of Love.

And God's love is unconditional. Jesus said it most beautifully: "He [God] causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." God's Love shines on everyone, rains down on everyone - equally.

What matters is your response.

Are you willing to love like that? That's how God loves. And He made you in His image and likeness. He made you to be like Him. So it isn't too much of a stretch to think that loving unconditionally is actually your native way of loving.

So be who you really are! Be His loving likeness! And you will awake from the need of forgiveness because you'll be too busy loving like God does: unconditionally.

And rest assured: Love does not ignore evil. It annihilates it. It rips off the mask of egos, of separation, of many (evil) minds, and exposes these as the dream that they really are. Evil is never the reality - but it takes focus and practice to prove this.

Fortunately Jesus left us his supreme example. He repeatedly proved evil's powerlessness. And his resurrection and ascension exposed evil forever as "the liar" that it is.

So if you're feeling the need of forgiveness (and who doesn't!) or of being forgiving (ditto!), wake up to your opportunity to reflect the unconditional love of Love, God! Don't wallow around in hurts and debts and tresspasses! Don't stay asleep in that sometimes way-too-cozy dream of evil! Wake up to God and reflect Him! Let His utterly complete and unconditional joyous love pour into you, cleansing all that guilt away. And let His utterly complete and unconditional love pour right through you, and out to everyone around you, shining His light, His love equally to all.

His Love is always shining, and you are always at the point of opportunity to awake to your real status as His image and likeness. Jesus proved this so you could live this, so you could know God's complete unconditional forgiveness of you - awake - as His perfect reflection.

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." And His Love is always reflected in your-being-Love-made-manifest. Here. Now.