"Give us this day our daily bread."
Give us grace for today; feed the famished affections.
How many powers are there? How many do you think are governing you? Is there a power called hunger? Is there a power called thirst? Is there a power called lust? anger? sorrow? or digestion, circulation, sleep, breath? or how about politics, the economy, or even the weather?
It sounds crazy, but in spiritual reality there really is only one power. And that is God.
And Christ Jesus proved this repeatedly, by stilling storms, feeding the multitudes, redeeming sinners, healing the sick and raising the dead. He even paid his taxes - courtesy of a fish!
One of the most beautiful things about Jesus' life is how vividly he shows us the all-encompassing unconditional Love that is God. He embodied that so completely that he changed the lives of everyone he encountered. He proved repeatedly that sin is not desirable, that sickness is not inevitable, and that death is not final!
So what if you just stopped for a moment. Just stopped worrying and fretting and wondering about what's next. What if you just occupied this very moment right now and just asked God, Divine Love itself, to show you what He has prepared for you. No arguing, no whining, no stressing, no fretting, no doubting. Just that childlike expectancy that looks up to its Parent with a complete openness to Love.
Spend today practicing that expectancy. If you are worrying about something difficult, offer it up to your Father-Mother God and just listen for the intuitions of good that come back to you. Persist in your expectancy and your listening! And then, be sure to be open - completely open - and you will see what Love has prepared for you.
Today.
"For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever."
For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All.
Showing posts with label Christ Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christ Jesus. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Monday, December 28, 2009
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:
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.
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."
- 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.
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.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Does God tempt us and try 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.
This verse of the Lord's Prayer specifically challenges the old theology that says God is vengeful, capricious; that He throws hurdles - trials - at us to tempt us and test us.
Think how often God is mistakenly portrayed this way in popular theology - not only during Jesus' time, but even in our own! People still hear (and fear) "If you do [fill in the blank] God will punish you!"
But in this verse of the Lord's Prayer Jesus says NO to this way of thinking.
His entire prayer is a radical departure from such a view of God. In Jesus' view, God is "Our Father." And Jesus shows us our Father's name and nature are to be hallowed - adored - because our Father is Good. His all-harmonious kingdom is one you want to be in. You want God's will to be done right here where you are just as it is in Heaven. Why? because His will for you is good! How do we know? Listen to Jesus:
"...what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"
And what does God give you?
Your daily bread. Your daily communion with Him. Your daily experience of Him.
And His presence shows you your forgiveness as you forgive others. His Love and forgiveness for you is reflected in your love and forgiveness of your neighbor.
And He leads you - not into temptation - but always delivers you from everything that would tempt you or try to separate you from Him: sin, disease, and even death.
Why? Because that's what happens when you open yourself to the kingdom, the presence, of God. That's what happens when invite His will to be yours. And His is the glory that envelopes you. Here. Now.
And God never leads you into trials or temptation but always delivers you into His presence, His care and authority, His Allness, His glorious Love.
And God leadeth us not into temptation but delivereth us from sin, disease, and death.
This verse of the Lord's Prayer specifically challenges the old theology that says God is vengeful, capricious; that He throws hurdles - trials - at us to tempt us and test us.
Think how often God is mistakenly portrayed this way in popular theology - not only during Jesus' time, but even in our own! People still hear (and fear) "If you do [fill in the blank] God will punish you!"
But in this verse of the Lord's Prayer Jesus says NO to this way of thinking.
His entire prayer is a radical departure from such a view of God. In Jesus' view, God is "Our Father." And Jesus shows us our Father's name and nature are to be hallowed - adored - because our Father is Good. His all-harmonious kingdom is one you want to be in. You want God's will to be done right here where you are just as it is in Heaven. Why? because His will for you is good! How do we know? Listen to Jesus:
"...what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"
And what does God give you?
Your daily bread. Your daily communion with Him. Your daily experience of Him.
And His presence shows you your forgiveness as you forgive others. His Love and forgiveness for you is reflected in your love and forgiveness of your neighbor.
And He leads you - not into temptation - but always delivers you from everything that would tempt you or try to separate you from Him: sin, disease, and even death.
Why? Because that's what happens when you open yourself to the kingdom, the presence, of God. That's what happens when invite His will to be yours. And His is the glory that envelopes you. Here. Now.
And God never leads you into trials or temptation but always delivers you into His presence, His care and authority, His Allness, His glorious Love.
Monday, July 14, 2008
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:
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.
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
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.
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.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
The Lord's Prayer & The 10 Promises (Part 1)
Do you realize that the Lord's Prayer and the 10 Commandments - the 10 Promises - are complimentary?
Think about it: Moses heard God's Word as the 10 Commandments. These 10 Commandments promise you the truth about your relationship with God and about your relationship with your fellow human beings. They define you as God's image and likeness. They fulfill all the law and the prophets because they enliven you to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. In them, you are unable to be anything other than what God makes you to be. They promise you that you "shalt not" be anything but His perfect creation.
And this is also exactly what the Lord's Prayer does. In fact, you could say it is the 10 Promises in prayer form.
Look at the first 5 Commandments and the first 4 verses of the Lord's Prayer side by side:
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Our Father, which art in heaven. Our Father-Mother God, all harmonious.
To acknowledge only the One God is to have no other gods. It is to know that this One God is your only Father-Mother, all-harmonious. It is to accept that your source is Divine, your Cause is Life, your Creator is Love, and that you are His/Her perfect image and likeness, healthy, holy, and wholely good. Live this promise as your prayer.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image...
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain...
Hallowed be Thy name. Adorable One.
Hallowing the Adorable One, the Great I Am, makes it impossible to indulge in idolatry - the worship of matter - or to dishonor the name and nature of God in word or deed. God's name - God's perfect nature - is the real thing, the genuine article! You don't need to idolize people or things when you adore the Adorable One. Don't you love what you adore? And if you adore God, divine Love, would you ever even think to abuse His name or His nature? Of course not. And this is your natural state of being, as God's image and likeness.
4. Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy...
Thy kingdom come. Thy kingdom is come. Thou art everpresent.
What could keep the Sabbath holier than acknowledging God's kingdom, His presence and power as being with you right here and right now? What could put you at ease - make you rest - more than knowing that God's work is done, His kingdom come, and that your perfect place in it is secure? There is no effort you need to put out to make this happen. There is no labor you need to add to His already complete perfect creation. There is no work involved in opening your eyes to His everpresence. You are a complete and perfect expression of God. God "finished" you. He is present with you now, holding you, keeping you safe. Healing is the truest fulfillment of the Sabbath - acknowedging and understanding that God's work - you! - are done and and done perfectly. This is God's Sabbath promise to you: you are already whole, complete, divinely fair. Rest in that.
5. Honor thy father and thy mother...
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.
What better way to honor your father and mother than by obeying them? Than by acknowledging their authority? Why would you want to obey your parents? For at least one reason: their years of experience provides a loving protective wisdom that can guard and guide you as you mature. Like the Good Shepherd of the 23rd Psalm, their "rod and ... staff", their will, their loving desire, comforts you.
And so if you would honor your father and mother by obeying them, listening to their guidance because you know they have your best interests at heart, because they love you, so it is even more important to honor God in the same way. Listen to what God is telling you about who you are. Honor God's name and nature - because you are the image and likeness of that name and nature! So let the will of your Father-Mother God be done in your life here and now as it is in heaven.
And why not? It will only make your will, your love, your life, more like Him, more true to who you really already are, more authentic, more awake to your likeness to your Father-Mother God. Honor that heavenly likeness, that heavenly will by living your life accordingly right now right here on earth. Then you'll not only know that - as in heaven, so on earth, God really is omnipotent, supreme - you'll be demonstrating it. You'll be living it. And that's the most natural thing in the world for you to do.
Think about it: Moses heard God's Word as the 10 Commandments. These 10 Commandments promise you the truth about your relationship with God and about your relationship with your fellow human beings. They define you as God's image and likeness. They fulfill all the law and the prophets because they enliven you to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. In them, you are unable to be anything other than what God makes you to be. They promise you that you "shalt not" be anything but His perfect creation.
And this is also exactly what the Lord's Prayer does. In fact, you could say it is the 10 Promises in prayer form.
Look at the first 5 Commandments and the first 4 verses of the Lord's Prayer side by side:
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Our Father, which art in heaven. Our Father-Mother God, all harmonious.
To acknowledge only the One God is to have no other gods. It is to know that this One God is your only Father-Mother, all-harmonious. It is to accept that your source is Divine, your Cause is Life, your Creator is Love, and that you are His/Her perfect image and likeness, healthy, holy, and wholely good. Live this promise as your prayer.
2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image...
3. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain...
Hallowed be Thy name. Adorable One.
Hallowing the Adorable One, the Great I Am, makes it impossible to indulge in idolatry - the worship of matter - or to dishonor the name and nature of God in word or deed. God's name - God's perfect nature - is the real thing, the genuine article! You don't need to idolize people or things when you adore the Adorable One. Don't you love what you adore? And if you adore God, divine Love, would you ever even think to abuse His name or His nature? Of course not. And this is your natural state of being, as God's image and likeness.
4. Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy...
Thy kingdom come. Thy kingdom is come. Thou art everpresent.
What could keep the Sabbath holier than acknowledging God's kingdom, His presence and power as being with you right here and right now? What could put you at ease - make you rest - more than knowing that God's work is done, His kingdom come, and that your perfect place in it is secure? There is no effort you need to put out to make this happen. There is no labor you need to add to His already complete perfect creation. There is no work involved in opening your eyes to His everpresence. You are a complete and perfect expression of God. God "finished" you. He is present with you now, holding you, keeping you safe. Healing is the truest fulfillment of the Sabbath - acknowedging and understanding that God's work - you! - are done and and done perfectly. This is God's Sabbath promise to you: you are already whole, complete, divinely fair. Rest in that.
5. Honor thy father and thy mother...
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.
What better way to honor your father and mother than by obeying them? Than by acknowledging their authority? Why would you want to obey your parents? For at least one reason: their years of experience provides a loving protective wisdom that can guard and guide you as you mature. Like the Good Shepherd of the 23rd Psalm, their "rod and ... staff", their will, their loving desire, comforts you.
And so if you would honor your father and mother by obeying them, listening to their guidance because you know they have your best interests at heart, because they love you, so it is even more important to honor God in the same way. Listen to what God is telling you about who you are. Honor God's name and nature - because you are the image and likeness of that name and nature! So let the will of your Father-Mother God be done in your life here and now as it is in heaven.
And why not? It will only make your will, your love, your life, more like Him, more true to who you really already are, more authentic, more awake to your likeness to your Father-Mother God. Honor that heavenly likeness, that heavenly will by living your life accordingly right now right here on earth. Then you'll not only know that - as in heaven, so on earth, God really is omnipotent, supreme - you'll be demonstrating it. You'll be living it. And that's the most natural thing in the world for you to do.
Friday, March 7, 2008
So what's it like?
"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.
So what's it like in heaven? Isn't it paradise? Isn't it where there is no sin, no disease, no evil, no death? Isn't it where the 10 Commandments are perfectly fulfilled? Isn't it where God, divine Love, is in complete control, where only His will is done?
And so what's it like to live somewhere where only God's will is done? What's God's will like? Isn't it going to be a reflection of His character, His nature? And if so, isn't His will then perfect and good? Isn't it, well, heavenly?
And what is heaven anyway? "Have you ever pictured this heaven and earth, inhabited by beings under the control of supreme wisdom?" Isn't it a place where God has no opposition, where He is the only power there is, where He reigns supreme? And if so, isn't it a beautiful place to be? a harmonious, happy, healthy, holy place to be?
If so, then, yes indeed: enable us to know that just like it is in heaven, so here on earth, this same Father-Mother God All harmonious is already the only real power there is. That earth is heaven - just viewed through that cloudy perspective, that dirty mirror, that "inverted image of Mind and substance with everything turned upside down. "
And when viewed rightside up, earth is heaven. Earth is already where God is omnipotent, supreme.
Huh?? earth is heaven?
Does this shock you? Does this seem impossible? Then you need a change in perspective. You need to see the world from a more spiritual point of view. You need to wake up and see things the way Jesus did. You need to "have the Mind of Christ."
In fact, that is what Jesus is asking us to pray for in this verse: the perspective he had, the perspective of the Mind of Christ, the point of view that sees God's heavenly will being done right here where just the opposite seems to be happening, where the inverted image seems so real, where the upside down perspective seems so permanently wrongside right!
Remember: "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 [...of heaven] is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."
So as you pray this verse, you are letting "this [same] mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." You are letting Jesus' "correct view" heal your earthly perspective and transform it into one like his, one that heals, one that makes whole, one that is heavenly.
And you have every right - and opportunity - to desire this, to live in a more heavenly way right here and right now.
Why? because it is God's loving will, desire, for you.
How? because God is omnipotent, supreme on "earth" just like He is in heaven.
In fact, there is no earthly dream of a mortal life separated from the everpresent heavenly good of our Father-Mother God. You (and the whole world of those around you) really already live with God in heaven.
Don't you have to die to get there? Of course not. Why? Because "Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind in which all the manifestations of Mind are harmonious and immortal, because sin is not there and man is found having no righteousness of his own, but in possession of "the mind of the Lord," as the Scripture says.
How would you feel if you had this "divine state of Mind"? if you knew you actually live in heaven right here and right now? How would you act? What would change in your life? What's your intuition telling you right now?
Heaven is your natural spiritual perspective, a divine state of Mind - put into practice and acted on. So let that Mind "be in you as it also was in Christ Jesus." Let that Mind be in you. Let it be your will. Let it move you, motivate you, inspire you, enable you, feed you, forgive you, lead you, deliver you. And you will find yourself fulfilling God's will. You will be a light pulled out from under the bushel of dark "earthy" thinking, and instead actively doing the healing holy loving will of your Father, lighting up earth as if it were Heaven (which, spiritually speaking, it already is).
So yes, enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme. Right here. Right now.
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.
So what's it like in heaven? Isn't it paradise? Isn't it where there is no sin, no disease, no evil, no death? Isn't it where the 10 Commandments are perfectly fulfilled? Isn't it where God, divine Love, is in complete control, where only His will is done?
And so what's it like to live somewhere where only God's will is done? What's God's will like? Isn't it going to be a reflection of His character, His nature? And if so, isn't His will then perfect and good? Isn't it, well, heavenly?
And what is heaven anyway? "Have you ever pictured this heaven and earth, inhabited by beings under the control of supreme wisdom?" Isn't it a place where God has no opposition, where He is the only power there is, where He reigns supreme? And if so, isn't it a beautiful place to be? a harmonious, happy, healthy, holy place to be?
If so, then, yes indeed: enable us to know that just like it is in heaven, so here on earth, this same Father-Mother God All harmonious is already the only real power there is. That earth is heaven - just viewed through that cloudy perspective, that dirty mirror, that "inverted image of Mind and substance with everything turned upside down. "
And when viewed rightside up, earth is heaven. Earth is already where God is omnipotent, supreme.
Huh?? earth is heaven?
Does this shock you? Does this seem impossible? Then you need a change in perspective. You need to see the world from a more spiritual point of view. You need to wake up and see things the way Jesus did. You need to "have the Mind of Christ."
In fact, that is what Jesus is asking us to pray for in this verse: the perspective he had, the perspective of the Mind of Christ, the point of view that sees God's heavenly will being done right here where just the opposite seems to be happening, where the inverted image seems so real, where the upside down perspective seems so permanently wrongside right!
Remember: "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 [...of heaven] is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."
So as you pray this verse, you are letting "this [same] mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." You are letting Jesus' "correct view" heal your earthly perspective and transform it into one like his, one that heals, one that makes whole, one that is heavenly.
And you have every right - and opportunity - to desire this, to live in a more heavenly way right here and right now.
Why? because it is God's loving will, desire, for you.
How? because God is omnipotent, supreme on "earth" just like He is in heaven.
In fact, there is no earthly dream of a mortal life separated from the everpresent heavenly good of our Father-Mother God. You (and the whole world of those around you) really already live with God in heaven.
Don't you have to die to get there? Of course not. Why? Because "Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind in which all the manifestations of Mind are harmonious and immortal, because sin is not there and man is found having no righteousness of his own, but in possession of "the mind of the Lord," as the Scripture says.
How would you feel if you had this "divine state of Mind"? if you knew you actually live in heaven right here and right now? How would you act? What would change in your life? What's your intuition telling you right now?
Heaven is your natural spiritual perspective, a divine state of Mind - put into practice and acted on. So let that Mind "be in you as it also was in Christ Jesus." Let that Mind be in you. Let it be your will. Let it move you, motivate you, inspire you, enable you, feed you, forgive you, lead you, deliver you. And you will find yourself fulfilling God's will. You will be a light pulled out from under the bushel of dark "earthy" thinking, and instead actively doing the healing holy loving will of your Father, lighting up earth as if it were Heaven (which, spiritually speaking, it already is).
So yes, enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme. Right here. Right now.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Thy will be done & Jesus (part 2)
"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.
Doesn't this verse of the Lord's Prayer prefigure Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane? where, the night before his crucifixion, Jesus, with great agony, let go of all his - and the world's - fear of letting go?
That night he gave his life in complete trust to his Father's will, knowing that his Father's will for him was God-being-Spirit not matter, God-being-Life not death, God-being-Love not hate, accepting that the Great I Am is the only Ego, the only will, the only real power - contrary to (in fact, in spite of) everything the world around him and his human senses were telling him.
Here is the scripture (Luke 22:39-52; 63-69):
39And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him.
40And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation.
41And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,
42Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
43And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.
44And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
45And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow,
46And said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.
47And while he yet spake, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them, and drew near unto Jesus to kiss him.
48But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?
49When they which were about him saw what would follow, they said unto him, Lord, shall we smite with the sword?
50And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear.
51And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him.
52Then Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and the elders, which were come to him, Be ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and staves?
...
63And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and smote him.
64And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?
65And many other things blasphemously spake they against him.
66And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together, and led him into their council, saying,
67Art thou the Christ? tell us. And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe:
68And if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go.
69 Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God.
Though Jesus suffered "a felon's fate," his healing had already occured before his crucifixion. He knew where his life was hid and Who the only real power is. His resurrection was assured that night in the Garden when he completely let go of any sense of human will and acknowledged only God's will completely.
Jesus knew, as no one else did, that God's power - Life's power - is actually the only will, the only real power there is. And he knew that malice, envy, hate, fear, sin, sickness, even death - have no power of their own to harm God or God's image and likeness. Why? because they are not God's will.
And he "proved them powerless" when 3 days later the stone rolled away from the tomb, the grave clothes were laid aside, and Jesus walked out of that burial of mind in matter, of will-power in matter, of Ego in matter, proving his only true being to be his God-likeness, his Christliness, his God-being.
This verse of our Lord's prayer can save you in just the same way. No matter what you are facing, your prayer can also be "Enable us to know this same thing Christ knows, that, as in heaven, so on earth, God - God's good will - is the only real will there is, and God's will is omnipotent, supreme."
"...the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore."
"This is the true God, and eternal life."
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.
Doesn't this verse of the Lord's Prayer prefigure Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane? where, the night before his crucifixion, Jesus, with great agony, let go of all his - and the world's - fear of letting go?
That night he gave his life in complete trust to his Father's will, knowing that his Father's will for him was God-being-Spirit not matter, God-being-Life not death, God-being-Love not hate, accepting that the Great I Am is the only Ego, the only will, the only real power - contrary to (in fact, in spite of) everything the world around him and his human senses were telling him.
Here is the scripture (Luke 22:39-52; 63-69):
39And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him.
40And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation.
41And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed,
42Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
43And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.
44And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
45And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow,
46And said unto them, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.
47And while he yet spake, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them, and drew near unto Jesus to kiss him.
48But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?
49When they which were about him saw what would follow, they said unto him, Lord, shall we smite with the sword?
50And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear.
51And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him.
52Then Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and the elders, which were come to him, Be ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and staves?
...
63And the men that held Jesus mocked him, and smote him.
64And when they had blindfolded him, they struck him on the face, and asked him, saying, Prophesy, who is it that smote thee?
65And many other things blasphemously spake they against him.
66And as soon as it was day, the elders of the people and the chief priests and the scribes came together, and led him into their council, saying,
67Art thou the Christ? tell us. And he said unto them, If I tell you, ye will not believe:
68And if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go.
69 Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God.
Though Jesus suffered "a felon's fate," his healing had already occured before his crucifixion. He knew where his life was hid and Who the only real power is. His resurrection was assured that night in the Garden when he completely let go of any sense of human will and acknowledged only God's will completely.
Jesus knew, as no one else did, that God's power - Life's power - is actually the only will, the only real power there is. And he knew that malice, envy, hate, fear, sin, sickness, even death - have no power of their own to harm God or God's image and likeness. Why? because they are not God's will.
And he "proved them powerless" when 3 days later the stone rolled away from the tomb, the grave clothes were laid aside, and Jesus walked out of that burial of mind in matter, of will-power in matter, of Ego in matter, proving his only true being to be his God-likeness, his Christliness, his God-being.
This verse of our Lord's prayer can save you in just the same way. No matter what you are facing, your prayer can also be "Enable us to know this same thing Christ knows, that, as in heaven, so on earth, God - God's good will - is the only real will there is, and God's will is omnipotent, supreme."
"...the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore."
"This is the true God, and eternal life."
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Thy will be done & desire (part 2)
"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.
"Thoughts unspoken are not unknown to the divine Mind. Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds."
Desire itself is a form of prayer. Desire as in that yearning, that longing, that wishfulness, that watchfulness for something better, higher, holier, that dissatisfaction with the status quo, that unwillingness to sit still and stay silent. Where do you suppose that stirring comes from? What makes you want something more real and solid? What impells you to move? What awakens you to push the boundaries, to go above and beyond the life you already know, the hunger already fed, the love you already feel?
It can only come from one place, whether you understand it clearly or not: "The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man."
But the Bible warns you: "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God:"
Why would you want to "try (test) the spirit" of your desire? For the same reason you'd want to avoid accepting a counterfeit $100 bill - to avoid being suckered into accepting nothing as something. Would you really want to accept a counterfiet $100 bill? Would you want to go through the hassle of dealing with the reprecussions of that? or of wasting the time straightening out that kind of situation? Could you afford losing something like a real $100 for a fake $100?
No.
So how do you "try (test) the spirit" of your desire to make sure it's not a fake?
Firstly, be honest about it. Mrs. Eddy makes this astute observation: "Honesty is spiritual power. Dishonesty is human weakness." You can lie to others, but don't kid yourself that you can lie to God. You cannot. Be honest with God about your desires. He loves you and His will for you is only good. Trust Him to open your deepest desires in a way that will be perfect for you - and a true reflection of Him.
Secondly, there are at least few ways - and probably many more - that you can "try" your desires to see if they are authentic to your true nature, such as:
1. is the desire persistent?
2. is the desire a little scarey? does it push your comfort zone?
3. does it feel somehow intuitively authentic and real - even if it seems unattainable?
4. does it make you want to grow in new ways?
5. does it make you want to give? and does it also make you want to receive?
6. does it impell you to exercise your talents - the things you love doing, that express your natural abilities and strengths?
7. does it nag at you to learn and live your real life-purpose?
Such desire is the Holy Spirit stirring you, awakening you, driving you forward to fulfill His will "in earth as it is in heaven." God is never content to leave you sleeping and dreaming away your existence. The Holy Spirit insists on movement. It insists on breathing deeply the fresh air of inspiration and growth. The wind blows, the Spirit moves, and things begin to change. Desire is the awakening in your heart of Emmanuel - God-with-us.
Sometimes your desire is clouded over with the debris of your old ways of thinking and old ways of seeing yourself and others. But even so, even if you're not sure if the desire is real or fake, you can still reach down deep and sincerely hand it over to God.
Sometimes you may need to hand it over repeatedly and persistently. Sometimes you can just offer it up in prayer once and you'll feel OK about it. But either way, you can always trust your desires to God.
You will likely find your passing fancies lose their luster. The counterfeit $100 gets exposed for the worthless thing it is. This is a good - even if sometimes painful - sign.
You might also find that your genuine desires start to blossom in unexpected ways. Opportunities will be put in front of you repeatedly that exercise your newly answered prayers. As your thought opens up about your desires, you take a step and then another, and another, and another, and the doubts begin to fade and you begin to realize you have the ability to live your desires - that your prayers are being answered by your living them.
Trusting God to help you, you will find the courage to keep taking those steps. And a new world will open up, and you will find your life more loving and yourself more loved, and your work more blessed and more of a blessing to others. Your life will be glorifying God - making Him and His perfect will, manifest.
So test this out. Be honest about your desires. Treat them as the prayer that they are. Offer them to God. Let the fakes fall away (good riddance) and treasure the true. And you can be sure that God will mold you and exalt you, and answer your desires, your prayers, in a way that fulfills His heavenly will for you, right where you are right now, in ways more wonderful than you ever thought possible or even expected.
"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.
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.
"Thoughts unspoken are not unknown to the divine Mind. Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds."
Desire itself is a form of prayer. Desire as in that yearning, that longing, that wishfulness, that watchfulness for something better, higher, holier, that dissatisfaction with the status quo, that unwillingness to sit still and stay silent. Where do you suppose that stirring comes from? What makes you want something more real and solid? What impells you to move? What awakens you to push the boundaries, to go above and beyond the life you already know, the hunger already fed, the love you already feel?
It can only come from one place, whether you understand it clearly or not: "The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man."
But the Bible warns you: "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God:"
Why would you want to "try (test) the spirit" of your desire? For the same reason you'd want to avoid accepting a counterfeit $100 bill - to avoid being suckered into accepting nothing as something. Would you really want to accept a counterfiet $100 bill? Would you want to go through the hassle of dealing with the reprecussions of that? or of wasting the time straightening out that kind of situation? Could you afford losing something like a real $100 for a fake $100?
No.
So how do you "try (test) the spirit" of your desire to make sure it's not a fake?
Firstly, be honest about it. Mrs. Eddy makes this astute observation: "Honesty is spiritual power. Dishonesty is human weakness." You can lie to others, but don't kid yourself that you can lie to God. You cannot. Be honest with God about your desires. He loves you and His will for you is only good. Trust Him to open your deepest desires in a way that will be perfect for you - and a true reflection of Him.
Secondly, there are at least few ways - and probably many more - that you can "try" your desires to see if they are authentic to your true nature, such as:
1. is the desire persistent?
2. is the desire a little scarey? does it push your comfort zone?
3. does it feel somehow intuitively authentic and real - even if it seems unattainable?
4. does it make you want to grow in new ways?
5. does it make you want to give? and does it also make you want to receive?
6. does it impell you to exercise your talents - the things you love doing, that express your natural abilities and strengths?
7. does it nag at you to learn and live your real life-purpose?
Such desire is the Holy Spirit stirring you, awakening you, driving you forward to fulfill His will "in earth as it is in heaven." God is never content to leave you sleeping and dreaming away your existence. The Holy Spirit insists on movement. It insists on breathing deeply the fresh air of inspiration and growth. The wind blows, the Spirit moves, and things begin to change. Desire is the awakening in your heart of Emmanuel - God-with-us.
Sometimes your desire is clouded over with the debris of your old ways of thinking and old ways of seeing yourself and others. But even so, even if you're not sure if the desire is real or fake, you can still reach down deep and sincerely hand it over to God.
Sometimes you may need to hand it over repeatedly and persistently. Sometimes you can just offer it up in prayer once and you'll feel OK about it. But either way, you can always trust your desires to God.
You will likely find your passing fancies lose their luster. The counterfeit $100 gets exposed for the worthless thing it is. This is a good - even if sometimes painful - sign.
You might also find that your genuine desires start to blossom in unexpected ways. Opportunities will be put in front of you repeatedly that exercise your newly answered prayers. As your thought opens up about your desires, you take a step and then another, and another, and another, and the doubts begin to fade and you begin to realize you have the ability to live your desires - that your prayers are being answered by your living them.
Trusting God to help you, you will find the courage to keep taking those steps. And a new world will open up, and you will find your life more loving and yourself more loved, and your work more blessed and more of a blessing to others. Your life will be glorifying God - making Him and His perfect will, manifest.
So test this out. Be honest about your desires. Treat them as the prayer that they are. Offer them to God. Let the fakes fall away (good riddance) and treasure the true. And you can be sure that God will mold you and exalt you, and answer your desires, your prayers, in a way that fulfills His heavenly will for you, right where you are right now, in ways more wonderful than you ever thought possible or even expected.
"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.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Thy will be done & Jesus (part 1)
"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.
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."
What better way to "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" than to pray Jesus' own prayer?
Isn't the Lord's Prayer the most beautiful intimate insight we have into Jesus' healing Christly consciousness? It is his practice made plain. It shows us how he prayed - and how he healed. It shows us how he communed with his Father, how Jesus lived His heavenly will right where the earthly dream seems to be.
And it shows you how he expects you to do he same - to have that same conciousness of God that he had, to have that Mind that he had, and to go and do likewise: be God's child, His expression, His Being made manifest, His Love made felt, His wholeness and holiness and healing made real - His heavenly will being done right where you are - in you, through you, as you - no matter what your earthly circumstances, always causing you to be blessed and to be a blessing to everyone around you.
How?
Praying the Lord's Prayer understandingly enables you to know that, as in heaven, so right here in earth, God - and God's perfect will - really are omnipotent, supreme.
Remember how Jesus saw God's perfect heavenly will in action:
"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."
The Mind that was in Christ Jesus sees only God's perfect will for His creation. Jesus' correct view grew out of that consciousness. And it not only healed the sick, it reformed the sinner, redeemed the self-willful, cleansed the lepers, raised the dead, fed the 5000, and gave us the Lord's Prayer.
Do you think Jesus would have seen you any differently?
Enable us to know, as in heaven, so on earth, God is omnipotent, supreme.
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."
What better way to "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus" than to pray Jesus' own prayer?
Isn't the Lord's Prayer the most beautiful intimate insight we have into Jesus' healing Christly consciousness? It is his practice made plain. It shows us how he prayed - and how he healed. It shows us how he communed with his Father, how Jesus lived His heavenly will right where the earthly dream seems to be.
And it shows you how he expects you to do he same - to have that same conciousness of God that he had, to have that Mind that he had, and to go and do likewise: be God's child, His expression, His Being made manifest, His Love made felt, His wholeness and holiness and healing made real - His heavenly will being done right where you are - in you, through you, as you - no matter what your earthly circumstances, always causing you to be blessed and to be a blessing to everyone around you.
How?
Praying the Lord's Prayer understandingly enables you to know that, as in heaven, so right here in earth, God - and God's perfect will - really are omnipotent, supreme.
Remember how Jesus saw God's perfect heavenly will in action:
"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."
The Mind that was in Christ Jesus sees only God's perfect will for His creation. Jesus' correct view grew out of that consciousness. And it not only healed the sick, it reformed the sinner, redeemed the self-willful, cleansed the lepers, raised the dead, fed the 5000, and gave us the Lord's Prayer.
Do you think Jesus would have seen you any differently?
Monday, January 28, 2008
Q & A
So does God live in heaven while I'm stuck here on earth? Does that mean I'm separated from God?
* It can sometimes seem like it, but in reality you never are.
So then, where is heaven?
* Within you. Within consciousness - within your spiritual consciousness.
Where is earth then?
* The same place. Within you. Within consciousness.
How is that possible since heaven is perfect and all-harmonious and earth usually seems like just the opposite, like a swamp of good and evil and contending forces and opinions and strife and tumult and one disaster after another?
* Not to be flip, but because, like you said, it seems that way - at least when you're thinking materially, or as Mrs. Eddy might put it "upside down." Think about these statements from Science & Health:
"What, then, is the material personality which suffers, sins, and dies? It is not man, the image and likeness of God, but man's counterfeit, the inverted likeness, the unlikeness called sin, sickness, and death."
"Delusion, sin, disease, and death arise from the false testimony of material sense, which, from a supposed standpoint outside the focal distance of infinite Spirit, presents an inverted image of Mind and substance with everything turned upside down."
"The greatest wrong is but a suppositious opposite of the highest right."
"When examined in the light of divine Science, mortals present more than is detected upon the surface, since inverted thoughts and erroneous beliefs must be counterfeits of Truth. Thought is borrowed from a higher source than matter, and by reversal, errors serve as waymarks to the one Mind, in which all error disappears in celestial Truth."
"From the infinite elements of the one Mind emanate all form, color, quality, and quantity, and these are mental, both primarily and secondarily. Their spiritual nature is discerned only through the spiritual senses. Mortal mind inverts the true likeness, and confers animal names and natures upon its own misconceptions."
"In Science we are children of God; but whatever is of material sense, or mortal, belongs not to His children, for materiality is the inverted image of spirituality."
"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."
"God creates all forms of reality. His thoughts are spiritual realities. So-called mortal mind--being non-existent and consequently not within the range of immortal existence--could not by simulating deific power invert the divine creation, and afterwards recreate persons or things upon its own plane, since nothing exists beyond the range of all-inclusive infinity, in which and of which God is the sole creator. Mind, joyous in strength, dwells in the realm of Mind. Mind's infinite ideas run and disport themselves. In humility they climb the heights of holiness."
"Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will surely appear sometime and in some way. There will be no more pain, and all tears will be wiped away. When you read this, remember Jesus' words, "The kingdom of God is within you." This spiritual consciousness is therefore a present possibility."
So if I see things spiritually - right side up - I'm seeing the way God sees? I'm being in heaven? I'm already in heaven, right here, right now?
* Yep. If God lives in heaven (and He does), and you are His idea, His creation (and you are), then you live with Him.
Well I'm not sure it really feels like it.
* As long as you look at things "upside down" that's understandable. But what's great is that "by reversal, errors serve as waymarks" that take you home to God. So try it! Reverse your perspective. Look up! Look at your life spiritually instead of materially. Look, like Jesus did, for God's own likeness in everything and everyone around you. You'll begin to get glimpses, insights, intuitions of something "better, higher, holier" than is presented by only a mortal (dead) perspective. You can immediately change course and act from this point of view. Why? Because Heaven is your true state of being right now. To see this and to be this is to be whole, and holy, and wholly at home with God, inseparable from Him. The Lord's Prayer promises you this: "Thy kingdom come." Thy kingdom [of heaven] is [already] come; Thou art [already] everpresent - with us, in consciousness.
* It can sometimes seem like it, but in reality you never are.
So then, where is heaven?
* Within you. Within consciousness - within your spiritual consciousness.
Where is earth then?
* The same place. Within you. Within consciousness.
How is that possible since heaven is perfect and all-harmonious and earth usually seems like just the opposite, like a swamp of good and evil and contending forces and opinions and strife and tumult and one disaster after another?
* Not to be flip, but because, like you said, it seems that way - at least when you're thinking materially, or as Mrs. Eddy might put it "upside down." Think about these statements from Science & Health:
"What, then, is the material personality which suffers, sins, and dies? It is not man, the image and likeness of God, but man's counterfeit, the inverted likeness, the unlikeness called sin, sickness, and death."
"Delusion, sin, disease, and death arise from the false testimony of material sense, which, from a supposed standpoint outside the focal distance of infinite Spirit, presents an inverted image of Mind and substance with everything turned upside down."
"The greatest wrong is but a suppositious opposite of the highest right."
"When examined in the light of divine Science, mortals present more than is detected upon the surface, since inverted thoughts and erroneous beliefs must be counterfeits of Truth. Thought is borrowed from a higher source than matter, and by reversal, errors serve as waymarks to the one Mind, in which all error disappears in celestial Truth."
"From the infinite elements of the one Mind emanate all form, color, quality, and quantity, and these are mental, both primarily and secondarily. Their spiritual nature is discerned only through the spiritual senses. Mortal mind inverts the true likeness, and confers animal names and natures upon its own misconceptions."
"In Science we are children of God; but whatever is of material sense, or mortal, belongs not to His children, for materiality is the inverted image of spirituality."
"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."
"God creates all forms of reality. His thoughts are spiritual realities. So-called mortal mind--being non-existent and consequently not within the range of immortal existence--could not by simulating deific power invert the divine creation, and afterwards recreate persons or things upon its own plane, since nothing exists beyond the range of all-inclusive infinity, in which and of which God is the sole creator. Mind, joyous in strength, dwells in the realm of Mind. Mind's infinite ideas run and disport themselves. In humility they climb the heights of holiness."
"Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will surely appear sometime and in some way. There will be no more pain, and all tears will be wiped away. When you read this, remember Jesus' words, "The kingdom of God is within you." This spiritual consciousness is therefore a present possibility."
So if I see things spiritually - right side up - I'm seeing the way God sees? I'm being in heaven? I'm already in heaven, right here, right now?
* Yep. If God lives in heaven (and He does), and you are His idea, His creation (and you are), then you live with Him.
Well I'm not sure it really feels like it.
* As long as you look at things "upside down" that's understandable. But what's great is that "by reversal, errors serve as waymarks" that take you home to God. So try it! Reverse your perspective. Look up! Look at your life spiritually instead of materially. Look, like Jesus did, for God's own likeness in everything and everyone around you. You'll begin to get glimpses, insights, intuitions of something "better, higher, holier" than is presented by only a mortal (dead) perspective. You can immediately change course and act from this point of view. Why? Because Heaven is your true state of being right now. To see this and to be this is to be whole, and holy, and wholly at home with God, inseparable from Him. The Lord's Prayer promises you this: "Thy kingdom come." Thy kingdom [of heaven] is [already] come; Thou art [already] everpresent - with us, in consciousness.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
The test of all prayer
"The test of all prayer lies in the answer to these questions: Do we love our neighbor better because of this asking? Do we pursue the old selfishness, satisfied with having prayed for something better, though we give no evidence of the sincerity of our requests by living consistently with our prayer?"
This text (found in the book Science & Health) completely changed the way I was recently praying about 3 upcoming public speaking engagements that I was dreading. Encountering it was really like a smack in the face. I had been so focused on my own fears and trying to overcome them that I was failing this most basic test (as Mrs. Eddy phrased it) of all prayer. It caused me to completely rethink things - taking my thought off myself and instead onto praying to answer the needs of the different audiences I would be addressing. What would bless them? what could I say that would help them? Refocusing on these 2 questions changed everything (including most of my PowerPoint slides).
Almost a week has gone by now since I completed the last (and longest and most complex) address. What a stark contrast between these 3 events and previous ones. Because I took my concerns off myself, turned my prayer to focus on blessing my audience, the events were satisfying, successful, and helped the audience understand things important to them in our work together.
Think how this test applies to the Lord's Prayer. Immediately you notice that the Lord's prayer is unselfish. It doesn't say "me," "my," or "I" anywhere in it. It is always "our" or "us" - it includes everyone, all of creation. It is unselfish. It seeks to bless, heal, and save everyone. It is not "My Father which art in heaven" it is "Our Father." It is not "Give me this day my daily bread" it is "Give us this day our daily bread." When you pray the Lord's Prayer, you pray to heal the world, to correct the seeming imposition of evil and separation for everyone - which of course includes you in that healing.
This is a key point, the true test of all prayer. And as I learned with my little public speaking challenge, it makes all the difference.
This text (found in the book Science & Health) completely changed the way I was recently praying about 3 upcoming public speaking engagements that I was dreading. Encountering it was really like a smack in the face. I had been so focused on my own fears and trying to overcome them that I was failing this most basic test (as Mrs. Eddy phrased it) of all prayer. It caused me to completely rethink things - taking my thought off myself and instead onto praying to answer the needs of the different audiences I would be addressing. What would bless them? what could I say that would help them? Refocusing on these 2 questions changed everything (including most of my PowerPoint slides).
Almost a week has gone by now since I completed the last (and longest and most complex) address. What a stark contrast between these 3 events and previous ones. Because I took my concerns off myself, turned my prayer to focus on blessing my audience, the events were satisfying, successful, and helped the audience understand things important to them in our work together.
Think how this test applies to the Lord's Prayer. Immediately you notice that the Lord's prayer is unselfish. It doesn't say "me," "my," or "I" anywhere in it. It is always "our" or "us" - it includes everyone, all of creation. It is unselfish. It seeks to bless, heal, and save everyone. It is not "My Father which art in heaven" it is "Our Father." It is not "Give me this day my daily bread" it is "Give us this day our daily bread." When you pray the Lord's Prayer, you pray to heal the world, to correct the seeming imposition of evil and separation for everyone - which of course includes you in that healing.
This is a key point, the true test of all prayer. And as I learned with my little public speaking challenge, it makes all the difference.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Thy kingdom come
"Thy kingdom come."
Thy kingdome is come. Thou art everpresent.
Here, Jesus' prayer leads you to invite the kingdom of God to come to you. So think about what this means for a minute. What is a "kingdom" anyway? The 1913 dictionary defines kingdom as the quality or attributes of a king: the king's authority, and his sovereign power over the territory subject to him.
But how did Jesus define this idea of God's kingdom? He said God's kingdom does not come with observation, that it is not some physical place, but that it is within you. Then, in light of that, what are the implications of this verse for you?
You have already glimpsed your relationship to God as your Father-Mother in the 1st verse. You have already bowed before God's beautiful nature in the 2nd verse. And now you are inviting His presence into your heart. Isn't this verse bringing you to the point of opening? Isn't this bringing you to the point of receptivity? to the point of surrender? to the point of true humility?
Thy kingdom come - within you.
Thy kingdom is come. Thou art everpresent - in consciousness.
Think about what this means: that God is present with you right here where you are right now. Invite this idea of Immanuel - "God-with-us" - into your heart and thought right now. Let it in. Feel His warmth. Know that the Love of the Infinite Adorable One is embracing you right where you are.
You don't have to wait for something to happen. You don't have to learn a bunch of intellectual stuff or repeat the right words or try to make God love you. You just have to open the door of your thought, accept His kingdom, His presence, already within you, within your heart, within your thoughts, at work in your life, awakening you to who you truly are as His child within His kingdom, under His all-powerful care.
Mrs. Eddy says it this way: "When speaking of God's children, not the children of men, Jesus said, 'The kingdom of God is within you'; that is, Truth and Love reign in the real man, showing that man in God's image is unfallen and eternal. 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."
God's kingdom - His power, His sovereign authority, includes you, covers you, secures you. In fact, your spiritual consciousness is His reflection, His territory, His kingdom.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy kingdom is come. Thou art ever present.
Thy peace is come.
Thy joy is come.
Thy power is come.
Thy Love is come and is everpresent - within you, already within your consciousness.
Thy kingdome is come. Thou art everpresent.
Here, Jesus' prayer leads you to invite the kingdom of God to come to you. So think about what this means for a minute. What is a "kingdom" anyway? The 1913 dictionary defines kingdom as the quality or attributes of a king: the king's authority, and his sovereign power over the territory subject to him.
But how did Jesus define this idea of God's kingdom? He said God's kingdom does not come with observation, that it is not some physical place, but that it is within you. Then, in light of that, what are the implications of this verse for you?
You have already glimpsed your relationship to God as your Father-Mother in the 1st verse. You have already bowed before God's beautiful nature in the 2nd verse. And now you are inviting His presence into your heart. Isn't this verse bringing you to the point of opening? Isn't this bringing you to the point of receptivity? to the point of surrender? to the point of true humility?
Thy kingdom come - within you.
Thy kingdom is come. Thou art everpresent - in consciousness.
Think about what this means: that God is present with you right here where you are right now. Invite this idea of Immanuel - "God-with-us" - into your heart and thought right now. Let it in. Feel His warmth. Know that the Love of the Infinite Adorable One is embracing you right where you are.
You don't have to wait for something to happen. You don't have to learn a bunch of intellectual stuff or repeat the right words or try to make God love you. You just have to open the door of your thought, accept His kingdom, His presence, already within you, within your heart, within your thoughts, at work in your life, awakening you to who you truly are as His child within His kingdom, under His all-powerful care.
Mrs. Eddy says it this way: "When speaking of God's children, not the children of men, Jesus said, 'The kingdom of God is within you'; that is, Truth and Love reign in the real man, showing that man in God's image is unfallen and eternal. 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."
God's kingdom - His power, His sovereign authority, includes you, covers you, secures you. In fact, your spiritual consciousness is His reflection, His territory, His kingdom.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy kingdom is come. Thou art ever present.
Thy peace is come.
Thy joy is come.
Thy power is come.
Thy Love is come and is everpresent - within you, already within your consciousness.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Dr. Bob's gift
I'd like to share something my good friend Dr. Bob wrote. He's also studying the Lord's Prayer and he said it would be OK for me to share what he sent me. I know you'll find it as inspiring as I did. Here it is, complete:
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December 30, 2007
As the year 2007 closes, and my thoughts of accomplishments and challenges are reviewed, I set forth a particularly prevalent approach to healings in my experience during the year. Reading Mary Baker Eddy’s “…spiritual sense of the Lord’s Prayer”, found on pages 16-17 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, elevated my understanding of Jesus’ teaching. I contemplated each line, stayed with it until I gained a higher sense of how to apply a deeper meaning of the Prayer to overcome mortal mind’s attempted intrusion into the sunshine of peaceful experiences.
The following is typical of my desire to use the strength and certainty of God’s infinite power to deliver me closer to man’s true nature as His cherished child:
(“Our Father…”) Father, I know that you love me, and you know that I love you. I understand that you are Principal, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, substance, and intelligence. I understand that each of these synonyms has endless attributes which apply effectively to any need I have.
(“…which art in heaven,…”) I realize that heaven is where you dwell, and that dwelling place is everywhere, and that I am there also, because within it you created me. It is a peaceful atmosphere, harmonious, and mighty, with no threat of weakness, confusion, uncertainty, hostility, anger, or dismay..
(“Hallowed be Thy name.”) Father, you are what you are, the supreme reason for Life, and I adore and honor you. It is awesome to recognize your power and your governance of the universe.
(“Thy kingdom come.”) Since you are all, everywhere, and all powerful, there is no waiting for your kingdom to come. I am already within it. In it is where you want me to be; with you, right now.
(“Thy will be done in earth…”) Spiritually earth is an eternal place where there is no fear, only joyous avenues, boulevards, mountains, and trails to travel and explore that have no ending.
(“…as it is in heaven.”) I don’t have to wish or hope for your will to be done, because I know and understand that your work is finished. Your will is done. It is my spiritual consciousness.
(“Give us this day our daily bread;”) I am supplied every moment of every day with an abundance of perfect ideas guiding and guarding every promising step in my journey.
(“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”) Sometimes I seem to make mistakes when upset or confused, but I don’t want to act intentionally to hurt or harm another, or myself. I trust that I am able to express your love and as I am forgiven and corrected others will do the same. Harmony among your children is normal. Sometimes animal magnetism tries to block my perfect reflection, but vanishes as my thoughts turn to spiritual ideals.
(“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”) I have real comfort in knowing what you will not do and what you will do. Pleading or begging is not what you want from me. I realize that I must make the decision to turn away from temptation and allow your floodtides of good to deliver me from evil. I know that you will show me how to turn away from sin, disease, and death.
(“For thine is the kingdom,…”) Your heavenly kingdom surrounds me and gives me courage.
(“… and the power,…”) I have the inner strength of conviction to demonstrate the fallacy of mortality, and to the reject the illusion of any other power but thine.
(“…and the glory, forever.”) Through your glorious grace, protection, and unconditional love, I AM HEALED.
Thank you Jesus for the Lord’s Prayer.
Thank you Mary Baker Eddy for the spiritual sense of the Lord’s Prayer.
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December 30, 2007
As the year 2007 closes, and my thoughts of accomplishments and challenges are reviewed, I set forth a particularly prevalent approach to healings in my experience during the year. Reading Mary Baker Eddy’s “…spiritual sense of the Lord’s Prayer”, found on pages 16-17 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, elevated my understanding of Jesus’ teaching. I contemplated each line, stayed with it until I gained a higher sense of how to apply a deeper meaning of the Prayer to overcome mortal mind’s attempted intrusion into the sunshine of peaceful experiences.
The following is typical of my desire to use the strength and certainty of God’s infinite power to deliver me closer to man’s true nature as His cherished child:
(“Our Father…”) Father, I know that you love me, and you know that I love you. I understand that you are Principal, Mind, Soul, Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, substance, and intelligence. I understand that each of these synonyms has endless attributes which apply effectively to any need I have.
(“…which art in heaven,…”) I realize that heaven is where you dwell, and that dwelling place is everywhere, and that I am there also, because within it you created me. It is a peaceful atmosphere, harmonious, and mighty, with no threat of weakness, confusion, uncertainty, hostility, anger, or dismay..
(“Hallowed be Thy name.”) Father, you are what you are, the supreme reason for Life, and I adore and honor you. It is awesome to recognize your power and your governance of the universe.
(“Thy kingdom come.”) Since you are all, everywhere, and all powerful, there is no waiting for your kingdom to come. I am already within it. In it is where you want me to be; with you, right now.
(“Thy will be done in earth…”) Spiritually earth is an eternal place where there is no fear, only joyous avenues, boulevards, mountains, and trails to travel and explore that have no ending.
(“…as it is in heaven.”) I don’t have to wish or hope for your will to be done, because I know and understand that your work is finished. Your will is done. It is my spiritual consciousness.
(“Give us this day our daily bread;”) I am supplied every moment of every day with an abundance of perfect ideas guiding and guarding every promising step in my journey.
(“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”) Sometimes I seem to make mistakes when upset or confused, but I don’t want to act intentionally to hurt or harm another, or myself. I trust that I am able to express your love and as I am forgiven and corrected others will do the same. Harmony among your children is normal. Sometimes animal magnetism tries to block my perfect reflection, but vanishes as my thoughts turn to spiritual ideals.
(“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”) I have real comfort in knowing what you will not do and what you will do. Pleading or begging is not what you want from me. I realize that I must make the decision to turn away from temptation and allow your floodtides of good to deliver me from evil. I know that you will show me how to turn away from sin, disease, and death.
(“For thine is the kingdom,…”) Your heavenly kingdom surrounds me and gives me courage.
(“… and the power,…”) I have the inner strength of conviction to demonstrate the fallacy of mortality, and to the reject the illusion of any other power but thine.
(“…and the glory, forever.”) Through your glorious grace, protection, and unconditional love, I AM HEALED.
Thank you Jesus for the Lord’s Prayer.
Thank you Mary Baker Eddy for the spiritual sense of the Lord’s Prayer.
Monday, January 7, 2008
The 10 Promises
When Moses climbed Mount Sinai to receive the 10 Commandments, the Bible says that "...the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaks unto his friend..." (Ex 33:11). Imagine hearing God so clearly! Moses just lit up so powerfully brilliant and beautiful were his conversations with God.
In this gloriously inspired light Moses heard the 10 Commandments as God's own Word. And it is in this same gloriously inspired light that you should read and understand them.
If you do, you'll see that the 10 Commandments actually do more than tell you what to do - or not to do. They define your actual identity, your actual nature as God's image and likeness. The 10 Commandments are the original definition of the man and woman of God's creating. They don't require you to do anything but to live in complete alignment with your real being as God's perfect child. They are God's promises to you about who you really are.
Think about what it says in Genesis 1:27. God says "Let us make man after our image, after our likeness."
What does that mean? What would it be like, to “look” like God, infinite Spirit? What do you think you would be like if you lived and moved and breathed and acted like the actual mirror-image of Divine Love? – like the God Jesus' life defined as completely Good, as Truth and Life, as Love itself?
Does God kill? Does God steal? Does God covet? Does God commit adultery? If you're not sure, look at the life of Jesus for your answer, and that answer is No. So neither can you – when you honestly accept that you are His reflection and act accordingly. Then you’re obeying – living – your true nature as God made you. Then you are living – obeying – the Commandments. God's promise to you is "thou shalt not..." ever be anything unlike Him, because He made you in His wonderful beautiful likeness.
Sure it takes practice - a lifetime of practice - but that doesn't change the fact that the 10 Commandments are the only accurate definition of who you really are. They are God's promises to you about your true spiritual nature as His reflection, as His child. You are their meaning. Your life is their fulfilment.
Since the 10 Commandments are God's promises to you, it's natural for you to love them. It's natural for you to live them. They are your authentic God-like nature. They are your core being. And you can trust God to help you learn and live them authentically and completely.
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
"Hallowed be Thy name" - Thy nature - in me, as me.
Adorable One.
In this gloriously inspired light Moses heard the 10 Commandments as God's own Word. And it is in this same gloriously inspired light that you should read and understand them.
If you do, you'll see that the 10 Commandments actually do more than tell you what to do - or not to do. They define your actual identity, your actual nature as God's image and likeness. The 10 Commandments are the original definition of the man and woman of God's creating. They don't require you to do anything but to live in complete alignment with your real being as God's perfect child. They are God's promises to you about who you really are.
Think about what it says in Genesis 1:27. God says "Let us make man after our image, after our likeness."
What does that mean? What would it be like, to “look” like God, infinite Spirit? What do you think you would be like if you lived and moved and breathed and acted like the actual mirror-image of Divine Love? – like the God Jesus' life defined as completely Good, as Truth and Life, as Love itself?
Does God kill? Does God steal? Does God covet? Does God commit adultery? If you're not sure, look at the life of Jesus for your answer, and that answer is No. So neither can you – when you honestly accept that you are His reflection and act accordingly. Then you’re obeying – living – your true nature as God made you. Then you are living – obeying – the Commandments. God's promise to you is "thou shalt not..." ever be anything unlike Him, because He made you in His wonderful beautiful likeness.
Sure it takes practice - a lifetime of practice - but that doesn't change the fact that the 10 Commandments are the only accurate definition of who you really are. They are God's promises to you about your true spiritual nature as His reflection, as His child. You are their meaning. Your life is their fulfilment.
Since the 10 Commandments are God's promises to you, it's natural for you to love them. It's natural for you to live them. They are your authentic God-like nature. They are your core being. And you can trust God to help you learn and live them authentically and completely.
"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
"Hallowed be Thy name" - Thy nature - in me, as me.
Adorable One.
Saturday, January 5, 2008
Hallowed be Thy name.
"Hallowed be Thy name."
Adorable One.
This has unexpectedly become my favorite verse (if that's even really possible) of the Lord's Prayer. Maybe it's because I really had to dig into it, think hard about what it really means. And I've come to see it as a very transforming verse - one which really prepares us for the rest of the prayer, one that prepares us for healing.
And that's because it demands you to stop. It demands you to stop and consider what God really is. It shows you why "What is God?" is the most important question in the world.
In the first verse, you acknowledge your true relationship to God, and glimpse something true about what God is (our Father-Mother) and where He lives (Heaven - and you get to learn more about Heaven in the third verse).
But "Hallowed be Thy name" makes you stop. It makes you think: what is it to "hallow" God's name? what does it mean to "adore" the One God?
Hallow has these meanings: to make holy, to consecrate, to treat or keep as sacred. It's interesting too that the word "holy" shares its Anglo-Saxon origins with our words for health, and wholeness, and carries the significance of salvation.
And Mrs. Eddy did not mean "cutesy" when she understood this verse to spiritually mean "Adorable One." In her day adore meant: to love in the highest degree; to regard with the utmost esteem and affection.
In fact think about it: if you adore someone, don't you hang on their every word? don't you follow their every movement? don't you just LOVE being around them? wouldn't you do anything they ask? isn't it completely effortless and joyous and fun to be near them - and don't you want to be as near them as you can possibly be? Isn't that how you should be relating to God? Isn't this what it is like to really bow before Him, honor Him, to accept your sacred holy healthy whole (unbroken) relationship with your Father-Mother, the all-harmonious adorable One?
But wait. Why does Jesus say "Hallowed be Thy name?" Why not just say "Hallow God" and be done with it?
Because our Lord's Prayer moves you beyond just a kneejerk blind "acceptance" of God as God. His prayer moves you to think about something deeper: the name of God. What does it mean to hallow and adore His name? What is a "name" anyway?
The dictionary says a name is that "by which a person is known or designated." But it also refers to that which defines a person's character and actions.
Is Jesus then telling you to thoughtfully, prayerfully hallow, honor, respect, maybe even understand / appreciate / love, God's nature? His character? His qualities?
Yes. Because as you begin to think about God's nature, His character, His qualities, you begin to grasp what God is. That He is Love, therefore His nature is loving not vengeful. That He is Spirit, therefore He is spiritual not material. That He is Truth, therefore He includes all reality. That "God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all." I John 1:5
So, if God's nature is completely loving, spiritual, real, and luminous - what does that say about you as His image and likeness?
By honoring God's true name and nature, you begin to learn who you really are as God's creation. You begin to change the way you think about yourself. If you're honest about it, you also begin to change how you act, how you live, how you love. Can you really hallow, honor, respect, appreciate, love your Father and His Name and Nature, and then go off and think, live, and act in some opposite way? But if you do begin to knowingly live as best you can according to your understanding of how God really made you, then you are living authentically.
It's interesting to think about all the places in the Bible where people did exactly this. And as they woke up to their true spiritual nature as God's own image and likeness, and lived accordingly, things changed - sometimes radically. In fact, in the most dramatic cases, their names changed because of their spiritual awakening: Abram became Abraham, Jacob became Israel, Saul became Paul. These are all dramatic examples of how people are transformed when they truly hallow - honor, yield to, reflect - God's true Name and Nature.
So as you pray this verse, think about how adoring God's Name moves you into your natural wholeness - holiness! Into a bigger understanding of yourself as His image and likeness. Into living authentically. That as you hallow, honor, respect, appreciate, love, adore what you are learning about God and His true nature as revealed by Jesus, you begin to understand who you really are as His reflection. You start dropping all the negative things you may have thought about yourself, all the hateful things that may have been said about you, all the societal misconceptions that may have labeled you. And instead you wake up to your true nature as God's likeness. Your true nature is actually just like God's: loving, spiritual, healthy, whole - holy - because that's the way God made you! And nothing can ever change that.
Wake up to this truth that Jesus gives us in his Prayer. Let His likeness shine as you, His Life flow through you, His Love move in you. Let His Love soften you, strengthen you, show you that your innocence is unimpaired. Let His Love calm and purify your heart. Let your words and actions temper as your thoughts move off yourself, and out toward your Father-Mother God.
Let the Lord's Prayer help you to understand God's true nature, help you to love God for who He really is: Love itself. Let the Lord's Prayer teach you to love who you really are as God's own likeness. Let the Lord's Prayer help you to love your neighbor as yourself - love the true God-like nature of those around you. Let the Lord's Prayer help you bow humbly to (as Mrs. Eddy says) "to receive more of His reappearing." This is acknowledging the Name of God. This is adoring the Adorable One. This is hallowing His Holy Name.
Adorable One.
This has unexpectedly become my favorite verse (if that's even really possible) of the Lord's Prayer. Maybe it's because I really had to dig into it, think hard about what it really means. And I've come to see it as a very transforming verse - one which really prepares us for the rest of the prayer, one that prepares us for healing.
And that's because it demands you to stop. It demands you to stop and consider what God really is. It shows you why "What is God?" is the most important question in the world.
In the first verse, you acknowledge your true relationship to God, and glimpse something true about what God is (our Father-Mother) and where He lives (Heaven - and you get to learn more about Heaven in the third verse).
But "Hallowed be Thy name" makes you stop. It makes you think: what is it to "hallow" God's name? what does it mean to "adore" the One God?
Hallow has these meanings: to make holy, to consecrate, to treat or keep as sacred. It's interesting too that the word "holy" shares its Anglo-Saxon origins with our words for health, and wholeness, and carries the significance of salvation.
And Mrs. Eddy did not mean "cutesy" when she understood this verse to spiritually mean "Adorable One." In her day adore meant: to love in the highest degree; to regard with the utmost esteem and affection.
In fact think about it: if you adore someone, don't you hang on their every word? don't you follow their every movement? don't you just LOVE being around them? wouldn't you do anything they ask? isn't it completely effortless and joyous and fun to be near them - and don't you want to be as near them as you can possibly be? Isn't that how you should be relating to God? Isn't this what it is like to really bow before Him, honor Him, to accept your sacred holy healthy whole (unbroken) relationship with your Father-Mother, the all-harmonious adorable One?
But wait. Why does Jesus say "Hallowed be Thy name?" Why not just say "Hallow God" and be done with it?
Because our Lord's Prayer moves you beyond just a kneejerk blind "acceptance" of God as God. His prayer moves you to think about something deeper: the name of God. What does it mean to hallow and adore His name? What is a "name" anyway?
The dictionary says a name is that "by which a person is known or designated." But it also refers to that which defines a person's character and actions.
Is Jesus then telling you to thoughtfully, prayerfully hallow, honor, respect, maybe even understand / appreciate / love, God's nature? His character? His qualities?
Yes. Because as you begin to think about God's nature, His character, His qualities, you begin to grasp what God is. That He is Love, therefore His nature is loving not vengeful. That He is Spirit, therefore He is spiritual not material. That He is Truth, therefore He includes all reality. That "God is Light and in Him is no darkness at all." I John 1:5
So, if God's nature is completely loving, spiritual, real, and luminous - what does that say about you as His image and likeness?
By honoring God's true name and nature, you begin to learn who you really are as God's creation. You begin to change the way you think about yourself. If you're honest about it, you also begin to change how you act, how you live, how you love. Can you really hallow, honor, respect, appreciate, love your Father and His Name and Nature, and then go off and think, live, and act in some opposite way? But if you do begin to knowingly live as best you can according to your understanding of how God really made you, then you are living authentically.
It's interesting to think about all the places in the Bible where people did exactly this. And as they woke up to their true spiritual nature as God's own image and likeness, and lived accordingly, things changed - sometimes radically. In fact, in the most dramatic cases, their names changed because of their spiritual awakening: Abram became Abraham, Jacob became Israel, Saul became Paul. These are all dramatic examples of how people are transformed when they truly hallow - honor, yield to, reflect - God's true Name and Nature.
So as you pray this verse, think about how adoring God's Name moves you into your natural wholeness - holiness! Into a bigger understanding of yourself as His image and likeness. Into living authentically. That as you hallow, honor, respect, appreciate, love, adore what you are learning about God and His true nature as revealed by Jesus, you begin to understand who you really are as His reflection. You start dropping all the negative things you may have thought about yourself, all the hateful things that may have been said about you, all the societal misconceptions that may have labeled you. And instead you wake up to your true nature as God's likeness. Your true nature is actually just like God's: loving, spiritual, healthy, whole - holy - because that's the way God made you! And nothing can ever change that.
Wake up to this truth that Jesus gives us in his Prayer. Let His likeness shine as you, His Life flow through you, His Love move in you. Let His Love soften you, strengthen you, show you that your innocence is unimpaired. Let His Love calm and purify your heart. Let your words and actions temper as your thoughts move off yourself, and out toward your Father-Mother God.
Let the Lord's Prayer help you to understand God's true nature, help you to love God for who He really is: Love itself. Let the Lord's Prayer teach you to love who you really are as God's own likeness. Let the Lord's Prayer help you to love your neighbor as yourself - love the true God-like nature of those around you. Let the Lord's Prayer help you bow humbly to (as Mrs. Eddy says) "to receive more of His reappearing." This is acknowledging the Name of God. This is adoring the Adorable One. This is hallowing His Holy Name.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Our Father which art in heaven
"Our Father which art in heaven" - What an astonishing opening statement! God - our Father? But yes, here Jesus shows us our actual present relationship to God: He is our Father. He is not just Jesus' Father, but our Father also. Jesus is telling us we can pray to God just as He does: Our Father! Can you grasp what that means? Do you realize that God is actually your Father? your all-harmonious Father-Mother? Your actual Cause and Creator? Your Holy Spirit? Your divine Mind? the actual source of your very being?
What if you really grasped what this actually means? Grasped the implications of it? What if you started to live this out and act accordingly? What would that be like? What would your life be like? Doesn't the rest of the Lord's Prayer show you exactly what your life would be like if you accepted and genuinely lived this opening statement? if you lived this prayer "Our Father which art in heaven"?
Wouldn't you love and respect - hallow - your divine Father's name and nature? Wouldn't you be thrilled to be in His company, His presence, His kingdom? Wouldn't you appreciate and listen to His guidance, yield to, reflect, His all-loving will? And your famished affections would be so fed by His love for you. You would be so cared for, so forgiven (and forgiving), so led by his Love away from empty temptations, delivered from willful mistakes, ignorant mistakes, or even what might seem like fatal mistakes.
And why? Because your Father-Mother, God, is already present: here, right here, where you are. And His will for you is always a blessing, right now.
And how would you be fed, and forgiven, and led, and delivered? By His power: His Christ, your Saviour and by His glory: His Holy Spirit, calling you, comforting, and guiding you - and everyone -right here and right now.
Would you actually ever want to live anywhere apart from perfect Love? Would you ever knowingly choose to move out of your loving divine Father's care? No. And if we think we could, Jesus shows us exactly how to rethink that desire, to instead trust ourselves over to our Father, to turn our yearning, our unspoken heart's desire, our very life over to God through His Prayer - affirming what is actually already true: that divine Love, God, is our Father-Mother right now no matter what else seems like it's going on in our life. That we always have been and always will be His perfect child, inseparable from His warm embrace, held, even now, in His everlasting arms of Love.
This is how "The Message" (a Bible translation done by Eugene Peterson) shows us this in the 91st Psalm (excerpted):
What if you really grasped what this actually means? Grasped the implications of it? What if you started to live this out and act accordingly? What would that be like? What would your life be like? Doesn't the rest of the Lord's Prayer show you exactly what your life would be like if you accepted and genuinely lived this opening statement? if you lived this prayer "Our Father which art in heaven"?
Wouldn't you love and respect - hallow - your divine Father's name and nature? Wouldn't you be thrilled to be in His company, His presence, His kingdom? Wouldn't you appreciate and listen to His guidance, yield to, reflect, His all-loving will? And your famished affections would be so fed by His love for you. You would be so cared for, so forgiven (and forgiving), so led by his Love away from empty temptations, delivered from willful mistakes, ignorant mistakes, or even what might seem like fatal mistakes.
And why? Because your Father-Mother, God, is already present: here, right here, where you are. And His will for you is always a blessing, right now.
And how would you be fed, and forgiven, and led, and delivered? By His power: His Christ, your Saviour and by His glory: His Holy Spirit, calling you, comforting, and guiding you - and everyone -right here and right now.
Would you actually ever want to live anywhere apart from perfect Love? Would you ever knowingly choose to move out of your loving divine Father's care? No. And if we think we could, Jesus shows us exactly how to rethink that desire, to instead trust ourselves over to our Father, to turn our yearning, our unspoken heart's desire, our very life over to God through His Prayer - affirming what is actually already true: that divine Love, God, is our Father-Mother right now no matter what else seems like it's going on in our life. That we always have been and always will be His perfect child, inseparable from His warm embrace, held, even now, in His everlasting arms of Love.
This is how "The Message" (a Bible translation done by Eugene Peterson) shows us this in the 91st Psalm (excerpted):
...Our Father which art in heaven - yes!"You who sit down in the High God's presence, spend the night in Shaddai's
shadow, Say this, "God, you're my refuge. I trust in you and I'm safe!"
"That's right - he rescues you from hidden traps, shields you from
deadly hazards. His huge outstretched arms protect you - under them you're
perfectly safe, his arms fend off all harm. ...
"Yes, because God's your refuge, the High God your very own home, Evil can't get through the door."He ordered his angels to guard you wherever you go. If you stumble, they'll
catch you, their job is to keep you from falling. ...
"If you'll hold on to me for dear life," says God, "I'll get you out of any
trouble. I'll give you the best of care if you'll only get to know and trust me.
Call me and I'll answer, be at your side in bad times; I'll rescue you, then
throw you a party. I'll give you a long life, give you a long drink of
salvation!"
Thursday, December 27, 2007
I decided to start off my study of the Lord’s Prayer from scratch. So I am approaching this prayer as best I can as if for the first time. I am trying to understand the prayer’s deepest meanings without preconceptions.
To help me do that, I have decided approach it as if I know nothing about it and am learning it for the first time. So I have been looking up even the most familiar words of the prayer in the dictionary so that I can get a fresh perspective, and hopefully get a clearer idea of what Jesus wanted us to know.
I used my Mom's old 2nd Edition Websters (1927) but I've inserted links to two different online dictionaries and an online Bible (below) for your convenience (check out the Websters 1913 definitions; they're especially interesting). It still pays to look these words up yourself though - and look for the meanings that inspire you or give you new insights. That has really helped me understand the Prayer in a fresh new light.
Lastly, I’m working with the Lord's Prayer as found in the King James Version of the Bible. I know this may not be the most current or even most correct translation to use. But it was the one Mrs. Eddy had at hand the most (though she had other translations available, she didn’t have the wealth of versions we have now) so I thought I should start there also. Note that her spiritual sense of the Lord's Prayer is included (in italics) below.
As you think about the Prayer's deep spiritual meaning, I think you’ll find new inspiration and insights as you consider the many dimensions of the definitions of so many of the familiar words of the prayer. I know I certainly have.
NOTE: Mrs. Eddy understood God as “The great I Am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence” (S&H p 587:) She considered these terms synonymous.
"Our Father which art in heaven,
Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious
"Hallowed be Thy name.
Adorable One.
"Thy kingdom come.
Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present.
"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 to-day; feed the famished affections.
"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And Love is reflected in love.
"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.
"For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.
For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All."
To help me do that, I have decided approach it as if I know nothing about it and am learning it for the first time. So I have been looking up even the most familiar words of the prayer in the dictionary so that I can get a fresh perspective, and hopefully get a clearer idea of what Jesus wanted us to know.
I used my Mom's old 2nd Edition Websters (1927) but I've inserted links to two different online dictionaries and an online Bible (below) for your convenience (check out the Websters 1913 definitions; they're especially interesting). It still pays to look these words up yourself though - and look for the meanings that inspire you or give you new insights. That has really helped me understand the Prayer in a fresh new light.
Lastly, I’m working with the Lord's Prayer as found in the King James Version of the Bible. I know this may not be the most current or even most correct translation to use. But it was the one Mrs. Eddy had at hand the most (though she had other translations available, she didn’t have the wealth of versions we have now) so I thought I should start there also. Note that her spiritual sense of the Lord's Prayer is included (in italics) below.
As you think about the Prayer's deep spiritual meaning, I think you’ll find new inspiration and insights as you consider the many dimensions of the definitions of so many of the familiar words of the prayer. I know I certainly have.
NOTE: Mrs. Eddy understood God as “The great I Am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence” (S&H p 587:) She considered these terms synonymous.
"Our Father which art in heaven,
Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious
"Hallowed be Thy name.
Adorable One.
"Thy kingdom come.
Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present.
"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 to-day; feed the famished affections.
"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And Love is reflected in love.
"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.
"For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.
For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All."
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
The Lord's Prayer with Mrs. Eddy's spiritual sense of its deepest meaning
"Our Master said, "After this manner therefore pray ye," and then he gave that prayer which covers all human needs. ... Here let me give what I understand to be the spiritual sense of the Lord's Prayer:
"Our Father which art in heaven,
Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious,
"Hallowed be Thy name.
Adorable One.
"Thy kingdom come.
Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present.
"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 to-day; feed the famished affections;
"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And Love is reflected in love;
"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.
"For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.
For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All."
From: http://www.spirituality.com/dt/book_lookup.jhtml?reference=SH%2B16&marks=false&baseURL=/dt/book_lookup.jhtml
"Our Father which art in heaven,
Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious,
"Hallowed be Thy name.
Adorable One.
"Thy kingdom come.
Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present.
"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 to-day; feed the famished affections;
"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And Love is reflected in love;
"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.
"For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.
For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All."
From: http://www.spirituality.com/dt/book_lookup.jhtml?reference=SH%2B16&marks=false&baseURL=/dt/book_lookup.jhtml
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