Spiritual Solutions

LOVE

9th Day, Friday. Read I John 4:7-21.

Love, in Divine Mind, is the idea of universal unity. In expression, it is the power that joins and binds together the universe and everything in it. Love is a harmonizing, constructive power. When it is made active in consciousness, it conserves substance and reconstructs, rebuilds, and restores man and his world.

As I make a perfect union between my mind and the loving mind of the Father, I realize a goodness everlasting and joy beyond expression. The point of contact is a willingness and a seeking on my part. “Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

Love is that mighty power, that divine quality of God that is expressing through all mankind, and cannot be suppressed by any outside force. I now firmly declare that it is expressing through me, and that no environment or external condition can hinder it. Any unloving condition of the world is no bar to my exercise of love; in fact, it is an incentive.

I am not afraid to pour out my love on all the so-called evil of the world. I deny the appearance of evil, and affirm the omnipotence of love and goodness.

The word love overcomes hate, resistance, opposition, obstinacy, anger, jealousy, and all other error states where there is mental or physical friction. As divine love enters into the thought process, every cell of my body is poised and balanced in space, in right mathematical order as to weight and relative distance.

In quietness and confidence, I affirm: “God, in His love, fills me with new life. In His name I am cleansed, strengthened, and healed.”

Questions:

1. Define “love.”

2. What happens when love is made active in consciousness?

3. What is necessary to make a perfect union between our mind and the loving mind of the Father?

4. Is there any bar to our exercise of love?

I express love to all, love that is balanced with wisdom. My prayer is: “Lord, make me a channel for the expression of Your love, day by day.”

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

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 Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-eight years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

 If you’d like to receive weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at Rich Words.

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The year 2010 can be the best year you have ever known if you will have it that way. To make it so, you do not need to draw up a long list of good resolutions, although these are fine if you can keep them. Whether you have already made some resolutions or not, I suggest you adopt a policy of great expectations instead of good resolutions.

A spiritual law as exact as the laws of gravity, electromagnetics, and atomic fission, stands in back of this phenomenon of great expectations. Jesus stated it in the gospel of Matthew in this way: “Go; be it done for you as you have believed.” (Matt. 8:13) and “According to your faith be it done to you.” (Matt. 9:29) In the J. B. Phillips’ translation we read: “Everything will happen as you have believed it will.” Could you not characterize these statements as saying that convinced expectation is a forerunner of a certain outcome?

What are you expecting in 2010? Your expectations will have much to do with what the year will bring you.

God made you in His image and after His likeness; therefore, it follows that you are creative, even as God is creative. You create your own circumstances through your thinking, feeling, believing, and expecting faculties of mind. Many of the great men of the world have known this. Thomas Carlyle put it this way: “Man makes the circumstances and, spiritually as well as economically, is the artificer of his own fortune.” Disraeli said, “Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances are the creatures of men.”

Behind every outward circumstance stands an unseen, invisible thought, feeling, or word – an expectation of good or ill. The Bible tells us: “Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” (Prov. 4:23, KJV) The “heart” here means our deepest inward convictions and beliefs about what we think we are worthy of having, in the outer, as a part of our life experience.

The word to be stressed as yo make your own blueprint of your expectations for the upcoming year is “great.” Great expectations! Make those expectations large, if you would experience the largeness of God’s abundant giving. All the good and great desire for more health, wealth, and happiness, is really His own spiritual desire to fulfill Himself in and through you – in a joyous, rich, and expansive way of life.

Remember, only a happy new you produces a happy new year!

I would like to share with you a prayer, coming to you straight from my own heart. I pray that this year may be a truly happy year for you, a year filled with rich and wonderful belessings. I pray that it may be a year in which you walk in close companionship with God, a year in which you know and feel God’s loving Presence enfolding you and your loved ones. I pray that this may be a year in which the good is magnified in your heart and in the heart of every person, a year in which all of us may come to see more clearly our oneness with one another. I pray that, in the words of Psalms 65:11, “Thou crownest the year with thy goodness.”

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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The sounds and signs of Christmas are all around us.

So in this special season of the year, I’d like to share with you some of my own Christmas memories and insights.

The first Christmas tree was a small tree that was brought home by Martin Luther in Germany. He brought the tree home because he had seen it out in the snow and the snow was glistening all around it; he brought it home as a symbol of life. He tied candles on that Christmas tree because he said

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In a poem called “The Explorer” one verse goes like this:

“There’s no sense in going further – it’s the edge of cultivation,”
So they said and I believed it; broke my land and sowed my crop,
Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station
Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop.
Till a voice as bad as conscience ran interminable changes
On one everlasting whisper, day and night repeated so:
“Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look beyond the ranges,
Something lost behind the ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!”

God has endowed man with the gifts of life, of wisdom, of creativity, of judgment – and with the tools of the material world around him. We are told, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be.”  (I John 3:2)

Why? Because we are involved in a great experiment to see what we can make of ourselves. Despite the tremendous developments of the world around us, the only world that has meaning to each individual is the world within him or her. And he or she is the only one who can explore that world!

In the creation of humankind, each person is made just a little different from others. There are no carbon copies, so no one experiment by one person can give a stock answer that will benefit everyone. Each person must undertake the experiment for himself, to see what he can do with this thing that is within him – this thing called life, his life, his very own special gift from God, his own uniqueness.

We seem to be made up of flesh and blood, a hank of hair, a few clothes, and certain conditions and surroundings. We seem to be very much the product of our environment.

But while we are thinking these thoughts, along comes an Emerson or an Einstein, a Schweitzer or a Jesus, and all the world marvels at such people and says that they are not made of the same kind of stuff that you and I are made of.

This is where we are wrong, because in reality an individual will never discover anything outside himself greater than he himself is inherently. When you hear the words of great persons, or hear great symphonies, or see masterpieces of art, these experiences are awakening within you that which has always been there, something within you that corresponds to what the masters have done and are doing. In a sense, they are giving you back to yourself. This is one of the many adventures of self-discovery in the great experiment of life.

If you actually believe in a power greater than you are, you come to know that you, as a human being, have nothing to do with the processes of life whatsoever. You live, but you did not create your own life; you think, but you did not create your own mind; you are spirit, but you did not make that spirit.

All at once we are confronted with a thought so stupendous that it almost staggers the imagination: There is something in me that is greater than I appear to be! And that something really isn’t myself, as a mere human being, at all. It is something which is God expressing Himself as me, something which is me as God sees me, something which is limitless, all-powerful, all-knowing. And because this something is spirit, it is always experienced to the extent of my realization, my faith, my vision.

St. Thomas Aquinas once said that there are only three really important endeavors in life: to have faith in the right things; to hope for the right things; and to love the right things. That is our job – and to press on in the expansion of our consciousness, to increase our faith in the infinite power that resides within us as the self that is yet to be.

(This article is adapted from an 1976 essay by Rev. Eric Butterworth, The Explorer)

Remember, God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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On that Thanksgiving Day in 1969, I wasn’t feeling particularly thankful as I entered the third floor of the Activities Building which at that time served as Unity Village Chapel.

I had just started ministerial school that summer, but it seemed that everything was falling apart. I had just gone through a divorce, my four children had returned to England with their mother two years to the day that we had come to America with all our hopes and dreams, and my father had died in England two months previous.

I’d not really been aware of Thanksgiving Day for the last two years, although I do recall we had been invited to dinner with friends. We didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving Day in England, you know. 

So I didn’t seem to have much to give thanks for on this day, set aside by Presidential proclamation for personal and national contemplation of the blessings of life.

When The Rev. Jane Paulson invited us to join in a meditation of thanksgiving I was feeling pretty raw inside from my losses. But something broke inside of me and I began to cry.

Then instead of focusing on what I had lost and didn’t have anymore, I began to give thanks for what I had and where I was.

By the time The Rev. Sig Paulson stood up to give his message my tears had stopped and I was in a more receptive state.

As Sig spoke he began to lead us in a series of ever-escalating affirmations of thanksgiving, and my tears began to flow again. I felt like breaking down and sobbing.

At the end of the service I rushed out of the building and over to the Peace Chapel, a small chapel with just six chairs for prayer and meditation. Fortunately for me, there was no one else in there. I lay down on the floor and sobbed my heart out.

Then I sat in one of the chairs and a great quiet and a deep peace came over me. I felt the flow of Divine Love through me, and I intuitively knew the true inside story of Thanksgiving.

Not only did I have many things to give thanks for, but I also had a new consciousness of the indwelling Spirit of God to give thanks from.

This concept of Thanksgiving will open a way for a dynamic experience if you really think about it for yourself.

Look away from the challenges and needs, whatever they may be, even from the obvious blessings of life, and make your inner contact with the creative process of Spirit. Let your mind think God thoughts, good thoughts, and positive thoughts.

Rather than looking around and wondering what you have to give thanks for, you will rejoice in what you have to give thanks from. Practice it today, so that this day will be for you a release of tremendous power and you will know for yourself the “inside story” of Thanksgiving.

This new insight into the deeper meaning of Thanksgiving can also help prepare you for the reawakening of the divine level of the Christ in you as we move into the Christmas celebration of the birth of the Christ child.

Recognizing the Christ within you is the most glorious thing you can possibly experience. You can begin at anytime to show your true identity, and this recognition will bring about the rebirth that Jesus referred to when he told Nicodemus, “You must be born anew.”

Kathryn joins me in wishing you the richest Thanksgiving and Christmas of your life, rich not only in the outer things, but rich in warmth and friendliness and new understanding.

God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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There’s a true story about a little girl called Liz. She had a rare disease and the doctor said she would only have a chance of survival if her little brother, who was five years old, was willing to give his blood for a blood transfusion. He had had the same disease and somehow had managed to overcome it, so his antibodies would be helpful to her in overcoming the disease.

So the doctors approached the little boy, five years old, and asked him if he’d be willing to give his blood for his sister so that she could live. He hesitated for a moment, then he said “Yes, I’d like my sister to live.”

The doctors put them side by side on the bed and started the transfusion. The color gradually came back into the little girl’s cheeks, and the little boy smiled when he saw that.

Then, all of a sudden, the little boy went pale and he looked at the doctor and said, “Will I start to die anytime soon now?”

He had misunderstood; he thought he had to give all of his blood to his sister. But he was willing to give his all because he loved her so much.

How much are we prepared to give in our lives? Just a little bit or all of it?

Here’s the story of a man who expressed this love in a way that turned out to be transformative. He’d been married for nineteen years and his marriage was not going well; he went to his therapist, a man whom he knew called Tom.

He said, “Tom, I want you to help me; I’ve been married for nineteen years and my marriage is really going on the rocks. When we got married, my wife was a beautiful woman, a lovely woman, and she gave herself to me in marvelous ways, and we shared in great ways. 

But then she became really cranky and a kind of a shrew, and all she’s done in the last few years is hurt me as much as she can. I’ve just about had it and I want to do something to hurt her.”

So the man, Tom, said, “Well, Bill, let me think about it for a moment.”

He leaned back and folded his hands, then after a minute or so had passed, which seemed to Bill like an hour, he said, “Bill, you can try this if you want. It’s an idea for you. Today, when you leave here go to the florists; and get a nice big bouquet of flowers to take to your wife.

Then next Tuesday, ask her if she’d like to go out with her friends and tell her you’ll stay at home and look after the kids. And every day, so something really special and tell her how beautiful she is; and for a whole month pay a great deal of attention to her and do lots of things for her all the time.

Then after that month, when you’ve been pouring out all of this love and attention and giving her gifts and so on then leave her; that will really get to her.”

The man said, “Wow, Tom, I’d never have thought of that. That’s great advice, thank you, I’ll do that.” So off he went to the florists.

Tom didn’t see him for several months, and later when he saw him he said, “Oh Bill, how are you doing? Are you having a great time now? You’ve probably left your wife and you have lots of women in your life and you’re having a good time.”

“What do you mean?” responded Bill. “I don’t go out with other women. My wife . . .” Tom said, “Well, you said your wife is a shrew, and cranky.”

“Oh, no,” said Bill, “my wife is a wonderful woman, and I want to thank you for the best advice you ever gave me. I went home and took her flowers, and I paid attention to her.

You know, in the first week she began to change. One day I came home and she was dressed up and looked so beautiful like she always used to; she looked great, and she said, ‘I did it just for you.’

I told her she could go out to dinner with her friends and I’d look after the kids. When she came back she said, ‘Bill, why don’t you take a night out with the boys too. You deserve that and you need it.’”

He said, “Our life is so great now; it’s just like it used to be, only better! And I can’t thank you enough for the advice you gave me.”

So you see how love begins to transform things. When we become the expression of God’s love we begin to change, and as we change then everything around us changes too. This is the power of transformative love.

Remember, God is Blessing You Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions.

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

If you’d like to receive weekday inspirational quotes, you can subscribe at Rich Words.

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Someone asked Jesus, “Teacher, can you tell me how to attain eternal life?”

By eternal life, of course, he’s talking about the life of God present now and not some time in the future. Eternal life is now, when we recognize, know, experience and express the fullness of God’s presence in our lives. That’s eternal life – and it’s right now!

How can we attain that?

Jesus said to the man, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

He didn’t say to love the Lord your God just a little bit, or just on Sundays, but he said “with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” It’s a full commitment, a total commitment. How do you do that? How do you feel and know and experience God’s presence with you at all times, in all places, all around you and within you at all times? How do you do that?

There’s a story from the scriptures that demonstrates how this begins to become possible. The story is from the gospel of Mark, in Mark 14:1-6. It’s during the time just before Passover and not long before the Crucifixion; and the chief priests and scribes were seeking how to arrest Jesus and kill him.

 “And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. But there were some who said to themselves indignantly, ‘Why was the ointment thus wasted? For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred denarii, and give to the poor.’ And they reproached her. But Jesus said, ‘Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.’”

This is about two different kinds of people and two different kinds of motive. We see the motives of the Pharisees and scribes; they hang around with Jesus, but their motive was not pure. They may have eaten with him, but they were not fully engaged with him or his teachings, nor really the love of God which they professed. They became very critical of the woman for her actions; they tore her down. That was their focus in life, which was their motive. It came out of doing things as a sense of duty or responsibility or fear.

When we do things out of obligation, or when the motive in our lives is one that is underscored by fear, then our life is filled with criticism. We begin to resent the things that we do; so we begin to criticize and put things down. We say that this world is not a good world, it’s not a friendly universe, and this is reflected back to us in bad experiences. So we must watch our motive.

You see, this story is not only about the Pharisees and scribes and the woman and Jesus in the long ago; it is about us right now.

There are Pharisees and scribes that live in us that sometimes get into those critical modes of being. We begin to look from the world viewpoint. And you know people who are critical all the time. From the time the alarm goes off in the morning, the coffee’s too strong, the day is ugly whether it’s hot or cold or sunny or raining or whatever, and then they do nothing but complain at work or at home. You know what I’m talking about. So the world is reflected back to them as an unfriendly world and they find much to criticize.

We need to look at ourselves and see if we’re coming from a place of obligation or doing things out of a sense of duty. Or are we doing things out of a sense of love? Are we looking at the world through the eyes of love? Years ago, James Dillet Freeman wrote a book called “Look with the Eyes of Love” which had a powerful impact on my life; I realized that when we look with the eyes of love; we are seeing as God sees.

How do we love God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind? We can only do it with the expression of God in and through us.

When we really love, we are extravagant in our love, aren’t we? We give extravagantly, we don’t hold back. Any time that you have been in love, haven’t you wanted to give extravagant gifts? It maybe seemed foolhardy at the time. But that’s the process of giving yourself totally, isn’t it? You want to give; there’s no counting of the cost, is there?

The danger, really, is in feeling a sense of obligation in our giving.

In the gospel of John (John 11:1-2), we are told that the woman in the scriptures who broke the vial of precious ointment over the head of Jesus was Mary, the sister of Martha and of Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead.

Mary is the opposite of obligation; in this story she is the very principle of love expressed. That’s what it’s about, the extravagant gift of love.

Jesus said, in the story, “Don’t trouble her. She has done a beautiful thing to me.” Or, she has done something of wonderful significance for me. Isn’t that something we want to do for ourselves and others? We want to be of a wonderful significance in our world, don’t we?

That’s what the Christ within is saying to us now “Do you want to be of wonderful significance in your world?” If you do, let the love which is of God express through you. Because that’s the only way we can see it.

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I was thinking about times when you may have been driving along, perhaps in a different neighborhood and intent upon where you’re going, perhaps not paying much attention to things around you. Then you hit one of those speed bumps – not the larger ones with all the warning signs before them, “Warning – Speed Hump Ahead – 15 miles per hour,” but the smaller ones that have no warning and are still around. I hit one myself not too long ago. And when you hit one of those things, wow, that shakes you up and wakes you up, doesn’t it?

In life we have bumps, too, don’t we? Life goes bump for all of us from time to time, we all hav unexpected things that happen to us which may be difficult, or frustrating, or even tragic. How do we handle these bumps in our life? Are we grim about them, or are we gracious in how we handle them? It makes a difference to us.

How we handle those unexpected events determines to some degree how we handle challenges throughout our lives. We develop a certain attitude. The attitude can be one of welcoming all experiences knowing you can handle it and move on through it; or you become fearful of life and what may be around the next corner.

Being cautious and fearful about life, you naturally attract to yourself things to be fearful about.

So how do you deal with these bumps in your life? Do you think and feel that you can transform such situations and handle them with grace, ease, and confidence? Do you move through them in a way that makes you stronger rather than diminishing you?

Let’s look at some answers to those questions. How do we handle those bumps in life that surely come along?

There’s a story in scripture which can give us a key. It’s the story about Joseph, who ticked off his brothers by telling them his dreams which symbolized a future when they would all bow down to him. The brothers got together and threw Joseph in a pit, and then they sold him to some Ishmaelite slave traders who took him as a slave into Egypt.

Later on, when Joseph met up with his brothers again in different circumstances, he said to them, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

I think we can do the same thing with situations which upset us, and disturb us, and throw us for a loop, and shake us up. We can say, this situation may seem to be evil, it may seem to want to take us down, to destroy us, but God meant it for good. If we take that attitude we can have a shift in our perception and we can begin to look for the good in the situation or person.

In Romans 8:28 we find Paul saying, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him . . .”

You may say, “In everything, even this mess that I’m in the middle of right now? In everything? There’s some good in this? I can find good results from this?” “Can this really be a vehicle of blessing?”

Yes, in everything – God works for good with those who love him.

Of course, you have to know, you must really believe, that there is good in everything.

Faith is a stabilizing element that sustains us. My wife, Kathryn, says it must be “unshakable faith.” She has an affirmation she uses all the time and which goes like this:

“I have unshakable faith in the perfect outworking of every situation in my life for God is in absolute control and all things are working together for my highest good.”

One of the most important things in life is the ability to recognize and utilize the good, which is always present.

You’ll remember that Jesus said, “He that is within me is greater than he that is in the world.” A challenge can be an opportunity to draw on your inner resources.

Jesus also said, “Don’t judge by appearances, but judge righteous judgment.”

What is righteous judgment? It’s looking from a God perspective, isn’t it? It was Emerson who said that “Prayer is the contemplation of life from the highest point of view.” So it’s a shifting from an outer perspective to a different point of view, to the highest point of view. When we see from a God perspective we can see the good in the situation.

There’s another key in the quote I gave you earlier. It says, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him . . .” (Romans 8:28)

“With” means to cooperate, doesn’t it? Loving God, we cooperate. Cooperation is love; it is the attitude of mind where we do not work alone. We cooperate with God, and we cooperate with people. The right use of divine love changes our whole perspective.

We are no longer the sole operator of our lives, the one who goes it alone and pulls ourselves up with our own bootstraps. We are the co-operator, we are the co-worker, we are the co-author, and we are the co-creator with God. Our lives begin to improve and change dramatically as we consciously work with God in the situation.

The spirit of love will lead you into the ways of cooperation. Then that love becomes a magnet that draws your good to you. Love is like a magnet and it always draws our highest good to us. The divine process says that we must love God, and then everything works for good.

So look for the good and look for God in every situation.

For God is Blessing You, Right Now!

Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham

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Rev. Alan A. Rowbotham, a Unity minister for over thirty-seven years, invites you to subscribe to his free inspirational newsletter, Spiritual Solutions. 

Please feel free to publish this article in your blog or newsletter or share it with a friend, as long as you include this resource box.

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God believes in you! So the question is, “Do you believe in yourself?”

Do you know how important you are to God?  “How important could I be?” you may ask.

Jesus answers this question in three parables, found in Luke 15.

The first is the parable of the lost sheep. He said, “There was a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. And one of the sheep went astray from the ninety-nine. Would you not, as a shepherd, leave the ninety-nine and go after the one sheep that had gone astray?” And, of course, his listeners were astonished because who among them would leave the ninety-nine and go after that one? None of them would. They would say, “No, we have ninety-nine here. Let that one go.”

But no, God as a shepherd searches for that one sheep. In the same way, God as shepherd values each single person so much that he would risk going out into the dark, into the mountainous areas, at risk of robbery or worse, to find the one that is lost.

The next parable is about a lost coin. This time it’s a woman, God as a woman, a housewife who loses a silver coin from ten that she had. It says that she searched frantically for this one coin until she found it; and then she rejoiced.

In both instances, we find this sense of rejoicing after the finding. God searches, finds, restores, and rejoices.

With the sheep, the shepherd says, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” And repentance simply means changing direction, moving toward God’s presence instead of away from God.

The woman says, “Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost. Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Joy is the outer expression of the inner experience of divine grace. When we feel and experience that movement of grace we naturally release that expression of joy. There is a celebration that takes place.

So we have the shepherd, God as a shepherd, who in the eyes of the Scribes and Pharisees would be an outcast, an insignificant person. Then we have the woman, God as a woman, and the woman in those days was of no significance at all, had no power. Jesus is saying that God comes in all these ways to search for you, to find you, to bring you back to himself.

The last parable of the three is the jewel. The imagination has been stirred up now; the people to whom Jesus is speaking are ready.

In the last parable Jesus said God is like a father. He said, “There was a man who had two sons.” The father, in this story, is one who would not have been admired in that culture because he gave way so easily and was undignified.

We know the story as the parable of the Prodigal Son.

Remember, in the story, the youngest son went off. He wanted to take his share of the inheritance he would be due from his father. In those times, the eldest son received two thirds of the inheritance when his father died. The younger brother would only receive a third, so he thought he would get a head start and have his entire share of the inheritance early so he could go off and a get a head start over his brother. He wouldn’t be able to stay at home anyway, because all of the farm and everything would go to his brother.

So he went to his father and asked for his share and, the story says, went off into a far country and spent his money. A famine came along and when his money was gone he found he had no friends left either; and he ended up feeding and sleeping with the hogs.

It was then, it says in the story that he came to himself. He realized who he was, and he began the journey back to the father’s house. When he first went back he told his father that he wasn’t worthy to be a son any more and to just hire him as one of the servants. That was his solution.

But the father’s solution was different. He told his servants, “Look, come and bring the best robe to put on my son and bring a ring to put on his finger and shoes to put on his feet. He’s no barefoot slave.” These were important symbols: the robe of acceptance, the ring of authority, and the shoes of understanding. Then he said, “Let’s have a party. Let’s kill the fatted calf. Let’s celebrate.” That which was lost is found again, that which was lost has come back into a sense of oneness with the indwelling presence. It is cause for celebration.

So often we feel a sense of insignificance in our world today, do we not? In this world of complexity we sometimes feel our littleness. In fact, someone said to me just a couple of days ago, “Does it really matter if I’m not there? Does it make any difference if I stay away?” Yes, it makes a difference. Yes, it matters. You are important to God, and you are important to everyone else. What you do and where you are matters.

Remember in the story, there was something else that happened. When the son came home and the father threw a party, there was another person on the scene – the elder brother.

The elder brother was not too happy about the situation. He had stayed at home. Of course, they were his fields, he was working his fields and he was the one who would benefit from them. But he was self-righteous, he was angry. In fact, he was in a far country too, wasn’t he? He may not have left the house of his father in proximity, but he left it in consciousness. He was angry and self-righteous that someone he thought undeserving should be receiving good; and yet he wasn’t recognizing his own good.

We might ask ourselves at this point if we ever feel resentment or jealousy when we see someone else receiving some extraordinary good. Are we able to celebrate with them?

One of our children in Sunday school had a funny thing to say about the prodigal son story. The Sunday school teacher was telling them the story and at the end she said to them, “Was anyone sorry when the prodigal son came home?” She was just getting to the part about the elder son, and one little boy raised his hand. He said, “The fatted calf.” Yes, the fatted calf was sorry but the elder son was sorry too.

The story goes that the father wanted him to come to the party. He entreated him, he begged him to come to the party. He said, “Son, I’ve always been with you and all that I have is yours. This is your brother who was lost and is found, was dead and is alive again. Come and celebrate with us.”

There’s a story that I enjoy about a family that moved to California and they took a house that had a wonderful view looking right out at the ocean. But the house was on a cliff top and it had a wall just at the bottom of the garden in front of the cliff which then dropped off quite a way. They had a four-year-old daughter and they were really concerned that she would climb on this wall and fall off down the cliff someday.

One day the mother looked through the kitchen window and, sure enough, the little girl is going across the garden. She climbed on the wall. She stands on top of the wall, and then she falls. The mother rushed out, her heart pounding, and she looked over the edge. There was her daughter hanging on a bush that was about three feet below the top of the wall.

She didn’t know whether to scold her daughter or just hug her. Of course, she gathered her up in her arms and she said, “What happened? Tell me what happened.” The little girl said, “Well, I got on the wall and then I was falling and when I was falling I said, ‘God, get under me!’ and God said ‘I’ve always been under you’.”

You know, that’s the truth. Out of the words of little children sometimes come the greatest truths, God has always been under us. As it says in the scriptures, “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” God has always been with us, at all times, even when we’ve felt our deepest sense of separation. God has always been with us.

Our greatest joy comes through discovering this for ourselves. We can never really wander away from the Father. Any feeling of being lost and alone is healed when we accept the truth that we can never wander from God. God is always one with us. We need to recognize this, to recognize God’s omnipresence, to feel it, to trust it, to rely upon it, to live our life in accordance with that realization.

This is the greatest goal we can ever set for ourselves, to become fully conscious of the presence of God at every moment of our lives. When we know that, then we know we are important to God, and then we know our own worth. You’ve got to believe in you, because God believes in you. That’s where it all starts.

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The spoken word is the key to all conditions. When God created this world, He “spoke” the word for the thing He had planned, and then it came into existence: “Let it be . . . ” and there it was! As expressions of God, we have inherited the same power, but we do not always apply it intelligently. The result frequently is chaos in our world.

It has been said that one starts the law into action through one’s words, but probably we do even more than this. What we really do when we speak the word is to enact the law under which we shall live, to approve and enforce it. And all of this power resides in our spoken word. Sometimes, when we run afoul of the supreme law in some way, we condemn ourselves. As we read in the scriptures,”By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be  condemned.” But we can pardon ourselves through the same power of the word. It can readily be seen that the use of the word is a matter of vital importance.

Florence Scovel Shinn, in her book The Game of Life and How to Play It, says “A person knowing the power of the word, becomes very careful of his conversation. He has only to watch the reaction of his words to know that they do ‘not return void.’ Through his spoken word, man is continually making laws for himself. I knew a man who said, ‘I always miss a car. It invariably pulls out just as I arrive.’ His daughter said: ‘I always catch a car. It’s sure to come just as I get there.’ This occurred for years. Each had made a separate law for himself, one of failure, one of success.”

And the word does not have to be uttered aloud in order to act; our trend of thought makes up the word that is either holding us in bondage or keeping us free. If conditions do not suit us, then we should change our words, and speak into being the conditions that we do wish. A definite change of words can mean untold change in our lives.

Sometimes we speak the word for things we do not really want. And, if we do, then actually we must take them when they come. The troubles that you and I may be facing right now may well have come as a result of speaking the word for the things that we really don’t want at all.

Every statement that we make concerning ourselves, or conditions generally, is speaking the word for that which is to come forth. We can be free from every undesirable condition, but we must issue the command. To relieve ourselves of our troubles, we must change our ways.

In his book, Talks On Truth, Charles Fillmore says: “The mind moves upon ideas; ideas are made visible thorugh words. Hence holding right words in the mind will set the mind going at a rate proportioned to the dynamic power of the idea back of those words. A word with a lazy idea back of it will not stimulate the mind. The word must represent swift, strong, spiritual ideas in order to infuse the white energy of God into the mind. This is the kind of word in which Jesus reveled.

“He delighted in making great and mighty claims for his God, himself, his words, and for all men: ‘I and the Father are one.’ ‘All authority has been given unto me in heaven and on earth.’ ‘The Father is great than I.’ ‘Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?’ ‘The works that I do shall you do also; and greater.’ These were some of the claims with which he stimulated his mind. And he produced the results – his words were fulfilled. . . . If you will take up his sayings and make them yours, they will open all the doors of your mind, the light will come in, and you will in due time be able to step forth.”

Eric Butterworth, speaking of the power of the word, said “We ought to have faith that our words cannot fail. Speak the word boldly. The very boldness gives it additional force. Spoken weakly, it will do something; but if we have the courage to utter it as a command and our faith is strong, the results will be amazing.

“In other words, we must know that our word cannot fail. True faith consists in knowing that a thing is true without visible proof, the result itself being the proof of the faith that is expressed. We can cultivate this faith by using it. We must speak the word for our desires. As our faith increases, the results will be greater and greater.

“Faith in God is necessary, yes, because it is God who actually does the work. But this means faith in god as an inner Presence, not as one far off in the sky somewhere. It means faith in the law, faith in the God-activity that finds its fulfillment in us and as us. It means faith in ourselves, faith in the knowledge that God has given us the power and that we are intended to use it.”

In his book, Atom-Smashing Power of Mind, Charles Fillmore says: “Anyone who has faith in Spirit and the power of the word spoken in faith can send it forth, and like the radio oscillation, it will be picked up by receptive minds everywhere.”

If you want to strengthen your own faith in the power of your word, be sure to read Daily Word each day – you can click on the banner in the left sidebar to get the message each day even if you haven’t subscribed to get your own printed copy. For instance, if you’d clicked on the Daily Word banner in the left sidebar on Sunday, this is the message on “Confidence” you would have seen: 

God is my source for success. I am confident in all I do.

I am confident! I have the wisdom, knowledge, and inspiration to make decisions that move me forward and benefit others. I am empowered with the strength and ability to accomplish whatever I choose.

I am confident, capable, and powerful. How can I make these claims? Who am I to assert myself with such authority?

I am a child of God, blessed beyond measure. Because I have faith in and act from the presence of God within me, I can surmount any obstacle, solve any problem. God is the source for all I need to succeed in the desires of my heart.
I am confident, and I act with confidence in all that I do!

“The Lord will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught.”–Proverbs 3:26

Additionally, to receive inspirational words in your email box every weekday, you can subscribe to Rich Words.

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