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Archive for April, 2010

No Buts

Posted in Good Morning, tagged on April 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »

When the devil has been unmasked a number of times, his final refuge seems to be the harmless-looking word but. Students of the teaching of Jesus Christ who would not be deceived by any of the familiar devices, constantly surrender their principles, and therefore their demonstration, to the little word but.

“Of course I know that God in the only power – but—.”
“Of course I know that God in omnipresent – but.”
“Of course I know that God is love – but.”
“Of course I know that there is no hurry because I am in eternity – but.”
“Of course I know that John or Mary must be the living expression of God, just as I am – but.”
If truth is true, there are no buts.

And they all with one consent began to make excuse (Luke 14:18).

When we refuse to let fear overcome our faith, when we reject compromise of our principles for expedience sake, when turn from culture’s expectations to God’s, then we are experiencing living without excuses. Then, we are freed from the bondage of fear, guilt and regret. Then, we are lifted and strengthened to accomplish God’s will. Then, the scales are lifted from our eyes and the mud from our ears so we can see and hear God’s garden created for us. The garden that exists all around us each day. Then, we will become the person God created us to be and the East Gate will swing open so we can re-enter the Eden that Jesus unlocked for us.

Then is now, when there are no buts.

Stan

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The Goodness of God

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Read Psalm 18.

In verse 29 the Psalmist, thinking of some of the times in the past when he has been given power to overcome difficulties and to advance on the path, says, For by thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall. Everyone has found himself at some time confronted with a difficulty that seemed like a high and insurmountable wall, but faith in God enables one to clear the obstacle notwithstanding.

Next the Psalmist reminds us that the way of God is perfect. God will put you upon your high place. In other words, he will raise you consciousness so that you will automatically demonstrate. Then the author praises God and thanks Him for His goodness. Thanksgiving, as you know, is one of he most powerful forms of prayer.

Finally he says that God gives great deliverance to his King; and that He sheweth mercy to His anointed, to David and to his seed forevermore. God intends us all to be kings through the exercise of spiritual power, and our power to go on increasing – like the seed of David – through all eternity.

“God is great, God is good, let us thank him…” How many times we have said or heard that prayer? How many times have we prayed to God when facing seemingly impossible circumstances and been delivered? How many times has God kept us safe from harm and made us better for the experience. How many times have we added up all God’s answered prayers and thanked God for all our blessings? And when we look to our future, how many of us believe and thank God for the assurance of spiritual power, mercy and future deliverance forever?

When we stop to add it up, we surely will be overcome with gratitude and praise for the God that never fails us and ensures our welfare forever. If we do this each day and say our prayers of null and praise, then we will spend our days and nights in the garden God created for us. And when facing difficulties, obstacles and challenges, we will “run through a troop and leap over the walls”, that threaten to rob us of our faith and its rewards. God is indeed great and good.

Leaping and running,
Z gardener

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The Kindling of God

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Read Psalm 18.

In verse 28 the Psalmist moves to another phase of the teaching. Thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.

Many similes have been offered by religious teachers to illustrate the relationship between God and man. One of the best known and most helpful is to think of man as a spark from a great fire, which is God. The spark is not the whole of the fire but is part of it, and therefore of the same nature, and possesses, potentially, all the characteristics of the parent fire. It can ignite many things upon which it falls, thus producing another fire essentially of the same nature as the original fire.

A prayer for those in the garden today.

May the spark of the divine,
Kindle within us the flames of God’s Holy Spirit;
That we may shine God’s light,
On all the world around us, and
Cast the creator’s embers on those we touch;
Igniting in them that same Holy Spirit!
All this Father, that we may see and be
Your fire and light here below. Amen.

Seeing and being,
Z gardener

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The Hidden Studio

Posted in Good Morning on April 27, 2010| 2 Comments »

We are all engaged in building our consciousness during every waking hour. This work is invisible, silent, and consequently overlooked by the bulk of mankind. Nevertheless, it is the most fundamental and the most far-reaching activity in life. Hour by hour, and moment by moment, we are building good or evil, failure or success, happiness or suffering into our life by the ideas that we harbor, the beliefs that we accept, the scenes and events that we rehearse in the hidden studio of the mind. This fateful edifice, upon the construction of which we are perpetually engaged, is nothing less than our self – our personality, our identity on this earth, our very life story as a human being.

That wondrous building, the spiritual consciousness, is called in the Bible the Temple of Solomon, and we are told two wonderful things about that building. It was built without any noise (and we know that thought is soundless), and it was built upon a rock.

And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither; so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building (1 Kings 6:7).

… be thou my strong rock, for a house of defense to save me (Psalm 31:2).

When we analyze our thoughts, words and deeds, what kind of life does this review indicate that we are building? If our actions are loving, selfless and uplifting, then we are building a strong house on a rock. If not, then we need to go to our spiritual Home Depot and get some help. We can find our local spiritual Home Depot by picking up our Bible.

Building on the rock,
Z gardener

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Living to His Glory

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 23, 2010| Leave a Comment »

If you seem to yourself to be lacking in certain necessary qualities, seek that aspect of God which will meet your lack. If you seem to lack strength, ask God to give you what you need. Remember you can build any quality into your mentality by meditating upon that quality every day. You have created your limited self by thinking and you can destroy it at any moment by thinking a new pattern.

Why do we not change from day to day, and week to week, from glory to glory, until our friends can scarcely recognize us for the same man or woman? Why should we not march around the world looking like gods, and feeling it; healing instantaneously all who come to us; reforming the sinner; setting captives free?

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound (Isaiah 61:1).

The good news is that God’s help is always available to help us replace our weaknesses with strengths. However, in order to seek God’s help in attaining the qualities we need but lack, we must first be able to honestly identify those weaknesses. That is really hard. It means we can’t lie to ourselves or hide from our flaws. Tough stuff.

But it also means we can’t be overly critical of ourselves either. Self pity, self righteousness and self recrimination all prevent us from making accurate assessments of our weaknesses. Any of these attitudes will cause us to deny a weakness that exists or exaggerate their seriousness. They can and will lead us to seek the wrong relief or to deny that we need help.

When we honestly come to grips with our weaknesses, seek God’s help and follow God’s will, we will receive the relief we need from God. Then, we will be able to preach to, bind up and free those held captive by their weaknesses. Then we can heal ourselves and those we touch. Then, we can live in and nurture the gardens God gave us.

Thinking anew,
Stan

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Successful Concentration

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 22, 2010| 2 Comments »

I do not give exercises to develop concentration. Concentrate on what you are doing at any time, that is the best exercise I know.

I remember when I was a boy about twelve years old somebody gave me a perfect peach of a jackknife. It probably weighed a quarter of a pound and there was a little saw in it, a little screwdriver, a corkscrew, a thing for getting stones out of horses’ hoofs, and several blades. I carried it for about a year thinking how handy it would be for certain cases that never came up, but it never lost its interest. I could always find, when I was bored, new interest when I took out the jackknife. If you make your search for God your jackknife in that sense, you will get you concentration and you will get your success.

Thus will I bless thee while I live … and meditate on thee in the night watches
(Psalm 63: 4, 6).

To do that which we are about at any moment with full attention, thoughtfulness and commitment to do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reason is the best exercise to develop spiritual concentration. It is how we do the immediate moments that determine how we do the hours, days and years. Do the moments with full awareness of and implementation of God’s will and everything else will work out. The result is improved concentration and appropriate outcomes.

Doing now,
Z gardener

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After Your Healing

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Healing is only the beginning. When you are completely healed of everything wrong in your life, your body, your business, difficulties in personal relationships, obvious faults in your own character, you will not have finished your work. Your real work will only be commencing. Your real work is to show and experience the glory of God, to build that spiritual consciousness, “ the house Magnifico.” Conscious fears will have gone, and your whole world will be different. The physical world will be different because it will be clothed in a new glory. “The light that never was on sea or land.” People will be different because you will be beginning to know their real self instead of merely the outer shell, and, of course, everyone else will notice that you are different, too.

This is not to say that healing is unimportant. It has to precede the building. Let us endeavor to get our own healing completed as soon as possible in order to help the world that is needing it so much.

Bless the Lord … who healeth all thy diseases … who crowneth thee with loving kindness… (Psalm 103:2-4)

God does not heal us so we can spend our lives in self-indulgent luxury. God heals us so we can be a temple and help others become a temple for God’s consciousness through right living and out flowing love. We are healed so we can be part of God’s family doing God’s work here below. God heals us so we can live in and tend to our gardens here below in preparation for the heaven we inherit when we give ourselves to God. We are not healed to make things easy but to give us the strength to do what is hard. The reward for all this sacrifice and work is peace here below and eternal joy hereafter. So let us do what is necessary to receive our healing and then commit ourselves to living as disciples and all that goes with it.

Healed and working,
Stan

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Annual Recharge

Posted in Uncategorized on April 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Good morning gardeners! It is time for the author to take a break from the morning messages to recharge the spiritual batteries. The Garden will reopen on Monday the 19th.

Be well, smell the roses and above all, may the peace of the Lord be with you and yours.

Z gardener

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Key Words In The Bible – Repentance

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 8, 2010| Leave a Comment »

To repent means, really, to change one’s mind concerning something. When a person realizes that a particular action, or a certain line of conduct, or perhaps the whole direction of his life, has been wrong, and honestly resolves to change his conduct, he has repented. The Bible makes true repentance an essential condition for any spiritual progress, and for the forgiveness of sin. Jesus said,
Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. (Luke 13:3).

Repentance does not mean grieving for past mistakes, because this is dwelling in the past, and our duty is to dwell in the present and make this moment right. Worrying over past mistakes is remorse, and remorse is a sin, for it is a refusal to accept God’s forgiveness.

John the Baptist said, Repent ye: for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand (Matthew 3:2). This means that you should change your thought and know that the Presence of God is where you are.

There are few things more difficult than to recognize and accept than that we are wrong and are acting wrongly. It requires courage, strength, honesty, clarity and a burning desire to be good and to do good. Once that hurdle has been overcome, then we must repent and change what we are doing wrong. That is very hard when the wrong behavior is something we desire greatly, enjoy immensely or which is fed by deep fear. After our repentance, we must make our repentance a reality by acting in a new and better way from that point on. Once again, very difficult. In fact, these things are so difficult that our success with them is only assured by asking for God’s help and then following God’s guidance.

The good news is that God has promised we can do all these things through Christ who strengthens us. When we turn to God and follow God’s will, we can be absolutely sure that we will receive all those things we need to accomplish repentance. Then we can know that whatever happens to us will be for our best good. Then can can move into our gardens that God lovingly created for us and maintains for us until we arrive to abide in and care for it ourselves.

The Garden is waiting,
Z gardener

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Key Words In the Bible – Fear

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 7, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Key Words In the Bible – Fear

The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the beginning of knowledge. This has misled many people, because the truth is that fear is entirely evil and is indeed the only enemy we have. You can heal any condition if you can get rid of the fear attaching to it. Trouble or sickness is nothing but subconscious fear out-pictured in our surroundings. It is true at all times that “we have nothing to fear but fear.”

How then do we account for the texts quoted? The answer is that in the Bible the fear of God means reverence for God, not fear in the usual sense of the word. Reverence for God is the beginning of wisdom. How do we show reverence for God? By seeing God everywhere, refusing to recognize anything unlike Him, and by living the Christ life.

Confidence is worship. You worship whatever you trust. Are you trusting more in fear or in God? What are you worshipping? That is the test.

Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace. (Job 22:21).

When gripped with fear and paralyzed with frustration and doubt, how does one achieve peace, contentment and confidence. The answer is one doesn’t achieve it, God delivers it. The first step out of fear is not a step but a prayer. When we turn our eyes to God and ask for help, the process has begun.Then, if we follow God’s will and direction, we are granted relief and then hope and then confidence for that day. This does not eliminate the problem, but gives us a way to overcome it day by day.

So each day we must seek God and follow him and God will provide that which we need for the day. Then, when enough of these days have passd, and we have learned and experienced that which we needed for our best good, the problem will be gone. That is God’s promise, that is what Christians believe and that is what we must practive each day to live in our gardens.

Praying first,
Stan

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