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Archive for January, 2013

The Triumph of Love

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on January 31, 2013| 1 Comment »

            Read Matthew 5:43-47.
But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven…(Matthew 5:44-45).
Right reaction is the supreme art of life, and Jesus compressed the secret of that art into a sentence when he said: Resist not evil. A correct understanding of this commandment will regenerate your body, liberate your soul, and remake your life.
Love is God and is therefore absolutely all-powerful. Meeting hatred with Love is the perfect method of self-defense in nearly all circumstances. It renders you virtually invulnerable to any kind of attack.
If you receive bad news, if you are unhappy in your work, or in your home, feel out mentally for the Presence of divine Spirit, all around you; affirm its actuality; and claim that God has dominion over all conditions, and you will soon be free.
And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God loves his brother also (1 John 4:21).
This, of course, does not deny us the right to self defense. It does mean we are to return negativity with love. While loving our enemies is a tall order. praying for them and helping them is even tougher.
The good news is that it always works, and it is the only thing that truly does work for our best good. It may feel better to our human nature to counter-attack, condemn or criticize those who hurt us. But all it accomplishes is to drag us into the negative state of lose/lose action/reaction.
For true peace within and for victory without, turn to love and away from hate. Then the enemy will not only be defeated and disarmed, they may be changed to the good forever.
Victory through love,
Z gardener

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Dissipating Evil

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on January 30, 2013| Leave a Comment »

If somebody comes into the room at home, or into the office or shop, looking as if he meant to make trouble, just try switching your attention straight to the Divine, instead of squaring up aggressively to meet the difficulty or shrinking away to avoid it, according to your temperament. You will be amused and gratified to see the anger fade from the subject’s face (which will mean that it has faded from his heart too) and quite a different expression take its place.
I have myself seen several cases where men, and on two occasions, children, were actually fighting, and upon a spectator’s “turning the cheek” the strife ceased like magic. Animals respond even more easily to this treatment than do human beings. I have seen two instances where dogs were fighting savagely and all efforts to separate them had failed, when the realization of the Presence of God’s love in all His creatures restored peace. In one case it took several minutes’ work; in the other it was practically instantaneous.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21).
Turning the other cheek, is totally contrary to our human nature. Our human spirit urges us to defend ourselves, attack potential threats and even the score when we are wronged or attacked. It is our spiritual nature that must overcome our human spirit.
As hard as this will be, when we succeed, our lives will be transformed. And we can expect to take some hits in the short term when we turn our cheeks. But in the long run, our lives will infinitely better and our peace and joy will be assured.
Outdoing evil,
Z gardener

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Resist Not Evil

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on January 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Read Matthew 5:38-42.
But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil…(Matthew 5:39).
Jesus is a revolutionary teacher. He turns the world upside down for those who accept his teaching. When once you have accepted the Jesus Christ message, all values change radically.
The old law was that whatever man did to man, he should himself be made to suffer by way of punishment. If he put out another man’s eye, his own was put out by the officers of justice; if he killed, he was killed.
The desire to“get even,” to get one’s own back, to level things up somehow or other, when we have been hurt or have suffered injustice, or witnessed things of which we did not approve, will remain with us until the time when we definitely take ourselves in hand and destroy it. “Revenge,” said Bacon, “is a kind of wild justice.”
Now Jesus reverses this and says that when someone injures you, you are to forgive him. No matter what the provocation may be, and no matter how many times it is repeated, you are to loose him and let him go, for thus only can you be freed yourself.
Only when we are capable of obeying this truth will we fully realize the Kingdom of God here below. As hard as it is to forgive those who hurt us, it is the only way to live in the Eden God created for us.
The good news is that once we practice forgiveness, it becomes easier every time we must do it. Soon, it will reveal itself to us as the quickest path to peace and joy in our lives. Forgive all today; be free today; walk with god in Eden today. Its time.
Walking in joy,
Z gardener

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Disciplined Speech

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on January 28, 2013| Leave a Comment »

   Read Matthew 5:33-37.
Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths.
But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, Nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil (Matthew 5:33,37).
Swear not at all, is one of the cardinal points in the teaching of Jesus. It means, briefly, that you are not to mortgage your future conduct in advance; to seek to fix your conduct or your belief for tomorrow while it is yet today. Rather you are constantly to keep yourself an open channel for the pouring out of the Holy Spirit into manifestation through you.
Of course, Jesus does not mean that you are not to enter into ordinary business engagements. Nor does he mean that the ordinary oath administered in a court of law is inadmissible. These things are matters of legal convenience. The Sermon on the Mount is a treatise on the spiritual life, for the spiritual life controls all the rest.
When we swear to act in a certain way, we put ourselves outside of God’s influence. The world or an individual attitude could change tomorrow, so we should avoid precluding the possibility of different outcomes. This vainly elevates us to God’s status and locks the door to God’s revelation.
Let us be true to our faith and principles in every way, but let us remain open to God’s influence in every aspect of our lives. Miracles are the result of overturning what seemed to be, in favor of what what God intends to be. Be open to God changes in our lives and walk daily in the garden God created for us.
Forswearing swearing,
Z gardener

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Dealing with Disharmony

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on January 24, 2013| Leave a Comment »

It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a miting of divorcement:
But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeh adultery (Matthew 5:31-32).
We are told that in those days divorces were granted by the rabbinical law on the most trifling grounds. Married people who were not getting on together as well as they would have liked, were prone to run away from that problem by obtaining an easy dissolution. Now we understand that no permanent happiness can be obtained in this way. As long as you are running away from your problem, you will continue to meet it in a new guise at every turn in the road.
Just as in running from one business position to another, without first having brought about a charge in consciousness, we find ourselves but repeating the old conditions in a slightly different form, so, as a rule, people who divorce freely are apt to finish up as dissatisfied as they began. The general rule in Truth is, fight out your problem where you are, with prayer.
The general rule is still good for all conditions in life: Do not try to divorce or amputate the disharmony, but let it dissolve away of itself under God’s guidance.
In our lives, let us always seek to supplant disharmony in our environment with tolerance, patience, love and grace within. Walking away from disharmony allows the problem to fester and grow. Walking with someone through disharmony allows the problem to dissolve in mutual commitment and love. This, of course requires the efforts of all parties.
When the affected parties can not agree to walk through disharmony, both are likely to live with it in one form or another. So, let us face disharmony with God’s truth and open ourselves to God’s work through us to replace disharmony with peace.
In harmony,
Z gardener

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No Price Too Great

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on January 23, 2013| Leave a Comment »

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell (Matthew 5:29-30).
The soul’s integrity is the one and only thing that matters. And so Jesus insists that positively no sacrifice can be too great to insure the integrity of one’s soul. Anything that stands in the way of that, must be given up.
Whatever is standing between us and our true contact with God—a sin, an old grudge left unforgiven, stark greed for the things of this world—must go. Such things, however, are so obvious that at least the transgressor is aware of them; it is the subtle things like self-love, self-righteousness, and spiritual pride that are most difficult for the self to exorcise.
The subtle traps into which we fall, lock us into a pattern of thinking and behavior that leads us into even greater traps. When we succumb to vanity, pride and ego, our steps take us inexorably to even greater sin. Even worse, we are blinded to our lostness because of self-righteousness, spiritual pride and self-love.
So today, let us turn away from the self and turn toward God and others. When we remove these barriers to joy, our eyes are opened, our places known and our path secure. This is the true path to peace, love and hope. Let us travel that path today.
Seeking the path,
Stan
Author’s note: Today a new gardener joins us in Eden. She has dedicated her life to God and serving others in times of their greatest need. She is truly a pastor and sheds her grace on all she touches. We are blessed with her presence. Welcome to the Garden sister. S.

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As A Man Thinketh

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on January 22, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart (Matthew 5:27-28).
In this unforgettable paragraph, Jesus stresses the master truth, so utterly fundamental, yet so unsuspected by the world at large, that what really matters is thought. People have always been accustomed to suppose that as long as their deeds conformed to the law, they have done all that can be reasonably expected of them, and that their thoughts and feelings are their own business. But the type of thought that we allow to become habitual will sooner or later find expression on the plane of action.
The logical consequence of this fact is very startling. It means that if you entertain covetous thoughts for your neighbor’s money, you are a thief, even though you may not yet have put your hand in the till. The adulterer at heart is corrupting his soul even though his impure thought is never expressed on the physical plane. Lusts, jealousy, vengeance, mentally entertained, carry the soul’s consent, and this soul-consent is the malice of sin.
Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life(Proverbs 4:23).
If we learn this one cardinal truth, then all our time spent together in the “Good Morning Garden” will have been worthwhile. This is the key to understanding the reality that our sensory perception will never reveal to us.
The simple truth is that our realities are determined by our thoughts. Regardless of the physical environment that surrounds us, our thoughts determine the reality we experience.
As we think, so we are.
Thinking rightly,
Z gardener

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Making Terms with the Adversary

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on January 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »

By coming to terms with the adversary in the first place, that is to say, by getting our thought right immediately concerning any difficulty, we incur no “costs”and the transaction remains a simple one.
Suppose that you find yourself sneezing. If you say: “There, now, I have caught cold again; I am in for it!” and then proceed to dwell upon the thought that you have caught cold, you are giving the trouble the opportunity to dig itself into your mentality. People often indulge in quite a meditation upon colds. Instead, if at the first moment that the possibility of catching cold occurs to you, you immediately reject it and affirm the Truth, the whole thing will be over in a short time.
Or perhaps upon opening your morning mail you find a notice informing you that your bank has failed. Many people in such a case would saturate themselves with the thought of ruin by rehearsing every kind of difficulty that might come. However, the proper thing to do, immediately upon becoming aware of the news, is to turn to God—your real support—and refuse to accept the suggestion of trouble as binding; literally drive the thought of loss, fear, and resentment out of consciousness. If you do this, working steadily until peace of mind is restored, you will presently find that in some way or other the trouble will disappear. Either the bank will speedily recover itself—and there is no reason at all why one person’s prayer should not save the bank and the fortunes of thousands—or, if this is not possible, you will find your loss equalized in some other way.
…whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:13).
This does not mean that we are to surrender or succumb to our adversaries. it does mean we are to make every attempt to justly resolve the conflict that makes us adversaries.
It means the same thing regarding negative events in our lives. We are to make every attempt to see and accept the blessings in our pain and to trust that God is ensuring our best good in the circumstances. Accepting this truth will free us from the negative impacts and open us to the blessings therein.
Seeing blessings,
Z gardener

 

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Agree Quickly

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on January 18, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison.
Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing (Matthew 5:25-26).
Jesus is stressing here the instruction contained in his injunction to “watch and pray.” It is ever so much easier to overcome a difficulty if you tackle it at its first appearance than it will be after the trouble has had time to establish itself in your mentality—to dig itself in, as the soldiers say. The moment a difficulty presents itself to your attention, quietly affirm the Truth, giving it no chance to dig itself in.
On the other hand, by thinking about your difficulty, you incorporate it into your mentality, and if you go on doing this long enough, it may be exceedingly difficult to get rid of it.
Jesus, when he wished to drive home a particularly important point, employed a graphic illustration from everyday life. In those times the law governing debtors was extremely severe. When a man found himself in debt, it behooved him to come to terms with his creditors as quickly as possible. Even at the present day it is important for the debtor to keep his case from coming into court, for the longer the case drags on the more lawyers’ fees, court dues, and expenses of various kinds accumulate, all piled on top of the debt proper. So it is with the various difficulties that present themselves to us in our daily lives.
Another point to remember here is that quick conflict resolution also removes unnecessary strife, stress and anxiety form our lives. If disputes can not be avoided, we should make every effort to resolve them quickly and fairly to all sides. Conflict does not nurture peace. In fact, it is the opposite.
So today, let us commit to preventing conflict when possible, and to resolving it quickly and fairly when it does arise. Peace will follow the peacemakers. Let us lead with peace.
Agreeing to peace,
Z gardener

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Danger of Anger

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on January 17, 2013| 1 Comment »

Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee;
Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift (Matthew 5:23-24).
Indignation, resentment, the desire to punish other people, the desire to “get even,” the feeling “it serves him right”; all these things form a quite impenetrable barrier to spiritual power. Jesus says that if you are bringing a gift to the altar, and you remember that your brother has anything against you, you must put down your gift and go make peace with your brother; when you have done that, your offering will be acceptable.
Jesus builds up this tremendous lesson in the Oriental tradition. He says first that whoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger; second that to be hostile to another, is to be in grave danger; and finally that to hold so low an opinion about a fellow creature as to consider him outside the pale, is to shut ourselves off from any hope of spiritual fruit while we remain in this state of mind.
Note carefully that the King James version of the Bible here makes a serious error, which has been corrected in the revised version. It interpolates a phrase not in the earliest manuscripts and makes Jesus say, “Whoever is angry without a cause”; which is a manifest absurdity. No sane person gets angry without what he deems to be a cause. What Jesus said was that whoever is angry with his brother under any circumstances is in danger.
The road to the Kingdom of God is blocked by negative emotion and attitude. To clear this blockage, one must simply avoid such emotions, or replace them with good thoughts. Then the path to our gardens is clear.
Clearing the road,
Z gardener

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