Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for April, 2013

THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT – False Allegiance

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

 
Thou shalt not commit adultery (Exodus 20:14).
 
Naturally, this commandment means what it says. The Christian standard of conduct with regard to personal purity will never be improved on. Not to commit adultery is fundamentally important because on it is founded the sanctity of the family. But, of course, there is a great deal more in it than that.
 
One of the most common Hebrew synonyms was adultery for idolatry. In the Old Testament these two words are almost always interchangeable. The worship of false gods was described as adultery. The fundamental idea behind this commandment is to have one God. As you read through the Old Testament, you will find that the idea of the adulterous woman who is unfaithful to her husband constantly means the human soul that is turning away to some other god.
Brothers and sisters, turn not away from the one true God for any god or anyone. Similarly, turn not away from those we love, and to whom we commit, for any other person or thing. Finally, let us be true to what God created us to be, and let nothing turn us from us it.
Unfailing allegiance,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT – Expressing What You Are

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 29, 2013| 1 Comment »

 
Thou shalt not kill (Exodus 20:13).
 
As rules of conduct, the commandments are just such “thou shalt nots” as you see written up, “No smoking” or “No thoroughfare.” But when you get behind the surface meaning, then “Thou shalt not” becomes “Thou Canst not,” without creating major problems for ourselves.
 
So this commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” is fundamentally an expression of the cosmic law that we cannot kill without killing ourselves, and the sooner we find that out the better. We are always trying to kill. However, this commandment is here to tell us that to think we can kill anything is to lay up trouble for ourselves that will have to be met and wiped out some time or other.
 
Nothing essential about us ever dies from the outside. No one can kill your character. No one can kill your peace of mind. No one can kill your business, or your reputation, or anything that is yours. You can, but nobody else can. No man or woman was ever yet destroyed from the outside.
Many people waste their lives in thinking how they are being hurt, or damaged, or injured by other people; how good they could be, what marvelous things they could do, if it were not for others. So long as you believe that, you cannot progress. As soon as you know that nobody can hurt that which is important about you, then you are free to overtake any mistakes, and to be and do the thing you want.
We are happiest and at our best when we are adding to life. Taking away from life brings us down and hurts everyone around us. We add to life when we give to others and attempt to increase the good in other’s lives. We take from life when we take  away from others and attempt to increase bad aspect of their lives.
Creating, loving, nurturing, caring and helping are the antidotes to killing, hating, neglecting, harming and hurting. Apply them liberally to our woes and watch the problems in our gardens grow into blessings.
Adding life,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 26, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Polarity
THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT
 
Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee (Exodus 20:12).
 
We should respect our parents just because they are our parents, but that teaching is just the very outer layer of this commandment. Underneath it is instruction in divine metaphysics because your real father and mother is God. When this commandment says, “Honour thy father and thy mother,” it brings in the two poles, the male and the female, and, of course, polarity is the motive power of the universe.
In the bible, mother means the feeling nature, and the father is the knowledge nature. Most people have one side or the other more developed. When our prayers fail and we do not demonstrate, we fail because we are not honoring our father and our mother.
Both our feeling and knowing selves need to be balanced in a way as to be most useful to a loving and peaceful life. It is the same with a mother and father’s influence on their children who need both discipline and nurturing, strength and tenderness, courage and caution.
Balance in all things is, in fact, is one of the most efficient ways to progress spiritually and materially. Balance enables order, growth, harmony and development because it tends to create stability. For balance to exist, their must be polarity; light and dark; up and down, in and out; good and bad. It could be argued that existence itself depends on polarity. Could we have up without down? Good without bad? Could that be one of the reasons the Bible tells us to the thankful for all things?
This can be tested easily. Today, let  us seek balance in all things, and at the end of the day let us determine how it worked. The results should yield a sufficient answer.
Seeking balance,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT – A Time To Rest

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 25, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 
Read Exodus 20:8-11.
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy (Exodus 20:8).
 
This commandment about the Sabbath Day was given to the people at the time of their leaving Egypt and going into the desert, and on the surface it meant what it said for that age. It was a wonderful thing in Moses’ day to insist that everyone set aside one day a week to think about God or at least to oblige him to stop his secular activities. No rule can make a man religious, or give him faith, but it can help.
 
Like all the other commandments, this one is instruction in seeking the presence of God everywhere, particularly where the trouble seems to be. Where there is fear and doubt He brings faith, where there is lack He brings abundance.
 
But here in this commandment about the Sabbath Day there is a still deeper meaning. When you are praying every day and recognizing that God is working in you and in all your affairs, there will be a sense in which every day will be a Sabbath, because for you every day will be a holy day. One of the most wonderful things about the Bible teaching is that we get rid of the distinction between the sacred and the secular. That is one of the most important steps in the whole history of the soul.
 
God is present everywhere. For those who understand Jesus’ teaching, it is always the Sabbath Day, and the place whereon they stand is holy ground.
Being aware of God at all times, keeps all times holy. As we raise our consciousness of God to ever higher levels in our daily reality, our daily reality increasingly becomes more spiritual and thereby, holy and sacred.
Remember God, and thereby remember the Sabbath. Therein lies Eden.
Surely remembering,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

THE THIRD COMMANDMENT – Thoughts Are Things

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

Thoughts Are Things
THE THIRD COMMANDMENT
 
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain (Exodus 20:7).
 
Now this law of life really means you cannot take the name of the Lord in vain. If you try to do so you will fail because when you take the name of God unto yourself and implement it, then consequences will follow. It is a pity more of us do not realize that fact because constantly we are trying to take the name of the Lord in vain.
The name of God is your conviction concerning God. Your idea of God will determine your whole life. If you believe that God is good, God is love, God has all power, God is intelligence, all the conditions of your life will steadily improve. If you believe God is intelligent but not good—I know people would not dare to say that, but people who think that God sends sickness and trouble really believe in a God who is not good—if you believe in a God who has all intelligence, but is not loving, then your idea of the nature of God must work out.
Troubles will come to you, and you will not overcome them because you are saying, “God sent this trouble for a good purpose, and I must put up with it.” You will put up with it. Your idea of God cannot be in vain. It will work out for you in accordance with your belief.
 
There is not one of us who is not limiting God in some respect in his thought and because of that we are going to suffer limitation in some way, for we cannot take the name of God in vain.
The most important words in this message are, “Thoughts are things”. This truth, when accepted and understood, will revolutionize one’s life.
The failure to accept or understand this truth will blind us to the reality in which we live. The reality is that thoughts, words and deeds are things that affect everything else we experience. As within, so without. Any thoughts and words we harbor will physically manifest themselves in our lives.
So, let us today decide that all things we think, say and do will comport with God’s will. Then, watch as our gardens fill our lives with joy, peace, love and hope.
Right thinking,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

THE SECOND COMMANDMENT – Pocket Gods and Graven Images

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

Read Exodus 20:4-6.
 
Thou shalt not take unto thee any graven image…(exodus 20:4).
 
A primitive people needed to be thus instructed because they were much given to making idols of a palpable sort. We do not do these things, but whenever we give power to anything but God, we are making that thing into a graven image. For example, we give power to ailments, particularly if it is a favorite ailment. We all know people who say, “My rheumatism,” and they say it quite lovingly. Been with them a long time! Has become a conversation piece! Others say, “My indigestion.” We are making a graven image of these things. It is only when we take power away from them that we can heal them.
 
If you forget God and worship graven images of any kind, you are going to suffer. You can demolish a stone statue; you can burn a wooden one. The way to destroy mental images is to stop thinking of them and giving them power.
 
This commandment goes on to say, “For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.” Moses does not mean that God is jealous like a man, but that God must have first place. The trouble with many pious people is that they want God to be vice-president, keeping the presidency for themselves. So the Bible uses the word “jealous” in the sense that if you give power to anything but God, you have lost God altogether. You cannot have a percentage of God. Either God is the only power or nothing at all.
One of our greatest challenges to achieving full spirituality if turning over control to someone else in our lives. Becoming subservient to another runs against our human nature and our human culture. Yet, only when God becomes the master of our ships, do we have the ability to ensure our fate and seal our spiritual destiny.
On board,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

THE FIRST COMMANDMENT – Raised Consciousness

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 19, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 
I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me (Exodus 20:2,3).
 
Moses lived in Egypt over three thousand years ago, and he led some six hundred thousand people out of Egypt and through the wilderness. That is historical. But, Moses also stands for a faculty in yourself, and the things that Moses did typify your state of mind.
 
The mountain means prayer—the elevated consciousness. We are told that the general public were not allowed to go up Mount Sinai, but that does not mean that certain people were not good enough to go up. It means that if we want to go up the mountain—if we want to raise our consciousness, if we want to get closer to God—we must prepare ourselves by prayer. If we want to go up the mountain, we have to become a high priest spiritually and we must rid ourselves of our faults and weaknesses—otherwise we cannot elevate our consciousness and get our contact with God.
 
Moses had his revelation, and then he realized it as the experience that God and man are one. When he got that revelation, Moses brought back the laws of life, beginning with the First Commandment, as we call it.
 
What is the beginning of the First Commandment? I am the Lord thy God. Our trouble in our religious life nearly always is that we think, “In the beginning Me.” That is very human but is does not get us the revelation that Moses got. After affirming I am the Lord thy God… the First Commandment says thou shalt have no other gods before me.
The God of self is the most likely God we will put before the true God. When we overcome the primacy of self, we are then prepared to go to the mountain. This is the first step toward Eden.
Rising,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

The Ten Commandments

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

 

And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant…and had respect unto them (Exodus 2:24-25).

 

Moses grew up as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter with all the privileges and training of royalty. As the years went by and he witnessed the oppression of his people, he determined to lead them out of their bondage into a better life—their Promised Land. We are told “that their cry went up to God” (Exodus 2:24) and God Himself led them safely through their wilderness. Then at the time of their uncertainty, their moral laxness and emotional confusion, He gave Moses certain basic rules of life, which we still know as the Ten Commandments.

 

The Ten Commandments at their face value are true and valid, but that is only the beginning. If people are going to escape from the continuous strife and struggle of life, they must have something more. So within these commandments he concealed the deeper laws for those who were ready for them. And within those again, he concealed the deepest and highest spiritual teaching for those who were ready for that.

 

In other words, Moses designed these laws of life so that the higher we go spiritually, or the deeper we go intellectually, the more we can get out of them.

As we walk through these next discussions of the Ten Commandments, may each of us receive the blessings for which we are prepared; that we may walk in the Eden that was prepared for us.

Programmed to receive,

Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Maintaining the New Equivalent

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 15, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 
There is an instructive legend of the Middle Ages. It seems that a certain citizen was arrested by one of the barons and shut up in a dungeon by a ferocious looking jailer who carried a great key. The door of his cell shut with a bang. He lay in the dark dungeon for twenty years. Each day the big door would be opened with a great creaking; water and bread would be thrust in and the door closed again.
 
After twenty years the prisoner decided that he wanted to die but he did not want to commit suicide, so the next day when the jailer came he would attack him, and the jailer would then kill him. In preparation he thought he should examine the door, so he turned the handle, and to his amazement the door opened. He found that there was no lock. He groped along the corridor and felt his way upstairs. At the top of the stairs two soldiers where chatting, and they made no attempt to stop him. He crossed the great yard. There was an armed guard on the drawbridge but paid no attention to him, and he walked out a free man. He went home unmolested. He had been a captive, not of stone and iron, but of false belief. He had only thought he was locked in.
Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me (Psalm 142:7).
Who holds the key to that which imprisons us? We do. Yes, we are the only thing that keeps us from our freedom, joy and peace.
When we substitute; God’s will for ours, positive thought for negative ones and selfless actions for selfish ones, we free ourselves from the prisons of doubt, fear, shame and limitation.
So today, let us unlock the door to the prison that separates us from God and the Eden created for us. Then we will walk in the light, free to love, share, give and live in joy.
Checking the door,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Clarity and Interest

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 12, 2013| Leave a Comment »

The key to life is to build in the mental equivalents of what you want, and to expunge the equivalents of what you do not want. You build in the mental equivalents by thinking with clearness or definiteness, and interest. Remember clarity and interest; those are the two poles. If you want to be healthy, happy, prosperous, doing a constructive work, having a continuous understanding of God, you think, feel, and get interested in these ends. What we call “feeling” in connection with thought is really interest. Ninety-nine times in a hundred the reason why Christians do not demonstrate is that they lack feeling in their desires or prayers.
 
How are you going to expunge the wrong mental equivalents? Suppose you have a mental equivalent of resentment, or of unemployment, or of criticism, or of not understanding God. The only way to expunge a wrong mental equivalent is to supply the opposite. The right thought automatically expunges the wrong thought. If you say: “I am not going to think resentment any more,” what are you thinking about except resentment? The key to the management of your thinking, and therefore, the key to the management of your destiny, is to substitute an affirmative thought for a negative thought.
 
The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me….(Psalm 138:8).
This substitution of good thoughts for bad thoughts is the most efficient means of expunging wrong mental states. It requires interest and clarity, which requires discipline and consistency. Non of this is easy, but its easier than any other option.
Being clear,
Z gardener

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »