July 7, 2008 by zgardener
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 inharmony, but let it dissolve away of itself under God’s guidance.
The human will is a powerful thing, yet of itself, it is incapable of transforming us into children of God. It is only through God’s will that we will be able to bury our old selves and be reborn as new creatures. Disharmony will be overcome when we face it and through prayer, change the behavior that feeds it.
Facing it,
Z Gardener
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July 4, 2008 by zgardener
No Price Too Great
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 exercise.
The truth is that we are incapable of overcoming these things without God’s help. Whether subtle or obvious, they will be conquered only when we seek God’s will for our lives and submit our will, spirit and consciousness to him. When we manifest his divine will, universal consciousness and holy spirit we will be enabled to overcome all human weakness and limitation.
In submission,
Z Gardener
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July 3, 2008 by zgardener
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).
This truth is the one thing that we must understand if we are to live as God instructs and if we are to operate in harmony with his will. It is our thoughts that shape us and our world. Any other way of thinking will cause us to exist in a false reality.
Happy thinking,
Z gardener
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July 3, 2008 by zgardener
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).
This truth is the one thing that we must understand to if we are to live as God instructs and if we are to operate in harmony with his will. It is our thoughts that shape us and our world. Any other way of thinking will cause us to exist in a false reality.
Happy thinking,
Z Gardener
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July 2, 2008 by zgardener
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).
The real point here is to replace negative thoughts words and deeds with positive affirmations in the total power of God. Each of us will have these negative thoughts, the key is refusing to let them take hold. Reject them and replace them just as you would change the oil in your car. The quicker, the better.
Tuning up
Z Gardener
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July 1, 2008 by zgardener
Agree Quickly
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.
It seems so counter-intuitive too say “do not think about a problem”. That is because we confuse thinking about the problem with thinking about the solution. Thinking about the problem takes us down and locks us into the situation. Thinking about the solution brings us up and frees us from it. If we are thinking “this is terrible, how did this happen or what can I do”, we are not thinking, “God is in charge, their is a good outcome in this and he will guide us through it”. If we are stuck in the problem, we are not driving to the solution.
Driving,
Z Gardener
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June 30, 2008 by zgardener
Danger of Anger
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.
Anger, condemnation and resentment inject more harmful chemicals in to our bodies than most of the toxins we encounter in daily life. Such emotions inject the same sort of poisons into our spiritual lives. They hurt us and block the therapeutic healing aspects of love, tolerance and reconciliation. They create danger and block security.
Z Gardener
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June 26, 2008 by zgardener
Necessity for Self Control
Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:
But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire (Matthew 5:21-22).
The Old Law said “Thou shalt not kill,” but Jesus says that even to want to kill, nay, event to be angry with your brother, is sufficient to keep you out of the Kingdom of Heaven. It was a distinct gain when primitive people could be persuaded not to murder but to develop sufficient self-control to master their anger. Spiritual demonstration demands that anger itself be overcome. It is simply not possible to get any experience of God worth talking about, or to exercise spiritual power until you have gotten rid of resentment and condemnation. You can have either your demonstration or your indignation, but you cannot have both.
Once we accept the weaknesses and shortcomings in our own behavior, confess them to God and ask forgiveness, we can then rise above condemnation and resentment of others. For it is in harboring and denying those weaknesses that we give indignation a place to take root in our feelings about others. If we look closely, we will usually find that what angers us about others is what we are most anxious about in ourselves.
In confession,
Z Gardener
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June 25, 2008 by zgardener
Striving for Perfection
What of the man who is conscious of considerable moral imperfection, perhaps of the habit of grave sin, and is at the same time sincerely desirous of spiritual growth? Is he to relinquish the quest for spiritual knowledge until he has first reformed his conduct? By no means. As a matter of fact any attempt to improve himself morally without spiritual aid is foredoomed to failure. The thing to do is to pray regularly and to throw the responsibility for success upon God. The man must carry on, no matter how many times he may fail. Let him keep affirming that God is helping him, and that his own real nature is spiritual and perfect. In this way moral regeneration and spiritual unfoldment will go hand in hand. The Christian life does not require that we possess perfection of character, or else, which of us would be able to live it? What it does require is honest, genuine striving for that perfection.
…he that is perfect in knowledge is with thee (Job 36:4).
Honest and genuine striving for perfection is not accepting imperfection and deciding to live with it. It is much harder because each day requires the identification and evaluation of mistakes, weaknesses and wrongdoing. It is like looking in a mirror that reflects intent, motivation and purpose stripped of rationalization, reason and pride. One that reflects truth instead of an image. As difficult as that may be, it is the first step to truly striving for perfection. Once accomplished, that day can proceed in harmony with and attuned to God’s unlimited power.
Surely striving,
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June 25, 2008 by zgardener
The Single Eye
If you pray for yourself in the right way every day, you will find that the minor things of life will gradually fall correctly into place of their own accord without any trouble on your part. Contrast this with the usual method of trying to get everything right by separately organizing a thousand petty details, and you will appreciate how wonderfully the new spiritual basis sets you free.
If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light (Matthew 6:22).
The eye symbolizes spiritual perception. Whatever you give your attention to, is the thing that governs your life. Attention is the key. Your free will lies in the directing of your attention. Whatever you steadfastly direct your attention to, will come into your life and dominate it. If you do not direct your attention consistently to anything in particular— and many people do not— then nothing in particular will come into your life except uncertainty and suspense.
If the Glory of God comes first with you, and to express His Will becomes the rule of your life, then your eye is single and your whole body, or embodiment, will be full of light.
What could be more delightful, fulfilling and rewarding than living every day as a creature of light. To exist as a singly focused being, exerting free will to chose what is going to come into this life each day. Putting God first puts You in the place where that life is possible.
Seeing eye,,
Z Gardener
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