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Our Promise – Psalm 91

January 20, 2012 by zgardener

 Read Psalm 91.
A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked. This clause has been taken to indicate some kind of favoritism on the part of God, whereas, of course, such a thing is impossible. It means simply that those who pray are saved from trouble that would otherwise overtake them, and that does, in fact, overtake those who do not pray.
Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. In the Bible, the word promise is the name given to a statement of some spiritual law. So, a Bible promise is a statement of the consequences that naturally follow from certain states of consciousness. If Boyle’s law were written in the Bible idiom, it would read something like this: “As I live, saith the Lord, whenever thou shalt double the pressure of a gas, thou shalt halve the volume, temperature remaining constant.” In the language of natural science, our Bible promise would run: “ By meditating regularly on the Presence of God with you, and directing your life in accordance with that fact, you become immune from any kind of danger.”
          And here is the truth of being. Our prayers to, and communion with God, will lead us to that place where God promises safety, protection and divine direction. As we learn to live in this reality, our paths and our gardens will be blessed and will provide all we need to survive and thrive in the peace we seek as happiness.
Keeping the promise,
Z gardener

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Our Deliverance

January 19, 2012 by zgardener

Read Psalm 91.
And now the Word of Truth is represented as addressing you with an authoritative assurance that your prayer will be answered, that is some way or other – not necessarily in the way that you expect – you will be rescued from your difficulty.
Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wing shalt thou trust: His Truth shall be thy shield and buckler. You are to have no apprehension, for your protection is now assured in one of those illustrations from everyday life, in which the Bible abounds. The mother hen, at the slightest threat of danger, gathers the little chicks under her wings, covering them “with her feathers”; thus does God shield you from all danger once you have elected to trust Him. His truth shall be thy shield and buckler. It is the knowledge of the Truth about God and man that makes the demonstration.
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. The arrow that flieth by day and the destruction that wasteth at noon refer to any difficulty of which you are consciously aware. It is, so to say, a daytime problem. The terror by night and the pestilence that walketh in darkness, on the contrary, imply something that, unknown to you, is working in your subconscious mind. Modern psychology has shown that most of our difficulties have their roots in the depth of the subconscious. These are indeed terrors of the mental night and pestilences of the darkness.
When we truly come to understand and believe the truth that our deliverance is ASSURED when we trust in God, then we are freed from the fear, anxiety and danger that threaten us. If we are being fearful, apprehensive and doubtful, then we are not trusting in God’s promise.
This is not easy and it does not mean that we are free to ignore problems or act recklessly believing God will deliver us. It does mean that we are to know that God is in control, is protecting us and will bring all things for our best good if we obey him. Even if that which God brings is not what we wanted or prayed for, we must still look for our best good in it and know that God has sent it for some good purpose.
When we live, think, speak and act in this reality; we can live in the Eden God created for each of us in peace, hope and safety.
Under the wings,
Z gardener

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Our Fortress

January 17, 2012 by zgardener

 
Read Psalm 91.
 
Observe that the poem opens by announcing the irresistible power of prayer. Then in order to bring home the fact that this law applies to us, and that by no possibility could we be an exception, it now changes over to the first person and makes us say “I.” It compels us to voice the I AM.
 
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. The Lord means God. How can knowledge be a presence? Secular knowledge, which is intellectual, cannot; but the true knowledge of God is an actual experience – not a thing of the head, but of the heart – and this is indeed a Presence. As a general rule, people contact this Real Self only vaguely and occasionally. Then, if they pray regularly, the gleams of intuition gradually strengthen into a definite sense of the Presence of God.
 
In Him will I trust. However worried or depressed you may be, however full of doubts and misgivings, still the fact that you are praying means that you have at least enough faith for that. The faith to go on praying in the midst of doubts about results is the tiny grain of mustard seed that Jesus says is sufficient for practical purposes. Declaring in Him will I trust means that you have now determined to trust by ceasing to worry and fear. This is the legitimate and spiritual use of the will.
 
Imagine that you are besieged by an evil enemy and yet you have a fortress near your that could protect you from all harm and fear while providing for your every need. And, also imagine that the owner of that fortress is the most powerful person in the universe. Imagine he keeps calling each day for you to come inside and be at peace and rest.
 
Can you fathom refusing this benevolent offer to come inside the fortress and enjoy the peace and plenty available inside? Would you even think of turning down his hospitality and protection? Of course not.
 
In the same way, God offers us a life that is blessed to overflowing and above all harm. In God’s garden we don’t have to be anxious or fearful, because God will bless and protect us there regardless of or problems. When we truly trust God, we will rise above all our human limitations, fears and negativity. In God’s garden, we abide in God’s Fortress in safety and joy.
 
Fortified,
Z gardener

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The Shadow of the Almighty

January 13, 2012 by zgardener

To abide under the shadow of the Almighty means to live under the protection of God Himself. Eastern people, and especially those with a desert background, such as the people of Palestine, look upon the sun as a danger, even an enemy, from which they need to be safeguarded. Shade is sanctuary, or safety – “the shadow of a mighty rock in a weary land.” The exhausted traveler sinks down in the shade for his long-sought rest.
God is called “The Almighty” in order to impress us with the fact that He really is All-mighty, and can therefore overcome our present difficulty, no matter how big it may seem.
…for with God all things are possible (Mark 10:27).
Consider, however, that the promise is made to “him that dwelleth.” If we only run into the Secret Place now and again, we can scarcely be said to dwell there. God will come to our rescue whenever we pray, but if we seldom think of Him, we may experience difficulty in making our contact in an emergency. By means of daily meditation we dwell in the Secret Place.
We also dwell in the Secret Place when we think, feel and act as God instructs us. Showing love, kindness, forgiveness, tolerance and understanding is dwelling in the Secret Place. We also dwell with God by what we do not do. Avoiding and refusing temptation, declining to harm or speak ill of another and turwing away from doubt, fear and despair are other ways of abiding in the shadow of God’s wings
The fruits of dwelling in the Secret Place are peace, hope, joy and all the other blessings that God promises those who dwell with him. When we abide in God, we walk daily in our gardens filled with beauty, safe from harm and empowered to overcome any obstacle. That is where we belong and where we were created to be.
In the shadow,
Z gardener

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The Secret Place

January 12, 2012 by zgardener

           The Ninety-first Psalm is one of the greatest chapters in the Bible. Like the rest of Scripture, the underlying thought is developed through a series of symbols, and it is by the appreciation of the values lying behind these symbols that the power of this prayer is appropriated.
The way to get the most out of this psalm is to read it through quietly; pausing after each clause to consider the meaning and assenting to this mentally. If you are fearful you will find, after working through the prayer two or three times, that your fear will have gone and that you are now looking at things from a different point of view.
He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the almighty. (Psalm 91:1).
The Secret Place of the most High is your own consciousness, and this fact is the most important practical discovery in the science of religion. The error usually made is to suppose the Secret Place of the most High to be somewhere outside of yourself, an error fatal to our hopes, because our success in prayer depends upon getting some degree of contact with God; and since He is only to be contacted within, as long as we are looking without we must fail in our objective. Jesus emphasized this truth, The kingdom of God is within you. Again, he said that when we pray we are to enter into the closet and shut the door, meaning, to retire in thought within our own consciousness. In fact, this doctrine of the Secret Place and the wonders that can happen therein is taught throughout the Bible.
What a glorious truth is contained in today’s message. God is within us and, God’s Kingdom is within us. God is not somewhere else; he is present within us. When we look inside for God’s Kingdom, for God’s presence and God’s consciousness, we are on the true path to oneness with God.
It is when we overcome the idea that self is separate from God, that we become one with God’s consciousness (the Holy Spirit) within us. When we realize we are one with God, then we can live in the Eden created for us.
Seeking God within,
Z gardener

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I Am That I Am

January 11, 2012 by zgardener

And… there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud…(Exodus 19:16).
These are dramatic expressions of the change of consciousness as we move away from the common things of life to the higher things.
In these days of the Exodus, the conditions of the outer world answered very quickly to man’s thoughts because people believed it was possible. Moses took his people across the Red Sea by the power of thought, and he was able to do that because in those days people believed in the power of thought. They believed that God could take them across the Red Sea dry shod, and He did.
Moses had the true knowledge of God from his father’s people, the Hebrews. It was the historical mission of the Hebrews to teach that God is not a limited, corporeal being, but incorporeal, infinite, divine mind.
Moses saw clearly the unity of God and man, and the unity of man and man. He got more than a flash of what we call the cosmic consciousness. That was his illumination. Then he realized that he must give this to humanity.
What is “I am”, that God would say to Moses that this is what Moses should call God. Could it be that conscioussness itself is what we truly are as children of God? When as a physical human, one says “I am”, we can only know that because we are conscious of our own selves and our existence.
So, if we are children of God, we are so because God’s consciousness and ours are one. When we rise above self-consciousness and become God-conscious, then God’s full promises manifest themselvesf through us.
Let us today manifest God’s consciousness in all we do, so that we may be one with God and the Holy Spirit, which is God’s consciousness:  the “I Am” in us.
Being all that I Am,
Z gardener

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January 10, 2012 by zgardener

God’s Abundance for Your Need

THE TENTH COMMANDMENT

Thou shalt not covet…any thing that is thy neighbour’s (Exodus 20:17).
There are several phrases concerning coveting. You are not to covet your neighbor’s house, nor his wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is his. Much of the evil in the world is caused by wanting something to which one is not entitled. Moses knew what covetousness does to us in what we call today the unconscious or the subconscious.
Coveting affects the soul of man. Even if your coveting never leads you to take anything that does not belong to you, it undermines and ultimately rots your soul. It shuts you off from God. Why? Because to covet something means that you do not understand the Law of Being. You do not understand that whatever you are getting or lacking is the outpicturing and expression of your consciousness. Until you understand that you cannot be saved.
There is not anything in the world that you ever conceived of that God has not got in abundance. God’s supply is infinite, and to envy someone else because he seems to have more is to deny your own contact with God.
Herein lies one of the great truths. Everything we could ever need for our best good is already ours. To access this abundance, peace and joy, we must commune with the source of all good; God.
To find and commune with God, we must look inside ourselves first. Anything that blocks us from God or separates us from God is sinful and prevents us from our “God granted “abundance in the spiritual and physical plane. When we overcome our internal obstacles to life with God, then we can expect our outer conditions to follow course.
Then we can live in joy and gladness each day; supplied with all we need to live each day in the Eden God created for us.
With God’s abundance,
Z gardener

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The True Witness – THE NINTH COMMANDMENT

January 9, 2012 by zgardener

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor (Exodus 20:16).
First, the obvious meaning is very important although it is only the beginning—do not tell lies about people
We have to apply this principle of not bearing false witness right throughout our lives. It is very important to practice because whatever you say about another person will happen to you, yourself. If you lie about another person—that is an unpleasant word but I am using it because is the right word—someone will lie about you. Jesus says so in the seventh chapter of Matthew, verses one and two:
Judge not, that ye be not judged.
For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
However, the fundamental meaning of this commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” Is that you always express what you are. You cannot be one thing and express another. Emerson says, “What you are shouts so loudly that I cannot hear what you say.” We are always witnessing to what we are. So again, “Thou shalt not” really means “You cannot”—you cannot permanently bear false witness.
The true witness is the full expression of God’s man. You will be bearing true witness to your neighbor when you are regenerated in soul. What does regeneration mean? It means the building of a new soul, not correcting the old one. When you change the soul, automatically the flesh changes, the skin changes, the blood vessels and the nerves and the bones change. But regeneration must begin with a change in the soul, not with anything in the outer world.
When we really know these things, we shall be bearing true witness.
In this season of the Epiphany, let us all see and recognize the true light that is our relationship with God. And let us commit to being a true witness to and for God. First within; then without.
Regenerating,
Z gardener

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By Right of Consciousness – THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT

January 6, 2012 by zgardener

Thou shalt not steal. (Exodus 20:15).
Many people will say, “We always knew that we must not steal. If we do we shall have trouble and probably wind up in prison.” All through the ages it is only the smallest percentage of human beings who have stolen. Respect for other people’s property was learned early in the history of civilization. However, this most fundamental law of life means that actually we cannot steal. Your consciousness of the presence of God in other people would have been so strong that no one can take from you what belonged to you by right of that consciousness.
These ten laws of life are things that cannot be done, and so, says the great prophet in effect, do not waste yourself or your life trying to do these things. They cannot be done. They conflict with the fundamental Law of Being.
When we give up trying to steal, then we shall begin to have our own. We shall come into our own rights, and when we get that, liberation will not be very far off.
There is nothing we could steal that is more precious than what God gives us freely. Also, we can never gain more from taking something that is not ours, than it will cost. Just as giving sews exponential returns of love; taking that which is not ours  creates multiplied negative returns and loss.
Let us be about the business of giving, so that the fruits we harvest from our gardens yield multiple returns of love, peace and hope.
Giving for living,
Z gardener

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False Allegiance – THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT

January 4, 2012 by zgardener

False Allegiance

THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT

 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.
There are many temptations and false idols that seek to separate us from God. Among the greatest of these is adultery. Our bond and communion with our spouses is just below that with God. Our earthly family is the physical equivalent of our heavenly family.
To place someone or something above our spouse is the earthly equivalent of placing someone or something above God. It is the  idolatry of self in which  the personal gratification of lust, vanity, pride, ego, unrestrained emotion or all of the above, cause us to put our desires above our love of God and our spouse.
To walk with God, we must put God first. To walk with our spouse. we must put them above everyhting but God. That does not mean we worship our spouse. It does mean that worship God by respecting our spouse and living with them according to God’s will. Then we and our spouse and familieis may walk together with God in the gardens God created for us.
Walking with God,
Z gardener

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