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Posts Tagged ‘Faith’

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

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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

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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

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The Mental Equivalent

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 11, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 
There is one thing that means more to us than all the other things in the world, and that is our search for God and the understanding of His nature. Our aim is to learn the practice of the presence of God. We practice the presence of God by seeing Him everywhere, in all things and in all people.
 
Some years ago I coined the phrase “mental equivalent.” For anything that you want in your life—a healthy body, a satisfactory vocation, friends, opportunities, and above all the understanding of God—you must furnish a mental equivalent. Supply yourself with a mental equivalent, and the thing must come to you. This expression “mental equivalent” is borrowed from physics and chemistry. We speak of the mechanical equivalent of one kind of energy in another kind of energy. They have to find out how much coal will be needed to produce so much electricity, and so on. In like manner there is a mental equivalent of every object or occurrence on the physical plane.
 
The secret of successful living is to build up the mental equivalent that you want; and to get rid of, to expunge, the mental equivalent that you do not want.
 
I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways (Psalm 119:15).
What mental equivalents are we providing ourselves? Are we furnishing those which take us closer to God or further away.
The mental states that bring us closer to God are love, peace, joy and all the positive mental states. Those that take us away from God are fear, anger, bitterness and the other negative mental states that block us from God.
As we are able to furnish the positive mental equivalents to ourselves, God will furnish the same to us. Then we can recognize and live in our Edens.
Practicing the presence,
Z gardener

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Worship Means Victory

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 

 

Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness (Psalm 29:2).

 

God is bigger than any problem.

God in you is greater than any difficulty that you have to meet.

God cares for you more than it is possible for any human being to realize.

God can help you in proportion to the degree in which you worship Him. You worship God by really putting your trust in Him instead of in outer conditions, or in fear, or in depression, or in seeming dangers, and so forth.

You worship God by recognizing His presence everywhere, in all people and conditions that you meet; and by praying regularly.

You pray well when you pray with joy.

 Glory ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord (Psalm 105:3).

 

We often miss the solution to our problems by focusing on the  problem. When we focus instead on God, and God’s power to solve all problems, then the solution presents itself.

 

Let us think less about solving our problems and more about God’s power and presence within the problem. Then we will act according to God’s will and will turn any problem into a blessing.

Victorious through God,

Z gardener

 

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Final Authority

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 4, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 
And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:
For He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes
(Matthew 7:28-29).
 
It is always so. The message of Jesus Christ is utterly revolutionary, for it turns our gaze from the outside to the inside, and from man and his works to God.
 
He taught as one having authority. The greatest glory of the Spiritual Basis is that you begin to know. When you have obtained the smallest demonstration by means of prayer, you have experienced something that never leaves you. You have the witness of Truth within yourself, and this is the only authority worth having.
 
Faith becomes knowledge when, by following God’s will, we personally experience God acting in our lives. This demonstration gives proof of God’s promise and presence in our lives. Thereby, knowledge begets the bliss of certainty that God is real, true and ever present with us. This is life in the Eden God meant us to inhabit. And, the path to our garden is to be found looking in, not looking out.
Once we are filled with the knowledge of God within, then the world without shapes itself to that inward demonstration.
Being with authority,
Z gardener

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A Rock Foundation

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 3, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Read Matthew 7:24-27.
 
Therefore whosoever heareth these saying of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock (Matthew 7:24).
One of the oldest symbols for the human soul is that of a building, sometimes a dwelling house, and sometimes a temple. The first thing that has to be done by the builder of a house is to select a sound foundation. On the shifting sands of the desert it is impossible to build anything at all, and so when the desert dweller intends to put up a permanent structure he looks about for a rock.
Now the Rock is one of the Bible terms for the Christ, and the implication is very obvious. Christ is the one and only foundation upon which we can build the temple of the regenerated soul with safety. As long as we are depending upon something less than that Rock—upon will power, upon so-called material security, upon the good will of others, or upon our own personal resources—we are building upon sand, and great will be our fall.
As the great songwriter said “And so castles made of sand. slip into the sea, eventually”.
May each of us find the true rock upon which to build our spiritual lives so that nothing can shake it. That rock for this writer is God’s truth as manifested in Jesus Christ and his victory over sin and death. “As for me and my family, we will follow the Lord!”
Upon the rock of ages,
Z gardener
 

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Unremitting Vigilance

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on April 2, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 
Read Matthew 7:21-23.
 
We are all willing to do God’s will sometimes and in some things, but until there is a complete dedication of one’s whole self, there cannot be a complete demonstration. “There is no home for the soul in which there dwells the shadow of an untruth,” said George Meredith.
 
Never is it more true than in the life of the soul that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. We must not allow any consideration whatever, any institution, any organization, any book, or any man or woman, to come between us and our direct seeking for God. Centers, churches, schools, all fill a useful purpose in providing the physical framework for the distribution of right knowledge and communion, but the actual work must be done by the individual.
 
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven (Matthew 7:21).
 
Be ready, do good, never quit and be unremittingly vigilant to live free. For if we do, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Unblinkingly,
Z gardener

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Bearing Fruit

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

 
Read Matthew 7:15-20.
 
If man really were left without a simple practical test of religious truth, he would assuredly be in a sad plight; but happily this is not the case. Jesus, the most profound, and at the same time the most simple and practical teacher the world has ever known, has provided for this need, and has given us a universally applicable test for truth. It is as simple and direct as the acid test for gold.
It is the simple question—Does the truth work in our lives? This test is so staggeringly simple that most clever people have passed it over. Truth heals the body, purifies the soul, reforms the sinner, solve difficulties, pacifies strife. There is no such thing as undemonstrated understanding.
If you wish to know how you really stand spiritually, look about you at your environment, beginning with the body. There can be nothing in the soul that is not demonstrated sooner or later in the outer, and there can be nothing in the outer that does not find some correspondence in the inner. By their fruits ye shall know them (Matthew 7:20).
What kind of fruit are we producing in our lives? Does it purify our souls, reform our sinful behavior, solve difficulties or pacify strife. If so, then we are standing on strong spiritual ground. If, on the other hand, our fruits are polluting the soul, leading us to sin, creating difficulties and strife; then we are standing on dangerous spiritual ground.
As we arise anew, forgiven and justified by the risen Christ, let us take Christ’s example so that our gardens of full of good fruit that nourishes, builds, strengthens, cleanses and unifies us. Then we will walk in light and love through the Eden God created for us.
Bearing love,
Z gardener

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The Gracious Will of God

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

A tragic mistake that is often made is to assume that the will of God is bound to be something very dull and uninviting, if not positively unpleasant. Consciously or not some persons look upon God as a hard taskmaster, or a severe parent. Too often their prayers amount to something like this: “Please God, give me such-and-such a boon, which I sorely need—but I don’t suppose you will, because you won’t think it is good for me.” Needless to say, a prayer of this sort is answered as all prayers are answered, according to the faith of the subject; that is to say, the boon is not granted. The truth is that the will of God for us always means greater freedom, greater self-expression, newer and brighter experience, wider opportunity of service to others—life more abundant.
 
God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
(1 John 4:16).
Today, let us claim God’s gift of greater freedom, self-expression and newer, brighter experiences. It is our birthright.
Claiming greater,
Z gardener

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