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Posts Tagged ‘Faith’

Self-Condemnation Keeps Us Back

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on March 8, 2013| Leave a Comment »

 

 

 

People who are honestly trying to follow the spiritual life often make the mistake of being too hard on themselves. Because they do not seem to be progressing as fast as they would naturally like, or because they find themselves repeating some old fault that they thought they had completely overcome, they feel discouraged, and condemn themselves mercilessly.

 

 

All this is foolish. If you are doing your best to use what Truth you know, at present, you are doing all that you have a right to expect of yourself.

 

 

Don’t be impatient with yourself—but this does not mean that you are to be lazy or complacent. Handle yourself as a wise parent handles an obstreperous child—kindly, patiently, but with gentle firmness, not expecting too much too quickly, but foreseeing inevitable growth and improvement.

 

 

…and all of you are children of the most high (Psalm 82:6).

 

 

Let us rid ourselves of self-condemnation once and for all. Yes, we should review our thoughts, words and deeds objectively to identify things we do wrong. That does not mean we are to condemn ourselves for our shortcomings. We are to recognize them and use them as tools to rise above them. This creates good to replace bad, instead of focusing on that of which we are not proud.

 

 

Rising above,

 

Z gardener

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Karma

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on March 7, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Just as like attracts like, so like produces like. This is a cosmic law, which means that it is universally true throughout the whole of existence right up through the higher planes. As Jesus put it, you do not gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles; and he also said,
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit… (Matthew 7:17 ).
So it is with our thoughts and words and deeds. As we sow so shall we reap, sometimes almost immediately, sometimes after a long interval. But always, sooner or later like produces like.
… In the East this law of sowing and reaping is known as karma and the term is a convenient one.
Note carefully, however, that karma is not punishment. If you touch a red hot stove, you will burn your finger. This will hurt you, but it is not punishment, only a benign and reformative consequence, for after one or two such experiences in childhood, you learn to keep your fingers away from hot iron. So it is with all natural retribution—you suffer because you have a lesson to learn.
How many times must we burn our spiritual fingers before we learn our lessons. Negative human reactions born of human weaknesses of attitude, spirit and behavior will unerringly produce negative results in our lives. They are meant to reform our thoughts, words and deeds so we will correct them.
As long as we are touching our spiritual fingers to bitterness, resentment, regret, scorn and all other negative reactions to life, we will continue to create negative outcomes in our lives such as doubt, fear, worry, anxiety and all the other harmful human reactions that rob us of peace, joy and hope. They also rob us of the joy God created in this place to provide for his family.
So today, let us apply our fingers, hands and lives to those things that cause us to feel happiness, spread joy and live  peacefully in the Eden God created for us.
Sowing peace,
Z gardener

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All God’s Universe

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on March 6, 2013| Leave a Comment »

What is nature? What we call nature is a small part of God’s universe that we are able to see at the present time, and much of which we see awry. All the wonderful things that are going on in the woods, all the marvelous happenings that take place in the depths of the ocean, the whole sublime story of the heavens, are all parts of God’s self-expression. Above all, our own bodies themselves are part of nature, perhaps the most wonderful part of all; and probably the part about which we ourselves know least.
But ask now the beasts, and they shall teach thee; and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee: Or speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee: and the fishes of the sea shall declare unto thee. Who knoweth not in all these that the hand of the Lord hath wrought this? In whose hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all mankind…With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding.
(Job 12:7-10, 13).
If we are to truly show respect for God and obey God’s will, then we must respect God’s creation. As the self expression (pressing out) of God into the physical world , it is part of God and therefore due all the sanctity that we invest in God. God’s creatures are part of that same self-expression and due the respect and protection due to all of God’s creation.
When we follow this truth, we will find that this creation and all its creatures can indeed reveal truths to us that we can not otherwise learn and will whisper understandings that we can not alone perceive otherwise. Then, we can walk in the garden that God created for us in peace, truth, wisdom and strength.
Listening to creation,
Z gardener

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Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on March 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Peace, the Miracle Worker
Regeneration means building a new mentality; that is, creating a new soul in place of your present one. It does not mean merely improving your present self—it means producing (through the power of God, of course), a new self.
If you do this, everything else in your life will rapidly change for the better. Other people will become much more friendly to you. Because your soul will be filled with peace, you will radiate peace, and other people will get it intuitively. Everybody likes peace and harmony and they are attracted to any source from which it comes.
Naturally you cannot radiate peace if you do not first possess it within yourself. You cannot radiate anything from the outside. To radiate any quality, that quality must be within yourself.
True peace of mind is the short cut to regeneration. The Master said,
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you (John 14:27).
Are we truly ready for peace? Are we ready to create a new soul? If so, then we must look to God’s will for how to build it. Then we must build it day by day. It will start with the hardest part…the decision.
Today, let us decide for peace and begin building our new souls.
Radiating peace,
Z gardener

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Step by Step

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on March 4, 2013| 1 Comment »

When you are praying for your true place, it is well to remember that the full demonstration may not come in one move, but more likely after a series of stages.
Now, If you despise these intermediate steps, and think “this is a little better, but it is not really what I want,” you will keep the demonstration back. Neither should you accept a small improvement as being all that you can hope to get. The scientific attitude is to see the stepping stone as a stepping stone; to bless it, and give thanks for it, and to continue praying for the next step.
For precept must be upon precept…line upon line, here a little, and there a little (Isaiah 28:10).
Very few worthwhile things are accomplished in one fell swoop. This is especially true of spiritual developments and its demonstration in our lives. We begin as spiritual infants and spend our lives growing up metaphysically just as we mature physically.
Just as we must learn to stand before we run, we must also achieve our spiritual growth one development at a time. Each is a blessing, each brings joy and each step brings us closer to the Eden that God created for us.
Let us today bless those steps that brought us thus far, look with anticipation and hope to the next steps and live a life of peace and love in the process. It is the way God planned life in the garden.
Stepping up,
Z gardener

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Raise the Shades

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

We do not have to create good. We do not have to persuade God to be Love, or Life, or Truth, or Intelligence. We do not have to ask Him to remember us. We could not ask for any good. Fundamentally, evil is a false belief about the power and availability of good.
If we draw down the shades in every room in a house, that house will be in darkness, and is likely to become damp and unhealthy as well, no matter how brightly the sun may be shining outside. Salvation consists in raising these shades and opening the windows—then He does the rest.
…walk as children of light (Ephesians 5:8).
This is another way of saying that God has already provided for our best good. We just have to claim it. The way to claim it is to seek and follow God’s will.
When we do this, we open our shades and let God’s ever-present light to enter our lives. Then, all that we need for our best good will manifest itself in our lives. That is when we can walk as children of light in the glorious garden of the Kingdom of God.
Walking in light,
Z gardener

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Mental Assent

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

When you give your mental assent to any idea, good or bad, you associate yourself with that idea and you incorporate it into your consciousness—to the extent that you realize it. When you read a passage of Scripture you will, if you assent to it mentally, incorporate it into your life to that extent.
This law, of course, works the other way too. If when you hear or read of some piece of injustice or cruelty, you approve it mentally by thinking that “it serves him right,” you are associating yourself with that deed, and making it a part of your own life, even though you do not speak a word. It is the mental assent that counts.
Give your assent only to Truth.
For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my numbers, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity….So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God…. (Romans 7:22, 23, 25).
Regardless of the fact that we may ascribe to a certain theology or morality, if we give mental approval to something contrary to that theology, then we are not practicing what we believe. That mental approval is more critical than our “beliefs”.  In fact, it will override our “beliefs” and undermine them and our ability to follow our beliefs. In biblical language this is called a stumbling block. Such mental assent will trip us and make us fall from our true path.
So, when our selfish human spirit is causing us to mentally accept something contrary to our faith, we must turn to God in thought, word and deed. Then we will rise above our selfish wrongness and discover selfless rightness (righteousness). Then we must follow that path to find the garden God created for us.
Seeking rightness,
Z gardener

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Common Sense Vocabulary

Posted in Good Morning, tagged , on February 27, 2013| Leave a Comment »

When you apply a certain word to God, it must bear the same essential meaning as it does when you apply it to man—otherwise it has no meaning at all. When you say that God is Love or Intelligence, or that He is Just, these words must mean substantially what they mean when applied to human beings. The love of God must be essentially the same that we know as the love of the mother for her children, or the love of the artist for his creation, purified and increased to infinity, of course.
Many people say that God is Love, and at the same time maintain that He visits finite sin with eternal punishment. They claim that God is just, and yet maintain that people living today are suffering disabilities for a sin supposed to have been committed by Adam thousands of years before they were born.
The truth is that God is Love and Intelligence; and that He works with perfect wisdom and perfect justice to all, at all times, in the ordinary and correct meaning of these words.
…God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5).
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is Love (1 John 4:8).
Good and upright is the Lord… (Psalm 25:8).
It doesn’t get any clearer than this. God is love and love is all you need.
Being love,
Z gardener

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Cash That Bill

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

Within you is an inexhaustible source of power, if you can but contact it. That power can heal you, and it can inspire you by telling you what to do and how to do it. It can give you peace of mind, and , above all, it can give you direct knowledge of God. That power is scientific prayer. There is no problem that prayer cannot overcome and no good thing that it cannot bring into your life.
This is the message of the whole Bible. It was summed up by Jesus when he said,
…the kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21).
This truth was dramatically illustrated by an incident in real life. The body of a tramp, clad in rags, was discovered near a lime kiln where he had evidently crept for warmth. After the autopsy his clothes were torn up to be put into the incinerator, and sewn into the lining of the trousers was a bank note for a large amount. Unquestionably the original owner of the suit had had it sewn in there for safety, and for some unknown reason lost track of it.
Consider the situation! This poor hobo had sat down many a time to lukewarm coffee– and all the time he was sitting on a thousand dollars. People may have plenty of money and yet be hobos for health or happiness or spiritual experience. Riches do not become wealth until they are realized. Cash your bill at the Bank of Heaven and make it productive.
But my God shall supply all your need… (Philippians 4:19)
To realize our spiritual wealth we must commune daily with God and live spiritually, as well as physically. So long as we are focused  on the physical and limit our daily communion with God, we will not be able to fully access our spiritual power.
So today, if one is feeling tired, stressed out and at wits end; then quit depending on wits and begin depending of God. This does mean lip service. It does mean thinking, feeling and acting in harmony with God and in obedience to God’s will. It works.
Cashing in on God,
Z gardener

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Seeking and Finding

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

People are very apt to find what they seek. You have noticed that people who go about looking for trouble, practically always find it. The popular proverb,“Listeners seldom hear good of themselves,” is an example. We also know people who love to say that they never have any luck. When things seem to go against them, they exclaim triumphantly, “Wouldn’t you know it?—that is what always happens to me!”
Now, such a mistaken person needs only to alter this habit and he will automatically alter his life. It is often difficult to get such people to make this alteration, but if they do the result is never in doubt. Spiritual law says that it is never too late to mend, and that when we seek God’s help we find it.
Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth;for I am God, and there is none else (Isaiah 45:22).
That which we look for is that which we see. Two people riding down the same stretch of road may see two different worlds. One could be angry and seeing nothing but bad, while the other could be happy and see nothing but good. The only difference is their point of view.
Look for good, look for love, peace, faith and hope; in short, look for God. When we look for the best, search in earnest and follow God’s will, we will find our best good. That is living in the garden, the one for which we were created.
Looking for God’s good,
Z gardener

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