Good Morning Garden

Key Words In the Bible – Fear

The Bible says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the beginning of knowledge. This has misled many people, because the truth is that fear is entirely evil and is indeed the only enemy we have. You can heal any condition if you can get rid of the fear attaching to it. Trouble or sickness is nothing but subconscious fear out-pictured in our surroundings. It is true at all times that “we have nothing to fear but fear.”

How then do we account for the texts quoted? The answer is that in the Bible the fear of God means reverence for God, not fear in the usual sense of the word. Reverence for God is the beginning of wisdom. How do we show reverence for God? By seeing God everywhere, refusing to recognize anything unlike Him, and by living the Christ life.

Confidence is worship. You worship whatever you trust. Are you trusting more in fear or in God? What are you worshipping? That is the test.

Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace. (Job 22:21).

When gripped with fear and paralyzed with frustration and doubt, how does one achieve peace, contentment and confidence. The answer is one doesn’t achieve it, God delivers it. The first step out of fear is not a step but a prayer. When we turn our eyes to God and ask for help, the process has begun.Then, if we follow God’s will and direction, we are granted relief and then hope and then confidence for that day. This does not eliminate the problem, but gives us a way to overcome it day by day.

Praying first,
Stan

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Don’t be a grave robber. Let corpses alone. In due course nature disposes of such remains, if they are left undisturbed. Every time you dig up an old grievance or an old mistake by rehearsing it in your mind or, still worse, by telling someone else about it, you are simply ripping open a grave – and you know what you may expect to find.

Live the present. Prepare intelligently for the future – and let the past alone. This is what Jesus meant when he said,… “ let the dead bury the dead. (Matthew 8:22).

Make a law for yourself today that you are not going to touch mentally any negative thing that has happened up to the present moment – and keep that law. Life is too precious for grave robbing. The past is past – liquidate it. If a negative memory comes into your mind, cremate it with the right thought (the fire of Love) and forget it.

How much better our lives would be if we followed this advice. How much emotional baggage we could jettison if we let go of the moving van full of resentments and hurts that we pull around behind us wherever we go. How free we would be to enjoy the beauty and blessings around us if not viewed through the prism of past wrongs. As an Easter promise to ourselves and others, let us leave the dead and decaying past in the grave and live into the new and living present, forgiven and restored to our God-given place in the garden.

Looking forward,
Stan

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Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you… Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid (John 14:27).

This true, interior soul-peace was known to the mystics as serenity, and they are never tired of telling us that serenity is the grand passport to the Presence of God—the sea as smooth as glass that is round about the Great White Throne. This is not to say that one cannot tackle even the most serious difficulties by prayer without having any serenity at all. But before you can make any true spiritual progress you must achieve serenity; and it is that fundamental tranquility of soul that Jesus refers to by the word peace—the peace that passes all human understanding.

The Peacemakers are those who bring about this peace in their own souls; they surmount limitation and become actually, not merely potentially, the children of God. This condition of mind is the objective at which Jesus aims.

Of course, to be a peacemaker in the usual sense of composing the quarrels of other people is an excellent thing; but, as all practical people know, an excessively difficult role to fill. But once you understand the power of prayer, you will be able to heal many quarrels in the true way; probably without speaking at all. The silent thought of the All-Power of Love and Wisdom will cause trouble to melt away almost imperceptibly. You will become a peacemaker.

When our hearts are troubled, and when we are afraid, peace can seem like a mirage or a dream that melts away under the flames of fear or the heartbreak of burdens seemingly to great to bear. Yet, just as the sun shines above each storm in our lives, God’s love is always there, shining down. The key is to fully realize that and live as if that sun is shining on our faces, even as the winds howl, the torrents fall and the darkness fills us with fear and helplessness.

Seeking peace within,
Z gardener

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The world is not going to the dogs. The human race is not doomed. Civilization is not going to crash. The captain is on the bridge. Humanity is going through a difficult time, but humanity has gone through difficulties many times before in its long history and has always come through, strengthened and purified.

Do not worry yourself about the universe collapsing. It is not going to collapse, and anyway that question is none of your business. The captain is on the bridge. If the survival of humanity depended upon you or me, it would be a poor lookout for the Great Enterprise, would it not?

The captain is on the bridge. God is still in business. All that you have to do is to realize the Presence of God where the trouble seems to be, to do your nearest duty to the very best of your ability; and to keep an even mind until the storm is over.

Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them. (Psalm 119:165).

What a comfort it is to know that the creator of the universe is watching out for each and every one of us and for all of us. That comfort rises to the level of peace when we obey God’s will and live according to God’s laws. Such peace also allows us to overcome life’s unpleasantness and challenges while living in love, faith, joy, gladness and hope. When we know and fully accept that everything which happens to us is meant to be, or can be made to be for our best good, then obstacles become opportunities and challenges become victories. And, life then can become a garden filled with beautiful and healthy life that nurtures us and fills our days with peace, beauty and bounty.

Following the Captain,
Z gardener

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Most hotel rooms are furnished with a notice that says “do not disturb.” The guest has only to hang this outside the door and he can sleep in peace as long as he wishes. Some people appear to have hung such a notice on their brains; they deeply resent anything like a new idea, or even a new and better way of considering familiar things. They are slumbering away their lives in a kind of semi-coma; repeating mechanically the time worn phrases and threadbare ideas of the past. Not dead, but sleepeth, might very well be said of them, and, indeed, their consciousness is a mental cemetery.

If you have been sleeping like this, pull yourself together, rub the mental sleep from your eyes. Now is the day of salvation. Start right in today to handle at least one important part of your life in a new way. Break at least one rusty fetter today, and once this process begins you will be astonished to find how far you will go, and what wonderful things you will attain to.

Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. (Ephesians 5:14)

While this writer believes the scripture above refers those who have died and are awaiting heaven, the point of the piece is well taken. A wise man once responded to the question, “what were they thinking?” with the observation that the question assumes they were thinking. How many times do we just go through our days or certain circumstances without much thought at all? How often do we just act or react based on our preconceived ideas without taking time to really think about our lives or what we are doing?

Carpe Diem,
Z gardener

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As children of the Most High we have a divine heritage and therefore a right to expect that God will take care of us in every way. The Bible is full of promises as to what God will do for His children, but perhaps Jesus put it the most plainly when he said,

What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? (Matthew 7:9-11).

So you have a divine right to expect all these good things from God. But what does God expect of us? Well, God has a right to expect that we will put Him first in our hearts. Then God expects us to have a lively faith. Faith in itself is a reliance upon the goodness of God.

And lastly, God expects us to go to Him in prayer — as a son who knows that even before he has asked, the loving Father has answered.

Putting God first, practicing our faith and relying on God sounds like fairly simple propositions, and they are. Doing these things however, is anything but simple and are among the most difficult things we can attempt. For it is human nature to put ourselves first, to put our wants before our faith and to rely on ourselves for our needs. So, we must overcome basic human nature and rise above human weakness and self-centeredness if we are to do that which God expects of us.

God first,
Z gardener

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In the depths of his being man always feels intuitively that there is a way out of his difficulties if only he can find it. The infant, as yet uncontaminated by the defeatism of his elders, simply refuses to tolerate inharmony on any terms, and therefore he demonstrates over it. When he is hungry he tells the world while many a sophisticated adult goes without. Does he find a pin sticking in some part of his anatomy? Not for him a sigh of resignation to the supposed “will of God,” or a whine about never having any luck, or a sigh that what cannot be cured must be endured. His instincts tell him that life and harmony are inseparable.

Refuse to tolerate anything less than harmony. You can have a happy and joyous life. But to do so you must seize the rudder of your own destiny and steer boldly for the port that you intend to make. What are you doing about your future?

For not the hearers of the Law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified (Romans 2:13).

What we do ultimately determines who we are and how we will live. Even though we say the right things and believe the right things, they alone are insufficient to make our lives harmonious and joyful. It is in action that all our thoughts and beliefs are put to work in the physical world and in action that our perception of that world is shaped. Joy and harmony are the mental states that flow from right actions.

Accepting joy and harmony today,
Z gardener

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There is no need to be unhappy. There is no need to be disappointed, or oppressed, or aggrieved. There is no need for illness or failure or discouragement. There is no necessity for anything but an abounding interest and joy in life.

As long as you accept a negative condition at its own valuation, so long will you remain in bondage to it; but you have only to assert your birthright as a free man or woman and you will be free.

Success and happiness are the natural conditions of mankind. It is actually easier to demonstrate these things than the reverse. Bad habits of thinking and acting may obscure this fact for a time, just as a wrong way of walking or sitting, or holding a pen, or musical instrument may seem to be easier than the proper way, because we have accustomed ourselves to it; but the proper way is the easier nevertheless.

Unhappiness, frustration, poverty, loneliness are really bad habits that their victims have become accustomed to bear, believing that there is no way out, whereas there is a way; and that way is simply to acquire good habits of working with the Law instead of against it.

Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy Law (Psalm 119:18)

There is a way out. The problem is we too often don’t have eyes to see the way, or we do see and refuse to seek the way. The difficulty lies in the fact that we have to empty out our self-centered human desires and perceptions, and replace them with God-centered spiritual desires and perceptions. Many times this seems undesirable or impossible, and without God’s help it usually is.

In abundance,
Z gardener

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