H. Emilie Cady – God A Present Help

 

CONTENTS

I Good Tidings of Great Joy
II The Will of God
III Life More Abundant
IV Christ in You
V Faith
VI Giving and Forgiving
VII Power in the Name of Jesus Christ
VIII Life a Ministry
Question Helps

 

 

CHAPTER I

Good Tidings of Great Joy

Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.—jesus

Suppose some dear, lifelong friend in whose ability, resources, and faithfulness you have the utmost confidence should come to you today and say: “Friend, rejoice; I have brought you some good news, almost too good to seem true, but true nevertheless. From this day all things in your life may be changed. A will has come to light by which you have inherited a large fortune, and it is right at hand. In fact I have come to bring it to you, together with a message of love and good will from the testator. Everything that money can buy is now yours for the taking.”

What do you think would be the effect of such news upon you?

At first the glad tidings might seem too good to believe; but if this messenger friend reiter­ated his statement, giving not only verbal as­surances but tangible evidence of its truth, do you think you would hesitate, and question, and quibble about taking the proffered gift? I think not. Instead your very heart would leap within you with great and inexpressible joy as you began to realize all that this good news meant, if true. It would mean relief from press­ing care, cessation of the gnawing anxiety about making ends meet, ability to gratify your life­long craving for the beautiful in art and liter­ature, time to read, think, travel, live; and above all else, it would mean the ability to help hundreds of others who are struggling with the problems of sickness, poverty, and discouragement.

Then suppose that before you had mentally quite taken in the new situation this messenger of good news should say: “Friend, in addition to this I have found a physician who has never failed to cure every kind of bodily disease from which you are suffering, and if you will come with me to him he assures me that he can cure you.” How long would any sane person stand undecided about accepting these two gifts? How long would anyone hesitate while he argued with the messenger about his doubts and fears, his unworthiness, or his lack of ability to use these gifts properly?

Yet this is exactly what we as Christians do with God our Father. A messenger has been sent with a definite, positive message: “good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people.” The good news is this: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” here, now. We have read and heard the story since childhood with varying emotions. At first with a child’s understanding and simple trust we imagined that it meant just what it said. But as we went on in the Christian life we found ourselves losing the child’s idea and coming to believe that the message does not mean at all what it says. The very simplicity of it made our older, wiser minds recoil from taking it as it reads, and this in spite of the truth ut­tered by Jesus: “Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Jesus’ first sermon of which we have any record was preached in Nazareth.

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and he entered, as his custom was, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the place where it was written,

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor:

He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives,

And recovering of sight to the blind,

To set at liberty them that are bruised,

To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.

And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down: and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears.

In other words, the Lord God hath sent Me, Jesus Christ, and I am now this day here present with you “to bind up the brokenhearted/* to deliver the captives from prison, to give sight to the blind, to heal the sick, “to give imto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heavi­ness/’ This is the good news I have come to bring to you from God your Father.

As time went on Jesus sent out twelve men whom He chose to spread this good news, giv­ing to each the same power and the same com­mission, /. e., the power to heal the sick, to cast out devils, and so forth, and to preach this prac­tical gospel:

“And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.” When John the Baptist sent two of his disci­ples to ask Jesus if He really was the Christ or if they should look for another, He said, as evi­dence that He really was the messenger sent from God:

“Go and tell John the things which ye hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good tidings preached to them.”

After Jesus had risen and as He was about to part from His disciples He told them that their future mission in this world was to be exactly what His had been: “As the Father hath sent me, even so send I you.”

In other words, as the Father has sent Me to preach the good news that the kingdom of heav­en is right here now, that the sick can be healed now, that the blind can receive sight at once, that the brokenhearted can be made to rejoice, that all this spirit of mourning and sorrow and heaviness can be changed into joy and praise, so send I you into the world to preach the same glad tidings to them that sit in darkness and discouragement to tell all people that God is their Saviour, their genuine right-at-hand-this- moment deliverance.

As Jesus continued in the ministry of such a gospel, His heart was wrought upon as He saw how ignorant the people were of the real truth of God’s desire toward them, and we read:

“After these things the Lord appointed seventy others, and sent them two and two be­fore his face into every city and place, whither he himself was about to come” (or desired to come), telling them, as He had told the others, to heal the sick and preach that the kingdom of God was nigh unto them (or all around them right where they were).

“And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the demons are subject unto us in thy name. And he said unto them . . . Be­hold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall in any wise hurt you. Nevertheless in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

In other words, rejoice not so much because you are able to make these marvelous demon­strations of power as because your spiritual eyes have been opened to the real relations between God your Father and yourself.

Jesus Christ did many marvelous works in the material world; and in thus appointing others to help Him in His work among men —in increasing numbers as the work enlarged —and giving to them the power to manifest the same mastery over untoward material con­ditions, He showed conclusively that at least part of the gospel deals directly with God’s deliverance of His children from sickness, pov­erty, and all manner of human suffering. The early Christians for three hundred years follow­ing the resurrection of Jesus believed this and did the mighty works that He said should be done in His name. Then they lapsed into world­liness and the power was lost.

Every Christian recognizes today that the work of Jesus in the world was to establish a kingdom of righteousness, peace, and love; to teach man a higher law than the one he had known, that of “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” But many entirely overlook the fact that in addition to teaching man a higher way of living Jesus also proved to us by daily ministering among the sorrowing and sick— “them that had need of healing he cured,” Luke says—and by giving the same power and com­mission to those whom He sent out to continue the work in His name and stead, that God is in His world to do both; that is, to help His children live a better life, and also to be to them life, health, comfort, all material things needed.

There is no record that Jesus ever said to the sick who came to Him that continued suffering would develop in them greater spir­itual virtues. He did not say to the leper: “Your disease is the result of sensuality. I will not heal you, because if I do you will continue in the same way of sin.” He only said in substance: “Wilt thou be made whole? Well, so do I will it. Be clean.”

He did not say to anyone who came for heal­ing or for any other deliverance, “Yes, I will heal you, but the healing will not become mani­fest for several months—just to test your faith.” Nor did He say to anyone who came, “I heal many; but it is not God’s will for you to be healed, and you must be submissive to His will.” Oh, the deadening effect of this kind of submis­sion! Who but knows it!

He did not let the people go hungry, saying it was their own carelessness not to have pro­vided bread and they must not expect a miracle to be wrought to encourage such carelessness. He first fed them with spiritual food, to be sure; but immediately following that He min­istered with equal ease and alacrity to their physical hunger, even though the lack may have been their own fault. When the widow of Nain, with heartbreak such as only a mother can know, followed the bier upon which lay dead her soul’s pride, her beautiful and only son, Jesus did not simply comfort her with platitudes or even by bringing some superhuman joy in the place of sorrow. She wanted her boy back; and He gave her what she wanted.

Peter lacked money for the taxgatherer. Did Jesus say: “Peter, the gift of God is spiritual riches. Do not ask for worldly money, for God has nothing to do with that. If you have no money for taxes, be patient and work it out someway”; and then did He leave Peter to anxiety and care? Not at all. He instantly sup­plied the thing that was needed.

Jesus Christ came to show us the Father, to reveal to us the will of the Father toward us. Did He not say: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing.” Then how can we in our minds separate God from His world as we do? Most of us confine Him to His spiritual kingdom alone. We know that He wants to give us purity and spiritual grace. Every Christian believes this. But do we know or believe that He wants us to have the other desires of our heart as well? Do we be­lieve He wants to heal our body, provide our taxes, feed our hunger? Do we believe that Jesus Christ really is “the same yesterday and to-day, yea and for ever”? Do we believe that “he is not the God of the dead, but of the living”; that the kingdom of heaven is here at hand this moment, only that our eyes are so held by sense conditions we do not see it?

He said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Then if we are not free we do not yet know the Truth but are be­lieving in a lie, or in the lack of Truth at least. Is not this so ?

Is dumb, hopeless submission to suffering a spiritual grace? I do not believe it is. Jesus never taught that it is. He taught us non­resistance to evil itself; that is, not to fight the evil thing as an entity. But He also taught us how to obtain absolute victory over and de­liverance from evil of whatever form by coming into living and vital touch with Christ. This He declared to be God’s will toward us; and He demonstrated it continually by delivering all who were bound in any manner by sin, sick­ness, suffering, or sorrow.

An earnest Christian mother related to me a few years ago a story of her little boy, who had the whooping cough. The mother had taught the boy to pray; and whenever he felt one of the dreaded coughing spells approaching he in­stantly ran and fell on his knees, exclaiming, “Oh, Mamma, let me pray, let me pray quickly so God will keep this cough away!” The mother told of the difficulty she had had in explaining to the child that while it was good to pray, yet he must not expect God to stop the cough, be­cause when one has the whooping cough it is natural to cough! Now, according to Jesus’ teachings and His dealings with men here on earth, is not this just what the boy might and ought to have expected God to do? “Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

“Call upon me in the day of trouble:

I will deliver thee.”

This is the gospel, the “good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people.” This is something of what He meant when He said, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Surely He meant more than we can ask or think when He said, “Come unto me.”

 

CHAPTER II

The Will of God

 

Or what man is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give him a stone; or if he shall ask for a fish, will give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?—JESUS

God’s will for us is not sorrow, poverty, loneliness, death, and all the other forms of suffering that we usually associate with the expression “Thy will be done.”

“That creature in which the Eternal Good most manifesteth itself, shineth forth, worketh, is most known and loved, is the best.”

Paul expresses the same idea when he says,

“It was the good pleasure of the Father that in him [Christ] should all the fulness dwell.” This means fullness of love, fullness of life, fullness of power, fullness of joy, fullness of all good; and Christ abideth in you. “Of his fulness we all received.” “And in him ye are made full.”

God is not death; He is life. God is not hate and sorrow; He is love and joy. God is not weakness and failure; He is power and success.

When Jesus Christ was here on earth He said He came to represent the Father, that is, to be to us as the Father would be; to do to us and for us what the Father would do: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” “Verily, verily I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of him­self, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like manner.” Jesus never gave sorrow or sickness to anyone. Did He not say, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full”? Did He not definitely say, “I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly”?

It has been urged by many good people that Jesus meant only spiritual life. Well, He did not say so, and “the common people” who “heard him gladly” were not desiring or seeking spir­itual life. They wanted at that time health for their sick ones; and in that day life meant just what the common people would understand to­day by life. Oh, how the human intellect in its ignorance and egotism has twisted and turned and distorted the plain, simple words of the Master in order to make them conform to its darkened understanding!

Truly “the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not.”

“Jesus must have meant so and so, because we do not see how He could have meant other­wise,” says the intellect of man. What a pity that we should have grown so far away from the very simplicity of the “good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people.”

Truly “the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are fool­ishness unto him; and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually judged.”

Jesus gave physical health for physical sick­ness, and “them that had need of healing he cured.” He gave life where there had been physical death, as to the daughter of Jairus; He gave power and courage to the disciples where weakness and fear had existed, so that the once cowardly Peter became a very rock of courage and strength forever after; He gave joy for sor­row, as when He restored to Mary and Martha the brother who had left them.

All of the conditions from which the human heart so shrinks He changed for the mere ask­ing. He did not have to be begged and besought for weeks and months. He changed the con­ditions. How? Not by merely giving the suffer­ing one a spirit of submission, which is but an­other word for a state of absolute benumbment and discouragement, but by removing the cause of the sorrow and restoring life, joy, power; by giving back something to fill to fullness the very gap that existed. “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father who is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?” “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom can be no variation, neither shadow that is cast by turning.”

Throughout all the ages of the Biblical record it was the experience and teaching of prophets, priests, and kings unto God that more of God in one’s life meant more of good.

Life is good, and we all desire more of it. “I am . . . the life,” said the Christ. “I came that they may have life, and may have it abundant­ly”: more life because of His indwelling.

“In thy presence is fulness of joy.” “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full”: fullness of joy because of His joy in us.

“My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.” “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding.” The peace of God, which alone is able to keep our hearts and minds overflowing with joy.

“Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you”; that is, after more of the Spirit of God comes into your life. Greater power is only more of God, of All-Power.

“Behold, my servants shall eat… behold, my servants shall drink … behold, my servants shall rejoice . . . behold, my servants shall sing for joy of heart. . . they shall build houses, and in­habit them.” “They that seek Jehovah shall not want any good thing.”

The Christ, the Son of God, speaking through Jesus of Nazareth (“The words that I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth his works”), in His prayer of thanksgiving to our Father said: “As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us … I in them, and thou in me, that they may be perfected into one.”

Marvelous way, is it not, in which the creature is to be made perfect and known and loved and great: simply letting God’s will be done in us and in our circumstances and surround­ings? Yet heretofore one’s saying, “Thy will be done,” has been associated in mind only with death and suffering and failure, and with a forced submission to these un-Godlike condi­tions, as though God were the author of them. “God is not a God of confusion, but of peace.” Oh, how in our ignorance we have mistaken and misunderstood God, in consequence of which we are today pygmies when He wanted to make us giants in love and health and power by mani­festing more of Himself through us! We would not let Him, because we have been afraid to say, “Have Thy way in me; manifest Thyself through me as Thou wilt.”

If then it is God’s will to give us all these good gifts, how is it that as good and sincere Christians, really and truly God’s children, we so often lack them all and cry in vain for help? It is because we have not known how to deal with the things that are contrary to His will; and how to take that which God has freely given.

How are we to deal with the things that we know are contrary to the Father’s will as it was revealed by Jesus Christ?

Take sickness, for instance. We are to remem­ber that Jesus repeatedly spoke of it as not of God but rather as of Satan. An instance is the case of the ‘woman that had a spirit of in­firmity eighteen years; and she was bowed to­gether, and could in no wise lift herself up.” Of her He said: “Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan had bound, lo, these eighteen years, to have been loosed from this bond on the day of the sabbath?”

On another occasion there “was brought unto him one possessed with a demon, blind and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the dumb man spake and saw.” When the Phari­sees, who knew Jesus as a son of David, saw this and accused Him of working by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of devils, He said: “If Satan casteth out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then shall his kingdom stand? . . . But if I by the Spirit of God cast out de­mons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you.”

Let us then recognize, as Jesus did, that ac­cording to the will of God we ought to be loosed from our infirmities. Let us meet the issue fairly and squarely without a moment’s fear or hesitation, acting in His name and by His authority. “And these signs shall accom­pany them that believe: in my name shall they cast out demons.” Let us boldly say: “Get you behind me Satan! You are a lie and the father of all lies. Sickness is not of God, and I will not submit to it. God is life. He is almighty, and His will is to manifest life more abun­dant through me. Christ does and shall reign in this body. His will is done.” This is the attitude of mind we must take.

How are we to deal with our Father’s will? Exactly as with any other will.

What should we do if some friend left a will giving something very desirable to us? We should first make sure by probate that it was his will; then we should not leave a stone unturned in having it executed. If we met with some op­position and delay we should push the harder and with more determination to obtain that which by right of inheritance belonged to us.

Shall we not, ought we not, do the same as re­gards the will of God our Father? This will was made ages ago, giving to whosoever will “whatsoever ye pray and ask for.” This latter clause in the will and testament of God is the only limitation He has placed on any human being. “All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” “If ye shall ask anything of the Fa­ther, he will give it you in my name.”

“Prove me now herewith, saith Jehovah of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”

How are we to take these great gifts of God ?

God has already done His part in full. In Judges 18:10 it is written: “God hath given it into your hand, a place where there is no want of anything that is in the earth”; that is, of any­thing the human heart desires. “Believe that ye receive,” Jesus said, “and ye shall have.” God has said, “The right of inheritance is thine”; that is, whatsoever you desire is yours by right of inheritance because you are His children, and the children are the natural and rightful heirs to all that the Father has. Also “the right of re­demption is thine”; that is, in the redemption wrought out by Christ we have become “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” “For ye are all sons of God, through faith, in Christ Jesus.” He has thus assured us that all things are ours by right, and

“God is not a man, that he should lie,

Neither the son of man, that he should repent: Hath he said, and will he not do it?

Or hath he spoken, and will he not make it good?”

Now it only remains for us to prove the will by affirmation and trust; to prove Him and see if He will not do all that He has promised. The Holy Spirit alone is the executor of God’s will, but even this executor can do nothing for us unless we take the right attitude.

“Arise,” He says, “be not slothful to go and to enter in to possess the land.” Thus there is something definite for us to do. In proving God there must be no meek submission to the things coming upon us that we know are contrary to His will for us, as that will was revealed by Jesus Christ.

Did Jesus ever tell anyone that it was God’s will for him to suffer lack, or be sick, or be a failure in any way? If any such vision of God’s will is in your mind, rise up instantly, and in the name of Christ put it forever out of your thoughts as unworthy of a loving Father, and doubly unworthy of yourself, His offspring. When any of these things come upon you, arise at once and claim your rightful inheritance. “I am thy portion and thine inheritance,” saith the Lord. Remember what God is, who says to you, “I am . .. thine inheritance.” He is life, wisdom, peace, joy, strength, power. Remember that He has given it into your hands, although to you it may not yet be visible: a place where there is no want of anything.

When God said to Moses, “I am,” it was as though He said: “I am this moment to you any­thing that you have courage to claim Me for, but you must prove Me. I am the supply of every lack in your life, but you must take Me for it, and then stand still and see the salvation that I will work for you.”

To us in our spiritual impotence Jesus says today, as He did to the infirm man at the Pool of Bethesda, “Wouldst thou be made whole?” that is, “Do you will it, and not simply languidly desire it? Are you determined to have that ex­ecuted which you are satisfied is God’s will for you? Well, then I will it too,” and it is done.

Listen! “If thou wilt” brings no visible an­swer to prayer. But a definite, positive will-not- be-put-off attitude, a determined “I will have Thy will done in this matter” is a force that always brings results into manifestation.

 

CHAPTER III

Life More Abundant

I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.—JESUS

. life is the breath of God. When God created man He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

Life then, that mysterious something which man has tried in vain to analyze, to weigh, and to measure, even to produce; life, I say, is the breath of God.

“The Spirit of God hath made me,

And the breath of the Almighty giveth me life.”

Is it any wonder that man tries in vain to catch this life principle, to harness it, to produce it? There is but one kind of life in the universe.

All life is divine; all life is the breath of God. All life is God made manifest, and the mani­festation varies according to the degree, so to speak, in which God, the breath of life, comes forth into visibility through the various forms, “according to the measure of the gift.” In the rock an invisible something holds the atoms from flying off from one another, as would be their natural bent. Natural science calls this the force of cohesion. Cohesive force is but an­other name for the breath of God pervading the atoms of the rocks. Life in the vegetable, the grass, the tree is all one and the same life mani­fested in larger measure than in the rock. Man is the fullest, highest form of God manifested as life.

We read that “in the beginning” this myste­rious something, which we cannot see, feel, or handle but which is plainly stated to be the “breath of God,” was breathed into clay man and “man became a living soul.” Has the man­ner of creation changed any since the “first beginning”? Is it not “in the beginning” for every new creation today? Is not the life of every being the very breath of God today just as much as it ever was? Are not we all equally His children, His offspring by inheritance? Yea, verily.

God’s breath is what God is; that is, it is of the same nature and substance. If God is life, His breath is life. If God’s breath is our life that life must be like God, eternal in every child He creates. Without that breath of God given individually none of us could exist today. Neither the soul of man nor the body of man has life in itself. Both are made alive and kept alive momently by the Spirit that is God per­vading and permeating them. “It is the Spirit that giveth life.” “For ye died, and your life is hid with Christ in God.”

Jesus came that we might have life and that we might “have it abundantly.” He came to show us our true relation to the source of all life, and to teach us how to draw consciously upon God our Father for more abundant life as we need it. This does not mean spiritual life alone but life for the entire being. Is our heart cold, and is our love dead? We cannot analyze love, we cannot work it up at will; but we know that God is love and love is God. What we need is more of God, love, breathed into our hearts until we are surcharged and transformed into new creatures by divine love. “He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” Something was given by His breathing on them.

Do we lack wisdom? It is not more laborious study that we need in order to obtain it, but a fresh supply of Omni-science—All-Knowledge, All-Wisdom—breathed into this intellect by Him who “giveth to all liberally and upbraideth not.” It is more of the breath of the living God we need.

If we are weak and unstable in character, if we are failures mentally, spiritually, or physi­cally, if we feel ourselves in any way bound or limited, it is because we need more of this mys­terious breath of God, which is power, life, freedom. “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living,” said Jesus.

Health is more life. Drugs will not give life. Travel and change of scene, so often resorted to in illness of mind and body, will not give life except in so far as they tend to relax the tense, rigid mind and body of man and permit

God—who is always in process of outgoing as life toward us His children—to flow in to fill the lack. We do not have to beseech God. Life more abundant rushes into the souls and bodies of men, as air does into a vacuum, the moment they learn how consciously to relax and, turn­ing toward God, let it.

People who are persistently ill or unsuccess­ful in any way say they are tired of it all and want to die. They know not what they say. They do not understand. It is not death they want but more life. This breath of the Almighty is to us the only health and strength, the only power and success of either mind or body. “With thee is the fountain of life.” “Whoso findeth me findeth life.” “In him [Christ, this very Christ who now lives within each one of us] was life; and the life was the light of men.” “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

Life is God’s gift. The outer life is but the outflowing of the inner life; and that inner life is momentarily fed from the fountain of life through Christ at the center of our being. God gives His own life freely to all who can re­ceive it.

If this be true, that the breath of the Almighty is the only health of mind or body, why look elsewhere?

What then are we to do ?

Change our minds. Turn around. If through ignorance of the only and unfailing source of all life we have turned our backs upon God and our faces toward human helps, like drugs, change of environment, and the like, let us halt, face about!

“Ye would not come to me, that ye may have life,” says the Christ of God today as much as He did through the lips of the Master nineteen hundred years ago. “He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not.” “I am the resurrection, and the life,” says this same Christ within you today. Notice that it is “I am,” not “I will be,” present tense, not future. “He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live.” It is as though He said, “He that believeth on Me as the source of his life and turns away from human ways to Me as the Way, even if he seems to be at the very last gasp of his soul, body, or circumstances, I say he shall be made alive by the same power that was able to raise up Jesus from the dead.”

God’s gifts are to all alike; but we have to learn how to receive freely that which He gives, how to open ourselves to the inflow of divine life through the Christ at the center of our be­ing, exactly as we would open ourselves to the warm rays of the sun. “As many as received him, to them gave he the right to become chil­dren of God, even to them that believe on his name.”

Elsewhere we have said that all conscious tak­ing or receiving from God is a mental process. The human mind believes itself, in the matter of life, cut off from God, a separate being, some­thing apart from God. This belief is not cor­rect. The wire of communication between the Creator and His creations is never cut, the chan­nel of inflowing divine life never closed. Each individual blade of grass receives its life, its springtime renewing force, as directly from the fountain of all life as though it were the only thing in the universe. Each sparrow draws its life directly from the same source. “Ye are of more value than many sparrows.”

How can man by mental process stimulate and increase this inflow of divine life? How can even the least of us consciously draw upon the inexhaustible Fountain for the life more abun­dant that we need for soul, body, and circum­stances?

“The words that I have spoken unto you are spirit, and are life,” said the Master. Words. Is there any power or life in words? Let us see. “Only say the word, and my servant shall be healed,” said the centurion. That was all that was done; but a little farther on we read, “The servant was healed in that hour.”

“He sendeth his word and healeth them,
And delivereth them from their destructions.”

“So shall my v/ord be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.”

All words of Truth are alive with an invisible energy that has power to work miracles. Truth is mighty to accomplish results, but in order to do so it must be spoken into activity. It must be put into words. The same Christ who said, “I am … the life,” said also, “I am… the truth.” Life, Truth, Christ are one. The words of Truth that you and I speak in the name and spirit of the Master, become His words, full of life and health. Such words set into motion the invisible energy that accomplishes results, and nothing is accomplished when it is quiescent.

Speaking definite, positive words of assurance to oneself or to another has marvelous power to lift and transform, power to fill the fearful, trembling heart and the suffering body with a consciousness of the real living presence of God. There is wondrous life-giving power in definite­ly and vigorously compelling oneself to “sing unto him [Jehovah] a new song,” even making it a song of praise and thanksgiving for benefits. Everyone has power through his will, apart from any feeling if need be, to follow the prophet’s advice, “Take with you words, and return unto Jehovah.” No matter how deep or poignant his misery, a person can compel himself by mere will power to look up to God and say,

“Bless Jehovah, O my soul,
And forget not all his benefits:
Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;
Who healeth all thy diseases;
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction;
Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;
Who satisfieth thy desir^ with good things.”

No matter whether you feel like it or not, say it. Put it into words. Out of the depths of misery begin sincerely and earnestly to speak words of praise and thanksgiving, and soon you will find yourself involuntarily saying,

“I will fear no evil; for thou art with me . .. My cup runneth over.”

This is God’s way of working to deliver us out of our troubles. Thus He comforts us and gives newness of life through our first “speaking com­fortably” to ourselves and to Him the words of Truth. Such words have power to free the chan­nel between our own centers of life and the fountain of all life—channels that may have become clogged by our selfishness or ignorance —so that a great, surging influx of new life can take place. “Thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise/’ Praise and thanksgiving open wide the gates to salvation.

You may say, “Of what avail is all this except to uplift my thought, making it easier for me to bear my trouble, illness, sorrow? It cannot change the real, visible conditions.” Yes, it can and does. Lazarus was as dead as he ever could be and there was no faintest stirring of life when Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, “Fa­ther, I thank thee.” Jesus understood that the gates in the wall of salvation from this death would fly wide open at the paean of praise. Every instant that our hearts are thus uplifted in the spirit of gratitude (which, remember, is aroused by our first beginning to speak words of gratitude for benefits received) this mighty energy that we have spoken of and that is none other or less than the Spirit of the living God, is working to change, restore, and heal the very trouble that seems about to destroy us.

Oh, how many times this has been proved by those of God’s children who, in some degree at least, have come to know the way of the Fa­ther’s working even as Jesus knew it. How many times they have proven that the solution of the problem, the healing of the illness, depended not upon human effort but entirely upon tak­ing the thought altogether off from the distress and centering it, by main force of will if need be, upon thanking and blessing God for all His benefits. “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith Jehovah of hosts,” is the work accomplished. This is a spiritual law, infallible and unchangeable, a law that works; and many times it is the only thing that does work.

No one is so weak in will but that he can thus compel himself to “take . . . words, and return unto Jehovah,” even as he would take hold of a mighty lever to lift a heavy weight.

“He that will, let him take the water of life freely.”

 

 

CHAPTER IV

Christ in You

Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem be born,
If He’s not born in thee, thy soul is all forlorn.

—JOHANN SCHEFFLER

Man is a threefold being composed of spirit, soul, and body so intermingled, so blended into one that it is beyond the finite mind to say where one ends and the other begins. We read that when man was cre­ated he was made in the image and likeness of God. No intelligent person can make the mis­take of supposing that God has parts like unto the human body or that the external man is in any way the image and likeness of God.

God is Spirit, God is life, God is love and wisdom and power. God is a combination of all good. Can anyone tell me the active princi­ples composing life? Can anyone analyze love for me? Can anyone weigh or measure wisdom? Can anyone catch and box up, see or handle Spirit? Nay, verily. God is Spirit; and the real man made in His image is Spirit also. Spirit is substance. Substance (from Latin sub, under, and stare, to stand) is that invisible, intangible but real something which as its indestructible core and cause stands under, or at the center of, every visible thing in existence.

That there is but one substance of which all things visible and invisible are made is conceded by all scientists, whether spiritual or material. This one substance is Spirit, forever invisible but indestructible. “The worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which ap­pear.” God is not only the creative cause of ev­ery visible form of intelligence or life at its be­ginning, but at each moment of its existence. He lives within every created thing at its very center as the life, the ever-renewing, re-creating, up­building cause of it. This is not pantheism, which declares that the visible universe, taken or conceived of as a whole, is God. No, no, far from it. God expresses Himself in visible ways. Man is His fullest, most complete expression. God is the living, warm, throbbing life that pervades our being. He is the quickening intelli­gence that keeps our minds balanced and steady throughout all the vicissitudes of life. He never is and never can be for a moment separated from His creation. “We are a temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them.” “Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have from God?” “The King of Israel, even Jehovah, is in the midst of thee”: not in the midst of the community at large but in the midst of you individually.

God is the Father of our spirit, of our real self. We are His offspring, His children, “There is one body, and one Spirit . . . one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.” God has made all His children alike. He has no favorites. The spirit of man always has been and always will be in His image while creation continues, no matter what the external man does to hide that image. More than once did Jesus give public recognition to the fact of our oneness with Himself as sons of God—even as He is the Son—and joint heirs with Him. “Our Father,” He prayed, with thou­sands about Him. “Go unto my brethren, and say to them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and my God and your God,” said He to Mary. “Call no man your father on the earth: for one is your Father, even he who is in heav­en.”

The moment we recognize God as the Fa­ther of the spirits of men, and therefore the Fa­ther of all men, that moment we recognize a new and vital relationship of all men to one another; and we say “our Father” with a new depth and meaning. That moment we step out forever from all narrow, selfish loves, all “me and mine,” into the broad universal love that encompasses the whole world, exclaiming as did the Christ when looking around on the multitude, “Be­hold, my mother and my brethren!”

Man is made in the image of God. Then is this eating, drinking, sensuous creature we see the image of God? Not at all. But the divine spark at the center of his being, the ever-re­newed breath of God, which is the life, the in­telligence, of this man, be it full or limited, is Gods image, is very part of God Himself. Is this ugly, rough piece of marble, with only a nose or a mouth visible, a statue? No, but it will be when the sculptor has finished with it. The perfect statue is there, but hidden, awaiting the touch of the master’s hand to bring it forth.

Jesus primarily taught men how to live, to re­pent of their sins, to turn from all wrongdoing, to love others even to the laying down of their lives for their enemies if necessary. Toward the last of His ministry He said, “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but w^rhat things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak: and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come.” Jesus had been to them a visible savior. He had shown them that He had power on earth to forgive sin, to heal the sick and raise the dead. He had called Himself the life, the door, the way. But after it all He said He had not told them all He knew as yet; they could not bear it then. “It is expedient for you [not for Myself] that I go away; for if I go not away, the Com­forter will not come unto you/’ “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may be with you for ever … for he abideth with you, and shall be in you.” Thus Jesus recognized that a personal savior to whom people could go, outside of themselves, was not enough; such a scheme of salvation had its limitations. There must be an inner spir­itual birth to each one, a consciousness of an in­dwelling Christ ever present within him to be his guide and teacher when He, Jesus, was no longer visible. “I will not leave you desolate,” He said to His disciples, “I come unto you. . . . In that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” In all of Paul’s early teaching he spoke only of the Son of man, Jesus, who had been crucified and was risen. But in later years, as he grew in grace and in the knowl­edge of Truth, he spoke to his spiritual chil­dren: “of whom,” he said, “I am again in travail until Christ be formed in you.” He also spoke of the “mystery which hath been hid for ages and generations: but now hath it been mani­fested to his saints . . . which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

What did Jesus mean? What did Paul mean? Is there then a higher, fuller birth than the one that many Christians know, that of following after the crucified Jesus, the son of Mary, who is and ever must be a personality outside of ourselves.

Surely there is. It is not easy to explain the relation that Jesus, the man of Galilee, bears to the Christ of God who is to be formed in us; scarcely possible by words to explain the mys­tery “which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” It cannot be put into words. It comes to one as a revelation; and, thus coming, is as real as one’s very existence. It was not the man Jesus, the per­sonality, the Son of man that was to be the Saviour, for that part of Jesus was human. He Himself ever spoke of it as such. “I can of my­self [of My mortal self] do nothing.” “The Fa­ther abiding in me doeth his works.” “The Son can do nothing of himself.” It was the Christ, the Anointed, the very divine at the center of His being who came forth and did the works through Jesus. The Comforter that He promised was to be “the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name.” The very Spirit of this same Father who abode in Jesus was to abide within them and us. This same Spirit, this Christ, to whom is given all power is formed by a spir­itual birth at the center of your being and mine and abides there. He “who is the image of the invisible God” becomes “the firstborn of all creations”; that is, He is the first coming forth of the invisible Father into the visible creature. He abides within us first as a “babe” (or in small degree); but as He grows and increases in stature in proportion as we recognize Him there, with encouragement and a sort of wooing, so to speak, we make room for the “Babe in the Inn.”

There comes to be in this sweet and holy rela­tion a living touch, an intimate sort of inter- sphering of our whole being with the divine source of all good and all giving. We become conscious of a new relationship between the living, indwelling Christ, unto whom is given all power, and the creature whose needs are un­limited. The very mind of Christ that was in Jesus is in you. You get to know that the infinite supply for soul, body, and circumstances is some­way right at hand in this indwelling Christ, “in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.” “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” “For of his fulness we all received.” “And in him ye are made full.” Marvelous, almost incomprehensi­ble relationship!

How is man, the entire man, soul and body, to be made perfect? By striving and effort? By lop­ping off branches of the old tree here and there? By cutting off this habit and that habit? Not at all. None of these is the way laid down by Christ. He said, “I am the way.” He said, “I in them, and thou in me, that they may be per­fected into one”: perfected then by His perfect life dwelling within the imperfect life and fill­ing it with His own fullness. We are made per­fect entire by this “I-in-them” coming forth into visibility, because of our waiting upon Him in recognition of His indwelling presence and our continued affirmation that He does now mani­fest Himself as the perfect one through us. “He must increase, but I must decrease.”

 

CHAPTER V

Faith

Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knock- eth it shall be opened.—JESUS

WHAT could Jesus have meant when, speaking as one having authority, He made such a sweeping, and to the poor human mind almost incomprehensible, statement as that quoted at the head of this chapter?

We pray, we ask, believing that we are go­ing to receive, but we receive not. Again and again this happens until we grow sick and our courage fails because of our unanswered prayers, and we begin to say: “God does not answer. I have not sufficient faith or the right kind of faith/’ Because of repeated failures we are be* numbed, and though we still pray we seldom really expect an answer. Is not this so ?

Where is the trouble?

Many Christians mistake hope for faith. Hope expects an answer sometime in the future; faith takes it as having already been given. Hope looks forward; faith declares that she has re­ceived even before there is the slightest visible evidence. Man’s way is to declare something done after it has become obvious to the senses; God’s way is to declare it done before there is anything whatever in sight. “God … calleth the things that are not, as though they were.” This declaring, “It is finished,” when there is still no visible evidence has power to bring the desired object into visibility. “The worlds have been framed by the word of God [God’s declaring that it was done], so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear”; that is, things that are seen were not made of visible but of invisible substance by the spoken word of God. If we expect anything from God we must conform to His way of working.

Listen to Paul’s definition of faith: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” In other words, faith takes right hold of the invisible substance of the things desired and brings into the world of evidence or visibility the things that before were not seen. There is but one substance from which the real of all things is made. This substance is ever present but invisible. It is all around us and fills the universe as the atmosphere we breathe covers the earth. In it we live and move and have our being, for it is the divine presence or sub­stance. It is the unseen but real and eternal that always “stands under” and “within” the seen but temporal.

Faith upon which depends all answer to prayer is not, as many earnest sincere people sup­pose, a sort of will-o’-the-wisp mental condition that it is difficult to catch and hold. If this were so, the child of God might well despair. But there is a faith that might be called understand­ing faith that is based upon principles as unerr­ing as those of mathematics. It was of this faith that the man of Galilee spoke when He said, “All things are possible to him that believeth.”

Jesus invariably spoke as one having author­ity. He had proved that whereof He spoke, and He knew positively. He knew that all God’s dealings with man were based upon an immu­table law, a law that if complied with is bound from its very nature to work out certain results, no matter who or what manner of man it is that complies with that law. He never went into de­tails as to how or why God’s laws work; but positively, in a few concise words, He spoke the law and left the working of it to be proved by “whosoever will.”

What is this understanding faith upon which the literal fulfillment of all God’s promises rests?

“There are some things which God has so indissolubly joined together that it is impos­sible for even Him to put them asunder. They are bound together by fixed, immutable laws; if we have one of them, we must have the other.”

This may be illustrated by the laws of ge­ometry. For instance, the sum of the interior angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles. No matter how large or small the triangle, no matter where we find it, or who finds it, if we are asked the sum of its angles we can unhesi­tatingly answer that it is just two right angles. This is absolutely certain. It is certain, even be­fore the triangle is drawn by visible lines; we can know it beforehand, because it is based on unchangeable laws, on the truth or reality of the thing. It was true just as much before any­one recognized it as it is today. Our knowing it or not knowing it does not change the fact. Only in proportion as we come to know it as an eter­nally true fact, can we be benefited by it.

“It is a simple fact that one plus one equals two; it is an eternal truth. You cannot put one and one together without two resulting. You may believe it or not; that does not alter the fact. But unless you do put the one and one together you do not produce the two, for each is eternally dependent on the other.**

The world of spiritual things is governed by law just as unalterable and unfailing as is the law governing the natural world. The so-called supernatural is not beyond law by virtue of be­ing above natural law. It is simply the working of a higher law than any we, with our limited understanding, have heretofore known; and it is because it operates in a higher realm that we have not understood. When we come into har­mony with this higher law we instantly have all the power of God Himself working with us for the very thing we pray for, and we get it. Some­times a soul comes into this harmony by child­like intuition, and he receives answer to prayer. But we can know the law and so put ourselves consciously into harmony with it.

The promises of God are certain, eternal, unchangeable truths that always have been and always must be true, whether in this age or an­other, whether on the mountaintop or under the sea. A promise, according to Webster, is a some­thing sent before to indicate that something un­seen is at hand. It is a declaration that gives to the person to whom it is made the right to ex­pect, to claim, the performance of whatever is promised. God has bound Himself to His chil­dren by promises innumerable, and He has magnified His word above all His name. See the 138th Psalm, the 2d verse.

“For when God made promise to Abraham, since he could swear by none greater, he sware by himself . . . For men swear by the greater: and in every dispute of theirs the oath is final for confirmation. Wherein God, being minded to show more abundantly unto the heirs of the promise the immutability of his counsel, in­terposed with an oath; that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have a strong encouragement.”

God is our all-sufficiency in all things. He is the infinite supply, “above all that we ask or think,” of all that the finite creature can possibly need or desire. The promises are already given. The supply, though unseen by mortal eyes, is at hand. “Before they call, I will answer.”

“My God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory.” But “he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder [and the reward as well] of them that seek after him.”

Here are the two fundamental principles on which rests the whole secret of understanding faith:

First, the supply forever awaits the demand. Second, the demand must be made before the supply can come forth to fill it.

To recognize these two statements as Truth and affirm them persistently is to comply with the law of God’s giving. Faith has nothing to do with visible circumstances. The moment one considers circumstances, that moment one lets go of faith.

When Jesus recognized the unchangeable fact that the supply of every want awaits us just at hand, though unseen, and said, “Every one that asketh receiveth,” He was simply stating a truth as unalterable as that of cause and effect. He knew that there need be no coaxing or pleading, for God has answered before we ask.

“All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them/’ “Believe that ye receive them”—present tense! Ah, there is the hard part. Believe that ye will (future) receive them. Yes, that were easier. But to say a thing is done when there is no sign of it anywhere—can we do this? Yes, we can, and we must if we would obtain an an­swer to our prayer. This is the faith on which all receiving depends: “calling that which is not as though it were,” simply because God has said so, and holding to it unwaveringly by positive and continued affirmation that it is done. This is our part of the contract. This is complying with God’s law of supply. God said “I am,” not “I will be,” when He gave His name to Moses. He says “I am” to each one of us today, and then He leaves us to fill in whatsoever we pray and ask for. I am health, I am strength, I am supply, success, anything we dare take Him for.

How are we to take that which we desire?

This taking is purely a mental process. When Jesus went to the tomb of Lazarus to perform the mighty miracle, He did not begin to plead for help, but He lifted up His eyes and said, “Father, I thank thee that thou heardest me. And I knew that thou hearest me always.” So remembering God’s law of supply and demand, we begin to thank Him that He has made Him­self our abundant supply and that before we have called He has provided that for which we are about to ask. We continue to thank Him that we do have (not shall have) the petition desired of Him; and in confidence, but silently and positively, we affirm over and over again that we have it in possession. We must be per­sistent and unyielding about this. God said to

Joshua, “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it.” And He says it to us in every act of prayer. “Every place that you stand firmly and determinedly upon in affirmation, that have I given you. Dare to claim it; put your foot firmly upon your claim, and you shall have it.” Have faith in what you are doing, because you are working with God’s own unfailing, unchangeable law and cannot fail.

Even in the very midst of illness calmly and confidently affirm, “God is in me, my full abun­dant health now, in spite of this appearance”; for has He not said “I am”? Jesus said, “Judge not according to appearance, but judge right­eous [right] judgment.” In lack of whatever kind ask and believe that you receive; that is, ask and begin immediately to affirm, even in the absence of any visible evidence, “God is [not will be] my supply right here and now.” Be determined about it; He will surely mani­fest Himself according to His promise.

“Whatsoever ye pray and ask for” is the only stipulation governing the relations between us and His “I AM.” Expecting that anything will be given tends to keep it forever a little in the future, just ahead of the now. Hard though it may be mentally to do it, we must step right over the dividing line and say, “It is done/’ As far as God’s part is concerned, everything has been given us already in Christ, who is “the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” “For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.” Christ is here present, not afar off. Though it is invisible to our mortal eyes, all we are capable of desiring is here now. “For how many soever be the promises of God, in him is the yea: wherefore also through him is the Amen”; which means that they are all fulfilled now in Him. All things are in Christ, and Christ is in you. “In him ye are made full.” Then can we not say in faith, “All things are mine here and now”?

Persistent, unwavering affirmation that it is done and is made visible now brings into mani­festation whatsoever one asks or desires.

 

CHAPTER VI

Giving and Forgiving

For ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father for­give your trespasses.—jesus

We have become so familiar with the \\ / sayings of Jesus that at times they seem * * to have lost all meaning to us. He said, “If therefore thou art offering thy gift at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee [much more, if we have aught against our brother]; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way, first be recon­ciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.** This was equivalent to saying that anyone coming to God in prayer simply must let go of all ill will toward his brother if he desires or expects any conscious fellowship with God.

“If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen.”

“If our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. … if our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God; and whatsoever we ask we receive of him.”

Jesus once said, “If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” He was then, as at all times, speak­ing in full recognition of the great law govern­ing God’s dealings with His children. We are not for an instant to understand by this that God, in a sort of “I-will-give-you-back-as-good- as-you-send” spirit, refuses us forgiveness when we do not forgive others. Neither are we to understand that because we fail He is angry with us and turns in an unforgiving mood away from us. Not at all. God is not an overindulgent parent who gives a reward for well-doing and punishes in anger for failing to do well. Such a conception of Him is belittling, and is un­worthy of the thought of any intelligent person.

Let us see if we can find out the law of God’s working in this matter of forgiving as well as in the matter of giving. Our first step is to remem­ber how we are related to God and to our fellow man. God is in Christ and Christ is in us and in all men. God, the infinite, unfailing source, the great spring and reservoir of All-Good, is forever desirous of outflowing and ever in process of outflowing to His children through Christ. We, God’s children, His offspring, are made alive and kept alive by His breath con­tinually renewed in us, and thus in the deepest reality we are never separated from Him an in­stant: Him, the life, the love, the mind that is in us, the only power through which we can do anything. If Jesus said, “I can of myself do noth­ing,” how much more must every human being say the same.

Of ourselves, if in reality we were separated from God, we are nothing and can do nothing. But “we have this treasure [Christ] in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.”

Christ in us and God in Christ says, “I am… the life”: “The words I say unto you I speak not from myself: but the Father abiding in me doeth His works.” (It is the Father speaking thus in Christ.) With every breath we draw in anew this life of God, which is God. And there must be a continual renewal. The breath of yes­terday or an hour ago does not suffice for this moment. When we breathe in but little of this breath of life we are only half alive, so to speak. Yet our “life is hid with Christ in God” just the same, waiting for us; and it is not His fault if we take but little of it. No matter how sinful we are or how completely our life is covered and hidden by worldliness or indifference, still the source of our life remains unchanged.

So with our inner light, the light of all men: wisdom, judgment, knowledge, and so forth. This comes into us momentarily from God through Christ, “in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden.” “The life was the light of men.” “There was the true light [Christ] which lighteth,” whom? A few Christians? A few in this church or that church? Nay, verily; but He is the ^ftlight which lighteth [keeps lighting] every man, coming into the world.”

Now if God in Christ is the life of all life, if He is the light of all light, the force of all forces, how is it that some are suffering from lack of life, some are sitting in darkness, some are handi­capped by weakness of character and body?

Listen! We are not automatons. We are made in the image and likeness of God, and like Him we have the power of choice, the power of de­ciding each for himself: “There is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him,” to be sure. There is but one force, but we each have the power of opening ourselves to this force or clos­ing ourselves against it, whichever we choose. The force lives right on whichever we do. “But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become [consciously] children of God.”

The inner light comes to “every man, coming into the world”; but we may close ourselves to this light either through ignorance or willfull- ness—the result is the same—and live in dark­ness. The light within every man goes right on shining just the same, whether he accepts it or rejects it. “The light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not.” In this case the light is shut off through ignorance. “And this is the judgment, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the dark­ness rather than the light; for their works were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, and cometh not to the light [free will], lest his works should be reproved [or detected].” Thus is the light voluntarily or willfully shut out, again as a matter of man’s choice. Both con­ditions are dependent on the mental attitude of man. In the first instance he is not conscious that there is light within himself: “the darkness apprehended it not.” In the second instance he stubbornly refuses to come to the light because he “hateth the light.”

The power that is in man is divine. It is all from God, who is omnipotent, but man is given the choice of using or directing this power for either good or evil. The light that is in man is good. It is Christ; but man may elect to use this light for his guidance or for his destruction.

All our relations to God our Father, as we are taught by Jesus, whether we are conscious of it or not, depend on our own mental attitude and not on any changeable attitude of God toward us. From His very nature God is forever in process of giving, just as the sun from its very nature is forever in process of radiating, of shed­ding abroad, light and heat. The sun does not have to be coaxed and urged to shine. It simply cannot for an instant cease to shine while it re­mains the sun. The only way man can escape from the direct oncoming of the sun’s rays is to interpose something between himself and the sun, an act, as you see, that is entirely the man’s own and not that of the sun. Even the sun will continue undisturbed to give forth alike to “the just and the unjust” what it has and is, and let whosoever will take.

So it is with God. He is forever in process of giving out what He is and has. Nothing can hinder man’s receiving unless he, man, con­sciously or unconsciously, interposes some con­dition, some mental obstacle between God and himself that completely shuts God out.

If we expect to receive anything from God, who “giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not,” we must turn our faces toward Him like little children and open our entire being to His incoming. We must not shut Him out by either a tense, rigid, mental condition of anxiety or by an unforgiving spirit. When Jesus said, “If ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses,” He under­stood perfectly that just as man freely directs this divine force toward others, so by his own words and mental attitude he likewise directs this force toward and through himself. In other words, this indwelling Christ is as obedient to man as man is obedient to the Christ. “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you.”

No man can possibly radiate darkness while he himself is full of light. “He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother, is in the dark­ness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in the darkness, and walketh in the darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.”

The everlasting light abideth in us, but if we shut it off so others cannot receive it, we by the same mental act shut it entirely out of our own consciousness. When we withdraw ourselves from our fellows in any way, particularly when we retain toward anyone an unforgiving spirit (no matter how he may have injured us), we cut off by strangulation, as it were, all the in­visible arteries and nerves through which con­stantly flow into us life, love from God, the source. It is like ligating an artery between the heart and an extremity. The heart goes right on, but the extremity withers and dies because the source of its nourishment has been cut off.

When by our own acts we thus cut ourselves off from God we become, as someone has said, “a mere bundle of strained nerves, trembling and shaking with fear and weakness and finally dying” because by our own mental attitude we have shut off God’s life and love, which is ever springing up within us, seeking to flow out through us anew to the world.

We all know what Jesus said to Peter in an­swer to his question whether one should forgive another seven times: “I say not unto thee, Until seven times; but, until seventy times seven.” By this Jesus meant to say: “Always be in a mental attitude of forgiving, never any other way; and if that is the way God is toward you, how much more should you be so toward your brother/’ Read the parable on forgiveness that He spoke as it is recorded in Matthew 18:23-35.

Again, this matter of forgiveness demands a mental attitude much more definite than a sim­ple feeling of indifference toward the offending one. To pardon means simply to remit or wipe out the penalty and let the offender go free, but to forgive means much more than this. It means to give “for”; that is, to give some definite posi­tive good in return for the evil received. Is this “a hard saying”? One often hears this phrase: “I can forgive, but I cannot forget.” That is not God’s way of forgiving. “Their sin will I re­member no more” is what He says. Why? Be­cause He keeps right on giving “for,” giving us good for our evil.

Nothing else so surely clears out all remem­brance of wrongs suffered as definitely and posi­tively to “give for” the offending one.

If you think you have been wronged by any­one, sit down quietly in your own room and speak out to this person silently. Tell him that you forgive him for the sake of the Christ in him. Tell him that you give him love, love, love in return for anything he may have given you. Keep telling him you love him until you begin to feel what you are saying. Believe me, he, a thousand miles away, will hear your message and be melted by it, for it will travel to him via heaven, and it cannot miss the way.

If you have ill will toward anyone, if you are prejudiced against anyone, if you have accused anyone even in your silent thought of injustice, or if you have criticized anyone, sit down alone at night before retiring and mentally ask him to forgive you. Calling him by name, silently confess to him what you have done and ask his forgiveness, telling him as you do the others, over and over again, that you love him and are sure there is nothing but God’s perfect love be­tween you. Never retire until you have thus definitely “cleaned the slate” as regards your­self and every other human being, definitely forgiven—given love “for”—everyone. Keep at this until all the tightened cords that have been cutting off the free flow of God’s love and life through you are loosened; until a habit of forgiving is established within you.

This is what Jesus meant by “seventy times seven.” This spirit of perfect love and forgive­ness will often heal the worst disease by open­ing the channel for omnipresent love and life to flow through unobstructed.

 

CHAPTER VII

Power in the Name of Jesus Christ

Verily, verily, I say unto you, If ye shall ask anything of the Father, he will give it you in my name.—JESUS

That the name of Jesus Christ is a real, practical, wonder-working, result-produc­ing power there is no doubt.

In the Acts of the Apostles we find that, im­mediately following the death and resurrection of Jesus, Peter and John one day instantly healed “a certain man that was lame from his mother’s womb . . . whom they laid daily at the door of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms.” This healing was done through Peter by the spoken word: “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”

We further read that “immediately his feet and his ankle-bones received strength. And leaping up, he stood, and began to walk; and he entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God: and they took knowledge of him, that it was he that sat for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amaze­ment at that which had happened unto him.. . .

“And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this man? or why fasten ye your eyes on us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him to walk? The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Servant Jesus … And by faith in his name hath his name made this man strong.”

The following day when the rulers of the Jews, the high priests and others, were gathered together, they set Peter and John (whom they had arrested the night before for preaching and healing in this name) in their midst and began to ask:

“By what power, or in what name, have ye done this [meaning the healing of this man]?

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders … be it known unto you all, and to all the peo­ple of Israel, that in the name of Jesus Christ . . . whom God raised from the dead, even in him doth this man stand here before you whole. . . . And in none other is there salvation: for neither is there any other name under heaven, that is given among men, wherein we must be saved.”

Later on in the ministry of Peter we read of his healing Aeneas, who kept his bed eight years, sick of palsy:

“And Peter said unto him, ^Eneas, Jesus Christ healeth thee: arise, and make thy bed. And straightway he arose.”

Paul in the same way healed instantly a cer­tain damsel possessed with a “spirit of divina­tion”: “Paul, being sore troubled, turned and said to the spirit, I charge thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that very hour.”

When Isaiah prophesied the coming of the Saviour, he said, “Behold a virgin shall con­ceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel,” which being interpreted is “God with us.” The Hebrew name Jesus means savior, Christ means the anointed of God: Jesus Christ, the Saviour anointed of God; Immanuel, God with us.

When the Christ, the Anointed, the very Son of God, came to abide in Jesus the result was the fullest conscious expression of the invisible Father that had ever occurred; and the very names that contain all power were given to this child by those devout souls who were open enough to receive them by direct illumination of the Spirit.

The name of Jesus Christ holds all power within it.

We know that all sensations, all impressions, either mental or physical, that reach man from without or within reach him through vibrations of one sort or another. We also know that dif­ferent words spoken produce different effects. If one doubt this, let him speak out into the formless ether the word “power” over and over repeatedly. Then let him by way of experiment take the word “weakness” and do the same for a day; or take the words “love” and “hate,” or any other opposing words, and watch the re­sults. As we ascend from the outer or lower region of man, the physical, to the higher or more spiritual self living at his center, the vi­bratory movements by which all information or help is given become finer and subtler but in­finitely more powerful.

The name or words Jesus Christ, with all their original meaning behind them and em­bodied in them, produce spiritual vibrations of infinite fineness and power. The Master of spir­itual things understood this, and many times as He was about to leave His humble disciples and was giving them last instructions He tried to impress upon them the truth that there is power in His name to accomplish things.

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, If ye shall ask anything of the Father, he will give it you in my name: Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be made full/*

And again: “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my name, that will I do.”

Jesus Christ is a revelation of God in man. He is invisible God made visible. Jesus Christ is “God-with-us” made visible. This is exactly what we all need and desire, did we but know it. This same Christ abiding within you and me is God come forth to center or focus Him­self in humanity. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the exceeding greatness of the power may be of God, and not from our­selves.^,, “For we are a temple of the living God; even as God said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people/’

Because of this intimate relationship we may each become in Christ’s name and stead a savior, always remembering however that the “exceed­ing greatness of the power may be of God, and not from ourselves.” Of ourselves we can do nothing. All the power we have comes to us and through us from the Spirit of God. “Unto each one of us was the grace given [free gift of wisdom, power, and so forth] according to the measure of the gift of Christ.”

When a person is given authority to speak or act in the name of a king or of a chief execu­tive, his speaking or acting carries with it the full power vested in the ruler together with that of the entire government behind him. When us­ing the name with full authority, we speak in the name of Jesus Christ, the anointed Son of God, the Saviour unto whom has been given “all authority … in heaven and on earth,” we become even “as he is … in this world,” and we set in motion a mighty though invisible force to accomplish that whereto our word is sent.

Is your way so hedged in by difficulties that you do not know which way to turn ?

Jesus Christ says, “I am the way.” Take His name and use it. There is surely power in it to open ways that the finite mind never dreamed of. Let your silent affirmation constantly be “Christ is the way now, Christ is the way made visible, for Christ is ‘God-with-us’ made visible or the invisible way made visible.”

Let go of all external ways and see the mar­velous way that will appear before you when you trust this word spoken in His name.

Do all the doors of escape from physical or mental bondage in your daily life seem closed to you?

Jesus Christ says, “I am the door’ Stand still and see the salvation that He will work for you when you begin to say: “Christ is the door, the open door made visible now this moment. ‘God- with-me’ is my Saviour and deliverer.” Says the Christ within us this very day, right in the midst of our seeming bondage of environment or circumstances, “I have set before thee a door opened, which none can shut.” Jesus Christ is the open door. By it—this door—we may enter into visible possession of the good that He has for us. We must first stop all external planning for escape and then enter in by faith and by continual affirmation that Christ is now the open door made visible.

Does all your life seem dark and gloomy, nay, covered by a thick black darkness wherein is no light at all?

Remembering that Jesus Christ is “God-with- us” made visible, recall what He said, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.” It is God speaking to you. Take up the name and remember that “whatso­ever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do.”

Your darkness will soon glow with the true “light which lighteth every man, coming into the world.”

Does sickness reign in your body?

Still “God-with-us” made visible is the remedy.

“As the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself”; and the Son is within us.

Is your illness a desperate one?

“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live.” Your case is not quite so bad as “dead,” is it? Even if it is, just let go of everything else and take up the all-powerful, all-prevailing name: “Jesus Christ is my life. Christ is God made visible. The life more abundant is this same Christ within me made visible now. He that believeth on this name (the power of the name), though he were dead yet am I his resur­rection.” “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”

“Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be made full.” This is the message coming out of the silence from the invisible Father to His chil­dren: “Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be made full.” A marvelous message in­deed!

Christ in us is our all-sufficiency in all things. Is. It is a finished condition as far as He is con­cerned; but we must bring it forth into the ma­terial world of manifestation by claiming it (speaking the word of it in His name) and sticking to it through thick and thin no matter what the appearance is. “J^udg^{e n}°t according to appearances.”

There is a marvelous power for protection and deliverance in this name when it is simply and earnestly spoken. In times of great mental disturbance or of lack of wisdom, in times when peace and harmony seem to have fled from the home or when one is in the presence of impure- minded persons or of any false teaching or as­sociation, just quietly repeating within one’s own heart the sacred and all-powerful name of Jesus Christ will not only keep one’s own mind in perfect peace (“Thou wilt keep him in per­fect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee”} but it will radiate some marvelous and living power from the indwelling divine presence. And all that is not of Christ flees away as did the devil- possessed men who cried out, “What have we to do with thee, thou Son of God?”

“The name of Jehovah is a strong tower;
The righteous runneth into it, and is safe.”
“Some trust in chariots, and some in horses;

But we will make mention of the name of Je­hovah our God.”

Seek often to retire from the world of noise (“Enter into thine inner chamber, and . . . shut thy door”) to find revelation of the Christ in your own soul. Sit down quietly and alone and with closed eyes begin to say: “Jesus Christ is now present. He is within me.” Say the words. Say them. You do not need to say anything else but just repeat the name. It will bring wonder­ful realization of the divine presence. One mo­ment’s real conscious communion with the Son of God is of more worth than a thousand worlds.

 

CHAPTER VIII

Life a Ministry

 

Whosoever would become great among you shall be your minister; and whoso­ever would be first among you shall be your servant: even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.—jesus

LOOKED AT from a purely commercial stand-point, the life of Jesus Christ was a fail­ure. His place in the world was obscure, His occupation a humble one. The work of His hands commanded only the usual recompense. From the world’s point of view His contribu­tion was merely that of an average man.

Even after His public life began He seem­ingly failed just as signally as before. He made Himself of no reputation among men. In the
field where His greatest visible success lay, the delivering of men from sorrow and trouble, He sometimes failed. “He saved others; him­self he cannot save,” they cried when deriding Him. All the way to His ignominious death He stood before self-satisfied men, chief priests and Pharisees, as a failure. Why? Because He and these men were living from entirely different standpoints. Men were living largely from the external; Jesus was living from within. Men were reckoning success then as the world reckons success today, largely in terms of numbers and figures and the possession of external things.

After two thousand years we can see that the life of Jesus Christ, lived so obscurely, so un­ostentatiously, really was not the failure that it seemed; that He was living a life that in the long run was the only successful one. For today, when His contemporaries have passed away and are forgotten, His life stands forth among men and within men as the inspiration of all love and all goodness, the inspiration of all success.

“The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister”; and all real Godlike liv­ing is the spirit of ministry unto others. Some one has given the following definitions:

Selfishness: mine, not thine.

Justice: mine and thine.

Love: thine, not mine.

We speak of love as unselfish or selfish. There is no such thing as selfish love. Such a thing would be a paradox indeed. Love always gives; selfishness always expects to receive. The law of love must ever be the law of giving, the law of ministration to others, not from sense of duty but from very spontaneity and delight. What mother ministers to her children from duty? What father makes daily provision for his own because he is their father and the law says he must? Why, the very heart of parent­hood springs out spontaneously and with joy supreme to minister to the child in every pos­sible way even before it can ask or think what it wants.

Pure love is always asking itself, “What can I give,” never “What shall I receive.” God is pure love. Parenthood is a little of God, so to speak, come forth into manifestation, the off­spring of God.

God, the source of all life spiritual and phys­ical, God, the only source of real success and joy, abides in Christ within us. “The King of Israel, even Jehovah, is in the midst of thee.” “The kingdom of God is within you.” “I in them, and thou in me,” said Jesus.

God gives without thought or hope of return. So do we as soon as we become conscious of an indwelling Christ; we cease any longer to expect or desire to be ministered unto.

If we would live the life of real success, real joy, real Christlikeness, we must keep the cur­rent turned to flow from within outward instead of in the opposite direction.

God says: “If thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul: then shall thy light rise in darkness, and thine obscurity be as the noonday; and Jehovah will guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in dry places, and make strong thy bones; and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.” Of course “if thou draw out thy soul,” it could not be other­wise. All drawing out of the soul is a drawing out directly from the fountainhead within, from Him who is all life, all light, all good, to min­ister Him unto others. And as the water of life flows through you to minister to others it must necessarily first refresh you with new life, and light, and joy on the way.

Oh, how we have mistaken and misunder­stood Him who is the Way! How we have missed the joy of service by letting our ministry to others be from a sense of duty, thus striving to satisfy the conscience, in a way, by afflicting our souls and feeling that such a sacrifice was acceptable to God and in some way an aid to our growth in grace.

Listen! “Is not this the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and . . . when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him? . . . Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy healing shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of Jehovah shall be thy rearward. Then thou shalt call, and Jehovah will answer; thou shalt cry, and he will say, Here I am.”

No man can live unto himself and not be a failure both spiritually and physically. Such liv­ing causes the stream of life and light to form backwater, and the body as well as the soul shrivels for want of new supplies from the Fountainhead. It is only when you draw out your soul that your healing shall spring forth speedily, because health is nothing less than the life more abundant that the immanent Christ made manifest through the body. “I am . . . the life,” said Christ. “The life” thus implies His recognition of only one life. God does not live unto Himself. His greatest desire is to get into expression, into visibility, as life, love, joy, all good.

The divine Father of us all is forever trying to manifest Himself in what the dear old Scot­tish minister, George MacDonald, called “a reckless extravagance of abundance.” He might have manifested Himself in a few flowers; but instead He fills to overflowing the very brook- sides, the unused and often unseen valleys with a perfect wealth of foliage and beautiful blos­soms. He gives from the very joy of giving. Whenever He is let give in nature without the interference of man, His giving is truly an “ex­travagance of abundance.” Can this desire to get into expression as the fullness of all that He is —not of all that He has—be less than it is in nature when it comes to His highest creation, man? Surely not.

Imagine a great reservoir fed inexhaustibly from everliving springs within itself. Leading out from this reservoir but never separated from it are innumerable little streams, each ending in a fountain. A fountain is simply a receiving and distributing station, it is never self-existent or self-feeding. Each one of the fountains is a separate and individual center for distributing the water it receives. It is constantly renewed from the one great source without any effort on its own part. Its sole business is to distribute what it receives. At its external extremity each little fountain is separate and distinct from all the others, but at its inner extremity, at the cen­ter, it is one with them all.

This is exactly God’s relation to His children. He is the reservoir, we are the receiving and distributing stations; He is the vine; we the branches. “One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.” “We are also his offspring.” “Call no man your father on the earth: for one is your Father, even he who is in heaven.”

There is no obstruction between this great reservoir and any individual fountain except such as man himself puts there. Each one is, as Emerson says, the inlet, and may become the outlet of all there is in God. But each one must keep his own fountain free for the great stream to flow through. He must not let it get dammed up by selfishness. There must be a constant out­flow in order to keep water pure, cold, and in­vigorating. No one need plead with the water of a spring to flow. It is bound by its very na­ture and “desire” to make room for the pressure of new waters, which are every crowding up from its living center to flow wherever they can find a free outlet. If one outlet becomes ob­structed the water simply seeks more room through another, for flow it must by the law of its being.

New life, new wisdom, new fresh love and joy and power more than we can ask or think is waiting every instant to flood your being and mine from the great reservoir God: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”

But if either consciously or unconsciously we have closed up the outlet by refusing to give out to others what we have received—“And what hast thou that thou didst not receive?”— by mentally living unto ourselves alone; by sharply, shrewdly looking out for number one first, last, always; by feeling that it isn’t our duty to minister unto others without return; if as a part of worldly wisdom we have repressed the God-given, loving impulse to distribute freely and without thought or hope of return what we have received; if we have turned the current in the opposite direction by seeking what we can get from the world instead of what we can give to it—then we have so choked up the living stream of good that God Himself is powerless to pour into us the very things for which we may be praying.

Christ is the light of the world. Christ is within us. This light is ever fed from the great fountain of all light, the Father in Him: “I in them, and thou in me.” God made each one of us to be a radiating center, constantly shining outward toward others in a spirit of ministry and giving. If you draw out your soul to satisfy the afflicted, then your light will break forth as the morning and your darkness will be as the noonday (See Isa. 58:8-10); for I, very Christ, who have come to abide within you, I am the light of the world, and when anyone draws out his soul he draws Me out.

But if you put a bushel over your light by harboring the thought of not letting your neigh­bor receive from you anything for which he makes no return, you will simply find yourself walking in the darkness. “If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is the darkness/’ As Christian Gellert said, “whoever in the darkness lighteth another with this lamp [Christ] lighteth himself also; and the light is not of ourselves, it is of Him who appointeth the suns in their courses.”

The Spirit of Christ is ever the spirit of min­istration. We are not called upon to give that which we have not but only that which we have received. When Peter and John were going into the Temple and saw a certain lame man ly­ing at the gate of the Temple, where he daily asked alms, Peter said to him, “Look on us.” Acts says: “He gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something [some money] from them. But Peter said, Silver and gold have 1 none; but what I have, that give I thee. In the name of Je­sus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” Who shall say that Peter did not give more than any amount of money or alms? “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall they give into your bosom. For with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again.”

Jesus knew the immutable law when He said this. He knew that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.” He also knew that all giv­ing tends to larger receiving.

“There is that scattereth, and increaseth yet more;

And there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth only to want”

“Freely ye received, freely give.”

 

QUESTION HELPS

Answers to all the following questions are to be found in the text of the book.

The terms used in the questions are of course to be found in the text and are those commonly used in Truth literature. The questions are asked with the object of inducing thought on the part of the student.

When the ideas back of the words in the text are mastered, the student will be able to answer the questions.

CHAPTER I

Good Tidings of Great Joy

1. What are the “good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people” ?
2. What is the kingdom of heaven?
3. Can others do what Jesus did? Do we have proof of this?
4. What three aims did Jesus have in His teach­ing and ministry:
5. What is the most important thing that Jesus taught ?
6. Is God separate from us and the world?
7. Does God give physical help or does He give spiritual help only?
8. Is hopeless submission to suffering a spiritual grace ?
9. Are suffering and hardship productive of spir­itual virtue ?
10. What should be our attitude toward any “evil” situation in our life?

CHAPTER II

The Will of God

1. What is God?
2. What is God’s will for us ?
3. What was the mission of Jesus ?
4. If God’s will for us is always good, why are not all our prayers answered immediately?
5. Since God supplies our every need, why do we have to pray ?
6. Can we change the conditions in our lives that we do not want ? How ?
7. How can we be certain that it is God’s will for us to be happy ?
8. How can we avoid or overcome sickness ?
9. How must we prepare ourselves to accept God’s gifts?
10. Why do good and sincere Christians some­times have to undergo all sorts of difficulties ?

CHAPTER III

Life More Abundant

1. What is the true nature of life ?
2. Can we depend on physical means alone to sustain abundant life in us ?
3. Do we get wisdom out of books ?
4. Does praise have power?
5. Do our words have power ?
6. How many kinds of life are there in the world ?
7. Why do we say that man is the highest, fullest form of God manifested as life?
8. On page 45 Emilie Cady says: “God’s gifts are to all alike.” If this is true, and God is the source of health, why are some people sick and others well ?
9. Why does Unity stress the importance of using only good words ?
10. If we are trying to overcome a condition of ill-health, is it wrong to seek the help of physicians or other healing agencies ?

CHAPTER IV

Christ in You

1. What is the real nature of man ?
2. What is the one substance of the universe?
3. Since Unity does not believe that God is a per­son, why do we and why did Jesus refer to Him as “our Father”?Is Jesus the Saviour of mankind ?
4. What is the Christ in you ?
5. The Bible tells us that man is created in the image and after the likeness of God. Does this mean that God has arms and legs and a body as we have ?
6. Did God create the world and all that is in it and then cast it adrift?
7. Since man is created in the image of God, he is therefore perfect in essence. Why then is there so much trouble and suffering in the world?
8. What is the new birth that the Bible speaks of ?
9. How are we “saved” from our “sins”? What is the Unity teaching about salvation ?

CHAPTER V

Faith

1. What is hope ? What is belief ? What is faith ?
2. What is understanding faith? blind faith?
3. What are the two principles upon which one can base understanding faith?
4. Can we really receive anything we ask for?
5. If faith is necessary to success in prayer, should a person who does not have faith pray?
6. Emilie Cady says on page 67 that all an­swer to prayer depends on faith. How then can a per­son’s prayer be answered if he has no faith?
7. Should we let contrary appearances interfere with our desires?
8. Explain why H. Emilie Cady stresses the im­portance of believing that we receive now instead of in the future.
9. Is there such a thing as the supernatural? as a miracle?
10. What part does faith play in spiritual heal­ing ? in the demonstration of prosperity ?

CHAPTER VI

Giving and Forgiving

1. Can a person really love God as long as he dislikes or hates any other person ?
2. Explain why God cannot answer our prayers if we hold ill will or a grudge against someone.
3. Does man have free will ?
4. What is the relationship between God and man?
5. Is any sin too great to be forgiven ?
6. Describe how you would go about forgiving someone who has done you an injustice.
7. What connection exists between forgiveness and healing?
8. In what three ways do we shut ourselves off from the Christ light?
9. Why is it necessary for us to forgive before we can be forgiven ?
10. What is the unpardonable sin ?

CHAPTER VII

Power in the Name of Jesus Christ

1. What is in a name ?
2. What is the meaning of the name “Jesus Christ”?
3. Was Jesus more than a man ?
4. Is our prayer more effective if we pray in the name of Jesus Christ? Why?
5. Unity teaches that no prayer is ever unan­swered. If this is true, why does our prayer some­times appear to be unanswered ?
6. What does it mean to take God’s name in vain?
7. What is the power in the name of Jesus Christ ?
8. What is meant by “I am the way” ?
9. What evidence does the Bible provide that the name of Jesus Christ has power to heal?
10. What is the technique of the silence?

CHAPTER VIII

Life a Ministry

1. Was Jesus Christ a failure ?
2. What is success ? What is failure ?
3. In this chapter what does H. Emilie Cady mean by “ministry”?
4. Suppose you have no money and none is in sight. What ideas in this chapter would help you to overcome this condition?
5. Name six ways in which we keep our good from coming to us.
6. The Bible says, “With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again.” Does this mean that if we give someone a dollar, someone else will give us a dollar?
7. What kind of gifts should we give?
8. From what standpoint should we make our gifts?
9. From what standpoint does God give to us?
10. If we should stop giving, what would happen to us?

 

The End