From Miscellaneous Writings (1916)
There is that within every human being which is capable of being brought forth into the material, everyday life of that person as the abundance of every good thing he may desire.
Here and there a soul who is consciously abiding in the secret place of the Most High, and being taught by the Spirit of Truth, dimly recognizes this and says, “The Holy Spirit abiding within us is able to do all things for us;” while occa5ionally a metaphysician, in whom the intuitional is largely developed, is beginning to apprehend it as a demonstrable truth, and, carefully avoiding all pious words, lest he be considered in the old rut of religious belief, he says, “The outer or visible man has no need which the inner or invisible man cannot supply.”
Let us not haggle over terms. There need he no schism. Each means the same thing. The only difference is in words. Each one is getting at the same truth in his own way, and eventually the two will clasp hands in unity, and see eye to eye.
This Spirit of the living God within us, fed ever from the All-Father fountainhead, is not only the Giver of all good gifts, the Supplier of all supply, but it is the gift itself . We must come right up to this point. The Giver and the Gift are one.
God himself is the fulfillment — or the Substance which fills full — of every desire.
Truly our eyes have been holden until now in these later days we are coming to know of “God in His world;” of Him, the immanent creative Cause of all things, ever dwelling in man, ready and willing at any moment to recreate or renew our bodies and minds, or to manifest Himself through us as anything needed by us.
The certainty of this manifestation depends entirely upon our ability to recognize and accept this truth.
One recognizes God within as indwelling purity and holiness. To that one He is sanctification; and just in the proportion to the recognition and the trust with which this Divine Presence is regarded as immanent holiness does it spring forth into the outer, everyday life of a man as holiness, so that even they who run may read a something more than human in him.
Another recognizes and accepts the God within himself as the life of his body; and instantly this Divine Life, always perfect, strong and vigorous, and always desiring with the mighty desire of Omnipotent Love to manifest itself through somebody or something as perfection, begins to flow through his body from center to circumference until the entire body is charged with a fullness of life which is felt even by others who come in contact with him. This is Divine healing; and the time required for the process of complete healing depends, not upon any changeableness of God — for God knows no time but the eternal now — hut entirely upon the ability of the person to recognize and trust the Power which works in him.
The one who recognizes the indwelling God as his holiness, but cannot mentally grasp any more truth, lives a holy, beautiful life, but perhaps lives it all through years of bodily disease and sickness. Another who recognizes the same immanent God as his health, and is made both holy and physically well by the recognition and acceptance, stops there, and wonders, when he is well and is living a life entirely unselfish and God-like, why he should always be poor, lacking even the bare necessities of life.
Oh, fools and slow of heart to believe! Can ye not see that this same indwelling God who is your holiness and your health is also your sustenance and support? Is He not our All Sufficiency in All Things? Is it not the natural impulse of the Divine Being to flow forth through us into all things, “Whatsoever ye desire when ye pray”? Is there any limit except such as our poor human minds have set? Does He not say, “Every place that the sole of your foot shall rest upon, that have I given thee”? What does this mean? Is it-not saying, “Whatsoever you dare to claim, that will I be to you”?
This Divine Energy is the substance ( from sub — under, and stare — to stand), the real thing which stands under or within the visible or unreal of all things — food and clothing as well as life and health.
How do we get holiness? Not by outside works of purifying ourselves, but by turning to the Holy Spirit within and letting it flow forth into our human nature until we become permeated with the Divine all through. How is perfect health through divine or spiritual healing obtained? Is it by looking to or trusting external efforts or appliances? Surely not; but rather by ceasing entirely from the without, and turning our thoughts and our faith to the Father in us.
How, then, are we to get our abundant supply — aye, even more than we can ask or think (for God gives not according to our need, but “according to His riches” we are told)? “Acquaint now thyself with Him and be at peace; (hereby shall good come unto thee,” saith our God. Cease to look to outside sources and turn within. “If thou return to the Almighty, thou shalt be built up. Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defense, and thou shalt have plenty of silver.” Be still and know that God — even the indwelling God, the Father in us — is our supply.
It is not enough to believe simply that God is our Supplier — the One who shall by His omnipotent power influence the mind of someone possessing an abundance to divide with us. This is limitation. God being our health means far more than God being our healer. God as our supply is infinitely more than God as our supplier.
When Elisha multiplied the widow’s oil, he did not, recognizing God simply as the Supplier, ask, and then for answer receive a few barrels of oil from someone overrich in that commodity and in whose heart the spirit of God was working. That would have been a good but a very limited way; for had the demand continued, in time not only the village but the whole country around would have been destitute of oil.
Elisha understood the Divine Law of working, and putting himself into harmony with it, God himself, the substance of all things, became manifest as the unlimited supply — a supply which could easily have flowed until this time had there been need and vessels enough.
Jesus’ increase of the loaves and fishes did not come up from the village in response to some silent word spoken by Him to a person having a quantity. He never recognized that He had any right to seek the over-possessions of another, even though He was going to use them to benefit others. In order to feed the multitude He did not reach out after that which belonged to any man, or even that which was already in manifestation. The extra supply was a new and increased manifestation of Divine Substance as bread and fish. So with the oil of Elisha, who was “a man with like passions as we.” In both these cases nothing came from without to them to supply the need, but the supply proceeded from within outward.
This Divine Substance call it God, Creative Energy, or whatever you will — is ever abiding within us, and stands ready today to manifest itself in whatever form you and I need or wish, just as it did in Elisha’s time. It is the same yesterday, today and forever. Our desire is the cup which shapes the form of its coming, and our trust — the highest form of faith — sets the time and degree.
Abundant supply by the manifestation of the Father in us, from within outward, is as much a legitimate outcome of the Christ life or spiritual understanding as is bodily healing.
The Word — or Spirit — is made flesh (or clothed with materiality) in both cases, and both are equally in God’s order. The law of “work-to-earn” is only a schoolmaster beating us with many stripes, breaking us into many pieces when we fall across it in our failures, just to bring us to Christ. “But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.” Then Christ — the Divine in us — becomes the fulfillment of the law.
“Labor not for the meat that perisheth,” 1 said the Nazarene. Cease to work with the one object, viz., “for a living,” or for supply. Be forever free from the law of poverty and want, as you are from the law of sin and disease — through faith in Christ; that is, by taking this indwelling Christ, or Spirit, or Invisible Man as your abundant supply, and, looking to no other source, hold to it until it manifests itself as such. Recognize it. Reckon it. Be still and know it. Do not struggle and work and worry while you know it, but just be still. “Be still, and know that I am” what? part of God? No. “Know that I am God” — all of God, Good, all of Good. I am Life. I am Health. I am Love. I am Supply. I am the Substance of all that human souls or bodies can need or want.
The law says, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” The Gospel brings “glad tidings of great joy which shall be to all people.” The law says, Work out your salvation from sin, sickness and poverty. The Gospel says, Christ — the Father in you — is your salvation; have faith in Him. The law says, Work all you can and God will do the rest. The Gospel says, Free gift, not of works, lest any man should boast. The law is a way. Gospel, or Christ, the way, “Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.”
“But,” says someone, “will not such teaching — that our abundance is not at all dependent upon the labor of our hands or head — foster selfishness and indolence? Is it not a dangerous teaching to the masses?”
Jesus never thought the Gospel dangerous for the masses. It has not proven dangerous to teach that health is a free gift of God to His children — a gift which they need not labor for, but just recognize and accept.
Does anyone attempt to hide away from others, like a talent hidden deep in the earth, the new-born health which is God-manifest in response to recognition and faith? If he does, he soon finds that his health has disappeared; for selfishness and the consciousness of an indwelling God cannot both abide in the same heart.
Let not anyone for a moment suppose that he can use Gospel means for selfish ends. As well suppose he can go west by going east. A thousand times better that a millstone be hanged about his neck and he be drowned in the depths of the sea than to attempt to use God’s free gifts for selfish purposes. The divine abundance manifested through you is given you for ministry to others. You can neither receive it indolently nor retain it selfishly.
If you attempt it, the flow of divine oil will be stayed.
In Christ, or in the consciousness of the indwelling Divine Spirit, we know that every man and woman is our father and mother, brother and sister; that nothing is our own, but all is God’s because all is God.
And because we know this, we give — as we work — without thought or hope of return, because God flows through us to others. Our giving is our only safety-valve. Abundance is often a snare to those who blow not God, the indwelling One, who is Love. But the abundance which is manifested from within outward is only the material clothing of perfect Love, and cannot ever bring selfishness. “The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and He addeth no sorrow with it.”
Will God, being manifest as our abundant supply, foster idleness? A thousand times, No! We will then more than ever be coworkers together with God. Working but not laboring, working always for others. It is only labor when it is for self. Labor, not work, brings weariness, sorrow and sickness. Labor
not for meat, that is, for any good to yourself. Working as God works does not weary, for then the current of unlimited Divine Life is always flowing through us anew to bless others.
“There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad,” but we must always keep the stream flowing from within — the source of its uprising — outward if it is to make glad. When we work in harmony with Divine Law we have with us the whole force of the stream of living waters to carry us along.
Better than he knew spoke the poet when he said:
“Earth bath no sorrow Heaven cannot heal.”
Not the far-away heaven after death, when a whole lifetime has been spent in sorrow and trouble, but this “kingdom of heaven within you,” here, now, today. The mortal, human, earth part of you has no sorrow which cannot be healed, overcome, wiped out at once and forever by this ever indwelling Divine Spirit.
If any man would hasten the day of every man’s deliverance from all forms of human sorrow and want, let him at once begin to draw himself from outside sources and external warfare, and center his thoughts on Christ the Lord within himself.
“The Lord in the midst of thee is mighty. It “Acquaint now thyself with Him and be at peace; thereby good shall come unto thee.” “Prove me now and see if I will not pour out a blessing upon you so great that there shall not be room to receive it.”
Let us prove him. “Commune with your own heart upon your bed and be still.” Be still and know. Be still and trust. Be still and expect.
“My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from Him.”