Jesus said, "I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you" (Jn. 15:16).
When we expect God's help in our expression and prosperity, we are to come in the name of sons--in the consciousness of sonship. We are to see to it that the work we are doing is the Father's work and the very highest type of service of which we feel capable. When we know this to be true, we are not anxious or concerned with results. We are interested in carrying out the Father's directions and in doing that which is best for all concerned.
We can of course throw ourselves, our God-given faculties and powers, into personal efforts, and accomplish given and desired results. But unless we are working in perfect tune with the Infinite and doing that which is our best and that which best meets the highest needs of our soul, we shall not be wholly satisfied even though we gain that which we set out to attain.
Remember we are to pray in the name of Jesus Christ, which means with the same earnest desire to glorify God in our life that filled Jesus' mind and heart always. We are to ask of the Father in the realization of our oneness with Him and the consciousness of sonship.
Jesus says that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. Remember what those commandments are? "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'" (Mk. 12:30). "'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Mk. 12:31).
It is the Lord God within us that we are to be devoted to--to love, unify ourselves with, be obedient to. Our own spiritual self must have our attention and love and care and consideration. If we are neglecting our own spiritual development, our own health, we are not keeping this first and greatest commandment. And if we are not keeping it, we cannot keep the second.
So before we can truly pray, as Jesus says we should, and in answer to which He says the Father will do what we ask Him, we must learn to love our own spiritual self and to do that which is best for us--and best for all others.
When heart and mind and body are filled with the consciousness of the love of God and fellow human beings, we prosper. That which we are prompted to do is accomplished. We are fearless and happy because we know that we are doing our part to establish and maintain God's kingdom in the earth.
While you are more in the realm of the soul, where the activity of the psychic forces impresses you with the negative phases of humanity's development, you
will feel the weight of human woe and will tend to grieve and worry and resent that which seems unfair and unjust and cruel. But as you raise yourself into the Christ consciousness and see as God sees, you will look through and beyond appearances and begin to understand the true state of affairs and to discern just what is taking place in people. You will be just as diligent in helping people, but you will no longer give way to seeing greed and the crushing of some people by others (injustice). You will understand that what is taking place is a process of growth, and you will bless this growth and see people becoming more Christlike.
It may be, blessed friend, that you have been overtaxing that body of yours by giving forth more than you have taken the time and quietness to receive. That physical being in us is a willing and obedient servant and does what we tell him to do, but we mustn't be a heavy taskmaster and try to drive him beyond what he has developed the capacity to endure. In my own experience I find that it is always best to listen and obey when I receive the hint to take things easier. At times when I've disregarded the hint, I've received the kick also.
Remember that your heart is and always will be right with God. It is the throne of love, and "God is love." You are eternally one with your source and Creator, so it's just a matter of getting still, peaceful, calm, and serene, with your thought away for a while from all the outer activities, and opening the way for
the mighty and abundant inflow of Spirit that vitalizes, invigorates, builds up, and renews every "place" in mind, heart, soul, and body.
Your Creator is always on the job, and through our united prayers Christ, the living Word, is bringing into manifestation what is already an established part of your being--wholeness.
Unlimited as the infinite Provider is as our resource, we must still the restless mortal in order to receive; then deep and full shall the inner breath be to fill our relaxed and receptive organism. You are rested now and there is no compelling force to urge you to outer action. "He sent forth his word and healed them." Bless you!
Perhaps you did not make the complete connection when you started the new work and that was why the body did not seem to stand up to the work you needed to accomplish. We have to make our whole connection, spirit, soul, body, the wholeness--the holiness is in getting them all together--all working in harmony. But we are forgetting this and seeing you connected all the way through and one with the all-supplying stream of life and substance and power and love and light. We have to lay hold of this concept of God as eternal, as active eternal Principle, all-supplying substance, not as something that comes and goes and gives out. The things we observe all give out, but we have to get back of this to the abiding consciousness of Jesus
Christ--the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. And what does that mean? God's supply is always the same. And when a son of God appropriates and uses God, why, he becomes all that the Father planned and does all that the Father wills.
Now, my dear you are taking this all-supplying substance for yourself. I see you capable of going on with strength, wisdom, power, and joy. I witness your soul satisfied and blessed in God. The waters of life are ever flowing from the throne of God in your heart, the place of authority from which you send forth your mandates.
I am finding, myself, that if I want to keep the outer organization, I have to be appropriating and transmuting the coarser.
We must know the chemistry of the body; we must find the whole man. We have need of this outer man and we have to make the mortar that builds him up to full development.
Dear heart, you and I both realize that the supply is in the One, that the One never runs short of supply. Now when we get the concept of this and it becomes a habit for us to appropriate and apply this consciousness as we do the air that is constantly ready for our use, we shall be one with the omnipresent reservoir of God supply and have no more lack of any kind.
God in the midst of you is a tower of strength and stability. You are filled with the vim, vigor, vitality,
and tireless energy of "Christ in you," and you are renewed every moment of the day.
It may be, dear friend, that you have been trying too hard in a personal way and have not taken time to relax, to let go, and realize that "I am in the Father, and the Father in me." Sometimes our attention becomes so engrossed in the things we are trying to do that we forget to unify ourselves consciously with the source of our being.
You are the executive of your indwelling Lord, and every instant you draw from Him the wisdom, life, energy, strength, power, and substance to meet the moment's most pressing need; as your consciousness becomes one with His, you realize that it is not by personal might, nor by personal power, but by the Spirit of the Lord that all things are accomplished.
When you pray for another, your word of Truth quickens, awakens, and stirs to action the Spirit within that individual, so you do not need to lose any of your vital force when you realize that the word does the work. In this realization your patients do not draw upon your energy.
You are developing your inner resources of Spirit, and becoming more alive through the resurrection of new powers from day to day. The powers you are unfolding are your assurance of prosperity and success in the outer, for demonstrations of life and prosperity go hand in hand.
I am joining you in the Godward thought, and the thanksgiving that there is only one Presence and one
Power in you and through you, and present at your meeting Sunday evening. Keep it constantly in your mind that you as a limited entity are not there visible to the eager crowd; but that God is there expressing divine ideas, manifesting His blessings, through His own image likeness children. Instead of looking out and seeing the sense evidences, or listening to the complaints or the woes or the trials of those gathered to witness the Truth, look directly and with undivided attention to God, the good.
Now, I know just how you feel about wanting to walk with me, to take my hand, to be held close in the embrace that gives peace and courage, to join in song of rejoicing for the unlimited good. But that feeling isn't all what it seems! It isn't me that you want to be closer to; it is your own Lord: you want to be consciously one with what to you represents an advance over what you have yet realized! And the longing is the prayer of your heart that brings fulfillment! Isn't that glorious?
You are too much inclined to the mental, as it is. The depletion you experience when you talk to others, or when you help them, is due to your mental sensitiveness--your ability to sense needs, and to supply mentally, out of your own great store, that which others lack. But you must rise out of this phase of development, out of this means of helping others. The Jesus Christ consciousness of life gives you the spiritual poise
and ability to see beyond the seeming conditions through which others are passing. It gives you power to stir up in them and to call into expression their God-given abilities to meet their own needs.
Jesus Christ sees as God sees. He sees the perfection of people; He holds us in our perfection. His holding us there and drawing us up into the perfection of Himself does not in any way deplete His own consciousness or tear down His own body. There was a time in His unfoldment when Jesus did experience such mental activity and such depletion. At such times He withdrew from the multitudes for a while, to get back into His consciousness of oneness with God and the universal and inexhaustible resources of Spirit. When He healed the woman who had an issue of blood, He was conscious that virtue had gone out from Him because the woman had come to Him and touched Him, to get the personal help. You see, His consciousness of life and love reached out into His garments; and He was conscious of that which touched even His clothing. Later He had risen out of that particular state in which He felt virtue leaving His body to merge with the body of another; and had established Himself in the spiritual realm where His consciousness of life and substance merges with the entire race consciousness, and where we may all come in touch with Him and receive the spiritual help without depleting Him. He learned to appropriate more but to refrain from drawing boundary lines. The human believes in limitations and fixes the inflow and outflow
of life. We rise out of these limitations and boundaries by degrees. As we learn how to use these qualities and powers in divinely ordered ways, we are ready to let down the walls of separation, which at one time were protections.
As you learn to see the fullness of God's life and love and power and substance in others, you will know that you need not pour out your own for them. You will have the knowledge and the light to call their attention to what they have and to prompt them to use it.
You ask, "What's wrong with me?" My dear, we are not looking for the "wrong" things; with our spiritual eye of faith that beholds only the divine image and likeness, we are seeing you as the Father created you in the beginning--whole, illumined, full of faith, perfect. By seeing you from God's standpoint we help you to manifest your innate divinity.
Take your eyes away from appearances as they seem to the limited, human vision. Be diligent in holding to your innate Christ perfection under all circumstances.
The word of Truth is the power that does the work effectively, and when you use the word instead of your own vital force, when you wish to help others, there will be no after effects in your mind or body. When you practice the laying on of hands you weaken your powers of resistance and easily take on the condition you wish to dissolve in your patient.
It is a limitation to try to use your personal power
in healing others. Constantly keep in mind the truth that "I do not speak on my own authority; but the Father who dwells in me does his works." Say with Jesus, The Father who dwells in me does his works.
It is necessary for the healer to establish himself in the consciousness that perfection is the only reality; there is only one Presence and one Power in the universe, God, the good omnipotent.
Deny the belief, the appearance, of disease (or discord of any kind) and realize that it is nothing. Think of it as dissolved into nothingness, and with your eye of faith see the Christ perfection established in the place that needs to manifest the reality of good.
Conserve your vital force and your thought force. Then your whole being will be strengthened, and you will become too positive to take on any false belief. Your thoughts of Truth tend to make you positive.
When you speak the word to help others, know that it is, "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6). The word quickens the Spirit in your patients to action, and the Spirit in them does His works. God in the midst of you ministers unto them and calls forth the divinity they need to express.
It is possible, you know, to drive oneself beyond what the soul and body can stand up under, if wisdom and love do not prompt. One may lean too much toward intellectual activities--drawing and holding
too much of the blood and nerve energy in the upper part of the body, and causing congestion and depletion. One may devote oneself so wholly to those things, good in themselves, which require undivided attention and nerve strain that the playtimes for the body (not the usual social activities, which do not really permit the body to relax and renew itself while the mind is engaged in dwelling upon the purely natural things of life) are neglected. So we try to encourage our folks to seek to live balanced lives, being fair to the body, regardless of the soul's eager pace to keep up with the things that it considers most vital.
One could engage in so-called spiritual work to the point of losing one's health. In order to benefit humanity most we must each one see to it that we are fair to ourselves and that we live a life that increases our power and strength and health.
"What does it profit a man, to gain the whole world and forfeit his life" (Mk. 8:36)? We might gain many persons and bring them to our spiritual convictions, yet if we lost our own health and consequently our life, our work would not be pleasing in God's sight. For God is the very mind and life within us that is seeking to blend and coordinate the faculties of mind and express them in the substance that we term the manifest life.
There is no limit to the so-called "miracles" that
can be performed by those who consecrate themselves wholly to do the will and the work of Christ.
"Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Mt. 18:20).
We know that as you continue to hold fast to the living Christ, you and all your blessed co-workers will be illumined and prospered in ever-increasing measure.
The blessings that you have already received are only the beginning of a glorious outpouring and spiritual growth that will continue always.
"God will supply every need of yours according to his riches" (Phil. 4:19). This is the greatest promissory note ever written, and it is one that you can cash every hour of every day at God's ever-present "bank" and storehouse of supply.
The wonderful energies of Spirit that restore you to wholeness are there waiting for you to express them along lines of profitable service to God and humanity.
As you help others spiritually and in every way you not only fulfill the law of giving and receiving, you develop your own resources and capabilities in fuller measure. By helping others under the guidance of the Spirit of truth you at the same time help yourself. So do not let the limited concepts of others interfere with your giving loving service. You are right in maintaining that you can help others demonstrate "higher" than you have demonstrated, because it is not through personal might, nor personal power, but it is by the
Spirit of the Lord that all things are accomplished. "The Father who dwells in me does his works." God is the one and only Helper in the universe, and all the good we ever enjoy is brought forth through His power.
But, dear, I am inclined to feel that we all must arrive at the place where we do as Jesus did when He saw that so many demands were being made upon Him for help that He could not give Himself fully enough to what the Father was directing Him to do. He asked Spirit to show Him men in whom dwelt the qualities that could be developed to make them successful healers and teachers and leaders. Then, whether there was anything in the life or attitude of the prospective worker to indicate his readiness or even his willingness to change his occupation or to take up spiritual training, Jesus approached him and spoke of His conviction and asked the man to follow Him. He didn't seem to have much difficulty in getting a group of men to drop what they were engaged in to take up with eagerness and devotion and diligence the things He considered necessary to success in spiritual service.
You are "unspeakably busy" doing the things that come to you for attention, and really don't have time for the things that would make you a greater and more powerful leader. There are others in your city who have not enough to do to encourage their own development. I know you have tried to get helpers in your center,
and you have no doubt approached all who seemed to possess the desired qualifications.
But it must be that there are those who would love to help and who would be blessed in such work. Let us unite in prayer for your discernment, discrimination, and authority to look for and to select those in whom some particular spiritual quality are dominant and ready for practical training.
You speak of the comfort and soul food you enjoyed during your hours with me. That is splendid temporarily. But, dear, if you were with me daily, I might at any time do something that would hurt you just as badly as some of the things others have done have hurt. Personalities, as such, do not have the capacity for always satisfying one another. And the persons who are still depending on outer expressions of love and consideration are likely to be disappointed or disillusioned at any moment. For truly there just isn't real joy and light and power and substance in the things of the senses, or always in the relations of those who are seeking to let Christ ideas prompt them in their individual expression. Our real source of help in every need is the Holy Spirit within; and as we keep poised in Spirit, we find ways reach others in Spirit and call out the best in them and to understand them in a wonderful new way.
If you truly feel that the Jesus Christ Spirit is inspiring you and giving you power to teach and heal and prosper, I am sure that you will find plenty to do. What I can't understand is that, assuming you were
being divinely prompted, you seemed to feel that you must go and sit there at that center, under the direction of others and limited apparently by their decisions. If there were things that the Father would have had you do, why didn't you go about doing them--without regard to what others were doing? And if your attention had been directed Godward, you surely would have been so occupied with splendid constructive thoughts and work that you wouldn't even have noticed what the others were doing. You were bound in personal consciousness and sensitiveness (subconsciously perhaps), and this made you feel disturbed at what you believed the others' attitude toward you to be. With your mind cluttered up with conflicting beliefs and feelings, you were not in shape to handle the work the Father would have brought to you.
Remember and be encouraged, dear, that when we began to awaken and to feel the urge to minister, there was no such thing as a Unity center, not even friends who saw things as we did. We did come in touch with a few, and were together in a class. But we all had to branch out and start using what we got in our own way, meeting whatever need presented itself. It was the thing that shone in our face and the results we got through our prayers that drew others to us. And we hadn't time to think much about what success we were having, there was so much to be done for the family, and our own eager study of whatever words of Truth we could find or hear kept us busy. We were not thinking of the approval of others or how they regarded
us. And not depending on any gathering or other folks' cooperation, we were perfectly free to do whatever work the Father brought. We didn't ask for work; it just came right to our home. Someone would hear through another that we had something good and would come.
Turn away from all these conflicting and confusing and discouraging thoughts and appearances, and give your interest and undivided attention to God. You remember little Samuel, don't you? He had gone into the temple, and was ever hovering about to do whatever might be given him to do. One night he was aroused and thought he heard Eli the priest, calling him. He ran to Eli, but discovered that Eli hadn't called him, and he became quiet again. Again he heard the voice; and Eli then explained to him that it might be Jehovah, and told him to speak to Jehovah--and the revelation of Spirit came. Read the account in 1 Samuel, the third chapter. You will notice that there is special mention of "both the ears" of everyone that hears the doing of Jehovah! Let us consider your problem in the light of little Samuel's experience. You have given yourself to service at the temple. You have been responding to the dictation of others. At last there is evidence that the Lord is endeavoring to speak to you. You don't get the message by going first to one and then to another of your associates, or even by coming to us. You must talk with Jehovah (your own Lord God, in the midst of you). And when you know what it is Jehovah is saying to you, don't be afraid to do it! Samuel heard things that seemed to be uncomplimentary to the priest
Eli and his sons, and he feared to tell them. But Eli came to Samuel to know what had been prophesied. Eli was a priest and supposedly the law giver, but prejudice and ambition came in and interfered with his service. But even in the midst of this there was Samuel (which means "name of God"), bringing the soul into conscious communion with God so that the spiritual prophecy might be given and the way of deliverance from further bondage made clear.
When we do our best and continue to look to God for our light, and ability, and opportunities for expression and service, the divine law works out our problems and we have more grace and glory than we had anticipated.
Those who meet the public are supposed to be poised and well-rounded in their spiritual development, and so filled with love and joy and health and consciousness of supply that they fairly radiate it to all who come near--not starved for kindness and understanding and love and encouragement! Those who need help themselves don't belong in work where they are continually faced with the problems of others. They should get into something that they have wanted to do and that will tend to unfold their own faculties and powers in such a way as to prove that they are ready for the larger field of service. So long as you are so disturbed by what others do or fail to do, you are hardly abiding in the Christ consciousness, from which you should work in the spiritual ministry.
No, there is no lack of cooperation among students so long as they keep in the Truth consciousness. But the adverse beliefs of the ages will come up to be handled. The closer we are associated the more we invite from one another the shortcomings that exist in us and that must be brought to the surface, recognized, and made to measure up to the Christ standard. The advantage of groups of Truth students being so closely associated is that they form the habit of constantly reminding one another of the unfailing law and unchanging Principle. Truth students who are loyal to Christ are not given to smoothing things over, or making excuses for the error beliefs or the cries of the human self as it must relinquish its prejudices. In Christ we learn to brace ourselves for the shocks that the uprooting process sometimes causes, if not to welcome the experiences that show us how we stand. We learn to be less concerned with what others are doing and more concerned with our attitude toward their doings. We are less eager to impress folks and more determined to have something worth their heeding before we offer it. We are willing to still the eager but often mistaken intellectual offerings, that the Christ word may fill our hearts and quicken our senses and establish its order in the earth.
Dear one, you are becoming consciously established in the poise of the Christ Mind, where you are constantly open and receptive to new ideas, new inspiration, new vitality. Spirit always comes forth to meet the needs, whatever they may be. You are putting the
personal self aside in order that the capacity of the Christ I Am may be demonstrated.
You are growing so at one with universal Mind that you speak from the consciousness of your divine self, which knows intuitively what to say to help each one of those dear seekers after Truth who comes to you for aid in reading the divine law. In the one all-knowing Mind we all live, move, and have our being. You are open, receptive, and obedient to the inner leading, and thus are a free avenue through which the Father reaches His children with His message of Truth.
All of us "with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another" (2 Cor. 3:18). My! how radiant and beautiful we are all becoming!
The success of teachers and healers and leaders lies in their being able and willing to bear witness to the Christ ideas active in the consciousness of those whom the Father draws to them, and not in their telling what they personally can do or have done. All of us more or less give way to this habit of introducing personal ways and opinions and desires into our work. We are praying and knowing that all that does not measure up to the Christ method of living and teaching is falling away from us, that we may do the perfect will of the Father.
