Tag : POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON

21Jun

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – God Is With You As Your Life Detours

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - God Is With You As Your Life Detours

Time Sensitivity: none

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

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“It is the Lord your God who goes with you.”
Deuteronomy 31:6

There is always a hidden curriculum in daily life.

There are highway signs on some of the roads in Alaska – unusual signs that you do not see in other places.

When it’s warmer in Alaska, it often rains and when you’re driving down the dirt roads, the wheels make ruts. Then, it gets colder. There’s a sign along the highway that says: CHOOSE YOUR RUT VERY CAREFULLY BECAUSE YOU’LL BE IN IT FOR THE NEXT 50 MILES. Life is a lot like this – how we choose our rut, and how long we decide to be in that rut and not go anywhere else.

There are so many people you know who get one particular idea in their minds and they refuse to change their minds.

Even if something better comes along somewhere, sometime, they can’t make a change because they’ve already made a FIRM decision.

There are so many side trips that will come to you on your road of life. I venture to say that if I were to talk to each one of you this morning, you would say that some of the greatest things that ever happened to you, (if not all the great things that have ever happened to you), have been side trips, or things you didn’t expect to happen.

You were on your way somewhere else, and something happened. When it happened, it was a shock to you because you had a certain place you wanted to go, and you were sure of it. Then someone came up to you and made you an offer, or someone came up and gave you something (perhaps an idea) and you found a whole new higher life.

You found out that it wasn’t the original trip you were on that was important, but it was something else.

You found serendipity in your life.

I would like to share a story with you from the Bible. This is the story of Saul (from I Samuel, chapters 9 and 10).

As I read, try to think of yourself and your own situation, and how you dealt with it, and perhaps how you’ll deal with it in the future.

“There was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish son of Abiel … a Benjaminite, a man of wealth. He had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. There was not a man among the people of Israel more handsome than he; he stood head and shoulders above everyone else.

“Now the donkeys of Kish, Saul’s donkeys had strayed, so Kish said to his son Saul, ‘Take one of the boys with you; go and look for the donkeys.'”

You’ve been asked to do mundane tasks like that before, and so have I. Think about yourself and all those ordinary monotonous things of life. You have one particular journey and how boring that journey is.

“He passed through the hill country of Ephraim … [and he passed through many other lands, including the land of Benjamin; that was a long way] but they did not find them [the donkeys]. When they came to the land of Zuph, Saul said to the boy who was with him, ‘Let us turn back, or my father will stop worrying about the donkeys and worry about us.'”

This is an interesting point. In our journey, (and we’re all on a journey in this life), we all have the option to turn back, to give up, to decide we really don’t like the trip and not go this particular direction. Listen to what the boy said: “But he said to him, ‘There is a man of God in this town; he is a man held in honor. Whatever he says always comes true. Let us go there now; perhaps he will tell us about the journey on which we have set out.’

“Then Saul replied to the boy, ‘But if we go, what can we bring the man? For the bread in our sacks is gone, and there is no present to bring to the man of God. What do we have?’

“The boy answered Saul again, ‘Here, I have with me a quarter of shekel of silver; I will give it to the man of God, to tell us our way.’

“Saul said to the boy, ‘Good; come, let us go.’ So they went to the town where the man of God was.”

They were willing to pay the price. There is always a price to life on our journey, and it’s not really monetary.

Are we willing to pay the price in consciousness? Are we willing, if we want our life to be better, to pay the price to do whatever needs to be done?

“As they went up the hill to the town, they met some girls coming out to draw water, and said to them, ‘Is the seer here?'”

“They answered, ‘Yes, there he is just ahead of you. Hurry: he has come just now to the town because the people have a sacrifice today at the shrine. As soon as you enter the town, you will find him, before he goes up to the shrine to eat. For the people will not eat until he comes, since he must bless the sacrifice; afterward those eat who are invited Now go up, for you will meet him immediately.’

“So, they went up to the town. As they were entering the town, they saw Samuel coming out toward them on his way to the shrine.

“Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel: ‘Tomorrow about this time I will send you a man from the land of Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be ruler over my people Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines; for I have seen the suffering of my people, because their outcry has come to me.’

“When Samuel saw Saul, the Lord told him, ‘Here is the man of whom I spoke to you. He it is who shall rule over my people.’

“Then Saul approached Samuel inside the gate, and said, ‘Tell me, please, where is the house of the seer?’

“Samuel answered Saul, ‘I am the seer; go up before me to the shrine … ‘”

There are many places in the Bible where you will read about going up. This means going up in your spiritual awareness.

” … For today you shall eat with me, and in the morning, I will let you go and will tell you all that is on your mind. As for your donkeys that were lost three days ago, give no further thought to them, for they have been found. And on whom is all Israel’s desire fixed, if not on you and on all your ancestral house?”

Let’s imagine if Saul said, “Oh, I can’t go to the temple and eat with you. See, I’m looking for donkeys. I have my mind fixed on that. I’m in a preprogrammed mode. Even though you appear to be giving me good right now, I just can’t accept it because I have my original goal and I cannot accept this good coming to me.

“I’m like a horse with blinders on, and I cannot look to the side even though I might see good or might see God’s will of good for me. I have my own human will, and I’m going to continue on because I have picked my rut.

I’m going to walk in it even though it is muddy, boring, and mundane and I don’t like it. What you’re offering me seems exciting, but after all, it is change. I’d better not do this right now. I’d better stick to my agenda.”

We may have said similar things many times in our lives.

“Saul answered, ‘I am only a Benjaminite, from the least of the tribes of Israel, and my family is the humblest of all the families of the tribe of Benjamin. Why then have you spoken to me in this way?’

“Then Samuel took Saul and his servant boy and brought them into the hall and gave them a place at the head of those who had been invited, of whom there were about thirty. And Samuel said to the cook, ‘Bring the portion I gave you, the one I asked you to put aside.’ The cook took up the thigh and what went with it and set them before Saul. Samuel said, ‘See, what was kept is set before you. Eat; for it is set before you at the appointed

time, so that you might eat with the guests.’

“So, Saul ate with Samuel that day. When they came down from the shrine into the town, a bed was spread for Saul on the roof, and he lay down to sleep. Then at the break of dawn Samuel called to Saul upon the roof ‘Get up, so that I may send you on your way.’

“Saul got up, and both he and Samuel went out into the street.”

Remember, Saul became the first king of Israel. Spiritually, Saul means the action of the will in attaining what it desires. Samuel was the last prophet and judge before Israel had a king. Samuel means a high level of consciousness in constant contact with God.

What is this mean spiritually inside to you? It is where you are taking the action step. True action for a Divine life is not necessarily empowering yourself to get the donkeys. So often we think we’re alone and we have to do everything; we have the weight of the world on our backs, and we trudge along even though life is a lot less than a heaven on earth. We feel we have to think only about getting the donkey’s back.

If I will listen to my guidance from God, if I will be open, I might have a wonderful message come to me that says, “Don’t worry about the donkeys. There is something else here that is much higher than just your lower human nature, animal nature. There is a mission that I have for you. It’s been around you all along. If you only open your eyes to the serendipity of it, you will find it and it will be a joy for you. But you have to be open to the side trips that will come in your journey.

“As they were going down to the outskirts of the town, Samuel said to Saul, ‘Tell the boy to go on before us, and when he has passed on, stop here yourself for a while, that I may make known to you the word of God.’

“Samuel took a vial of oil and poured it on his head, and kissed him; and said, ‘The Lord has anointed you ruler over his people Israel. You shall reign over the people of the Lord and you will save them from the hand of their enemies all around.’

Then he told him of the wonderful things that would occur on their way during their journey home. Remember, when you’re going with God, not only is the journey there fun, but the journey home is fun also. There are always new experiences for you.

Samuel told Saul that two men would be by Rachel’s tomb in the territory of Benjamin who will tell you that the donkeys are okay, and you don’t have to worry about them.

You still have that human mind in you, and you still cannot have a totally peaceful time because you are consumed with worry about the donkeys. Don’t worry about it; God has provided.

Samuel continued: “Then, by the oak of Tabor, you will see three men carrying three loaves of bread. They are going to give you two loaves of bread.” Remember, they were out of bread before. Now they have bread that will sustain them much longer than they need for the short journey they have to travel.

Samuel also told him: “You will also meet a band of prophets coming down from the shrine with a harp, a tambourine, a flute, and a lyre playing in front of them. They will be in a prophetic frenzy. Then the spirit of the Lord will possess you, and you will be in a prophetic frenzy along with them, and you will be turned into a different person.”

This is a wonderful story about the journey within the journey. We’re all on a journey. If we’re really listening to God, if we’re really believing that God can come in the moment, we’re going to have a prophetic frenzy come into our lives. It’s euphoria. We are going to give it the light touch. We’re going to know that we can hop out of the rut we have been in for so long, and we are going to feel good. In that moment, we will be turned into a different person. You are turned into a different person when you accept God’s light burdens instead of your human heavy ones.

Let’s talk about the action of the will. We rarely experience life if we are in bed with the covers pulled over our heads, or if we are sitting around just watching other people live their lives on television. We must act. We have to move, not just in a straight line, but from side-to-side, and sometimes backward, and sometimes we have to look up and down to see all the wonders God has for us.

In our lives, inside of our human minds, let’s decide today to move in the direction God urges us to go. Instead of buying into the ideas that are all-consuming in our lives (like the donkeys), let’s rest our ideas and see what else is on the journey, and see what good God has. Whenever we have our decisions made, our minds made up, our direction plotted, let us also keep our eyes open to something else.

There’s a wonderful book by author Marcus Bach called “The World of Serendipity”. It tells the story about legendary princes – the Princes of Serendip – who encountered experiences that seemed “chancy” and strange. In them they found amazing wonders of the world where the unexpected was more rewarding than the things they had hoped to find. The book says that the same thing is happening to us.

You may not have heard the word “serendipity” before. Here is a wonderful explanation of it from former Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardoso: Like many of the finest things in life, like happiness and tranquility and fame, the gain that is most precious is not the thing sought but one that comes of itself in search for something else.

Going to look for donkeys may be mundane, but it’s not necessarily bad, because it starts you on the journey you’re supposed to be on.

Let’s say that something bad happens to you and you have to face that journey. I want to share a true story with you about a young man from Michigan.

He was nineteen years old. He worked in a place that required hard, manual labor. From early morning until late at night he worked picking up heavy scrap pieces of iron.

One day this nineteen-year-old boy was working. To his dismay, a piece of heavy iron fell on his kneecap. He was in great pain. His company immediately told him he needed to have his knee x-rayed because the kneecap may be broken. He went to the doctor and had the x-ray taken. At the bottom of the x-ray the doctor wrote: “Kneecap okay; not broken.” The boy went back to work in a few days.

Listen to the rest of this story; listen to God’s power and what happened in this true story.

Another doctor at this same hospital was on his break one day. He got a cup of coffee and sat down at his desk and looked around for something to read. He couldn’t find a magazine, so he decided to test himself by reading x-rays. So, he looked at the pile of x-rays on his desk that were ready to be filed away. As he moved the pile, one of the x-rays fell out of the pile. He looked at it and he immediately saw that this x-ray definitely showed cancer of the bone. He looked at the bottom of the x-ray and saw what was written: “Kneecap okay; not broken.” He found this nineteen-year-old boy’s name and phone number and called him. He said, “I have bad news for you. You have cancer of the bone. Unless we operate immediately, you will lose your leg. This is serious. Unless we take immediate action, you could lose your life.”

So, the boy went in and had the operation which saved his life. He had a rich, full life.

Isn’t it funny, as if by chance, that these things occur to us? He would never have found that cancer if that piece of iron hadn’t fell on his kneecap. And then, by chance, the doctor happens to read an x-ray that is ready to be filed and discovers the problem.

We think that the things that come to us are not related at all. When something happens to us that is change (or chance) we think it interrupts us in our life journey. But perhaps there is something bringing us the highest message for our life that we could possibly have if we will listen.

There is a word discussed in this book that I love. It is an ancient word from the old Persian fairy tale called “apocatastasis.”

Do you know what that means? It means that if something occurs in your life today that looks like absolute disaster, good is going to come out of it. Look back on your own life. I’ve looked back on mine. Many of the things that have happened to me that I considered disastrous in the moment turned out to be the greatest things that have ever happened in my life – apocatastasis.

Thank God that it occurred. I would have stayed in my rut and would have never turned to into a different direction had that not occurred.

After today, I pray we will try to see beyond the immediate experience and know that every event is connected with something higher. I pray we will view events in a way that will create a personal destiny for ourselves that is as wonderful as anything we have ever read about.

Does life have any tricks up its sleeve? Yes, it does – in your favor. Emerson once said, “The dice of God is always loaded in your favor.” There are wonderful things that will occur if we are willing to see and catch the magic. If we are willing to extract these secrets from our lives, our lives will become higher and better than anything we have ever experienced.

I have one last point. There have been many times in my life when I have stayed in my rut and, with everything inside of me, I have plodded, and pushed, and pulled forward to get my goal. Do you know what? After extreme struggle I got it, it became the worst nightmare of my life. I immediately had another goal – to get rid of what I got.

Yet, if I am truly open in the examination of me, I am also aware of the many opportunities I had to get out of my rut. If I would have, I would have had the most blissful, most incredible experience of my life, but I was blind to it. I made the choice not to go in the Higher way.

So, instead of becoming the king of Israel, Saul could have said, “No, I don’t have time right now, but thanks anyway. I don’t have time to go to your feast. I don’t have time to be anointed. I don’t have time because I am on a journey for my father, and I love my father. I’m going to find his donkeys.”

When you’re looking for your “donkeys” of your life, and someone offers you something really fantastic, step back for a minute from your human mind and say, “Wait a minute; is something wonderful occurring in my life? Maybe I want to think about this. Maybe I want to choose to go in this Higher way.”

When you do, when you follow God, life becomes incredible.

Remember, my friends, we tend to resist learning about what we don’t already know. We need to expect the unexpected and become an explorer in our own lives.

There are three qualifications you need for your journey:

1. Great Expectations. You know you are probably going to meet most of your goals. Some of you will probably find another goal hidden within your original goal that is much better.

2. Great Sublimation. This is the ability to change, to modify, to transform–to turn lemons into lemonade.

3. Great Observations. Be aware. See the majesty and wonder of God coming into your life in the moment.

If you do, (and you will), life will be great.

May God bless you!

Prayer / Meditation________________________

The power of God is here. What a joy we have to experience God’s love in this time together.

We are poised today as we enter prayer.

We are patient and positive.

We use this time to remind ourselves of God’s power.

All things are working together for good [Romans 8:28]. We know that in everything God works for good for those who love God. Sometimes it takes great poise to recall this, especially when things seem so out of order, or when confusion seems to reign.

If everyone around you is upset and unhappy, you refuse to become negative.

You affirm silently with me: I am poised because I know that God is leading me to my highest good. I know that God is here bringing about that which is for the highest good of all.

Poise is balance – a combination of peace and power. We are poised. We feel the power of God with us, at work in us and through us.

Pray and accept God’s good in the silence of prayer …

Allow me to speak for you …

I am patient.

I am patient because I know that God is leading me to my highest good. I am patient because I know that God is leading others to their highest good also. I am patient because I know that God is at work and God cannot fail.

I am positive.

I know that God is leading me to my highest good. I align myself with the constructive side of things now during my prayer.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Let us think about poise and healing. True healing is balance in the body, balance in the mind, and balance in the emotions.

I affirm silently: I am poised. I know that God’s healing work is being done in me. Perfect balance is something I’m feeling right now.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Perfect balance and patience keep me peaceful in my mind and heart and help to free me from any worry or tension I might have carried into this day. I am positive. I know that God’s healing work is being done in me right now.

We are poised. We come from a position of strength in God. Therefore, we are not fearful. We are patient. We never doubt because we know in partnership with God our good is on its way. We remain positive. We place our faith in the one true source of all – God. We know that God provides for our every need.

We have this outlook now. It is in our mind; it is in our body; it is in our thought. Good gravitates toward us. In the face of limitation, we are positive that supply is available. In the face of delays, we are patient and trusting. In the face of change, we are poised and serene. We know that all things coming into our lives are working together for good.

Poised, patient, positive. Our lives are blessed. We meet each day more convinced than ever that God is with us and with those for whom we pray to guide, heal, and prosper.

Through the power of the spoken word, I decree for you: God is bringing only good into your life and circumstances. You are poised, patient, and positive.

Rest for a moment in the silence of prayer …

God is bringing good into my life and the circumstances of my life. I welcome God.

I am poised. I am patient. I am positive.

This is the truth now about me …

In Jesus Christ’s name I so affirm.

Amen.

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13Jun

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Father’s Day

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Father's Day

(GOOD FATHER”S DAY MUSIC BELOW)

Time Sensitivity: Sunday before or on Father’s Day

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

_____________________________________

Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.” Deuteronomy 1:29-31

When God’s love comes through a man it is a beautiful spiritual thing to witness.

As Gandhi stepped aboard a train one day, one of his shoes slipped off and landed on the track. He was unable to retrieve it as the train was moving. To the amazement of his companions, Gandhi calmly took off his other shoe and threw it back along the track to land close to the first. Asked by a fellow passenger why he did so, Gandhi smiled. “The poor man who finds the shoe lying on the track,” he replied, “will now have a pair he can use.”

Do you remember when you were little and you would go into the living room or wherever dad took off his shoes, and put your small feet in his big shoes and tried to walk around in his shoes? You looked down and saw those huge shoes and thought, “These are the biggest shoes in the world. How would I ever fill these shoes?” Over time, you grew into those shoes. In fact, you might even have grown past these shoes.

Being a father is one of the greatest things in the world.

William Wordsworth once said this: “The best portion of a good man’s life – his little, nameless, unremembered act of kindness and of love.”

I would like to share a story with you that Dan Clark shares about his father. I’m sure his father thought, at the time, that his son would never remember this, but years later, long after his father passed away, Dan Clark wrote this story about something that he felt personified his dad.

“Once when I was a teenager, my father and I were standing in line to buy tickets for the circus. Finally, there was only one family between us and the ticket counter. This family made a big impression on me. There were eight children, all probably under the age of 12. You could tell they didn’t have a lot of money. Their clothes were not expensive, but they were clean. The children were well-behaved, all of them standing in line, two-by-two behind their parents, holding hands. They were excitedly jabbering about the clowns, elephants, and other acts they would see that night. One could sense they had never been to the circus before. It promised to be a highlight of their young lives. The father and mother were at the head of the pack standing proud as could be. The mother was holding her husband’s hand, looking up at him as if to say, ‘You’re my knight in shining armor.’ He was smiling and basking in pride.

“The ticket collector asked the father how many tickets he wanted. He proudly responded, ‘Please let me buy eight children’s tickets and two adult tickets so I can take my family to the circus.’ The ticket lady quoted the price. The man’s wife let go of his hand; her head dropped; the man’s lip began to quiver. The father leaned a little closer and asked, ‘How much did you say?’ The ticket lady again quoted the price.

“How was he supposed to turn and tell his eight kids that he didn’t have enough money to take them to the circus? Seeing what was going on, my dad put his hand into his pocket, pulled out a $20 bill and dropped it on the ground. (We were not wealthy in any sense of the word!) My father reached down, picked up the bill, tapped the man on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, sir, this fell out of your pocket.’

“The man knew what was going on. He wasn’t begging for a handout but certainly appreciated the help in a desperate, heartbreaking, embarrassing situation. He looked straight into my dad’s eyes, took my dad’s hand in both of his, squeezed tightly onto the $20 bill, and with his lip quivering and a tear streaming down his cheek, he replied, ‘Thank you, thank you, sir. This really means a lot to me and my family.’

“My father and I went back to our car and drove home. We didn’t go to the circus that night, but we didn’t go without.”

His father could have gone to the circus that night. It would have been an ordinary night. But he showed his son an extraordinary example of masculine love. It’s the little things that children remember.

Fathers have a great responsibility to show their unique love to children. They do this in many ways. Children need to be supported in many ways not only financially, but also by giving love, hugs, and kisses. A great father also invests time by hugging, kissing and spending whatever time it takes with their children. There is no job more important than our kids.

We all have so much to give. And we don’t want to contain it in an enclosed circle. We are here to serve. There are a lot of little boys and girls in the world who need love. They need the special, unique masculine love that only men can give.

To do this, first you have to be willing. This isn’t limited with age. You can be grandpa or you can be dad. It doesn’t matter at all what your age is because the ageless love of the Christ comes through.

I want to share a story with you about a little boy named Chase. This story was shared by Mark Victor Hanson and Jack Canfield. They tell a story about how a father figure can make a major difference in a life.

There are so many families who are separated. Many of these families do not have father figures. There are children everywhere that need positive masculine influence; there is a need for armies of fathers who are willing to take the place of someone who is not there. This is one such story.

“There was a definite quiver in Chase’s lower lip as he followed his mother down the long, descending sidewalk to the parking lot at the orthodontist’s office. This was going to be the worst summer of any that the 11-year-old boy had known. The doctor had been kind and gentle with him, but the time had come for him to face the reality that he would be fitted with braces to correct a misalignment of his teeth. The correction would hurt, he couldn’t eat hard or chewy foods, and he thought he would be made fun of by his friends.

“No words passed between the mother and son as they drove back to the small country home. It was only a few acres, but it was a sanctuary for one dog, two cats, a rabbit and a multitude of squirrels and birds.

“The decision to have Chase’s teeth corrected had been a difficult one for his mother, Cindy. Having been divorced for five years, she was the sole provider for her young son. Little by little, she had saved up the $1,500 required to have the teeth corrected.

“Then one sunny afternoon, the person she cared for the most, Chase, fell in love. Chase and his mother had gone to visit the Rakers, who were old family friends, at their farm about 50 miles away. Mr. Raker took them out to the barn and there she was. She held her head high as the trio approached. Her light mane and tail rippled on a gentle breeze. Her name was Lady, and she was everything a beautiful mare should be. She was saddled, and Chase had his first taste of horsemanship. There was an instant attraction, which seemed to be mutual.

“‘She is for sale, if you want to buy her,’ Mr. Raker had told Cindy. “For $1,500 you get the mare, all the papers on her and the horse trailer to haul her.” For Cindy, it was a big decision. The $1,500 she had saved would fix Chase’s teeth or buy Lady for Chase, but it wouldn’t do both. Finally, she determined that getting the braces was the best long-term decision for Chase. It was a tearful decision for both mother and son. But Cindy promised to take Chase to the Raker farm to see Lady and ride her as often as they could.

“Chase reluctantly began his long course of treatment. With little courage and a low tolerance for pain, Chase submitted himself for the impressions, fittings and never-ending tightening of the expanders. He gagged, cried, and pleaded, but the orthodontic correction went ahead. The only shining moments of Chase’s life that summer came when his mother took him to ride Lady. There, he was free. Horse and rider would go galloping into the big pasture and into a world that knew no pain or suffering. There was only the steady rhythm of the horse’s hooves on the sod and the wind in his face. Riding Lady, Chase could be John Wayne, ‘Tall in the saddle,’ or one of the knights of old, off to rescue the fair maiden in distress, or anything his imagination let him be. At the end of his long rides, Chase and Mr. Raker would rub down Lady, clean her stall and feed her, and Chase would always give his new friend lumps of sugar. Cindy and Mrs. Raker spent their afternoons together making cookies and lemonade and watching Chase ride his new best friend.

“The good-byes between Chase and the mare lasted as long as Cindy would permit. Chase would hold the horse’s head in his hand, and then rub her strong shoulders and comb his fingers through her mane. The gentle animal seemed to understand the affection given to her and would stand patiently, now and then nipping at his shirt sleeve. Each time they left the Raker farm, Chase feared that this might be his last look at the mare. Lady was, after all, for sale, and the market was good for that quality of riding stock.

“The summer wore on with repeated tightening of the expander in Chase’s mouth. All of the discomfort would be worth it because this would make room for his yet undescended teeth to come in, he was told. Still, there was the agony of food particles trapped by the appliance, and that ever-constant pain of his facial bones stretching. All of the $1,500 would soon be used up on his dental work, and nothing would remain with which to purchase the mare he loved so much. Chase asked his mom countless questions, hoping for an answer that would eventually satisfy him. Could they borrow the money to buy the mare? Would grandpa help them buy her? Could he get a job and save his money to buy the horse? His mother fielded the questions as best she could. When all else failed, she would quietly slip away to shed her own tears, that she could not provide for all the wants of her only child.

“A crisp September morning brought the opening of school, which also brought the big yellow school bus to the end of the lane at Chase’s home. The schoolchildren took turns recounting the things they did during summer vacation. When his turn came, Chase talked about other subjects, but he never mentioned the golden-colored mare named Lady. The last chapter in that story had not yet been written, and he was afraid of how it would end. The battle with the stretching appliance in his mouth had been won, and the less obtrusive retainer had taken its place.

“With eager anticipation, Chase looked forward to the third Saturday, when his mother had promised to take him to the Rakers’ to ride Lady. Chase was up early on the appointed day. He fed his rabbits, dogs and cats, and even found time to rake leaves in the back yard. Before Chase and his mother left the house, he filled his jacket pocket with sugar cubes for the golden-maned mare that he knew would be waiting for him. To Chase, it seemed an eternity before his mother turned the car off the main road and down the lane to the Raker farm. Anxiously, Chase strained his eyes for a glimpse of the mare that he loved so much. As they drew closer to the farmhouse and barns, he looked, but Lady was nowhere to be seen. Chase’s pulse pounded as he looked expectantly for the horse trailer. It was not there. Both the trailer and horse were gone. His worst nightmare had become a reality. Someone had surely bought the horse, and he would never see her again.

“Chase began to feel an emptiness in the pit of his stomach that he had never known before. They got out of the car and ran up to the front door of the house. No one answered the doorbell. Only the big collie, Daisy, was there with tail wagging to greet them. While his mother sadly looked on, Chase ran to the barn where the mare had been kept. Her stall was empty, and the saddle and blanket were also gone. With tears streaming down his cheeks, Chase returned to the car and got in. ‘I didn’t even get to say good-bye, Mom,’ he whimpered.

“On the drive back home, both Cindy and Chase sat quietly with their own thoughts. The wound of losing his friend would be slow to heal, and Chase only hoped that the mare would find a good home with someone to love and take care of her. She would be in his prayers, and he would never forget their carefree times together. Chase’s head was bowed and his eyes closed as Cindy pulled into the driveway of the home. He did not see the red, shiny horse trailer by their barn, or Mr. Raker standing beside his blue pick-up truck. When Chase finally looked up, their car had stopped and Mr. Raker was opening Chase’s door. ‘How much money have you saved up, Chase?’ he asked.

“This could not be real. Chase rubbed his eyes in disbelief. ‘Seventeen dollars,’ he answered in a halting voice.

“‘That’s just what I wanted for this mare and trailer,’ said a smiling Mr. Raker. The transaction that followed would have rivaled any on record for speed and brevity. In only moments, the new, proud owner was climbing in the saddle, astride his beloved mare. Horse and rider were soon out of sight around the barn, headed for the open pasture beyond.

“Mr. Raker never explained his actions, other than to say, ‘This is the best I have felt in years.'”

Let us pray:

Dear God, there are many fathers here. Empower us* (*or them) with the actions of the perfection of Christ. Empower us with patience and love. Help us to give love to our own children – to go way beyond human love, and to consent to Your love coming through us so our actions will help now and will be remembered tomorrow. Help us to do many small acts of kindness so we can prepare for the big acts of kindness when the opportunity arises. We pray that we can be a blessing to every child who crosses our path, and we can be an example of fatherhood.

In Jesus Christ’s name, we now accept this blessing of the Christ in and through our minds, our bodies, and our souls … Amen.

PRAYER / MEDITATION__________________________________________

Let us Pray:

The word of God is a word that speaks positively to you. It is a word that allows you to be regenerated, made new, in mind and in body.

Galatians 3:27 says, “I put on the Christ.” With me, now, put on these thoughts of Christ mind: I accept the fact that I am a child of God. I am the living offspring of the living love of God. I am love. I am wisdom.

Your human mind is connected, fused, with Divine mind. You think with crystal clarity. You think with the foundation of Divine ideas.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

I am in Divine order in mind, body, and all the situations in my life. I decree, in Jesus Christ’s name, that there is Divine order in my life. There is an order of thoughts in my mind. There is a Divine order of functioning in my body. There is a natural order, a progression of good, in my life, under the direction of God.

Knowing my connection to God, I decree: I am one with the life of God. There is new life in my body temple; new dreams and motivations; new things to get up for in the morning and to keep on going. Blessed by God, I am in full life, and full life is in me.

I decree that I am one with the health of God. There is perfect health in every organ of my body temple; God health, regenerated, new, ever-cleansing, ever-fresh lives within me.

I am one with the grace of God. The grace of God seems to meet me wherever I go. The love of God is infilling my life and affairs. I am in grace. I attract grace to every circumstance in my life. The grace of God is with me.

I am one with the harmony of God. I have peace of mind and well-being.

Accept these thoughts now.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

I am one with the peace of God. I am one with faith of God. I am one with the spiritual consciousness of God’s inexhaustible riches. I am one with the light of God. I am one with the love of God. The love of God is not something for which I have to struggle. It comes to me and through me automatically. I am empowered because I am empowered by the purified love of God.

I decree that any person who comes in contact with me comes in contact with God’s love. All nervousness, anger, or hostility are cast out. They are not needed. The love of God has no room for these, and I have no room for these in my spiritual consciousness. I consent NOW to the pure love of God.

In my body, I am strength. I feel the renewed power of God as I decree: I am strength. I am freedom. I am power. I accept God’s blessings. I put on the Christ in every thought and cell of my being. I am success. The Christ is not a failure. The Christ always succeeds in all situations, and I succeed in full partnership with God.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

I am purity. I am pure from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet, and I am pure in mind. The Christ cleanses me through and through. Wholeness is my nature.

I am the word. I speak to myself and it shall be done unto me. I make these spiritual statements faithfully, and I meditate on each word until the inner meaning unfolds in my consciousness. I am unified with the word of God, and I know that I become part of the very substance of that word.

I am joy. This room is filled with the joy of God from the innermost being of each of us. We broadcast this out to touch those around us. This room becomes the living joy of the living God.

I am satisfaction. There is nothing in me that is not satisfied. In this moment of time, connected with God, connected with all I have ever wanted or all I will ever want, I feel satisfaction.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Dear God, I have come to this moment in my life prepared to live fully. I am prepared to stop wanting and coming to the point of being. I allow this to happen through me. I consent to these things to be the best I can be by allowing You to be in and through me.

Thank You, God. And I thank myself for allowing the ego to step aside and allowing the fullness of life to come through.

In Jesus Christ’s name we pray … Amen.

Additional Bible Quotes:
A father of the fatherless … . (Psalm 68:5)
The father of a righteous child has great joy; he who has a wise child delights in them.(Proverbs 23:24)
Train a child in the way he should go, and when they are old they will not turn from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

GOOD FATHER”S DAY MUSIC CHOICES:

I start with my personal favorite, it is very powerful in a church setting, have your soloist, or men’s group to learn and sing – “Color Him Father” (1969) The Winstons. The D.C.-based group sold over a million copies of this song and it was certified gold. The son recounts the consistent way the father provides for the family and shows love and respect to his mother. As the song continues, it’s revealed that the man is actually his stepfather who selflessly married a widow with seven children. As a result the stepson colors him “love.”

“I’m A Daddy” (2004) Derrick Hall & Co. The singer extols the joys of family life. Fatherhood is celebrated. Hall sings about his wedding ring and says he’s “legit”.

“There is a King in You” (2009) Donald Lawrence and Company. The song is very fitting and serves to remind fathers who they are. It also demonstrates that fathers should sow positive words into their sons and daughters. Words that call out greatness and build self-esteem.

“Never Would Have Made It” (2008) Marvin Sapp. This song was written by Sapp when he lost his father. Although his earthly father was gone, Sapp was able to identify that God carried him through his pain and he never would have made it without the Master’s touch and he is stronger in spite of his sorrow.

Still My Father (2008) Bryan Wilson. The song describes the hurt and pain endured by the absence of a father. As the son matures and becomes a dad, he understands God was always there for him. He is able to release the hurt he felt. Coming full circle with God’s love, he is able to say, “Even though he wasn’t there, I still care.”

Great is thy Faithfulness (2004) Sandi Patty. This 1923 song has been recorded by several artists and is sung in churches across the nation. It is a song of adoration to the Heavenly Father. Very appropriate for those without an earthly father or with a strained relationship. The song says, “Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not.”

Patches (1970) Clarence Carter. While the story is set in rural Alabama, it could be any city or town where a family struggles to survive on a meager income. After his father dies, a young boy is left with the huge responsibility of being “man of the house.” Although it’s difficult, he recalls his father’s words, “Patches, I’m depending on you son, to pull the family through.”

Daddy, Don’t Cry (1989) Elvis Presley. The song recounts the struggles of a single father. The circumstances are unclear. Perhaps she died or she abandoned them. His sadness and uncertainty is conveyed in the lyrics. However, his spirits are lifted by his children who encourage him to carry on.

Dance with my Father (2003) Luther Vandross. Many girls view their father as their ultimate hero. This song is played at many weddings during the Father and Bride dance. Vandross sums up the feeling of nostalgia in this beautiful song as the child longs for the chance to be lifted up in the arms of a loving father once again.

Father and Friend (2007) Alain Clark. The video for this song by Clark, a Dutch musician and producer, is uplifting and celebratory. The son celebrates his father for being a role model and teacher. The father replies that his son has made him a better man. The song reaches its peak as father and son engage in a songfest of mutual love, respect admiration.

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God bless you dear friend and happy Father’s Day,
Chris Chenoweth
Positive Christianity Ministries
Box 7993, Woodlands, TX 77387

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07Jun

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – God’s Success Through You!

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - God’s Success Through You!

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

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In all circumstances, you are comforted and reassured by the tender, loving presence of God. God’s love for you is unfailing and eternal; nothing can separate you from the love of God.

A man went into a tailor shop to buy a new suit. The tailor thought, “Aha! I’ve got an easy mark here! I’ve got a suit in the back room I’ve been wanting to get rid of for a long time.” He went back, got the suit, and asked the man to try it on.

The man put it on, looked at himself in the mirror and said, “I like the suit, but it hangs down a little too far.”

The tailor said, “That’s no problem. What you do is you scoot it up like this and put your chin over here.”

The man said, “Well, there’s another problem. One of the pant legs is about three inches shorter than the other.”

The tailor said, “That’s no problem. Just pull it up here and put your knees together.”

The man looked in the mirror and said, “Wow! What a great looking suit.” He bought the suit, walked out and headed down the road.

People said of the man, “What a great looking suit, but what a shame he has so many physical difficulties.”

That is the way it is with many of us. We may think we are fooling people. We may think we are dressing up. We think we’re putting on a show, but there is no way, not really, we can hide our challenges.

As Emerson said, “What we are speaks so loudly that others can hardly hear our words.”

Sometimes, our past failures affect us at the core of our being. We don’t know how to go forward. We use the power of the mind in the wrong way. We give over all of our God-given gifts of mind to human pessimism. We might say to ourselves, “Oh well, I’ve done that before. I didn’t have any success at it, and I would never ever do that again. I’m too smart for that.”

Helen Keller had every reason in the world to be a pessimist. Deaf and blind from infancy, Helen Keller played a leading role in most of the significant political, social, and cultural movements of the 20th century. Throughout her lifetime (1880-1968) she worked unceasingly to improve the lives of people who were blind and deaf. Helen’s own approach to life can be summed up by her advice to a five-year-old blind child in 1932: “Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the face.” Here’s what she said about pessimism: “No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened the new heaven to the human spirit.”

Today, we are asking God’s blessing for successful living. This is not a generic teaching. This is a success truth about God working in our lives, giving us new success.

I’m going to give you a definition of success that may somewhat surprise you: Success may elude you because you haven’t failed enough. People who are willing to risk failure and learn from the loss have the best chance at succeeding. The people who are a success today, if you were to read their whole story, you would find that they failed, time and time again, and that they were able to make course corrections and then go forward into their success. Failure sometimes humbles us enough to ask God for help, leading us to our greatest lifelong success.

Failure is merely the cost of succeeding. It is the cost of seeking new challenges in our lives. I’m going to give you ten steps to overcome the failure you have had in your life. I am talking to you directly on this. You know we have all had failures, because we are alive. We are in this church because we have overcome that failure. We are breathing in and out, we are thinking positively again, we are holding on to God, and we are here for a reason, seeking God’s blessing, because we do not want to remain the same, not even the same as yesterday. We want to become new, and better than yesterday.

There are steps to climb over that hill of past failure. Sometimes, even though we continue to breathe, we remain in consciousness of that failure from the past.

We must stop using the word failure. In my study of people over the years, I have found that successful people never talk about their failures. They say, “Well, I had a glitch back then … ” or “I had a bump in the road back then … ” Now, these glitches, these bumps in the road, might have destroyed an ordinary man or woman, but they had something else. They had a drive that said, “You know, I’ve got the power with me and within me from God. I’m going to go on. I’m going to make something out of myself.” And they do. Anybody who had that ingrained in the very fiber of their belief system can go on and become all that they want to become.

I want to tell you the story of the man you saw on TV years ago in countless commercials, holding up the Remington shaver, saying, “I like this so much I bought the company.” Well, here is what you don’t know about him. Forty-six years ago, Victor Kiam had a friend come to him with an idea. Victor wavered on the idea. He didn’t know if he really had it in him to take the idea, run with it, and make it a big success. So, he told his friend to find someone else. That new product that Victor turned down was Velcro. It has become a billion dollar industry – bigger than Remington.

In his book “Live To Win”, Victor said, “I just look at that as another bump on the road.” But he also said, “If I would have allowed it, it would have destroyed me and my life. I had a choice. I had to make that choice. I realized this for several weeks, even months. I allowed it to depress me deeply. I couldn’t even get out of bed. Then I decided to use the wisdom from that to make a course correction in my life. I decided to look at it seriously, and ask myself the question, ‘Why?'” you ask this question, not as a victim, but instead as a person that is truly ready for self-examination. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.

Number #1. Have confidence in yourself. Next time – and friends there is always a next time – have the confidence to take the action that you need at the given time. When Remington came along, Victor had the confidence to buy the company and make it a success. If you want to stand out, don’t be different; be outstanding.

Number #2. Don’t take failure personally.

This is probably the most important step of all because we usually do take failure personally. One person had a failure in his life and he said, “Well, that’s it. I’m a loser. I’m just no good. I’ve had this failure and, if the truth were known, I’ve had 16,000 failures, one after another, after another. I’m just a loser. I’ll never be anything but a loser.”

A loser connected to a winner can be a loser for long. That’s precisely the time to reconnect with the ultimate winner – God.

Do not take failure in a personal way. For instance, if you are unemployed, do you think about it all the time? Do you think that because you went out to look for a job, today, without success, that you will never find a job? Do you label yourself as unemployed? What you call yourself will become a powerful reality in your life. I like to share with people that they are people with lots of open options, lots of ways to go. Always, God, has an open door for you waiting for you to find, and accept its new way.

Isaiah 60:11 states, “Your gates shall be open continually … they shall not be shut.”

New doors of opportunity are always open – a door somewhere is always opening. God is holding the door for you.

Ask yourself every day: “What if I had to buy my thoughts?” Imagine if we had to actually go down to the convenience store, reach into our pocket and say, “Well, I’ll take a little worry, about sixty-five cents of depression, and I would like to have $1.30 of crippling anxiety.”

We wouldn’t do that; you know we wouldn’t. We would go in there and ask for the good stuff. We would decide to do that, even if the thoughts were very cheap, because we were actually making the purchase.

Well, we are making the purchase. Every day, we go to the “convenience mind” inside of us, and we decide what we’re going to purchase and what we’re not going to purchase. My goodness, thoughts can become very, very expensive. Our attitude towards life determines life’s attitude towards us.

Once, when he was a little boy, the famous American Ben Franklin had a birthday party. His family and friends gave him six pennies. Well, the pennies just burned a hole in his pocket. He had to go and spend the pennies, so he went to the store and saw a toy whistle. Of course, the clerk sold it to him for the six pennies – much more than it was worth. He went home and made so much noise with his toy whistle that he drove everyone crazy. His parents, friends, and family asked what he paid for the toy whistle. He said, “I paid six pennies.”

They said, “You paid four times too much!”

As a little boy, that changed his life. Through that course correction, he remembered that lesson all through his days. Even into his old age, when men and women were spouting different philosophies and talking about anxiety and fear, Ben Franklin would say of them, “They paid too much for their whistle.”

I have a question to ask you: What is the one thing you want to achieve?

Now, I have a second question for you: What has been your greatest disappointment, or discouragement toward that goal?

Now I have a truth for you. You are not that discouragement. Even if you were, even if it was totally your fault, you are brand new, today. Every day, you are new. It is part of the Grace of God that we do not have to remain the same. We become better human beings because we become better receivers of God. That is true of everyone; it is especially true of you who are sitting in this room.

Number #3. Use your defects. You say, “I am just laden with defects. This is the reason I cannot get past failure.” Listen to this: we succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess; but we excel in those in which we also make use of our defects.

A very famous radio announcer, who is now a minister, once admitted, “I have something called a lazy larynx. It is very difficult for me to speak. I found this out when I was in broadcasting. I would slur certain words then, and I still do to this day if I do not have enough air behind each word. The funny thing about what happened in Nashville was that once I learned that, I started to suck in air and put power behind each word. At first my style was a bit choppy. Then the strangest thing happened – advertisers started to seek this man out because people could hear every word.”

Use your defects. Use everything because what seems like a defect to you may be the answer to your whole career. It may be uniqueness that comes out. It may be the specialness that is you. You are a fingerprint on the universe – individual, special, and unique. People love you for your defects more than they do for your perfection. They love your little quirks, the little special things you do. Use them to your advantage.

Number #4. You will get another chance. If there were a tattoo artist in this room, right now, I would have this tattooed on everyone who was willing: I WILL GET ANOTHER CHANCE!

You will get another chance if you can accept it. You have to accept the chance. You have to be willing to see the chance, go after it, and accept new ideas.

Listen to this: God is continually on the birthing bed. God never rests. God is continually birthing in you new ideas – for you, your life, and your career that can transform your life and everything you’re doing in your life.

Number #5. God is with you, not to commiserate, but to co-create. God is your help in every need.

There was a man on Long Island who bought a barometer around the turn of the century. He had wanted this barometer for a long, long time and paid good money for it, from a mail order house in New York City. When the barometer was delivered to his home on the east coast, he noticed the needle was pointing toward “hurricane.” He looked outside and it looked fine. He shook the barometer, and the needle appeared to be stuck pointing to hurricane. Well, the man went into a tirade. He paced up and down. He wrote a scorching letter to the company saying, “Everything I buy is defective … ” The next day when he traveled into town, he mailed the letter to the company. (That’s why we know this story.) Later on that afternoon, the barometer was missing, and so was his house. The hurricane had hit.

You have a “barometer” inside of you, too. The needle is stuck and here is what the needle is stuck on: God is with you.

A lot of times you will shake it and say, “My life is so out of order. I can’t believe God could possibly be with me.” You are shaking it but the needle stays right there and will not move. It never will, because God is with you every moment of every day.

Number #6. With God at your side, be brave. Take an honest new look at an old problem. Here is how you do this. First of all you might say, as one man did, “It’s not easy taking my problems one at a time, because they refuse to stand in line.” Whatever position they are in, look at them, one at a time, and examine them, not with human consciousness, but with God’s eyes. Ask God for illumination, guidance, inspiration, and understanding in solving the individual problem. Then, on one piece of paper, write down exactly what the problem is. Define it. On another piece of paper, write down, “What do I think about this problem? What is its cause?” On a third sheet of paper, write down, “What are my feelings about this problem?” Then, on the fourth sheet of paper, go into the following steps you will take to solve the problem:

With God at your side agree to stop worrying, fretting, blaming, or feeling guilty, angry, or afraid.

With God at your side re-establish joy, excitement, and faith in your life.

With God at your side discuss a plan of action with positive people who support you.

With God at your side you are a positive person for others. If you want to be a friend to somebody, support somebody, unconditionally. Be with them. Listen. Pray with them. If you don’t have someone like this, find someone and make that person very valuable in your life. You will become very valuable in their life, too.

With God at your side: Write: “I will go into action in the following ways,” and then wait in the silence of prayer for God to give you ideas.

God will never let you down – ever. God will give you ideas. They will pour forth. You will be blessed by God. You won’t be able to contain the ideas on the page.

Then, give thanks to God for the perfect answer that is already there. Tell yourself, That’s no hill for a climber; that’s no step for a stepper, because I am blessed by God.

Number #7. Don’t just wonder what your purpose in life is. Ask yourself, “What do I love in life.”

What do you love in life? What do you have a passion for in life? There’s a huge difference between just living and having the passion for life. Here is the difference. It is like a song that makes you dance in comparison to a song you dance to. Do you see the difference? So often we are compelled to do things, and then if we find our passion and our love, we just flow. We can’t contain ourselves because so much good is happening through us.

God can only give to you what God can get through you. Don’t quit on God. A man and his wife said they used to get into the back seat of their car, sit back, relax, cross their legs and say, “Okay, God, if you love us you will drive me to California.” Here they are, in the back seat of their car, waiting for God to get into the car, take the wheel, and drive them to California.

God, who is waiting to give, who is so willing to inspire, just shrugs. God finally says to the back seat drivers, “I can only give to you what I can get through you. If you’ll get in the front seat, if you’ll take the wheel in faith, I will give you the ways to go to California. I will give you the motivation to go to California. I will give you the means to go to California. If you start to move, I will tell you where to turn, how fast to go, and when to stop.” We have to get out of the back seat.

In faith, we must take the wheel.

Number #8. Have lasting power. Some of you who are fans of auto racing remember the name Mickey Thompson. He created the fastest cars ever created. In the twenty-nine races he started, he had the fastest car. The car immediately went to the front of the line, but he never finished a race. The cars always broke down. Something always happened to the cars. The fastest car did not have the lasting power. You have to be willing to finish the race. God will inspire, through you, if you do not quit on God. You see, we say all the time, “Oh God, why did You quit on me?” when, if the truth were known, it is the reverse. We have to finish our course, finish our race, and believe.

Number #9. You have only one product to sell, one product to improve, and that product is yourself. Always market a new self. I’ve said many times that what you are looking at today is the best (your name) that has ever been, but it’s nothing like what is coming out in this fall. It’s going to have a new grill, a new dashboard, etc.

It’s not even going to look like the old (your name).

In every part of your life, become that which you want to be. You have to believe it. You have to become that which you are seeking. Then, like a magnet, it is already drawn to you. It is going from the back seat to the front seat, taking the wheel, and saying, “Okay, God. I believe in You and I know You ARE with me in my life.”

Number #10. Become the success.

We live according to our self-image, the pattern we create daily, and we project it into tomorrow. Most of us imagine ourselves to be less than we are. The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge – but imagination. Imagine yourself as successful and become that – and it will become you. You have the blessing of God.

Remember:

#1. Stop using the word failure.
#2 Don’t take failure personally.
#3. Use your defects.
#4. Accept new ideas.
#5. Accept the fact that God is with you, your help in every need.
#6. Be brave; really brave. With God, take a new look at the old problem.
#7. Do what you have a passion for doing.
#8. Have a lasting power in doing it.
#9. Market a brand-new you.
#10. Be the success you seek.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION_______________________

What an opportunity we share, to go to God and to know God on a personal basis. Right now, you are drifting away from past thoughts and opinions of who you think you are. You are drifting in spiritual consciousness into the light of truth, the truth that God speaks to you about you and for you. You are drifting away from past limitations that you have placed upon yourself.

You are directly blessed by God.

Jesus Christ is here in our midst, raising us up.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

With God, you are going beyond the failures you have had in your lifetime, and you are receiving a spiritual course correction. In prayer, you receive the illumination and the guidance, along with the incredible comfort of God.

In reassurance of resting in the power of God in the silence of prayer …

Jesus said, “You are a child of the living God. You have, within you, the all-creating power of the Christ. This power of the Christ radiates from you and blesses all you contact. We are connected in prayer. And in that connection, we are both agreeing to God’s will and God’s good.

Your life is God-given life and abundant living. Your life is made up of God’s strength. And your life is made up of new God-given courage because you know, without a doubt, that God is with you. You are patient. As you pray this day, you rest in God. You are not anxious about anything. You realize that God is working; you let go and you let God. God is magnificent. “How great Thou art!”

You are blessed by God.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

There is a peace inside of you that passes human understanding. It is at the core of your being. It is a well-being. You decree in prayer, in Jesus Christ’s name, that this feeling of well-being will stay with you, all the hours and minutes of this week.

You have a power inside of you to rise above past failures, to realize that it is nothing at all for a God connected spiritual person. And you are a spiritual victor, because there is that within you that is helping you now and going higher.

In the silence of prayer you are agreeing with God …

Dear God, I wish to go up higher than I have ever gone before. I have realized Your presence, many times, in my life. I consent now to realizing it more. Dear God, I consent this day to realizing God in a new profound way. I know, dear God, that You are always fresh, new, and exciting. I pray that You are all those and more inside of me, this morning. I give thanks for Your presence.

Rest now, once more, for a holy moment, in the silence of prayer …

The grace of God is working in your life. The grace of God is alive. The grace of God is your assurance of all good things.

You are blessed by God.

In Jesus Christ’s name, we give thanks … Amen.

For 23 years – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 2 million every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one.

Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Reply – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

DONATIONS Thank You for helping us with this great free work for ministers of every faith:
Instant online donation:
https://positivechristianity.net/donation-tithe/
By mail: Positive Christianity Box 7993 Woodlands, TX 77387

GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

Read More
30May

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – The Cornerstone of Your Life

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - The Cornerstone of Your Life

Time Sensitivity: none

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

_____________________________________

There is a home that is over 100 years old. On the living room wall is a picture of the family in the front yard sitting under the trees. The trees are quite different from today, they are small in the picture. They are not the giant, massive oaks that are now in the yard.

There is a lot of truth in a tree. A tree is lush at the top. It has leaves. A healthy tree goes far out and gives you shade. But any gardener will tell you that if you water or fertilize the tree, you have to circle exactly the top branch line on the ground, and that is where the ends of the roots are. You cannot see the roots, but they are there. A tree is identical on top to what the root system is underneath.

It is the same with us. There is a root system and a foundation in your life. It is a very real, powerful foundation. The Bible calls this the tree of life. If you have a solid root system that is totally grounded and one with God, you will bloom on the top of your life.

You will stand up to the winds of your life; you will stand up to the winters of your life; you will stand up to anything that comes into your life, because you have a strong foundation in God.

Recently, a dog was seen taking off in a yard, going seemingly 90 miles per hour and treeing an animal. Have you ever seen an animal treed? The animal runs up the tree to get away from the dog since the dog cannot climb up the tree. You have to wonder what the animal is thinking. “Here I am up in this tree. Boy, oh boy, is not my life bad! I have this crazy mutt down there barking away and he won’t let me down. I wonder how long I’m going to be up here.” There are a lot of times when we feel treed in life. If we want to get out of the branches, we need to go to our roots in God.

Our Bible talks a great deal about the tree of life.

In Genesis 2:9, it says, “Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden … ” Now, this is at the beginning of the Bible.

Then it moves on and talks about the tree of life all through the Bible.

In Revelations, it says, ” … through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river, is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations” [Revelation 22:2].

Let us go to Revelation and talk about a promise that is given to you.

I read from Revelation 21. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.” There is always a new earth with a new heaven. Where is heaven? Jesus said it is inside of you. There can be a hell inside of you, too, that can be found when we let the lower human nature take over and rule us but heaven is inside of you waiting to be found. And when there is a new heaven – an expanded heaven – there is a new earth. Earth is the realm of manifestation; it is what you experience outside of you. That experience though, is determined by what is inside of you. When there is a new root system, there is a new manifestation of the branches and the leaves. When you are rooted in God, your whole life blooms with the fruits of the Spirit. There are at least 12 God-given gifts that are yours for the developing.

“For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.”

[Now, listen to this because these are the promises that are spoken to you, directly, on what you are going to receive if you follow this path of Jesus and if you come to the attainment of Christ consciousness.]

“And I heard a loud voice from the throng saying, ‘See, the home of God is among mortals.'” That alone is a revelation. The home of God is WITH you. It is with you. It walks with you. It lives in you. If we spend our life looking outside of ourselves, we are looking at the leaves instead of the roots.

“He will dwell with them as their god; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them; he will sip every fear from their eyes.” There are many times when we have tears in our eyes, in a manner of speaking. Some are depressed. Some have real challenges that they are dealing with.

Many people are hurting, and you may be here for a healing. You are in the right place. You can have a healing from God. God is very active and real in your life. And it does not come from me; it comes from God directly to you. I can get it just like you can get it, but, the whole message of the Bible is you can get it. You can have it. It is already been given if you will accept it. The accepting is the attainment, and the new root system for your life.

“Death will be no more.” I have lived through many deaths in my life, and so have you. I have had many things that have died in my life. Have you ever felt like a part of you died, or a dream die? Where you are hurt so badly that you did not know how you were going to bring it back to life anymore? Maybe it was a relationship; you have to find new life and find it abundantly, in that moment. When you do, there is a real spiritual power that comes from your roots.

You know that God is with you; that God is not outside of you; that God is walking with you. You know that you could not have done it; God did it through you.

“‘Mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.’ And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new’; also, he said, ‘Write this for these words are trustworthy and true.’ Then he said to me, ‘It is done!'”

It is done right now. It is done for you. It is absolutely done. It is complete, when we accept.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God and they will be my children.”

What do you conquer? How do you go about conquering something? There is only one person we need to conquer, and that person IS ourselves. That is the biggest challenge in my life.

I wish I could tell you that it was a one-time thing, now we are conquered forever, and we will live on easy street from now on. Life is multifaceted. And therefore, there are countless levels of the human that must be conquered, and re-conquered.

Some come here with worries and fears, and you do not know how to stop them. They are just trying to conquer you; they are trying to destroy you. You have got to conquer that little voice that is inside of you, or it will conquer you.

I do not believe that we can conquer that voice on our own; we need deep roots in God. We have to consent to that magnificent power of God coming through us.

Also, we must get positive friends who believe in us and believe in what we can and God can achieve, not in what we cannot do.

Revelation goes on commenting about the cowardly, the faithless, the polluted, the murderers, the fornicators, etc. To lead the orchestra, you have to turn your back on the crowd.

You have to pick up the baton and lead. You have an orchestra inside of yourself, and it is your thoughts. You need to lead. You need to stand up and say, “I’m in control. I’m not standing here alone, because God is with me. I am going to create beautiful music for my life!”

In verse nine, it states, “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me … “

First of all, let’s talk about the seven plagues. Seven is the spiritual number for completion. We have all had plagues in our lives, whether it is a common cold we are trying to get over, something that is gone wrong in a relationship, or the time we were fired from our job. It was something we had to overcome in our lives, and we did overcome it. To have it in a bowl means to have it contained. It is not running wild anymore. Where does it run wild? Where does it live? It lives in our minds if we let it. We have to evict it. We have to say, “NO more! Get out of here! You are not allowed in the apartment house of my mind. I pick the tenants, and the tenants are now only God thoughts.”

“And said to me, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.'” This is talking about the church, the wife of Jesus Christ. But it is not talking about the church in the way we think about it. It is not talking about the walls and windows and stained glass and the lectern, or the ritual of humankind. It is talking about something that is much higher than church dogma; it is talking about spirituality. Spirituality is my wife, and it is your spouse too. Spirituality should be so mated with you that there is a perfect union so that there cannot be any separation, so you cannot tell where you stop, and God starts.

Why do they call Jesus the Lamb? In olden times, if you had sinned greatly, and you wanted to atone for your sins, you would have asked to bring me your finest animal. You do so, and you come to the altar, bringing your finest animal. We go over to the stone altar, and they went through a religious ceremony where they talked about taking your sin from your life and putting it in the life of the lamb. Then they slayed the lamb, and it ceases to be. It was then believed that your sins would cease to be.

Actually, though, to truly follow Jesus we have to slay the sin inside of ourselves. We cannot even allow it to be only in the life of Jesus Christ, the Lamb, who died for our sins. We have to allow new life to come inside of us by following Jesus.

An example, a man decided, saying, “I am not going to work on myself any more. I am not going to change. I am just going to allow you to do it for me. I am going to come and fall at your feet, and I know that you are probably going to be crucified and I will allow you to take the hit for me.”

Spiritually we cannot hide behind another. Often, we try in different aspects of life and business.

If I am truly to follow Jesus, I have to take up my own cross; crossing out the false beliefs in my own mind. I cannot allow you to do it for me; I cannot allow the lamb to do it for me. I have to take responsibility sometimes, someplace, somewhere, and become all that I am meant to become.

Taking responsibility though does not mean doing it alone; it means connecting with my root system, just as Jesus connected with His.

Life is to become all that you are meant to become. Life is not for standing back and sitting down and watching others. Life is for standing up and getting into life, and fully living it. That takes responsibility. When we do this, we find that life becomes a lot easier, and we find that we have the new Jerusalem coming down inside of us, from the top of consciousness itself, to the bottom of our human mind.

“And in the spirit, he carried me away to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of the heaven from God. It was the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. It has a great, high wall with twelve gates … “

How would you enter into the city? You would enter into the city by way of a gate. This means a perfect receptivity to spirit, inside of you. There are twelve gates. In Bible symbology, twelve is also a number of spiritual completion.

“At the gates [are] twelve angels … . And on the gates are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of the Israelites; on the east three gates, on the north three gates, on the south three gates, and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city has twelve foundations … “

Twelve foundations of your life provide a root system: a foundation to hold you up. These are the twelve foundations of humankind. The 12 God-given fruits of life according to many theologians are Love, Faith, Will, Life, Order, Wisdom, Strength, Imagination, Power, Understanding, Zeal, and Elimination.

I invite you to spend separate days in prayer asking for the gifts of the fruits of the Spirit, taking them one by one individually, and meditating on the full spiritual meaning of the gift. Work to develop this, and all fruits will become manifest in your life.

If you are living, manifesting every one of these twelve foundations, you will have a new Jerusalem. Jerusalem means “habitation.” There will be a new habitation inside of you, a new place that is beyond anything you have ever seen before.

“The angel who talked to me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, its length the same as its width.”

It was a cube. If you were to go into the Jewish temple, you would find a cube too. It was the holy of holies. They believed it was the place where the presence of God was.

“He measured the city with his rod, fifteen hundred miles, its length and width and height are equal.” [This equals about 375 miles per wall.] “He also measured its wall, one hundred forty-four cubits.” [This is seventy-five yards.]

Revelation then speaks about the streets of pure gold. Have you ever heard ministers talk about heaven with its streets of pure gold and the jewels. It talks about the twelve jewels and the twelve different colors of the jewels next. But this is not a heaven experience. This is not an after-death experience for you. It is an experience of attaining spiritual consciousness. The dimensions of the walls talk about how this is big enough to hold everyone. It is big enough to hold you. It is talking about a majesty that can occur inside of you, and outside of you also. It talks about how the gates are made of one solid pearl – “the pearl of great price.” You enter in, you pay for the passage by giving up your old lower life (the great price).

You will hear many people talk about how they are waiting for the new Jerusalem, that the new Jerusalem will come, someday. I tell you that it does not come to you, but through you. You have to consent and allow this to occur and it will. It is waiting. It is already there. We just have to fully enter the twelve gates and allow it to happen, and it will.

The new Jerusalem is the presence of God. I ask you now to see this inside of your mind’s eye, not as a dream but as a reality in your life.

You have a solid root system right now. Perhaps your life is waiting to bloom. Take care of the roots and the rest will take care of itself.

Let us pray.

Dear God, I pray that my root system is fortified. I pray for a spiritually enlightening experience. Dear God, I rise above difficulties. I allow the tree of life to be totally manifested in me. I have a balance in my life, inner and outer. My life can be adorned with precious jewels – the pearl of great price – a mind that is filled with well-being, emotions that are filled with joy, an energy system of my body that is filled to the brim with power. I consent now to the new Jerusalem becoming manifest in my life. God, You are now with me, and God, I am now with You … Amen.

PRAYER / MEDITATION__________________________

The presence of God is here, and it becomes very tangible inside and outside of you as you pray.

The presence of God is here, something you can touch, something you can feel, something that is thinking through you, something that is radiating through you giving you a new energy, vitality, and zest for life. The presence of God is here.

The Mind of God, which created the universe, directs you to beautiful living. Your decisions are right and good, for the Lord of your being is your light.

In Jesus Christ, you find the true light that brings understanding and Divine direction. In Jesus Christ, you find the love that satisfies and fulfills every need. You are a spiritual being surrounded by God’s love, and all is well.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Today, in prayer, everyone here is together, spiritually. You are here, decreeing the goodness of God in your life and in everything that is a part of your life. You have faith in God, and you have faith in God’s love. Through faith, God’s love blesses and makes right all that concerns you. You are calm and poised in God’s love. God’s good is magnified and multiplied in your life. You are peaceful and relaxed. You have, inside of you now, the knowledge that God’s Spirit of harmony, order, and understanding – at work in your life. Your mind, your body, and your life spiritually respond to the Sprit of God within you. By God’s power, all things are made right.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

You are going across a threshold of a doorway, a gate into a new consciousness. All things are made new within this new realm of thinking and living. You are made new.

There is an activity here that is happening. It is happening spiritually. It is not your imagination. Your mind and your heart are open to the infinite love of God. The activity of this love is establishing peace and order in your life. God is here, and the loving Christ spirit rules supreme in your life. Your mind, body, and affairs are serene and harmonious.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

I am one with God. You are one with God. We are one with God, and we are one with God’s good. Through God’s power, your life is blessed with order and peace. You now accept a new world order for yourself. Your life is under the rule of Divine order. Your business, your career, is under the rule of Divine order. Your relations are under the rule of Divine order.

The way you feel in your mind is under the rule of Divine order. The way your body is responding to your thoughts is under the rule of Divine order.

There’s a new level of energy that is manifested in you and through you. The activity of the living God is gently moving through you now, with its quietness, gentleness, and peace. This tangible presence of God can be felt.

Rest for a moment, in the silence of prayer …

In the name of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, I decree peace and order in your world. In every aspect of your life, I decree a new level of peace manifesting now from this prayer. I pray for a Divine outworking of everything that is troubling you now, because you are not alone. God is with you, and the great outworking of Divine order is taking place.

There is a constructive, unifying power of Divine love expressing in your life. There is a harmonizing and blessing that is happening in your life. The love of God is harmonizing and blessing your life, now. Say that silently inside yourself: The love of God is harmonizing and blessing me, now …

We pray, this day, in Jesus Christ’s name, accepting these blessings, knowing without a doubt, totally accepting the belief that these things are already true about your mind, your body, and your life.

Thank You, God … Amen

For 23 years – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one.

Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Reply – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

DONATIONS Thank You for helping us with this great free work for ministers of every faith:
Instant online donation:
https://positivechristianity.net/donation-tithe/
By mail: Positive Christianity Box 7993 Woodlands, TX 77387

GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

Read More
23May

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Change Happens

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Change Happens

Time Sensitivity: none

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

_____________________________________

Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a prayer in 1943 that has become famous. I’m sure you will recognize it.

“God, give us grace to accept, with serenity, the things that cannot be changed, the courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”

This prayer sums up a great philosophy of life. The key to it, of course, is the last part – to have the wisdom to distinguish between the first two parts – to know what in life to try to change, and what to try to simply accept because it cannot be changed.

Which of us has the wisdom to know these things? It seems that if we have the wisdom, if we accomplish this through life experience, contemplation, prayer, meditation, or any of the many means by which wisdom is gained in life, we can earn that quality called serenity, happiness, or inner peace.

Behind all the changes we try to make in life, behind all the desires to change, behind all the wishes we have to bring new things into our lives (and even the wishes to leave old things out of our lives) lies the simple desire to feel serene – to feel inner peace. We may think it is flashy new car, or a new job, or a new home, or a new relationship. But the root of all those desires is simply to feel inner peace.

There is another serenity prayer – an older one. We find it in Matthew. You will recognize these words. But even though they are familiar (or especially, because they are familiar), hear them as I speak to them. Take them deeply inside yourself. Feel the rich meaning of these words of Jesus as He says [in Matthew 6:31-33]:

“Therefore, I tell you, do not be anxious about your life – what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body – what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns. And yet, your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add one cubit to his (or her) span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing?

“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Yet, I tell you, even Solomon and all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O men of little faith? Therefore, be not anxious saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ But seek first God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.”

These are truly magnificent words. It is the last part that we have heard so many times, that is the true significance of this spiritual quest that you and I are on today, our pursuit of happiness, and our desire to be serene and have inner peace. Seek first God, then all else will be added unto us.

I know, you have heard it and done it before. I believe every one of us has. Yet, in order to be serene and know happiness, you and I must pursue this every day – put God first in our lives.

However, often we do not feel the confidence it takes to actually believe that we can put God first, with all the challenges in our lives.

Maybe that is why many people are so afraid. There is an enormous capacity to feel humble at moments like this.

As we contemplate our need to put God first so that God may speak through us, and act through us, and give us something worthwhile to do, we realize, anew, this loving connection that is ours.

One woman said, “Sometimes I don’t love myself as much as I truly deserve. Because of this fact about myself, I tend to lean on wanting other people to approve of me. I long for other people to give me credit when I do work. Basically, I want and need those things because I don’t really give myself enough credit.”

Does that sound familiar?

She continued, “That’s what I noticed about myself. I just don’t care about myself. I don’t love (****Mary****) that much. I thought this would be worthy of contemplation and prayer, so I went out for a walk up in the woods. I sat down at this beautiful spot. It was so beautiful. I mentally put myself in a seat across from where I was sitting.

I said (as if talking to someone else), “So, tell me, why don’t you like me?”

The answer came back like a shot: “Because I can’t trust you.”

I asked, “Why not?” The answer came, “Because you don’t do what you say you are going to do.”

I said, “Sure I do.”

The reply was, “Sure you do … for other people. For other people, you’re very dependable.”

She said, “I am. If I make a promise to someone else, I will almost certainly, keep it. I am a woman of my word to everyone but one person – me.

“I have a bad habit of taking my promises TO MYSELF, very lightly. If I say I’m going to exercise tonight when I get home from work, and when I get home and I don’t really feel like it, I won’t. I tell myself I deserve a break because I’ve been working all day. If I say I’m going to get up tomorrow morning at 5 o’ clock and meditate for an hour because I know this would be healthy for me, and when the alarm goes off and I feel sleepy, guess what I am capable of doing? Sleeping. I always thought this was a way of taking care of myself. I would tell myself, ‘I need the sleep. I need the rest.’ I told myself, in no uncertain terms, that I need to keep my promises to myself, because keeping my promises to myself was an important element to liking and loving myself.”

You are important enough – to keep your promises to yourself.

What promises would you like to make to yourself right now? Promises that you will keep.

If we DON’T do that, then we tend to need the world to support us; we need our spouses, our bosses, our co-workers to recognize us, praise us and give us credit for what we have done.

One thing about people in the world we live in – they do not always give us the support that we need or feel we deserve. It does not happen all the time. Maybe that is because we are the ones who are supposed to give that support, and love to ourselves. Keeping our own promises is a key way for us to find our own inner peace and our own serenity.

If you ever feel a sense of anxiety, what can you do about this? Contemplate about it, and the answer comes: “Really be there.” What does that mean? The answer is: “To really be there, in the moment.”

When you feel anxious, you need to breathe deeply into your anxiety, and really feel the anxiety in that moment – pray.

What you often do with your anxiety is push it away from myself. By pushing it away, it grows larger.

Sometimes, when it is a rainy day and it ruins your plans or makes you feel down – stay in the moment. Notice the variety of raindrops that fall. There is an incredible variety in the fall of raindrops. Contemplate the mocking bird. Poor thing: it has no songs of its own. It has no musical taste. It will follow the song of a robin with the song of a common sparrow. It sings and sings and sings, and yet it seems so joyful. Why? Because it makes others’ songs its own. It has real joy when it gives itself, completely, to its own singing.

We have often heard that another way to serenity, to feeling a sense of inner worth and peace, is to be grateful for what we already have. The glass is either half empty or half full; it is our call. What do we say it is? Is it half empty or is it half full?

By showing gratitude toward the things, we already have in our lives, we are actually invoking the very presence of God. Invoking the presence of God is surely the best way we have of reminding ourselves of what is really important. Some of us are prisoners of our desires – things we want, or the things we feel we have to have. How do we deal with our attachments to things? One suggestion might be to feel the pain of not having what you do not have. Feel the pain. Recognize the price that you are paying right now for not being content.

If you feel that pain enough, you will cease desiring. Am I saying that desiring is wrong? No. I’m simply saying that if you are feeling pain already, if you allow yourself to stay in the moment, the pain itself will lead to freedom.

Another suggestion might be to imagine having what you want or need. Imagine getting the object of your desire. Imagine having it. Then realize that the pleasure is short-lived. How long do you ever stay happy when you get what you want? A few hours? A few days at most? Even a brand-new car stops bringing pleasure after a few weeks. It just becomes the thing you ride in to get to where you are going. Is it worth it? That is something to contemplate in prayer.

We, also, can offer our attachment to things directly to God. Continue to offer to God whatever it is we desire, over and over and over again until we start believing that it is God’s, not ours. It is God’s, not ours. The pain will then cease and desist.

We, also, can take care of our bodies. Many of the ills or discontent we experience in our lives is often due to discomfort in the body. If we pay attention to the things that really serve us – the foods we really need to eat in the appropriate quantities, the exercise our bodies desire – the problems may evaporate. A lot of problems evaporate by simply taking a long walk, or working out in the gym, or practicing the presence of God. A lot of problems simply dissolve when the body’s needs are taken care of. Pay attention to and take care of the body.

Lastly, there is a kind of discontent that comes over us that is actually healthy, despite everything I have been saying – A Divine discontent.

Are you not paying attention to something? Is there some unfinished business in your life? Are you not taking care of your family? Do you have a commitment that you are ignoring. Do you have a calling from your soul that you are putting on the shelf? If you are doing any of these things, a kind of Divine discontent arises in the soul, and calls to us to fulfill it. It will not be content until we make the necessary efforts to fulfill them. This is a gift God gives us. We must do what is necessary to fulfill those things.

Make a list of your goals and prioritize them. Look specifically at your goals and decide what is most important and what you can do right now

If you want to be nicer to people, make one of your goals as follows: When I see (***Adam***) tomorrow morning, I will greet him warmly. Let that be your goal. You can say “Hello” to (Adam) in a pleasant way, tomorrow morning, and the fulfillment of that goal will bring a degree of satisfaction into your life.

It is spiritually important to take care of those goals (to take care of our bodies), just as it is spiritually important to pray and to meditate. All of these things bring their own contentment. It would be great if it only took a blue sky and some white clouds to bring serenity – not that it cannot, but more often, it takes our own commitment to know what we really need – our minds, our bodies, our families, etc. – and to fulfill those needs before contentment can come. But it will come.

Most of all, it takes our awareness that God lies behind it all.

If we seek first to know God, to put the presence of God into every activity, then serenity is ours. Or, in the words of Matthew, “Serenity will be added unto thee.”

I pray that serenity lives as part of you.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION____________________

Let us pray …

If you do not have your eyes closed, you may close them now. Take a slow, deep breath. Feel yourself relax deeply into your chair. Now is the time to feel the depth of our inner peace and to feel the very presence of God, with us and all around us.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

You may picture a calm scene; whatever fills you with serenity. I see a crystal blue sky. The blue is so pure, it is perfect. I see puffy, white clouds floating in that blue sky. This scene reminds me of peace. See it now in your mind’s eye. It stills my thoughts. It lifts my heart. I feel I am one with all of creation, and with God.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

We are at peace. Truly, deeply, we are at peace. We are serene. Although there may be outer turbulence – winds of change – deep inside, we are still and there is silence, sweetness, and God’s peace.

Take another slow, deep breath, and let it go. Bring it in, again, deeply, and let it go. Even as you resume your normal breathing, stay with that sense of serenity that deep breathing brings. There is great Truth of God; there is our true identity, in the depth of that breath and that peace.

Let us sit now in the silence of prayer. Simply become aware of your breath as it flows in and flows out. If you will, imagine white clouds floating in an azure blue sky.

We will pray in this stillness for a few minutes …

For this serenity, we are grateful. Thank You God!

In the name of Jesus Christ … Amen.

For 23 years – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one. Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Reply – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

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GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

Read More
16May

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Fall In Love With Your Life

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Fall In Love With Your Life

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A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

_____________________________________

An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; a pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity. – Winston Churchill

But, how about ordinary “real life?”

The greatest danger for most of us is NOT that we aim too high and we miss it, but we aim too low and reach it. – Michelangelo

How many of us love the experience of rush hour traffic?

Rush hour is an interesting phenomenon if you let yourself be present to what is going on. I sat in my car and watched the faces of the people in the cars next to me. Most of their faces exhibited an empty look like, “I am doing something I have to do, but my heart is not in it.” Some of them were even reading newspapers; one man was shaving, two were eating take-out, five were talking on cell phones and drinking coffee at the same time.

I do not want the fellow behind me, in front of me, or next to me to be so wrapped up in the sports page that he loses awareness of what is going on.

These are our brothers and sisters. These are God’s children. But what about the promise of fulfillment, the promise of great glory, the promise of God’s joy? What is happening to that, in regular ordinary life?

A lot of people do not feel joy in daily life. It can change.

What we need, I believe, are more examples of people whose lives are more real, even in Bible stories. You hear the story about David who slew the giant Goliath with five stones. You hear the story about Jacob who had such fantastic adventures (We will have a story about Jacob a little later.)

In the New Testament, we hear the wonderful story about the prodigal son. The young man said to his father, “I do not want to wait until you make your death before I enjoy my share of your riches, so please give it to me now.” (That sounds like something my children would say.) Can you imagine saying that in this world?

The father did, and off the son went. The son had his high times while the money lasted, but it did not last forever. (It usually does not unless you are a good steward of it.) Then he found himself deep in problems. As a matter of fact, he found himself so deep in the pits that, for a good Jewish boy, he had to endure the most humbling experience of all – feeding pigs. And he was not even allowed to eat the pig slop. That is about as low as one can get.

Then he started his journey home. He is prepared to be his father’s servant – no longer even a member of the household. His father comes out to meet him while he is approaching, puts a ring on his finger, shoes on his feet, a beautiful cloak on his back, and tells the servants to kill the fatted calf because there is going to be a celebration.

Jesus even said, “When one returns to the fold, God rejoices.” What about the ones who never left the fold?

I want to share with you a story that you may or may not remember about one of the forgotten people of the Bible – the prodigal son’s brother. He had been out in the field while his brother was approaching the house. He had been working with the servants to make sure the crops were being attended to, properly. He was on his way back to the house, probably hungry, and tired. He then hears all this racket at the mansion.

Let me read you the story from the fifteenth chapter of Luke [Luke 15:25-31]:

“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with wild friends, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.'”

What I want to ask you is: Was that older brother, the older son, aware that he was always with his father, and that all his father had was his? Or did he carry his relationship with his father as a burden?

It sounds to me as if there was a lot of resentment there, a lot of the older brother comparing his life with his brother’s life, and feeling he was coming up on the short end.

That is what life can be about, too. We take that hunger and we try to satisfy it with achievements, accomplishments, and things, and it does not work.

A great philosophy was expressed in the newspaper on the comic page, in the comic Ziggy. Ziggy is coming around a corner. Heading toward that corner is a man carrying a sign that says, “Happiness is just around the corner.”

Ziggy said, “Gee, I must have missed it.”

In the comic Cathy, Cathy is sitting in her chair with her diet soda thinking, “Gee, 200 symphonies, 1500 art museums, 700 plays, 33 operas, four years of college, 150 seminars, 20 workshops and 5,000 books … a lifetime of studying, reading, pushing, reaching and growing, and I have finally become one with my true potential.” The last panel shows her pushed up against the refrigerator, and she says, “Human refrigerator magnet.”

Doe’s life seem like that for us??

My answer to that is, “Probably from time to time.” Spirituality is what you make of it, day by day, becoming FULLY awake and aware. Spirituality loves the regular ordinary days as much as the extraordinary.

One woman said, “I remember the day my heart did open, and I read the words: “I am a child of God, and every moment God’s life, love, wisdom, and power flow into and through me. I am one with God and I am governed by God’s law.” I had to grab onto my chair because I felt it going through me like a surge of power or upliftment.”

Then she said, “I went back to regular ordinary life; I went back to doing those same old things, things I do every day.”

She said, “I remember other things I also read during those days. Things like: There is nothing in all the universe for me to fear, for greater is the presence of God with me than anything that is in my world. I remember believing that with all my heart and saying, ‘Wow!'”

Do you remember feeling spiritual power like that? Do you recognize that if you want to, you can feel it right now?

So we see those coffee cups and bumper stickers that say, “Beam me up, Scotty. There is no intelligent life here.” We recognize that is funny, sure, but that is the way we really feel sometimes. We feel like strangers in a strange land, but the fact is we are not.

In God, there is no absence of life, substance, or intelligence, anywhere.

Part of the problem is a learned behavior that we humans have that induces us to be overly critical. Some people call it human nature. They say it is human nature to make mistakes. We look at the mistakes we have made and we say, “This is terrible! I call myself an evolving spiritual being, and yet I do things like this. I certainly hope nobody ever finds out about it!”

I wonder what life would be like if we could read each other’s minds, what things we would see. I tend to think we would see a commonality in the things we are ashamed of that would make us smile. We all make mistakes. And because we all make mistakes, and because we criticize ourselves for mistakes, I want to share with you a story about a mistake that seemed like a good idea at the time.

The title of this is “The Far Side Comes to Life in Oregon.”

“I am absolutely not making this up,” the writer said. “In fact, I have it all on my Dish Hopper. The video is from a local TV news show in Oregon which sent a reporter out to cover the removal of a 45-foot, 8-ton dead whale that washed up on the beach. The responsibility of getting rid of the carcass was placed on the Oregon State Highway Division, apparently on the theory that highways and whales are very similar in the sense of being large objects.

“The highway engineers hit upon the plan of blowing up the whale with dynamite. The thinking is the whale would be blown into small pieces which would then be eaten by seagulls, and that would be that – a textbook whale removal.

“So they moved the spectators up the beach, put a half ton of dynamite next to the whale, and set it off. I am probably not guilty of understatement when I say that what follows on the DVD is the most wonderful event in the history of the universe.

“First you see the whale carcass disappear in a huge blast of smoke and flame, and then you hear the happy spectators shouting, “Yea! Whee.” Then suddenly the crowd’s tone changes, and you hear a sound like, “Splut.” You hear a woman’s voice shouting, “Here comes pieces of … my God.”

Something smears the camera lens.

“Later,” the reporter explains, “the humor of the entire situation suddenly gave way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber fell everywhere. One piece caved in the roof of a car parked more than a quarter of a mile away. Remaining on the beach were several rotting whale sectors the size of condominium units. There was no sign of the seagulls who had no doubt permanently relocated to Brazil.”

The writer goes on to say, “This is a very sobering video. Here at the Institute we watch it often, especially at parties.”

See, you have made mistakes; I have made mistakes. We can tell funny stories about them. As a matter of fact, I have a funny story to tell about the prodigal son story.

Sure, we make mistakes, and we think those mistakes define us, but they do not. God defined us. Do you remember how God defined us? It goes back to the first chapter of Genesis [Genesis 1:26] where God said, Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness. We forget that, don’t we?

As a matter of fact, after the great awakening (which is sometimes called the fall) what did Adam and Eve do? They hid.

People say there is not much humor in the Bible, but when you look at the third chapter of Genesis, you have to think that that is kind of funny.

If God is God, how could Adam and Eve hide from God and do it successfully? There they were, crouched behind a bush. God comes looking for them and says, “Adam, where are you?” Adam tries to keep quiet until God finally finds him. He set a pattern for humankind. We have been doing this ever since.

I know a few people who say they share all of their thoughts with God, but not very many. Most of us are afraid that if God really knew what was in our heart of hearts we might not receive God’s love any more, or that we might not be worthy of being loved.

Some people say, “Yes, but we are spiritual students.” Yes, we are churchgoers, but we are also subject, to some extent, to the thoughts that have plagued humankind, since it began to think.

I am here to tell you that there is a way through all of this. The way is the way of awareness.

Remember one thing: if God was really that upset with us, we would have been vaporized eons ago. As a matter of fact, there was a movie back in the late 40’s or early 50’s called “The Next Voice You Hear.” Do any of you remember that movie? In it, all of a sudden, God takes over the radio waves and says, “Look, folks, you have not been doing too well. I am going to give you a week to straighten things out. If you do not straighten things out … it is curtains for you.”

So, throughout the world, there are meetings and new cooperation. It is interesting how things happen like that when chaos or punishment is threatened. God does not punish; God never did. It is time we owned this truth in our mature spirituality. We as humans punish ourselves.

It is also time that we begin to be aware that the presence of God’s love is always with us. The presence of God fills this room more than we ever could. The presence of God stays in this room when we are not here. This is a holy place.

One of the things I would like you to be aware of is how holy this place is for the people who come here. But this place, holy as it is, is no holier than any other place. God is with you wherever you are, even in your car in rush hour traffic.

I want to share another Bible story with you about Jacob. This is about Jacob after his mother told him that he should get out of town, because his brother was going to kill him. Jacob stole his brother’s birthright, and his brother was upset.

He left a place called Beersheba. Spiritually, Beersheba is the place where your faith begins to take its proper role in your life, where it begins to rule. He was heading toward Haran which spiritually means a place of higher spiritual consciousness, a place of elevated thought.

That is the place where most of us are right now. Our faith has begun to take hold (otherwise, what would we be doing in church on Sunday morning?), and we are on our way to a higher awareness of God.

[Genesis 28:11-17] “He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

“And the Lord stood beside him and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring.'”

He has just stolen his brother’s birthright, and yet God is telling him that, by him, all the families of the earth are going to be blessed.

“Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have promised you.” This was just an ordinary place, a clearing in the road, with a stone for his pillow, and a beautiful insight. His response to the insight is what is important. Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it!

The next verse is probably even more telling. “And he was afraid, and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.'”

I am going to give you a challenge. I invite you to take this thought and use it in some of the places you do not consider so particularly sacred. It is written above some church doors. I saw this crudely painted above a storefront church once: “This is the house of God. This is the gate of heaven.” At the time, I was so arrogant as to not to believe in the possibility that it was so. You see, the storefront was in the midst of a slum. It was hardly an attractive place. They called that the Gate of Heaven? But maybe it was. Maybe any place can be, and maybe any activity can be.

I do not know what you are going to be doing today – whether it is something wonderful or something very ordinary and mundane – but I do know that whatever you are going to do, wherever and however you do it, God is there.

Walt Whitman said, “To me every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.”

You see, that is real life. What we call real life is only a part of life because it so often leaves God out. I would like you to take the thought with you that I shared just a bit ago: I am a child of God, and every moment (when I am taking a shower, tying my shoes, washing the dishes, when I am sitting in that freeway traffic jam) God’s life, love, wisdom, and power flow into and through me.

God is found; spirituality is found, in the midst of doing ordinary things.

William Shakespeare said, “All glory comes from daring to begin.”

I give you the invitation today, and the challenge, to remember this thought in those times when it seems like nothing much is going on, like nothing of any great value is happening, and like you are not particularly worthy of being called the child of God you are.

Spirituality is all about our awareness. The gift has been given. God has said, “Child, you are always with Me, and all I have is yours.” It is up to us to respond. What an invitation! Think about it. I wish you a regular ordinary day filled with the presence of God.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION_____________________

As we begin our time of prayer and meditation, I ask you to simply be spiritually aware of yourself and your body. What is going on in your body now? What does it feel like? Be aware of your mind. What thoughts are walking, floating, racing through in your mind? Be aware of your soul.

Be aware, and recognize that right where you are, God is.

Right where you are, God help is available.

Allow yourself to feel the power of God.

Right where I am, God is – the allness of God is your help in every need.

You continue in an awareness of God, and you add to it the awareness of constant love, help, and reassurance. You notice a restful change that begins to take place when you take your thought. When you let thoughts of God become dominant and supreme in your consciousness, things begin to spiritually change – not outside of you in the outer world, but within you. Feel that happening in you now.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Right where you are, God is.

Feel the power of this prayer as it goes deep within you. Right where you are, God is. Perhaps you can feel the invitation of God calling you to be more completely, more deeply, aware and alive in that Presence that goes beyond all human understanding and explanation.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Right where I am, God is. Feel it, rest in the Presence of God.

Feel the invitation as it leads you into the silence, into that deep rich quiet where there is no longer any separation or obstacle between you and a complete awareness of God.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Right where I am, God is. Focus this thought now; let it take you into the silence.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Out of the silence, your awareness reaches to thoughts of people you love – people who are near and dear to you; people whom you would bless in this time of prayer. Hold with me the highest thought for anyone who comes to mind: Right where you are, God is …

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Watch your thought about that person or situation change. Feel the sense of peace that passes human understanding as we hold the thought: Right where you are, God is …

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Now, even as we begin to turn our thoughts back to this moment and the work that is ours to do this day, the awareness of God stays with us. We are, vibrantly and acutely, aware of God with every breath we take and every thought we think.

Right where we are, God is.

Thank You, God, for all Your gifts, but most especially, for the glorious gift of the awareness of Your presence.

Thank You, God!

In the name of Jesus Christ … Amen.

For 23 years – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one.

Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Reply – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

Television channels (Free Service):
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DONATIONS Thank You for helping us with this great free work for ministers of every faith:
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GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

Read More
03May

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Honoring Mother

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Honoring Mother

Time Sensitivity: Sunday On or Before Mother’s Day

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

_____________________________________

Phyllis Diller is quoted as saying, “It would seem that something which means poverty, disorder and violence every single day should be avoided entirely, but the desire to beget children is a natural urge.”

But, Mildred B. Vermont probably put more correctly when she said, “Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs … the payment is pure love.”

Ask any mother today, and she will tell you. To hold a little one and feel love is one of the wonders of the world.

In 1 John 4:12, our Bible states “God’s abides in us and God’s love is perfected in us.”

It is certainly perfected in mothers. A Mother’s love is such a mighty force.

“A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.” Tenneva Jordan

There was a scientist at the University of Wisconsin who created a mothering machine for little animals. It was made out of wire and covered with terry cloth. Out of the wire was a bottle of milk and there was a light bulb to keep the little one warm. But they found that the little ones were dying because little ones needed love.

Love is the one thing you cannot recreate with wire, terry cloth, and a light bulb. At some point in your life, someone held you in their arms, close to their heart. They had the look of love in their eyes and a truly open heart. This happened to every one of us; somebody somewhere along the line did this, and it was the greatest expression of love. You know how special it is, and you know how special it was in your life, whether this person was your natural mother, your adoptive mother, grandmother or relative.

You are here this morning as testimony to that holding. You are able to love because of the love you received. You learned how to love. It was a silent thing, but it was profound and it changed your life, and continues daily. There were times when you made lots of noise, but you were responded to and you were cared for. You were loved.

I want to share a story with you about two religions –

Religion #1:

A woman sat by her hearthside place
Reading her bible with a pleasant face,
‘Till a child came up with a childish frown,
Pushed the bible and said, “Put it down.”
Then the mother slapped his curly head and said,
“Troublesome child, go off to bed!
A great deal of God’s book I must know
To train you up as a child must go.”
The child went off to bed to cry
And denounced religion by and by.

Religion #2:

Another woman bent over a bible
With a smile of joy and an intent look,
‘Till a child came up and pressed on her knee
And said of the bible, “Put it down; take me.”
And then the mother sighed as she stroked his head
Saying softly, “I will never get this read.
But I’ll try by loving to learn God’s will,
And God’s love unto my child instill.”
That child went to bed without a sigh
And will love religion by and by.

The real religion, the only religion that counts (no matter what name we call it) is love. We always have to ask ourselves as a test for religion (which is a system of life) is how loving is this? We should carry our religion of love, no matter what we call it, into our homes, our lives, and our actions.

Whether we are female or male, we should allow that love to come forth from us, whether for something or someone very young, an adult, or someone that is very old that needs our love. We should always allow that wonderful aspect, the best aspect, of human love to come through us – the love, the magic, of motherhood.

Twenty some years ago, a lady came to a minister. She was very, very distressed. She sat in the minister’s office and she said that through a series of events her nephew was coming to live with her. She said to the minister, “I’ve never had any children, and I’m a harsh woman — I admit that. I don’t have the kind of love that I would want to give to a child. I’m scared. How can I, being harsh, hard, and stern in life, give love to this young boy?”

The minister said to her, “You have God’s love inside of you. If you consent to that God love coming through you, it will come through. It is the love of God that will equip you to love this child. If you allow yourself the privilege of having this love come through, it will come through.”

She said, “Yes, yes. But I was never created to do that. You don’t understand my nature. You see the good too much, preacher.”

The minister said, “No. I know that God love can come through you – if you let it.”

That was many years ago. Today that woman has a grown nephew. She was changed by that experience, and so was he. She was a great aunt; she was a wonderful mothering influence. But she didn’t become something; she allowed something to become her. We, each one of us, already are loving children of God. We just have to allow the nature that our mother allowed some time ago, to come through us. Why not do it in honor of mother? What greater honor of a mother than to express today in our lives some of the love she taught us how to express?

There’s a great story I want to share with you about this same idea. It is a story of an Arabian horse. As a young horse, he was orphaned. This Arabian foal was adopted by a family of camels. Every day he looked around and all he saw were other camels, so he decided that he was going to be the best camel he could be because he didn’t know he was an Arabian horse.

Daily through the hot sands of the desert he would carry heavy loads. He would drink at every oasis because he was so parched and thirsty. And every day he would put his hooves down into the sand and move slowly because that was the way a good camel was supposed to be.

One day, when he was very, very old, he looked out across the desert. From his weary eyes he saw an Arabian horse running in the distance on a sand dune. He said to himself, “That is the most beautiful animal I have ever seen in my life!” The shiny mane was flowing back from his head and neck. He said, “If I could only be like that.” He thought to himself, “Once, years ago I had the desire to run, leap high in the air and go over the sand dunes … ” but he quickly remembered his place as a camel. He died from old age never knowing what he really was.

The worst thing we can do in human life is to die not knowing what we are. Male or female, we are meant to love; we are meant to express God’s love. We are meant to cuddle little things, nurture, and cause great things to happen in individuals.

We are meant to celebrate life. According to Jesus Christ, the ultimate way to celebrate life is to love all, realizing we are one in the humanity with each other. Otherwise we’re doing a great disservice, to ourselves, but also to our mothers, because that is the way mom would want it to be.

Mom told us to play nice on the playground. She told us to treat other people well. We should never forget those lessons in our adult life.

Being Christian, we talk a lot about Jesus Christ. Perhaps we do not talk enough about His mother and the importance she played, not only in His ministry but in the formation of His life.

We have all heard the story that Jesus was born of a miraculous conception. I like that doctrine because there is a miraculous conception that is born many times in us, whether we are female or male.

For instance, if we feel we are at the end of our rope, if we have exhausted every idea in human mind, all of a sudden we get an idea from God that revolutionizes our life and changes us. We know the way to go. Without hesitation we go that way and we meet success.

It was an idea that we might not have ever deserved, yet it came. There was a Divine intervention in our life and God made our life livable again. It was a miraculous conception.

There are other times in our physical bodies when it appears we have no life in a certain area. Then all of a sudden God-life moves in and through us and it is as if we have had a miraculous conception. Truly we have. We have conceived something higher than ourselves.

Every mother who has ever conceived a child has conceived miraculously. You know that. When you were in the hospital and held that little one you could not help but to believe in God, love and power that is greater than ourselves.

“When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.” Sophia Loren

Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.

Jesus’ first miracle says so much about his mother. The wedding at Cana [John 2:1-8, 11]. “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.” I’m sure she was invited by the family because she knew them. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding, but I’m sure they were invited because of Mary. “When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.'”

I don’t suggest you say to your mother, “Woman … ” But in Jesus’ day this was a very endearing term. It was saying, “Marvelous, marvelous lady.” But He was also saying what you’ve said to your mother many times: “Mom, I’m not ready yet. I can’t do this.”

You know what mom said to you. She said to you in various ways, “I believe in you. You, more than anybody else in the world, can take care of this problem. You’re my son/daughter and I believe in you and I know what you can accomplish with your life.” That’s what mom was saying to Jesus.

I’m sure there were many other things she said besides what is written down here. I’m sure He went on and on, for ten times, to his mother saying such things as, “Mom, there’s no way I can do this now.” Mary didn’t even listen to Him, just like your mother didn’t listen to you when you said “I can’t.”

“His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.'” Keep in mind this was His first miracle.

You know how it was for you when you were producing your first miracle . . . like that first day on your new job when you felt so insecure. You just didn’t know if you had it in you to do what you had trained all these years to do. Yet this was the time. You had your mother calling and telling you, “I believe in you!”

“And they filled them up to the rim. He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.'” You know the rest of the story. They did and it was the finest wine they had ever tasted. It goes on to say, “and his disciples believed in him.” It doesn’t say that then Mary believed; she already knew, and believed. The disciples didn’t, but Mary did. Then at the end of the story it talks of how Jesus went with his mother to the next place they were going.

Jesus’ mother was so important to Him that the parting words on the Cross, almost the very last thing He said, was, “Woman, behold thy son, and behold thy mother.” He was looking out for his mother. He was getting someone to take care of his mother, whom He valued so highly. He was caring for her, even while He was in great pain.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men – from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls.”

There is a wonderful story of Abraham Lincoln when he was riding one day in a coach. There was a colonel from Kentucky with him. The colonel reached into his inside vest pocket and took out a container of whiskey. He said, “Here Mr. Lincoln, have a swig of whiskey.”

Mr. Lincoln said, “No sir; thank you. I never drink whiskey.”

They rode along a little while longer and the colonel reached into his other vest pocket and took out a big, long cigar and said, “Here Mr. Lincoln. Have a cigar.”

Mr. Lincoln said to the colonel, “No. I never smoke cigars.”

Then Mr. Lincoln said, “Let me tell you a story. When I was nine years of age, I was called to my mother’s bed. She held my hand and said, ‘Abe, the doctor tells me I’m very sick and I’m not going to get up from this bed. Dear boy, I want you to promise me something from my deathbed – that you will never smoke or drink.'” Abe Lincoln said to the colonel from Kentucky, “Now, would you wish at this time I break that promise?”

The colonel paused and said, “Oh no, dear kind sir. I would pay $1,000 if I had made that promise and kept it all these years. I would be a better man for it.”

Abraham Lincoln, when asked about his incredible strength, said, “I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”

We’ve made many, many promises in our lifetime. Most of them have been to our mothers. And how many thoughts she had for us as she was raising us. How good it is to have a day to honor her and realize that she made us.

Whenever Alexander the Great was entertaining people in the palace, he would always put on a special gown that was woven for him by his mother. Every time we go out in public, we put on a gown that was woven for us by our mothers – not only the skin we have, the eyes, teeth, and hair, but also the way we act.

Perhaps over years we have forgotten some of the things that mom has taught us, but this is a day to remember. This is a day to go back and remember the very best of mom when she was at her best. We become our best by recalling and reliving her best.

The VERY BEST she taught was LOVE, by her example.

A man was talking with a woman and asked, “What do you do?” She said, “I’m just a mother.” This is what Theodore Roosevelt said about being “just a mother.”

“When all is said, it is the mother, and the mother only, who is a better citizen than the soldier who fights for his country. The successful mother, the mother who does her part in rearing and training aright the boys and girls who are to be the generation of men and women of the next generation, is of better use to the country if only she would realize it. A more honorable as well as a more important position than any man, the mother is the one supreme asset of national life. She is more important, by far, than the successful statesman, businessman, artist, or scientist.”

I have one more story to share with you that will touch you. It is an old Chinese story. Po Yu did wrong and he cried when his mother chastised him with a stick. “You never used to cry when I thrashed you,” said his mother. “Why do you cry today?”

He answered, “When I did wrong and you thrashed me, it always used to hurt. But this time mother’s strength is such that it did not hurt. That’s why I cry.”

Mothers hold their children’s hands for a short while, but their hearts forever.

Let us pray. Dear God, one of the most incredible gifts you ever gave me as a human being is my physical mother. I thank You for that incredible gift. I thank You for all the times we’ve spent together and all the lessons she shared with me. Every day I will make my life an example of her love, and in my life I will make her love very much alive and her life not wasted. Her love is the life I live.

I thank you, dear mother, for your love, patience, and incredible kindness hour after hour. For the life I have today, I give all credit to you.

In Jesus Christ’s name I pray … Amen.

PRAYER / MEDITATION__________________________________________

In this spiritual place of prayer there is love. In this spiritual place of prayer there is peace and harmony. Dear God, I pray that You will help me to fill my own mind with love, peace, and harmony. I declare, right now, my belief in You and in all others that You have created.

Help me, dear God, to make secure this belief in my mind. Make it so much a part of me that I begin to live it. I live it in my daily contact with others.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Grant that there be given to me tolerance, understanding and forgiveness. I pray that I am able to love, like at no time before, the children of the Divine Presence everywhere – my brothers and my sisters.

I pray that I am never stopped in loving because of any failing I perceive with my human brain. And I pray that I am able to love myself and not be stopped because of my failings.

I am striving every day to overcome my failings. Dear God, I strive to overcome each through Your love which is perfect. Strengthen, therefore, my belief in You. Strengthen, therefore, my belief in others as I give expression to this belief in these words:

I believe in God.
I believe in one humanity; every man my brother, every woman my sister.
I believe in one common freedom of thought and expression established among all races and nations, and one world of unity and cooperation in one purpose of mutual love and understanding.
In this, to this end, I believe all may attain the one great goal in life – universal love, peace and happiness.

May we rest this moment in the love of God, in the silence.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

You enter into this day with joy and enthusiasm for you know God is with you. There is good in everything and you are able to find good in this day. You are part of the upward progressive movement of life. You call forth the best in yourself and others as you are a loving, understanding, and compassionate person. You are capable of carrying on your life. You are capable of rising out of sadness into light, life, and joy. You are light; hold these words deep in your being.

You let the light of God radiate through you in the silence of prayer …

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Dear God, how grateful I am for the earthly expression of our mother. We pray You will bless her now. If she is on this earthly plane or on another, we pray You will bless her. We know prayer is the language of Spirit and it is not limited by time or space.

We give thanks for the incredible privilege we have had to know our mother.

In Jesus Christ’s name we pray on this wonderful Mother’s Day … Amen.

Since 1999 – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one. Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Click here – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

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GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

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25Apr

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Let God Turn Inadequacy Into Adequate

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Let God Turn Inadequacy Into Adequate

Time Sensitivity: none

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

_____________________________________

One day, two Kansas cows were standing at the edge of the pasture looking over the fence, watching a huge tanker milk truck come down the road. As it passed by, they read the signs on the side of the tanker that said, “MILK … Homogenized, Pasteurized, Grade A, Fortified with Vitamin D … Both Plain and Chocolate.” As it passed by, one cow turned to the other and said, “It makes one feel awfully inadequate, doesn’t it?”

The feeling of inadequacy in our lives sometimes can overpower us. We have with us the power of God which will make us feel adequate; God can give us the strength, the power, and the joy to press forward to victory in any goal we set for ourselves.

Allow me to turn to a passage of scripture where Jesus acknowledged the truth of His being. He had asked His disciples the question, “Who do men say that I am?” They gave Him many answers, and then He turned and said, “But who do you say that I am?”

Peter, who was the great spokesman for the twelve disciples, came back with the words, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.”

Jesus responded, “Blessed art thou Simon, son of Jonah, for flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but my Father who is in heaven … “

In other words, it was a spiritual revelation.

If we are going to lift ourselves up to function at the highest possible level, we, too, must come into a spiritual realization of who we are. Sometimes, placing ourselves on this spiritual plane is a difficult task, because our five physical senses are looking out into our world, and perceiving all kinds of chaos, trial, tribulation – obstacles that seem to block the path to the higher good of God. The path to the highest good starts within, in prayer.

Some time ago, Sid Caesar was being interviewed about his early days in television.

The interviewer asked him, “What’s the funniest thing that ever happened to you?”

He told of a time when he had just come to television with his Show of Shows. It was one of the early extravaganzas of television that helped to build it into the great media that it is today. He reflected a moment, and then said, “I guess it was the time my little girl came home from school and said the children at school were talking about Sid Caesar and how funny the show was.

“My wife looked down at her and said, ‘I’m glad that you’re proud of your father.’

“My little girl looked up at me and said, ‘You’re Sid Caesar?'”

If we listened to Peter’s response to Jesus, we will agree with him about what he said about Jesus. Jesus was the Christ the son of the living God.

Jesus said things about us, which we have found hard to believe, “These things I do you shall do also and greater than these shall you do.”

So, when Jesus accepted for Himself Peter’s words, “You are the Christ,” He was making an identity that is valid for each of us.

A favorite passage in scripture is “Christ in you, your hope of glory.”

With God’s help, you can lift yourself above the reservations that you may hold about your potential. You can lift yourself above the human part of you and elevate your mind to a level of identity that allows you to feel the power of the Word of God about the creation.

I like to link the title “Christ” to God’s individual name for us as revealed in the Old Testament. It came out of the burning bush and was given to Moses. It was the time God gave Moses the assignment to go into Egypt and bring the children of Israel out. You know what Moses’ great response was: “WHO AM I to do this?”

Sometimes, that’s the way we all face life. We say, “WHO AM I to be able to handle this challenge or accomplish this goal?”

God said to Moses what God says to us, “I am always with you.”

Moses came back and asked, “By what authority can I tell the children of Israel that I have come to do this thing?”

God said to Moses: “Tell them I AM hath sent me unto you.”

He gave Moses the one name you have that no one else can claim; the one name I have that no one else can even speak for me; the great and holy name I AM. Then, God said, “I AM that I AM,” meaning “I am that I AM which is the name of what I am in you and WITH you.” When you use that name, you release everything that I AM.

Say with me: “Christ, I am – willing, available, and ready.”

Together: “Christ, I am – willing, available, and ready.”

We go to church every week, but what is the church? Peter said, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.”

Jesus responded, “Blessed are thou Simon. Flesh and blood did not reveal it to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And upon THIS ROCK I will build my church.”

Many people in the field of religious teachings see Peter as the rock, but that is not the foundation rock of which Jesus was speaking. The rock of which He was speaking was the answer that Peter gave: “You are the Christ.” And the church of which he spoke is not a physical edifice into which we enter to build our spirits and commune with each other in fellowship in the ideas of our spiritual teaching. It is the inner church of spiritual connectedness and knowing – a church not made with hands, and above human thinking.

If you want an exhilarating experience, to the degree I assure you will be transforming in your individual life, enter place of spiritual consciousness every morning when you arise, and ponder the reality of your Creator and your oneness as a child of God. Let the spiritual knowledge integrate itself, not only into your mind, but down deep into the depths of your soul where it takes over as an unconscious belief about yourself. The knowledge about who you really are cannot be given to you by human minister it has to be, as Jesus said, not from flesh and blood, but from God in heaven. You will then see the great transformation taking place in you.

Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Hell can be right here and now, when we move away from God, and dwell in worry, human anxiety and fear.

When you put God first and draw that power from prayer to your world, the gates of hell (the life filled with chaos, trial and tribulation) shall not prevail against you.

Following this statement, Jesus said, “I will give you the keys to the kingdom.”

Jesus said, “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

These are the keys to the kingdom – the power to use the word in prayer.

Jesus on the Sermon on the Mount said, “In all things say ‘Yes, yes and no, no.'” Through the power of prayer, you can say “Yes!” to something or you can say “No” to it and release it spiritual power backing you up.

This old farmer had a mule and an old, dried-up well in the middle of his farmyard, barely covered with some fragments of board. One day, the old mule walked across it, the boards broke, and down to the bottom of the well he went.

The well was deep. The old farmer figured the old mule probably would not survive the fall anyway, so he decided, much to his own dismay, that the best way to handle the whole situation was to bury the old mule in the well and solve the problem of getting rid of the open well at the same time.

So he hauled in a cart-load of dirt and dumped it down into the well. But instead of lying there and being buried in the dirt, the old mule got up, shook himself off, and tromped the dirt under his feet. Soon he found himself just a few inches higher than he was before.

The farmer dumped down the second cartload of dirt, and the old mule again tromped the dirt under his feet, and he was then a little bit higher. Finally, many cartloads of dirt later, the old mule stepped out on safe and solid ground.

That’s what binding and loosing, elimination “no” prayer and positive affirmation “yes” prayer, is. Elimination prayer is shaking off the dirt that falls on you in this world, and positive affirmation prayer is tromping it under your feet and raising yourself up a little.

Those are the keys to the kingdom of heaven – heaven being the opposite of hell; heaven being movement into the total oneness with God, wherever you are.

The joy of knowing God’s Truth about yourself is so great, so complete. A little boy, 5 years old was in Sunday School it came time for the offering. He had his offering clutched in his little hand. The Sunday School teacher had all the children seated in a row in the classroom. She came down in front of them with the offering basket, and each child (one-by-one) put his or her offering into the basket.

Then she got to him, and he refused to put his offering into the basket. The teacher said, “Please put your offering into the basket.”

He said, “No!”

She asked him a second time and he said, “No!”

Finally she said, “That offering belongs to God.”

He looked her in the eye and said, “I’ll give it to God myself.”

The way you give yourself to God is to claim your oneness and let the power of the word of prayer infiltrate the whole of your being. Become one with God and become your prayer.

To be able to live in a spiritual consciousness of awareness of our oneness with God is very transformational. Then take the power of that awareness into your speaking of binding and loosing; taking hold of or letting go of the things of life that are not in agreement with the perfection of God.

I will close with a story of the young minister who was beginning in his first ministry. He had a church assigned to him up in the ranch country of Montana. This was to be his first Sunday in the pulpit. A blizzard hit the night before and was still raging on Sunday morning. The young man came up to the lectern on his church. As he stood behind the lectern and got ready to begin, he looked out at his congregation and he had one old, tough rancher sitting in the crowd – a crowd of one. He said, “You, sir, seem to be the only person here. I really don’t know what to do.”

The old rancher said, “Well, if I only had one cow in the corral, I sure would feed that cow.”

So the young minister lit into his sermon and he talked 10 minutes, then 20 minutes, then 35 minutes, then 50 minutes. It was over an hour now, and he was still going. Finally, he brought his talk to a fiery close and feeling rather proud of himself he leaned over the pulpit and said to the old rancher, “How was that?”

The old rancher said, “Well, if I went down to my corral and saw only one cow there, I sure would feed the cow, but I’d be darned if I would give him the whole barn full of hay.”

“Christ, I am – willing, available, and ready.”

Together: “Christ, I am – willing, available, and ready.”

Again: “Christ, I am – willing, available, and ready.”

Once more “Christ, I am – willing, available, and ready!”

You are equipped by God. You are more than adequate. God gives you all

that you need and will continually give to you all that you will need in the future.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION_______________________________

It is in the Holy moment of prayer that we come into the realization of God’s perfect life of each one of us in potential. May we now become fully aware of our true spiritual identity as a child of God. May we be given knowledge from on high about what we are heir to. May we now have our human minds empowered so that we can comprehend the incomprehensible. May we understand who we are and what part we play in God’s plan.

We rest our minds, our hearts, our bodies, and indeed all our circumstances of our lives in that perfect oneness of the wonderful presence of God.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

We feel the great sense of God’s omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence.

In this moment of prayer, I am acutely aware of Your presence, and Your power touching my individual life. I release any tiredness within my brain and accept the renewing of God’s energy within my physical body. My soul is infilled with Your renewable power. I feel re-created by You my dear Creator.

Thank You, God, for the fullness of Thy Being expressing through me now, and for the joy of knowing that You are with me now.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Thank You, God, that I may lift up all the cares of my life into the light of Your Presence and release them there. We find all needed adjustments and we find the spirit of Thy spiritual success.

You now give over to God any need of healing, any need for peace, any desire for success and lets the joy of fulfillment pour through the soul and out into the world of expression.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Feel the joy! Feel the love! Feel the deep inner satisfaction that comes by knowing that life itself is adequate to supply all our needs and fulfill all our dreams, because our lives are each connected to our Creator.

Thank you God for Your ever-present help in my life and in the lives of my loved ones.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

I pray now for my loved ones and friends. I ask You dear God to watch over my loved ones and friends. Be with everyone in such a direct way that they cannot miss your guidance and help in their minds. Strengthen and renew their bodies with health. Renew and energize their motivation to do the right thing all the time. Bless their lives with Divine ideas and lasting abundance.

Thank you God for again answering my every prayer in most profound way.

In Jesus Christ’s name … Amen.

For 23 years – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,600,000 every day. Welcoming all faiths, excluding no one. Reaching the ends of the earth with the positive message of God. Not connected to any church, Positive Christianity is a Prayer Ministry without walls, physical or denominational, that the world can instantly access and use without cost.

ARCHIVES of recent Positive Daily Inspiration is available on our homepage; use anything you wish.

FREE Encyclopedia of Prayers: http://www.positivechristianity.org/prayersearch.php

NEED PRAYER? Reply – if you have a prayer need, Positive Christianity will start praying with you, daily, for an entire month. There Is Never a Charge for Prayer.

CONSIDER A MONTHLY AUTOMATIC DONATION to help in an ongoing way.
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By mail: Positive Christianity Box 7993 Woodlands, TX 77387

GOD BLESS YOU,
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

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18Apr

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Thoughts Held in Mind Produce After Their Kind

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Thoughts Held in Mind Produce After Their Kind

Time Sensitivity: none

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

_____________________________________

Helen is in the hospital. (The name has been changed in this story, but it has happened in just this way.)

Helen is lying in bed, and a church person comes to visit her. Helen says, “Why am I here? What have I done to deserve this?”

A businessperson is having a terrible year in business. This person calls the minister and says, “Why is this happening to me? What have I done to deserve this?”

Today I’m going to talk about cause and effect. I want to explain cause and effect.

Have you ever heard the saying, “Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind”?

This is water and this is a silk plant. The water represents our thoughts; the silk plant represents the outer world. If I pour the water down, it produces an effect – a wet silk plant. When we have thoughts in our own minds, we have an effect on the outer world.

For example, Helen’s doctor comes in and says, “Helen, with the effects you have in your physical body, it is going to take you six months to heal.” Helen holds that in her mind. If she believes it, her body will take exactly six months to heal. This is cause and effect. I ask you, are you locked into this?

There is a wonderful old movie that was released some years ago called “Groundhog Day.” It stars Bill Murray.

It is a story of cause and effect. Bill Murray visits this town and relieves the same day every day (Groundhog Day).

Bill Murray gets up in the morning and goes through the day not being very loving Since he is not very loving (the cause), he had many incidences of people not being very loving to him (the effect). He goes to bed not being very happy with what those 24 hours brought to him. When the alarm rings in the morning, he gets up and realizes that he is reliving the same day again. But this time he does things slightly differently.

This is the whole story of this movie. He lives it, and keeps reliving it, until finally he is loving. And when he is loving, his whole life, and everything happening to him changes. It is cause and effect.

Let me read from the Bible, “As far as the east is from the west, so far he removes our transgressions from us” Psalms 103:2.

That seems to talk against cause and effect. That says that if you do something you are not happy with, God can lift you out of the old pattern to a higher level.

Levels of spiritual development can be transcended by Divine Grace in a split second. There are many levels of development. One is the level of hard knocks. A lot of us have been on that level for the major part of our lives. If I bend down and hit my head on the piano, it hurts. I cut my head, and I experience pain. After many times of doing this, I come to the conclusion that it hurts to bend over and hit my head on the piano. I learn how to avoid that in my life.

If I go home, get angry with my family and yell at them (the cause), they will be angry with me for days, weeks, months, or even years (the effect). Soon I learn it is better to be loving. If I am loving, I do not have that negative effect come to me. That is the hard knocks level of spiritual growth.

But there is a higher level. There is a level where, in a split second, we go to God for Divine Grace. In that split second we are no longer locked into the cause and effect cycle; we are literally lifted above it. This occurs, not through our own actions, but through God’s actions working in us.

God’s desire is to express through you in such a complete way – through you, as you – that you never completely reap the harvest of error you sow in your life, and that you always reap more good than you sow. This is God’s Grace. It is a wonderful facet of the love of God. It is not something that we work to achieve. We do not have to work for this type of love, because it simply exists in our lives.

Ephesians 2:5. “Even when we were dead through our trespasses” … This says because of the way we have been acting, we have created a hole for ourselves, and we are stuck in that hole. We may have created a mess in our families, our businesses, and our lives.

“Even though we were dead through our trespasses, we are made alive together again in Christ – by grace you have been saved” Ephesians 2:5, paraphrased.

You are saved by the grace of God – the gift of lifting you out of where you might have gotten yourself. It’s not something you do or earn.

It is a gift freely given.

Luke 15:11-32 is the parable of the prodigal and his brother. “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me” so he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.'” So he set off and went to his father.

But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.

Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.”

Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property, you killed the fatted calf for him!” Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found. This is talking about God’s Grace in our lives. It is talking about how we simply need to turn to God. We may have been far off from God for a long time. Because of the ways in which we have been living, we deserved much worse. Yet, the love of God comes through freely and easily to us. This is the way of God’s love. It always comes. Thank God that we do not have a God who says to you, “Because of what you did back in 1959, you will pay for the rest of your life.” That is a human way; not the way of our God. God IS love. God is NOT made in our image, we are made in God’s image.

We need to accept God as God; not God as we think God should be. If we accept God as we think God should be, we will hold ourselves accountable just as we do in human mind. No one in the world criticizes you more than yourself. You are your greatest critic and judge. God thinks you are wonderful and loves you unconditionally.

God is a God of love and Grace. God does not say, “Tsk, tsk [shaking head] … I’m judging you. You have not been good enough or loving enough, so today you cannot have My grace.” God gives to you freely and easily. If in the moment you feel trapped in some situation, say to God: “God I accept your grace. God I am ready.” And it will come through.

At any time we can supersede the law of cause and effect. We can go higher. We are not locked into an endless cycle of our own human mind cause and effect. We can have the full Grace of God come through. And, like wonder, it will; everything will be changed in a split second of time.

God’s time is not our time. We think in terms of linear time in our human mind. We judge. We say, “Now, to heal this body it will take this much time” or “To take care of this terrible business that I am locked into, it will take so much time.” But in God Mind there is no time or space. Twisted mazes can be straightened out in a split second. I have seen it happen, and you have too.

Cause and effect would say that as a farmer if I sowed ten seeds I would get ten plants. But you know the Truth. If I sow ten seeds, I am going to get back many plants which will produce thousands of seeds. This is the way Divine law works. It works that way in your own life, too.

In a split second you can have what you desire. God, will always meet you more than half way. By becoming receptive to the Grace of God, we receive the measure of God’s provision which exceeds any of our imaginings.

Human mind will say, “This good I am seeking is far off.” But here is what far means to me: Freewill Accept Receive. That brings the far – close. In your free will, you have the choice to accept God’s good, and it will come to you – beyond what you ask, seek, earn, or even deserve. God is more than willing to give to you.

I repeat, Grace has nothing to do with anything that anyone else has ever done, or any outward activity on your part. Grace is an inner realization that you are already one with God. You always have been, and you always will be. The only separation is a false belief in our own minds.

A great spiritual teacher once said to his ministerial students, “Congratulations. You have now all superseded the law of cause and effect. You will live your lives on a new plane.” You, too, can supersede the law of cause of effect. You, too, can live in that realm.In the Bible, John 1:16-17 it says: “From His fullness we have all received, Grace upon Grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ”. Cause and effect is law. However, there is a higher level, and that is the Grace of God. Does that take away from the statement I started this lesson with? Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind. No. Not at all. It is the type of thinking that you are holding in mind.

Let’s say in this split second in time that God Mind totally took over your human mind. Right now you are being infilled with God Mind. God Mind is infilling your every thought. At the core nucleus, there is no more fear or anxiety. You are being filled with the power of God thinking. This is higher than any of my words can verbalize.

Now, through the power of God, you are infilled with God Mind. Through your human motivation and willingness to accept, you agree to hold this in mind. And thoughts held in mind will produce after their kind. It works the same way, but it’s a higher working of the law. It’s a higher outworking that can work at any time for you.

There are times of emergency when you have or you will call upon God in the moment, and you can’t wait. You need God, and you need God now. You consent with your human mind and say,

“God this is the moment.
This is the time.
I give You my human mind.
I ask You to infill me with Your light and wisdom.”

With this, something comes to you higher than you have ever earned. It is an immediate intervention of God Mind. It is so complete and thorough, and yet it is so quiet and gentle. God does not come to you in a thunderbolt. God comes to you in the stillness.

The immediate intervention of God’s Grace is not reserved for human emergencies only. Grace is omnipresent.

You are literally being bathed in the Grace of God now as you sit here in this room. It is instant love. In human situations – on the job, in the home – Grace is always present. There is not one person of any religion who is not surrounded and infilled with God’s Grace. But each person has free-will on whether to accept it.

“I will open the windows of heaven for you until you say it is enough.” When do we say it is enough? Do we say, “Okay, God, by my human standards I say it’s enough, so I will accept just a little of my good. I have been bad. I’ve been in the far country. I’ve squandered my father’s money. My brother has been so good all long. He stayed with my father. He has been surrounded in his good all along, but I was too dumb. I don’t deserve any better.” In the quietness, God says to you: “Please, please accept more of My good. Please take it. Please ask for it. Please, through your free-will, take it. It’s yours. I give to you freely. I want to give it. It gives me great joy to give to you.” And you say, “No, no. I’ll take only this much.” How much better it is to supersede our own mind, and go completely into a state of Grace.

There are more forms of Grace than there are leaves on the trees. Grace is attuning with the law and its perfect working.

Let me share a story. Last winter there was a woman driving on a hilly road. It was very icy and she was driving fast. She was very concerned about something that was going on with her family, and was not paying attention to how fast she was going.

At one point, her car started to go into a spin at a tremendous speed. The car kept spinning in the middle of the road. She looked up and realized that traffic was coming toward her from both directions. She simply let go of the wheel and closed her eyes, because she knew she was out of control.

That is a beautiful place to be – when you know you are out of control. You know you can’t control it anymore, so you call upon God’s Grace. When you do, within a split second you attune yourself in that place where there is no time or space, and everything corrects itself.

This was the biggest miracle this woman had ever had in her life. Not only did she not get into an accident, but her car straightened itself, and somehow pulled to the side of the road, out of harm’s way. This was something she could not have done in a moment, or even in a few moments. But God did it through her consenting.

If I was to look up the word “intervention,” I would find the following words to describe it: interference, interruption, arbitration. In football we think of an interference as a tackling of somebody to keep him from his good. But there is another form of interference: when the little boy is running out into a traffic-filled street to get his football. The cause shows that the little boy will run one way, and the effect would be that the little boy is in danger. But someone sees this in advance, runs interference, and keeps him from harm’s way.

Or someone driving on a busy street is told in a moment of prayer to step on the brake, but he/she doesn’t know why. After coming to a complete stop, they see a little boy run in front of the car that he/she would have hit. This (in both situations) happens every day. It is immediate intervention, and it can happen to us in our lives.

An arbitration occurs in a business situation between union and management where jobs are going to be saved. There can be Divine, immediate help.

“Humans are prone to feel that the outer, or sense world is the source of his/her good. But in order to fully realize our sonship, daughtership, and Divine heritage, we must hold fast to God. We must see God as the only cause.

We must keep our vision high. We must hold steadfastly to the realization that God is the one source of all; that in God and in Truth is where all our good is. That’s why we are here today in church.

Do you have to win God over? No. Can you ever get to the point in your spirituality where you have immunity from effects? Yes, in part. In human development, when your motive is pure, you have a degree of immunity from the effects of ignorant transgression of Divine law.

Let us pray:

Dear God, I realize that Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ, that is the real saving, redeeming, and transforming power that comes to me through the work Jesus did, establishing, for the race, a new and higher consciousness in the earth.

I now enter into that awareness of faith in Him by means of an inner spirit of the law that He taught and practiced. Dear God, I affirm: Through the grace of God I am forgiven and healed.

In this moment, we lift above the law of cause and effect. In this moment, we transcend that law to the higher law of the law of God’s Grace. In a split second, a Divine intervention occurs in your life. God knows where it needs to occur. The Divine intervention of the Divine law of grace happens in and through your life and the lives of those you love now.

In Jesus Christ’s name … Amen.

PRAYER/MEDITATION_________________________________

(This includes a lot of silence with soft music background)

In this prayer time, we say to our physical minds: Peace, be still. Peace, be still. Quiet thoughts are preparing the way, and a quiet light glows within you.

This God light is growing brighter and brighter.
The light and love of God is surrounding you and indwelling you.
The love of God permeates your being.

The quietness and healing power of God flows through you now. Peace be still … .

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Dear God, I consent to You and Your ways of thinking.
I give my mind and body over to You during this prayer time.
I feel Your sweet gentleness.
I do not strive or want for anything.

I simply consent.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

God, I call forth Your Divine Grace to bypass my human thinking; to overcome any fears and anxieties that may arise. I now call forth Your action in and through my physical body.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

God’s Grace is manifested through you now. It’s wonder works in and through you.

Rest in the silence, and accept the Grace of God as part of your life …

Rest in the silence of prayer …

How serene and at one with You we feel, dear God.

As we close this prayer time, we prepare to open a brand new day and a new awareness inside of us.

We are willing; we consent.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

In Jesus Christ’s name … Amen.

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Christopher Ian Chenoweth

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07Mar

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Living Our Desires

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Living Our Desires

Time Sensitivity: none

A FREE GIFT FOR CLERGY

Positive Written Sermons is a FREE service of Positive Christianity to those ACTIVE IN CLERGY MINISTRY to ease your burdens in ministry. Each positive sermon is non-denominational; feel free to tailor to your denominational needs, or personal style. We consider our sermons to be 90% complete; they await your personal stories and anecdotes.

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I’m going to take you, in your imagination to a scene in the country. The focus of the scene is an old, shabby barn that hasn’t been used for anything for a long time except housing the mangiest of animals. I want to tell you a story about the transformation of a man.

Innocent children discovered the hardened criminal sleeping in the hayloft of this barn. He had fled from the city where his crime was committed and had taken refuge in the barn. The children did not know of his misdeed.

“Who do you think he is?” the little girl asked her brother.

“I don’t know … Who do you think he looks like?”

“Well, he has long hair and a beard.”

“And he’s about as old as Daddy.”

“And he has sandals on”

“Maybe he’s Jesus!”

“Do you think he could be?”

“Well, that’s what the Sunday school teacher said Jesus looked like!”

“Yes! l bet it is him!”

“Oh, aren’t we lucky to have Jesus come to our very own town!” The criminal awakened at that point. He sat up, startled. He was about to flee when he heard the girl calling, “Jesus, gentle Jesus, will you stay and play with us for a little while?”

“We will take care of you!” promised the little boy.

“Yes!” echoed his sister. “We will bring you food and blankets and we won’t tell anyone you are here!”

“Oh please, gentle Jesus, will you stay with us?”

The criminal began to understand what was happening. He thought it over. It seemed like a safe bet, for a while at least. Yes, he would stay. Over the next days and weeks, the children brought him food and clothing and even wine for him to bless. And with these things, they brought their innocent love and their adoration for the sweet and kind savior. The criminal felt safe with them, and the weeks turned into months. The children came to him every day and asked him to tell them parables and to bless them and their families.

So he did. As the summer went on he actually began to enjoy playing the role of the Man of Love. It was, of course, only an act, but there was something that felt good about it, something that he had not felt in many years, perhaps since he was a child and his grandmother would tell him stories of Jesus and the children.

As the man basked in the warm love of these children, he learned to love them, too. He began to look forward to the times when they would come, when he would tell them parables about the wonders of heaven’s kingdom and the importance of loving our neighbors. One day he even found himself telling a parable that no one had ever heard, and this made the children so happy to hear a parable directly from their Gentle Jesus, one that was not even in the Bible.

The man’s feelings about people about the world, about life, began to soften, and he became gentle and kind. He read the Bible when he was alone, and something happened within him, something like a long-locked door opening to admit morning sunlight.

One evening he came upon the story of the prodigal son, and he began to weep. “Yes, this is the Truth, he thought to himself. In that moment he realized ever so clearly that it was he who was the prodigal son, and he became aware of how wrong his actions were. He knew, too, that his consciousness could not be cleansed until he made restitution for his crime. So he decided to return to the city and confess.

The next time his beloved children came, he took them in his arms and drew them close to his breast.

“My dear ones, he quietly began, ‘it is now time for me to leave you.” “But where are you going?” the little ones asked with tears streaming down their soft cheeks.

He gathered both of them closer to him and embraced them even more strongly.

“I must return to my Father,” he explained, fighting back his own tears.

“Then, will you give us something to remember you by, gentle Jesus?”

He looked into their faces and said, “I leave you with the gentleness that you have given to me. This is my peace that I give to you.” And the son arose, and went to his Father.

My story is from the hit Broadway play “Whistle down the Wind” by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jim Steinman. It shows what can happen in any man or woman when surrounded and in filled with the love of God.

2 Corinthians 3:18, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord,

We are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”

EACH MOMENT
Each moment of love,
Each moment of giving,
Each moment of joy,
Is a moment of living.
Each moment of anger,
Each moment of lying,
Each moment of resentment
Is a moment of dying.
All our moments add together,
Like the digits in a sum
And the answer tells us plainly
Whether life or death shall come.
Author Unknown

An artist once drew a picture of a snow scene in black and white. It was a cloudy day. There were no leaves on the trees. There were homes in the background, but it was all dark and gray and dreary. The clouds were in the sky. It was a typical winter scene.

Then with a stroke of his brush, the artist added a bit of yellow paint in one of the panes of the window, showing a light that was coming from inside one of the homes. The whole picture was miraculously transformed. It was no longer gray and bleak. It had hope. The birth of spirituality is such a light into a world that sometimes sees nothing but grays and blacks.

So often in adulthood our lives become clouded. So often our lives no longer see the magic and wonder that a child sees. So often we get too old, too wise to have that love for another human being in our life because we’ve been hurt. We are wise to the harmful ways of the world, and we too often withhold our love.

Yet, every day we let God’s love in, there is a transformation; there is a light that comes on. But in order for that love to come, we have to allow it to come through us. We have to accept the gift that God is giving to us.

If you have a closed door in your life, you can bet that God is on the other side of that door, knocking, and saying, “Open up. The wonder is still here. The love is still here. The peace is still here. All the good is still here.” If you have become blind to it, you have closed the door. If you will reopen it, you’re going to find that wonder of a child. We can learn a most important lesson from the faith of the child. Instead of trying to lessen the faith of the child in the unseen helper, it would be more vastly beneficial to us if we learned from him or her on how to ask, stretch forth the empty hand, and find it filled by God. But this is just seeing with your surface eyes. You have to look beyond to what this meant when your eyes are opened.

Have you ever received a gift in which you did not perceive its value? And it took many years until you truly appreciated the gift and used it? Perhaps this is such a gift in your life. This spiritual gift comes with something that will bring you a feeling of joy; something that will last in you long after your hurts and pains are forgotten and the past is put away.

I want to tell you about what this spiritual package contains. The first gift is the gift of Jesus Christ heritage. It’s a very big gift. God says to you, “You are my child. You are heir to all the good that I have, if you accept it. The gifts of God require action on our part in order for them to work in us. It’s like gasoline in an automobile engine. Gasoline of itself is nothing. It has to go into the engine and the engine has to use its potential.

John 13:13-17, ” You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. You have been given the gift of being alive. That is a gift of life. You are to use this gift to feel fully alive. You are to give the gift of life to others. How do you do that?

A woman was visiting a hospital. The man she was visiting was quite seriously ill. There was one person in the hospital room that was beginning to secretly make funeral arrangements for the man. It is important that we give the gift of faith, but the faith in want? Do not give the gift of death. Give the gift of life.” Hold in your mind the potential – of what God can do. This woman gave the gift of faith to both of the people in that hospital room. The man recovered and is home now, he said, “faith was the most valuable treatment I received in the hospital.”

Give the gift of life. Always hold the highest thoughts in your mind. Know what God can do. Know in your own life and in the lives of others. Speak the words of life and healing. Behold the healing life of God in the one for whom you pray.

So often in our prayer times we do not pray this way. We say, “Oh God, here is a man who is on his deathbed. Please give me faith, because I believe he is going to die. He looks so bad. Please give me the strength to stand here. I’m so afraid he’s going to pass while I’m standing here.” Instead, muster up everything inside of you and say, “God, I know that you are a God of miracles. I know what I see with my human eyes, but I know that my human eyes are limited. I know that there is much more going on than just what the doctors and nurses are doing. I know that YOU can bring about a healing that seems impossible to humankind. I’m here to stand up and behold life. I’m going to sit by this patient. I might not even say a word, but I’m going to think thoughts of life. I’m going to become life in this room. If it is YOUR will, I am here to bring about that life to this patient.”

God’s faith coming through you has the power to transform others. 2 Corinthians 11:1, ” Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” What about for yourself? How about when you are down or even depressed?

How about when things do not go well at work? Are you giving yourself the gift of life? Or are you downcast or feeling that life won’t ever get any better? God is with you. You are not alone. The message of Jesus Christ is alive in you today. Yes, life will get better every moment. That leads to the next spiritual gift – peace. Peace is a gift that was brought by Jesus Christ into a world that had a religion of an eye for an eye – “If you do something to me, I have to get back at you.” This was the religion that existed throughout the world. You can become a peacemaker, just like the hardened criminal did. You can take Jesus’ message inside of you and let it live; let it overtake your life.

What about situations in your job, or your home; where people are not very peaceful? You have a choice.

You can go down to the human level, put on your boxing gloves and try to be the last person standing. Or you can take off the gloves and radiate peace to the whole situation and become the living example of the love of Jesus Christ.

Peace in the world begins with you and me. We have God’s peace to take with us into those difficult situations. You will make a difference because of the teachings of Jesus Christ coming through you as you.

Ephesians 5:1, 2 – “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

The teachings of Jesus Christ brought another gift to you – joy. One of the most important gifts of any religion is that as a Christian you have the right to be joyful. You don’t have to be solemn. You don’t have to carry your burdens. You don’t have to feel like the world is an unjust place and that you must wear your heavy burden. You don’t have to suffer to be a good Christian.

This day holds a message for you that no matter what is going on in your life presently, God’s there. You can look beyond your present challenges and know that God is eternally there. You can have joy in your heart. You do not have to walk around depressed, half asleep, or half dead to your former happiness. You can have Christ awareness well up inside of you. The journey of Christianity is allowing that hope to rise in you.

This joy is from the core of your being.

It is your choice. Which do you choose to do today? You can choose to have the full joy of Christianity in you. It is the teachings of Jesus. Those teachings are the teachings of spirituality made alive in you! Spiritually, you are given a profound knowledge of wisdom because you know that your mind can be a receiver of God’s Divine inspiration.

Divine ideas enter your mind the same way they entered Jesus Christ’s mind. You can just become still in prayer and accept all that God has for you to receive. The ideas and guidance will come to you clearly. You’ll know the way to proceed. It is unfailing, and that gives you profound courage. to stand up in adverse situations. That may be in the hospital when the doctors have told you that you are not going to do so well. It may be when you need so much of the stuff of God inside of you that you have to call on that, and it comes to you and you get up again. You say, “Yes! I do have faith because I’m not alone.”

Maybe it is because you are experiencing what this outer world calls a downturn in your personal economy. Maybe you’re not getting the pay you used to get or possibly you have been laid off. Possibly you’re seeking work and haven’t been able to find it yet. I tell you that God is with you. You are not alone. This is the time to call on God. When you do, instantly that Divine help will be given to you. It’s never held back as long as we keep the door open with our faith and our belief. The message of Divine approval came from Jesus Christ. That is a huge message. You are a child of God – Jesus Christ tells you that you are a child of God, with the potential to do what he did. He says to you throughout His messages that you are accepted by God, you are an heir to God, and you have Divine approval.

You say, “What about the criminal in the barn? Did he have Divine approval?” Yes he did. Have you ever had a child nearby whom you loved with all your heart, but the child was causing havoc your home? You do not appreciate what the child is doing at the moment and you scold the child. You correct the child. But you still love the child. And inside you have an approval for the potential that child will become.

Using the power of God, the criminal went back and said, “I’m here a changed man. I’m here right now, knowing that I am going to have my punishment. I am here because I have been guided by God” How was he guided by God? The first way was through the love of God coming through people surrounding him. The second way: it was the love of God coming through his own reflections and prayers. The third way: God came through him – through his actions.

If you want spiritual realization, use the power of God through you. Take the attributes and the gifts of God and allow them to become you. You will know quickly about the action, the truth, and the activity of God.

The knowledge of Christ is a continuing gift. We have to make the message a part of our daily lives, allowing the message of the messenger in us to be reborn.

It is reborn into the animal consciousness of human thinking. It is reborn in hospital rooms where others are telling us that we can’t get well. It is reborn into a society that tells us we can’t get work. It is reborn into the lowest of limited human thought. But it is reborn. And like that picture, mentioned earlier, it is a light in our window of hope. We look toward that light and we find our answers. Nothing could be more marvelous – every gift of God has its invisible source in spiritual realms that are accessible to each one of us. Romans 8:29, “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

You have a potential that is predestined, to put on the Christ, and wear it for all to see, feel, and comprehend.

I want to close with something that I think says it all. Garfield, the cartoon cat, often depicts the confusion and frustration that we humans experience. He is asked, “Garfield, what do you really want in life?” Garfield comes running and thinks, “What I REALLY want is. Oh, I guess it’s kind of hard to gift wrap: sleep and food, I get food all year round. And my friends … “Garfield snuggles up to his human friend and thinks, “What I really want is a second helping of everything.” You have already been given everything as well as a large second helping. The reason you are here today is because you want that second helping. And it is my prayer that you get it … along with third and fourth helpings.

God bless you.

PRAYER / MEDITATION_______________

Let us pray:

Whoever you are, wherever you are, God loves you. Never again will you need to feel alone. Never again will you feel unloved, misunderstood or unappreciated. You are now enfolded in God’s total love. You are lifted up. You are blessed through the love of God.

The great commandment of Jesus Christ is that we love God and that we love one another. At times this may seem difficult to do, or even impossibility. Though we may be unaware of it or unwilling to express it, within us – is the ability to love.

We consider now the words of the apostle John. We know and we believe the love God has for us. God is love and he or she who abides in love abides in God; and God abides in them.

Think about those words. Think about God abiding in you. And if God abides in you, God expresses through you. And now, in this moment, realize God can express through you as love.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

The human heart longs for love. It has been written that love is the principle of existence and its only end. You, dear friend, are blessed with a great capacity for love – for loving God and for loving God’s children. And you have the capacity to respond with warmth and affection to those who love you.

Jesus said, “The Father, Himself, loves you.’ Now, during this prayer time, you are able to open your heart as never before. You are able to open your entire life to the all-encompassing, boundless love of God. It flows into you and through you in a mighty, unending stream. You receive the love of God now. And you let it radiate from you in thought and feeling toward others – those near at hand and those far away.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

You pray for yourself and others that all abide in God’s love. Repeat aloud, “I ABIDE IN GOD’S LOVE.”

I feel God now. I feel love now. I am filled with God’s love. My body temple is a temple of the love of God. I feel the love of God in every cell of my being. I am a vessel for the love of God.

The love of God will radiate from me like a broadcasting station. Everyone who comes close to me will feel the love of God. And they will feel better for coming close to me. All those who come close will feel a change, even though they may not perceive what it is. I pray that I radiate God’s love to all like the sunshine radiates its warmth.

Rest in the silence of prayer and prayerfully affirm that this is true right now for you.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Divine love never fails you. Divine love fulfills your every need. Divine love harmonizes the situations of your life. Divine love manifests itself in you as light and wisdom. It guides you in the ways of peace and joy. Diving love works through you to enrich you and expand your life. You attract the blessings you seek.

The Christ Spirit instructs and guides you in developing a spiritual consciousness of Divine love. Love is quickened in your heart. You express it in thought, in word and in your every act. You are forever set free from loneliness and depression. You are joyous because the love inside of you is joyous, and perfect Love casts out your fears.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

You have an attitude of expecting this. You have an attitude that draws to you people and experiences that will contribute fully to your life’s enrichment and happiness. God loves you. You joyously express God’s love. Your life is filled with meaning, goodness and companionship. We have prayed, to become a sample of the Great Example – Jesus Christ: to follow Jesus Christ by living His teachings and becoming His teachings. Truly, spirituality is alive in us.

Thank You, God. . Amen.

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