Tag : PositiveChristianity.org

12Jul

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – THE Connection with THEE Connection

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - THE Connection with THEE Connection

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.

Also, great lesson material available free daily – get Positive Daily Inspiration direct in your email inbox every morning. Text POSITIVEMINISTRY to 22828 to easy, free subscribe.

_____________________________________

How many times have you felt truly prepared for a situation? Many times, we are only ½ prepared or less. Become pre-prayed for every situation.

It that is actually a kind of a secret mystery, but the message is simple and yet profound at the same time.

The secret is that you and I are wondrously made in the image and likeness of God; we are one with God. We have known this for a long time, and yet honestly, do we really know it, and live our lives as if we really knew it?

The message, knowing our oneness, and being pre-prayed every single day.

Prayer is a very wondrous thing. Prayer is a mysterious process. If anything, done correctly, it strips away from us our ignorance, takes away our arrogance, and reveals what is already there – something wondrously made.

The great world-class skeptic, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “Lots of people pray for me, and I have never been the worse for it.” He went on to say, “The only valid argument against the practice of prayer is that God knows his own business without my prompting.”

The traditional way we hold prayer is that we are going to somehow convince God to do things better … particularly better for us. In exchange for some kind of promise we make, we expect a miracle. “God, if you will help me win this golf tournament, I will pray every day and night for the rest of my life,” as if such a statement could in any way move or influence God.

That is not the kind of prayer I am talking about, the kind of prayer I am talking about this morning is the kind of prayer that is a prayer of understanding, of deeper principle and knowledge. The kind of prayer I am speaking about is prayer that moves God power in us, in the way electricity moves when a connection is made. If we allow the connection to be made and the electricity to flow, the lamp will light up, and we will have light.

True prayer makes the connection – ourselves – with God – so Divine electricity can flow and there is greater light in our lives. This is the true purpose of prayer: to make THE connection with THEE connection.

This is not the traditional way we have of understanding prayer. You may have heard the old story about the ship out at sea that was in trouble.

The winds were blowing, the sea was flying high, and the ship was being tossed about. A woman found the captain and said to him, “Sir, are we in serious trouble?”

He looked at her and said, “Ma’am, I must tell you the truth. Now would be a good time for us to all think of God and to pray.”

She looked straight at him and said, “Oh my God, has it come to that?”

Prayer, as a last resort is a traditional idea. We MUST think of prayer FIRST not last. We must think of prayer ahead of the need.

We may have ideas of prayer as beseeching or begging, and we also have a kind of prayer that bargains with God; it is actually manipulative. “I will do something for God, and God will do something for me.”

What about the kind of prayer that moves God power through us? What about the kind of prayer that gives us the power to live our lives better, happier, more fully, with all the Divine resources within us directly in our lives?

Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have told the story of chopping down a tree with an ax. He said: “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the first six hours sharpening my ax.” He went on to say that most people would spend the entire eight hours hacking with a dull ax, but he would rather have a sharp ax.

Prayer is very much like sharpening our ax. It is spending the time (typically in the morning before the day begins) to sharpen the ax; to raise our consciousness and have a connection with God so that no matter what happens throughout that day, we are better equipped to handle it.

When most of us get up in the morning, our minds fill with all the things we have to do during the day. We do not feel we have time to pray or meditate. We are filled with the need to get on with chopping all that wood. Don’t you feel called to chop at the wood of your life? We do not take the time to sharpen our ax.

There is something about being in this life that causes this to happen to us. But sharpening our ax, taking the opportunity to pray, actually lends a focus and a concentration to our lives. A Divine connection is made, and a great power begins to flow through us. Our minds get clearer, and we are able to function better, just like a sharp ax functions better than a dull one. As we are pre-prayed anxiety lowers and stress decreases. We are able to function at a much higher rate than the human body and human mind working alone.

When things happen in our lives that bring a certain degree of stress or strain, the experience of prayer can lend a degree of peace and serenity to our experiences.

Martin Luther put it this way: “I have so much to do today; I will need to spend another hour on my knees.” Basically, that is the point we are speaking of here.

Author Eric Butterworth uses the image of a radio frequency to describe prayer. It is a particularly good and useful image.

A simple example to show how God is everywhere present is as follows. God is like a radio frequency. In other words, Divine energy is filling this room just as do our radio frequencies. We cannot really hear the radio waves, but they are in there, permeating the air. In order to hear them, we need a receiver. We are the receivers of God’s Divine energy when we sit down to meditate and to pray.

To hear a particular frequency, we have to tune to a frequency. Seven hundred and fifty kilocycles cannot be heard unless you tune your frequency to 750 kilocycles. Then the voice or music is loud and clear. If you move over to 748 or 749 and you will get static. You have to tune yourself. Author Eric Butterworth said, “We have to be in tune with the Infinite. We have to tune ourselves to be receptive and to hear. We can do it. And when we do it, we are empowered with an experience of our own connectedness to God.”

A Holy man was once asked: “How do you maintain your serenity and peace in the face of all the pressures of your life?” He replied, “I never leave my place of meditation.” He did not mean he sat in his meditation hut all day long, because he had a busy monastery to run. He was terribly busy. What he meant was that his inner experience of meditation, which he found in his time of going within in prayer, was carried within him throughout his day.

If the truth be told, the real purpose of prayer and meditation is not the peace, serenity, or contact we make while we are sitting there with our eyes closed. The real purpose begins when we get up, open our eyes, and go out into our day. That is when we express the fruits of our meditation.

Our prayer becomes a living thing that fills our lives and enriches other’s lives because we are pre-prayed first. This is when prayer begins to be true prayer.

Dr. Alexis Carroll said: “Prayer is not only worship. It is an invisible emanation of a human’s spirit – the most powerful form of energy that can be generated. The influence of prayer on the human mind and body is as demonstrable as that of secreting glands. As a physician, I have seen men and women, after all other therapy has failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the supreme effort of prayer. It is the only power of nature. Prayer is the source of luminous and self-generating energy.”

Prayer gives us the ability to counteract the natural flow of our senses. Do you know what I mean? Our bodily senses (our five senses) naturally pull us toward this world – to what Jesus called “the appearances.” This is why when we wake up in the mornings our minds leap to all the things, we have to do that day. We are called to begin to do them. This is why it is so easy to judge in ways like: When it rains, it must be a bad day.

Or when things do not turn out the way we think they should, we get depressed. It is because our senses are so called into the natural world. Then we judge by the appearances.

Prayer is the power to counteract that pull. Prayer gives us the capacity to go within and stay within the truth of our being.

Fortunately, we can give ourselves this experience any time we wish to.

We can give ourselves the opportunity to pray. It is the great gift, and we can open it at any time. Maybe that is why as humans we do not do it more often – because it is so easy, because it is always there, because it is obvious. It is always with us and perhaps we take it for granted.

Maybe it is hidden like the trees with the forest. We do not see it, because it is right in front of our faces. That power to be ourselves, the power to liberate the energy within us, the power to make that Divine connection with God is always with us. Yet, we somehow overlook it, time and time again.

A man tells this story, “When I was a teenager, I was given a watch that had to be wound by hand. It was a high-quality watch, but one day it actually did break down. I decided I would try to get it fixed, so I took it to a jeweler I knew. He looked at it and he was extremely impressed. He told me that this was a very good watch. He said he would fix it, but that I needed to take better care of it. I said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “Always wind this watch early in the morning because it will help the watch deal with the stresses of the day. It will last longer, and it will be a better watch.”

Naturally, he said, “I had gleaned another meaning from this statement, and I have never forgotten what he told me – not just about the watch, but also about the inner-winding of ourselves.”

When we spend time in prayer and meditation, we are better able to withstand the stresses of the day. We are fundamentally better people for doing that.

There is another powerful meaning to prayer, which is illustrated by this story.

The lover knocked on the door of his beloved. “Who knocks?” said the beloved from within.

“It is I,” said the lover.

His beloved replied, “Go away. This home will not hold you and me.”

The rejected lover went away into the desert. There he meditated for months on end, pondering the words of his beloved. Finally, he returned to the door again. “Who knocks?”

“It is you.” And the door was immediately opened.

You see, it is not really God and you, or God and me. It is just God. That is the secret to opening that inner door; it is just God. God is manifested surrounding you, and through you. There really is no separation between God and you. You are with God this VERY MOMENT.

“God HAS MADE KNOWN TO US in all wisdom and insight the mystery of God’s will.” Ephesians 1:9

God is our life. God is our intelligence. God is our substance. God is our health. Nothing can be added unto us. Everything is already within us, expressing outward. Prayer is simply the recognition of this truth.

How important is prayer? Simply to recognize the truth about who we are is pretty important to me. It is important to have a conscious awareness of our being.

One of the highest levels of prayer is understood by the word from which our word for prayer came. It is a Sanskrit word “Palal,” which means literally “Judging oneself as wondrously made.” What a beautiful and powerful understanding! There is that recognition, a conscious awareness, of which we really are, that comes from prayer.

Does not this change everything? When we are tempted to focus on our lack, to come from a position of powerlessness, and to beg this imagined being in the sky for something, we can stop. Instead, we can truly pray. We can turn to God and do it until we begin to feel the stirring of Spirit within us and we begin to understand who we are. We are not pitiful creatures begging some supreme being for some pittance.

We are children of God.

The Difference

I got up early one morning
And rushed right into my day.
I had so much to accomplish
That I did not have time to pray.

Problems tumbled about me
And heavier came each task.
“Why doesn’t God help me?” I wondered.
And God answered, “You didn’t ask.”

I wanted to see joy and beauty
But the day toiled gray and bleak.
I wondered why God didn’t show me
But God said, “You didn’t seek.”

I tried to come into God’s presence.
I used all the keys in my lock.
God gently and lovingly chided me,
“My child, you didn’t knock.”

So, I woke up early this morning
And paused before entering the day.
I had so much to accomplish
That I had to take time to pray.

The end of a simple message, commit to praying FIRST everyday.

Wind your inner watch FIRST – Be Pre-Prayed!

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION________________

The harmony of the beloved hymn that we all recall, resounds the truth –

Holy, holy, holy … Lord God Almighty.

We now go to God in prayer.

Feel the chair supporting you. Feel your body sink deeply into the soft cushions. Feel your feet inside your shoes as they touch the floor. Sit up as straight as it is comfortable for you. Raise your head up high. Feel your spine lengthen and straighten as you do so.

Feel God is supporting you in the same way uplifting you, and your life.

Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Take another. Breathe it in, deeply and let it out, slowly. Follow your breath, in and out. Peace, be still. Peace, be still.

As you breathe in, deeply and let it out, slowly, know your connectedness with God.

Say silently to yourself in prayer: God is with me.

With the in-breath say, “God goes ahead of me preparing my way of good.”

With the out-breath say “God is with me.”

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Let the Presence and experience of God’s holiness permeate you from this moment on throughout the day. May the holiness of God come together and touch you, completely, missing nothing.

In the silence of prayer you become still and realize that the love of God is flowing throughout your being. You recognize Divine love as the one true source of all that you will ever need. You know that as Divine love works through you, it will bring harmony to every circumstance in your life.

Let us sit now in the silence of prayer and meditate in this way, breathing in, deeply, breathing out, slowly, and repeating silently: God is with me. With the in-breath say, “God goes ahead of me preparing my way of good,” and with the out-breath say, “God is with me.”

Do this now in the silence of prayer …

We are filled with the whole, complete Spirit of God’s help.

We give thanks to God for Divine guidance; we are grateful that it is available to us at all times. Wisdom and good judgment are ours to be experienced when we follow the inspiration we’ve received from God.

We know that we are being Divinely directed path that will lead us to the greatest happiness and success.

For this experience and for the presence of the Presence, we are grateful.

In Jesus Christ’s name

And so it is … 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.

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
12Jul

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – THE Connection with THEE Connection

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - THE Connection with THEE Connection

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.

Also, great lesson material available free daily – get Positive Daily Inspiration direct in your email inbox every morning. Text POSITIVEMINISTRY to 22828 to easy, free subscribe.

_____________________________________

How many times have you felt truly prepared for a situation? Many times, we are only ½ prepared or less. Become pre-prayed for every situation.

It that is actually a kind of a secret mystery, but the message is simple and yet profound at the same time.

The secret is that you and I are wondrously made in the image and likeness of God; we are one with God. We have known this for a long time, and yet honestly, do we really know it, and live our lives as if we really knew it?

The message, knowing our oneness, and being pre-prayed every single day.

Prayer is a very wondrous thing. Prayer is a mysterious process. If anything, done correctly, it strips away from us our ignorance, takes away our arrogance, and reveals what is already there – something wondrously made.

The great world-class skeptic, George Bernard Shaw, once said, “Lots of people pray for me, and I have never been the worse for it.” He went on to say, “The only valid argument against the practice of prayer is that God knows his own business without my prompting.”

The traditional way we hold prayer is that we are going to somehow convince God to do things better … particularly better for us. In exchange for some kind of promise we make, we expect a miracle. “God, if you will help me win this golf tournament, I will pray every day and night for the rest of my life,” as if such a statement could in any way move or influence God.

That is not the kind of prayer I am talking about, the kind of prayer I am talking about this morning is the kind of prayer that is a prayer of understanding, of deeper principle and knowledge. The kind of prayer I am speaking about is prayer that moves God power in us, in the way electricity moves when a connection is made. If we allow the connection to be made and the electricity to flow, the lamp will light up, and we will have light.

True prayer makes the connection – ourselves – with God – so Divine electricity can flow and there is greater light in our lives. This is the true purpose of prayer: to make THE connection with THEE connection.

This is not the traditional way we have of understanding prayer. You may have heard the old story about the ship out at sea that was in trouble.

The winds were blowing, the sea was flying high, and the ship was being tossed about. A woman found the captain and said to him, “Sir, are we in serious trouble?”

He looked at her and said, “Ma’am, I must tell you the truth. Now would be a good time for us to all think of God and to pray.”

She looked straight at him and said, “Oh my God, has it come to that?”

Prayer, as a last resort is a traditional idea. We MUST think of prayer FIRST not last. We must think of prayer ahead of the need.

We may have ideas of prayer as beseeching or begging, and we also have a kind of prayer that bargains with God; it is actually manipulative. “I will do something for God, and God will do something for me.”

What about the kind of prayer that moves God power through us? What about the kind of prayer that gives us the power to live our lives better, happier, more fully, with all the Divine resources within us directly in our lives?

Abraham Lincoln is reputed to have told the story of chopping down a tree with an ax. He said: “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the first six hours sharpening my ax.” He went on to say that most people would spend the entire eight hours hacking with a dull ax, but he would rather have a sharp ax.

Prayer is very much like sharpening our ax. It is spending the time (typically in the morning before the day begins) to sharpen the ax; to raise our consciousness and have a connection with God so that no matter what happens throughout that day, we are better equipped to handle it.

When most of us get up in the morning, our minds fill with all the things we have to do during the day. We do not feel we have time to pray or meditate. We are filled with the need to get on with chopping all that wood. Don’t you feel called to chop at the wood of your life? We do not take the time to sharpen our ax.

There is something about being in this life that causes this to happen to us. But sharpening our ax, taking the opportunity to pray, actually lends a focus and a concentration to our lives. A Divine connection is made, and a great power begins to flow through us. Our minds get clearer, and we are able to function better, just like a sharp ax functions better than a dull one. As we are pre-prayed anxiety lowers and stress decreases. We are able to function at a much higher rate than the human body and human mind working alone.

When things happen in our lives that bring a certain degree of stress or strain, the experience of prayer can lend a degree of peace and serenity to our experiences.

Martin Luther put it this way: “I have so much to do today; I will need to spend another hour on my knees.” Basically, that is the point we are speaking of here.

Author Eric Butterworth uses the image of a radio frequency to describe prayer. It is a particularly good and useful image.

A simple example to show how God is everywhere present is as follows. God is like a radio frequency. In other words, Divine energy is filling this room just as do our radio frequencies. We cannot really hear the radio waves, but they are in there, permeating the air. In order to hear them, we need a receiver. We are the receivers of God’s Divine energy when we sit down to meditate and to pray.

To hear a particular frequency, we have to tune to a frequency. Seven hundred and fifty kilocycles cannot be heard unless you tune your frequency to 750 kilocycles. Then the voice or music is loud and clear. If you move over to 748 or 749 and you will get static. You have to tune yourself. Author Eric Butterworth said, “We have to be in tune with the Infinite. We have to tune ourselves to be receptive and to hear. We can do it. And when we do it, we are empowered with an experience of our own connectedness to God.”

A Holy man was once asked: “How do you maintain your serenity and peace in the face of all the pressures of your life?” He replied, “I never leave my place of meditation.” He did not mean he sat in his meditation hut all day long, because he had a busy monastery to run. He was terribly busy. What he meant was that his inner experience of meditation, which he found in his time of going within in prayer, was carried within him throughout his day.

If the truth be told, the real purpose of prayer and meditation is not the peace, serenity, or contact we make while we are sitting there with our eyes closed. The real purpose begins when we get up, open our eyes, and go out into our day. That is when we express the fruits of our meditation.

Our prayer becomes a living thing that fills our lives and enriches other’s lives because we are pre-prayed first. This is when prayer begins to be true prayer.

Dr. Alexis Carroll said: “Prayer is not only worship. It is an invisible emanation of a human’s spirit – the most powerful form of energy that can be generated. The influence of prayer on the human mind and body is as demonstrable as that of secreting glands. As a physician, I have seen men and women, after all other therapy has failed, lifted out of disease and melancholy by the supreme effort of prayer. It is the only power of nature. Prayer is the source of luminous and self-generating energy.”

Prayer gives us the ability to counteract the natural flow of our senses. Do you know what I mean? Our bodily senses (our five senses) naturally pull us toward this world – to what Jesus called “the appearances.” This is why when we wake up in the mornings our minds leap to all the things, we have to do that day. We are called to begin to do them. This is why it is so easy to judge in ways like: When it rains, it must be a bad day.

Or when things do not turn out the way we think they should, we get depressed. It is because our senses are so called into the natural world. Then we judge by the appearances.

Prayer is the power to counteract that pull. Prayer gives us the capacity to go within and stay within the truth of our being.

Fortunately, we can give ourselves this experience any time we wish to.

We can give ourselves the opportunity to pray. It is the great gift, and we can open it at any time. Maybe that is why as humans we do not do it more often – because it is so easy, because it is always there, because it is obvious. It is always with us and perhaps we take it for granted.

Maybe it is hidden like the trees with the forest. We do not see it, because it is right in front of our faces. That power to be ourselves, the power to liberate the energy within us, the power to make that Divine connection with God is always with us. Yet, we somehow overlook it, time and time again.

A man tells this story, “When I was a teenager, I was given a watch that had to be wound by hand. It was a high-quality watch, but one day it actually did break down. I decided I would try to get it fixed, so I took it to a jeweler I knew. He looked at it and he was extremely impressed. He told me that this was a very good watch. He said he would fix it, but that I needed to take better care of it. I said, “What do you mean?”

He said, “Always wind this watch early in the morning because it will help the watch deal with the stresses of the day. It will last longer, and it will be a better watch.”

Naturally, he said, “I had gleaned another meaning from this statement, and I have never forgotten what he told me – not just about the watch, but also about the inner-winding of ourselves.”

When we spend time in prayer and meditation, we are better able to withstand the stresses of the day. We are fundamentally better people for doing that.

There is another powerful meaning to prayer, which is illustrated by this story.

The lover knocked on the door of his beloved. “Who knocks?” said the beloved from within.

“It is I,” said the lover.

His beloved replied, “Go away. This home will not hold you and me.”

The rejected lover went away into the desert. There he meditated for months on end, pondering the words of his beloved. Finally, he returned to the door again. “Who knocks?”

“It is you.” And the door was immediately opened.

You see, it is not really God and you, or God and me. It is just God. That is the secret to opening that inner door; it is just God. God is manifested surrounding you, and through you. There really is no separation between God and you. You are with God this VERY MOMENT.

“God HAS MADE KNOWN TO US in all wisdom and insight the mystery of God’s will.” Ephesians 1:9

God is our life. God is our intelligence. God is our substance. God is our health. Nothing can be added unto us. Everything is already within us, expressing outward. Prayer is simply the recognition of this truth.

How important is prayer? Simply to recognize the truth about who we are is pretty important to me. It is important to have a conscious awareness of our being.

One of the highest levels of prayer is understood by the word from which our word for prayer came. It is a Sanskrit word “Palal,” which means literally “Judging oneself as wondrously made.” What a beautiful and powerful understanding! There is that recognition, a conscious awareness, of which we really are, that comes from prayer.

Does not this change everything?

When we are tempted to focus on our lack, to come from a position of powerlessness, and to beg this imagined being in the sky for something, we can stop. Instead, we can truly pray. We can turn to God and do it until we begin to feel the stirring of Spirit within us and we begin to understand who we are. We are not pitiful creatures begging some supreme being for some pittance.

We are children of God.

The Difference

I got up early one morning
And rushed right into my day.
I had so much to accomplish
That I did not have time to pray.

Problems tumbled about me
And heavier came each task.
“Why doesn’t God help me?” I wondered.
And God answered, “You didn’t ask.”

I wanted to see joy and beauty
But the day toiled gray and bleak.
I wondered why God didn’t show me
But God said, “You didn’t seek.”

I tried to come into God’s presence.
I used all the keys in my lock.
God gently and lovingly chided me,
“My child, you didn’t knock.”

So, I woke up early this morning
And paused before entering the day.
I had so much to accomplish
That I had to take time to pray.

The end of a simple message, commit to praying FIRST everyday.

Wind your inner watch FIRST – Be Pre-Prayed!

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION________________

The harmony of the beloved hymn that we all recall, resounds the truth –

Holy, holy, holy … Lord God Almighty.

We now go to God in prayer.

Feel the chair supporting you. Feel your body sink deeply into the soft cushions. Feel your feet inside your shoes as they touch the floor. Sit up as straight as it is comfortable for you. Raise your head up high. Feel your spine lengthen and straighten as you do so.

Feel God is supporting you in the same way uplifting you, and your life.

Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. Take another. Breathe it in, deeply and let it out, slowly. Follow your breath, in and out. Peace, be still. Peace, be still.

As you breathe in, deeply and let it out, slowly, know your connectedness with God.

Say silently to yourself in prayer: God is with me.

With the in-breath say, “God goes ahead of me preparing my way of good.”

With the out-breath say “God is with me.”

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Let the Presence and experience of God’s holiness permeate you from this moment on throughout the day. May the holiness of God come together and touch you, completely, missing nothing.

In the silence of prayer you become still and realize that the love of God is flowing throughout your being. You recognize Divine love as the one true source of all that you will ever need. You know that as Divine love works through you, it will bring harmony to every circumstance in your life.

Let us sit now in the silence of prayer and meditate in this way, breathing in, deeply, breathing out, slowly, and repeating silently: God is with me. With the in-breath say, “God goes ahead of me preparing my way of good,” and with the out-breath say, “God is with me.”

Do this now in the silence of prayer …

We are filled with the whole, complete Spirit of God’s help.

We give thanks to God for Divine guidance; we are grateful that it is available to us at all times. Wisdom and good judgment are ours to be experienced when we follow the inspiration we’ve received from God.

We know that we are being Divinely directed path that will lead us to the greatest happiness and success.

For this experience and for the presence of the Presence, we are grateful.

In Jesus Christ’s name

And so it is … 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.

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
05Jul

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – God’s Serendipity

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - God's Serendipity

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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The signs they have in Alaska are often special. They have unusual signs that you do not see in other areas. They are signs for people who drive along the roads. They must watch for something very unusual. When it is warmer in Alaska and you’re driving down the wet dirt roads, the wheels make ruts.

Then, it gets colder. There is a sign along the highway that says: Choose Your Rut Very Carefully Because You’ll Be In It For The Next 50 Miles. This is what this talk is about – how we choose our rut, and how 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 buy that idea. Even if something better comes along somewhere, sometime, they can’t make a change because they’ve already bought that idea and they have to work toward it.

There are so many side trips that will come to you on your road of life that will make your 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.

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 was not 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). When I read this, I ask you to keep one thing in mind: even though I am reading about characters in the Bible, every one of them are really characters inside of you. As I read, try to think of yourself and your own situation, and how you dealt with it, and perhaps how you will 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 father, 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 things like that before, and so have I. Here is a mundane task. “What an exciting day this is. I have been asked to go and look for donkeys … ” 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), 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 have we?” 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? If we are, we’ll have a wonderful, wonderful life.

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 consciousness and in his consciousness.

” … 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 say right there Saul said, (as we have said many times in our lives), “Oh, I cannot 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 program. Even though you appear to be giving me good right now, I just cannot 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 for me. I have my own human will, and I am 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 are offering me seems exciting, but after all, it is change. I would better not do this right now. I’d better stick to my agenda.”

“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. In spiritual interpretation, 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 inside of 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 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 hellish. We feel we have to think only about getting the donkeys 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, “Hey, (((your name))), get off of it. Do not 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. 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; he 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 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 good time because you are consumed with worry about your donkeys. Do not worry about it; God will 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.

The journey within the journey. We are 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 is joy and euphoria. We are going to give our life the light touch. We are going to know that we can hop out of the rut we have been in for so long, and we’re 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.

We rarely experience life if we are in bed with the covers pulled over us, or if we are sitting around watching television. We have to 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.

Instead of buying into the ideas that are all-consuming in our lives (like the donkeys), let’s 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 old book on which I am basing this talk, in part, by 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.

Serendipity! Here is a wonderful explanation of it from 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. Let’s say that something bad happens to you, and you have to face that unwanted journey. I want to share a true story with you about a young man who 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 boys 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 prolonged his life. He had a rich, full life.

AS IF by chance – 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 God’s special help 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 the be greatest blessings 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.

Only God good comes to our lives when we’re fully aware of God’s ever-abiding help. 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. There are wonderful things that will occur if we are willing to see and catch God’s blessing in it. 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 forward to get my goal. Do you know what?

After 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 that 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 do not have time to go to your feast. I don’t have time to be anointed.

I do not have time because I am on a journey for my father, and I love my father. I am going to find his donkeys.”

When you’re looking for your “donkeys” 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 way.” When you do, life becomes incredible.

Remember, my friends, we tend to resist learning about what we do not 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 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 and Meditation______________________

The power of God is here. What a joy we have to experience God in this place. We are poised today as we enter prayer. We are patient and positive. We are here at this time to remind ourselves of God’s power that we can accept.

“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.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Even when everyone seems 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 within us, at work in us and through us.

Spiritually know for yourself: 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.

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 room this morning. 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.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

We have a spiritual 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 decree: God is bringing only good into my life and circumstances. I am 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.

In Jesus Christ’s name I so affirm. This is the truth now about me … Amen.

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Christopher Ian Chenoweth

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28Jun

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – God’s Shelter Found Through Prayer

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - God's Shelter Found Through Prayer

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.

Also, great lesson material available free daily – get Positive Daily Inspiration direct in your email inbox every morning. Text POSITIVEMINISTRY to 22828 to easy, free subscribe.

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“Let me … Find refuge under the shelter of your wings.” Psalm 61:4

There is spiritual power in stillness and peace of mind, through which you can find, and then express, the joy of the Lord. In the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, there is a familiar passage that begins with the words “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” The writer goes on to enumerate a number of things saying that there is a time for this and a time for that. In verse seven of chapter 3, it says, ” … a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.”

I guess this moment now – is my time to speak.

Whenever we are going to speak, it is always well if we have something to say. Sometimes, we cannot outdo silence. Very often in life we are so conditioned to keep the noise going. We get so outer-oriented and so busy that we forget to take time for quiet; take time apart, as Jesus did in His ministry. This is depicted in several places in the Gospel – where Jesus needs to draw away from the crowds and take a time apart.

This is not a new idea, but are we really practicing it in our lives? In other words, maybe, sometimes, we are talking too much when we need to be silent, and just spiritually listen for the voice of God.

This reminds me of the story of the tourist who came to a country town. That evening, he went down to the General Store and found a number of men who were gathered around, sitting there in silence. This particular gentleman happened to be a person who liked to talk a lot, so he kept trying to strike up a conversation. Nobody would reply. These good old boys were just sitting around the General Store in silence. Nobody said a word. Finally, the tourist said, “Well, really, is there a law against speaking in this town?”

One of the men spoke up and said, “No, there’s no law against speaking, but we sort of have a general understanding around here that unless one is sure he can improve upon the silence, he does not speak out.”

The idea of improving upon silence is so important if we are considering we have something to say.

Another story that tells us that if we do speak out, we had better know what we have to say and what we’re going to say, and that it is of importance at least to us and possibly, to other people.

There was a gentleman who was buying a horse. The seller of the horse told the man, “This was a deeply religious horse. There are a couple of key words this horse will tune in to. Any time you want the horse to stop, just say the word ‘Amen,’ because that’s what he stops on. Then, when you want the horse to go forward, say ‘Praise the Lord.’ You got it?”

The buyer said, “Yes, I understand that, and I’m willing to go with it.”

So he bought the horse, remembering that it was a deeply religious horse.

One day, he took the horse out for a ride. While they were galloping along in this field, the horse began galloping a little too fast. The gentleman forgot the key word to stop the horse (which was ‘Amen’). He was hollering out just about every word you could imagine, but the horse just kept galloping. The gentleman looked up and noticed he was heading toward a steep cliff. The horse kept on going, and the gentleman began to panic. All of a sudden, he remembered the key word that would stop the horse, and he cried out “Amen!” The horse stopped right on the edge of the cliff. The man looks down and sees the big drop, looks up to heaven and says, “Praise the Lord.”

This story keys into one thing, in particular. That is, if we have something to say, we hope it is the right thing to say, and that it will be helpful to ourselves and to other people.

The idea of silence is a particularly important idea because it brings with it peace of mind. And peace of mind is the one thing we all strive to achieve. Of all the blessings you will receive in prayer, there is one that stands out among all the others, and that is peace of mind. I do not think we can accomplish very much in life without peace of mind.

We do not have to look far around the world to see that there are plenty of places in the world that are still in need of peace. But if we are going to have peace out there, we must first establish peace within ourselves.

One of the greatest ways to learn to establish peace within ourselves is to practice the silence, to give ourselves those opportunities to have times of real quiet, prayer, and meditation, and to be in the silence where there is just ourselves, and God. These periods of silence will lead to a greater degree of peace of mind, without which nothing of lasting value has ever been accomplished.

The Bible brings this idea out in many different ways. One particular section in the Bible is full of a lot of racket and noise, and that is the book of Revelation. The sixth chapter in the book of Revelation is where the seven seals are broken and opened. When the first six seals are opened, there are all kinds of noises that take place; things that the writer describes as the upset of the universe that he says must happen before God will reveal God’s self to you, and wipe out all the evil, and establish the kingdom of God.

Remember, that does not literally have to happen. What can happen is that we can establish peace, right here and now, as we let God have God’s perfect way in and through us. There is always a hard way to learn spirituality and an easy way.

In the first four chapters, the four horsemen appear. Then, when the fifth is broken, you have a picture of the martyrs who are slain. They are under the altar crying out, “Oh, Lord, how long before you will avenge us.” It is a hugely different concept of God than we often have. It depicts a vengeful God who is going to carry out retribution upon his people. This is the JUST writer’s point of view.

Then, when the sixth seal is broken, there are all kinds of cosmic disorders. There are earthquakes and upsets all over the place. Finally, in the next chapter, there is a nice interlude, a time of quiet. Then, in chapter eight, the first verse, the seventh and final seal is broken.

Do you know what it says then? There is NO more noise and no more racket. It just says simply that there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Can you feel that? Then the noise starts again, according to the writer.

What a relief that must have been. What a relief it is, also, in our lives when we let the racket and the noise of the world intrude on our consciousness and peace of mind, TO KNOW that because God is with us, we always have a direct access to inner peace, that we can turn to God. We can take comfort in that spiritual thought.

Probably one of the greatest stories is in the New Testament – the idea of the stilling of the storm. Jesus was out on the waters on the Sea of Galilee with His disciples, and a storm comes up.

Jesus is asleep in the boat. A little lesson here is to remember that God never sleeps. We may sleep, but God, with us NOW, never sleeps. Anyway, the way it is shown in the scripture is that Jesus is asleep in the boat and the disciples wake Him. They ask Him something like, “Don’t you care about us?” All Jesus does is speak the word, “Peace, be still, peace, be still,” and the waters are calmed.

You and I have that same power to still the storms in our lives. How? By simply speaking the word of peace in prayer, we can take command of our consciousness, and of our lives. We are in charge of our world. We have the God-given power. All power is found in the silence.

The Bible says that we have been given dominion. In that power, we find whatever it is we need to accomplish in life, and we find the power to do it.

It is really in the quiet that things are accomplished. We know there is great power in the silence and the peace of mind that it brings. It was the same idea the poets address, in that you, could hear the silence.

The sound of the silence can be almost deafening. But what a beautiful sound it is, because you feel the spiritual power it also brings.

I remind you of Psalm 23 which says, “The Lord is my shepherd … He leads me besides still waters; he restores my soul.”

So, whatever it takes to enter into a moment of silence, let us do that. Let us take it. Let us create a practice in the silence which provides certain steps to entering the time of silence which leads to that blessed peace of mind. This then becomes the foundation from which we can go forth and accomplish things in life.

Most of you here, today, are probably working at a job in the world. That is wonderful. But there is a lot of worldly racket out there. Very often you come to church to services, on Sunday morning, to experience a time of quiet and hopefully, to gain some insight into practical, helpful daily living, and what everybody really wants – to still the racket of the world, once again. It always serves that purpose and gives a peace beyond (human) understanding.

This practice in the silence is a little technique to help us become quiet and to attain that peace of mind, from which we can then go forth and really do wonderful things in life.

1) The first step is relaxation.

Take command of your mind and body; speak the words Jesus spoke to the storm, “Peace, be still.” It does not take exceedingly long to find that your mind and body will respond to that, and there will be a sense of peace.

Once you have achieved that state of relaxation, then comes –

2) The concentration.

You begin to concentrate on a certain idea, a Divine idea. You do not worry about something or stew about some problem you have, but maybe just concentrate on the words “solution” or “answer;” whatever it might be, without effort or strain. Concentrate on a particular idea. You will know what that idea is because it will be revealed to you, through you, at exactly the right moment and in the right way.

After the concentration comes –

3) A time of meditation.

We just let the free flow of thought take place; we are one with the presence and power of God.

After meditation –

4) Realization.

The answer comes; an idea is born in our consciousness which is the solution we have been seeking.

I have found that sometimes the realization, or the answer, just does not come right at that moment. It may be after I have left that time of silence and gone out into the world; but at the right time and in the right way, there is the answer. It comes exactly at the right time and in the right way.

The fifth step in this whole process of the practice in the silence –

5) Simply an act of gratitude or thanksgiving.

We give thanks to God for the process which we have just entered and participated in, and for the answer we know is forthcoming, (if it has not already come at the time of silence). Thanksgiving is not just a wonderful way to end any activity, but to begin the activity as well. So maybe before we begin the practice in the silence, we should begin with a note of thanksgiving, because you know, in God, the answer is already there. All we have to do is let it unfold in our lives at the right time and in the right way.

Sometimes, people get the idea that when we enter a time of quiet or stillness that it is a “cop-out” from the world; that we are trying to avoid responsibility.

We can become still and quiet BEFORE we do anything. The moment of stillness is not really idleness, but a real period of intensified focused activity. There is always time in the creative process for you and me to become still, and that is the time when God takes over and brings an increase in our future efforts, in both Divine inspiration and strength.

The first chapter of Genesis is the creation story. Author Emmett Fox says that the six days of creation, before the Sabbath, are not the days that God works, spiritually, but are the days we work, when we put forth our effort and do our part. Then, we always come to the Sabbath, which is a time of rest for ourselves. It is the time when we have to let go and let God.

In everything we do, we come to that point where we have completed our efforts, and we have to let go and let God. Then we rest. The seventh day is our Sabbath. It is the day God goes to work and brings to completion all of our efforts.

The simple illustration I have always used is one of baking a cake. If you are going to bake a cake, you have to do your part in the process.

That part is your six days of creative activity, where you put all the ingredients of the cake together. Then what do you do? You let go and let God; you let go and let the oven do its work. While you are resting from your effort, the oven, or God, if you will, will go to work and bring to completion your efforts.

When you have understanding faith, (and that means an awareness that God always completes God’s part, and that God is a God of good), then you know you cannot fail. This creative process works, each and every time. We do our part. We put the ingredients of the cake together and put it in the oven, and then we let go and let God.

Of course, what do we often do while that cake is in the oven? We open up the oven door and see how God is doing; we make sure the Divine activity IS really taking place. Then we close the door. We don’t have to do all that when you understand that you really are involved in a creative process with God. I remember when I came into that awareness. Then the idea came that there really is a system by which I can live. I can really do something about this mess that I have called my life. I can change it.

Before then, there was no real system. It was, “Maybe God will act on your behalf, and maybe God won’t.”

Understanding faith is faith based on knowing – knowing that the activity of God is always at work on our behalf. All we have to do is LET IT to work with it. Do your part, and then – let go and let God. Very often the question arises, “How do I know I have done my part? How do I know there isn’t more for me to do?” When it keeps persisting, and you find that your continuing efforts are bringing more disharmony than harmony, then maybe it might be the time to let go and let God. Stop doing whatever it is you are doing, and let the Divine activity truly take over and bring to completion your efforts.

The words of Paul in his letter to the Philippians (chapter 1, verse 6): “I am sure He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” For us, the day of Jesus Christ can be right now. It is the day of completion. Jesus Christ has already come when you and I realize that God is with us NOW; that God is with us as the essence of our being, the fullness of being, the fullness of life, love, peace, wisdom, and any spiritual quality you can think of. When you have that realization, then for all practical purposes, Jesus Christ has come a second time into your present, daily life. Paul gives us that assurance.

You can count on God to do God’s part in this whole creative process. In the Old Testament, there are several wonderful stories that bear this out – the idea of letting go and letting God at the right time, doing your part and then letting go and letting God step into the picture, and as

Paul said, bring to completion all of our efforts.

One of those stories is the story of the Red Sea. The story simply is that Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and got them right up to the edge of the Red Sea. This is your story and mine. The Red Sea, spiritually, represents the big obstacle that seems to loom up on our path of unfoldment. What are we going to do? Try to crash our way through it?

Run away from it? What are we going to do? As Moses led these people right up to the Red Sea, these are the words he was instructed to speak to the people: “Fear not.” Why? Because the presence and the power and the activity of God is with you, in this situation.

Friends, if we didn’t have that realization that a God of good was with us all the way, then how could we possibly face these experiences of life?

Moses said, “Fear not. Stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord which God will work for you today.” He said the Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be still. In other words, where is it we find our solution? In the stillness. You don’t find the solution in continued struggle in the outer aspect. There are outer things for us to do. The six days of creative activity are ours to do, but then there is always the Sabbath day, the seventh day.

What did the people do? They became still, right in front of this big obstacle. Do you know what the very next line is in the scripture? As soon as the people became still, the Lord said, “Go forward.” In other words, the water parted. In some way, that obstacle dissolved itself and the people were able to move through.

It is the same thing with you and me. Have you ever walked right up to a problem and then stopped, relaxed, and became still, in prayer, and then walk right on through the challenge?

Why? Because the Spirit of the Lord has paved the way for you, making it straight, safe, smooth, successful, and helpful. So, the Red Sea story tells us that in the stillness, not struggling in the outer aspect, do our miracles take place.

How about the story of Elijah and the still, small voice? He found God, not in the earthquake, not in the wind, not in the fire, not in the outer distractions of the world, but in the still, small voice within himself.

What an experience that was! When you read that account in the nineteenth chapter of First Kings, you will see it builds up to a climax of the still, small voice. You can just sense a time of quiet and peace, a time of stillness, that great peace of mind that we all aspire to. After that, what happens? The Lord tells Elijah to go to work and gives him three things to do. That is the same way it is with you and me. These periods of coming apart in the quietness and stillness are simply times of preparation for outer activity in the world, for another six days of creative activity. Then you come to the same point of letting go and letting God, enter the Sabbath rest, and be with the still, small voice within you. Sometimes, we get so caught up in all of this that we want to continue struggling and striving in the outer aspect to bring about our miracle.

Another great story in the scripture is the story of Jehoshaphat in Second Chronicles. He was the king of the southern kingdom of Judea. At one point, three invading armies came in to attack Judea. Jehoshaphat did not know what to do, so he went to a prophet. Do you know what the prophet told him? The prophet told him almost the same words you would have heard at the Red Sea with Moses. They begin with, “Fear not.” The prophet tells Jehoshaphat that “the battle is not yours, but God’s. You will not need to fight in this battle. Take your position. Stand still and see the victory of the Lord on your behalf.”

In other words, the prophet told Jehoshaphat, “Don’t do anything.” “You mean, I’m not supposed to do anything?” How are most of us conditioned? “I’ve got to get out there and do something.” But he had done all he could, up to this point. And when the three invading armies came in, two of the armies mistook the third for Jehoshaphat and fought with them. Then those other two invading armies turned on each other and fought each other. Who was standing there not having to lift a finger throughout the whole experience? Jehoshaphat.

Friends, IF he would have entered into battle, he would have been fighting a battle that he had already won. Does that sound familiar? How often we keep struggling and striving when the battle has already been won? In God, there is no battle to be fought. If you need to think in terms of fighting a battle, know in God, the battle has already been won! This whole scenario we find involved in God with us, in the perfect spiritual pattern with us, is something that simply needs to be played out on earth.

That is what you and I are attempting to do.

One more story comes out of the Old Testament that tells us about being still and experiencing salvation. It has to do with a king named Hezekiah. (In II Kings 18-20.) The Syrians had come down (a conquering nation) and had invaded the southern kingdom of Judea. They were surrounding Jerusalem, and the chief representative of the Assyrian King was outside the walls, threatening the people, and telling them, “Don’t listen to your King Hezekiah. Come out and surrender to us because you cannot resist the great King of Assyria.”

This is like what happens in us, in that city within us that we call peace of mind, when all the negative thoughts seem to be beseeching our peace of mind and quiet and shouting out at us, “Worry about this; worry about that.” Do you know what King Hezekiah does? He tells the people, “Do not answer him.” In other words, be quiet. Do you know what happens? The Assyrians withdraw. Something happens in the outer aspect.

Haven’t you noticed that when you let go and let God, something happens, and very often it is unexpected. It is always better than you expected. But something happens, and that which you fear, does NOT come about. What does come about is the perfect solution to your problem.

It is interesting, because many Biblical scholars think that at that time at the siege of Jerusalem by the King of Assyria, at about 700 B.C., that a certain psalm was written (Psalm 46). Psalm 46 begins by stating, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Do you know what verse 10 of Psalm 46 says? “Be still and know that I am God.” Do you see how that statement ties into what Hezekiah told the people in chapter 18 of II Kings when he said, “Do not answer him”? We can take a cue from that. “Be still and know that I am God.” When you have done your part, simply let go and let God.

This morning, I began this talk by quoting Ecclesiastes in saying, “For everything is a season; there is a time for every matter under heaven.” I said there was a time to keep silent and a time to speak, but we can also reverse that: there is a time to speak and a time to keep silent. I think my time of speaking is over, and now it is time for me to keep silent. I have done my part.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION______________________________

(Softly sing The Lord’s Prayer)

Follow with silence

As we continue in this prayer time, established by the singing of The Lord’s Prayer and listening to the beautiful sounds of the silence, we begin to relax and let go. We begin to let our thought flow to the deep and quiet within us. Within us and all about us is a deep abiding silence that is beyond the clamor, beyond the busyness, beyond all those things that are taking place in the outer world. We relax, let go, and attune our thoughts, right here and now, to the deep abiding silence within us.

As we move our thought spiritually inward, we tap that deep silence, wherein know we are one with the one Presence and one Power, God; the source of all good, the source of all life, the source of all light, the source of all love. The source of everything we may desire is within us in the silence of our being.

In the silence of prayer …

How wonderful, how marvelous to know that we do not have to seek outside of ourselves, but only tap into that reservoir of all we may desire.

Whatever we desire to create in the outer is to be found in abundance within us. We have all the power we will ever need to create our world according to a perfect law.

As we hold those thoughts in mind that produce good in our lives, we tap into the power and the presence of God. We are renewed, uplifted, and healed by that Presence and that Power. We feel the goodness of God filling our minds and hearts. No matter what the desire of our heart is to create in mind, body, and life experience, we find that Source of renewal, of healing, of all good with God.

In the silence of prayer …

God is life; the very life of life. That life flows through us when we tap into the pure source of life. We allow that life to renew, rebuild and uplift our body temples. Every cell responds to the movement of life.

As we seek it in the silence of prayer, new life is ours …

The silence is the source of all light. The light of the illumination of God guides and directs our ways and leads us into those paths that are for our highest good and for the highest good of all people concerned.

Surely, God is a lamp unto our feet. That light within us illumines our minds and fills our minds with wisdom. We know what to do and how to do it. We rejoice that the God of light is deep within us and all around us, working through us to bring about new good in our lives.

In the silence of prayer …

God is love. God is the source of all love. As we let that love, which is God, fill our mind and heart to overflowing, we are established in love. Love renews; love reaches out and touches all in our circle of life. Love harmonizes and brings peace. So, we let that love, which is God, express through us, as us.

God is peace, the peace that passes all understanding. As we fill our mind and heart with that peace, which is God, we let it flow out to all of the communities in our area, to all of the states of these United States, to all areas of the world. We see perfect peace being established in the mind and heart of every person, everywhere. We NOW have peace of mind.

We rejoice and give thanks that peace is now established in the silence of prayer …

Whatever good we desire, God is the answer. And in the silence of prayer, we seek to know God more completely and clearly.

We seek it now in the silence, in the silence of prayer …

We feel the wonder of God’s presence within us. We feel the joy of God’s presence with us. And we feel the goodness of God all about us. Knowing we have established a greater awareness of that God-presence which renews us always, we now bring our time of prayer and meditation to a close. As in heaven, so in earth, the heaven of our mind is surely filled with the goodness of God, and likewise, shall be the earth of our experience.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

This we do in the name and through the power of the living, loving presence of God, and Jesus Christ … Amen.

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21Jun

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – A Celebration of America

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - A Celebration of America

Time Sensitivity: Sunday On Or Before July 4th, (America)

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As a human being, you have a body, a mind, and a soul. This great country has the same, many bodies, great intelligence, and inventiveness, and a combined soul destined to continual greatness.

I would like you to look upon our flag. A lot is represented in this great American symbol. We have thirteen stripes, representing the beginning of our country on July 4th with the 13 original colonies. Then there are fifty stars. That says something more. It shows the American spirit.

There have been great obstacles for us to overcome as a people. Right after July 4th, this country was in chaos. The soul of our country contains the heritage and history of our people. The soul is what has gone on before, what is going on today, and what will go on in the future. The mind of this great country is within you today. You have been given the key to this great land for it is the land of opportunity.

After July 4th, 1776, chaos broke out in this country. In 1787, our country was in such chaos that the thirteen colonies thought they were going to go down. Many around the world believed that this was the end of the great experiment called the United States of America. A constitutional convention was formed. When these thirteen colonies came together, they were so disjointed that there was only one thing that could save them – God’s Spirit.

Benjamin Franklin knew this. He was 81. He rose and spoke to the convention. He said, “I am convinced that scripture is right when it says in Psalms 127:1: ‘Accept the Lord. Build the house. They labor in vain that build it.’ Gentlemen, I have lived a long time. I am convinced that God governs in the affairs of men. If the sparrow can’t fall to the ground without God’s notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without God’s aid? I move, gentlemen, that prayer imploring the assistance of heaven be held every morning before we proceed with business.”

Prayer is what this whole country was based on. It began with a dream – a dream to come to a country and be able to worship as you want to worship, to pray as you want to pray. It began with a dream to become whatever you wanted to become. After July 4, 1776, what happened to that dream? What is happening with it today?

I heard a commentator say recently that our economic challenges are the greatest that we’ve ever faced.

We have been in greater difficulties, and we have pulled out of those difficulties because of our greatness as a people and as a nation, and we will again.

Every time we look at the flag, we see the dream manifested. We see what has happened between the time that there were thirteen dis-united states until the manifestation of our fifty United States.

By September of 1786, the United States were – the plural applies – as unstrung as a junkyard guitar. The economy barely moved. Inflation was high triple digit. Jails bulged with debtors, criminals in those pre-credit card days. States waged vicious trade wars against each other. The total federal income in 1785 was less than a third of just the interest on the national debt. Printing presses flowed rivers of worthless paper money. It was so out of control that James Madison owed his barber $1,020 for one haircut.

The British, having lost the Revolution, determined to win the peace by strangling American commerce. The redcoats refused to leave frontier forts. Spain closed the Mississippi to American flatboats. Lacking a navy, America was humbled into paying the ruler of Morocco $10,000 to keep his hands off Yankee vessels.

Congress, sitting in New York, was hopeless and hapless. From October 1785 through the following April, a quorum showed up for only three days. Not three years before, Congress fled Philadelphia rather than be killed by the bayonets of mutinous, unpaid soldiers from the Revolution.

The law of the land was a deservedly forgotten political Edsel called the Articles of Confederation by which the thirteen states were as free as preschoolers in a sandbox to do as they pleased. No one was in charge. Had there been, most likely it would have been George Washington, but he was retired to Mount Vernon, dangerously low on money and filled with dismay.

In August 1786 he wrote: “I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union.” The Americans adlibbed victory in the Revolution, a war fought on a shoestring and often without shoe leather. What they were against was clear. What they were for was not. The Articles reflected this indecision.

John Dickinson of Pennsylvania drafted the Articles in 1776, right after the Continental Congress declared independence. Having thrown off one despotism, the thirteen colonies were not about to hurl themselves back into the fire by creating another. So, there was no national executive under the Articles. Congress could ask for funds from the states but could not compel payment. Memories of stamp taxes were not easily forgotten. Nor were Crown judges. So, the Confederation had no national court system.

As the war wound down, states became deafer to appeals from Congress for cash. Congress asked for $8 million in 1782 to run the government at war’s end and $2 million in 1783 when peace came. The states responded with $1.5 million in each year. So, Congress asked for an amendment to the Articles to permit it to levy a 5% tax for 25 years to pay off the war debt. An amendment required the approval of all thirteen states. Four said no.

Under the Articles, any major legislation required approval of nine states. So, states opposed to anything could combine and exercise a veto by staying home until the legislation blew over. This sat well anyhow because delegates had trouble paying their landladies as Congress wandered all but penniless from Philadelphia to Princeton to Annapolis to Trenton to New York.

The Articles did not even provide for the common defense once peace broke out. So, most states had their own navy or army or both. Without judges to appeal to, this meant the quickest solution to most interstate squabbles was to tax the neighboring state with higher import and export taxes. The winners were the states that had major ports and established merchant marines such as Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New York. The losers were the New Jerseys, Connecticut and Carolinas who had little or none of the above. They were taxed through the nose by those maritime states and resented it, deeply.

New Jersey paid 40,000 pounds a year in hard money to send and receive goods through New York and Philadelphia. In retaliation, it charged New York 30 pounds a month rental on the lighthouse at Sandy Hook. Maryland closed the Potomac to Virginians, and Virginia retaliated by charging Maryland tolls at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. Massachusetts and Rhode Island wanted to retaliate against British shipping after the war, but Connecticut hoped to garner the trade from the mother country and wouldn’t go along.

Americans were Americans in name, not fact. A New Yorker said he wouldn’t send his son to school in Connecticut lest he pick up “the low craft and cunning so incident to the people of that country.” Note the world “country.”

The British delighted at the infighting among what London called the “disunited States.” Geography in the form of innumerable rivers and coastal bays divided the states. A letter to England from Boston could reach there faster than one mailed to Charleston. “Good roads,” said one American, “are like angels’ visits: few and far between.”

The British well recognized the potential of a vast nation that already contained 3.5 million people. English strategy was to divide and conquer, to foster divisions and perhaps see the confederation split into three manageable (to London) nations divided by economics and interest into South, Middle and North. Britain contemplated sending ambassadors to each state instead of one to the country as a while.

Well, money was out of hand. The dream was out of hand. Most people were on the very rim of bankruptcy. Marylanders, for instance, owed British creditors the staggering sum of 1.6 million pounds; this when the total federal income was $400,000.

By 1786, seven states were printing paper money backed mostly by wishful thinking and rarely accepted by the states next door. New York speculators crammed saddlebags with printed money and headed for the hinterlands hoping to fool the uninformed people before they learned the money was worthless. Rhode Island, a paper money state, passed a law that creditors had to accept payment at face value regardless of the worth of the money. Rhode Island’s creditors departed Rhode Island, which was okay with the debtors but meant there was no one left to get credit from.

Here we have a nation after July 4, 1776–disbanded, going down. America was looked at by other countries as buzzards fly over a dead animal who is no longer working. When you look at our flag, you see that. You see the thirteen original countries that were not united. How did it become united? How did we get to the blue part of the flag where we see the fifty stars?

Today when people throw up their arms and say, “This will never work. Our country will never succeed now,” realize that God’s Spirit is in the mind of every person in this great land. God’s grace shines on this land. As hopeless as things have seemed in the past, when God’s working, the miracles come.

The miracles came through a piece of paper that united thirteen stripes on our flag. It got them to work together as one nation under God. That piece of paper is called the Constitution. It embodies the American spirit.

Let me share with you a few words from author Emmett Fox about that piece of paper. He said:

“The United States is not merely one more nation added to the list of nationalities. It stands for certain special ideas and special principles which have never been definitely expressed in concrete form in the world before. These ideas may be summed up in the conception of personal freedom and unlimited opportunity.”

What may be called the American Spirit is an intangible though very real thing in itself, but as far as it can be put into words, it has been expressed in the two great official documents of the American Republic, namely, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

These two documents are among the most remarkable ever written, and their effect upon the history of the world has probably never been surpassed. They are both quite short, not more than a few thousand words in length, but every thoughtful person anywhere, and certainly every American, should make themselves acquainted with them.

The Constitution contains no direct preaching at all. It makes no direct statements about the nature of humans or their destiny, or of a human’s relations with other people, or with God. It is, seemingly, just a dry legal document. Never does it say in so many words that a human should be free, that human beings should live together in brother and sisterhood, or that a human is the child of God. All these things are expressed or implied in the Declaration of Independence; and the Declaration is, I suppose, one of the most vivid and colorful documents that has ever been written. It thrills with hope and faith and enthusiasm. The Constitution, on the other hand, is formal, technical, precise, and not, at first sight, of any interest to the layman. Indeed, the Constitution and the Declaration might be described, in a sense, as the anatomy and physiology of government–the one concerned with the hard dry bones of the supporting skeleton, and the other the warm living organs and tissues of life.

To understand the American Constitution, one must realize that it aims at bringing about a definitely selected condition of things. It aims at a special way of life–a way of life that up to the present has only been found in completeness in the United States. It aims at personal freedom for the individual. It aims at the idea of substantial equality, and above all, at equality of opportunity. No civilization had ever before aimed at that.

The great Roman Empire had certain magnificent aims, but equality of opportunity was not one of them; they were always based on a foundation of slavery. The Middle Ages definitely rejected the idea of personal freedom and equality of opportunity and aimed rather at discipline and uniformity.

We tend to take these things – this freedom of opportunity – too much for granted. The people of the generation which produced it, the people of the Revolution, had to think it out. They had to work for it. They had to make sacrifices for it. They had to fight for it, and in many cases, they had to lay down their lives for it. It did not come easily. The inspiration was there, but, as with every inspiration, it had to be brought out into practical expression, and that is always difficult. It’s always easy to copy another thing with slight alterations, but very difficult to do something really new and better. In this case, the inspiration came to the leader, to the Fathers of the Constitution, as we call them, but they could have done nothing alone if the people had not responded, and worked, and fought, to make it secure.

The power of this nation says that you have equality of opportunity. You have an opportunity as an American to dream. You have an opportunity as an American to go to God the way you choose to go to God. You have, as an American, the right to go into any state and know that it is part of your land because you are a part of the United States.

There are people who got together when all dismay was breaking loose. Between those thirteen stripes and the blue that represents the fifty states, there was prayer.

There was a piece of paper that was written by prayer-directed people who consented to the Mind of God. When they consented to that Mind that is within each one of us, the chaos became a haven. The chaos became a glory–the glory of Old Glory.

If your life is in dismay, if your parts don’t feel connected in any way, if your body is in dismay, if you feel like there are thirteen separate areas of your body and they are all shouting, perhaps you need to do what Benjamin Franklin did – pray.

As you pray, know that in your body and mind and soul, like the body and mind and soul of this great country, there is power beyond human seeing. There is a power beyond human dismay. That power is God.

It wasn’t our forefathers and foremothers who created this nation. It was the power of God working through our ancestors. If our ancestors had been left alone to work with their own wits, we would just have the thirteen stripes and it would only be a memory. We would not be here today in this land called America. Because of the Mind of God, we have what we celebrate on the weekend of July 4th.

God Bless You!

PRAYER / MEDITATION__________________________

Prayer is the language of Spirit. It does not know time or space.

As you pray, you pray for more than just yourself. You pray for those who are looking to us for prayer. We become active in the ways of prayer that go out from where we are and cover people with an umbrella of God’s help.

The spirit of God expresses itself through you. In this prayer time, you are able to relax. You are able to release any thought or feeling that interferes with your awareness of the spirit of God.

As you do, remember what it says within the Holy Bible: “A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you.” The spirit of God fills your hearts and minds, making you a vessel–a wonderful, unique vessel fulfilling a sacred purpose. As a vessel, you open yourself to the inpouring and outpouring of the spirit of God.

You are open to wisdom, to life, and to abundance in this silent time of prayer …

There is a peace that is with you. It is the peace of God. It is a pure, unconditional peace that cleanses away fear and unforgiveness.

We are serene … still … as you hear the world

“Peace … peace … peace … Peace, be still.”

Rest in the silence of prayer, in the peace of God …

The Spirit of God establishes peace within you and in all areas of your life.

You think now about wisdom and guidance. You allow wisdom to fill your mind. God is wisdom. In daily choices or in major life decisions, Divine ideas come forth from the Spirit of God. These ideas, the quiet hand of God playing the instruments of our minds and hearts, guide us in the path of right thinking. We accept these wonderful ideas and give them full expression in our thoughts, words, and actions. No matter what the need, God’s almighty wisdom has the answer for us. We attune ourselves to the wisdom of God and are guided in perfect ways. You pray now for wisdom and understanding for yourself and for others.

In the silence of prayer …

The Spirit of God fills you with wisdom and understanding. You make right choices.

Having affirmed guidance for us and others, we now gently shift our attention to healing. We know that life abides within our body temples, for God is life.

In the Holy Bible it states: “Do you now know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”

This mighty healing power fills every atom, every cell, every organ and tissue, and directs every function and activity. It knows exactly what to do and how to do it. This mighty healing power is at work right now. You are strengthened, nourished, and sustained by the Spirit of God. You are restored to wholeness and health according to the Divine plan.

Know this now, in the silence of prayer …

This Truth of God permeates every cell of your body. It is the absolute Truth of you. The Spirit of God is mighty within you and fortifies your body temple.

Now we gently move our thoughts to ideas of prosperity. Abundance fills our lives. God is supply. The spirit of God within us is the source of abundance. As we pray, we give thanks for every expression of God’s loving, providing spirit–for friends and family, for flowers and birds, for sunshine and rain, for the busyness of each day and the quiet of each night.

We pray now for a greater awareness of the bountiful goodness of God for ourselves and for others as we take this Truth into our hearts: The Spirit of God urges me to succeed. All that I need is provided.

In prayer, we are open to the Mind of God. We are open to the fulfillment of every need–peace, joy, health, prosperity, guidance, freedom. We accept all that is ours through the precious spirit of God within us. With hearts overflowing, we say, “Thank You, God!” From this place and this time of stillness, we have a new power to go forth, knowing that we are bountifully cared for because the spirit of God abides within us.

The light of God surrounds you;
The love of God enfolds you;
The power of God protects you;
The presence of God watches over you.
Wherever you are, God is!

In Jesus Christ’s name we pray … 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.

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
05Apr

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Finding the Shelter Through Prayer

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Finding the Shelter Through Prayer

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.

Also, great lesson material available free daily – get Positive Daily Inspiration direct in your email inbox every morning. Text POSITIVEMINISTRY to 22828 to easy, free subscribe.

_____________________________________

“Let me … Find refuge under the shelter of your wings.” Psalm 61:4

There is spiritual power in stillness and peace of mind, through which you can find, and then express, the joy of the Lord.

In the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes, there is a familiar passage that begins with the words “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” The writer goes on to enumerate a number of things saying that there is a time for this and a time for that. In verse seven of chapter 3, it says, ” … a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.”

I guess this moment now – is my time to speak.

Whenever we are going to speak, it is always well if we have something to say. Sometimes, we cannot outdo silence. Very often in life we are so conditioned to keep the noise going. We get so outer-oriented and so busy that we forget to take time for quiet; take time apart, as Jesus did in His ministry. This is depicted in several places in the Gospel – where Jesus needs to draw away from the crowds and take a time apart.

This is not a new idea, but are we really practicing it in our lives? In other words, maybe, sometimes, we are talking too much when we need to be silent, and just spiritually listen for the voice of God.

This reminds me of the story of the tourist who came to a country town.

That evening, he went down to the General Store and found a number of men who were gathered around, sitting there in silence. This particular gentleman happened to be a person who liked to talk a lot, so he kept trying to strike up a conversation. Nobody would reply. These good old boys were just sitting around the General Store in silence. Nobody said a word. Finally, the tourist said, “Well, really, is there a law against speaking in this town?”

One of the men spoke up and said, “No, there’s no law against speaking, but we sort of have a general understanding around here that unless one is sure he can improve upon the silence, he does not speak out.”

The idea of improving upon silence is so important if we are considering we have something to say.

Another story that tells us that if we do speak out, we had better know what we have to say and what we’re going to say, and that it is of importance at least to us and possibly, to other people.

There was a gentleman who was buying a horse. The seller of the horse told the man, “This was a very religious horse. There are a couple of key words this horse will tune in to. Any time you want the horse to stop, just say the word ‘Amen,’ because that’s what he stops on. Then, when you want the horse to go forward, say ‘Praise the Lord.’ You got it?”

The buyer said, “Yes, I understand that, and I’m willing to go with it.” So he bought the horse, remembering that it was a very religious horse.

One day, he took the horse out for a ride. While they were galloping along in this field, the horse began galloping a little too fast. The gentleman forgot the key word to stop the horse (which was ‘Amen’). He was hollering out just about every word you could imagine, but the horse just kept galloping. The gentleman looked up and noticed he was heading toward a steep cliff. The horse kept on going, and the gentleman began to panic. All of a sudden, he remembered the key word that would stop the horse, and he cried out “Amen!” The horse stopped right on the edge of the cliff. The man looks down and sees the big drop, looks up to heaven and says, “Praise the Lord.”

This story keys into one thing, in particular. That is, if we have something to say, we hope it is the right thing to say, and that it will be helpful to ourselves and to other people.

The idea of silence is a particularly important idea because it brings with it peace of mind. And peace of mind is the one thing we all strive to achieve. Of all the blessings you will receive in prayer, there is one that stands out among all the others, and that is peace of mind. I do not think we can accomplish very much in life without peace of mind.

We do not have to look far around the world to see that there are plenty of places in the world that are still in need of peace. But if we are going to have peace out there, we must first establish peace within ourselves.

One of the greatest ways to learn to establish peace within ourselves is to practice the silence, to give ourselves those opportunities to have times of real quiet, prayer, and meditation, and to be in the silence where there is just ourselves, and God. These periods of silence will lead to a greater degree of peace of mind, without which nothing of lasting value has ever been accomplished.

The Bible brings this idea out in many different ways. One particular section in the Bible is full of a lot of racket and noise, and that is the book of Revelation. The sixth chapter in the book of Revelation is where the seven seals are broken and opened. When the first six seals are opened, there are all kinds of noises that take place; things that the writer describes as the upset of the universe that he says must happen before God will reveal God’s self to you, and wipe out all the evil, and establish the kingdom of God.

Remember, that does not literally have to happen. What can happen is that we can establish peace, right here and now, as we let God have God’s perfect way in and through us. There is always a hard way to learn spirituality and an easy way.

In the first four chapters, the four horsemen appear. Then, when the fifth is broken, you have a picture of the martyrs who are slain. They are under the altar crying out, “Oh, Lord, how long before you will avenge us.” It is a hugely different concept of God than we often have. It depicts a vengeful God who is going to carry out retribution upon his people. This is JUST the writer’s point of view.

Then, when the sixth seal is broken, there are all kinds of cosmic disorders. There are earthquakes and upsets all over the place.

Finally, in the next chapter, there is a nice interlude, a time of quiet. Then, in chapter eight, the first verse, the seventh and final seal is broken.

Do you know what it says then? There is NO more noise and no more racket. It just says simply that there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. Can you feel that? Then the noise starts again, according to the writer.

What a relief that must have been. What a relief it is, also, in our lives when we let the racket and the noise of the world intrude on our consciousness and peace of mind, TO KNOW that because God is with us, we always have a direct access to inner peace, that we can turn to God. We can take comfort in that spiritual thought.

Probably one of the greatest stories is in the New Testament – the idea of the stilling of the storm. Jesus was out on the waters on the Sea of Galilee with His disciples, and a storm comes up.

Jesus is asleep in the boat. A little lesson here is to remember that God never sleeps. We may sleep, but God, with us NOW, never sleeps. Anyway, the way it is shown in the scripture is that Jesus is asleep in the boat and the disciples wake Him. They ask Him something like, “Don’t you care about us?” All Jesus does is speak the word, “Peace, be still, peace, be still,” and the waters are calmed.

You and I have that same power to still the storms in our lives. How? By simply speaking the word of peace in prayer, we can take command of our consciousness, and of our lives. We are in charge of our world. We have the God-given power. All power is found in the silence. The Bible says that we have been given dominion. In that power, we find whatever it is we need to accomplish in life, and we find the power to do it.

It is really in the quiet that things are accomplished. We know there is great power in the silence and the peace of mind that it brings. It was the same idea the poets address, in that you, could hear the silence. The sound of the silence can be almost deafening. But what a beautiful sound it is, because you feel the spiritual power it also brings.

I remind you of Psalm 23 which says, “The Lord is my shepherd … He leads me besides still waters; he restores my soul.”

So, whatever it takes to enter into a moment of silence, let us do that.

Let us take it. Let us create a practice in the silence which provides certain steps to entering the time of silence which leads to that blessed peace of mind. This then becomes the foundation from which we can go forth and accomplish things in life.

Most of you here, today, are probably working at a job in the world. That is wonderful. But there is a lot of worldly racket out there. Very often you come to church to services, on Sunday morning, to experience a time of quiet and hopefully, to gain some insight into practical, helpful daily living, and what everybody really wants – to still the racket of the world, once again. It always serves that purpose and gives a peace beyond (human) understanding.

This practice in the silence is a little technique to help us become quiet and to attain that peace of mind, from which we can then go forth and really do wonderful things in life.

1) The first step is relaxation.

Take command of your mind and body; speak the words Jesus spoke to the storm, “Peace, be still.” It does not take exceedingly long to find that your mind and body will respond to that, and there will be a sense of peace.

Once you have achieved that state of relaxation, then comes –

2) The concentration.

You begin to concentrate on a certain idea, a Divine idea. You do not worry about something or stew about some problem you have, but maybe just concentrate on the words “solution” or “answer;” whatever it might be, without effort or strain. Concentrate on a particular idea. You will know what that idea is because it will be revealed to you, through you, at exactly the right moment and in the right way.

After the concentration comes –

3) A time of meditation.

We just let the free flow of thought take place; we are one with the presence and power of God.

After meditation –

4) Realization.

The answer comes; an idea is born in our consciousness which is the solution we have been seeking.

I have found that sometimes the realization, or the answer, just does not come right at that moment. It may be after I have left that time of silence and gone out into the world; but at the right time and in the right way, there is the answer. It comes exactly at the right time and in the right way.

The fifth step in this whole process of the practice in the silence –

5) Simply an act of gratitude or thanksgiving.

We give thanks to God for the process which we have just entered and participated in, and for the answer we know is forthcoming, (if it has not already come at the time of silence). Thanksgiving is not just a wonderful way to end any activity, but to begin the activity as well. So maybe before we begin the practice in the silence, we should begin with a note of thanksgiving, because you know, in God, the answer is already there. All we have to do is let it unfold in our lives at the right time and in the right way.

Sometimes, people get the idea that when we enter a time of quiet or stillness that it is a “cop-out” from the world; that we are trying to avoid responsibility.

We can become still and quiet BEFORE we do anything. The moment of stillness is not really idleness, but a real period of intensified focused activity. There is always time in the creative process for you and me to become still, and that is the time when God takes over and brings an increase in our future efforts, in both Divine inspiration and strength.

The first chapter of Genesis is the creation story. Author Emmett Fox says that the six days of creation, before the Sabbath, are not the days that God works, spiritually, but are the days we work, when we put forth our effort and do our part. Then, we always come to the Sabbath, which is a time of rest for ourselves. It is the time when we have to let go and let God.

In everything we do, we come to that point where we have completed our efforts, and we have to let go and let God. Then we rest. The seventh day is our Sabbath. It is the day God goes to work and brings to completion all of our efforts.

The simple illustration I have always used is one of baking a cake. If you are going to bake a cake, you have to do your part in the process. That part is your six days of creative activity, where you put all the ingredients of the cake together. Then what do you do? You let go and let God; you let go and let the oven do its work. While you are resting from your effort, the oven, or God, if you will, will go to work and bring to completion your efforts.

When you have understanding faith, (and that means an awareness that God always completes God’s part, and that God is a God of good), then you know you cannot fail. This creative process works, each and every time. We do our part. We put the ingredients of the cake together and put it in the oven, and then we let go and let God.

Of course, what do we often do while that cake is in the oven? We open up the oven door and see how God is doing; we make sure the Divine activity IS really taking place. Then we close the door. We don’t have to do all that when you understand that you really are involved in a creative process with God. I remember when I came into that awareness. Then the idea came that there really is a system by which I can live. I can really do something about this mess that I have called my life. I can change it. Before then, there was no real system. It was, “Maybe God will act on your behalf, and maybe God won’t.”

Understanding faith is faith based on knowing – knowing that the activity of God is always at work on our behalf. All we have to do is LET IT to work with it. Do your part, and then – let go and let God. Very often the question arises, “How do I know I have done my part? How do I know there isn’t more for me to do?” When it keeps persisting, and you find that your continuing efforts are bringing more disharmony than harmony, then maybe it might be the time to let go and let God. Stop doing whatever it is you are doing, and let the Divine activity truly take over and bring to completion your efforts.

The words of Paul in his letter to the Philippians (chapter 1, verse 6): “I am sure He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” For us, the day of Jesus Christ can be right now. It is the day of completion. Jesus Christ has already come when you and I realize that God is with us NOW; that God is with us as the essence of our being, the fullness of being, the fullness of life, love, peace, wisdom, and any spiritual quality you can think of. When you have that realization, then for all practical purposes, Jesus Christ has come a second time into your present, daily life. Paul gives us that assurance.

You can count on God to do God’s part in this whole creative process. In the Old Testament, there are several wonderful stories that bear this out – the idea of letting go and letting God at the right time, doing your part and then letting go and letting God step into the picture, and as Paul said, bring to completion all of our efforts.

One of those stories is the story of the Red Sea. The story simply is that Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt and got them right up to the edge of the Red Sea. This is your story and mine. The Red Sea, spiritually, represents the big obstacle that seems to loom up on our path of unfoldment. What are we going to do? Try to crash our way through it? Run away from it? What are we going to do? As Moses led these people right up to the Red Sea, these are the words he was instructed to speak to the people: “Fear not.” Why? Because the presence and the power and the activity of God is with you, in this situation.

Friends, if we didn’t have that realization that a God of good was with us all the way, then how could we possibly face these experiences of life?

Moses said, “Fear not. Stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord which God will work for you today.” He said the Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be still. In other words, where is it we find our solution? In the stillness. You don’t find the solution in continued struggle in the outer aspect. There are outer things for us to do. The six days of creative activity are ours to do, but then there is always the Sabbath day, the seventh day.

What did the people do? They became still, right in front of this big obstacle. Do you know what the very next line is in the scripture? As soon as the people became still, the Lord said, “Go forward.” In other words, the water parted. In some way, that obstacle dissolved itself and the people were able to move through.

It is the same thing with you and me. Have you ever walked right up to a problem and then stopped, relaxed, and became still, in prayer, and then walk right on through the challenge?

Why? Because the Spirit of the Lord has paved the way for you, making it straight, safe, smooth, successful, and helpful. So, the Red Sea story tells us that in the stillness, not struggling in the outer aspect, do our miracles take place.

How about the story of Elijah and the still, small voice? He found God, not in the earthquake, not in the wind, not in the fire, not in the outer distractions of the world, but in the still, small voice within himself. What an experience that was! When you read that account in the nineteenth chapter of First Kings, you will see it builds up to a climax of the still, small voice. You can just sense a time of quiet and peace, a time of stillness, that great peace of mind that we all aspire to. After that, what happens? The Lord tells Elijah to go to work and gives him three things to do. That is the same way it is with you and me. These periods of coming apart in the quietness and stillness are simply times of preparation for outer activity in the world, for another six days of creative activity. Then you come to the same point of letting go and letting God, enter the Sabbath rest, and be with the still, small voice within you. Sometimes, we get so caught up in all of this that we want to continue struggling and striving in the outer aspect to bring about our miracle.

Another great story in the scripture is the story of Jehoshaphat in Second Chronicles. He was the king of the southern kingdom of Judea. At one point, three invading armies came in to attack Judea. Jehoshaphat did not know what to do, so he went to a prophet. Do you know what the prophet told him? The prophet told him almost the same words you would have heard at the Red Sea with Moses. They begin with, “Fear not.” The prophet tells Jehoshaphat that “the battle is not yours, but God’s. You will not need to fight in this battle. Take your position. Stand still and see the victory of the Lord on your behalf.”

In other words, the prophet told Jehoshaphat, “Don’t do anything.” “You mean, I’m not supposed to do anything?” How are most of us conditioned? “I’ve got to get out there and do something.” But he had done all he could, up to this point. And when the three invading armies came in, two of the armies mistook the third for Jehoshaphat and fought with them. Then those other two invading armies turned on each other and fought each other. Who was standing there not having to lift a finger throughout the whole experience?
Jehoshaphat.

Friends, IF he would have entered into battle, he would have been fighting a battle that he had already won. Does that sound familiar? How often we keep struggling and striving when the battle has already been won? In God, there is no battle to be fought. If you need to think in terms of fighting a battle, know in God, the battle has already been won! This whole scenario we find involved in God with us, in the perfect spiritual pattern with us, is something that simply needs to be played out on earth. That is what you and I are attempting to do.

One more story comes out of the Old Testament that tells us about being still and experiencing salvation. It has to do with a king named Hezekiah. (In II Kings 18-20.) The Syrians had come down (a conquering nation) and had invaded the southern kingdom of Judea. They were surrounding Jerusalem, and the chief representative of the Assyrian King was outside the walls, threatening the people, and telling them, “Don’t listen to your King Hezekiah. Come out and surrender to us because you cannot resist the great King of Assyria.”

This is like what happens in us, in that city within us that we call peace of mind, when all the negative thoughts seem to be beseeching our peace of mind and quiet and shouting out at us, “Worry about this; worry about that.” Do you know what King Hezekiah does? He tells the people, “Do not answer him.” In other words, be quiet. Do you know what happens? The Assyrians withdraw. Something happens in the outer aspect.

Haven’t you noticed that when you let go and let God, something happens, and very often it is unexpected. It is always better than you expected. But something happens, and that which you fear, does NOT come about. What does come about is the perfect solution to your problem.

It is interesting, because many Biblical scholars think that at that time at the siege of Jerusalem by the King of Assyria, at about 700 B.C., that a certain psalm was written (Psalm 46). Psalm 46 begins by stating, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.” Do you know what verse 10 of Psalm 46 says? “Be still and know that I am God.” Do you see how that statement ties into what Hezekiah told the people in chapter 18 of II Kings when he said, “Do not answer him”? We can take a cue from that. “Be still and know that I am God.” When you have done your part, simply let go and let God.

This morning, I began this talk by quoting Ecclesiastes in saying, “For everything is a season; there is a time for every matter under heaven.” I said there was a time to keep silent and a time to speak, but we can also reverse that: there is a time to speak and a time to keep silent. I think my time of speaking is over, and now it is time for me to keep silent. I have done my part.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION______________________________

Softly listen to The Lord’s Prayer {Google music of Lord’s prayer)

Follow with silence

As we continue in this prayer time, established by the singing of The Lord’s Prayer and listening to the beautiful sounds of the silence, we begin to relax and let go. We begin to let our thought flow to the deep and quiet within us. Within us and all about us is a deep abiding silence that is beyond the clamor, beyond the busyness, beyond all those things that are taking place in the outer world. We relax, let go, and attune our thoughts, right here and now, to the deep abiding silence within us.

As we move our thought spiritually inward, we tap that deep silence, wherein know we are one with the one Presence and one Power, God; the source of all good, the source of all life, the source of all light, the source of all love. The source of everything we may desire is within us in the silence of our being.

In the silence of prayer …

How wonderful, how marvelous to know that we do not have to seek outside of ourselves, but only tap into that reservoir of all we may desire. Whatever we desire to create in the outer is to be found in abundance within us. We have all the power we will ever need to create our world according to a perfect law.

As we hold those thoughts in mind that produce good in our lives, we tap into the power and the presence of God. We are renewed, uplifted, and healed by that Presence and that Power. We feel the goodness of God filling our minds and hearts. No matter what the desire of our heart is to create in mind, body, and life experience, we find that Source of renewal, of healing, of all good with God.

In the silence of prayer …

God is life; the very life of life. That life flows through us when we tap into the pure source of life. We allow that life to renew, rebuild and uplift our body temples. Every cell responds to the movement of life.

As we seek it in the silence of prayer, new life is ours …

The silence is the source of all light. The light of the illumination of God guides and directs our ways and leads us into those paths that are for our highest good and for the highest good of all people concerned. Surely, God is a lamp unto our feet. That light within us illumines our minds and fills our minds with wisdom. We know what to do and how to do it. We rejoice that the God of light is deep within us and all around us, working through us to bring about new good in our lives.

In the silence of prayer …

God is love. God is the source of all love. As we let that love, which is God, fill our mind and heart to overflowing, we are established in love. Love renews; love reaches out and touches all in our circle of life. Love harmonizes and brings peace. So, we let that love, which is God, express through us, as us.

God is peace, the peace that passes all understanding. As we fill our mind and heart with that peace, which is God, we let it flow out to all of the communities in our area, to all of the states of these United States, to all areas of the world. We see perfect peace being established in the mind and heart of every person, everywhere. We NOW have peace of mind.

We rejoice and give thanks that peace is now established in the silence of prayer …

Whatever good we desire, God is the answer. And in the silence of prayer, we seek to know God more completely and clearly.

We seek it now in the silence, in the silence of prayer …

We feel the wonder of God’s presence within us. We feel the joy of God’s presence with us. And we feel the goodness of God all about us. Knowing we have established a greater awareness of that God-presence which renews us always, we now bring our time of prayer and meditation to a close. As in heaven, so in earth, the heaven of our mind is surely filled with the goodness of God, and likewise, shall be the earth of our experience.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

This we do in the name and through the power of the living, loving presence of God, and Jesus Christ … Amen.

Since 1999 – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,000,000 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.

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
29Mar

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – The Power of Positive Thinking

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - The Power of Positive Thinking

Time Sensitivity: A Sunday before Easter

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.

Also, great lesson material available free daily – get Positive Daily Inspiration direct in your email inbox every morning. Text POSITIVEMINISTRY to 22828 to easy, free subscribe.

_____________________________________

Positive thinking has great power. Let us talk about the power of making deposits in your own mind that reap rich rewards. It can only return to you what you deposit within it.

Let me share a story with you. There was once a university professor who went searching for the meaning of life. After several years, he came to a holy man and asked to be enlightened. The holy man invited his visitor into his humble dwelling and began to serve him tea. He filled the man’s cup and then kept on pouring so that tea was soon dripping onto the floor. The professor watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. “Stop! It is full. No more will go in.” The holy man said, “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions, preconceptions, and ideas. How can I teach you unless you first empty your cup?”

In Greek mythology, there was a goddess of memory. She was the mother of nine sister goddesses who presided over poetry, the arts, and the sciences.

What if your safety deposit box at your bank was so filled with debris that you could no longer make good deposits, what if there was no room.

What happens when you are praying for healing, you’ve said your positive prayers, and then, in the middle of the night, those old thoughts about the last time you were sick bubble up? You say, “Oh, Lord, I pray this doesn’t happen again.” But the memory is so vivid. It is coming from your memory.

Let us say you are experiencing prosperity. It feels so wonderful; it is so good. Then, you remember so clearly about the last time you experienced lack. You remember what that felt like and how it was to deal with it. Suddenly, you are afraid because the memory is so vivid. It seems so much more powerful than your prayers of faith.

Or, you saw something with your eyes that hurt you a great deal. It was so vivid that you captured it forever like a photograph, and it keeps coming up to haunt you.

The inner mind is like a photographic plate, and yet most of us are carrying around images of lack of some kind.

Let us say you wanted to do something, but you couldn’t at the time. You felt helpless. That is so vivid in you, and it keeps bubbling up. You want it to bubble up once and for all, and come out, so this memory of this perceived failure will have no effect on you any longer.

Imagine, if you would for a moment, a God filled memory bank in your mind. Every time something unexpectedly bubbled up in you, it was beautiful; it fed you, gave you courage, and inspired you.

What is a memory bank? It is an investment place where many individual thoughts should work together for the good of the whole.

A bank is a place that gives loans and pays interest. It is a place you invest in for a bigger return later. A bank is a place you should be able to go to when you’re having a down day, and have it flood you with unbelievable good, joy, and exhilaration.

But many times, our personal bank has gone bust.

Many times, it works in the reverse way – negative memories come up and rob us of our present-moment peace of mind.

The memory mind is a “great gulfs fixed” between your present and the attainment of your highest desire, your good. The memory mind is your sensitive photographic plate of mind. Its true office is to receive impressions from God and to reproduce them upon the canvas of your conscious mind.

Right now, your conscious mind is looking out and taking in the world around you. You are filtering those things back into the realm of your memory bank. Sadly, this is especially true if something happens to you, real, or imagined, that is displeasing. It is almost like you make such an impression of that, that you just chisel a permanent statute to it in your memory bank.

In the Holy person, the memory bank exists to be flooded from God mind, and the daily perceptions of what God gives in life. Therefore, as a positive person, when you are facing something that is displeasing, your memory is filled to the brim with investments of God Mind for your well being.

The memory bank is pivotal. It is designed by our Creator to take images on its sensitive plate of God – to be filled with God’s good, and power. You can cleanse bad memories you have, by continually investing good memories, awareness, and gratitude of God’s good. Your life will take on spiritual power. A person is who he/she thinks, or eats, or reads, but more so a person is what he/she remembers within their own memory bank.

In the classic play “Macbeth,” Shakespeare said: “Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased? Pluck from the memory of a rooted sorrow.”

I’m going to ask you a question this morning: Do you have any rooted sorrows in your mind? If you do, you don’t want them there anymore. You do not need them. As a matter of fact, not only do you not need the rooted sorrows, but they are blocking you from God’s good. You have this rooted sorrow between your conscious-awareness mind and God mind.

In our Bible, James 1:7, 8, “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.”

You must go back to your Source, your original depositor, and let God’s clear light flood your whole being with Divine Truth. Your body CAN BE the Temple of the living God. You must lay aside, forever, the idea of serving two masters and must look to the one Master, Christ. Jesus said that He came not to destroy the law, but that the law might be fulfilled through Him. It is the mission of every person born into the world to fulfill the law of Being, to allow God to come through in all phases of her or his mind, perfectly.

The Bible says, “Be subject, therefore, unto God. Draw nigh to God and God will draw nigh to you.”

God thinks. God responds. God is omni-responsive. God never gets to the point where God does not respond to you individually. If you turn to God and ask God to do something, God is going to hear you. Don’t look to appearances of all the debris in there. Ask God to flood your entire memory bank with light. You ask God and God is omni-responsive. God responds and cleansing happens.

Do you remember the story of the prodigal son? Go a little way, and God will come the rest of the way to greet you. You do not have to figure out, in conscious-awareness mind, the formula, the magic words, the keys to open this up. God knows how to cleanse you from inside out.

In Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass,” the queen says: “It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.” Memory bank is supposed to work forward by letting your being with positive thoughts and feelings, to bless you, to comfort and strengthen you, to guide you around pitfalls in life, by helping you to remember your connectedness to the Source.

God is ever ready to pour forth a Divine blessing, quick to respond to the call of the conscious awareness. God is omnipresent, but humans have hedged themselves about by a world of illusion of their own creating, and through its mists, they cannot see God, or catch the light from God. Jesus came to give us conscious control of the intelligence and the power necessary to dispel these mists, where we think we are alone and that we have to do it all alone. Jesus gave us the ability to dispel the fog, just like an early morning fog lifts with the light of the sun. When it lifts we can see, feel, and perceive that God IS WITH US.

There is not one person who is not equipped in this way. Each person has God’s help ready and willing to help at any time. God will lift you up, regenerate your memory bank, and transform the memory bank into the true image and likeness of God. It will happen by your saying you want it, in prayer.

There is an old saying: “Don’t be a single-stringed harp.” Can you imagine if a harp had only one string? You would get tired of that one note pretty quickly. Imagine that conscious mind is only looking in one direction, and yet, worry and fear in the human being do just that.

Imagine memory that only looks in one direction and turns its back on God. We don’t have to. We can find God right where we are.

As the old, bad memories come up, those things that hurt you in the past, what do you do? You don’t buy oats for a dead horse.

It’s just a mist. If you look closely through it, you will see God’s help. And as you see God through the fog and the mist of the old memory that is rising, you have taken away its power once and for all. It will never again have power to disturb you.

In the Bible it says, “A new heart also will I give you.” In this section of the Bible, the heart refers to your memory bank. “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you.” The whole mind will be raised to a new consciousness. This is what I pray happens now.

I pray, like the Bible says, that you have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus.

Let us pray:

Through the action of God, I ask and call forth a whole new spirituality in and through me.

I decree in Jesus Christ’s name that, in every level of my mind, I am being cleansed. I pray my memory bank is being cleansed by God. It is being cleansed through and through with the true light that lighteth every human. It lights the darkness in me now.

God’s light that does not allow any darkness to remain in me.

In Jesus Christ’s name … Amen

PRAYER / MEDITATION___________________

As you rest, think within yourself about your positive faith. You have faith in God. God is your instant, constant, abundant help in every need.

You have faith in God to open ways where to human sense there is no way. You have faith in God to guide, govern, and direct you in Divine directed service.

Rising up in you now is a faith in God to raise your human understanding to Divine higher understanding. You have faith in God. And because God is with you, you have faith in yourself as a child of God, eager to do God’s bidding.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Dear God, I expect a miracle. Understanding that my help comes from You, I will not limit You with preconceived opinions of human mind. I am open and receptive to Your unlimited reservoir of good.

The abundance of God’s good is mine to use, share and enjoy. I am dwelling in the midst of infinite abundance of good. The abundance of God is my infinite source. The river of life is flowing through me, from God, through my memory, to, and through, my entire body. The river of life never stops flowing. It flows through me into lavish expression of God’s good.

Good comes to me through unexpected avenues. There is always a higher outworking of God’s law. It demonstrates in my life this day. God works in so many ways with so many wonders that I cannot even perceive of them in human mind this moment. Nothing is too good to be true because I dwell in the midst of all good and all love of God. Nothing is too wonderful to happen. With God as my source, nothing amazes me.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

I now give myself, freely and fearlessly, into this amazing, happy life that I am living today. Life gives back to me with fabulous increase. Blessings come in expected and unexpected ways from God.

God provides for me in wondrous ways this very day.

I am in grateful gratitude for what God is now doing for me, right now.

The river of God life flows through me now. The unlimited reservoir of good and love is outpouring on me, right now.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

May God’s good uplift you and fuel you in your daily life. Nothing else will exist but thoughts of God’s good. We turn to God now with our whole mind. We call forth the total, complete cleansing of God, as you rest it occurs. We ask that all negative thoughts dissipate like a mist. Like a fog, it will dissipate, under the heat of God’s light, and be no more.

We call forth the thoughts of God. We call forth a new reservoir and an investment of God power within us. Today, this moment, the action is taking place inside of each of us. We are created anew in God.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

If an old negative memory should ever coming up, dear God, with Your help, I will receive the blessing of light. I will have better dreams at night.
I will have a wonderful power during the day that gives me a foundation for my faith filled life to rest on. My positive thoughts 1,000 times more power. Every thought in me is a thought of God.

May my mind be a reservoir of God’s Divine ideas that hold to the truth about me.

Rest in the silence of prayer …

Thank You God, for Your ever abiding presence in my life.

In Jesus Christ’s name we pray … Amen.

Since 1999 – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,000,000 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.

Easter offering:
Instant online donation:
https://positivechristianity.net/donation-tithe/
By mail: Positive Christianity Box 7993 Woodlands, TX 77387

GOD BLESS YOU, Happy Easter!
Christopher Ian Chenoweth

Read More
22Mar

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Easter

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Easter

Time Sensitivity: Easter Sunday

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.

Also, great lesson material available free daily – get Positive Daily Inspiration direct in your email inbox every morning. Text POSITIVEMINISTRY to 22828 to easy, free subscribe.

_____________________________________

For hundreds of years, Hebrew seers had believed that a man was to come, who would fulfill the noblest ideals of humanity. This ideal man, they foretold, would be the Messiah, the anointed One, the beloved of God, the Savior. They prophesied that He would lead His people out of darkness and distress, into the light and joy that was to come. From the days of Moses, who declared, Jehovah thy God will raise up unto thee a prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken [Duet. 18:15, KJV].

Throughout the period of the great literary prophets, there had been these predictions. How and when this Messiah was to come the prophets did not know; nevertheless, they had a definite conception of what He would be like. Of all the prophets, Isaiah had the clearest vision. He said that a maiden would bear a son whose name would be Immanuel (which means God with us). He would be a redeemer, a king to whose sovereignty there would be no end.

Allow me to share with you Isaiah 9:2-5. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined … For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace [KJV].

Isaiah gave a clear description of the nature of the anointed One. The Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the [respect] of Jehovah … and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither decide after the hearing of his words; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, an decide with equity for the needy of the earth; and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth; and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. And righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist, and faithfulness the girdle of his loins [Isaiah 11:2-5, KJV].

The prophet declared that the kingdom of the Messiah would be universal, not only for humans, but for all creation. And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them … They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea [Isaiah 11:6-9].

Truly this was a remarkable person. Allow me to share with you the most remarkable story of all–the Easter story, what we are here to celebrate this morning.

Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Then Peter and the other disciple set out and went toward the tomb. The two were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent down to look in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself.

Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.

There is an important fact here. There were two disciples, who ran to the tomb, and there are two disciples who run to your tomb–whatever you have entombed in your life; and whatever you are hoping on this Easter morning will rise again.

The two disciples were Peter and John. They spiritually represent faith and love.

But love gets there first. Mary Magdalene, the soul that has found faith and love, is not afraid once they come.

With love and faith, we, too, can face anything. Allow your love to go forward and your faith will follow. The two have a great, united strength where you can do anything; where you can face your fears if you allow these two powers, which are with you (Christ powers), to go ahead.

You remember, the two disciples ran on their way to their homes, but Mary stood weeping outside the tomb. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?

You can just hear Jesus saying this. My Jesus, and, I hope, your Jesus, is a smiling Jesus, a Jesus with joy and a great sense of humor. I can just see Him. It is one of the peak moments of His life, filled with joy. And here is Mary in sorrow. He looks at Mary and says, “Mary, why are you weeping? Here I am. I am right here.”

But she supposed Him to be the gardener. She had tears in her eyes; she was in great sorrow. She looked up, but could not see clearly. She was still crying uncontrollably. She said to Him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, [probably in total disbelief] “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”; and she told them that he had said these things to her.

There were five appearances of Jesus on the day of the Resurrection (Easter Sunday). Appearance #1 was when Mary was standing at the tomb weeping. Mary’s weeping was the human reaction of grief over the death of a loved one. And added to her grief was the fear that someone had stolen Jesus’ body.

The two angels represent the positive words of life that bring spiritual power to bear; that lift the body out of matter into spirit. These two bright and shining powers are possessed of animated intelligence.

Jesus was standing nearby, but Mary’s eyes were filled with tears and at first, she did not recognize Him. When He asked why she wept, she thought He was the gardener. However, when He called her by name, she turned and knew Him in that moment. Jesus said to her, “Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father.”

Why did Jesus not want Mary to touch Him? Later, in the same afternoon, He appeared to other women and did not object if they touched Him. It would seem that Mary was closer to Him than the others; for she had served Him continually from the time He had healed her, early in His ministry. Her grief, therefore, was heavier to carry than theirs.

In order to rise into the realm of God purity, the Christ must not be attached to the clinging affections of the soul. Jesus did not want the sorrowing thought of Mary to touch Him. The spiritual mind does not grieve; it does not look to matter and the limitations of the flesh for life eternal, and it dissipates the thoughts of sorrow by a denial of their reality or their power to affect the mind of the Son of God

The second appearance of Jesus was to the other women, who had come with Mary Magdalene to anoint His body. It probably took place in the garden of Joseph of Arimathaea. It is recorded only in the Gospel of Matthew.

And behold, Jesus met them, saying, “All hail.” And they came and took hold of his feet and worshipped him. Then saith Jesus unto them, “Fear not: go tell my brethren that they depart into Galilee, and there shall they see me [Matthew 28:9, 10].

The third appearance of Jesus Christ was to Peter. The details of it are unknown, though the visit is referred to by Luke and also by Paul in I Corinthians 15:5. “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon” (Luke 24:34).

The fourth appearance of Jesus Christ on Easter Sunday was toward evening. Jesus appeared to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. This is a beautiful instance of Jesus’ desire to open the eyes of those who believe. The two disciples, with sad and anxious hearts, were discussing the incidents of the past two days, when a stranger joined them and asked about their distress.

I love Jesus and I love the way He smiles through all these events. He just joins them and walks with them for a while. I can just see Him doing this.

The stranger said, “Tell me why you are so sorrowful?” They were surprised that anyone who lived in Jerusalem had not heard of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people [Luke 24:19]. It had been their hope that He was the long-awaited Messiah. True, the report was abroad that He had risen from the dead, but no one had seen Him. These two had not heard of His appearances to Mary Magdalene and the other women.

After He reproached the two disciples for their lack of understanding and faith, the Master explained the Old Testament prophecies concerning suffering and glory that were to be experienced by Jesus Christ. When the three arrived at Emmaus, the disciples invited Him to share their food.

When he had sat down with them to meat, he took the bread and blessed; and breaking it he gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said to one another, “Was not our heart burning within us while he spoke to us on the way, while he opened to us the scripture? [Luke 24:30-32, KJV].

With all speed, the two disciples returned to Jerusalem to tell the great news to the apostles. They found them and others with them, but before the two could relay their news, they were greeted with the joyous tidings, “the Lord is risen indeed.” Then the men from Emmaus told of their experience with the risen Jesus Christ.

The fifth appearance of Jesus was in the evening. Ten of the apostles were together in a room. The door was closed. Suddenly, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and saith unto them, “Peace be unto you.” And when he had said this, he showed unto them his hands and his side. The disciples therefore were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus therefore said to them again, “Peace be unto you: as the Father hath sent me, even so send I you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit: whosoever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them; whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained [John 20:19-23].

John the Baptist had baptized with water unto repentance, but he said of Jesus, “He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire” [Matthew 3:11].

When we have received a concept of the relation that we, as spiritual beings, have to God, the old state of thought is easily dissolved and washed away by that of which water baptism is symbolical–denial. Then, there come into our mind ideas directly from God, and we see everything in a new light. This baptism of the Holy Spirit quickens the whole human. When the mind has received words of God, the way is open for the healing power, which is called the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of wholeness, to descend further into the body consciousness. This outpouring or inpouring of the Holy Spirit is the second baptism.

This second baptism may be considered as the taking on of Divine ideas by affirmation of total faith.

The ten apostles gladly accepted the news, but Thomas thought the news was just too good to be true. He said, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” [John 20:25]. A week after the Resurrection, Thomas was given the proof he required.

Through His Divinity, we understand our own connection to God. What is the secret of Jesus’ enduring influence? One basic reason is that man is a spiritual being, made in the image and likeness of God. Everyone may not be aware of this, but we, instinctively, respond to the One whose every word and act was evidence of His divinity.

The voice of our spiritual self may be faint; we may even deliberately close our ears to it, yet it continues to sound and ever urges a climb to higher ground. Jesus made this ascent, and by our spiritual kinship with Him we are drawn to Him.

In mind, we are all related to a great creative Spirit of God that infuses its very life into our mind and body, when we turn our attention to it. We have, mentally, wandered away from this creative Spirit of God and lost contact with its life-giving currents. Jesus made connection for us, and through Him, we again begin to draw vitality from the great fountainhead.

This higher state of consciousness is what we are here to celebrate this morning that can overcome anything, that can overcome any tomb, anything that is dead in our lives. This higher state of consciousness is possible to all who follow Jesus by claiming their Divine heritage of choice to know they, too, are connected with God.

His promise is I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am you may be also. Through His great overcoming, Jesus released the Christ consciousness into the universal ethers. Those who keep His word may enter into it.

The Easter story! And it is true–every last word of it is true. It is the enduring influence we have of His message and the possibility of attainment we have by following that message that we are here on this Easter morning to celebrate.

God bless you!

PRAYER / MEDITATION_________________________________

What a joy it is to again pray. As you close your eyes, realize you are not only praying with your family, but also with people around the world. I ask you to join me in this time of prayer.

At this sacred time, we come together for a single purpose. That single purpose is united prayer. The prayers we share reach out to touch people in every corner of our city, at all churches, for prayer is universal.

We join our hearts and minds in stillness. God surrounds us as we move into this time of tranquility. We relax our minds and bodies, and we turn our thoughts toward God’s Presence. A calming peace washes over you and you feel at one with the Christ.

As you dwell in the silence of prayer, you remember these comforting words of Jesus Christ: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Take this thought with you, this Easter morning, into the silence of prayer. ..

Our prayer for inner peace is: The Christ is risen as peace. Hold that in your thinking. You are centered in peace.

You now focus your thought on Divine direction. You know that you are never alone as you travel the path of life. The Christ is always with you, to guide and direct you. In every situation, Christ is the ray of light that shines brightly, illuminating our way.

We walk through life serene and secure. We know our paths are bright and our way is clear. How grateful we are, dear God, for guidance. How certain we are that the way to the perfect plan lies before us.

Make me to know Thy ways, oh Lord. Teach me Thy paths. Our prayer for guidance is: The Christ is risen as light. My path is clear. Accept that, now, in the silence of prayer …

Centered in the Christ presence, we gently turn our thoughts to healing. Begin to sense that irrepressible desire for perfect health and wholeness. Our nature is to be strong and well. As we pray and believe, we feel the healing work taking place within us.

We know that even the smallest cell reacts to the Christ presence. Each atom of our bodies attracts the healing love of God. We are bathed in perfect health, which becomes more and more evident.

“For I will restore health to you; and your wounds I will heal,” says the Lord. Our prayer for healing is: The Christ is risen as life. I am healed. We totally accept that thought, now, in the silence of prayer. As we do so, it moves into our body-consciousness; the atoms and cells of our physical body temple accept that thought at the same time …

And now we, consciously, open ourselves to the good that awaits us. Our world is filled with abundance of every kind, and it is ours to enjoy. We have faith that Christ is providing for all of our needs. As we realize this, any impression of lack disappears.

As we bask in the light of prosperity, we remember that as children of a loving Provider, we are always cared for in generous ways. As we learn to graciously receive, we also learn to give; and we are twice blessed.

And the Lord will make you abound in prosperity. Our prayer for prosperity is: The Christ is risen as love. I give and receive bountifully. Accept that right now in the silence of prayer …
We now return our attention to the present moment, bringing with us, on this Easter Sunday morning a new perspective, of the activity of Christ within us. We are filled with thoughts of peace, guidance, health, and prosperity. We go forward from this place to rediscover our God-given good.

The light of God surrounds us;
The love of God enfolds us;
The power of God protects us;
The presence of God watches over us.
Wherever we are, God is!

In Jesus Christ’s name we pray … Amen.

Since 1999 – The worldwide PRAYER PLACE inside the Internet, serving well over 1,000,000 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.

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
15Mar

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Palm Sunday

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Palm Sunday

Time Sensitivity: Palm Sunday

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.

Also, great lesson material available free daily – get Positive Daily Inspiration direct in your email inbox every morning. Text POSITIVEMINISTRY to 22828 to easy, free subscribe.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows God’s handywork.” Psalms 19:1

(Find picture of Albrecht Deuer’s “Praying Hands” on the Internet. Ideally place picture on PowerPoint to project or copy for front of Sunday bulletin.)

Today I share a beautiful piece of art with you. You have seen this before. It is one of the most famous pieces of art that exists to inspire humankind. This is Albrecht Deuer’s “Praying Hands.” In churches of all religions around the world, there are hundreds of thousands of these.

It’s a beautiful piece. He was a genius. Many of his paintings are so great that they hang in the great galleries of the world. Of all the great art pieces, this is one of the very best. Years after it was painted, this was sculpted from one of the paintings. This is a copy of what is in the prayer chapel at Northwestern University. Let me share the story with you of this great work.

There were two struggling artists. It is believed they lived in France. They were trying to make it financially, but it was obvious that they both couldn’t go to art school because they didn’t have the money. They both wanted to go. Albrecht wanted to go and his friend, Hans, (who lived with him), also wanted to go. But the problem was, they had to make the decision as to who went first. Hans said to Albrecht, “Please you go on. I’ll stay back here and work. I’ll send you the money. You start to work and get paid for your work, and then I’ll get to go to school. I’ll then learn to be a great painter also.”

Albrecht said, “All right. But why don’t you go first?” They argued back and forth, and finally Hans won the argument so his friend, Albrecht would be the one to go first.

So Albrecht went to Paris and learned all the creative things needed to be a great artist. Three years later, he went back to the small town in France to see his friend, Hans. He knew right away that there had been a great price paid by Hans. He looked at Hans’ hands which had been doing manual labor during these years. They were stiff and gnarled. They could no longer hold a delicate brush. His friend had given his all–his love–so that Albrecht could go and give his life to creating things of beauty.

Albrecht looked at Hans and said, “May I do something for you? May I paint those hands that I love?”

Hans said, “How could anyone love these hands? They are so twisted and calloused.”

Albrecht held his hands and said, “No. I love these hands.” He painted these hands in the praying fashion that we know so well, because he had seen his friend pray many, many times before.

Legend says Albrecht gave this painting to Hans around 1342. The rest became history. But listen to the complete story. The complete story tells a lot about friendship, about giving ourselves to God, and about helping someone else to obtain something great. Probably because of his doing manual labor, Hans gave the world something greater than he could have ever done himself. God always has a plan. In a way, Hans was much more of a genius and gave the world much more than Albrecht did. He gave his all, that the artistic beauty of the genius could be seen. It’s like Jesus Christ gave us His all.

It is spiritual to care for others more than you care for yourself. You will also find through God’s love that you cannot give more away than you receive.

All good spiritual work is prayer. You too can make wondrous prayers. You don’t necessarily have to have your hands in this fashion. You can pray at any time. Archbishop Trench once said this about prayer: “Prayer is not overcoming God’s reluctance. It is laying hold of God’s highest willingness.” So often, when we are like this in prayer, we wrongly think that God is reluctant to answer our prayers. We think we have to somehow speak in a certain way, and somehow, we have to convince God to help us. But God is a willing God – if we are willing to make that triumphant spiritual entry like Jesus Christ did.

I pray that you, yourself, can obtain a spiritual connection in your own life. This is something that each person needs in his or her own individual life.

That’s the reason we’re here.

We come together in our humanness to discover the presence of God; God is ever willing to work with us, in us, and around us.

“One day Jesus had a blind man come up to him. The blind man said to Him, ‘Lord, let me receive my sight.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Receive your sight. Your faith has made you well.’ Immediately he received his sight and followed Him, glorifying God. “(Luke 18:41-43).

The story is not clear on how many were with Jesus when these events were taking place, but you had one incredibly grateful blind man who was seeing, possibly for the first time in his life. The events he was going to see had great significance.

Let’s pretend that up to this moment we were blind, and we have just received our sight. When you get into church you are going to hear a message you have NEVER heard before. Your awareness of God is so great that even the messages that you know well, become new. It has to become new IN you. It has to be seen and heard in a new way, a deeper, more profound way.

In Mark 11:1 it says: “And when they drew near to Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives … “

Let me explain, first, what the names of these cities meant. Names, in Biblical times, had great spiritual significance to the people. Jerusalem meant a habitation of peace. Imagine in your life if you were drawing near to a habitation of peace. Jesus spiritually knew what was going to happen. You wonder how could this Man, headed toward a crucifixion, have peace? How can you, head toward a crucifixion, or tremendous difficulty, in some area of your life, and still have peace? You can, if you have a high awareness of the Presence of God with you, helping you.

Bethphage is a place of unripe fruit. It is a place in our awareness where grace is realized, but it is just coming into realization. The fruit is there, but it is not quite ready yet; it is not ripe. There is still more to be done. You have had times like that. You have had an idea, but it is not ready yet. You have got it, but you don’t have all the details. You have been guided by God to do something, but you do not know yet where your next step is going to take you.

Bethany means wailing, limitations and affliction. But it also spiritually signifies the demonstration OVER these conditions.

You have a wonderful realization that God’s good is coming. And then you have a town (or a place in your awareness) you are drawing near to which is trouble or difficulty. That is normal in life. Just realize that God is with you. God will get you through this difficult time.

He said to two of His disciples, “Go into the village opposite you, and immediately as you enter it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has ever sat.”

I think that is the greatest miracle of this whole lesson. If I bring a colt in this church and ask you to sit on this colt – but I add, “By the way, no one has ever sat on this colt.” I’ll tell you; you might want to do it, but you would be foolish if you sat on it. This colt would throw you, and you would be airborne for some time.

It never happened to Jesus. He sat on that animal, what some consider the lowest of animals, and He tamed it immediately. It didn’t buck or throw Him off because of His consciousness and His awareness of His divinity. This was the highest moment in the animal’s life as well as for the people who had the colt. In Eastern places, when a holy man wanted to borrow a colt, it was a high honor for the family to give that colt over to him. And Jesus knew exactly where the colt would be. He told his disciples:

“Untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say ‘The Lord has need of it and will send it back here immediately.’ And they went away, and found a colt tied at the door out in the open street; and they said to them, ‘What are you doing untying the colt?’ And they told them what Jesus had said, and they let them go.

“And they brought the colt to Jesus, and threw their garments on it and He sat upon it. And many spread their garments on the road, and others spread branches which they had cut from the fields. And those who went before and those who followed cried out, ‘Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!'”

“In the name of” … means “in the nature of.”

They will say that TO YOU every time you come into a situation in the name of the Lord. If you come into your home and your family is quite dysfunctional and fighting, and you come in – in the name and nature of the Lord, (which is love), and bring harmony and peace to that situation, they will call you blessed. If you do this in your workplace, or wherever you are, you can come in the name of the Lord and make others feel God’s presence.

Hosanna means “save now.” There are many times when you want to be saved from the situation you are approaching. Many people here have high anxiety because of something that is facing them. We are yelling out Hosanna. God is a bigger God than any problem you face in your life. If you have this attitude, if you have this trust in God, you too will ride on the colt inside of you. This colt is your human nature, your lower nature that can buck with worry, and throw you off. You WILL ride and it will not buck or throw you off even though you have been thrown many times before, when you did not approach in a spiritual way.

Have you ever been so nervous that you actually shake? It’s like a bucking bronco. We do it to ourselves through worry and anxiety. If Jesus would have done it, we would not have blamed Him. He could have been in a real anxiety state. But He was not, He was calm. The animal was calm. He rode the animal, and He was not bucked off.

“Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that is coming! Hosanna in the highest!”

Hosanna in the highest; save now in the highest. Every time you need saving from something in your life, you can be saved in the highest by God. God is the highest. If you want to go to someplace that will never turn you away, that will always be willing, that will always accept you and love you, it is the Lord God Almighty. God will never forsake you. God will never fail you.

“And He entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when He had looked at everything, as it was already late, He left and went out to Bethany with the twelve.”

When He looked around the temple, He saw many things that were wrong. He saw some things that needed to be changed. He saw a lot of people were not praying aright. He was quite disturbed by this into that evening. The proof of this is His actions the next day.

“On the following day, when they came from Bethany, He was hungry. And seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, He went to see if He could find anything on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. And He said to it, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.'”

This means, in our own life, we have to be ready to produce fruit. We have to be ready so that we may be known by our fruit. Our big moment comes daily. Maybe it is a family situation where everyone is fighting, or an office situation where there is in-harmony, or maybe you’ve been laid off from work. Instead of riding that bucking bronco of worry and fear, know that God is with you, and you are going to be okay. That is what produces spiritual fruit of the harvest in our lives.

You become the light of the world. It doesn’t stay within you. It goes forth and blesses everyone around you.

We will never know how many people we bless when we are holding to trust in God. Others see it. They will look at you and say, “You have something I want. How do I get some?”

“And they came to Jerusalem. And He entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and He overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons; and He would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple.”

What does it mean that He wouldn’t allow anyone to carry anything through the temple? We often carry our fears into our places of worship, and we forget to let go of them there; we continue to carry them. Do you know what will really make you more religious? Prayer. You can fold your hands or sit or stand … however you choose, as long as your thoughts are on God Almighty. That is what makes you religious whether you’re inside the temple or wherever you are. You are the religious symbol of the church.

“And He taught and said to them, ‘It is not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?’ You have made this a den of robbers.'”

We ARE a house of prayer. We are here to help. And we know all help comes through us from God. It is our willingness working, our human willingness to allow the Divine to come through. We have to watch that we may never make our churches places of robbers. We have to take the focus off the humanness and put it on God.

“And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and sought a way to destroy Him; for they feared Him, because all the multitude was astonished at His teaching. And when evening came, they went out of the city. And they passed by in the morning, and they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots.”

That will happen to us if we do not let our spiritual fruits shine forth. If we do not allow that nature of God to come through us instead of our lower, human, animal nature, we’ll wither away also. It says so many places in the Bible. But that is not going to happen to you. Truly, if you are in a place where you have been withered, if you turn to God, you will experience the resurrection again. That is the message of Christianity – eternal life out of death. There are many areas of our lives that can be dead in the moment. They can come back to life again because God is a God of new life.

“And Peter remembered and said to Him, ‘Master, look! The fig tree which you cursed has withered.’ And Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, `Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.'”

When you pray, believe. Have your willingness allow God’s willingness to come through.

Jesus on prayer, “Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” Mark 11:24, 25

In other words, replace the lower, human, animal nature of resentment, hate, and envy with love. Allow that Divine love to shine in you and through every part of you. To make this a house of prayer for all nations, prepare for the experience.

You are going to make a triumphant entry into spiritual power and answered prayer. You are going to prepare by being willing for God to work in your life.

Second, you are going to rely completely upon God’s guidance. That is important. If you are filled with worry and fear, and you’re all tense, let go and let God.

Third, you need to concentrate on God and God’s power. You enter into the time of the silence of prayer. In due time, in the silence of prayer, you hear the message.

In hearing the message, you usually don’t hear a knock and God’s voice out loud. You often get an idea. The idea is like unripe fruit at that point. It is a new grace coming into your life. But if you act on the idea, something is going to happen. That is the message. And then, you live the blessed life. You have to walk the way Jesus walked and think the way Jesus thought and act the way Jesus acted. You cannot resort back to the way you were.

Constance Foster said, “I am convinced that every prayer we make is answered. Actually, our wishes and prayers bring the most inescapable results in the world. They are coming through constantly to our lives and our affairs. If you want to know what you have been praying for, just take a good look at the situation in which you find yourself as of this moment. It is the answer to your real prayer.”

Ernest Wilson wrote a book called The Week That Changed the World. He said, “Come with me God’s way. This is the invitation of the Christ.

Trust God. He is telling us in many ways. He entered Jerusalem not to fulfill His human will as Jesus, but His Divine purpose as Christ. His nature in us today is the same. It calls us to new heights of daring. It seems at times many problems put things at risk. It points to unchartered ways, sometimes at variance with the worldly security or acclaim.”

Let us pray. Dear God, as I would receive the blessings and promises of the kingdom, so I would also accept the discipline. Let my will and persistence claim higher goals than worldly gain alone. Like one who was to follow You, I would not be found unfaithful to that heavenly vision. I would keep the faith, run the course, and follow the light as Your nature grants me to see the light.

Thank You, God, for helping me begin to obtain a triumphant spiritual entry in my own life.

In Jesus Christ’s name we pray.

Amen.

PRAYER / MEDITATION_____________________________

What a holy time this moment is! This is a moment when you are turning to God, closing your eyes to the outside world and to its cares and concerns. This is a moment when you turn to the All-powerful Presence of God. And it is a moment when you spiritually hear. You hear that your problems are not really so big. And you learn how big God really is.

We do not really know God until we know God as love. We may have an intellectual understanding of God. We may have faith in God as Creator. But we do not know God until we feel love in our hearts and express love in our daily lives. Even when we think, speak and act from our highest understanding, we find that occasions arise which can only be met by the special calling upon the power of Divine love.

When wisdom is there, a problem cannot overpower us. When wisdom to solve a problem in our human self may fail us, love clarifies it and provides the answer. When there is discord and alienation to be overcome, God’s love works to restore understanding and harmony.

Now, during our prayer time, listen to these words from the Holy Bible (1 Corinthians 13:4-7):

“Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Allow God’s love to become part of your nature, your mind, your body, your awareness. Allow the love of God to flow through you in this time of silent prayer …

Dear God, I pray that I love more. I pray that I walk away from human judgment and that I see with the eyes of love. I pray that I see all men and women in love. With God’s love, I do not judge. With love, I accept others. I pray that I am able to love You more. Dear God, I know that love compensates for every deficiency in my life. And it removes all barriers to complete and happy living. If I take offense or if I give offense, love erases the wrong and transmutes the experience into something good. If our spirits are down, Divine love is mighty to uplift us.

I pray this hour that love is the wonder working power of God in my life. I pray that it will take the least desirable things in my life and transform them into objects to be supremely desired. An environment ever so unpleasing – can be transformed as love puts God’s enhancements into unhappy conditions. Joy and peace come in to refashion along me lines of harmony and grace.

Many of us have problems at the workplace. I pray that God’s love comes in. I pray that unhappy conditions in our homes are transmuted this hour into joy and peace. I pray that God manifests as love in many forms and in many ways in every area of your life. I pray that unselfishness is part of my being from this moment on. I pray that I give of myself more. And I pray that I fulfill the law which never fails, which casts out fear, which gives peace of absolute union with God.

In the silence of prayer …

I pray that we know God as unconditional, perfect love. I pray that we may experience the joy of rebirth in God’s love. And I pray that we yield ourselves to its wonderworking power and direct its creative energy towards all that needs to be adjusted, removed, harmonized, or healed in our lives this day.

Prepare yourself, now, for this to occur in the silence of prayer …

In Jesus Christ’s name I decree that you live in God and God lives with you. I pray that your heart overflows with an understanding love and your life is filled with harmony. And I pray that you make that triumphant entry into a new level of Thinking, into a new awareness, into a new life.

In the nature of Jesus Christ we pray, and we act …

Amen and Amen.

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08Mar

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON – Asking For and Using God’s Help

POSITIVE WRITTEN SERMON - Asking For and Using God's Help

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“Do not worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.” Philippians 4:6

Is Life Overwhelming? I have heard some people say in the past, they do not want to bother God unless it is a crisis emergency situation. Some have said that God’s help is not to be used for small things.

Sometimes, life can become overwhelming. No matter how much we plan, or how much we prepare for it, sometimes things happen, and we feel out of control. We feel as if we do not have the power that we had before. Something has happened, but we don’t know exactly what.

Do you remember the story of the giant in “Gulliver’s Travels?” Here was a person, like us, who was all-powerful. Here was a person who could walk above problems. Here was a person who could seem undefeatable but the giant’s thoughts were working against him.

The giant in “Gulliver’s Travels” falls asleep on the beach. While he is sleeping, all these tiny, little people come, put strings over him, and then stake down the strings.

A few strings would be no problem at all. He could easily pull those up, sit up, and go about his way. But these little people worked all night long. Each tiny, little person came up to the giant and placed strings across him.

The giant wakes up and finds that he cannot move his arms or legs, and he cannot sit up, no matter how hard he tries because he is all tied down.

You and I have been the same experience, haven’t we of being all tied up in the thoughts and worries about momentary circumstances of our lives.

These little people are those little worries, those human thoughts, those little things that scramble around inside of your mind and that seem so uncontrollable. Every time they move across, they take a string with them. Soon you are tied down. Soon you are weak in thought and you don’t feel like you can get up again. Soon you think the weight of life is pulling you down.

You might say, “God, can I ever stand again? Can I walk tall and free? Can I ever be all I once was?”

You can! You can! With God’s help you can.

Sometimes, the things that happen to us can seem so overwhelming. But whatever they are, you can! You have the power – because God has the power and the know-how.

We have the ability to have a transfusion of thought where we totally change our mind; where we have a fusion (if you will) with a Mind that is greater than our mind, God’s Mind that knows how to lift us up and out of our problems. When we are free from selfishness, limitation, greed, fear, anxiety, hatred, and inferior feelings we can stand up to anything.

Revelation 21:4-5: “The former things are passed away … Behold, I make all things new. “

Who is “I?” The “I” is God. Imagine if God came up to you, tapped you on the shoulder, stood right by your side, looked into your eyes, smiled at you and said, “Don’t let the past burden you. Don’t let it tie you down on the beach of life anymore. Don’t worry about those waves. The past is no more. It has passed away and you have a brand-new life in Me.”

To truly follow Jesus Christ, we have to do this in our prayers, inside our own thinking.

There are four biblical keys to Jesus unfoldment, and four biblical keys to our own unfoldment.

Let me go through the biblical keys. In many original texts of the Bible Jesus is referred to four different ways. These four ways have real keys of mystery.

The first degree of unfoldment: Jesus.
The second degree of unfoldment: Jesus Christ.
The third degree of unfoldment: Christ Jesus.
The fourth degree of unfoldment: Christ.

I’m going to relate this to you because everyone goes through the same experiences as those people in our beloved Bible. In our own spiritual growth, if we are following Jesus, we must go through the same experiences Jesus did.

“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” John 14:12

The first degree is Human/Jesus. This is the outward-directed human with aspirations of more spiritual consciousness. The outer child, in spirituality, that questions his powers and abilities. This is when you are totally outward directed. You wake up in the morning, you wonder, “What kind of day am I going to have?” You turn on the television and listen to the weatherman to help you determine what kind of day you are going to have. You go to work and see how others treat you. That determines what kind of day you’re going to have.

Outer events totally determine how you feel inside of yourself.

You are outward directed, but somewhere inside of you, you know that there is more. The thoughts you have that are not outward-directed are just “toy” thoughts.

Let me explain what I mean by “toy” thoughts.

Toy thoughts are the young person playing with dreams of the future or the old person playing with memories of the past.

Let’s suppose one day you get fed up with being tied on the beach and you say to yourself: “Isn’t this interesting? I’m tied down. I can’t move my arms or legs. I can’t go where I want to go or do what I want to do.”

Perhaps you feel tied down in your career. You know in that moment that there is more. You say: “Wait a minute! I can have more. With God’s help, I CAN be a success. I can do what I dream of doing. I don’t just have to play with these thoughts anymore. I CAN do it!”

There was a point sometime in the past, in your life, when you were seemingly tied down. Sometime, somewhere, when you dreamed about it, but you went BEYOND the dream.

You have to go through this again, and again, and again, to get beyond where you are, to go beyond the imagined potential.

If Jesus would have just imagined and daydreamed, He would not have lived up to his potential and His mission.

The second degree is Jesus Christ. This is the human consciousness merging with Christ consciousness. This is when you are merging your mind with God’s Mind, but you are still putting worldly things first. That is when you are still putting the weight of the world first, but you have a strong anchor of God consciousness somewhere inside of you. The Jesus Christ consciousness is growing, evolving, and becoming more in you.

The third degree is Christ Jesus. This is when the spiritual now comes first in your life. You have a Divine indifference to outside appearances.

That is like when you go into the doctor’s office and the doctor says, “I have a dying-nosis for you, it doesn’t look good.”

You say: “Wait a minute.” That’s not true, and through prayer you give yourself a living-nosis. It is a spiritual knowing about the healing power of God with you. You are more than you see within the image of the mirror.

Or it is like when someone says to you, “You really think you can build this business?”

There are always people in your life to give you a negative message. They do not know any better. They are looking just to outer appearances, not knowing about the spiritual help that is available behind the appearances. God is the great untier of your life, God is the great unbinder of all that has held you down.

You will have a Divine indifference to a negative message. You know you can do more because you are not alone. You know you can go beyond – be more, do more – because you have a knowledge of God who is bigger than any appearance that you, and others may see with their human eyes.

The fourth degree on our quest is the Christ. This is when we are in the world but not of it. This is when we no longer MAKE TIME for our faith, we now place God first; our faith comes first, and we have to make time for all other things. This is a HUGE difference.

Previously, we might have said: “Oh, God, I don’t have time to pray today because I’m so busy. I’d feel better if I had time to meditate, but you don’t know the pressure and deadlines I’m under.” How much better it is to allow faith to come first, to pray, and to meditate.

When you do this, you are recharging; you are getting ready; you are going apart for a while like Jesus did, and then you are coming back into the world fully powered, super-charged, ready to perform miracles. Nothing can stand in the way of the Divine power coming in and through you. You are then FULLY working with God. You are so much of God in action and God’s love in demonstration that people cease sensing you and they sense God. That is the Christ.

We have seen, or sensed those in life that manifest this degree. Mother Teresa is an example that comes to mind.

Is this a one-time experience? It’s not even a one-time daily experience. It is something we have to constantly decide upon, choose, and do. When we do, we truly follow Jesus, we live up to our potential of all we can do and be.

Jesus told us: “Leave your nets.” These are nets of personal involvement. What do your nets pick up? If you are putting down your nets in your human mind and catching things, your nets are picking up thoughts of people who are telling you that you can’t build your future, you can’t prosper, or the dying-nosis that says you can’t rebuild the cells in your body with God’s help to produce new wholeness and life.

Jesus said, “Leave your nets – and follow me.” What does that mean?

It does not mean to follow Him with just your feet. It means to follow Him with your head and heart.

There are a million miles between the two. We can run to every church and religious service and still never “get it.”

But we can close our eyes wherever we are in prayer and “get it” right where we are – in an instant. You have it within you to rely upon.

It is discipleship.

Discipleship means to perfect who I am, and to fully expect to perfect myself. Now, this is quite a difference. I can stand here and talk about perfecting, but I am not talking theory. This is practical, useful, life-changing practice.

We are taking it from theory, putting it inside of ourselves, and agreeing right now, in this time: “I will walk the talk. I will act in this way.”

When everyone around you is being unloving, you stand up and say: “This is it! Right now, if I really believe, if I am really going to follow Jesus Christ, I’m going to be loving RIGHT NOW.” Whatever it takes, make the spiritual decision, and live by it. No longer live in the means and ways of small mind.

Walt Whitman said, “I am not contained between my hat and my shoes, and neither are you.” You are much more.

Any time you think you are contained, you are like that giant tied down.

Any time you sit in a chair and think this is all there is to your life, you are like that giant tied down.

If something is going wrong and you’re depressed and you think this is all there is, you are like that giant tied down.

You need to go to a higher Mind than the mind that caused your problems, in order to heal your problems.

When you do, the strings just melt away. The burdens are no longer burdens because you have 1000 times the power. You follow Christ to your potential.

Christ IN YOU – the hope of glory!

We are not just to stand at the foot of the Cross and look up. We are to take Jesus down and follow Him by becoming what He said to become; by becoming an active student on the quest; by becoming that inside of ourselves, which will cause people outside of us to say, “Now there is an example – a sample of the great example – of Jesus.” We are active examples of our faith, OR not.

There is a story of a man watching a woman yelling at someone. He sees her open her car door which has bumper stickers of the church she attends on it. The man decides never to attend that church because obviously it’s not working.

Following Jesus, we become living examples of our faith. We sense it working in us, and so does everybody else.

We realize that Jesus did not have a sick, unhappy, vengeful, or judgmental God. We realize that He did not have a poor, limited God. We realize that my God is big enough to be your God, and bigger than any problem we both may EVER face.

We are not tied down to anything on earth, but instead tethered to heaven itself.

How do we do this?

There are three “D’s” to discipleship.

The first D – Discipline. This is renunciation and control over the little people who live inside of our minds, or those outside of us (the little people) who are shouting negativity that we have listened to for so long. Or maybe it is our own voice, which is saying: “I know how to get you. I know how to push your buttons. You have an inferior feeling right here, and this button is easy for me to push. This self-condemning voice can put you down for days.

Discipleship is standing up, inside of you, in the moment, becoming the giant you are, and not letting the little people tie you down any more. It is ending, once and for all, the tyranny of the unwanted in your life.

The second D – Dedication. It is a single-pointed focus. Matthew 6:22 Jesus states, “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore your eye be single, your whole body shall be full of light.”

In John 18:37 Jesus says, “For this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth.” [RSV]

How would you bear witness to the truth if you decided to witness? IS IT to go to someone else to convince him or her to think the way we do? No. It is to live it. It’s to be a sample of the great example.

The only way you can ever really change a person is by him or her seeing something exhibited by you that he or she wants to become. This person will want it so badly that he will go after it himself, which means he will have to go in the same direction you did and in the same direction Jesus did.

The third D – Devotion. “Draw near to God and God will draw near to you.” [James 4:8]

This is an all-embracing attitude of devotion.

We have to change our self-image. One reason we often block off our good is we do not have an adequate self-image. We live in human mind and human body only, and we realize we are frail. We realize we can’t do all the things we want to do. We’ve hit our walls of life and it has hurt. We’ve learned our lessons well, and we won’t do it again.

When we are tied down and locked into that pattern of thinking, we have an inadequate self-image. We need to change our self-image, realizing that we are a partner with the larger spiritual Self.

We do not think of ourselves in wrong terms. In truth we are children of God. In truth, we are native citizens of the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God is your house. God’s house is a mansion of love, joy, happiness, and a thousand other individual gifts awaiting your spiritual discovery.

The little thought people with the strings are always trying to tie us down.

Whenever anything in life gets you down, God can get you out of it. God can cut the rope that is tying you down. Nothing has to be an overpowering weighty experience.

You have a transcendent Christ who lifts you above everything you are facing in life. You have to change, in your mind, some of the things that human mind has locked you into. We have to change the human mind thought of criticism to the Christ Mind thought of praise and gratitude. We have to change the human mind thought of condemnation into Christ recognition. We have to change false belief into the truth of Christ. We have to change human mind sickness into the Christ Mind truth of wholeness.

We have to turn weakness into strength, limitation into fulfillment, fear into an all-knowing faith, hate into love, and prejudice into open-mindedness, compromise into integrity, falsity into honesty, ugliness into beauty.

I believe that with God as the center of your universe you can accomplish anything, and be happy doing it.

As we look at these words that are concepts of human mind and concepts of Christ Mind, we have to realize that, as native citizens of the kingdom of God, we have a free will choice – we can choose. I suppose that is the whole lesson and the destiny of each one of us. In this moment, tomorrow, and the next day we have the choice.

In the moment, do we follow the little people who are scurrying around on the beach trying to tie us down, or do we follow the Christ? If we follow the Christ, we have to get up.

At first, it may appear a struggle.

We may begin on our knees. We may have to struggle up the rest of the way until we stand.

BUT when we stand on the firm foundation of faith in God, we are the free soul.

We are flying high above our problems, looking down and saying: “My, don’t they look small and insignificant? I can’t believe that I allowed that to bother me so much.”

Let us pray.

Dear God, I know that I am more, I can do more, be more, and manifest more in my life. I agree to follow You, dear God in my spirituality. God, I totally consent to You NOW. Manifest Divine ideas through my human brain, words, through the words I speak, and the sounds I hear and perceive when I am hearing. Help me to keep my focus single, manifest through my eyes so that I am no longer blind – so I can see beauty everywhere in a new degree, higher, better and deeper than I ever have before. Manifest in my physical body temple so I can express radiant health. Manifest in my beingness so wherever I go I will radiate spiritual love to everyone without saying a word or making one action.

I give myself totally and completely today. I leave my nets, I follow, and I become.

In Jesus Christ’s name we so dedicate ourselves – each one of us – to this lasting truth of us.

Amen.

PRAYER / MEDITATION______________

I ask you now to relax and give up all the personal, heavy thoughts, and go within yourself, in prayer, on a quest to find God.

The same Christ spirit that was in Jesus is with you and within you. Jesus said that you are a child of God.

You find the Christ in your life and within yourself. And during this prayer time, perhaps in one of the periods of the silence, you realize that you are one with living presence of Jesus Christ.

In the silence of prayer …

Your soul now takes deep root in God. You are growing and unfolding, drawing upon the invisible and making God manifest in your life.

The power of the Divine presence of God is irresistible in you. Your part is to have faith in God, and to make God’s good things manifest in your life and affairs.

The Christ Spirit in you is a magnet to attract the Christ love. You are a true follower of Christ Jesus. You find that as you discipline yourself and your thinking to bring it in line with God’s Truth, your thoughts are formative. They are like seeds that produce after their kind.

In this prayer, you are cooperating with your Maker. You are training yourself to think life-giving, health-producing thoughts. You are in communion with God in prayer. You are praying for wisdom and guidance. You are open and receptive to the leading of Spirit, and it is revealed to you just what steps to take in order to do your part to establish Divine order.

Psalms 50:23 says, “To him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.”

In the silence of prayer …

There is no limit to spiritual unfoldment in you. The spirit of God’s Truth within your soul is giving you a right understanding of every experience that comes to you.

You are calling some of your inactive, unused soul powers into expression during this prayer. You are developing your soul. This is an important step. You are exercising your powers, and how much stronger they spiritually grow.

The assurance and satisfaction of knowing that your faith and all the rest of your spiritual faculties are being developed towards the Christ degree of unfoldment comforts you.

God has created your earth; God has created you. Instead of your own thoughts, you go to Christ Mind and you receive whatever you need; you heed the instruction.

In the silence of prayer …

Dear God, I thank You that the solution to every problem lays within us and within You, dear God, I find what I have been searching for my whole life long.

In Jesus Christ’s name, on our quest to that degree of unfoldment, we pray … Amen.

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