Why is it that many of us do not learn to use spiritual Power so that It will be effective in our lives and in the lives of those around us? Many a times the answers are that, "we don't know how, or "I haven't the faith, training or education or the opportunity."
It needs to occur to us that we have to start right where we are, and using such faith as we possess, acquire more through actual experience.
Jesus definitely set about to prove what one man with God could do. He demonstrated for all ages that just one person with implicit faith, can do anything. He emphasised a fact beyond others that what he was doing others could do also, if they believed they could and if they believed in God.
Jesus had trained himself to believe in God. To him the Presence of God was as real as sunshine, as definite as the wind blowing. So great was his concept of the Power of God that he said heaven and earth would pass away but his words would not until all be fulfilled.
This, then, is the kind of faith we are called on to have. But it is not a faith that is found in books. It is not a faith that someone else can give to us, because no one can possibly give us that which we already possess. Rather, it is something we now have, but have not been using, and we have not been using it because we have not recognise that it is already right where we are.
God exists everywhere and in Him we live and move and have our being. The Spirit is within us as well as around us and we can have no life apart from It. All the life of Spirit, then, belongs to each one of us, but, in a certain sense, we only have as much as we use.
As we reflect on the life and teaching of Jesus, we find that he spent much time alone, communing with God. In his instructions the Power of God acts independently of any circumstance because It creates circumstances.
When we get lost in the circumstances that surround us and become confused over them, and when we feel isolated and alone, then it is that the struggle for the existence becomes unbearable and we feel that the odds are against us. This is why Jesus told us not to judge according to the appearance, but to judge righteously, that is, we should not look at the obstruction in our lives and say it is too great to overcome. We should know that even in the obstruction which confronts us, at the very centre of it, there is a Power that can resolve all obstacles, solve all problems, and meet every emergency.
So it becomes a question of whether our faith is greater than the obstruction; whether we are becoming confused over conditions or thinking peacefully and calmly about them. When it comes right to a rock bottom fact, the only question is whether or not we believe in a Power greater than we are that we can use, and whether or not we actually believe that this Power is ready, willing, and able to respond to us.
Jesus said, "it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Life has made the gift but we must accept it. We cannot doubt that there must have been, particularly in the beginning of his ministry, doubts that arose in his mind as they do in ours.
We know what Jesus' answer was, for he said: "I can of mine own self do nothing... but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works."
We can almost sense the triumphant concept that arose in his consciousness, the realisation that one man with God is supreme: that he; as a human being, had no power of himself at all, but that all power was given to him in heaven and on earth because he had acquired all love and because he had become intimate with Divine Presence which flows through everything.
The power that Jesus manifested was Divine. It was not the will of an individual, but his willingness to believe that gave him power. It was not a concentration of spiritual forces that Jesus exercised, but rather a childlike and implicit faith in the reality of Spirit in human affairs.
It needs to occur to us that we have to start right where we are, and using such faith as we possess, acquire more through actual experience.
Jesus definitely set about to prove what one man with God could do. He demonstrated for all ages that just one person with implicit faith, can do anything. He emphasised a fact beyond others that what he was doing others could do also, if they believed they could and if they believed in God.
Jesus had trained himself to believe in God. To him the Presence of God was as real as sunshine, as definite as the wind blowing. So great was his concept of the Power of God that he said heaven and earth would pass away but his words would not until all be fulfilled.
This, then, is the kind of faith we are called on to have. But it is not a faith that is found in books. It is not a faith that someone else can give to us, because no one can possibly give us that which we already possess. Rather, it is something we now have, but have not been using, and we have not been using it because we have not recognise that it is already right where we are.
God exists everywhere and in Him we live and move and have our being. The Spirit is within us as well as around us and we can have no life apart from It. All the life of Spirit, then, belongs to each one of us, but, in a certain sense, we only have as much as we use.
As we reflect on the life and teaching of Jesus, we find that he spent much time alone, communing with God. In his instructions the Power of God acts independently of any circumstance because It creates circumstances.
When we get lost in the circumstances that surround us and become confused over them, and when we feel isolated and alone, then it is that the struggle for the existence becomes unbearable and we feel that the odds are against us. This is why Jesus told us not to judge according to the appearance, but to judge righteously, that is, we should not look at the obstruction in our lives and say it is too great to overcome. We should know that even in the obstruction which confronts us, at the very centre of it, there is a Power that can resolve all obstacles, solve all problems, and meet every emergency.
So it becomes a question of whether our faith is greater than the obstruction; whether we are becoming confused over conditions or thinking peacefully and calmly about them. When it comes right to a rock bottom fact, the only question is whether or not we believe in a Power greater than we are that we can use, and whether or not we actually believe that this Power is ready, willing, and able to respond to us.
Jesus said, "it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Life has made the gift but we must accept it. We cannot doubt that there must have been, particularly in the beginning of his ministry, doubts that arose in his mind as they do in ours.
We know what Jesus' answer was, for he said: "I can of mine own self do nothing... but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works."
We can almost sense the triumphant concept that arose in his consciousness, the realisation that one man with God is supreme: that he; as a human being, had no power of himself at all, but that all power was given to him in heaven and on earth because he had acquired all love and because he had become intimate with Divine Presence which flows through everything.
The power that Jesus manifested was Divine. It was not the will of an individual, but his willingness to believe that gave him power. It was not a concentration of spiritual forces that Jesus exercised, but rather a childlike and implicit faith in the reality of Spirit in human affairs.
