NEW LIFE

... No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old .... - Luke 5:36

A life that is inspired of Divine Love, is never a patched-up affair. It is total newness, new personhood. The old habits, attitudes, prejudices, and moods are not covered over but are completely replaced. One cannot hold love in one hand and bits of fear, hatred, or malice in the other "just in case". Love requires our total response and cannot be fulfilled through us if we retain a lot of little reservations, Life embraces the whole person - his thought, feeling, and action.

This means that when all of our relationships come within the context of God's Love, nothing is omitted - physical well-bring, mental and emotional health, or our human activities.

Wholeness of personality means health of personality; negative emotions, self-concern, self pity, hatred, fear - all the strength destroying forces - are cleansed away and in their place love, joy, peace, patience, and self-control are established. In the Presence of God the total makeup of personality is realigned. In the awareness of our Sonship we become a new person in both mind and body. This is the basic theme and purpose of the Gospel as taught by Jesus. At the base of all successful, creative living is the experience of being continuously renewed by the inflow of the Divine.

I am a new person today; new in thought, new in feelings, new in motivation and purpose, new in physical health. I live today from the point of view of God's Perfection. I live in the full realisation of the Divine Harmony within and about me.

Every day and every hour we are meeting the Eternal realities of Life, and in such degree as we cooperate with these eternal realities in Love, in Peace, in Wisdom and in Joy... we are automatically blessed.

RETURN TO GOD'S LOVE

And wneh he came to himself, he said ... I will arise and go to my father ... - Luke 15: 17 - 18

The parable of the prodigal son is universally known and loved. It teaches not only the great freedom that has been given man in living his life, but also the great Love of God toward man, a Love that is without condemnation or punishment. But to live only on our own terms usually ends in lostness and need. There can be no fulfillment unless we are oriented to the Divine Presence in which each of us is centered.

In many ways everyone is a prodigal. We squander our talents and abilities in imprudent, weak, and tragic ways. We wander into the far country - into a conscious belief of separation from the eternal Good. Shall we awaken today to our real self, to the reality of the Divine nature ever opened to us, and accept the wholeness and wisdom of the Divine bounty? God's response is eternal and changeless.

The stay-at-home son gives us another of human ignorance. We often condemn others for not believing as we do, and we somehow expect God to condemn them too. We become self-righteous and conceited and full of vanity and anger. Yet, God's responde to this son's complaint again his brother was; "...Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine".

I turn back to God today that I may live in the consciousness of His Love and know the peace and healing and restoration It gives. Forgiving and forgetting that which was done in ignorance, I seek to live now in the eternal Goodness of God.

Substance and supply exist eternally in the Father's house; health, happiness, and success are native to the heavenly home, and God Himself shall be our Host.

SILENTLY, I SURRENDER AND LET GOD TALK TO ME

"Be still, my emotional nature. You are my servant, not my king!" Unperturbed, I take complete possession of the sequence of events. I let go and let God take over. My heart and mind cannot be discomforted by an unyielding will or a single discordant belief. The Spirit of the eternal I AM is here, breathing through me the beauty and ecstasy of the eternal Presence. God, Thou art the Supreme Master of my being. Father, Thou art All-in-all in me and I in Thee. I am relaxed. Like a child I rest on the bosom of the Infinite. O, my Soul, silently I surrender and let the divine Will flood my consciousness with Love's eternal Light. My emotional nature releases its hold on the heart and mind and the affairs of the day and my Soul is relieved of all pressure. Silently I surrender, Father-Mother God, and let all Your Love flow through me.

Realisation

Silence! and the open door to the Kingdom within swings open. Omniscience now floods my entire being with Love's endless joy and right action. I rise to new heights of peace, harmony, strength and power in divine knowingness. Old desires and resistances drop away. The compassion of forgiveness illumines my Soul with glorious freedom. The Father within me says, Lo, I am with you always for I AM your Peace. I AM Power, for I AM the Omnipotence of your being. I AM Love which never fails. I AM joy, the inspiration of your being. I AM Mind, Supreme Intelligence, the Christed Consciousness of all things. I AM Life, your life, superb, serene, immortal. Thank you Father, I know You are the eternal Spirit of my being and It can never be destroyed. Silently I surrender and rest in the Great Heart of God.

SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN

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.

I AM - IS THE RESURRECTION AND HEALING POWER OF MY LIFE

When I say " I AM" I intensify and particularise the Power of Infinite Mind. I AM is God, and God always manifests spontaneously, naturally, according to the swiftness of his nature. Whatever I identify as I AM becomes my I Am, part of my being, character, disposition. Therefore I will never say, I am sick, I am poor, I am unhappy; there is no work, times are bad, no one likes me, or I hate anything. These are all negative, destructive, self-made poverty beliefs.

The Law having no mind of Its own, can only work on what I select and identify as my I Am. It is utterly foolish for me to curse, condemn, or name persons, places or things, for this instantly becomes part of my consciousnes. I Am is the identity and ego of my being. It is God individualised. I can now declare with complete confidence and understanding that everything God Is, I Am, and everything that I Am, God Is, though I am not all of God.

Realisation

God created me to express His divine nature. Therefore, I Am success, I Am progress, I Am health, and I am sure that this is so. I glorify God by glorifying myself spiritually, divinely, unselfishly. I Am the perfect creation of the perfect Mind of God.

This is a law of complete rejection and obliteration to every suggestion of sickness and limitation.

God saying 'I AM' in me, through me as the I AM that I AM, is a law of complete harmony to every condition and circumstance that confronts me. Every action, incident, movement, faculty, function and organ in the Divine Creation is an idea of God and is constantly declaring I AM. Everything in me and around me is declaring God is what I Am; I Am what God Is. This is the I AM that I Am forever more.