Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Prosperity Sunday 12 of 12



         July 27, 2014  
Today we are reviewing the final chapter of SPIRITUAL ECONOMICS; THE PROCESS AND PRINCIPLES OF TRUE PROSPERITY by Rev. Eric Butterworth.
          The final chapter is titled, “A New World Vision” and Butterworth ends where he began… talking about the ever-presence of God substance and how it is our thinking that creates our experience in the world. He says, “Repeatedly we have stressed the point that economic conditions, no matter how dire they appear to be, are in the world “out there.” What counts for you… is how you deal with them in consciousness. When you begin to see things from the high perspective of the eve-presence of God-substance, you will be in the creative flow of abundance, which will bless your life.”
          This inlet of awareness, this giving way to divine flow, will become, as Emerson put it, “…an outlet to all there is in God.” Who doesn’t want to live that way?
          I just watched a video on Friday of Reba McEntire singing a song she just wrote. It’s called, “Pray For Peace” and we’re going to listen to it right now. I also have words for the screen.
          PLAY “PRAY FOR PEACE” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A29S6cn0nig)
          Pray for peace. I was touched when I first heard the song. The most poignant lyrics in the song, for me, are pray for forgiveness, pray for wisdom, pray for knowledge, and pray for understanding. 
          Praying for peace is a beautiful thing to do. What will give it real and enduring power is praying for peace from (1) a consciousness of forgiveness, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding of spiritual principle… and (2) living it.
Whether its peace or prosperity, “…when we assume mastery over our thoughts, as Butterworth writes, we become attuned to an evolution that leads to the unfoldment of the kinds of things and experiences we desire.”
          The awareness and understanding that there is an ever-present sea of God-substance and that we influence the invisible into the visible by way of our thinking is, in a nutshell what Butterworth has been saying for 12 chapters.
          “We have a marvelous opportunity to usher in a “new world” of both prosperity and peace in which people of awareness will live with what Thoreau calls, “the license of a higher order of beings;” people who practice the presence of God; people who know that the kingdom of God is not out there somewhere hopefully to be discovered in some distant place on some distant day… but people who know, as Jesus tells us, the kingdom of God is within. And this kingdom is a realm of substance that is omnipresent and omniactive.
To know this and live from this is what changes the world. If you want the world to change, live from this understanding and expression. What you express into the world influences what the world becomes.
You may think, “But what can I do? How can I have any influence on such a gigantic need? I am only one! Canon Farrar has the answer and I’ll let it speak directly to you:
I am only one, but I am one.
I can’t do everything, but I can do something.
What I can do, I ought to do.
And what I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do.”

          I invite you to practice forgiveness routinely. Not the archaic forgiveness of, “that no good lousy so and so did such and such to me and even though he doesn’t deserve it I’m gonna be nice – or at least not show my anger towards him. I’ll just be an example of shining cordiality. (Meanwhile you’re constantly convicting and sentencing him/her in your heart)
          It becomes easier to forgive when you leave your heart open to the possibility that so and so is a misguided (or frightened) child of God acting out of fear because they don’t know how, or they’re afraid to extend love. They feel defensive about everything because they don’t know there is an ever-present God-substance which hey influence by their thinking. But you know that.
I invite you to develop a meditation, or a yoga, or a tai-chi practice; or something else, whatever that may be that helps to slow down your inner turbulence and connect with your inner guide, inspiration, God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, or Buddha nature, etc. whatever you call the source, or messenger of inner wisdom, understanding and knowledge.
I invite you to pray from a place of knowing that all is well because God is present and you, in partnership with God, make a difference.
You can do all of this.
Would you not do this for the Love of God? And for yourself? Think what it would do for you. The troubling thoughts that “haunt” you will now seem increasingly remote and far away from you. And they go farther and farther off because the sun in you has risen that they may be pushed away before the light. They linger for a while, a little while, in twisted forms too far away for recognition… and are gone forever. And from you the peace you have found will extend and you will never feel homeless again.
Offer peace to everyone and you find a home in Heaven the world can neither tarnish nor destroy.
You are one person. You can do this for yourself and for the world.
I invite you to go in peace.     

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