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by
Emmet Fox
There is absolutely no system of theology of doctrine to be found in the Bible; it simply is not there.
he teaches that every man or woman, no matter how steeped in evil and uncleanness, has always direct access to an all-loving, all-powerful Father-God, who will forgive him, and supply His own strength to him to enable him to find himself again; and unto seventy times seven, if need be.
and he was careful to teach principles only, knowing that when the spirit is right, details will take care of themselves;
If the miracles did not happen, the rest of the Gospel story loses all real significance.
But the miracles did happen.
“The works that I do, ye shall do, and greater works.”
In other words, miracles, in the popular sense of the word, can and do happen as the result of prayer. Prayer does change things.
Enough prayer will get you out of your difficulty if only you will be persistent enough in your appeal to God.
Persistent widow: Luke 18:1-8
To accept the Truth is the great first step, but not until we have proved it in doing is it ours.
Jesus proved everything that he taught,
Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Another example is the word “prosperity.” In the scriptural sense, “prosperity,” and “prosper,” signify a very great deal more than the acquirement of material possessions. They really mean success in prayer.
success in prayer is the only kind of prosperity worth having: and if our prayers are successful, we shall naturally have all the material things that we need.
To be poor in spirit means to have emptied yourself of all desire to exercise personal self-will, and, what is just as important, to have renounced all preconceived opinions in the wholehearted search for God. It means to be willing to set aside your present habits of thought, your present views and prejudices, your present way of life if necessary; to jettison, in fact, anything and everything that can stand in the way of your finding God.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Sooner or later every human being will have to discover the Truth about God, and make his own contact with Him at first hand.
But most people will not undertake the search for God wholeheartedly unless driven thereto by trouble of some kind. There is really no need for man to have trouble, because if he will only seek God first, the trouble need never come.
Kingdom Principle
As a rule, it is only when health is broken down, and ordinary medical means have failed to afford relief, that people seriously set about gaining that spiritual understanding of the body as the true embodiment of Divine Life that is our only guarantee of overcoming sickness and, ultimately, death. Yet, if people would turn to God and acquire something of this understanding while their health is still good, they need never be sick at all.
Kingdom Principle
In our Father’s House are many mansions, but the key to higher mansions is always the acquiring of complete dominion over the one in which we are. It is therefore a very blessed thing for us that we should be compelled to get right on the supply question at the earliest possible moment. If prosperous people will now, while they are still prosperous, acknowledge God as their true Source, and pray regularly for still more spiritual understanding on this point, they need never suffer poverty or financial trouble at all. At the same time, they must be careful to use their present resources well,
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Kingdom Principle
And by comfort the Bible means the experience of the Presence of God, which is the end of all mourning.
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
The trouble and sorrow that humanity suffers are really due to the very fact that our mode of life is so opposed to the Truth, that the things that he taught and the things that he said seem to us at first sight to be foolish and wild.
“earth” in the Bible does not mean merely this terrestrial globe. It really means manifestation.
every expression or manifestation has to have a cause.
Now you learn in Divine Metaphysics, and particularly in the Sermon on the Mount, that all causation is mental, and that your body and all your affairs—your home, your business, all your experience—are but the manifestation of your own mental states.
The true significance of the word “meek” in the Bible is a mental attitude for which there is no other single word available, and it is this mental attitude which is the secret of “prosperity” or success in prayer. It is a combination of open-mindedness, faith in God, and the realization that the Will of God for us is always something joyous and interesting and vital, and much better than anything we could think of for ourselves. This state of mind also includes a perfect willingness to allow this Will of God to come about in whatever way Divine Wisdom considers to be best, rather than in some
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“Meekness compels God Himself.”
Righteousness means, in the Bible, not merely right conduct, but right thinking on all subjects, in every department of life.
outside things are but the expression (ex-pressed or pressed out) or out-picturing of our inner thoughts and beliefs; that we have dominion or power over our thoughts to think as we will; and thus, indirectly, we make or mar our lives by the way in which we do think.
what you think in your mind you will produce in your experience. As within, so without.
You cannot think one thing and produce another.
If you want spiritual unfoldment and growth in the knowledge of God, you must think spiritual thoughts—God thoughts—and give your attention, which is your life, to God rather than to limitation.
Like begets like,
break. It is easy, comparatively speaking, to break a physical habit if one really means business, because action on the physical plane is so much slower and more palpable than on the mental plane. In dealing with habits of thought, however, we cannot, so to say, stand back and take a comparatively detached view, as we can in contemplating our actions.
I can act only where I am. I
The thing that really matters is that you be merciful in your thought.
To “see” in the sense referred to here, signifies spiritual perception, and spiritual perception means just that capacity to apprehend the true nature of being which we all so sadly lack.
Prayer, by changing your character, makes a new reaction possible.
of your own daily life; if you seek systematically to destroy in yourself everything which you know should not be there, things such as selfishness, pride, vanity, sensuality, self-righteousness, jealousy, self-pity, resentment, condemnation, and so forth—not feeding or nourishing them by giving in to them, but starving them to death by refusing them expression; if you extend the right thought loyally to every person or thing within your ken, especially to the people or things you dislike; then you are worthy to be called the salt of the earth. If you truly live this life, then it does not in
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You cannot lose anything that is worth having through acquiring a knowledge of the Truth. Sacrifice there has to be, but it is only sacrifice of the things that one is much happier without—never of anything that is really worth having.
Indeed, all real spiritual understanding must necessarily be accompanied by definite moral improvement. A
growth. You have to demonstrate where you are.
To seek to demonstrate beyond your understanding is not spiritual.
To pray scientifically is to keep affirming that God is helping him, that the temptation has no power against him, and constantly to claim that his own real nature is spiritual and perfect.
our altar is our own consciousness, and our offerings are our prayers and treatments. Our “burnt sacrifices” are the error thoughts which we destroy or burn away in spiritual treatment.
My Alter, My Offering, My Sacrifice
On the other hand, by accepting the error and by thinking about it, you are incorporating it into your mentality, and, if you go on doing this for long enough, it may be exceedingly difficulty to get rid of it.
The original difficulty as it first appeared usually becomes multiplied may times by our wrong thoughts concerning it, and we do not go free until the whole debt is cleared. By coming to terms with the adversary in the first place, that is to say, by getting our thought right immediately concerning the difficulty, we incur no “costs” and the transaction remains a simple one.
at the first moment that the possibility of catching cold occurred to him, either through sneezing or feeling chilly—he had immediately rejected it, claimed his dominion, and affirmed the Truth, that would probably have been the last of the matter, or, at least, the whole thing would have been over in a few hours.
The general rule in Truth is, fight out your problem where you are, with prayer.
you. Now, if you make up your mind in advance as to what you shall do or shall not do, shall believe or shall not believe, shall think or shall not think, shall be or shall not be, tomorrow, or next year, or for the rest of your life—and especially when you crystallize this determination by a solemn act of the will like a vow—you are not leaving yourself open to the action of the Paraclete; but you are, by that very act, shutting Him out.
