LIGHT of the WORLD

Posted on October 30, 2017 by thoughtsmjdisler

“Remember the spiritual inspiration that Paul had, and this inspiration is also ours as we claim the light and power and love that are God’s expression through us:

‘If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you.’ (Romans 8:11)

… It isn’t the human desire of the individual’s own heart that makes the life to flow through his organism more freely. It isn’t the thing that we usually think of as Christianity that brings us into the quickening, healing currents of Christ life. It is the stirring in us of the same Spirit of Christ that was and is in Jesus Christ–the Spirit of God–standing forth in the individual as the expression of divine ideas from the mind of Being. It is the soul’s willingness and effort actually to live, in daily thinking and acts, the Spirit of Christ, that same Spirit which made Jesus to forget Himself in doing the good and perfect will of His Father. He adored the Father, and sought constantly to glorify Him in making the things of His Spirit manifest in the lives of His children. Jesus was eagerly discovering the real purpose of life and fulfilling it, not for Himself alone but for all of us. He said,

I am the light of the world.’ [John 8:12]
Ye are the light of the world.’ [Matthew 5:14]

 – Letters of Myrtle Fillmore, 1936

Posted in Affirmation, Christ, God, Healing, Jesus, Life, Light, Power, Receiving, Uncategorized | Comments Off on LIGHT of the WORLD

WEAVING THE DIVINE PATTERN

Posted on October 23, 2017 by thoughtsmjdisler

“Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” – The Lord’s Prayer

God’s inner direction and impetus provides the life to be lived by an individual. Listening and following through in faith and trust results in a joyous outpouring – “expression” – of the Almighty’s intent for the world – for an individual’s corner of the world, and beyond if it happens to go there.                                                           – mjd

“This prayer involves the most strenuous life that ever was lived. To pray seriously for the coming of the kingdom of heaven means to contribute to its coming. It has come in any life which is completely under the sway of the holy Will and which is consecrated to the task of making that holy Will prevail in society. It is no ‘far off Divine event.’ It is always coming.”

“In a plain word, it is the total task of humanity through the ages. It is the embodiment in a temporal order of the eternal purpose. It is the weaving in concrete figure and color of the Divine pattern. … this prayer is the girding of the loins for the sublime task of helping God make his world.”

 – Rufus Jones, The Double Search: Studies in Atonement and Prayer, 1906

SCRIPTURE

You must walk after your
EVER-LIVING GOD,
and fear Him,
and keep His Commandments,
and listen to His voice,
and serve Him,
and adhere to Him.

Deuteronomy 13:4

The Bible in Modern English: Five Books of Moses,
translated by Ferrar Fenton, 1901

AFFIRMATION
 I hear and heed Your direction – Your voice
– to be a vessel for bringing Heaven to earth.

Posted in Affirmation, Faith, God, Guidance, Heaven, Listening, Lord's Prayer, Prayer, Receiving | Comments Off on WEAVING THE DIVINE PATTERN

LOVE-SYSTEM: PRAYER

Posted on October 20, 2017 by thoughtsmjdisler

“The soul is never at its best until it enjoys God, and prays out of sheer love. Nobody who has learned to pray in this deeper way and whose prayer is a prayer of communion and fellowship, wants logical argument for the existence of God. Such a want implies a fall from a higher to a lower level.”

“We are no longer in the net of blind fate, in the realm of impersonal force, we are in a love-system…”

 – Rufus Jones, The Double Search: Studies in Atonement & Prayer, 1906.

Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?
Jesus told him, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
and with all your mind.’

Matthew 22:36-37

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LIGHT DAY by DAY

Posted on October 16, 2017 by thoughtsmjdisler

“When we cease to think shadows and lack of knowledge and begin to call to mind the teachings of Jesus Christ, we shall find the light shining for us. We shall not care to peer into the past, nor to recall its experiences. We shall know that all that measures up to the mark of helpfulness will abide with us.”

“Jesus Christ lived so eagerly the light that came to Him day by day that life ceased to be a gray mystery to Him. He saw Himself and others in a new light. He understood why He had been born into the world. He knew where He was going. In fact, He knew that He was not going anywhere, in the sense of separation and distance, from us. He knew that He was merging Himself with the [human] mind so that He might abide with us and bring us into the same wonderful light in which He dwells.”

 – Letters of Myrtle Fillmore, 1936

 

Posted in Christ, Comfort, Hope, Jesus, Light, Mind, Thought, Vocation | Comments Off on LIGHT DAY by DAY

BEST LIGHT

Posted on October 10, 2017 by thoughtsmjdisler

“What is important is that we are doing what the Father has given us to do, according to our best light.”

– Letters of Myrtle Fillmore, 1936.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void;
and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good.

 Genesis 1:1-4, The Bible, Authorized King James Version

“I am the Light of the world.
My followers shall not walk in the darkness,
but shall go out into the Light of Life.” – Jesus

John 8:12, The New Testament in Modern English
translated by Ferrar Fenton, 1906.

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ON EARTH, AS IN HEAVEN

Posted on October 5, 2017 by thoughtsmjdisler

LORD’S PRAYER: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

“Prayer is to change mind and heart so that God’s omnipresent good may fill our mind and heart and manifest in our life.”

“For all thought is formative; all thought has its effect in our life.”

“After you have placed your heart’s desires with God, don’t be anxious, or worried, or negative. Don’t even be looking for signs that He has responded. Just busy yourself with the work He gives, and with study and prayer to develop yourself into a real companion and a real radiator of happiness and inspiration. As you do so you become the radiating center toward which those are drawn who will add to your happiness and co-operate with you in making of your life a beautiful success.”

– Myrtle Fillmore, “Prayer,” Letters of Myrtle Fillmore, 1936

“Your Will must be being done both in Heaven and upon the Earth”
Matthew 6:10, translated by Ferrar Fenton, The New Testament in Modern English, 1906

Affirmation: I hear and heed Your direction – Your voice – to be a vessel for bringing Heaven to earth

Posted in Affirmation, Guidance, Healing, Heaven, Inner Life, Listening, Lord's Prayer, Prayer, Thought | Comments Off on ON EARTH, AS IN HEAVEN

MORE SPIRITUAL LIFE

Posted on October 2, 2017 by thoughtsmjdisler

“Banish rational religious faith and you open the door to superstition and to aberrations of every kind. Deny the soul, and how can you expect man to live otherwise than as an animal? What we see to-day is a reaction from the scientific materialism in which we grew up, a general revolt in the name of the soul, a desire for a more spiritual life and a more spiritual interpretation of life.”

 – Elwood Worcester, Emmanuel Church, Boston; The Living Word, 1908.

“The Spirit produces in human life fruits such as these:
love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity,
fidelity, tolerance and self-control
—and no law exists against any of them.”
Galatians 5:22-23

– J.B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English,
Revised Edition, 1958.

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AFFIRMATION – RECEIVING

Posted on September 25, 2017 by thoughtsmjdisler

We are frequently encouraged to “give,” but can only give what we have received. In simple terms, affirmation and gratitude are the receiving modes in spiritual life. When we give, what joy we feel when the gift is happily, enthusiastically received! How must God feel when we ask for and receive his blessings and promise of life abundant!

The Bible is filled with affirmations of God’s presence and glorious gifts. One of the most loved affirmations is Psalm 23, the “shepherd’s Psalm.” It is simply stated as fact. It is deeply personal: “The Lord is MY shepherd.” In contrast, the Lord’s prayer is both personal and universal: “OUR Father…”

Here are 2 versions: The well known, poetic King James version, and a lesser known by Ferrar Fenton (1832 – 1920). According to Wikipedia, “Fenton spent approximately fifty years working on his translation [of the Bible], with his sole goal ‘to study the Bible absolutely in its original languages, to ascertain what its writers actually said and thought’ ” And he restored the “Psalms into the musical verse form as close to the original as he could get.” – mjd

PSALM 23. A Psalm of David.
Stanza 1
My LORD attends;–I shall not want;–
He lets me rest in verdant fields,
He leads me by the Pleasant brooks,
He brings me back, my life refreshed,
To skip with joy, and praise His Name.

Stanza 2.
Though I may walk through Death’s dark Vale,
I fear no hurt, for You are there,
Your rod and staff direct my way.

Stanza 3.
You spread my board before my foes,
With flowing cup have oiled my head.
Kindness and mercy follow me,
On every day I live;
And in the LORD’S House I shall dwell,
To lengthen out my days.

– Translated by Ferrar Fenton
The Bible in Modern English, Fourth Edition, 1906

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil:
for Thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

– King James Bible

Posted in Affirmation, Comfort, Death, God, Guidance, Hope, Mercy, Protection, Receiving, Rest, Soul, Trust | Comments Off on AFFIRMATION – RECEIVING

LIVING ESSENCE

Posted on September 16, 2017 by thoughtsmjdisler

“Sometimes, in a moment of unusual stillness, one rises wholly above the earthly or personal self to the eternal, causeless, and spaceless realm where infinite peace abides. One can hardly tell how the experience begins. All descriptions of it and of what one perceives there seem utterly inadequate, cold, and prosaic. Yet no moment of life seems more real than this … no experience leaves a more lasting impression. For one is no longer the mere finite self seeking to fit incongruous and fugitive facts into the mosaic of rational truth. These rare moments seldom come when they are voluntarily sought. But a Somewhat seeks us, something ineffable draws the attention away from the cares and limitations of finite life for a few moments of calmest rest in intimate nearness to the Life of infinite wisdom and perfect love.
It is then that one has some sense of life’s meaning as a well-ordered whole …

Happily, too, one’s own life seems fitted into this great fabric of divine self-manifestation. It is not lost, it does not lose its character, but feels itself assigned to its due place.…

What is this living Essence which makes its presence known in moments when we least expect it? The greatest minds of the ages have been illuminated by it. Jesus described his life as one with it.

Sometimes … it is this sustaining presence which alone carries one through the dark valley of sorrow. Is it not fundamentally, in this most personal sense, a sublime affection, the perfection and essence of purest love?”

-Horatio Dresser, The Perfect Whole, 1896.

“I and the Father are One.” – Jesus
John 10:30

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TRANSITIONS

Posted on September 7, 2017 by thoughtsmjdisler

“There is no safety in this present time of transition and of changing form and expression to be found by closing the eyes or hiding the head in the sand, as the ostrich is said to do. The only safe and sure course is to reach through the outward and find the eternal, to rest back upon the everlasting arms, to have a personal initiation into the riches of the glory of this ‘mystery’ ‘which is Christ in you, the hope of glory’ [Colossians 1:27], to get free in the living truth. The things which we see are temporal, the things which the spiritual vision finds real are eternal.”

 – Rufus Jones, Practical Christianity, Second Edition, 1905

 

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