Sunday Message for August 14, 2022

THE WILL OF GOD IS ALL GOOD

WHAT WE WANT TO LEARN AND PRACTICE
This month we will be looking at the Faculty of Will. The color for the month is Silver and the disciple is Matthew. So, what we want to learn and practice this week is knowing that God's will for all of us is absolute good - the very best possible things that can happen. In Unity we do not attribute illness, poverty, suffering, and lack to God's will! We make those up all by ourselves.

So get in tune with God's will of good and good will.

WILL IS OUR EXECUTIVE ABILITY, OUR POWER TO BE A "DIRECTOR" ON GOD'S "BOARD OF TRUSTEES."
Will is our executive ability, our power to be a "Director" on God's "Board of Trustees."

We possess twelve wonderful gifts given to us by God. These mental faculties are ours with no limitations. When we spiritualize these gifts, we give balance and direction to our life. Will - one of our Twelve Powers - is most effective in producing rich results when it is coordinated with all of our other Powers. Will is the great mobilizer, when guided by spiritually developed understanding. It is able to harness the energies of all our other Powers, bringing into visibility the products of all our other faculties. The use of the will is at the basis of every activity from thought to manifestation.

GOD'S WILL IS GOOD WILL
(Luke 12:22-32)
He said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.

Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!

And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest?

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you--you of little faith!

And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them.

Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."^a

God's will for you is good, more good than you can begin to imagine. Knowing that God's will for you is good, then God's will for all God's children is good. As we realize this truth, it brings about a change in our attitude toward others. A healthy, wholesome and freeing relationship develops when we exercise the truth we know.

Eric Butterworth in the book Discover the Power Within You, wrote: "God's will is the ceaseless longing of the Creator to fulfill Himself in and through and as that which He has created. God's will for you is perfect life, perfect wisdom, and perfect love. This will or divine desire is so great that it even seeps through our willfully closed minds. A person could continually declare, 'I want to die - I don't want to live.' By the action of the law of mental causation, thoughts always tend to manifest themselves in experience. Yet this person thinks death and still goes right on living. Why? Because God's will for life transcends even man's desire for death. This is Grace."^b

Every one of us is searching for something that will make us whole and happy, something that will cause us to feel safe and secure, AND something that will make us certain that we are going to live forever somewhere. I find it hard to believe that the God which created everything, including ourselves, could have done so without at the same time providing a way for us to live as happy and whole human and Divine beings.

Jesus said that he was the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He had discovered the secret which delivered to him all Life, Love, and Power. This Life, this Love, and this Power is what he taught. He said (Matthew 10:39) "... those who lose their life for my sake will find it."^c

At first blush this seems like a difficult thing to do. Nobody wants to lose his life. But could it be that Jesus meant that there must be things in our lives that we should let go of.

When Jesus said that we must lose our lives he surely was referring to that part of us which denies the Christ within, that part of us which lives in contradiction to It, that part of us which is out of harmony with It. He was telling us that there are certain things we have to surrender before we can find our true center.

Jesus said, (Matthew 5:5) "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."^d This sounds as if he is saying that we need to reject the kingdom of man. Yet Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes when the people were hungry. He turned water into wine at the wedding feast, and in every way seemed to meet human needs whenever they arose.

So even in teaching us that we must surrender something, he was not telling us that we should live in poverty or limitation. What he WAS saying is that when we put our trust in external things alone we are certain to become disillusioned, for a person can have a fortune one day and lose it the next; he can have a position of high power and suddenly lose all public approval.

Jesus was telling us something more real than this, but something which contained everything necessary to living in this world. He knew that we need food and clothing and shelter. He was not saying that the Divine Will imposes suffering on us, but rather that when we fail to live in accord with the Divine, we bring suffering on ourselves.

So we see that losing our lives, or making the great surrender to God, doesn't mean losing anything worthwhile, but getting rid of those things which deny the Presence and the Power of the Christ within. It is the things that negate life that we have to surrender, the doubts and fears and uncertainties, the coldness and unkindness, the lack of love.

This is the sin of life - to do anything that separates us from the conscious daily realization that we already are One with God.

It is not easy to make this surrender, because we are in the habit of thinking of ourselves as being such strong, self-reliant personalities that we can sweep everything before us. It is not easy to be meek. But in true meekness we recognize that all Power finally rests in God.

We want peace of mind and an inward sense of security, but are we willing to follow another teaching of Jesus in which he said, (Matthew 5:39) "But I say to you, Do not resist an evil..."^e This is simplicity itself. When we resist, we make that thing real in our mind which we are trying to get rid of. True nonresistance is the surrender of every arrogant attitude of mind to God and God alone. Those who have made this surrender have found real peace of mind, happiness, and wholeness in the only place where it can be found, within themselves

Perhaps Jesus was teaching the greatest surrender of all when he said, "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." We have thought that we must work so hard to attain this Kingdom; there is so much we have to do about it. This has become such a burden on our minds, and we have gotten our little human selves so completely in the way, that the Kingdom which was given cannot be accepted. Life is the gift of God and not of man. That is why Jesus said that no man has the Power to give it or to take it away. Are we willing to let go of this inflated ego of ours, this gigantic make-believe, this mask we wear, this camouflage, and in simplicity accept Life?

GOD'S WILL IS NOT SUFFERING OR PUNISHING
God's will is not suffering or punishing. This is true for Jesus, for you, for all people. How much of Christian theology has centered on God requiring suffering and pain of Jesus so God could thereby forgive us for our sins? How much of Jewish theology has to do with being a suffering and persecuted people for God's sake and glory? Do you really believe God has some "need" to have us suffer and be punished? Do you want to see your own children suffer, be persecuted for your sake, and be punished by you and life?

CHARLES FILLMORE SAYS:
In the book Discover The Power Within You Charles Fillmore says, "We must get rid of the idea that God punishes man in any way, or that He has made saints of some and withheld His grace from others, or that He will accede to our wishes and change laws in order to accommodate us, or that we are unjustly used because our poverty or sickness has not been removed after much beseeching. The whole order of our thinking must in this respect be reversed. God is more willing to give than we are to receive, and has actually placed every desire right at our hand waiting for us to get into the proper mental attitude to have them fulfilled, for God is not matter, nor do His gifts consist of things made; God is Spirit, and they who receive His gifts do so in Spirit; and through the spiritual wisdom and understanding which is poured into the consciousness they create through mental action the fulfillment."^f

"MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU."
(Luke 22:42) "Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done."^g

All power comes from God and is received through our individual sense of I AM (our creative, ageless individuality). From there our will directs it into specific action according to our understanding. We must allow understanding its rightful role and adequate time in instructing will. When we do this, we will not act in the heat of the day but rather in the cool of the evening. As we retrain the will and teach it to be receptive and responsive to spiritual motivation, then it becomes a valued and trusted servant rather than an unbending, unyielding willful master.

I would like to close with a piece that Emmet Fox wrote in the Sermon on the Mount, He says, "If we seek to serve self instead of God, we are ordering trouble, disappointment, and unhappiness, notwithstanding what the evidence to the contrary may seem to be. Whereas, if we choose what, through prayer, we know to be His Will, then we are insuring, for ourselves ultimate success, freedom, and joy, however much self-sacrifice and self-discipline it may involve at the moment. Our business is to bring our whole nature as fast as we can into conformity with the Will of God, by constant prayer and unceasing, though unanxious, watching. Our wills are ours to make them Thine."^h