Sunday Message for September 11, 2022

Putting More Divine Order Into Our Lives

Since we are exploring the Faculty of Order this month - this week we want to learn and practice how to put first things first in our lives and affairs, to establish Divine Order. We learn to practice "DO" - D.O. - Divine Order.

ORDER IS A SPIRITUAL POWER
Order is a spiritual power. Developing order in our lives has basically to do with our values, or the way we order our lives. Spiritual values (what we call "putting God first") are Divine Order. Jesus' concept of order was considered disorderly by the Pharisees and Sadducees, the commercial interests, the religious hierarchy, and the establishment of his day. Now, churches and religious organizations have become the establishment and their structures, vested interests, theology and authority are considered the established order. Jesus taught that love is the supreme "law and order." Love is an order!

CLARIFY WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT TO YOU
So clarify what is most important to you. Values clarification gives us exercises to help us discern what is really important to us. If you want to know where you are really investing your life, take a good look at your checkbook and your date book.

Take this test: Think about your values and priorities. What is important to you? If you won $1 Million dollars in the lottery, what would you do with it? (Some say they would make a large contribution to their church, but they don't even give proportionately of what they have now.) Money is a form of energy. What do you do with your energy? With your time? What are you doing with your life?

Take this test: If your house was on fire and you had time to make only one trip out, what would you make sure you took with you? Or if everything you "own" was blown away in a hurricane, what non-material values or meaning would you have with which to carry on? When Norman Rockwell lost all of his classic paintings of Americana in a fire in his barn-studio, he disappeared during the fire and was found calmly painting the whole scene from a nearby hill. How did he handle the loss? Why was he painting in the midst of the fire?

Jesus gave the greatest explanation of order when he said in (Matthew 6:33) "But strive first for the kingdom of God and God's righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."^a

ORDER IS OUR ABILITY TO KEEP "GOD FIRST" IN OUR CONTINUOUS DEVELOPMENT
Order is our ability to KEEP "God First" in our continuous development. If we are facing confusing, complex, or even chaotic situations in our life, we may feel we don't know where to turn or where to begin. How do we find order and proper sequence under pressure?

Affirm: "Divine Order! D O!" That's what it takes. Say it. Mean it. That starts your consciousness accepting the proper connections and sequences of information and inspiration.

If you place God first in any situation, that situation has no choice but to fall into order. If you place your own personal will or wants first, then step 3 might follow what needs to be step 7, and step 2 might follow step 88. You get more and more disoriented and confused. But, if you put God first, step 2 falls into line and immediately precedes step 3. Step 4 follows and the orderly outworking continues in Divine Order. Things are done sequentially and in order.

THE DISCIPLE JAMES ALPHAEUS PORTRAYS THE POWER OF ORDER
The disciple James Alphaeus (al' fe us) portrays the Power of Order. Suné Richards writes, "James was called 'James the Less' because he was younger than James, the brother of John. Since he is spoken of as 'James, son of Alphaeus' in the Bible, scholars believe that this man, whose true identity is still questioned, may have been a cousin of Jesus. James, who is said to have been the first bishop of Jerusalem, was highly respected for his knowledge of law, and he represents 'law and order' in this series... In the spiritual connotation, the attribute of order, as represented in the disciple James the Less, means universal law and order, or principle."

THE ORDER OF CREATION STEP ONE
We live in an orderly universe. There are Universal Laws that we can count on. If you read Genesis you will see that there is Divine Order in creation. Charles Fillmore points this out in his book Mysteries of Genesis.

(Genesis 1:1-5) "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day."^b

The first step in the creative process is the awakening of man to spiritual consciousness. This happens through the dawning of light, or the perception of Truth through the quickening of his spirit. Light is wisdom, and the first day's work is the calling of light, of wisdom, into expression. Light represents intelligence, and darkness is undeveloped capacity. Symbolically these are "day" and "night."

In the beginning of all creation there is nothing but pure, Absolute Intelligence. The starting point of every creation is the Word of a Universal Intelligence; or a thought

THE ORDER OF CREATION STEP TWO
(Genesis 1:6-8) And God said, "Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day."^c

The second step in the creative process is the development of faith. The "waters" represent the unestablished elements of the mind.

THE ORDER OF CREATION STEP THREE
(Genesis 1:9-13) "And God said, "Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it." And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation: plants yielding seed of every kind, and trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the third day."^d

The third step is the activity of the formative power of the mind called imagination. This gathers "the waters... together into one place" so that the "dry land" appears. Then the imaginative faculty begins a great multiplication of forms and shapes in the mind.

THE ORDER OF CREATION STEP FOUR
(Genesis 1:14-19) "And God said, "Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth." And it was so. God made the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day."^e

The "two great lights" of the fourth day are the will and the understanding, or the sun (the spiritual I AM) and the moon (the intellect). These are but reflections of the true light, for God had said, "Let there be light: and there was light" - before the sun and the moon were created.

THE ORDER OF CREATION STEP FIVE
(Genesis 1:20-23) "And God said, "Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky." So God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day."^f

The fifth step is the bringing forth of sensation and discrimination. The "creatures" are thoughts. The "birds.. across the dome of the heavens" are ideas approaching spiritual understanding.

THE ORDER OF CREATION STEP SIX
(Genesis 1:24-31) "And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." And it was so. God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

God said, "See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day."^g

The sixth step is the bringing forth of ideas after their kind. When man approaches creative power in his thought, he is getting close to God in his consciousness, and then the realization that he is the very image and likeness of his Creator dawns upon him. This is the consciousness in man of Christ.

The creation described in these six days, or six degrees or stages of God-Mind, is wholly spiritual. God is mind, and all His works are created in mind as perfect ideas. This is Divine Order. This account in Genesis is an allegory explaining just what takes place in the mind of each individual in his unfoldment from the ideal to the manifest.

This is a Universe of Divine Order. You can count on it. Universal Laws, Universal Principles always work. We are so used to the thought that if we mix certain colors we get certain other colors, that we do not realize we are dealing with a principle. We know that whoever blends these particular colors will get the same result.

Perhaps you think of Divine Order as something that only the most profound thinkers have known about, but you should remember that you also are a thinker. The profound thought of all ages has stood in awe of Life itself, realizing that here is a power and potentiality, the highest possibilities of which the human intellect cannot fathom.
Divine Order or Universal Principles are never respecters of persons; the Universe has no favorites. Therefore, it is written in (Revelation 22:17)
"And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift."^h