Sunday Message for September 18, 2022

A Divine Plan is Unfolding Through Me Now

WHAT WE WANT TO LEARN & PRACTICE: What we want to learn and practice this week is that there is a life of creativity, prosperity, health, and peace that is divinely ordered for us. We want to know this and live this life in fullness and thankfulness. This is how we practice and live the faculty of Order.

THE SPIRIT. THE SPIRIT HAS A PLAN
We want to look to the spirit. The spirit has a plan. God's plan for us is for unlimited good to be manifested or demonstrated by us in Divine Order, at the right times, places, and in the right relationships.

As the scripture says in Matthew, Jesus "didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it."^a God's plan for us will be fulfilled when we learn to follow spiritual law. But Jesus was pointing out that it is time that we understood spiritual law at a spiritual level.

For instance: The first commandment says, "I am the Lord your God, ... you shall have no other gods before me."^b

At a higher spiritual level this means that God is ONE. And in this statement of the Divine Unity is the foundation on which everything else rests. Our Bible starts out with this statement - "In the beginning, GOD". There can be nothing else but God or Spirit. This is the Universal First Cause.

In the Upanishads it says, "As the web issues from the spider, as little sparks proceed from fire, so from the One Soul proceed all breathing animals, all the gods, and all beings."^c

Call it what you will, it makes no difference, but realize what must be its inherent nature and what must be our necessary relation to it.

Whatever name we give it, it is always the ONE self-existent and self-transforming Power of which everything is some mode of manifestation, simply because there is no other source from which anything could come. It says in (Isaiah 45:21-22) "...There is no other god besides me, ...For I am God, and there is no other."^d

So if we see this commandment at a higher spiritual level then we would have to ask ourselves, "Am I being true to my divine Self?" We have to look at whether we put other things before God. What occupies most of our attention and what do we think about day and night? Remember that God is the ONLY Power in your life and God is everywhere present.

The second commandment is very similar to the first. "You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. ..."^e. If you are looking at this in a higher spiritual consciousness you discover that this idol can be an image engraved on our mind. It can be neurotic patterns that keep rearing their ugly heads. Are we giving power to some old memory of evil?

Our 'graven image' may be giving power to our ailments. Are we proud of being a "difficult case"? It may be that we give power to our weaknesses or our rages or our depressions. Have you every caught yourself bragging about your sleepless nights or your ill health or your fatigue?

The third commandment is "You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name."^f

If we take this to a higher spiritual level we realize that we are not talking about cursing. But we ARE talking about the NATURE of God. Are you limiting God in your thinking? How big is your God? Do you really believe that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere present? AND are you willing to abide by your concept of God?

CHARLES FILLMORE ON ORDER - GUIDELINES FOR A DIVINELY ORDERED LIFE AND SOCIETY
Let's look at what Charles Fillmore says about order - what are the guidelines for a divinely ordered life and society: Mr. Fillmore speaks forcefully and eloquently about the need for a spiritually ordered life and society that respect individuals and provide freedom of education and religion. Few passages in his writings are as passionately stated as the first part of his chapter, "Spiritual Law and Order," in The Twelve Powers.

He warns against trivialities of religion, legalisms, dogmatizing, foolish insistence on consistency, and the worship of prized words and structures; very reminiscent of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

LOWER ORDER	HIGHER ORDER
Everything must always be just so (Cleanliness is	First things first. (Friendliness is next to Godliness.)
This is one of my challenges - thinking that there is only one way to do things. When what is really important in life is people - not things.
The letter of the law is most important.	The spirit of the law, love, is most important
This is what Jesus was trying to teach. The law had gotten to a point where it was virtually impossible to follow the Jewish law. There wasn't time in the day to do all the things that were required. So, Jesus was pointing out that it was the spirit of the law that was important. It is Love that is important - not whether you hold your mouth right when you pray.
General Robert's Rules always rule (these are based on military strategy).	Consciousness & consensus building, conflict resolution
Roberts Rules of Order are a good basis to start with but if you are stifling human creativity, you are on the wrong path. If you follow the rules but are out of touch with God, you are on the wrong path.
Maintain outer law and order at all costs	Understand underlying needs of people and help meet those needs.
The law says that we have to get those homeless people off our streets and out of sight of the "decent" people of our communities. But a higher spiritual law demands that we look to see why the homeless are there, and what it is that they might need.
Segregation is God's plan.	Integration is God's plan.
Don't even get me started on this one. How can anyone in their right mind not accept another human being as their brother or sister.
Repression works best.	Acceptance works best.
Look up 'repression', it says oppression, subjugation, domination, suppression, authoritarianism, tyranny, and cruelty. It says in (1 Peter 2:16) As servants of God, live as free people, yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil.g
Punishment works best	Rehabilitation works best.
I'm always amazed in court cases, murder cases, that there is a plea of insanity. As if you could murder another human being and be sane. When are we going to get it that these are sick people who need help, not punishment.
Hurt people to help them.	Love people to help them
Jesus teaches in (Matthew 5:43-45) "You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.h
Win- Lose	Win- Win
You do not have to be wrong, for me to be right. You do not have to lose, for me to win. And I am NOT talking about compromise. We each get to hold our own opinions - opposite though they may be - and still co-exist.
"An eye for an eye..."	"Love one another."
If we upheld the law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we would become a blind, toothless society. But Jesus told us to love one another.
Never change your plan consistency is sacred.	Be open to new ideas and guidance.
If we had always done things in the same way, never changing, we would have never progressed, never evolved to the present technological level. If consistency were sacred, then Mother Theresa would have never been allowed to do the work that she did. Be open to God's guidance.
Fear + Armaments = Safety	Communication + Cooperation = Safety
We are still learning this one. But the furtherance of evolution depends on our ability to sense a unity with Nature, with God, and with each other. Earnest Holmes wrote that, "When the knowledge of this unity comes alike to all, the tread of armies will cease, and the bugle call will echo the soft notes of brotherly love."i
Cast stones at the guilty - "Got-ya!"	"He who is without sin, cast the first stone."

Jesus said this over 2000 years ago. How many thousands of years will it take us to get it?

ORDER IS NOT A STATIC STATE, BUT A PROCESS WE ARE LIVING OUT
Order is not a static state, but a process we are living out. Barbara Marx Hubbard, the noted futurist and visionary philosopher, suggests we change the word "order" into a verb rather than a noun. We are ordering or re-ordering our lives and society, not trying to maintain or attain a certain set "order." She writes in New Thought for a New Millennium:

"The consciousness required to fully live the twenty-first century is a combination of the eternal and the evolving aspects of God. We can access this form of consciousness at the core of our being as the Eternal, the ever-present Oneness, the Presence of God. This is our center, our Source. Centered in Source, we recognize that we are unique expressions of the process of creation and have a vital role to play in the creation. We see that each of us is called from within to stabilize ourselves as co-creative humans, humans capable of accessing the eternal aspect of God and simultaneously awakening to the evolving aspect - humans expressing our God-given creative essence as Spirit-in-action in the world.

"To move toward a new and higher form of governance in the global village of the twenty-first century, we need to develop methods to enhance social synergy - methods that lead to ethical, "virtuous," choiceful evolution, in harmony with our environment, our social needs, and the evolutionary potential of our species. Our motto, a modification of Thomas Jefferson's great statement, is this:

"We hold this truth to be self evident,
all people are born creative,
endowed by our Creator with the inalienable right and responsibility
to express our creativity
for the sake of ourselves and society as a whole."^j

I'd like to close with a Sufi story - it goes like this:

A man in prison is sent a prayer rug by his friend. What he had wanted, of course, was a file or a crowbar or a key! But he began using the rug, doing five-times prayer before dawn, at noon, mid-afternoon, after sunset, and before sleep. Bowing, sitting up, bowing again, he notices an odd pattern in the weave of the rug, just at the qibla, the point, where his head touches. He studies and meditates on that pattern, gradually discovering that it is a diagram of the lock that confines him in his cell and how it works. He's able to escape.

Anything you do every day can open into the deepest spiritual place, which is freedom.

Let it be your way.....