Sunday Message for October 8, 2023

BASIC UNITY PRINCIPLES - #2

I would like to talk about the Basic Unity Principles today, as I did last week. There are 5 of them and they are:

1. There is only one Presence and one Power active as the universe and as my life, God the Good.
2. Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good. This God essence was fully expressed in Jesus, the Christ.
3. We are co-creators with God, creating reality through thoughts held in mind.
4. Through prayer and meditation, we align our heart-mind with God. Denials and affirmations are tools we use.
5. Through thoughts, words and actions, we live the Truth we know.

So, I'm going to be covering these for the next four weeks, one principle a week.

EVIL
Let's talk about the second principle today. Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good. This God essence was fully expressed in Jesus, the Christ. On the children's poster it is stated this way: I am naturally good because God's Divinity is in me and in everyone.

So God is Good. We were created in God's likeness and image. Therefore, we are good, naturally.

There are those who would get caught up in the argument that God cannot be good and omnipotent. They say that either God can't put an end to evil, in which case he isn't all-powerful; or he doesn't want to, in which case he isn't good.

But they are asking the wrong questions - they're coming from a very limited viewpoint. God created us and gave us free will to choose to do good, or not.

In (Genesis 1:27-28) God created humankind in his image, male and female he created. God blessed them.^a Then in (Genesis 1:31) God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.^b

So God is Good and we were created good, like God.

Then in (Genesis 2:19) God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.^c

Charles Fillmore writes in his book Mysteries of Genesis ""Evil" represents the realm of reaction, which is that phase of consciousness which loses sight of the source of all ideas and becomes enamored of the thing formed."^d

It is in material consciousness that ideas are identified, that is, "named." Whatever we recognize a thing to be, that is what it becomes to us because of the naming power that we have. So, we can call a thing good or evil and that is what it becomes to us. And yet - that same thing could be just the opposite to someone else.

Lightening causes forest fires, but electricity allows us to run our computers and have light and heat for our houses. So, is electricity good or evil? It is what we name it.

So we go back to the original question - Can God put an end to evil? And we know that he wouldn't even consider it, because it would mean taking away our free will, our choice. To do that he would have to make us as robots with no will of our own. Then what good would we be to him?

Would he put an end to electricity because it burns down forests? Would he put an end to bears because they have killed people? Would he put an end to us because we fight in wars?

No, God is Good and he created us in his likeness and image. Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good. So, to debate whether God can rid us of evil or if he is or is not omnipotent is just nonsense.

So we are told to resist not evil. In the old Testament, Joseph, the fourth Patriarch, is an example of this principle. Joseph was one of the youngest sons of Jacob. He was a sensitive, imaginative boy who irritated his older brothers so much that they sold him into slavery and had him carted off to Egypt.

What could hurt more or give a young man better reason to be bitter, resentful, full of revenge, and think this is a terrible world than to have his own brothers do that? But Joseph didn't succumb to this kind of thinking. He knew that we are inherently good. With his imaginative vision, he looked past the so-called evil and let God (good) rule in his consciousness.

He, therefore, was always in charge within himself. It didn't always prevent problems. He was falsely accused by his master's wife and landed in prison.

But he still upheld the ideal that God was with him, and that God's basic goodness was at work in all things. Therefore, the influence of goodness worked through him, changing his character, establishing dominion and authority in his own inner world, and lifting him from his utterly unfortunate, adverse situation into the position of great power - second only to Pharaoh in command of all Egypt!

And then, the dramatic climax to the whole story - his erring brothers stood before him, their hats in their hands, needing his help. And the man that Joseph had become found an easy, gratifying, rewarding, happy fruition to his whole life by forgiving and lovingly lavishing help upon his brothers.

Joseph proved the power of God (good) and it made him great. This is the way any person of spiritual understanding learns to act.

Do you remember how he stated this principle? (Genesis 50:20) Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.^e

JESUS
Jesus, the Christ, was the one who demonstrated for us how to fully express this God essence. And we are always guided to right action when we turn to the Christ within us.

Evil has no self-originating power. There is no angel of evil dressed in a red suit with horns and a pitchfork, who creates evil. Evil borrows its only existence from our misconceptions of the ever-present goodness of God's creation. Jesus, whose supreme virtue was goodness, kept his full focus on the good.

It says in (2 Corinthians 1:19-20) For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was not "Yes and No;" but in him it is always "Yes."^f

Our lives are full of opportunities to practice focusing on good and learning to elevate all our responses and choices toward Joseph's vantage point of truth that can affirm always: God means things for good. So that we can (Philippians 2:5) Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus^g and let it be said that in you it is always 'yes.'

Shakespeare said, "There's a divinity that shapes our ends."^h So true! God's Divinity is within each of us. Or as the principle is stated on the children's poster, I am naturally good because God's Divinity is in me and in everyone.

Jesus came to introduce us to this spiritual side of life hidden within ourselves; the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven, as He called it.

JESUS' WORKS
In everything Jesus did he was teaching about the goodness of God that was within him and within all of us. He was demonstrating to us how we too could do everything he did, and more.

We need to commit ourselves to the way of the indwelling Christ, the indwelling Good, the indwelling God. We need to hold steadfast the spiritual Truth that the presence of God in us and is our own inner supply at hand.

We need to believe that God, the Father in us, cares and is ever desiring to give of His good plans and Kingdom. Good is not a condition in our cultures affairs it is a state of consciousness. Sheep don't ask for miracles from the shepherd; there is no need for this, for they simply trust him from day to day. We need to trust the indwelling good shepherd to bring forth that which is for our highest good in the form of ideas, Truth, substance, and love that blesses, heals, and prospers us in our spiritual growth. Our needs are met through the riches of consciousness.

From his book The Joyous Miracle, Frank Norris wrote a story about Jesus called When the Miracle Worker Smiled.

It was a long time ago, said Mervius, we were playing in the village green. It was there one day that Septimus showed us how to model clay into pots and drinking vessels, and afterward even into the form of animals: dogs, fishes, and the lame cow that belonged to the widow at the end of the village. Simon made a wonderful beast that he assured us was a lion, with twigs for legs.

Joanna - she was younger than all the rest of us - was fashioning little birds, clumsy, dauby little lumps of wet clay without much form. She was very proud of them, and set them in a row upon a stick, and called for us to look at them. As boys will, we made fun of her and her clumsy clay birds, because she was a girl, and Simon, my brother, said: 'Those aren't like birds at all. More like bullfrogs.'

She was too brave to let us see her cry, but she got up and was just about to go home across the green when Simon said to me and to the others, 'Look, quick, Mervius, here comes the man that father spoke about, the carpenter's son.' And he pointed across the brook, down the road that runs from the city over toward the lake. Joanna stopped and looked where he pointed; so did we all.

He came up slowly along the road near the brook where we children were sitting. When he noticed us all standing there and looking at him quietly, he crossed the brook, sat on the bank, took Joanna on his knee, and asked us what we had been doing. We showed him our array of clay birds and animals.

We were all about him, on his shoulders, on his knees, in his arms, and Joanna in his lap. 'See, see my birds,' she said. She had her arms around his neck. 'They said they were not pretty. They are pretty, aren't they, quite as pretty as their birds?'

'Prettier, prettier,' he said. 'Look now.' He set Joanna's shapeless little lumps before him in a row, looked at them, and at last touched one with his fingertip, then - Did you ever see, when corn is popping, how the grains swells, swells, swells, then bursts forth into whiteness? So it was then. No sooner had that little bird of Joanna's, that clod of dust, that poor bit of common clay felt the touch of his finger than it awakened into life and became a live bird - and white, white as the sunshine, a beautiful little white bird that flew upward on the instant, with a tiny, glad note of song pouring from its throat.

We children shouted aloud, and Joanna danced and clapped her hands. And then it was that the carpenter's son smiled. He looked at her as she looked up at that soaring white bird, and smiled, smiled, just once, and then fell calm again.ⁱ

Jesus always operated from the good within him, from the God within him. He didn't punish the boys. He didn't shame them. He just allowed the little girl her fame. And encouraged the boys to celebrate with her. He showed them a better way.

Our essence is of God; therefore, we are inherently good. This God essence was fully expressed in Jesus, the Christ. When we become fully aware of this essence within us, then we too will express it as did Jesus. So, let it be your way.