Lenten Season

The Metaphysics of Fasting

Fat Tuesday has come and gone as has Ash Wednesday.  Christians around the world commit themselves to a period of self-denial lasting 40 days in preparation for the resurrection experience.  Many will give up meat or chocolate or television or partying (hence Fat Tuesday)--whatever they deem as sufficient sacrifice.   Eric Butterworth suggests a different approach to Lent:

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Praying Our Way to Wholeness

"To Live Until We Die"  --Kubler-Ross

God is the Source of all Being, all substance and an unfolding universe of infinite possibilities.    Learning to express more  of our true nature, our God self, leads us out of limiting thought patterns and into an understanding Faith in God as our Father.  When challenges arise in our lives, we are better able to seek underlying meaning in what is happening and to grow through those events.

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Surrender in Faith

Charles and Myrtle Fillmore founded Unity upon the power of prayer--to heal, to prosper, to change lives. We who follow in their foot steps often find ourselves struggling with the concept of surrender. To say Let Go and Let God! is easy to say, but to do it requires a large measure of faith in God. Jesus said:

Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me;
nevertheless, not as I will but as You will.

(Mt.26:38)

We have all faced tremendous challenges at times in our lives and have cried out to God to spare us the pain, to ease our fears and doubts. We long for understanding and comfort. Well meaning friends urge say: just have faith or God never gives us more than we can handle....

Surrender to God is not about giving up, but about getting out of the way! We are told that good can come out of bad, that the ill will of Joseph's brothers put him in the right place at the right time. When we are hurting, that's not all that comforting. It has been said that God can do no more for us, than he can do through us. When faced with loss, I can choose to act as I feel or as I believe.

The search for answers can lead us into a closer, more conscious awareness of God. Robert and Janet Ellsworth wrote in Come Apart for Awhile,

"God, I don't understand what is happening here.

I don't like it. But I know that Your will for me is good.
I trust in You. I surrender."

Rev. Claudia Naylor

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Jesus Christ Heals

Indispensable Assurance

The teachings of Unity emphasize the power of faith in choosing the life we want to live and our willingness to act upon the inner call to come up higher. Charles Fillmore wrote in Jesus Christ Heals that:

A man without ambition is like a ship afloat on the waves without
sails or power. Such a man simply drifts; if he reaches port
safely it is by chance.
But a ship under full sail or power needs one other important thing
and that is a rudder (which) needs a man to handle that
rudder, and that man needs faith.

Anyone can read about truth and talk about truth, but living the truth requires a deep and abiding faith in God as our own indwelling Lord. It is through the activity of faith that we find the courage to speak the truth and to live that truth with confidence.

Most of us get to the sound of an alarm clock, turn on the lights and put on the coffee/tea without a second thought--more by rote than anything else. Yet how many of us 'turn on/tune into' Spirit just as promptly as we turn on the 'real' electricity? No man-made current can hold a candle to the illumination of Spirit!

That spark of inner illumination that is God within, reveals a world of infinite possibilities and promise! We can literally see more clearly the ideas and choices stretching out before us. Faith will open a way to reveal and express more good in our lives than we could ever hope to imagine or realize without first acknowledging that:

God is our instant, constant and abundant source of all good!

No power or principality on earth can deny us or keep us from our good, for truly, we are the sons and daughters of the Most High, heirs and joint heirs with Jesus Christ! That is the Truth and the key is Faith.

Rev. Claudia Naylor

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Jesus Christ Heals

"Producing Results"

Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, co-founders of Unity, demonstrated the healing power of faith in God through transformative thinking. Believing in and affirming that "I am a child of God and therefore do not inherit sickness!" allowed Charles and Myrtle to overcome their own health challenges and lay the foundation for a world-wide prayer ministry.

Charles Fillmore wrote in Jesus Christ Heals that healing must follow the inner realization of our own true nature.

"I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly."
Jn. 10:10

When we recognize it and open our
consciousness to it, it comes flowing into mind
and body with its mighty quickening, healing power,
and they are renewed and transformed.

If I truly believe that the perfect life of God dwells in me, then I ought to demonstrate perfect health in mind and body. Yet, I do not. Last Friday I had meals on wheels to deliver and a long list of new mothers and their infants to visit at Southern Regional. When I got up that morning, my left knee was giving me fits and I informed it that I didn't have time for pain. For the next three hours, "it" was a non-issue. But the minute I finished the last visit, the pain came charging back!

Now, clearly, my mind was fully capable of setting aside pain and the limping it would trigger for three hours but then allow it to return without a conscious decision to do so. Even though it really hurt, I had to laugh at myself for "playing" such a stupid game with mind and body. The glimmer of belief begins in the mind, but must be irrevocably linked to inner faith and conviction before the outer demonstration of wholeness can manifest.

Rev. Claudia Naylor

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