UP Church

JULY 4     

I AM LOVE 

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear … for God is love.  I John 4: 18, 16

There is no fear in love and there is no liberation from fear without love.  Fear is based on the supposition that we are unprotected, rejected, and friendless.  If the fearful mind would entertain love and the harmony and peace that go with it, it must turn from everything that denies this love, and trusting in Divine Guidance, open its being to the influx of love, not just love of God but love of everything, for love is all-inclusive.

“I will fear no evil for thou art with me.”  Today Divine love and infinite tenderness sustain me. In order that I shall not separate myself from this love, I endeavor to see it reflected in everyone and everything.  I shall permit only that which is loving, kind and true to find entrance or exit through my consciousness.  Thus I shall be assured that I am bathed in the warm glow of that Love which casteth out all fear.

Becoming conscious of myself as I really exist in the Mind of God, I shall find that I am walking in pathways of peace; that something within me like a magnet attracts that which belongs to itself.  This something is Love, the supreme impulsion of the universe.  I know that I have no existence apart from this Love.  As I grow in the knowledge that I am one with the Spirit, I know that I shall grow in the ability to use the Love within me.

JULY 3 

I AM PEACE

Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast.  Samuel 25:6

Phillips Brooks said that “peace is the entire harmony between the nature of anything and its circumference.”  “House” is a symbol of the physical body and of “that house not made with hands eternal in the heavens.”  House is a symbol of any of the “vehicles, bodies or habitations of the soul” on any or all planes.  The Bible speaks of the House of Bondage and the House of Freedom.  Symbolically, it tells us that we must come “out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage’; that we must be led by the Divine Spirit into that true home which is heaven.  Jesus said that ‘in My Father’s house there are many mansions.”

Today I permit my mental house to be at peace.  I know that my true home is heaven and the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.  Today I enter into this permanent home.  I consciously move in and make my dwelling place in this House of Peace and Gladness.

The perfect Life of God now expresses through me.  As the sun dissolves the mist, so my knowledge of truth dissolves all pain and discord.  There is nothing for me to fear.  God is my life, my strength; I claim my true sonship.  I claim my divine inheritance of perfect life.  Today I am made perfect through conscious union with the Source of all life.  I have peace in the Household of the Lord. 

JULY 2

I EXPRESS DIVINITY

We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory … by the Spirit of the Lord.  II Corinthians 3:18

Beholding the image of perfection in everything, dominion is added to glory.  This refers to the continual progression of the soul.  Since God is infinite, our expansion is progression and eternal.  No matter how much good we experience today, the Infinite has more in store for us tomorrow.  We should look forward to this expansion with enthusiastic anticipation.  The march of life is not a funeral dirge, but a song of triumph.

Grateful for each success and each new advancement, I advance to new and greater revelations of truth.  Knowing that the Spirit within me is free, I am no longer bound by the patterns of yesterday.  Freedom is made manifest through my thoughts, in my words and actions.

The good that I experience yesterday is going to be multiplied today.  I cast this good upon every wind of heaven, knowing that it goes out to bless.  I condition my mind to accept greater good for myself and others.  I wait calmly, but with joy, for new experiences to come to me, for new opportunities for service.  I expect my mind to be flooded with new ideas.  I know that the Spirit of the Lord is with me and that glory of the Lord is around me.

JULY 1   

I AM ONE WITH ALL PEOPLE

Have we not all one Father?  Hath not one God created us?  Malachi 2:10

Arthur Compton, in The Freedom of Man, tells us that science has discovered nothing which contradicts the idea of a Universal Mind or Spirit to which men are as Its, or His, children.  It would be impossible to converse with each other unless there were a common medium, or, as Emerson said, “one mind common to all individual men.”  It is impossible to depart from this Divine Presence, to be separated from this heavenly Father, which is the Parent Mind.  Since God is everywhere, wherever we are God is.

Today I know that there is one Spirit in everyone I meet.  Realizing that there is one Heavenly Father, I know that there is a brotherhood of humanity.  There are no aliens, no strangers.  The Divine Image in me cannot be separated from the Divine Image in others.  I see God in everyone I meet. The Spirit that is within me responds to the Spirit within them, for we have one Father.

I neither condemn nor make excuses for another’s seeming shortcomings. I endeavor to help him to know that God at the center of his being reveals to him his perfect Being.  In the Kingdom of God within him no false beliefs exist.  No self-frustration nor inner conflict can exist in Heaven within him.  When I can really see God in the person who is in great need, I prove my consciousness of oneness. I am one with the Spirit in all people.

JUNE 30   

I GIVE MY WORLD LOVE, JUSTICE AND TEMPERANCE 

“For all things proceed out this same spirit, which is differently named love, justice, temperance, in its different applications, just as the ocean receives different names on the several shores which it washes.”  Emerson

God must act by means of me, for otherwise I have no purpose in life. I am; therefore that which caused me to be, must have a reason for my being.  I have confidence that the Infinite Mind knew what It was doing as It released me into the world.  I have a divine purpose and a spiritual reason for being.  I am not an accident of fate, nor a victim of inheritance.  I am a living soul equipped to display the attributes of God in my world.  I have within me the potentials of greatness, yes, the glory of God as he acts through man.  To me is given the Mind, Life and Love of God, and I accept my role in the Divine Plan.

I live, because God is life.  I love, for within me is a Love greater than I have ever known.  I am kind to others, because God in me knows their love, their integrity and their hopes.  I have at the center of my being all the Mind of Truth. His Ideas are mine, and His Ways are my paths of peace.  I know the real meaning of spiritual justice.  I judge no man by his outer actions.  I judge only righteous judgment.  God is man in his own real self, and though his outer actions may camouflage this, it still remains true.  I behold the Truth in every person.  I see God in every face.

To live in the Presence is to live always in balance.  I have true temperance, for I am guided by a Wisdom that always guides me rightly.  I indulge in the good, and fast from all evil.  I find my every hunger and thirst satisfied by an inner manna of the Spirit.  I live with wisdom, and allow my fellowman to do the same.  I have the spiritual intelligence to perceive the difference between temperance and intolerance.  I live and let live.  I love and let love happen.  I have faith in my concept of Truth, and respect my fellowman’s concept as well.  I live in God, and I express His love, justice and temperance.  

JUNE 29   

I REFUSE TO EXPERIENCE SICKNESS, POVERTY AND UNHAPPINESS

“Good is positive.  Evil is merely privative, not absolute; it is like cold which is the privation of heat.  All evil is so much death or nonentity.  Benevolence is absolute and real.”  Emerson

I have free will as a part of my Divine Birthright.  This great power of mind is mine to use, and the Law of Mind must fulfill my direction.  I now declare my freedom from all evil.  I refuse to be dominated by illness, fear, lack and frustration.  God never made them, and I will have nothing to do with them. God in me knows only my perfect self, and this alone I recognize, affirm and accept.  Having the power to reject the undesirable, I now declare my freedom from evil.  Never again will negatives rule my thinking.  I am the perfect creation of a perfect God, and I know it.

My body is divinely created, and divinely operated.  It is not subject to the ills of the flesh, for my flesh is spiritual substance and cannot be defiled.  No sickness can come upon me, and no medical belief can enthrall me.  I am the health of the Spirit.  I am the Life of God made manifest.  I control my thinking and disciple my emotions. My vitality is sufficient for every demand made upon it. I am never unhappy, for God in me is the joy of living.  Outer pleasure I enjoy, but my inner joy is not dependent upon it.   My real happiness is from my knowledge of God as the joy of my being.

I refuse to experience poverty, lack or financial limitation.  I live in a universe of Divine Design and it knows no lack of abundance.  Everywhere prosperity is rampant.  Money seeks me through every person, thing and situation.  His richness is mine, and I accept it.  I enjoy the money I have, and I use it with wisdom.  There is no virtue in lack, and I now dismiss it from my world.  I am the Child of a rich and abundant God.  The eternal providing Principle supports and maintains me in freedom.  I have Manna to eat which no man can see.  I have a living Water of Life to drink, and I am free of all evil. 

JUNE 28   

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL NO LONGER INTRIGUES ME

“These facts have always suggested to man the sublime creed that the world is not the product of manifold power, but of one will, of one mind; and that one mind is everywhere active, in each ray of the star, in each wavelet of the pool; and whatever opposes that will is everywhere balked and baffled, because things are made so, and not otherwise.”  Emerson

God dominates my whole experience.  There is so much of God everywhere in my life, that I cannot see any opposite.  My health cannot know disease and my prosperity cannot know decrease.  I am completely convinced that God is the only power. Mind is the only reality and Love is the only atmosphere.  Evil is a word without meaning.  I perceive the Truth and the Truth has set me free from all false speculations.  Within me, around me and through me there is nothing but pure Mind.  I bask in Its eternal embrace; I think in Its eternal consciousness of good.

The problem of evil no longer fascinates me, for I see it as nothing.  Negatives are merely my misunderstanding of positives.  I can see only that which is of good report.  My eyes are now too pure to behold any viciousness in creation.  God appears to me in all things, in all people and in my own uplifted thinking.  All resistance to problems is erased, because the problems are merely my opportunities to prove God as the only cause.  I accomplish with ease, where others struggle to make ends meet.

God’s Spirit in me appreciates my recognition of Itself, and out-pours upon me all of Its qualities, ideas and aspects.  All life moves to grant me the ability and the power to do what I know is right and fine and true.  The inner upsurging of Divine Intelligence and Creativeness impels me to right decisions and right actions.  There is nothing to fight; there are no battles to be won.  The victorious Truth of my being expresses as me, and dominion over all the good is mine to use.  All positives are mine.  All virtues belong to me.  All of God is revealed to me, and I demonstrate my happiness.  

JUNE 23   

I SIMPLIFY MY UNDERSTANDING OF GOD

“Whenever a mind is simple and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away, – means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hours.”    Emerson   

Jesus was not interested in the logics of theology; He was primarily concerned with the Spirit in man.  I now turn to the Spirit within me, and find It in all Its greatness and all Its peace.  There is an interior Christ-Mind that baffles all reasoning, and is beyond all human explanation.  In me at this moment, God abides in fullness, in richness, in omniscience.  My life today is the Life of God.  My thinking this day is accomplished because the God-Mind thinks through me.  My capacity to be a great and loving person is because greatness born of the Spirit indwells me.

From whence I may come is of little importance to me.  Where I shall go upon leaving my present body, I am willing to leave to the Wisdom of the Father of us all.  Today I am alive as a creative soul, and I will so live that today the Action of Truth shines forth through the works of my thinking, and the words of my mouth.  The Divine is a perfect Simplicity.  Life flows through me, Love seeks an outlet from me, and Power is mine to use as I select.  My use of the Spirit is not dependent upon my education, background or environment.  God in me acts through me as I recognize It.

I am not dependent upon theological beliefs; God and I are one process, one Life and one Joyous Spirit.  I am in the Father and His Mind indwells me, and inspires me at every moment.  I have an invisible church in my consciousness, and in it I silently acknowledge the beauty of my present life in God.  The inner altar of Truth feeds me with Its living bread of ideas, and its vital wine of creative action.  I no longer seek an outside God and an exterior temple, for I know that I am the temple of the living God, and that all of His Creativeness is mine to use and to enjoy.  I have a simplified concept of God.