Series 1 - Lesson 3 - Annotation 9
What is the law of giving and receiving?
9. The law of giving and receiving is the law of balance.
"There is a law of giving and receiving ... it is a law of mind action, and it can be learned and applied the same as any other law . . . The law of giving and receiving that Jesus taught, 'Give, and it shall be given unto you,' is found to be applicable to all our commercial as well as our social relationships" (Charles Fillmore Prosperity 145,146)
In his true being man is both producer and consumer. Unless he maintains a balance between the two he produces discord and in-harmony. It is a spiritual law as well as sound economics that balance is necessary in every phase of experience. Where man seeks to retain more than he can use, he causes not only disease (lack of ease) in his own being, but he also upsets the balance for the rest of creation. All humanity are members of one body and therefore interdependent. Jesus' statement of the law of giving and receiving, as mentioned in the quotation, "Give, and it shall be given unto you," is very clear and admits of no doubt as to the receiving when the prerequisite of giving has been completed.
The law of giving and receiving is the universal law of supply and demand. It is the law of reciprocity between God and His creation, including man. God is the source of all of man's good (divine ideas), and man's own consciousness must be the outlet that allows these ideas to produce his outer supply in the forms of health of body, food to sustain his body, shelter to house himself and his family, education, and all the many things that make for the "abundant life."
As man learns to keep the outlet in his own life open through giving to his fellow man, to creation in general, he has cleared the inlet that allows more of God's blessings to flow into and through him. When man realizes that he is a chosen channel for distributing God's good, he does all that he can through prayer, through right thinking, feeling, speaking, and acting to make of himself a worthy channel. He becomes a conscious co-worker with God to bring His kingdom on the earth.
While it is true that man must first receive of God, giving becomes his first act as a co-worker with God, as a son in partnership with his Father. Because giving is only one part of the law, the receiving or acceptance of more of God's blessings must follow. This is made possible through those moments of prayer when man enters the Silence and receives the inspiration of God through the revelation of divine ideas. These in turn are given forth in daily living and produce the harmonious conditions that make a "heaven" here on earth. If one attempts to receive from God, yet does not give in daily living the ideas he has received, he causes a damming of the channel. By the same token, if an individual gives, yet does not allow himself the moments of prayer whereby he may receive from God, there can be no inflow of the rich ideas to fulfill his needs. Soon the time will come when he finds he has nothing to give to himself or to other people either in ideas or substance. No one can give what he has not yet received in consciousness. He must receive divine ideas such as life, power, success, love, and so forth from God. Then he can form the "mental equivalents" in consciousness that can bring forth the manifest forms, or "these things . . . added."
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Preceding Entry: Give three affirmations of your own for the realization of divine substance.
Following Entry: What has the keeping of this law to do with the demonstration of supply?
