Rejection of Jesus at Nazareth (Rabel)

(Back) Woman Who Touched Christs Garment Attitude Toward Rejection (Next)

Matt. 13:54-58, pp. 103-104 of transcript.

Now let’s get into our Bible text. We’ve just had an example of a beautifully successful healing incident. Right at that we have the opposite shown to us. This is P. 78 of H.G. This is the Matt. version (Matt. 13:54-58). Jesus, as far as we know, is the single most effective healer we have knowledge of. In his entire ministry, at least as recorded in the gospels, only two words are ever used by Him in connection with the cause of illness and failure to get healed.

There are unbelief and sin. That’s all. Sin is a generic word. It is not specific. It simply refers to either failure or mistake. There are two kinds of sin and only two kinds. There are omission and commission. In a previous lesson I explained what we mean by the word failure when we connote it with sin. It means “not trying, not doing, not remembering.” It doesn’t mean making an effort and not getting the result you expected. That’s not failure but is experiment or honest effort. But failure in the sense of sin means “not bothering, not trying, not remembering, not caring.” The other meaning of sin is mistake or error.

Now, we do a lot of discussing, agonizing over this business of why is she sick, why is he sick. Why, if God is good, is sickness permitted? What have I been thinking wrong lately? What has she done wrong to deserve this karmic event and so on in the eternal questionings? This kind of conjecture about sickness has its own level of validity. But the problem is we try to use it in a manner where it has to do with the Divine Idea of Health and Wholeness. It is an activity through man’s spiritual nature to restore the physical organism and the mind behind that organism into a state of alignment with Truth. Healing, as an expression, as a manifestation of the original Divine Idea, is always possible.

Now, there are different dimensions of validity. Therefore, there is a level of validity for what we will now call “pathology,” which is the science of disease and sicknesses. There is a valid level for that kind of pursuit and study. But it is not the same level as spiritual healing. Now we may want to object and say that spiritual healing and the study of disease is aligned because we’ve been taught that way. We’ve been conned into it by the medical profession, by our relatives. But in healing, we’ve got to base all of our efforts, all of our activities on that level of validity called healing. There are two things you need as a passport to enable you to be a citizen of that level of validity. One of these things is you must be willing to stop sinning. Most people don’t’ stop sinning because they simply aren’t willing to stop. This is because the level upon which sin is the modus operandi contains two tantalizing ingredients that most people aren’t willing to give up. These are mystery and excitement (thrills). These are two factors that can be experienced on that level of existence where sin is the modus operandi. However, they don’t realize that mystery and excitement also exist on other levels of validity in which sin is not necessary.

You cannot have health and sin at the same time but you can have healing even with sin. But you cannot have unbelief and healing at the same time. For healing you need belief and for health you have to give up sin. The sin which causes sickness is the sin of commission. The sin which prevents healing is the sin of omission, omitting belief, omitting willingness. It’s very significant that Jesus never once refers to any other factor but these two in connection with sickness or failure in healing. In my opinion, this is a great service to mankind that he has done by this fact. You talk to sick people and you find many of them spend a great deal of time cooking up reasons why they are ill. These reasons are not really the generic reasons, the fundamental reasons. There are so many things that people blame for this, that, and the other thing, that healing and sickness are still very complicated things for so many people. Now can you see how if they understand the implications of the unbelief, or sin. Now when you narrow the field of blame factors, you’re down to just two – sin and unbelief, or both. Now you have made the dilemma for the patient much easier. He can think about only these two things instead of that vast fantasy-realm that so many people think they have to deal with where healing is concerned. It’s a matter of belief or sin. It is not necessary to define sin itself. In the Annos. for Lessons in Truth, question 8, asks, “When we are asking for some blessing from God and we don’t receive it what is the reason?” Now strangely enough the answer to this is given in Christian Healing rather than Lessons in Truth. Mr. Fillmore answers this problem by using a quotation from the book of James in the Bible, Chap. 6. He quotes, “Ye ask, but yet do not receive because ye ask amiss.” The archaic word seems strangely appropriate here for it is not a harsh, abrasive term as is the word “wrongly.” “Amiss” is used in the King James Version and “wrongly" is used in the R.S.V. Bible.

Q. Sometimes it seems that Charles Fillmore makes reference to certain ailments of the body as resulting from certain states or attitudes of mind. Is there validity on some level that there are physical states that mirror in the body specific mental states held in mind?

A. Yes, many times when you are aware that sin is the factor behind your state of ill healthy by simply admitting this to yourself without condemnation; you will get almost instantaneous revelation of what it is. Now this isn’t always true. Sometimes it isn’t anything specific. It might just be a lazy inattention. However, if it is a specific factor which is needful of alteration or denying, you will be given illumination on that particular factor. Then you will be able to do a more specific kind of cleansing through affirmation and denial appropriate for that specific form of sin. The point I want to make here is that this isn’t necessary for healing. You may forgive yourself for sin without knowing what specific one it was and you still qualify of healing. The ideal denial is not a denial of this or that but a denial of negativeness and error in total. Just “no” to whatever is not of Truth. It isn’t “not” to jealousy or “no” to envy specifically that brings a healing. It is simply “no” to the appearance of negativity.

You know that why we call Truth is simply “all the Divine Ideas in God Mind.” When you have that standard to base your definition of Truth, your mind knows what is not a Divine Idea. Jealousy, cruelty, even worry cannot be Divine Ideas. So you reject them, not because you understand their character in the psychiatric sense, but you understand their place in the metaphysical sense. You say, “You are not of Truth therefore you don’t have top priority in my system of beliefs. I don’t use your meaning as my mode of expression or my character of belief.” You’ll find that this sort of thing is not difficult or tough on you to do this. It is not tough to influence people into this kind of thinking and practicing but the result it gets in the matter of health and state of mind is simply amazing. Even easier than that is to check up on the state of your belief. “Hey, what shape is my belief in God, belief in Truth right now?” If it has to do with healing you might ask, “What is the state of my belief in the Healing Principle at this moment?” Don’t ask what is the state of my belief that ‘I can do’? This is very bad because usually the stronger your belief in ‘I can do’ is, the more in danger you are of vanity.

Always be sure when it comes to the Divine Idea of Life, Health, and Wholeness my belief is 100%. Settle for only 100%. See, you’re not believing in results or skills but in a Divine Idea so 100% isn’t too much to ask. Believe in that Divine Idea so all else concerning healing will be done unto you.

Text of the original transcript from the second paragraph of page 103 through the fourth paragraph of page 104.
Transcribed by Rev. Sherri James on September 3, 2013.