Lessons In Truth - Lesson 6 - Annotation 5
What is understanding faith? Does an understanding faith increase one's power to demonstrate?
5. Understanding faith is faith functioning according to Principle, with a knowledge of God as the underlying plan of good. It is the perceiving of the principle of good, or God, at work in every situation of our life. It is the faith that understands the law of mind action ("like begets like"); such a faith understands the mental law of cause and effect because it has been experienced and proven by use.
Understanding faith does not depend on blind faith or an instinctive trust to accomplish results, for it knows that nothing is accidental. It knows that all good results are based on universal law, so both reasoning and feeling enter into its operation.
We have only an intellectual concept of faith if we merely know about it. However, when we actually know and experience faith by feeling as well as thinking, then we have added understanding to our faith. The faith faculty "perceives" that which is good, but may not know the why or wherefore. When our consciousness is awakened through prayer and comes to understand that God is the creator and source of all good, we have added understanding to our perception and thus we build a consciousness of understanding faith.
Faith combined with understanding may seem to come in a flash at times. In reality understanding faith is the culmination of a step-by-step unfoldment through study, observation, experience, prayer and use. All of these have had a part in the preparation of our mind so that intuition, or the voice of God, might quicken and illumine our faith faculty. Blind faith gives us a hope that good results will come forth; but with understanding faith we are always sure of the results because we conform our thinking, feeling, speaking, acting, and reacting to the laws of God: the law of love, the law of order, the law of peace, the law of health, the law of prosperity.
Understanding faith does increase our power to demonstrate good. The true knowing of any principle and an understanding of the laws that govern its operation inevitably open the way for demonstration.
Use is the law of increase. The more we learn how the law of mind action works, the greater is our ability to use this law according to Principle (God). In order to get right results, it is just as necessary to learn the right use of the laws of God (Principle) as it is to know and use the principles of music or mathematics.
Faith measures our capacity to receive -- "According to your faith be it done unto you" (Matt. 9:29) -- and can be likened to a measuring cup that we hold out to be filled. Our demonstration of good can be no greater than the amount of faith that we are using. As we build a conscious awareness of God and realize our ability, as His sons, to bring forth His good, we establish an understanding faith that increases our power to demonstrate good in our mind, body, and affairs.
We may have a certain degree of faith that God is our life, but until we have understanding faith we are not fully aware of the manner in which we are to lay hold of this life. Through understanding faith our affirmations for health become more effective, and our body manifests wholeness, vitality, and strength, for we know the Principle of perfect life back of our healing words.
Through understanding faith our relations with other persons become harmonious, loving, happy, and satisfying. The perceiving power of faith linked with understanding not only reveals the Fatherhood of God but also the brotherhood of man. We see others unfolding their divine capacities and growing in ways that meet their particular needs.
Faith coupled with understanding gives us assurance that God is the source of every good that we desire. Our affirmations for supply have deep conviction for they are based on understanding faith that God-substance is the source of our supply.
When understanding faith has become established in our consciousness, we are confident of success for we are assured that God's power is at work in our every endeavor.
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Preceding Entry: What is intuition and how does faith work with intuition?
Following Entry: How may we know what effects will follow certain states of mind?
