God Our Support (1927 and 1964)
[Editor's note: The PDF has writing that says this tract would be studied with Lesson Three of the Unity Correspondence School Lesson (Preparatory).]
THE promise is "Ask, and ye shall receive." Do you ask for supply, or do you try to get it in other ways?
The foundation proposition is that we shall acknowledge God as our supply. "Delight thyself also in Jehovah; And he will give thee the desires of thy heart."
This means that we shall make the getting of supply in spiritual ways a delightful task. The ordinary way of labor is hard; God's way is easy. It is not that we are to be idle, but our work, whatever it is, is to be a wholehearted service to the Lord, free from all ideas of labor and drudgery. While we look upon work merely as a means of support, it is burdensome. Freedom comes to us by our acknowledging God as our supply and doing faithfully whatever is ours to do. We must understand the creative law, and bring things to pass through our thought and spoken word.
"A doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways." When man strives to serve both God and Mammon, he wavers. "Let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord." We must have stability, steadiness. Opportunities to waver are also opportunities to hold oneself in quiet confidence.
"Through wisdom is a house builded;
And by understanding it is established;
And by knowledge are the chambers filled With all precious and pleasant riches."
This gives us the outline by which we can spiritually demonstrate supply. Wisdom draws the design of the house; an understanding of supply as mind substance establishes the house on a sure foundation; knowledge that mind contains supply and gives it shape fills the house with abundance. So in making such a demonstration, character and poise and balance are important.
"All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."
Do you believe?
"Whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell securely,
And shall be quiet without fear of evil,"
says wisdom. It is wisdom to trust God wholly for supply; such trust takes away all agonizing fears of lack. Make yourself positive in the consciousness that God is with you and that no man's thought can interfere with your success. This attitude of confidence and trust will give you life, energy, vim, power. If you are half-hearted, half awake, you do not accomplish much. Put the life of Spirit into everything that you do. God is life and energy; when you are filled with His vitalizing power you are strong, alert, active, ready always to do your part.
Demonstrations of life and prosperity go hand in hand. One who is half alive cannot be truly prosperous. The prosperous man feels the quickening power of Spirit. He who believes in lack of any kind cannot be fully alive. The house must be established in the understanding that in Spirit there is no lack anywhere (in life, in supply, or in anything else), before the chambers of the house can be filled with all manner of precious and pleasant riches.
What Jesus taught about finances is not clearly understood, because His disciples and followers have not comprehended the new relation or new condition of things of which He was the forerunner. His statement "My kingdom is not of this world" is often quoted to carry out the assumption that heaven is distant from the earth, not here in our midst, and that it is not possible for man to know anything about it. These teachings are untrue. Jesus Christ taught and demonstrated that God is right here, an everpresent source of supply, and that the kingdom of God is within man.
The kingdom is an important part of Jesus Christ's teaching. By many illustrations He showed that it is a ruling power, here in our midst. He said of John the Baptist that the least in the kingdom was greater than he. John the Baptist represents the intellectual concept of Truth; in a measure this concept is acceptable. The mental understanding is transmuted into the tangible through being quickened by Spirit. The baptism of John symbolized washing away from the mind all ideas of materiality. Jesus submitted to this baptism.
All material ideas of money getting must be washed away in the cleansing waters of denial, and the abundance of the inner kingdom must be entered into by affirmation of its reality. To work hard to make a living is not natural. The kingdom of this world is the limited, personal concept of things. The kingdom of God is wholly unlike the kingdom of this world. It is a living, spiritual, universal reality in our midst, and it will break and destroy all other kingdoms. The leaven of the true kingdom, its quickening power, will break and dissolve all limited, material concepts of life and supply, and will establish in our consciousness the limitless life and abundance of God. "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof."
Condemnation always interferes with demonstration of supply. Zacchaeus, the little man who climbed into a tree to see Jesus pass by in the throng, was what would be called in this day a "shark," yet Jesus saw good in him and, instead of condemning, called to him: "Zacchaeus, make haste, and come down; for today I must abide at thy house." Zacchaeus obeyed eagerly. "He made haste and came down, and received him joyfully." Some of the bystanders, however, felt inclined to criticize. "And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, He is gone in to lodge with a man that is a sinner," But the good within Zacchaeus responded to Jesus' recognition of it, and Zacchaeus was ready, straightway, to restore all that he had gained unjustly. People are not reformed by condemnation, and the condemning thought hinders the faith of the one through love, as Paul teaches. The way out of poverty is not through censure of the rich, but through knowledge of Truth and through obedience to divine law.
Envy of those who are prosperous is not of Spirit; it shuts one out of the consciousness of God as supply much more completely than is generally understood. Rejoice in the prosperity of everybody. Personal possession of a thing is not what gives us enjoyment, unless a spirit of selfishness rules us. We can enjoy a beautiful sunset in common with everybody else. If we let go of envy, we can rejoice in the beauty of a neighbor's estate, and if we love with the impersonal Christ love, we can rejoice in seeing others prosperous. We should continually be thankful for plenty, wherever we see it. The fact that our neighbor has more does not make us have less. There is plenty for all, and that plenty will be yours just as soon as you observe the law that governs its manifestation. You are to let go of envy, condemnation, and belief in lack; you are to open yourself to the universal abundance. No matter how the rich neighbor has seemed to get his abundance, back of it is a mental attitude, a belief in plenty. It is your privilege to have the same belief. The desire for plenty is good; if another has let that desire work out in unjust methods of gaining, "what is that to thee? follow thou me." The divine law is his judge. Go on diligently making your own demonstration in righteousness, and spend no time or energy in mentally setting your neighbor right.
Be a follower of Jesus Christ. Know that the kingdom of heaven is here and now, and that all its privileges are yours. "Now is the day of salvation." Begin to believe. Do not think that your income is limited to what you can earn. Enlarge your income by broadening your ideas about it. Be willing to take every good that comes. Do not let pride stand in the way. Enjoy the good clothes of your neighbor by being glad to see him look well.
The kingdom is yours just to the extent that you get into it. How far are you in? Are you cultivating the kingdom within you? Are you believing in and using the powers and the possibilities of your Christ mind, or are you struggling along in the outer, trying to get supply from the world about you?
Eventually everyone must come to Jesus Christ for prosperity. He was a financier, and all the world must come to His standard and learn His method. Every day, in all your transactions, ask His guidance. "The kingdom of heaven is at hand."
Lee's Summit, Mo.
PRINTED U.S.A.
G-3-5M-7.64-GOS
