Golden Gate Course 4

In the last lesson you had to consider a negative aspect of a somewhat unpalatable subject. This lesson, to counterbalance it, we shall have a positive and very pleasant subject. It is that of your wonderful relationship with your heavenly Father.

Many people do not understand what is meant by God as our “Father”. They cannot help thinking of a stern, but wise Judge, somebody utterly cold and distant. Somebody they must bow to, but never know. How mistaken this is.

When the Master taught that God is our Father, He intended to convey that God is the superior Power, the sum-total of all Power, and that we are infused with a projection of this power. God is like the sun and we a tiny offshoot of the sun. A sunbeam “springs off” from the sun, and so can be called the sun’s offspring. A sunbeam is a “born” of the sun! So are we offshoots or offspring of God and are Divine Children of God. A study of the scriptures will prove to you that we are openly called “co-heirs with Christ and sons (Divine Children) of God” and are expected to behave, think and act like accordingly, to strive to become one with God.

Now you will see more clearly (if you had not arrived at this stage up to now) what the Master meant when He said that God is our Father. God is the Superior Power, the sum-total of all Power, and we have each within us a tiny portion of that Power. We have also free will and are able to use our power either for good or ill.

Read that last sentence over again and try to grasp it as fully as you can. Then never again will you voice such utterances or think such thoughts as, “God sends misfortune”, “God permits evil” and the like. No wonder your faith wavers if you think that kind of thought. No wonder those whose think this way by habit “resign” themselves to poverty, illness, sadness and gloom. But God does not send misfortune and evil. We, by our God-given free will drive down our God-power, using it at times for evil ends. Our own “evil”, or error or foolishness bring suffering into the world. It is we, not God, who permits evil. God, the ever-benevolent Good broods lovingly over all, waiting for us, His offshoot (or offspring) to use our own free will to rise victoriously out of evil, of ignorance, of foolishness, to find his God-power, to become one with Him.

When you accept God as love you can lean upon God’s heart with the smiling confidence of a beloved child and draw down an abundance of blessings from the realm of the unseen. You must get this conviction of God as love right into your subconscious mind, right into your heart. Through endless ages God says to us, “Beloved, give Me your heart”, and by “heart” is symbolized the whole of our inwardness.

You are God’s beloved child. Do not think this is too good to be true. It is so easy to fall into the old, ignorant way of thinking, I know. Recently I had a letter from a student in which he said, “I have the fear of God. – as taught in most churches – so deeply ingrained that I somehow cannot get to that point where I can believe without any restraint that I can have what I want rather than what God considers I should have. It seems to me that the old idea of what I should have is always a goodish portion of those things that I dislike most”.

How can one answer such a problem as this? In the very wise words of scripture. “Delight thou in the Lord and He shall give thee thy heart’s desire.” (Psalm 37., 4.) How could anyone delight in a cold, distant God who always gave one the things one disliked the most?

I want you to begin now to delight in God. That is the only way you will be able to prove for yourself, isn’t it, whether He will give you your heart’s desire or not? But it must not be an artificial “delighting”. It must be real.

Read over slowly again what I have said in this lesson about God the Father. Then, secretly and silently within yourself, begin to give your heart to your heavenly Father. Do not think of Him as a Being far distant from you. Remember that the Master taught us to say, “Our Father in heaven”, and He also said, “The kingdom of God is within you”. So look to the Godpower within your own being. Go back again to the words of Paul I have quoted in other writings so often and say them musingly over to yourself, “Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Cor. 3., 16.)

After a while you will feel yourself relaxing. “Surely”, you will think, “God cannot be one I need fear if He has been dwelling within me all these years?” Of course you have nothing to fear, and I want you to let this feeling grow. I want you to feel that you are living, working and sleeping in soft, encircling wings. You are protected if you will live within these wings for this is the “secret place” of which the Psalmist spoke. “He that dwelleth in the Secret Place of the Most High…there shall no evil befall thee. He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands lest thou dash thy foot against a stone…” (Psalm 91., 1. 10-12.) Does this look as though you have anything to fear?

Spend this week in getting acquainted with God – and if you have found Him already, in getting better acquainted with Him than ever before. Say nothing of this to anybody. Live this blissful-life secretly. And if you fail or fall, leap up swiftly and take again your loving Father’s band. He will not be stern with you. He will bear with you and welcome you because He is waiting for you to find Him, has been waiting all your life. He it is who longs to pour His abundance into your life, to bring you the prosperity for which you yearn. Only by coming into direct contact with Him, the source of all Supply, can you receive His abundance, just as a hungry man must come into contact with food before he can appease his hunger.

Use your “Golden Gate” affirmation night and morning but for other times each day use one of these affirmations, Choose the one each day, which appeals to you the most:
“Father, Thou art ever with me and all that Thou hast, is mine.”
“Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me and I know that Thou hearest me always.”
“I am my Father’s child.”
“Holy God, I yield to Thee, Live Thy abundant life in me.”

Every effort must be made to cut out doubting or fearful thoughts. Immediately they arise, say firmly within yourself, “I believe in God as love”.

Here is Secret Exercise No. 2. Drop No. 1. for the time. When you have all four of the Secret Exercises you can choose which is best for you. Remember, these exercises are prayers and must be done with reverence. Many people think prayers are only spoken words, but this is not so. Prayers should fill and express one’s whole being and these exercises will help you to do this.

SECRET EXERCISE NO. 2.

Alone in a room and undisturbed, stand facing a window, if possible where you can see the sky. Take a deep breath while raising your hands above your head. As you do this, and lower them again, imagine that you are standing on the top of the world, that you are an immense being, your head and shoulders reaching almost to a distant planet. Feel a giant in every way: Then, standing with arms folded on your chest, shoulders back and head up, “shout” in a voice of thunder, but without making any actual sound, these words:

“The Maker of this Universe
Owns me for His son.
I call on you to witness, stars,
That He and I are one ”

Then say (still silently) very solemnly within yourself:
“In the presence of God’s vast creation I declare in faith that I shall have my just desires, particularly —-” (here name it, pausing a moment before ending the exercise).

Be faithful, and if you persist, this present time will be the beginning of the greatest happiness and peace you have ever known.

On the subject of this lesson a student wrote some time ago, “I’ve ‘got there’ at last. Things are moving quickly. Remarkable results coming my way. I have at last got a grasp of the simplicity of the fact of the Father-relationship of God. Previously I had in mind a sort of beneficent ruler who would help if I concentrated and watched my P’s and Q’s. Now it seems that the simpler the asking, the closer the relationship. A deep breath, arms raised, then opened wide, a silent prayer. ‘Because I am Thy child, oh heavenly Father, pour down Thy blessing into me and bring me – so-and-so …..,’ At the same time (or very often) visualising your little sketch of a jug pouring on to me God’s blessings.”

It’s natural to receive the benefits of your closeness to God. He is the eternal Creator and Supplier. The closer one is to the sun, the warmer. The closer to an electric lamp, the brighter. So when we are close to God the Supplier, we receive more supply. Fortunately no-one can fake such a closeness in order to gain. It has to be real or it will dissolve away instantly before the light of Divine Truth. This is what the scripture means by “God searchest all things”. But you, who read these words, will have no desire to pretend. You will long to draw closer to your heavenly Father, thus extending and expanding your nature and your horizons.

Talking of expanding horizons, I must tell you about another student who achieved closeness to the Father, and the results of this in his life. He told me about it in several letters, but I shall link the whole story together for you here. He began by haying a small business that was “in a bad way”. Competitors with larger shops than his, and people drifting from the district had caused the deterioration of trade and he had allowed himself to become dispirited. He told me that it had never occurred to him in those early days that God would be interested in his business! He had looked on God as being far removed and concerned only with mighty spiritual matters. But in my teachings he learned that God is near, personal, within, and concerned with every least item of his life and thought and needs. It was a stupendous revelation, he said, but he quickly saw the logic and truth of it, and like a wise man, applied it directly to his problems. He thought from that moment of God as a loving Father ever present, and brought every incident, problem and need to Him.

“The result was breath-taking”, he wrote. As I ‘talked’ my problems over, ideas for solving them appeared. People contacted me, unasked, offering me help. Firms trading in different kinds of goods approached me, giving me fantastically generous terms to stock and sell their lines. My own son suddenly decided to come in with me, bringing his small capital and energies. Everything was transformed. We worked early and late, but how we loved it! Now we have three shops – the original one and two others. And they are all flourishing! From the moment I realised the Father within me and made contact, I’ve never looked back. Blessings have come in abundance and, through me, to others.”

REMEMBER:- Change your thoughts and you change your circumstances. You have 24 more weeks to practise prosperity-thinking. By then it should be a habit.

Bernard

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