"Without FAITH it is impossible to please God." So says the scriptures and our ears have grown dull of hearing and our minds have ceased to respond to the wonder and truth of these words.
We are told that "FAITH IS THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR." It is the essence, the material, the element of things "hoped for" according to this definition. Then there is another record, very ancient, which declares: "FAITH IS THINGS HOPED FOR!" With this definition we understand that anything that one can possibly hope for is faith. This is beautiful!
And then again we are told that "without hope or the substance or material of things hoped for it is impossible to please God." "He who is without HOPE (or faith) must needs be in despair. And despair cometh because of iniquity." And, according to the dictionary, "iniquity is a grievous violation of right or justice. It is gross wickedness. It is sin." It is from a Latin word meaning "inquiet" or "unquiet," or "not quiet." It even suggests meaning, in-equal or unworthy; not up to par or standard.
This lack of inner quiet is the full indication of lack of contact with God. Only by "being still" can one possibly KNOW or contact God -- and receive His help.
So truly, without FAITH it is indeed impossible to please God. "For he that cometh to God must BELIEVE that he is, and that he is a rewarder of all who diligently seek Him." In the first place one could not even attempt to approach God unless he believed that "God did exist and is a rewarder of all those who diligently seek Him." Without this awakened ability to BELIEVE or to try to PROVE there can be no possible contact with God.
"THE VERY FIRST REQUISITE TO KNOWLEDGE (of any kind) IS THE ABILITY TO BELIEVE." Without this ability to believe, to test, to seek or to prove, a man is no better than a beast of the field, a dead stump, a lifeless, mediocre, unalerted, unawakened clod.
Enthusiasm, which is the spark of God in action in the soul of man, is based entirely on faith. Without enthusiasm there can be no faith. Enthusiasm is the kindled spark of Faith that lights the pathway to the fulfilling of the hopes of man. Show me any individual who cannot experience enthusiasm and I will show you a person whose soul has departed from him or who has permitted himself to become not much more than a vegetable.
Enthusiasm is a mental or spiritual force which has always been regarded by mankind with approval and more often with a deep respect, mingled with awe. To the ancients it was assumed to be a special gift of the gods, and by them it was regarded as animating the individual with almost divine attributes of power. And surely enthusiasm is a part of the divine nature within man.
Without enthusiasm it is impossible to please God. Enthusiasm is the living spark of the soul that lights the Path of progress. It is the breath and life of incentive. It is FAITH in action.
Incentive is the first step toward unfoldment. Incentive awakens the desire to "KNOW!" The desire to KNOW leads into the Pathway of searching, which fulfills the command to "Ask, to seek and to knock!" And the Promise is: "That EVERY ONE WHO ASKS RECEIVES! AND HE WHO SEEKS FINDS! AND UNTO HIM WHO KNOCKS IT SHALL BE OPENED," or revealed.
Without the incentive to ask comes the inability to receive.
As one follows the incentive to ask, to seek and to knock, one's mind will be opened to the gift of anticipation, which will lead into the vibrant wonder of enthusiasm, which contains the very power of developing and releasing FAITH. And in this progress one can and does please God. And "God is a rewarder of all those who diligently seek Him."
One's requests may not be answered in a moment, or a day, or a week, or even a year. Some answers take longer to grow into their own fulfillment. Or as Abraham Lincoln once said, "An answer to prayer comes sometimes with a demand for sacrifice." The sacrifice may be the shouldering of responsibilities in order to live up to the new knowledge. It may require the sacrifice of old, threadbare, outmoded, personal opinions; the relinquishing of pet erroneous ideas. But whatever the fulfilling of one's request may entail the very acceptance of it will produce the fires of enthusiasm that change the individual from a common, mediocre individual into one who has been inflamed or animated by the gods.
Also it is possible that one's requests may be so "AMISS" that the pray-er himself will need time to grow into the answer. But the answer will be given and when it does come the one who has continued to ASK, TO SEEK AND TO KNOCK without wavering, will himself have grown into a dynamic person -- one who truly PLEASES GOD and becomes acceptable to Him.
Anyone, no matter what his level of intelligence, goodness, badness or mediocrity will be acknowledged who continues to "ask, to seek and to knock." This is how FAITH GROWS. And how any individual can be lifted above mediocrity or inferiority.
One's prayers may not be answered in the way he had hoped. But as the individual grows in faith and understanding he will begin to develop the power to "ask in Spirit" and he will no longer ask "amiss," but will place himself in tune with the mind and will of God. He will make that inner contact where iniquity, or that lack of inner quiet has been banished from his life. "And he will ask in spirit, or ask according to the will of God, and he shall have whatsoever he asketh." And his very desires will have been purified and expanded into glorious requests, worthy of the full attention of God, as they are fulfilled by Him. And in this method of "asking" the individual will himself become glorious!
Prayer itself and the divine invitation to pray is an eternal gift offered by God to man. In distress and misery or dismay or in hardships or troubles of any kind man is invited to go to God -- and to "talk to Him as one man talks to another!" And since God is All-Powerful, beyond any potentate or Ruler or King or Magistrate upon the earth it is a wonderful experience and indeed a privilege to be invited into His Presence to talk over one's difficulties, problems or overwhelming disasters. In such a process there will be the instantaneous help of the Holy Comforter, which establishes the quiet and peace necessary for the vibrations and powers of God to begin their unfolding, their healing and their straightening out of all errors and mistakes.
But this access to God is not just a privilege offered under great stress. It is an eternal privilege. And as one keeps this daily tryst and turns it into a sacred appointment with God his love and faith will increase until he will reach the very "point of Faith where he will be wrapped in the Power and glory of his Maker."
This going to God in prayer is something quite different from anything most mortals have ever considered. Most prayers are an insult to God, the FATHER. Assume that you are a father -- or a mother, very busy, but that on each evening, or morning, or both, you open up the doors of your sacred study and invite your children to enter into your Presence and have a visit. You love them greatly. You wish intensely to hold them close in your arms, to talk to them individually, but they will have none of it. They stand or kneel in your presence unprepared to listen, unanimated and bored to recite some dreary little, memorized piece, without either thought or feeling. There would be no need for you to give ear. You had heard that same soulless recitation so many many times repeated in the same childish manner as they remain frozen and unapproachable before you and unheeding.
Just listen to the habitual prayers of anyone and you will know what I mean. And after the stupid recitation the child turns and walks out of your presence to never give you another thought. So have the prayers of mankind been laid barren and worthless on the altar of our Almighty, Loving Father.
My blessed grandmother made a ritual of prayer, every morning. It was a long prayer offered every morning in a sanctimonious tone implying devotion. It was the same every day without variation and lasted about twenty minutes in its painstaking recital, that required no thought or expenditure of energy. She had crossed the continent with the Pioneers -- and her prayer had not changed or varied in one single word, I am sure since the days of her youth, though she lived into her nineties. It began something like this: "OOOOH, Lord, bless our flocks and our herds --" (and she had probably four or five hens). "Protect us from the inclemencies of the weather," and she neglected to thank God for her snug home of comfort and peace. She was still crossing the continent as she looked backward, expressing the old sing-song phrases she had practiced for a lifetime. This is not Praying! This is vain repetition!
When you pray realize that you are fulfilling a very righteous, divine invitation to "talk with God as one person talks with another!" Let no two prayers be identical any more than you would permit your conversation with your neighbor to be exactly as it was yesterday and the day before, word for word. Talk to Him! Glory in the privilege of such a sacred opportunity. And do not feel that you have been unburdening yourself in dutiful OBLIGATION of devotion. You are not giving any devotion or love to God! You are merely insulting Him.
Learn to talk to God, not at Him. Learn to glory in the sacred, divine privilege of so sacred an opportunity. Let your love flow out. Let your requests be added after your thanks and gratitude and praise have been expressed in every increasing wonder and joy in the privilege of living on this wonderful earth. And as you rejoice and give thanks your happiness will grow and increase to match your blessings. Learn to look forward to those moments you spend with Him and you will begin to know that He hears and approves of you.
It is so much easier to PROVE that God does live and that he does hear and answers prayers than it is to disprove Him, for He is truly a rewarder of all who DILIGENTLY seek Him!
Those who seek only to disprove that God does not exist are only proving that they have not made any effort to really reach Him. And they are actually closing the great door into His presence against themselves. And in so doing they have lost the purpose and the meaning and the unspeakable joy of existence. God is not in the least affected by any individual's actions or resentments or evils -- but man himself is the loser, the releaser of the boundless ills that are gathering, according to the unfulfilled laws of righteousness. Not that God is going to punish man. Man creates his own punishments and releases them as he brings them to pass.
And this fact must be stated and magnified. No one has ever DISPROVED that there is a God, except to those who have never sought to KNOW for themselves. For His invitation has stood down the timeless ages of existence: "Seek me early and you shall find me!" Or "Seek me diligently and you shall KNOW me!"
While these UNBELIEVING ONES have failed to make the least effort to KNOW THE TRUTH, there are thousands upon thousands who have proved, in their lives, the great reality of a True and Living God and who KNOW of His mercies and His powers because they have become daily more aware of His blessings as they have been multiplied unto them.
This is the day of which Daniel spoke, when he stated: "Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.
"Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly; and none of the wicked shall understand."
Then in Daniel 12:3-4 is revealed the exact time of the fulfilling of this scripture. "And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.
"But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: MANY SHALL RUN TO AND FRO, AND KNOWLEDGE SHALL BE INCREASED!" This is the day when they are "running to and fro" to the extent that great freeways have cobwebbed the nation with their lanes of traffic.
This is "the time of the end" and it is the time when God has declared that he will do His strange work, "That all men will be left without excuse" (for not knowing) -- and then it will be too late to graduate from this earth plane with honors. In THIS DAY it will be an unholy condition to be "A drop-out" when every atom and leaf and bird and cloud and blade of grass testifies continually of the Great Creator of all that is -- and the man who fails finds he has no part in it. Such will fulfill Daniel's words, revealed in chapter 12:2, thus: "Some will stand forth to receive everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt."
This glorious record of Paul to the Romans 8:24-27: "For we are saved by HOPE: But HOPE that is seen is not hope: for what man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
"Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
"And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is in the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the Saints according to the will of God.
"And we knoweth that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose.
"For whom he did foreknow, he also did foreordain to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
"Moreover whom he did foreordain, them he also called and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified."
As the foregoing scripture is read and re-read it will continue to expand in meaning and in power. It is beautiful, but I am informed that the fulness of its glory will be unfolded to each individual as he seeks to receive the full measure of its promise.
And so again I am told to stress the truth and the power of prayer as one uses it as a means of communication with God, instead of as a dreary, boring time of dull, stupid, childish recitals, or memorized complaints, of unfelt, unanimated words linked together like beads on a chain to be used for the sake of convenience and by force of habit to avoid thought or true participation in a privilege so great and so divine.
If you wish to TALK with God NEVER LET TWO PRAYERS BE THE SAME. LEARN TO SPEAK TO GOD AND WITH HIM! And soon your words will flow from your heart in the power of exquisite revealing.
Now, if you wish to please God and to perfect your gift of LOVE speedily, remember, "HE WHO IS THANKFUL IN ALL THINGS SHALL BE MADE GLORIOUS! And the things of this earth shall be added unto him a hundred-fold; Yea, MORE!"
To develop the gift of gratitude until one's entire being is rejoicing in God's blessings, whether many or few, large or small, apparent or so negligible only a grateful heart would be able to discern them is the law of plenty being brought into action. And it is the releasing of gratitude that opens the windows of heaven, so that the blessings of God can begin to be poured out without measure, insomuch there will not be room enough to receive them.
He who is thankful in all things, could not possibly feel sorry for himself. He could not wallow in self-pity, nor enter through the gates of despair. He could not feel pinched or skimped or destitute. He could not be clothed in the desolating bleakness of want or poverty.
The fulness of the vibration of appreciation, along with the praise that goes with it, will clothe one in a radiance that will demand respect wherever he goes. Among the mighty and kings and rulers he will be so clothed in the vibrations of Light and abundance that millionaires will envy him, and the successful and the learned and the wealthy will seek his companionship.
Gratitude, or thanks, or the holy gift of appreciation is the spiritual law of increase and of the glorious multiplication of substance. "And with the use and development of gratitude ALL THINGS WILL BE TURNED INTO BLESSINGS!"
Appreciate the old, shall we say, rags you resent and the living atoms in them will so rejoice they will array you in singing glory. It matters not in the least what you wear, it is how you wear it.
No one is clothed so much in his earthly apparel as in the vibrations of his own released joyous radiance or in his own carnal resentments of self-pity. There is the glorious apparel of heaven or the repulsive rags of the beggar, but the great difference is in the attitude of him who wears it. Yes, "Buy of me the white raiment that thou mayest be clothed!"
Look at the bleak, desolate little individual who resents everything -- and everyone -- and you will behold a person clothed in the ugly desolation of his own resentful attitudes while his very possessions being to shrivel in his hands. The atoms, which compose his apparel will lose their joy and their buoyancy and turn into a repellent substance as repulsive as the physical body of the being who sends out his destructive resentments.
"He who is thankful in ALL THINGS WILL BE MADE GLORIOUS!"
No one on the face of the earth can disprove this statement. But everyone who desires can put it to the test and so prove the power and truth of it. All it takes is a little mental adjusting from the standpoint of mortal thinking into the higher thinking which transforms the thinker into a radiant person of glorious Light -- and delight!
And in this gratitude, when put to the test, every seeming calamity, every distress and every imagined misfortune can be transmuted into blessings. This power is an almost unspeakable reality as one takes hold of it and uses it. "ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD TO THOSE WHO LOVE GOD!" And no one can truly love God without rejoicing continually in His blessings.
Do you wish to KNOW GOD? Do you wish to please God? Then begin to live by His Promises -- and you will KNOW -- HIM -- and this is Life Eternal!
No girl is ever unpopular because of the inadequacy of her clothing. It is only her reactions to her clothing that can cause her to become unpopular as she sends out her own desolating, negative thoughts and vibrations. Her very resentments transform her into an unattractive individual.
One's physical clothing is enhanced or ugly according to the attitude of the one wearing it. One's attitude is the reality.
Yes! "He who is thankful in all things will be made glorious!"
The very glory of his gratitude not only clothes him in a glowing radiance, but actually transforms the individual into that sublime radiance. He becomes so vibrantly radiant that no misfit, ugly apparel can possibly hide it.
The PROMISE of glory is guaranteed to those "WHO BECOME THANKFUL IN ALL THINGS!" It is not a hit and miss bit of instruction. And this degree of gratitude is the point of complete fulfillment as one rises above the hurts, the wounds, the negative conditions, the lacks and anguishes of life by focusing his attention upon the blessings. And no one can possibly be thankful without "lifting his eyes to behold the glory of God!"
"APPRECIATION is even more special. It is gratitude enfolded in all the love one can possibly generate. It is a song carried on the wings of Light to the very throne of God.
In the attitude of appreciation or gratitude all blessings are increased, all poverty and lacks are overcome; all negation is transformed into beauty and loveliness and plenty. And truly, one becomes glorious!
Then, as one is made glorious, the things of this world are added unto him a hundred-fold; yea, MORE! The law of increase and of multiplication is fulfilled and nothing will be withheld. One will have reached that "Kingdom of God" (within). It is not a releasing of words generated from the lips which brings this great fulfilling. It is only powerful and glorious because it is generated from the heart.
When Christ tried to explain the glory and marvel of this spiritual radiance, he spoke of the lilies of the field, and how "Solomon, even in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these." This is the reality of the spiritual beauty and radiance of the glowing vibrations and the exotic personality one carries who is THANKFUL IN ALL THINGS.
It is this law of glory that lifts one from mediocrity -- or from the mental, unappreciative attitude of dull unawareness as he resentfully or grudgingly takes all blessings for granted with no recognition of the boon they carry. There is no sparkle or radiance in such a person, no enthusiasm, no joy. Such an individual is just a drab, earthy mortal, unanimated and uninteresting.
Gratitude is the greatest of all attitudes. Gratitude -- the great BE-ATTITUDE. It is always enhanced and clothed in love. It opens the gates within man as the essence of spiritual power flows out from him who carries it in a stream of healing, joyous blessing. "Be the attitude" -- always and life will lay her treasures at your feet. Yes, "Be that Attitude" and all else will fall into place in your life in a great miracle of divine OVERCOMING as the evils of your life melt away.
In developing the use of this divine and holy law of gratitude and appreciation, which is the law of plenty and glory, one reaches the point where he no longer needs to ask or to even think of his desire. At first it is necessary for one to take hold of that select law of creation and by concentrated thought and love and belief that reaches beyond doubts, hold forth the pattern of his needs or desires in a glowing reverence, as he gathers from the universe, the very substance or material of "those things hoped for" to fulfill or fill full the pattern he holds forth. But as one continues in this work, it becomes KNOWING and then comes the completion of the PROMISE: "BEFORE THEY ASK I WILL ANSWER," saith God. (More will be given on this later as God will unfold the glory of all fulfilling).
As one holds his mind upon his blessings they increase and become ever more beautiful. His mind, enlightened, will begin to behold through his spiritual eyes and in such beholding new gifts and new blessings will meet his vision. His conscious mind will expand above the worm consciousness for he himself will being to evolve.
He will no longer be a warped little mortal of lack and destitution and suffering and anguish. He becomes clothed in light. And in that higher attitude he will begin "TO COMPREHEND ALL THINGS!" He will comprehend the very laws of creation and be able to use them. He will understand the exquisite wonder of holding forth a thought -- a wish -- a desire and watch it take form as he holds it forth in a loving, singing radiance of gratitude. It is then the very eternal elements begin to fulfill the patterns which he holds forth, "WITHOUT DOUBTING!" "For he who asks without doubting in his heart shall have whatsoever he asks."
As one "comprehends all things" he will KNOW that all things are composed of the spiritual substance of those divine, cosmic rays that can be, and are transformed into atoms, for "they are but waiting to become!" (See page 331 of "Ye Are Gods.")
He will comprehend that all substance and all tangible objects and elements are formed of these elements waiting to be formed into atoms, and hence he learns to manipulate and to fashion the very substance or material of FAITH into the things for which he hopes.
Thus were the five thousand fed, the Red Sea divided, the sick healed, mountains removed and the dead restored to life.
In this radiant song of singing gratitude all doubts are conquered, all darkness is banished and all lacks are supplied.
These dynamic blessings have been awaiting man's acceptance of them from the very beginning of time.
To use these powers and lay hold of these truths, that one might actually KNOW is the greatest method of all in which to please God. "For without FAITH it is impossible to please Him!" And without the gift of gratitude in action there is no approach into His presence.
FAITH is developed through an incentive to KNOW or to experience TRUTH. Incentive will bring forth the glorious quality of enthusiasm, which is the activating of the element of FAITH. And FAITH and GRATITUDE work together to fulfill all needs and he who uses them pleases God indeed!