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Jesus Christ Heals
Chapter 5
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[Jesus Christ Heals]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
Chapter V
The Omnipotence of Prayer
TO A PERSON in the understanding of Truth prayer should be
an affirmation of that which is in Being.
What is the necessity of the prayer of affirmation if Being
already is? In order that the creative law of the Word may
be fulfilled. All things are in God as potentialities. It
is man's office under the divine law to bring into
manifestation that which has been created or planned by the
unmanifest. Everybody should pray. Through prayer we
develop the highest phase of character. Prayer softens and
refines the whole man. A prominent skeptic once said that
the most unattractive thing in existence was a prayerless
woman.
Prayer is not supplication or begging but a simple asking
for that which we know is waiting for us at the hands of
our Father and an affirmation of its existence. The prayer
that Jesus gave as a model is simplicity itself. There is
none of that awe-inspiring "O Thou" that ministers often
affect in public prayer but only the ordinary informal
request of a son to his Father for things needed.
"Father . . . Hallowed be thy name." Here in the Lord's
Prayer is a recognition of the all-inclusiveness and
completeness of Divine Mind. Everything has its sustenance
from this one source; therefore "the
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earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof."
We need supplies for the day only. Hoarding for future
necessity breeds selfishness. The Children of Israel tried
to save the manna, but it spoiled on their hands.
The law "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap"
is here shorn of its terrors. If we forgive others we shall
be forgiven, and the penalty of suffering for sins will be
eliminated.
It does not seem possible that God would lead us into
temptation. The statement about temptation follows closely
that regarding the forgiveness of sin, and it is evidently
a part of it. "Let not temptation lead us" is a permissible
interpretation.
Jesus advised asking for what we want and being persistent
in our demands. People ignorant of the relation in which
man stands to God wonder why we should ask and even
importune a Father who has provided all things for us. This
is explained when we perceive that God is a great mind
reservoir that has to be tapped by man's mind and poured
into visibility through man's thought or word. If the mind
of man is clogged with doubt, lethargy, or fear, he must
open the way by persistent knocking and asking. "Pray
without ceasing," "continuing instant in prayer." Acquire
in prayer a facility in asking equal to the mathematician's
expertness in handling numbers and you will get responses
in proportion.
We give our children what we consider good gifts from our
limited and transitory store, but when the gifts of God are
put into our minds we have possessions
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that are eternal and will go on being productive for all
time.
Undoubtedly the one thing that stands out prominently in
the teaching of Jesus is the necessity of prayer. He prayed
on the slightest pretext, or in some such manner invoked
the presence of God. He prayed over situations that most
men would deal with without the intervention of God. If He
was verily God incarnate, the skeptic often asks, why did
He so often appeal to an apparently higher God. To answer
this doubt intelligently and truly one must understand the
constitution of man.
There are always two men in each individual. The man
without is the picture that the man within paints with his
mind. This mind is the open door to the unlimited principle
of Being. When Jesus prayed He was setting into action the
various powers of His individuality in order to bring about
certain results. Within His identity was of God; without He
was human personality.
The various mental attitudes denoted by the word prayer are
not comprehended by those unfamiliar with the spiritual
constitution of man. When the trained metaphysician speaks
of his demonstrations through prayer, he does not explain
all the movements of his spirit and mind, because the outer
consciousness has not the capacity to receive it.
When we read of Jesus spending whole nights in prayer, the
first thought is that He was asking and begging God for
something. But we find prayer to be many-sided; it is not
only asking but receiving
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also. We must pray believing that we shall receive. Prayer
is both invocation and affirmation. Meditation,
concentration, denial, and affirmation in the silence are
all forms of what is loosely termed prayer.
Thus Jesus was demonstrating at night over the error
thoughts of mind. He was lifting the mortal mind up to the
plane of Spirit through some prayerful thought. The Son of
man must be lifted up, and there is no way to do this
except through prayer.
One who exercises his thought powers discovers that there
is a steady growth with proper use. The powers of the mind
are developed in much the same way that the muscles of the
body are. Persistent affirmation of a certain desire in the
silence concentrates the mental energies and beats down all
barriers.
Jesus illustrates the power of such affirmative prayer, of
repeated silent demands for justice, for instance, by the
case of the widow bereft of worldly protection and power.
To the widow's persistence even the ungodly judge succumbs.
The unceasing prayer of faith is commanded in the
Scriptures in various places.
If a man's prayers are based on the thought of his own
righteousness and the sinfulness of others, he does not
fulfill the law of true prayer. Self-righteousness is an
exclusory thought and closes the door to the great Father
love that we all want. We are not to justify ourselves in
the sight of God but let the Spirit of justice and
righteousness do its perfect work through us.
That God and angels and heaven exist is accepted
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by all who believe the Scriptures, but there is wide
diversity of thought about their character and abode. Those
who read the Bible after the letter have invented all kinds
of imaginary notions as to the conditions under which God
and His angels live and as to the location of heaven. Their
minds being fixed on things, they have not conceived of the
realm of ideas, and they are therefore totally ignorant of
the true teaching of the Scriptures. To understand the
Bible one must know about the constitution of man. This is
the key to all mysteries, the knowledge of man's true self.
"Know thyself."
Man is spirit, soul, body. These are coexistent. God is the
principle of being as an axiom is a principle of
mathematics. God is not confined to locality. Is a
mathematical principle confined to a particular place and
not found elsewhere? "The kingdom of God is within you."
God is the real of man's being. It follows that all the
powers that are attributed to God may become operative in
man. Then we live right in the presence of God and angels
and heaven. What seems a desert place is filled with
angelic messengers, and like Jacob we know it not.
Man sets into action any of the three realms of his being,
spirit, soul, and body, by concentrating his thought on
them. If he thinks only of the body, the physical senses
encompass all his existence. If mind and emotion are
cultivated he adds soul to his consciousness. If he rises
to the Absolute and comprehends Spirit, he rounds out the
God-man.
Spirit is the source of soul and body, hence the
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ruling power. Its works are so swift and so transcend the
limitations of matter that the natural man cannot
comprehend them and hence calls them "miracles." But all
things are done under law. "Prayer was made earnestly of
the church unto God for him," and Peter was delivered from
prison by an angel. The earnest prayers of the devout
believers in the power of supreme Spirit brought about the
result. The history of Christianity is full of instances of
so-called miracles wrought through prayer. The hour-long
prayer of Luther by what was supposed to be the deathbed of
his friend Melanchthon is a famous instance of importunate
pleadings. It was Luther's firm belief that Melanchthon's
years of continued life were the direct answer to his
prayers.
Mighty things have been wrought in the past by those who
had mere blind faith to guide them. To faith we now add
understanding of the law, and our achievements will be a
fulfillment of the promise of Jesus "He that believeth on
me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works
than these shall he do." The prayer of Luther and its
results are now being duplicated every day. As we go on in
the exercise of the spiritual faculties we shall strengthen
them and understand them better, and we shall cease to talk
about anything miraculous. All things are possible to man
when he exercises his spiritual power under the divine law.
When man directs the power of exalted ideas into his body,
he exalts the cells, releases their innate spiritual
energy, and causes them finally to disappear
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from physical sight into the omnipresent luminous ether.
This is what Jesus accomplished at His ascension. The
promise was that all who follow Him in the regeneration of
the body would do likewise. It is true that even the
followers of Jesus have not always understood the
scientific import of His doctrine. They have mentally
absorbed His exalted ideas and looked to their fulfillment
in a faraway heaven in the skies. By thus projecting their
ideas toward a fulfillment outside of the body they have
separated their soul or mind consciousness from its
companion, the body, and the deserted cells have been
resolved into their mother principle, the earth.
The mind of man is constantly projecting thought energies
or waves through brain cells into the ether or space
element in which we live. Every person lives in an
environment of radiant energy that circulates through the
cells of his organism like bees in a hive. Ordinarily we
cannot see the radiations of the mind, but we almost
universally feel them. When a discordant mind impinges upon
our mind radiations we instinctively shrink away. But we
are radiantly happy in the presence of an exalted mind.
"No man hath beheld God at any time." Seers, prophets,
preachers, and holy men and women in all ages are a unit in
saying that they have become acquainted with God through
prayer, expressed in the spirit of their minds.
This testimony to God's spiritual presence is so unanimous
that no one seeks His help in any way other than through
the spirit of the mind; and the
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fact that we know God with our minds and not with our
senses proves that God is Spirit.
In its higher functioning the mind of man deals with
spiritual ideas, and we can truthfully say that man is a
spiritual being. This fact explains the almost universal
worship of God by men and makes possible the conjunction of
the heaven and the earth by those who understand the
underlying laws of prayer. Jesus stated this emphatically
in John 4:24 (margin): "God is Spirit; and they that
worship him must worship in spirit and truth."
Then the real foundation of all effective prayer is the
understanding that God is Spirit and that man, His
offspring, is His image and likeness, hence spiritual.
Such a concept of God gives man a point of contact that is
never absent; in all places and under all conditions he has
the assurance of the attention and help of God when he
realizes the Father's spiritual presence and comradeship.
When it has a spiritually poised mind to work through,
Spirit is not limited in its power by any material
environment. "With God all things are possible." To make
this strong statement of Jesus come true we must study the
laws of God and strive to carry them out through a
quickened consciousness.
The Bible is replete with situations where men and women
seemed beyond any material help, but through faith and
prayer they triumphed right in the face of seemingly
insurmountable obstacles. The author of the 11th chapter of
Hebrews builds pyramids
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of faith demonstrations. Hear the climax:
"And what shall I more say? for the time will fail me if I
tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David and
Samuel and the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms,
wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the
mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the
edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed
mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens."
Paul might have added to his pyramid of faith the long list
of miraculous healings of diseases and many superhuman
works recorded in the Bible, among which are the
restoration of the leper Naaman and the resurrection of the
Shunammite's son by Elisha; the control of the elements by
Elijah; the overcoming of gravity in the floating of the
workman's axhead from the bottom of the Jordan by Elisha,
and Moses' causing the water to gush from the rock.
The majority of people think that great spiritual faith is
necessary to get marvelous results. But Jesus taught
differently. "The apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our
faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of
mustard seed, ye would say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou
rooted up, and be thou planted in the sea; and it would
obey you."
The mustard is among the smallest of seeds, and the
comparison would indicate what a tiny bit of real faith is
necessary to cause motion in material things. Paul and
Silas in the Roman jail prayed and sang until their bonds
fell off, the doors flew open,
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and they walked out, both free men. On the day of Pentecost
the followers of Jesus prayed and sang until the ethers
were so accelerated that tongues of fire flashed from the
bodies of the worshipers, and they were miraculously
quickened in mental ability.
Prayer liberates the energies pent up in mind and body.
Those who pray much create a spiritual aura that eventually
envelops the whole body. The bands of light painted by
artists around the heads of saints are not imaginary; they
actually exist and are visible to the sharp eye of the
painter. The Scriptures testify in Luke 9:29 that when
Jesus was praying "his countenance was altered, and his
raiment became white and dazzling." After Moses had been
praying on the mountain his face shone so brightly that the
people could not look on it, and he had to wear a veil.
Thus prayer is obviously dynamic and actuates the spiritual
ethers that interpenetrate all substance. Prayer is related
directly to the creative laws of God, and when man adjusts
his mind and body in harmony with those laws, his prayers
will always be effective and far-reaching. The activity of
the mind that is named the understanding is essential in
righteous prayer. Spirit is omnipresent, but the individual
consciousness gives it a local habitation and a name.
If in thinking about God we locate Him in a faraway heaven
and direct our thoughts outward in the hope of reaching
Him, all our force will be driven from us to that imaginary
place and we shall become devitalized.
"The kingdom of God is within you." The
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pivotal point around which Spirit creates is within the
structure of consciousness. This is true of the primal cell
as well as of the most complex organ. The throne on which
the divine will sits is within man's consciousness, and it
is to this inner center that he should direct his attention
when praying or meditating. David called this spiritual
center of the soul "the secret place of the Most High," and
all the defense and power of the 91st Psalm is promised to
the one who dwells in the consciousness of the Almighty
within. Paul says, "Know ye not that ye are a temple of
God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"
In the 6th chapter of Matthew, in giving His disciples
directions for prayer, Jesus called attention to the God
center in man in these words: "But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut the door,
pray to thy Father who is in secret, and thy Father who
seeth in secret shall recompense thee." He also told them
not to use vain repetitions: "For your Father knoweth what
things ye have need of, before ye ask him."
If Divine Mind knows our needs, why should we have to ask
to have them supplied? We do not ask expecting God to hand
us the things we want, but we realize that He has made
provision in the very nature of things for our every need
to be fulfilled. When we realize this and go about our work
in perfect confidence, the fulfillment of the divine law of
support and supply is often demonstrated in ways we had not
dreamed of.
Do not supplicate or beg God to give you what
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you need, but get still and think about the inexhaustible
resources of infinite Mind, its presence in all its
fullness, and its constant readiness to manifest itself
when its laws are complied with. This is what Jesus meant
when He said, "Seek ye first his kingdom, and his
righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto
you."
We all need a better understanding of the nature of God if
we are to comply with the laws under which He creates. We
must begin by knowing that "God is Spirit." Spirit is not
located in a big man called God but is everywhere the
breath of life and the knowing quality of mind active in
and through all bodies, "over all, and through all, and in
all." The highest form of prayer is to open our minds and
quietly realize that the one omnipresent intelligence knows
our thoughts and instantly answers, even before we have
audibly expressed our desires.
This being true, we should ask and at the same time give
thanks that we have already received. Jesus expressed this
idea in Mark 11:24: "Therefore I say unto you, All things
whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive
them, and ye shall have them." Before He broke the
miraculously multiplied loaves and fishes and fed the five
thousand He looked up to heaven and gave thanks. When He
raised Lazarus He first said: "Father, I thank thee that
thou heardest me. And I knew that thou hearest me always."
Then He commanded Lazarus to come forth.
We observe that all things come out of the formless, but
our knowledge of the formless is so limited
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that we do not conceive of its infinite possibilities. When
we think or silently speak in the all-potential ethers of
Spirit, there is always an unfailing effect. "Whatsoever ye
have said in the darkness shall be heard in the light; and
what ye have spoken in the ear in the inner chambers shall
be proclaimed upon the housetops."
Silent prayer is more effective than audible, because by
silent prayer the mind comes into closer touch with the
creative Spirit. James says, "The prayer of faith shall
save him that is sick, and the Lord shall raise him up."
Countless thousands are applying this faith prayer today
and are being healed as men were in the time of Jesus.
The strange thing is that this very important proof of the
Spirit's work in Christian healing should have been
neglected for so many hundred years when Jesus gave it as
one of the signs of a believer: "These signs shall
accompany them that believe; in my name shall they cast out
demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take
up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall
in no wise hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and
they shall recover."
The history of the Christian church records that during its
first three hundred years the followers of Jesus healed the
sick by prayer and that healing was gradually dropped as
the church became prosperous and worldly. A layman from a
rural district was being shown, by a bishop, the riches of
a cathedral. The bishop said, "The church can no longer say,
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'Silver and gold have I none.'" "No," said the layman.
"Neither can it say, 'Take up thy bed, and walk.'"
It is found by those who have faith in the power of God
that the prayer for health is the most quickly answered.
The reason for this is that the natural laws that create
and sustain the body are really divine laws, and when man
silently asks for the intervention of God in restoring
health, he is calling into action the natural forces of his
being. Doctors agree that the object of using their
remedies is to quicken the natural functions of the body.
But medicine does not appeal to the intelligent principle
that directs all the activities of the organism, hence it
fails to give permanent healing.
However a conscious union with the natural life forces
lying within and back of all the complex activities of man
gets right to the fountainhead, and the results are
unfailing if the proper connection has been made.
The first step in prayer for health is to get still. "Be
still, and know that I am God." To get still the body must
be relaxed and the mind quieted. Center the attention
within. There is a quiet place within us all, and by
silently saying over and over, "Peace, be still," we shall
enter that quiet place and a great stillness will pervade
our whole being. Jesus Christ said, "Peace be unto you. . .
. Receive ye the Holy Spirit." That is, He spoke to the
within. He said also, "whatsoever ye shall ask in my name,
that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the
Son."
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"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your
ways my ways, saith Jehovah. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and
my thoughts than your thoughts." This verse from Isaiah
gives us an insight into the difference between the mortal
thinker and the divine. Divine Mind is serene, orderly,
placid, while sense mind is turbulent, discordant, and
violent. We can readily understand from this comparison why
we do not get divine guidance even though we strive ever so
hard for it. The best of us are subject to crosscurrents of
worry that interfere with the even flow of God's thoughts
into our consciousness. Jesus warned His followers not to
be anxious about what they should eat, drink, or wear. In
all literature there is no finer comparison than that given
by Jesus when He pointed to the flowers and said: "Consider
the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not,
neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, that even Solomon
in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."
If God so clothes the lilies, shall He not much more clothe
His children? This argument holds good with reference to
all human needs. There is a natural law whose chief purpose
is to take care of the human family. But the divine order
of creative Mind must be observed by man before he can
receive the benefits of his natural inheritance.
Metaphysicians, who study the mind and its many modes of
action, find that when they refuse to let thoughts of
worry, anxiety, or other distraction act in
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their minds, they gradually establish an inner quietness
that finally merges into a great peace. This is the "peace
of God, which passeth all understanding." When this peace
is attained, the individual gets inspirations and
revelations direct from infinite Mind.
Any method that will hush the external thought clamor will
achieve unity with the inner peace. When we are in peaceful
sleep, the outer clamor of thought is stilled and the great
Spirit of the universe communicates its higher vision to
the inner consciousness of man.
The ancient peoples seem to have been more open than
moderns to revelations in sleep. Long ago Job wrote in the
33d chapter of his book:
"In a dream, in a vision of the night,
When deep sleep falleth upon men,
In slumberings upon the bed;
Then he openeth the ears of men,
And sealeth their instruction."
It is written in I Kings, chapter 3, that the Lord appeared
to Solomon in a dream and said, "Ask what I shall give
thee." Solomon did not ask for riches, for honor, or for
the glory that kings usually seek, but in meekness he asked
the Lord to give him an "understanding heart" so that he
might discriminate between good and evil and be a wise
judge of his people. Riches and honor followed of course,
as they always do when a man is earnestly striving to be
honest and just in all ways.
We get our most vivid revelations when in a meditative
state of mind. This proves that when we
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make the mind trustful and confident, we put it in harmony
with creative Mind; then its force flows to us in
accordance with the law of like attracting like.
The agonizing, supplicating, begging prayer is not
answered, because the thoughts are so turbulent that Divine
Mind cannot reach the pleader. Jesus prayed with a
confident assurance that what He wanted would be granted,
and He established a mode of prayer for His followers that
never fails when the same conditions and relations are
attained and maintained with reference to the Father-Mind.
Through His spiritual attainments Jesus formed a spiritual
zone in the earth's mental atmosphere; His followers make
connection with that zone when they pray in His "name." He
stated this fact in John 14:2: "I go to prepare a place for
you." Simon Peter said, "Lord, whither goest thou?" Jesus
answered him, "Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now;
but thou shalt follow afterwards."
When Jesus had purified His body sufficiently, He ascended
into this "place" in the spiritual ethers of our planet. In
our high spiritual realizations we make temporary contact
with Him and His spiritual character, represented by His
"name." But we, like the apostles, are not yet able to go
there and abide, because we have not overcome earthly
attachments. We shall however attain the same freedom and
spiritual power that He attained if we follow Him in the
regeneration. But we should clearly understand that we
cannot go to Jesus' "place" through death. We must overcome
death as He did before we can
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be glorified with Him in the "heavens," the higher realms
of the mind.
We should not cease to pray to the Father in the name of
Christ Jesus; He said that man should "pray always." Prayer
lifts our thoughts on high and sets us free from the narrow
limits of matter, just as the electromagnetic impulse is
lifted and carried by the ether and caught by any receptive
station. Spiritual-minded people are being united today, as
in the past, by zones of spiritual force that will
eventually become the permanent thought atmosphere of the
planet. In Revelation this is typified as the New Jerusalem
descending out of the heavens into the earth.
Jesus said we could ask whatsoever we wished in His name
and it should be done unto us: "Verily, verily, I say unto
you, If ye shall ask anything of the Father, he will give
it you in my name. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my
name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be made
full."
Jesus taught in parables because the people did not
understand that spiritual forces, acting through mind, make
race conditions. But He told them: "The hour cometh, when I
shall no more speak unto you in dark sayings, but shall
tell you plainly of the Father."
The time prophesied by Jesus--when we should plainly
understand the character of the Father--is now at hand, and
it behooves all Christians to come out of parables and to
realize that scientific laws govern the material, mental,
and spiritual realms of Being.
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"Pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks," wrote
Paul to the Thessalonians. The idea is that we should be
persistent in prayer. We know it is always the will of the
air to give us all that we can breathe into our lungs.
Jesus compared the Spirit to the air in describing the new
birth to Nicodemus. It requires lung capacity to breathe
deeply of the oceans of air; so it requires spiritual
capacity to realize how accessible and ready omnipresent
Spirit is to fill us full of itself. The lack is in us. God
is more willing to give than we are to receive.
To acquire the mind that is always open to Spirit we must
be persistent in prayer. It is written in the 18th chapter
of Luke: "And he spake a parable unto them to the end that
they ought always to pray, and not to faint." He then told
of the judge who feared not God nor man yet who was worn
out by the persistency of a woman who demanded justice.
By experimentation modern metaphysical healers have
discovered a large number of laws that rule in the realm of
mind, and they all agree that no two cases are exactly
alike. Therefore one who prays for the health of another
should understand that it is not the fault of the healing
principle that his patient is not instantly restored. The
fault may be in his own lack of persistency or
understanding; or it may be due to the patient's dogged
clinging to discordant thoughts. In any case the one who
prays must persist in this prayer until the walls of
resistance are broken down and the healing currents are
tuned in. Metaphysicians often pray over a critical case
all night,
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as history says Luther prayed for the dying Melanchthon and
brought about his recovery.
Persistency in prayer awakens the spiritual consciousness
and sets into perpetual glow the core of the soul. When
this has been accomplished, one is in a constant state of
thanksgiving and praising, and the joy of a conscious union
with creative Mind is realized.
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