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Keep A True Lent
Chapter 16
[<- Go back to Chapter 15]
[Keep A True Lent]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
The Appropriation of Divine Life
GOD IS LIFE, and wherever the pulse of life beats, there
God is. Man cannot give nor take life, but so long as he
thinks he can slay the living and so long as he proceeds to
slay either man or beast, he will be at enmity with life.
Those who would lay hold on eternal life must seek in every
way to preserve the forms in which it manifests.
We all have life, and it is God's eternal life, but it does
not become ours in reality until we consciously realize it.
The one who enters into eternal life, as did Jesus, must
lay hold on that omnipresent life and make it one with his
body. This is the secret of inheriting eternal life.
So long as man continues to lose his body through death he
will be in doubt as to the reality of eternal life. Eternal
life means to be eternally conscious of life in its
fullness. By his very belief that life can go out of his
body, man shows that he is not in the consciousness of
eternal life. In theory he may see that life is
omnipresent, and may reason to himself that he cannot
therefore get outside of life, yet the appearance is that
he lets it slip away from him. To entertain thought that
life can even temporarily slip away will rob man of the
consciousness of eternal life.
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The remedy is: Lay hold on eternal life. Have compassion on
the life in the body of every living creature, and
especially in your own body. Declare life perpetually
abiding in the organism. Erase some of the ways through
which you are dissipating the life of your organism.
Robbers are at work on your body every day. They are the
lusts of passion and appetite. Resolutely drive them off.
Give life the sanctuary of your present thought and pay the
price of overcoming.
God is life, and they who worship Him must worship Him in
the life consciousness; that is, in Spirit. When I worship
Him in this way, I am vitalized immediately. In order to
build up the real, permanent life consciousness I must
touch the great inner life current. There is no other way.
The first step in the realization of life is always to know
that God is life, abundant, omnipresent, eternal, and the
second step is to make positive connection with God life by
declaring oneness with it.
Within my body is the center where pure life is generated.
This center is the fountain from which shall spring rivers
of living water. When quickened by Spirit through faith in
the indwelling Lord, the source of life, the waters of life
are set free and purified
By keeping my mind steadily on the pure, sweet, redeeming
life of Christ, and refusing to allow any thought to come
in that stops the consciousness of the universal life flow,
I increase my power to appropriate
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more life, and every cell in my body thrills with the new
life of Spirit.
Go in mind to the spiritual place that can be described
only as I AM. When you touch I AM, it changes the whole
course of your thought and your life. You are the offspring
of God, of life. In life you live, move, and have your
being.
In Scripture the divine life combined with divine substance
is termed "the Lamb of God." This phrase carries the
symbology of the lamb's purity, innocence, and
guilelessness. Its nature is to vivify with perpetual life
all things it touches.
The pure life of God flows into man's consciousness through
the spiritual body. This is the "river of water of life,
bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and
of the Lamb," referred to in the 22d chapter of Revelation.
Jesus came proclaiming, "I am the way, and the truth, and
the life"; "I came that they may have life, and may have it
abundantly"; "I am the bread of life . . . which cometh
down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not
die."
The whole race groans waiting for the redemption of their
bodies. Jesus gave us the one and only way to redemption,
which is to incorporate the great I AM into our
consciousness. "I am the resurrection, and the life." Make
the resolve that you are master over all the life forces of
your being. Do not look away off for help; you will never
find it outside your own consciousness. God's power must be
incorporated
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in your consciousness, and you must understand how it works
and work with it. Through thought you must work Truth into
every part of your body temple. This is not too difficult,
but it requires attention and persistence. The body
requires spiritual quickening, because it carries on a line
of action beyond the realm of conscious thinking. If I live
in a temple that belongs to me I should know what is going
on in it.
The lifting up of the life forces and resurrection have the
same significance. One who has discovered the Truth of
Being is raised, lifted up in consciousness, resurrected
daily out of old subconscious negative thought conditions
into the one positive reality.
The body is the fruit of mind. Do not talk about the body
as being a low vibration, or as material. In the study of
mind action, take the body into consideration as the fruit
of thought, and affirm that it is pure, holy, undefiled.
The life source is spiritual energy. It is deeper and finer
than electricity or human magnetism. It is composed of
ideas, and a man can turn on its current by making mental
union with it.
The higher life is a higher state of mind. It exists as the
soul of God; and you know it when you realize, "I am the
Son of God." You bring this life into manifestation by
acting from the divine life idea. The consciousness of
eternal life places one in the stream of life that never
fails.
Through repeated and constant affirmation in
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mind of the one and only pure substance of God everywhere
present, we change the life currents in the organism until
the corruptible flesh puts on in-corruption.
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[Go forward to Chapter 17 ->]
[Keep A True Lent]
[Charles Fillmore's Works] [Unity on the Web Home Page]
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