Spiritual Living

Most of us want others to experience the feeling of love and being loved when they are in our presence. The question is “how can we help others feel God’s love and acceptance when they are in our presence?”

The answer lies in this Spiritual principle: Your outer expression of love is in direct proportion to your inner experience of love. As you experience God’s presence within, you are experiencing love, because God is love. What you experience within yourself is what flows outwardly to others. When you feel angry within, that anger usually finds a way of escape through words and behaviors. So, it is with love. As we live in a conscious awareness of God’s presence or love, it finds a way to flow outwardly to others; through random acts of kindness, a smile, a gift, plus a variety of other loving expressions.

The love you feel within is the love you express without. Inner experience determines outer expression. As you are within, so you are without. These are all ways of saying the same thing….The love you experience within, by being consciously aware of God’s presence, is the love that will be touching others. As we are inwardly aware of love and being loved by God, it influences our perceptions of others, our attitude toward others and literally creates an external atmosphere that enriches others. People just feel better when they are around a person who is living in conscious awareness of God’s presence, or Love.

Your inner awareness of the Presence transmits and translates Itself to the unexplainable love others feel when they are around you. Your conscious awareness of Christ in you becomes a healing influence to those in your world. Your self-concept of being an unloving person must cease. That is not the truth about you! God’s life is your life and therefore God’s love is the love expressing Itself in, through and as you. Self preoccupation, as a self separate and apart from God, will short-circuit the flow of the Divine love within you to others. As you become Self aware, that is, aware of the Christ life that constitutes your life, spiritual, un-conditional God kind of love will flow, transforming, and nourishing everyone and everything in It’s path.

Go within. Seek. Decide that you will not be denied this inner experience of Spiritual Love, God. As the Prophet of old, “wrestled with an angel until he received a blessing,” so our determination should be to experience Love, which is God in expression. The two are inseperable. You cannot experience God without feeling love and loved. Nor can you feel love, being loved or loving without simultaneously feeling God’s presence.

The more you live in a conscious awareness of Love, God’s presence within you, the more other’s will feel loved when they are in your presence. As within, so without.

It seems that a lot of emphasis is placed on “becoming.” For instance, becoming a better person, becoming a better Christian, becoming more spiritual, or becoming more Christ-like. “Becoming” becomes a way of life by which we try to improve ourselves by becoming better that we presently are. It seems that the typical way of “becoming” a better person is through ridding ourselves of habits, addictions, apathy, and other taboos which are not to be included in the lives of the truly enlightened.

The main problem with this erroneous thinking is that someone always keeps “raising the bar.” I have sat in church staff meetings when the senior pastor has said…” Our people are getting a little slack in their Christian walk, so we need to think of some ways to raise the bar on what it means to be a good church member and a good Christian.” After nearly throwing up, I gave some serious thought to the sickening proposal. I quickly deducted that trying to become more spiritual is a lot like trying to become more pregnant, or more white, or more black. You either are or aren’t.

The only thing you can become is more consciously aware of who you already are. Once we truly accept the spiritual principle that there is only One Life and that Life expresses Itself as you, me and everyone else, we can then accept the Truth that what is true of the One Life, God Life, is true of my life. Why? Because what is true of the Creator is true of His creation, and what is true of essence is true of the form which essence takes. There is really not a “my life” to improve or become more anyway. God’s life is already complete and since His life is my life and appears as my life, the completeness of His life is the completeness of I call “my life.”

So, once I become consciously aware of His nature, and realize that His nature constitutes my nature, I now rest in the fact that there is nothing more to “become.” All that is left is just to be who I already am, which is all He already is, expressing Himself as all that I am.

Trying to become something you think you’re not is work, struggle and frustration. Simply being who you already are is rest, joy and peace. Moving from becoming to being is a journey you’ll eventually want to take. The scenery is a lot more beautiful from the higher elevation.

The reason that we contemplate scripture or any other spiritual truth is to slow down the continuous flow of thoughts to the point where we can just be still and sense the Presence of God. We should always be moving from the letter of truth to the Spirit of truth, and contemplation of scripture is one way of doing that; “ the letter kills but the Spirit gives life.” That means the surface meaning of scripture can to kill our understanding if the spirit or intent of the passage isn’t sought. The more familiar we can be with the Author, the more in line we will be with the intent. To experience God as love, grace and truth will determine our understanding of the intent or spirit of the written passage.

In order for self-improvement to be possible, you have to believe in a self that needs improving. Spiritual Living as Jesus taught is not a behavioral modification course or a personal development program. The reason most of us believe self improvement is a noble thing to do, is because our self image is built on a self separate and apart from the life of God.

The truth is, there is One Life and that One Life IS my life, and that One Life doesn’t need improving. Whatever I focus upon tends to grow and expand in my experience. Therefore constant focusing on a self that needs improving, expands the concept of a self that needs improving….and will continually bring supporting evidence to my attention.

In Spiritual Living the goal is SELF Realization. That SELF is the One Life expressing Itself AS my life. As I focus on the Life of Christ AS my life, I begin to realize that as He Is, so I AM. In other words, what is true of the Christ is true of me, because He is the I or Self that I Am. As I realize that He Is the I AM that I AM, I relax and allow that Christ Self to express Himself as all that He is AS all that I Am. Now the focus is off me, as a self separate and apart from God, and on Him as the Self that I Am. Herein, is moving from self improvement to SELF realization. Herein, is moving from focusing on a self that needs improving to a Self that is ALREADY complete in all ways.

In order to believe in self improvement, you have to believe you have a self separate and apart from God that needs improving. The spiritual principle involved here is…there is One Life and that One Life expresses itself in many different ways. Take a look at a tree for example. There is just one life force in the tree, and that one life force expresses itself AS bark, limbs, leaves, blossoms and fruit. One life, many expressions. So it is with God. There is not God’s life AND my life, there is just God’s life individually expressed AS your life, my life and the life of others.

So since God’s life IS my life, that spiritual Life does not need improving. Some of the Apostle Paul’s highest spiritual revelations are statements he made about the discovery of his own spiritual identity. Some of his Self revelations were….”It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”……and….”The mystery that has been hid through the ages is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”….and…”.I must decrease, He must increase.” In other words, the idea that I have a self separate and apart from God must decrease and the truth that Christ IS my life,…Christ IS the Self that I Am, must increase.

So, if you believe you have a selfhood apart from God, your natural inclination will be to improve yourself. The truth is your true Self is the life of God individually expressing His Self AS Your Self. Upon this realization you are free from  trying to improve your self, and free to realizing your true Self, the Christ Life, who is the Self you already are. The switch is from striving to improve someone you’re not to relaxing and just being who you already are.