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We make affirmations strongly and boldly. Jesus repeatedly spoke affirmations; the Truth about who He was and still is. His greatest statement of Truth is an affirmation of our kinship with God. "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30 RSV).
Jesus made large claims on the power of God. He claimed that His Father could heal, comfort, and provide physical and spiritual nourishment for those who hungered. His ministry was a constant affirmation of God's power and a repeated demonstration of it. His prayers were a series of affirmations or statements of Truth about the power of God.
We are striving for an affirmative state of mind. In this consciousness we know spiritual truths. We know we are beloved children of God and heirs to the Kingdom.
The Truth is that in Spirit we are all perfect beings and that still remains true regardless of appearances to the contrary. This is the basis for all the healing work of Jesus. Using the same spiritual principles we can do healing work as well.
Peace and harmony in the body are restored as we recognize that the illness has no power, only God. The true spiritual nature of all people lives forever in a state of harmony and peace.
This process is similar to what we experience when we are preparing for a profession or for a type of work that we have chosen. We may begin by going to school, by studying and gaining information, and by practicing the role of the doctor, the secretary, the athlete, or the construction worker. We do not immediately act the role of that person we want to become. We gradually begin thinking like a person in that role. Then we finally become that person. So it is in affirming Truth that we become the Truth that we affirm.
Affirmations can be misused. When we misuse affirmations they quickly become ineffective. Examples of misuse are:· We use affirmations to continually get things.· We make affirmations only in set terms.· We use affirmations as an insistence that we have our way.
For our affirmations to be effective our beliefs and actions must conform to what we are affirming. For example, do we affirm health while we are still engaging in activities that do not promote health? Many of us want prosperity, but often we do not obey spiritual laws that govern true and lasting prosperity. We must endeavor to both speak and live Truth. If we speak in Spirit then let us also walk in Spirit.
As we change, the world around us must change. As we become enlightened by Truth, false beliefs disappear. When we align our thoughts and actions with Divine Order, we experience healthy and harmonious outer conditions. We become servants of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit adjusts all unrighteous situations.
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Cause and Effect
When we consider the word ‘cause’ we naturally think of ‘effect.’ To have a cause means there must also be an effect or effects. If we see a painting we could ask, ‘who is the artist who painted that work of art?’ The artist is the cause of the painting. We could ask, ‘who caused the artist?’ This question assumes the artist is now an effect. The parents caused the artist. We can see there is chain of causes and effects prior to the ‘painting.’ Notice that each time we find an earlier cause, the previous cause becomes an effect.
What First Cause is
However, there is a ‘cause’ that has no earlier ‘cause.’ This earliest cause never becomes an effect. Therefore this earliest cause is defined to be First Cause.
Who First Cause is—God, Elohim
God is First Cause. We use the Hebrew name for God, Elohim, to refer to God as Creator, Divine Mind, and First Cause. Elohim God is the original Mind in creative action. El means “the strong and ever-sustaining one.” Alah means “to swear or formulate by the power of the Word.” Elohim is the universal Principle of Being that designed all creation.
Source of Spiritual Truth
God, as described here, may be different from what we have believed. God is Truth. God is Spirit. Therefore God is spiritual Truth. The only way that we can know spiritual Truth is to get it directly from the Source of all Truth, the Holy Spirit. We may believe what we read and hear from others about God. To know God is different from belief about God. We must experience God in our minds to know God.
Holy Trinity
The Holy Trinity is Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. In this concept, God the Father creates the Son and Holy Spirit out of Godself. These are not three persons, but three expressions of the one God.
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Unity’s purpose according to its founders
Prior to the Fillmores’ starting the Unity movement, Charles Fillmore began to study, without prejudice, the available literature on metaphysical movements and the world’s religions. He found many differences and conflicting teachings. However, he was convinced there was a great power behind all of them.
Finally, he made a decision. He said, “In this babble I will go to headquarters. If I am Spirit and this God they talk about so much is Spirit, we can somehow communicate, or the whole thing is a fraud.” He sat aside an hour each evening to be still and commune with God. After several months he felt that he still had not contacted God but he felt so much better that he continued.
Eventually, he did experience communication with the Holy Spirit. He continued communicating with the Holy Spirit until his death. He died at 94 years of age. It was not unusual for him to be in prayer and meditation for several hours each day. In his later years during his daily activities, even while in conversation with another person, the Holy Spirit would call him into communication. He would stop the conversation with the person for the few minutes of communing with the Holy Spirit.
Charles became a sincere, devout student of the Bible. He became such a student and follower of Jesus and Jesus’ teachings that one could say that Mr. Fillmore was a current day disciple of Jesus.
Charles Fillmore went to headquarters (the Holy Spirit) in his mind. He did not stop there. He taught his students to go to headquarters. Teachers and books can take us only part way on our overcoming journey. The Holy Spirit must take us the remainder of the journey.
From the Fillmorian view, Unity’s primary purpose is for us to help ourselves and to help others to go to headquarters. This is seeking the kingdom of God and God's righteousness. Then God supplies us with abundance as a by-product of our seeking.
Specifically, Unity’s purpose is to help us to contact the Holy Spirit within our minds. We surrender our personalities to the Holy Spirit. In turn, the Holy Spirit instructs and guides us moment by moment. The Holy Spirit also begins to transform our false sense beliefs to spiritual knowing. Eventually, our sense consciousness is completely transformed to spiritual consciousness. Then we will have returned to the kingdom of God (the Garden of Eden). This is salvation.
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Spirit, our innermost, real being, the absolute part of us, the I of us, has never changed, though our thoughts and circumstances may have changed hundreds of times. (Lesson in Truth, Pg. 21)
To have greater abundance we must develop greater capacity to receive, appropriate, and use it. (The Great Physician, Pg. 76)
When you talk of hard times, famines, lack, you are talking of something that has no place in the mind of God. You are not acknowledging God in all your ways but are acknowledging error and affirming that the world has its source in outer things. You must turn around and get into this consciousness, that in Mind, in Spirit, there is abundance. (Prosperity, Pg 46)
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