The Power of Grace! February 4, 2015 Hymns: 422, 423, 199

Transcription

1 The Power of Grace! February 4, 2015 Hymns: 422, 423, 199 The Bible II Cor. 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: II Cor. 8:7 Therefore, as ye abound in every thing, in faith, and utterance, and knowledge, and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also. I Sam. 25:4-12 David, 13 (to 2nd ;), 14-21, 23-25, 27, 28 (to :), 30, 32, 33, 35 David heard in the wilderness that Nabal did shear his sheep. And David sent out ten young men, and David said unto the young men, Get you up to Carmel, and go to Nabal, and greet him in my name: And thus shall ye say to him that liveth in prosperity, Peace be both to thee, and peace be to thine house, and peace be unto all that thou hast. And now I have heard that thou hast shearers: now thy shepherds which were with us, we hurt them not, neither was there aught missing unto them, all the while they were in Carmel. Ask thy young men, and they will shew thee. Wherefore let the young men find favour in thine eyes: for we come in a good day: give, I pray thee, whatsoever cometh to thine hand unto thy servants, and to thy son David. And when David s young men came, they spake to Nabal according to all those words in the name of David, and ceased. And Nabal answered David s servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? there be many servants now a days that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be? So David s young men turned their way, and went again, and came and told him all those sayings. And David said unto his men, Gird ye on every man his sword. And they girded on every man his sword; and David also girded on his sword: and there went up after David about four hundred men; But one of the young men told Abigail, Nabal s wife, saying, Behold, David sent messengers out of the wilderness to salute our master; and he railed on them. But the men were very good unto us, and we were not hurt, neither missed we any thing, as long as we were conversant with them, when we were in the fields: They were a wall unto us both by night and day, all the while we were with them keeping the sheep. Now therefore know and consider what thou wilt do; for evil is determined against our master, and against all his household: for he is such a son of Belial, that a man cannot speak to him. Then Abigail made haste, and took two hundred loaves, and two bottles of wine, and five sheep ready dressed, and five measures of parched corn, and an hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs, and laid them on asses. And she said unto her servants, Go on before me; behold, I come after you. But she told not her husband Nabal. And it was so, as she rode on the ass, that she came down by the covert of the hill, and, behold, David

2 and his men came down against her; and she met them. Now David had said, Surely in vain have I kept all that this fellow hath in the wilderness, so that nothing was missed of all that pertained unto him: and he hath requited me evil for good. And when Abigail saw David, she hasted, and lighted off the ass, and fell before David on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, And fell at his feet, and said, Upon me, my lord, upon me let this iniquity be: and let thine handmaid, I pray thee, speak in thine audience, and hear the words of thine handmaid. Let not my lord, I pray thee, regard this man of Belial, even Nabal: for as his name is, so is he; Nabal is his name, and folly is with him: but I thine handmaid saw not the young men of my lord, whom thou didst send. And now this blessing which thine handmaid hath brought unto my lord, let it even be given unto the young men that follow my lord. I pray thee, forgive the trespass of thine handmaid: And it shall come to pass, when the LORD shall have done to my lord according to all the good that he hath spoken concerning thee, and shall have appointed thee ruler over Israel; And David said to Abigail, Blessed be the LORD God of Israel, which sent thee this day to meet me: And blessed be thy advice, and blessed be thou, which hast kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with mine own hand. So David received of her hand that which she had brought him, and said unto her, Go up in peace to thine house; see, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person. II Tim. 1:1 (to 2nd,), 2 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to Timothy, my dearly beloved son: Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. II Tim. 2:1-3 Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also. Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. II Tim. 4:5 watch Watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry. II Tim. 3:17 That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works. I Pet. 3:8, 9 Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, love as brethren,be pitiful, be courteous: Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing.

3 Science and Health SH 67:18-23 The notion that animal natures can possibly give force to character is too absurd for consideration, when we remember that through spiritual ascendency our Lord and Master healed the sick, raised the dead, and commanded even the winds and waves to obey him. SH 67:23, Grace and Truth are potent beyond all other means and methods. Spiritual, not corporeal, consciousness is needed. SH 4:22-24 (to ;) We reach the Science of Christianity through demonstration of the divine nature; SH 17:4 Give us this day our daily bread; Give us grace for to-day; feed the famished affections; SH 3:12-16 The Divine Being must be reflected by man, else man is not the image and likeness of the patient, tender, and true, the One altogether lovely; but to understand God is the work of eternity, and demands absolute consecration of thought, energy, and desire. SH 4:3-5 What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds. SH 176:13-16 When the mechanism of the human mind gives place to the divine Mind, selfishness and sin, disease and death, will lose their foothold. SH 327:1-13 (to 2nd.), 23 Reform comes by understanding that there is no abiding pleasure in evil, and also by gaining an affection for good according to Science, which reveals the immortal fact that neither pleasure nor pain, appetite nor passion, can exist in or of matter, while divine Mind can and does destroy the false beliefs of pleasure, pain, or fear and all the sinful appetites of the human mind. What a pitiful sight is malice, finding pleasure in revenge! Evil is sometimes a man s highest conception of right, until his grasp on good grows stronger. Then he loses pleasure in wickedness, and it becomes his torment. The way to escape the misery of sin is to cease sinning. There is no other way. Moral courage is requisite to meet the wrong and to proclaim the right. But how shall we reform the man who has more animal than moral courage, and who has not the true idea of good? Through human consciousness, convince the mortal of his mistake in seeking material means for gaining happiness. Reason is the most active human faculty. Let that inform the sentiments and awaken the man s dormant sense of moral obligation, and by degrees he will learn the nothingness of the pleasures of human sense and the grandeur and bliss of a spiritual sense, which silences the material or corporeal. Then he not only will be saved, but is saved.

4 SH 454:22-24 Wait patiently for divine Love to move upon the waters of mortal mind, and form the perfect concept. Patience must have her perfect work. SH 494:15 The (only) The miracle of grace is no miracle to Love. SH 17:6 And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And Love is reflected in love; SH 192:30-31 Whatever holds human thought in line with unselfed love, receives directly the divine power. SH 333:19-26 Throughout all generations both before and after the Christian era, the Christ, as the spiritual idea, the reflection of God, has come with some measure of power and grace to all prepared to receive Christ, Truth. Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets caught glorious glimpses of the Messiah, or Christ, which baptized these seers in the divine nature, the essence of Love. SH 259:6-11 The The divine nature was best expressed in Christ Jesus, who threw upon mortals the truer reflection of God and lifted their lives higher than their poor thought-models would allow, thoughts which presented man as fallen, sick, sinning, and dying. SH 192:21-24 (to 1st.) Your influence for good depends upon the weight you throw into the right scale. The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable. SH 280:30-4 The only excuse for entertaining human opinions and rejecting the Science of being is our mortal ignorance of Spirit, ignorance which yields only to the understanding of divine Science, the understanding by which we enter into the kingdom of Truth on earth and learn that Spirit is infinite and supreme. SH 66:14-16 Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love. SH 99:23 The calm, strong currents of true spirituality, the manifestations of which are health, purity, and self-immolation, must deepen human experience, until the beliefs of material existence are seen to be a bald imposition, and sin, disease, and death give everlasting place to the scientific demonstration of divine Spirit and to God s spiritual, perfect man. SH 88:18-20 To love one s neighbor as one s self, is a divine idea; but this idea can never be seen, felt, nor understood through the physical senses.

5 SH 572:6 Love one another (I John, iii. 23), is the most simple and profound counsel of the inspired writer. In Science we are children of God; but whatever is of material sense, or mortal, belongs not to His children, for materiality is the inverted image of spirituality. SH 247:15 Immortal men and women are models of spiritual sense, drawn by perfect Mind and reflecting those higher conceptions of loveliness which transcend all material sense. SH 247:19-21 Comeliness and grace are independent of matter. Being possesses its qualities before they are perceived humanly. SH 248:13-16 (to 1st?), 17 Have (only) We are all sculptors, working at various forms, moulding and chiseling thought. What is the model before mortal mind? Have you accepted the mortal model? SH 248:21-32 The result is that you are liable to follow those lower patterns, limit your life-work, and adopt into your experience the angular outline and deformity of matter models. To remedy this, we must first turn our gaze in the right direction, and then walk that way. We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives. Let unselfishness, goodness, mercy, justice, health, holiness, love the kingdom of heaven reign within us, and sin, disease, and death will diminish until they finally disappear. SH 4:17-22 Simply asking that we may love God will never make us love Him; but the longing to be better and holier, expressed in daily watchfulness and in striving to assimilate more of the divine character, will mould and fashion us anew, until we awake in His likeness. SH 483:30-32 One must fulfil one s mission without timidity or dissimulation, for to be well done, the work must be done unselfishly. SH 249:1 Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence. SH 509:24-28 The periods of spiritual ascension are the days and seasons of Mind s creation, in which beauty, sublimity, purity, and holiness yea, the divine nature appear in man and the universe never to disappear.