Prosperity, by Charles Fillmore, [1936], at sacred-texts.com
Prosperity, by Charles Fillmore, [1936], at sacred-texts.com
THE HOME is the heart of the nation. The heart is the love center. Love is the world's greatest attractive power. The electromagnet that lifts the ingots of steel must first be charged with the electric current, for without the current it is powerless. So the heart of man, or the home that is the heart of the nation, must be aglow with God's love; then it becomes a magnet drawing all good from every direction. God has amply provided for every home, but the provision is in universal substance, which responds only to law. Through the application of the law the substance is drawn to us and begins to work for us.
It is the law of love that we have whatsoever we desire. As a father gives his children gifts so the Lord gives to us, because of love. When we desire aright, we put our thoughts into the supermind realm; we contact God-Mind and from it draw the invisible substance that is manifest in temporal things. The substance thus becomes a part of our mind and through it of our affairs. We draw spiritual substance to ourselves just as the magnet draws the
iron. When we think about the love of God drawing to us the substance necessary for support and supply, that substance begins to accumulate all around us, and as we abide in the consciousness of it, it begins to manifest itself in all our affairs.
"Perfect love casteth out fear." Fear is a great breeder of poverty, for it breaks down positive thoughts. Negative thoughts bring negative conditions in their train. The first thing to do in making a demonstration of prosperity in the home is to discard all negative thoughts and words. Build up a positive thought atmosphere in the home, an atmosphere that is free from fear and filled with love. Do not allow any words of poverty or lack to limit the attractive power of love in the home. Select carefully only those words that charge the home atmosphere with the idea of plenty, for like attracts like in the unseen as well as the seen. Never make an assertion in the home, no matter how true it may look on the surface, that you would not want to see persist in the home. By talking poverty and lack you are making a comfortable place for these unwelcome guests by your fireside, and they will want to stay. Rather fill the home with thoughts and words of plenty, of love, and of God's substance; then the unwelcome guests will soon leave you.
Do not say that money is scarce; the very statement will scare money away from you. Do not say that times are hard with you; the very words will tighten your purse strings until Omnipotence itself cannot slip a dime into it. Begin now to talk plenty,
think plenty, and give thanks for plenty. Enlist all the members of the home in the same work. Make it a game. It's lots of fun, and, better than that, it actually works.
Every home can be prosperous, and there should be no poverty-stricken homes, for they are caused only by inharmony, fear, negative thinking and speaking. Every visible item of wealth can be traced to an invisible source. Food comes from grain, which was planted in the earth; but who sees or knows the quickening love that touches the seed and makes it bear a hundredfold? An unseen force from an invisible source acts on the tiny seeds, and supply for the multitude springs forth.
The physical substance that we name earth is the visible form of a superabundant mind substance, everywhere present, pervading all things, and inspiring all things to action. When the grain or seed is put into the earth, the quickening thought of the universe causes the little life germ to lay hold of the spiritual substance all about it and what we call matter proves to be a form of mind. "There is no matter; all is mind."
Words are also seeds, and when dropped into the invisible spiritual substance, they grow and bring forth after their kind. "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" Farmers and gardeners choose their seed with the greatest care. They reject every defective seed they find and in this way make sure of the coming crop. To have prosperity in your home you will have to exercise the same intelligent
discrimination in the choice of your seed words.
You should expect prosperity when you keep the prosperity law. Therefore, be thankful for every blessing that you gain and as deeply grateful for every demonstration as for an unexpected treasure dropped into your lap. This will keep your heart fresh; for true thanksgiving may be likened to rain falling upon ready soil, refreshing it and increasing its productiveness. When Jesus had only a small supply He gave thanks for the little He had. This increased that little into such an abundance that a multitude was satisfied with food and much was left over. Blessing has not lost its power since the time Jesus used it. Try it and you will prove its efficacy. The same power of multiplication is in it today. Praise and thanksgiving impart the quickening spiritual power that produces growth and increase in all things.
You should never condemn anything in your home. If you want new articles of furniture or new clothes to take the place of those you now have, do not talk about your present things as old or shabby. Watch your words. See yourself clothed as befits a child of the King and see your house furnished just as pleases your ideal. Thus plant in the home atmosphere the seed of richness and abundance. It will all come to you. Use the patience, the wisdom, and the assiduity that the farmer employs in planting and cultivating, and your crop will be sure.
Your words of Truth are energized and vitalized by the living Spirit. Your mind is now open and receptive
to an influx of divine ideas that will inspire you with the understanding of the potency of your own thoughts and words. You are prospered. Your home is a magnet of love, drawing to it all good from the unfailing and inexhaustible reservoir of supply. Your increase comes because of your righteous application of God's law in your home.
"The blessing of Jehovah, it maketh rich; And he addeth no sorrow therewith."
Jesus showed men how to live in rest and peace, a simple life. Where the simplicity of His teaching is received and appreciated the people change their manner of living, doing away with ostentation and getting down to the simplicity and beauty of the things that are worth while. Every summer those who feel that they can, plan to go away for a vacation and many of them enjoy a small cabin in the woods where they can live a simple and natural life close to nature. This shows that they long to let go of the burdens of conventionality and rest in touch with the real of things. The soul wearies of the wear and tear of the artificial world, and now and then it must have a season of rest. Jesus invites, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
There is a great difference between the simple life and poverty. The two have been associated in the minds of some people, and this is the reason they shun the idea of the simple life. Even those who have come into some degree of spiritual understanding sometimes put out of mind all thought of a simple
manner of living, because they fear that others will think they are failing to demonstrate prosperity. In such cases those who judge should remember to "judge not according to appearance," and those who are judged should be satisfied with the praise of God rather than with the praise of men. All those who base their prosperity on possessions alone have a purely material prosperity which, though it may seem great for a time, will vanish, because it is founded on the changing of the external and has no root within the consciousness.
There is a great similarity in the homes of nearly all people who have about the same-sized incomes. Each one uhconsciously follows suggestion and furnishes his home with the same sort of things as his neighbors. Here and there are exceptions. Someone is expressing his or her individuality, overcoming mass suggestion and buying the kind of furniture he really wants or that is really comfortable and useful. This free, independent spirit has much in its favor in making a prosperity demonstration. The delusion that it is necessary to be just like other people or to have as much as other people have, causes a spirit of anxiety that hinders the exercise of faith in demonstration.
The simple life does not imply poverty and it is not ascetic. It is as different from the austere as it is from wanton luxury. It is the natural, free, childlike, mode of living, and one never really knows what true prosperity is until one comes into this simplicity and independence of spirit. The simple life is a state
of consciousness. It is peace, contentment, and satisfaction in the joy of living and loving, and it is attained through thinking about God and worshiping Him in spirit and in truth.
You want to learn how to demonstrate prosperity in your home by the righteous exercise of powers and faculties that God has given you. Realize in the very beginning that you do have these powers and faculties. You are in possession of everything necessary for the demonstration of prosperity and can undertake it with the utmost confidence and faith. You can draw on the omnipresent substance throughout all eternity, yet it will never grow less, for it consists of ideas. Through thinking you take some of these ideas into your mind and they begin to become manifest in your affairs.
Love is one of the ideas that provide a key to the infinite storehouse of abundance. It opens up generosity in us. It opens up generosity in others when we begin to love and bless them. Will it also open up a spirit of generosity in God? It certainly will and does. If you consciously love and bless God, you will soon find that things are coming your way. It will surprise you that just thinking about God will draw to you the things you want and expect, and bring many other blessings that you had not even thought about. Thousands of persons have proved this law to their entire satisfaction, and we have many records that illustrate how people have demonstrated abundance in the very face of apparent lack, simply by thinking about the love of God and thanking
Him for what they have. This law will demonstrate itself for you or for anyone who applies it faithfully, for "love never faileth."
Men in business and industry have demonstrated great amounts of money through love. They did not love God, but the love of money attracted the money to them. It drew the substance right to them and enabled them to accumulate money, but merely as material, without the divine idea that assures permanence. We hear about men in high finance going bankrupt quite as often as we hear about men making great fortunes. When we develop a spiritual consciousness, we transfer this personal love to a higher and more stable plane, from the love of money and material things to the love of God, and thus conceived it will attract to us all the resources of infinite Mind forever and ever. Once make a connection with the universal bank of God and you have a permanent source of wealth.
Jesus said that when we come to the altar to make an offering, we should have nothing in our heart against our brother. He said that before we can make contact with the love and power of God we must first make peace with our brother. This means that we must cultivate a love for our fellows in order to set the attractive force of love into operation. All we need do is quicken our love for others by thinking about love and casting out of our mind all hate and fear that would weaken the perfect working of that mighty magnet. As love attracts, hate dissipates. Before you approach God's altar of plenty, go and make
friends with your brother men. Make friends even with the money powers. Do not envy the rich. Never condemn those who have money merely because they have it and you do not. Do not question how they got their money and wonder whether or not they are honest. All that is none of your business. Your business is to get what belongs to you, and you do that by thinking about the omnipresent substance of God and how you can lay hold of it through love. Get in touch with God riches in spirit, lay hold of them by love, and you will have sufficient for every day. "Love therefore is the fulfillment of the law."
The eternal law of Spirit goes right on operating regardless of what you may think, say, or do. It is ordained that love will bring you prosperity, and you need not wonder whether it will or how it will. "Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" Do not worry. Worry is a thief and a robber, for it keeps your good from you. It breaks the drawing law of love, the law that says, "Perfect love casteth out fear." Banish worry by quietly and confidently affirming the drawing power of divine love as the constantly active magnet that attracts your unfailing supply. A good affirmation to rout worry is one like this:
Divine love bountifully supplies and increases substance to meet my every need.
Nearly all books or articles that deal with success or prosperity stress the well-known virtues of honesty, industry, system and order, faithfulness,
hard work. These make an excellent foundation and can be developed. Anyone with determination and will can overcome habits of laziness, carelessness, and weakness. The use of the will is very important in the demonstration of prosperity. If there is disorder or lack of system in your home, overcome it. Affirm: I will to be orderly. I will be orderly. I will be systematic in all my work and affairs. I am systematic. I am orderly. I am efficient.
It takes the use of the will to be persistent, and we must be persistent in making demonstrations. Spasmodic efforts count for little, and many people give up too easily. If things don't come out just right the first time they try, they say the law is wrong and make no further effort. Anything so much worth while as prosperity in the home, and especially a permanent and unfailing supply that continues to meet the daily needs year after year, is worth any effort that we can make. Then be patient but be persistent. Declare: I am not discouraged. I am persistent. I go forward.
When success fails to crown our very first efforts we become discouraged and quit. Then we try to console ourselves with the old thought that it is God's will for us to be poor. Poverty is not God's will, but man lays it to the charge of God to excuse his own feeling of inadequacy and defeat. God's will is health, happiness, and prosperity for every man; and to have all that is good and beautiful in the home is to express God's will for us. God's will is not expressed in a hovel, nor in any home where
discord, lack, and unhappiness are entertained. Even a human guest would not stay long in such a home. To have a prosperous home prepare it as the abiding place of God, who gives prosperity to all His children and adds no sorrow therewith. Determine to know God's will and do it. Affirm: I am determined to achieve success through doing God's will. That sums up the whole law. God is more willing to give than we are to receive. What we need to do is to determine what is His will, what He is trying to give, and open ourselves to receive His bounty. We do that by willing to do His will. You can be and have anything that you will to be and to have. Will to be healthy. Will to be happy. Will to be prosperous.
There are many persons who will to be prosperous and who have made up their minds, as they think, very determinedly. But they have not overcome all doubts, and when their demonstration is delayed, as it is in such cases, the doubt increases until they lose faith altogether. What they need is more persistence and determination. The word determined is a good word, a strong, substantial word with power in it. Jesus said that His words were spirit and life and would never pass away. Emerson says that words are alive and if you cut one it will bleed. Use the word determined and emphasize it in your affirmations. If things do not seem to come fast enough, determine that you will be patient. If negative thoughts creep in, determine to be positive. If you feel worried about the results, determine to be optimistic. In response to every thought of lack or
need determine to be prosperous. The Lord has prosperity to give, and those who are determined go after their share. Jesus was quite positive and very determined in all His affirmations. He made big claims for God, and demonstrated them. Without the slightest doubt that the money would be there, He told Peter to put his hand into the fish's mouth and take out the wanted money. His prayers were made of one strong affirmation after another. The Lord's Prayer is a series of determined affirmations. We claim the will of God is for us to be rich, prosperous, and successful. Make up your mind that such is God's will for you and your home and you will make your demonstration.
In the Old Testament, in the 4th chapter of II Kings, there is a fine prosperity lesson for any home. The widow represents one who has lost his consciousness of God's supply and support. That divine idea of God as all-abundance is our true support. The two children of this home represent the thoughts of debt, what the family owes, and what someone owes the family. The prophet is divine understanding. The house is the body consciousness. The pot of oil is faith in spiritual substance. The neighbors are outside thoughts, and their "empty vessels" are thoughts of lack. To go in "and shut the door," as the widow was told to do, is to enter the inner consciousness and shut out the thoughts of lack. This is followed by strong words of affirmation: "pouring" the substance into all the places that seem to be empty or to lack, until all are full. In conclusion it is
affirmed that every obligation is met, every debt paid, and there is so much left over that there are no vessels left to hold it.
This compares with the promise of God "I will ... open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it." "Heaven" represents the mind. All this is done in the mind, and you can do it. Carry each step forward in your imagination exactly as if it were occurring in the without. Form your prosperity demonstration in your mind, then hold to the divine law of fulfillment. "And, having done all ... stand." You may not be able to fill all the vessels with oil on your first attempt, but as you practice the method day by day your faith will increase and your results will be in proportion to your increasing faith.
Work at the problem until you prove it. Apply the principle and the solution is sure. If it does not come at once, check over your methods carefully and see wherein your work has not been true. Do not allow one empty thought to exist in your mind but fill every nook and corner of it with the word plenty, plenty, plenty.
If your purse seems empty, deny the lack and say, "You are filled even now, with the bounty of God, my Father, who supplies all my wants." If your rooms are empty, deny the appearance and determine that prosperity is manifest in every part of every room. Never think of yourself as poor or needy. Do not talk about hard times or the necessity for
strict economy. Even "the walls have ears" and, unfortunately, memories too. Do not think how little you have but how much you have. Turn the telescope of your imagination around and look through the other end. "Revile not the king, no, not in thy thought; and revile not the rich in thy bedchamber: for a bird of the heavens shall carry the voice, and that which hath wings shall tell the matter."
"Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor standeth in the way of sinners,
Nor sitteth in the seat of scoffers:
But his delight is in the law of Jehovah;
And on his law doth he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water.
That bringeth forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also doth not wither;
And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."
"Through wisdom is a house builded;
And by understanding it is established;
And by knowledge are the chambers filled
With all precious and pleasant riches."
"Jehovah will open unto thee his good treasure."
"And the Almighty will be thy treasure,
And precious silver unto thee."
"Jehovah is my shepherd; I shall not want."
"Trust in Jehovah, and do good;
Dwell in the land, and feed on his faithfulness."
"Jehovah will give grace and glory;
No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly."
"That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance,
And that I may fill their treasuries."
"If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land."