Teach Us to Pray, by Charles Fillmore, [1941], at sacred-texts.com
Teach Us to Pray, by Charles Fillmore, [1941], at sacred-texts.com
THIS IS A very definite and wonderful promise. According to the record, it was undoubtedly acted upon by the disciples and proved to be very effective for hundreds of years. That this mighty promise still stands is proved by unnumbered thousands of Jesus' followers today. Faith healing through prayer has become a practice founded on principles that never fail when rightly applied. Those who seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness are having all things added, as promised. When we "take with us words" and attempt to go into God's presence, our faith in Him is the power that swings wide open the gate that leads into the inner kingdom.
But in order to keep the gate ajar it is a daily necessity to withdraw into this deep stillness of the soul. Listen first to the innate voice of faith; then
through the centers within the subconsciousness you can appropriate the life, substance, and intelligence of Being.
Man builds up an enduring state of faith by repeated realizations of Truth. The illumination thus gained comes forth in man as spiritual understanding expressed in sound words.
Faith draws upon substance. Dynamic, creative, transforming power is roused to spiritual action when man affirms his unity with Almightiness and his undaunted faith in its power.
"Seek good, and not evil, that ye may live; and so Jehovah, the God of hosts, will be with you, as ye say." "Concerning the works of my hands, command ye me."
Man must not only be submissive and obedient to the divine law; he must also realize that he is the offspring of the ruler of the universe.
When asking the Father for that which belongs to the Son under the divine law, man should assume the power and dignity of the Prince of Peace. He should not crawl and cringe before an imaginary king on a throne but rather feel that he is the image of an invisible being who has created him to represent His mightiness as well as His loving-kindness. We should affirm with conviction those mighty words uttered by Jesus: "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth."
The prayer of faith is not supplication, a begging God to give things to man. Prayer at its highest is the entry of the ego through faith into a realm of
mind forces that when rightly contacted change the character of every cell in brain and body. One who has mastered even the primary technique of prayer has made contact with the spiritual ethers that connect all minds, high and low, and by means of which great reforms for the good of man can be projected into the world's thought ether.
When Jesus prayed, sometimes the whole night long, He did not plead with God over and over to do what He asked. Through positive faith Jesus was laying hold of new ideas, which through His spiritual understanding He incorporated into His consciousness, which included both soul and body. Through this mental process He became a living demonstration of spiritual man.
Today Jesus Christ is our helper and teacher. Every man when he prays should recognize and take advantage of this truth. He can profit much by realizing that the same Spirit is in him that was in Jesus, who became the Christ. Paul wrote, "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwelleth in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwelleth in you."
Jesus is teaching us today that to pray effectively we must believe and know that there is a dispenser of the thing asked for and that by reaching out in prayer we can receive it from the one great source. This is truly the prayer of faith. "All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."
Faith, the conviction of a higher providing source, is based upon spiritual logic or innate reason and on the certainty that an all-wise and all-powerful Creator's plan includes necessary provision for His offspring. Among even the primitive forms of nature this providing law is active. The insect stores food in the egg for the sustenance of its progeny. When man emerges from his animal consciousness and feels within him the stirring of Spirit, he finds that it is supremely logical and true that Spirit has provided for his supply and support.
When we have achieved spiritual realization of our prayer and our innermost soul is satisfied, we have the assurance that the thing is accomplished in Spirit and must become manifest.
We may continue in our realization of faith until the whole consciousness responds and the instantaneous demonstration takes place.
Spiritual Truth, psychology, and science tell us that visible things come from the invisible and are dependent upon the unseen for their existence. The sense mind cannot conceive of this.
Before man can fully appreciate and work the spiritual law, he must cultivate a consciousness of reality. When he does this, he finds he is automatically working with God, through Christ, and that he can say with Jesus, "My Father worketh even
until now, and I work."
Prayer is impotent and unfruitful when the one who prays is without the firm belief that his petitions are answered. When man turns wholeheartedly to God, the prayer of faith brings forth abundantly. Healing currents of life are freed and flow into and through soul and body, healing, redeeming, uplifting the whole man. Since the prayer of faith is the activity of divine love, let us pray without ceasing, knowing that God hears and grants our petitions.
Truly the Lord is in the midst of us. When we turn toward the omnipresent light of Spirit in faith, our eyes are opened to the astonishing fact that this seemingly material body and these temporal surroundings conceal the immanent God. We come to understand what Jacob meant when he said, "How dreadul is this place! this is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven."
In prayer attention is the concentration of the mind upon a statement of Truth. Attention is focalizing the I AM or inner entity upon a word of prayer, until the inner meaning is realized and the soul is aware of a definite spiritual uplift. As a lens focalizes the sun's rays at a given point--and we know how intense that point of light may become--so concentration focalizes the mind on a single idea until it becomes manifest and objective.
In concentration the Holy Spirit works through the divine mother substance to bring forth the fruits of Divine Mind. The Holy Spirit is the teacher. The teacher and the student use the same principles;
but the teacher arouses and inspires the student to greater achievement. The Holy Spirit today is urging us to greater spiritual effort.
When we direct the mental powers upon a definite idea, faith plays its part; it is involved in concentration. As we give attention to the idea through one-pointed mind concentration, we break into a realm of finer mind activity, called faith or the fire of Spirit. Thus faith opens the door into an inner consciousness, where we hold the word steadily in mind until the spiritual ethers respond to our word. Earnest, steady, and continued attention along this line is bound to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit in abundant measure. A steady, unwavering devotion of heart and principle to Spirit develops in us supermind qualities.