Why do I love God?

emboss-infinityReligion may seem “dead” today, but it occurs to me that only material dogmas are really dead.

The love of God, and the love that God has towards us is very much alive. This is what “real” religion, or spirituality, is all about — that precious, tender relationship between God, man and all living things.

Why do I love God?

  • God is my Sustaining Infinite and Protector.
  • God is my Mind, and all of His/Her thoughts are lovely, loving and pure.
  • God’s Love is like a warm comforter on a cold, winter night that is always with me.
  • God’s Truth gives me direction and confidence.
  • God’s Soul gives me identity and identity to all living things in perfect unity. God’s Soul also gives me creativity, spontaneity and joy.
  • God’s Spirit is the substance of my being. It includes health, harmony and abundance.
  • God’s Life is my life. Forever and always.
  • God’s Principle is my solid foundation. The life, truth and love that I can never fall from.

These reasons for why I love God cause me to contemplate the question: how big is your God?

We can all expand our understanding and perception of God everyday. This spiritual understanding is the answer to every thing we need. It comprises the wholeness of who we are. It is basis for your health, your life purpose, your worth, and satisfaction.

This spiritual wholeness is illustrated in Christ Jesus’ statement, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37 NIV)

Forget self and love others

candlelight-337560_640Glorify God in your body, home and family.

These are the words that came to me in my prayer this morning.

I’m re-reading notes from the class in Christian Science healing that I took in 2006. It’s a 12-day intensive course on the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, which helps students to understand God, the laws from the Bible the are practical and applicable in our daily lives, and it teaches how to heal yourself and others through Mind, God.

I came across this passage in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy:

In love for man, we gain a true sense of Love as God; and in no other way can we reach this spiritual sense, and rise — and still rise — to things most essential and divine. What hinders man’s progress is his vain conceit, the Phariseeism of the times, also his effort to steal from others and avoid hard work; errors which can never find a place in Science. (Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896, p. 234)

“Things most essential and divine…” What are those? As I examined my own thought I saw that it is certainly not the “vain conceit” which tries to keep me focused on me instead of on the beautiful landscape of God and the divine light shining within us.

As I focus on glorifying God in my body, home and family, I focus on expressing grace, patience, humor, joy, humility and all the lovely qualities we desire to live with. A tendency to “steal from others and avoid hard work” slips away. As I focus on “things most essential and divine” I am filled up; I feel satisfied; I witness the joy and grace of God; I find opportunities to love.

Vain conceit tries to keep us focused on a “me” attitude instead of realizing that to find satisfaction, we have to be focused on others, giving (and receiving gracefully) and on God, divine Love.

It is with humility that today I focus on the task of glorifying God in my body, home and family.

I hope you will join me, so we can support each other along the way!

 

 

The Grace of God

birds-112083_640I’ve been cherishing the topic of the grace of God, lately, in my prayers.

Grace is a word used in Christian denominations and it is also a universal quality that belongs to everyone.

In addition to thinking about grace as the unrequited love of God, I also like to think about grace as humanity exercising, or expressing, divine Love.

Exercise involves activity. How about trying to exercise divine Love—or grace—with every thought: at work, in taking care of kids, running errands, etc?

This is no easy task. The self-justification, criticism, judgement and opinions of the carnal mind, or evil, slip in. Even when I consciously make it my objective to fill my consciousness with grace and have that motivate me for the whole day, these sneaky thoughts come in (as the Bible says, the serpent— a metaphor for evil— is sneaky and cunning).

We need to always be on guard and defend ourselves from these negative emotions and thinking, which would pull us down and try to spoil our good motives and thoughts for the day.

Grace is potent and valuable! It can elevate, heal and resolve any situation! No wonder evil would try to come in and take away those moments to feel graceful.

Thoughts and actions that are graceful also feed and replenish the body, giving you health, freedom and energy! They counteract sickness and fatigue.

Paul wrote encouragement to the new Christians in Rome: “…in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Rom 8:37 NIV)

Community prayer is so powerful! Let us all pray that we can preserve grace and express divine, unselfish, unconditional, beautiful love in all that we say and do (and think about one another).