March 1955
By Joel Goldsmith
Part 5 of 7

An Important Point in Spiritual Practice (continued)

If you understand the nature of God you will understand that God is the creative principle of all existence; God is the law unto all creation; God is the substance, the reality and the continuity of all creation. Therefore, all creation is in and of God, subject to God’s government and God’s care. It is your function to know this truth. Ye shall know this truth, and this truth will make you free—free of accepting appearances and then trying to do something about them.
Do you see wherein the Message of The Infinite Way, and its practice, differs from the greater part of metaphysical teachings? Living the Infinite Way means living in the constant, conscious realization of God as Infinite, Omnipresent, Eternal Being. It means living always in the consciousness that before Abraham was, I am the divine principle, the protective, maintaining and sustaining influence unto this universe. It also means living in the constant, conscious realization of the truth that I am with you unto the end of the world, and just as nothing could happen to you yesterday, so nothing could happen to you today or tomorrow, except as a part of God’s Grace.
We could live lives of constant miracles if only we would abide in the consciousness of this truth: “My grace is sufficient for thee.” Thy Grace is sufficient for every need, but not Thy Grace that is coming tomorrow. Thy Grace, since before Abraham was, is my sufficiency; Thy Grace is my sufficiency unto the end of the world. Thy Grace of the past, present and future is at this very instant my sufficiency in all things. Every day there are temptations to believe that we or our families or students are in need of something in the nature of form (it may be food, housing, opportunity, education, employment, rest) but to all those things we can respond: “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God,” because Thy Grace is man’s sufficiency in every instance.
From these two spiritual passages you can build such a consciousness of the omnipresence of the Infinite Invisible that forever after you will learn to love and enjoy and appreciate everything in the world of form and everything that exists as effect, yet never have the feeling that you need or require anything. Since God’s Grace is your sufficiency you do not live by effect alone, but by every Word of Truth that has been embodied in your consciousness, and by every passage of Truth that you have made your own.
Affirming truths and denying errors will not make your demonstration. You must learn to live by every word of truth, and make every Word of Truth a part of your consciousness so that it becomes flesh of your flesh, bone of your bone, until the past, present and future are all bound up in the conscious realization of God’s Grace as your sufficiency. In other words, your consciousness of Truth is the source and substance and activity and law of your daily demonstration of Good.
To those who are accepting the Message of The Infinite Way as a way of life, I would like to sum this up by asking that you go back and bring your past into your present by spending some time during this next month consciously realizing that God’s Grace was your sufficiency in what you call your past; and that since before Abraham was, God’s government of this universe has been so perfect that nothing of a discordant or inharmonious nature can happen to you or to anyone else, today or tomorrow. And so, should you hear of sin, a disease, an accident or a death, immediately realize that it could not have happened, since from the beginning of time God has been the only and reality unto His universe. Then you will know the true meaning of spiritual healing. You will know what Christ-consciousness is; you will know what it means to live and move and have your being in God-consciousness, never accepting appearances, temptations, discords, sins, disease or accidents as anything other than temptations to believe in time and space.
If you are able to see that the past must become the present so that you are able to cover it all with the term I am, I am with you, I am with you in the past, I am with you in the present, I am with you since before Abraham was, I am is the law unto you, has been the law unto you, you will be able to take the next step and bring the future right down to the present, so that “unto the end of the world” will be embraced in your consciousness the consciousness of the Omnipresence of I am. In this way your whole universe will be embraced in the time and space since before Abraham was, unto the end of the world—all of it brought down to the here and now of I am with you.
The only time is God’s time—now. God’s time has existed since before Abraham was, and will continue to exist until the end of the world. Because I am with you since before Abraham was and unto the end of the world, I am is the immediate present—now. God’s Grace now is your sufficiency, and the sufficiency unto your family and friends and students—and unto all who can accept God’s Grace.
End part 5