1952 New Washington Series

Joel S. Goldsmith

7A:A – Treatment 3/4

Now the point that I’m emphasizing today is this: Do not believe just because you go to truth centers or read truth literature that that, in and of itself, is going to be your salvation from discords and inharmonies because it isn’t. True, just going to the center and exposing yourself to some truths from others is helpful, and of course, reading is helpful also, but don’t lean too heavily on that as making your demonstration. You may be disappointed.

There comes that further step that you yourself must take, just as you must eat your own meals and digest your own food and sleep your own sleep, no one can do those things for you, so in the spiritual realm you yourself must expose yourself to God. You yourself must make God the central theme around which your entire day works. It has been the custom in other religions to reserve God for Sunday or a weekday or a little Bible reading, but we have discovered in our work that nothing less than a full devotion to God will bring about the harmonies that we desire. Those not ready for that step will still have to take their human experiences with a mixture of good and a mixture of evil, a mixture of sickness and a mixture of health, and ultimately with the idea of age and death. Each one consciously sets it aside as you come out and become separate.

Now watch, as human beings you are under the law; you are under every law of lack and limitation and depression and political change, under every law of medical belief or astrological belief that there is in the world, and it is for that reason that you may believe that you’ve been a truth student for many years, but the ills of the world still keep after you. Yes, and they still will keep after you until you make the transition yourself.

I am not under the law; I am under grace. Why am I under grace? Because of my relationship with God. God is my Father/Mother principle. God is my life. God is the very activity of my being and of my body. It is God that keeps me in peace. It is God that feeds me and maintains me and sustains me. It is God in whom I live and move and have my being. I dwell in the secret place of the most High. I dwell in the sanctuary of life, truth, and love.

All that the Father hath is mine because the Father is ever with me. I and the Father are one. No time, no place do I go anywhere alone. I and the Father are always together. The place whereon I stand is holy ground because God is where I am. And God is my meat and my bread and my wine and my water. God governs my going out and my coming in. God is the spiritual law of grace unto my being. It is my Father’s good pleasure to give me the kingdom. Why? Because I seek to live in God always. I seek to make God my conscious dwelling place. I shall dwell in the consciousness of the Lord forever. I will dwell consciously in God forever. I will remind myself day by day, day by day that I live and move and have my being in God, not in a human world. I will remind myself every day that the laws of the so called world are not binding upon me because they are not power. God, Spirit, alone is power.

Whatever it is of a human nature, temporal, finite, is not power, whether it’s voiced by materia medica, whether it’s voiced by theology, whether it’s voiced by astrology; whoever, wherever, whenever a material law is voiced, it is not power since God in the midst of me is the only power. God in the midst of me is mightier than many waters. God in the midst of me is my very soul and being, my support, my law, and my lawgiver. Spirit, Spirit, Spirit alone, and only Spirit is power, and only Spirit is presence.

So, as we go about in that conscious, constant realization and begin to know that this same thing … you see, we pray for our enemies too. As we walk around the streets shopping, marketing, office, business, we know this truth about every one we meet. The fact that they may not know it, or may not be interested in it has nothing to do with us. Whether someone wants the love of God or not is of no business of ours.

Each one has the right to their own choosing, but no one has the right to prevent me from praying, and my prayer is the realization of God government, and I wouldn’t feel safe in God’s government if it wasn’t available to every soul on earth—saint or sinner. I wouldn’t feel safe if I thought there was a law for some and not for others. It would be like believing that there is sunshine, but that only a few people can get into it. No, all that is of God is universal. All that is of God is for saint and sinner. His rain falls on the just and on the unjust. Neither do I condemn thee…. We are never under a law of punishment: past, present, or future if we accept God.

Now there is a theological law of punishment. There is a medical law of punishment. There is a material law of punishment, but once you remove yourself from that consciously, and decide that you are under grace, then you may say, “Though my sins were scarlet, I am white as snow.” The very moment that you remove yourself from the law of Moses and bring yourself unto the law of grace, you are forgiven, and you say, “Yes, but supposing I sin again tomorrow?” Well, the Master says we’ll forgive seventy times seven. Nobody has the capacity to sin seventy times seven, so you may be assured that long before the four hundred and ninetieth forgiveness comes around, you will have been purified, so if you just sin and get forgiven tomorrow, and sin, and get forgiven the next day, don’t think that you’re a hypocrite when you ask for forgiveness the third time. You’re a long way off from that four hundred and ninetieth.

So let us remember this: the moment that you accept God as your life, as your soul, as your being, that moment you can claim for yourself divine forgiveness, and should you make a mistake and slip up the next day or the next week, go right back and claim your forgiveness unto the law of four hundred and ninety, and you might keep track, if you like. You’ll find you’ll never get up to that four hundred and ninetieth. You’ll be so pure before then. As we keep turning to God, the miracle that takes place isn’t all of a sudden, instantaneous, it’s gradual, and that is why most of us have difficulties. We look on ourselves today and last month, and we say, “I don’t think I’ve made any progress,” and of course, outwardly that is perfectly true.

Inwardly however, the very moment we turn to God and maintain that turning, day-by-day, something began to happen within us, and just as planting the seed in the garden, there’s no use looking at the garden tomorrow or next week and wondering why we haven’t got peaches. It all comes in its due time. It goes through a lot of processes between the breaking up of the seed in the ground and the appearance of the fruit on the tree.

It is with us too: There is no such thing as speedy salvation. There is instantaneous healing through the work of a practitioner or a teacher, and there is sometimes the instantaneous overcoming of sin, but usually you’ll find that life transformations only come about slowly through the breaking down of our own material sense, and the building up of a spiritual sense, and that’s done with time and effort. The way is straight and narrow. Few there be that enter because few there be that will stick day-by-day, week-by-week, month-by-month in spite of no seeming outer change and yet stick right to their text, and stick right to their principle, God.