Original Iwihub.com transcript by Hilda and proofread by Linda

 pdf        504b-love-expressed

Love Expressed
By Joel S. Goldsmith
1962 Capetown Class
Tape 504b

 

Now you can begin to see why if you have some other metaphysical background that making the transition to the Infinite Way is not easy. It is not easy because now you’re going to have to reverse yourself. It isn’t the truth that you know that’s going to make you free, so much as the truth that you let God know in you. It’s not so much the truth that you declare, it’s the truth that you begin to hear in your ear. And so it is, it is not so much what you are going to get and that’s where metaphysics seems to have got stuck; on the demonstration of getting something, but the real secret is when you begin to understand that the secret of supply is not getting something, but letting it flow out from you, whether you tithe with money or whether you tithe with time, effort or service to somebody. Whether you tithe with forgiveness in some way, or rather you have to tithe because that is the only way you get your supply.

Now, the Master made some statements that I suppose centuries ago shocked the world because they crucified him! They don’t shock the world today because nobody repeats them anymore. But he did say this: “It profiteth nothing to pray for your friends, you must pray for your enemies if you would be children of God.” Well, many times I tried to find out how churches stayed open during the war so that we can go in everyday to pray for the enemy, but I haven’t come to one yet! Yet, there it is in plain English in all of the Bibles, “it profiteth you nothing to pray for your friend, you must pray for your enemies if you would be children of God.”

You must pray for those who persecute you. You must pray for those who despitefully use you. Well, I know as well as you do how hard that is. Believe me, I know some people that I wish God would let me out of having to do that about, but he doesn’t let me off any more than he is going to let you off. It’s very clear in scripture that if you cannot pray for your enemy, pray that they be forgiven their sins, pray their eyes be open to the spiritual light, pray that they be divinely guided, pray that they be relieved of even the penalties of their sins; unless you can pray this way, you’re not entering the spiritual life at all, you’re still trying to add to your human hood and just make it a little bit better or a little more prosperous.

Whereas, if you would enter the spiritual life and be a child of God, an heir of God; joint heir, you have to sit down and find a way every single day to pray for those who are persecuting this world. Pray for those who are despitefully using this world. Pray for those who are misusing their power. You’ve got to do it because the only hope that their nature will change is through our prayer. Their nature isn’t going to change by our hating them. It’s going to make them worse. Their nature isn’t going to change by fighting them. It’s going to make them worse. The only way their nature is going to change is if we pray for them.

You can prove this in your own home. If you have an obstreperous child or if you have an obstreperous cat or dog, try praying for them until you’ve changed their nature and then you will see that the only way you can change their nature is by praying for them and stopping the criticism and condemnation of them; the judgement of them, the calling them bad and begin to see the innate nature of you is the same as the innate nature of me.

God made a tree the same as God made me. It’s the same life that flows in the tree that flows in me. It’s the same life that flows in my enemy that flows in my friend. It’s the same life. It’s the same mind, it’s the same soul in the heart of a dictator. The only thing is, at the moment it’s in a man and at the moment it’s in self-defense in fighting the world and the only hope of change is if you can bring about a change in consciousness. The only way you can do that is to love your enemy.

Oh! Isn’t that hard? Love your enemy. Love them and pray for them and forgive them. And then see how we change their nature. Well, I don’t like to bring it down to personalities but I will say that I have seen these changes right in homes between husbands and wives and parents and children the minute that instead of living like human beings and finding fault with each other, even though the fault may be justly due, but instead of that, trying to pray for them, forgive them, begin to perceive the spiritual nature that lies buried under that harsh exterior and then watch the change of consciousness that takes place. And then you’ll see that it will work in your home. It will work among your animals. It will work among your farm products. And it will not be long until you see that it begins to work in our communities, our states and our nations and our international affairs.

Each one of us has a right in praying for wisdom to vote, to vote in accordance with what seems to us to be the highest and nearest right. That is one of the blessings of the ballot. That at least we do have the right to pray for guidance and then to go out and vote according to our conviction. But in your prayers, you don’t have that right. In your prayers and in your treatments, you do not have the right to judge which one is right, and which one is wrong, and which one is best and which isn’t.

When it comes to your prayer and your treatment, it has to be along this line: God constitutes the mind of man. God constitutes the life of man. God constitutes the soul of man, and there is no right or wrong in man. There is only God in man. And then you will find, not only that you will be led, probably to make the best choice in your balloting, but what’s far more important than that, it really won’t make any difference who is elected. The prayer is going to bring out the spiritually best in whoever it is that is elected.