is representative of an idea.
In the 2d chapter of Genesis this living substance is called "dust of the ground" in the Hebrew, and Adam was formed from it. We find that the elemental substance is in our body. The kingdom of the heavens or the kingdom of God is within man. It is a kingdom of substance and of Mind. This Mind interpenetrates our mind and our mind interpenetrates and pervades our body. Its substance pervades every atom of our body. Are you giving it your attention, or do you still look to outer sources for supply? Are you meditating and praying for an understanding of this omnipresent substance? If you are, it will come, and it will demonstrate prosperity for you. When it does, you are secure, for nothing can take that true prosperity from you. It is the law that does not and cannot fail to operate when once set in operation in the right way.
This law of prosperity has been proved time and time again. All men who have prospered have used the law, for there is no other way. Perhaps they were not conscious of following definite spiritual methods, yet they have in some way set the law in operation and reaped the benefit of its unfailing action. Others have had to struggle to accomplish the same things. Remember that Elijah had to keep praying and affirming for a long time before he demonstrated the rain. He sent his servant out the first time, and there was no sign of a cloud. He prayed and sent him out again and again with the same result, but at last, after repeated efforts, the servant said he saw a little cloud. Then Elijah told them to prepare for rain, and the rain came. This shows a continuity of effort that is sometimes necessary. If your prosperity does not become manifest as soon as you pray and affirm God as your substance, your supply, and your support, refuse to give up. Show your faith by keeping up the work. You have plenty of Scripture to back you up. Jesus taught it from the beginning to the end of His ministry and demonstrated it on many occasions. Many have done the same thing in His name.
Jesus called the attention of His followers to the inner realm of mind, the kingdom of God substance. He pointed out that the lilies of the field were gloriously clothed, even finer than Solomon in all his glory. We do not have to work laboriously in the outer to accomplish what the lily does so silently and beautifully. Most of us rush around trying to work out our problems for ourselves and in our own way, with one idea, one vision: the material thing we seek. We need to devote more time to silent meditation and like the lilies of the field simply be patient and grow into our demonstrations. We should remember always that these substance ideas with which we are working are eternal ideas that have always existed and will continue to exist, the same ideas that formed this planet in the first place and that sustain it now.
A great German astronomer had worked the greater part of his life with a desire to know more about the stars. One night, quite suddenly and strangely enough--for he had given but little thought to the spiritual side of things--he broke right out into a prayer of thanksgiving because of the perfect order and harmony of the heavens. His prayer was "O God, I am thinking Thy thoughts after Thee." The soul of this man had at that moment made the contact and union with infinite Mind. But though this contact seemed to be made suddenly, it was the result of long study and the preparation of his mind and thought. Jesus expressed the same at-one-ment with God at the moment of His supreme miracle, the raising of Lazarus. His words were "Father, I thank thee that thou heardest me. And I knew that thou hearest me always."
This gives us another side of the prosperity law. We open the way for great demonstrations by recognizing the Presence and praising it, by thanking the Father for Spiritual quickening. We quicken our life by affirming that we are alive with the life of Spirit; our intelligence by affirming our oneness with divine intelligence; and we quicken the indwelling, interpenetrating substance by recognizing and claiming it as our own. We should meditate in this understanding and give sincere thanks to the God of this omnipresent realm of ideas because we can think His thoughts after Him. We can thank the Father that His thoughts are our thoughts and that our natural mind is illumined by Spirit. We can illumine our mind any time by affirming this thought:
I thank Thee, Father, that I think Thy thoughts after Thee and that my understanding is illumined by Spirit.
Spiritual thoughts are infinite in their potentiality, each one being measured by the life, intelligence, and substance with which it is expressed. The thought is brought into expression and activity by the word. Every word is a thought in activity, and when spoken it goes out as a vibratory force that is registered in the all-providing substance.
The mightiest vibration is set up by speaking the name Jesus Christ. This is the name that is named "far above all rule, and authority," the name above all names, holding in itself all power in heaven and in earth. It is the name that has power to mold the universal substance. It is at one with the Father-Mother substance, and when spoken it sets forces into activity that bring results. "Whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you." "If ye shall ask anything in my name, that will I do." There could be nothing simpler, easier, or freer from conditions in demonstrating supply. "Hitherto [before the name Jesus Christ was given to the world] have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be made full."
The sayings of Jesus were of tremendous power because of His consciousness of God. They raised the God ideal far above what had ever before been conceived. These ideas so far transcended the thought plane of the people that even some of the disciples of Jesus would not accept them, and they "walked no more with him." Until fairly recent times most men have failed to grasp the lesson of the power of the spoken word expressing spiritual ideas. Jesus has never been taken literally, else men would have sought to overcome death by keeping His sayings. Few have taken His words in full faith, not only believing them but so saturating their minds with them that they become flesh of their flesh and bone of their bone, being incarnated in their very bodies, as Jesus intended.
The secret of demonstration is to conceive what is true in Being and to carry out the concept in thought, word, and act. If I can conceive a truth, there must be a way by which I can make that truth apparent. If I can conceive of an inexhaustible supply existing in the omnipresent ethers, then there is a way by which I can make that supply manifest. Once your mind accepts this as an axiomatic truth it has arrived at the place where the question of processes begins to be considered.
No one ever fully sees the steps that he must take in reaching a certain end. He may see in a general way that he must proceed from one point to another, but all the details are not definite unless he has gone over the same ground before. So in the demonstration of spiritual powers as they are expressed through man, we must be willing to follow the directions of someone who has proved his understanding of the law by his demonstrations.
We all know intuitively that there is something wrong in a world where poverty prevails and we would not knowingly create a world in which a condition of poverty exists. Lack of any kind is not possible in all God's universe. So when there is an appearance of poverty anywhere, it is our duty to deny it. Sorrow and suffering accompany poverty, and we wish to see them all blotted out. This desire is an index pointing the way to their disappearance. As the consciousness of the kingdom of heaven with its abundant life and substance becomes more and more common among men, these negative conditions will fade out of seeming existence.
Jesus said that all things should be added to those who seek the kingdom of heaven. We do not have to wait until we have fully entered the kingdom or attained a complete understanding of Spirit before prosperity begins to be manifest, but we do have to seek, to turn the attention in that direction. Then things begin to be added unto us. Thousands of people are proving the law in this age. They accept the promise of the Scriptures and are looking to God to supply their every need. In the beginning of their seeking they may have little to encourage them to believe that they will be provided for or helped along any particular line. But they carry out the command to seek and in faith act just as though they were receiving, and gradually there opens up to them new ways of making a living. Sometimes avenues are opened to them to which they are strangers, but they find pleasant experience and are encouraged to continue seeking the kingdom of God and rejoicing in its ever increasing bounty.
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