From the Book of Malachi, it
states "Put me to the test and see if I do not open the floodgates of
heaven for you and pour out an abundant blessing for you." Begin to live
as if this promise were true. Talk, think, and act as though there were a
limitless power attending you on your journey through life and there will be.
You must first respond to God for God to respond to you.
– Ernest Holmes 1926 Science
of Mind
The traditional promise of
prosperity in the Judeo-Christion tradition, which heavily influenced early Islam,
was a covenant between God and humanity that humanity would believe that God
was the sole provider of all we required and would give that providence in
lavish measure if humanity would believe and act as if the promise was real. In
other words to fulfill the human side of the agreement, we had to accept the gift
and use everything available to us for our good and the common good.
By the time of Malachi, this
agreement had long since fallen by the wayside among most of the people and as
a result, the people fell upon hard times. They had suffered persecution, uprooting,
and dispersion by foreign powers and they had ill-used each other in many ways.
The voice of Malachi brought again the promise of God to the people that if
they became free and generous in their acceptance and use of God’s gracious
gifts, God would multiply them until all of the storehouses overflowed with
wealth of goods.
The promise holds true today and
we draw to us our promised prosperity when we keep our end of the agreement.
That is, we put God or Spirit first in all of our doing from waking to
sleeping, even to declaring that our most wonderful dreams and highest
aspirations continue to receive support even as we sleep. We may sleep but
there is always someone awake and working. We simply affirm and accept that all
things and all people work together for the all-good for everyone. We may even
declare and receive personal results by affirming that while we sleep all
eventualities assure us of our own perfect prosperity. “Let me sleep on it.” is
a valid claim to divine guidance as we get out of our own way; and trusting in
the promise assures better sleep.
In modern traditions, ministers
use the statement by Malachi as evidence of the importance of tithing to their
particular brand of religion but tithing, the contribution of ten percent of
gross income for an individual, is really the generous gift we make to our
personal font of spiritual wisdom, which may well be a church, temple, mosque,
or synagogue. The key is that we give to support our spiritual input and to
share the blessings of that spiritual reality with others.
Neither the act of giving nor the
amount have a magical or mystical significance unless we assign one to them but
the free and generous act of giving of an amount that is significant to us is
our affirmation in action that we keep our agreement and God keeps God’s
agreement, and that we prosper in the process.
I now covenant with Spirit for my
supply of all aspects of prosperity. I let God heal me, guide me in my work,
fill me with love, and ensure that I am free to enjoy all of the blessings of
life. I affirm my covenant by living large and free and giving freely all that
I feel good about giving. As my giving grows, my prosperity grows as well. I am
grateful for all I am, have, and receive. And, so it is.
John
John Lusk
“First
you ask definitely for direction, then it will enter your consciousness as a
definite thought; then in your turn you give it back the thought and it will
give you back the thing. It answers every question, solves every problem; it is
the solution to every difficulty.” Ernest Holmes
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