When you hear the word ‘prosperity’ what comes to mind first? For most, ‘money’ is the first thought. While prosperity includes money, it is so much more. Over the next few weeks, we will explore this important topic. In what follows, I share quotes about prosperity from some of the leading voices in Unity. I also share some of my reflections on their ideas.
Minister, teacher and author, Edwene Gaines, in her book The Four Spiritual Laws of Prosperity, defines true prosperity as:
- A vitally alive physical body to provide a comfortable worldly home for the spiritual beings that we are
- Relationships that are satisfying, nurturing, honest, and work all the time
- Work that we love so much that it’s not work, it’s play
- And all the money we can spend
In his book, Spiritual Economics, author and Minister Eric Butterworth says,
“Considered in the broadest sense, prosperity is “spiritual well-being.” This involves the whole experience of healing life, satisfying love, abiding peace and harmony, as well as a sufficiency of what Aristotle called the “furniture of fortune.”
Isn’t that the life experience that we would all choose to live? The good news is that it is the life experience we can all choose! Because it is the Life that we already are. We choose it by thinking, feeling and acting in alignment with it. Prosperity is our natural state of being. If we are not experiencing it, we are placing ourselves outside of the natural flow of the Divine Life Energy of God.
“Jesus stressed the idea that God has made abundant provision for all His children, even to the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. The Lord has clothed you with soul substance as gloriously as He did Solomon...If you are persistent in working this idea in your conscious mind, it will eventually drop down into your subconscious mind and continue to work there where things take form and become manifest. Invisible substance, when your subconsciousness becomes filled with it to the overflowing point, will ooze out, as it were, into all your affairs.”
We come together in classes, workshops, and at Sunday morning services to strengthen ourselves and each other in the consciousness of God, the all-providing Source. We devote time and energy to renewing our minds with Truth through prayer and meditation. We commit to establishing a prosperity consciousness which, when strengthened, enables us to demonstrate the evidence of our natural state of prosperity in every area of our lives.
Fillmore further says,
“The law of supply is a divine law. It is a law of mind and must work through mind. God will not go to the store and bring food to your table, but when you continue to think about God as your real supply, everything in your mind begins to awaken and to contact the divine substance, and as you mold it in your consciousness, ideas begin to come which will connect you with the visible manifestation.”
Simple, huh? All we have to do is keep our minds stayed on God and manifestation will occur. It is a simple concept, but it is not always easy. That is why it is important that we develop a spiritual practice that builds the consciousness of God and fills our minds with divine substance.
Fillmore encourages us to,
“Think prosperity, talk prosperity, not in general but in specific terms, deny every appearance of failure, affirm supply, support, and success in the very face of question and doubt, then give thanks for plenty in all our affairs, knowing for certain that our good is now being fulfilled in Spirit, in mind and in manifestation.”
We can begin today to develop this as our daily spiritual practice. We can make the commitment to ourselves to be aware of what we say – not just what we speak aloud, but what we say in the quiet of our own minds. After all, it is in our own minds that manifestation begins!
Join Trish Morris, LUT and me for an 8-week exploration of the book, Spiritual Economics, by Eric Butterworth. We will meet on Zoom Tuesday evenings 6:30 – 8:00, January 11 through March 1. You may register here.
Brightest Blessings Rev. Howard, One of the first thing I was lead to understand when I started this spiritual journey was that prosperity was to first be sought within, that without an abundance of spiritual wealth monetary wealth would still have an emptiness. So it is very relieving for You to bring this message, it affirms, for Me, that building spiritual wealth was not selling Myself out and did not make Me niave to the way the world works. A spiritual journey is not a worldly journey although We are in the world. Jesus taught to be in the world not of the world and for Me that includes prosperity, meaning there is a need for money because it a source to obtain earthly needs yet money should not be more important than our spiritual nature. Like You said, a simple concept but not an easy one.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately I will not be able to join the book discussion because of current living arrangements.
With Love & Light