Showing results by narrator "John Marino" in All Categories

Today, I am going to talk about enthusiasm and how it makes all of life a joyous experience. Every normal person wishes to be well, happy and successful and there is nothing wrong with this. Sometimes we think that perhaps life withholds these good things from us, as though it didn't wish us to enter into the joy of living. And yet, Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

Man's three greatest needs are: to feel that he is needed, wanted and loved; to feel that he belongs to the universe in which he lives, and to have an object or objects upon which to lavish his affection. It is now known that most unhappiness comes from a sense of being rejected; of not being wanted, needed and loved. It is also known that a large percent of our physical troubles is a direct result of emotional congestions that follow in the wake of feeling that we don't belong to life.

Friends, the next voice you hear might be God's! Wouldn't it be wonderful if this were true? Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could hear the Voice of God? And perhaps we can. Perhaps we all have heard the Voice of God but haven't recognized it.

When purpose is revealed, all falls into place. The revelation of purpose gives meaning to everything, and there is a purpose in this wonderful, vast creation of God. Paul said, "He has made known unto us... the mystery of His will, according to His purpose which He set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time." [Ephesians 1:9, 10] There is a plan behind it all.

Tonight's subject is: Pre-Existence. For every child born of woman, there is a son of God in the heavens, who is his ancestral Self. He is buried in you. He is the Reality of man. The Bible speaks of this son as Jesus Christ, the true identity of every child born of woman. God became man, that man may become God.

Through the whole life and teaching of Jesus we find this gentle approach. And yet he was always just, as well as kind. He didn't say that we could be saved in our mistakes, but that we must be saved from them. He knew that to err is human, to forgive is divine.

You know the story of Good Friday. A man is in a garden. It's night time. And one called Judas comes in search of him, seemingly to betray him. He comes into the garden, and it's dark, so he asks the simple question, "Where is Jesus?" Then the voice in the dark answered, "I am he."

Shakespeare said, "There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Whether or not this immortal bard was 100 percent right in this, one thing is certain: the mind does play some very weird tricks on us, some of them so startling as almost to convince us that we are actually obsessed.

Tonight’s subject is There Is No Other God. You find this in the First Commandment in the book of Exodus, the 20th chapter. “I am the Lord your God, who have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:2), followed by the Second: “Make no image, whether on earth, the heavens, or below the sea.” (Exodus 20:4)

Recently I read a book called Vanished Parts of Yesterday by Lord Frederick Hamilton. In it he tells the story of Catherine the Great - who, when she found the first violet of spring, ordered a sentry to be placed over it to protect it from being plucked. Forgetting to rescind the order, day and night, summer and winter, a sentry stood where 150 years ago, a violet bloomed. The new generation did not know why the sentry was there and he didn't either. It was simply a tradition!

If I told you who you really are, it would shock you, for in this world you can be frightened, limited, and filled with doubt; yet I tell you that you are God himself, the very one who created and sustains the universe. When you first hear this you will no doubt resist it and believe the one who makes this statement to be insane because the idea seems impossible. But I tell you: God is in Christ reconciling the world to himself.

God started with a wish, saying; "Let us make man in our image." And we are told that we will be perfect as our father is perfect, and holy as our father is holy. Therefore, whatever God was, when his work is completed, man must be. We are told to be imitators of God as dear children, so we must discover how he became us in order to imitate him. It seems God lives as one possessed by a dream.

We have been talking about God's law and God's promise. God's law is conditional. You cannot be in one state and not suffer the consequences of not being in another state, and you and I are free to imagine any state in the world, and imagining that state we can occupy it. Occupying the state, we fertilize it; having fertilized it, it has its own appointed hour for fulfillment. Every vision has its own appointed hour it will flower; if it seems long, wait for it - it is sure and it will not be late.

Tonight's subject is Prophetic Blueprints. Now we could take it on this level, but I will not. To summarize it on this level, may I tell you: if you could conceive of an infinite might as a great computer, and if the imaginal activities of all of us -- every man, woman and child in the world -- make us free to change this activity at any moment in time, then you could predict the future for this level; for this level is the outpouring or out picturing of the imaginal activities of men, women, and children in this world.

We are told that because of an act of disobedience, man fell, thereby separating himself from God. But scripture tells us that God consigned all men to disobedience that he may have mercy upon them. So we see: the fall was a deliberate act, a plan for expansion, for greater existence, and an ultimate birth. Scholars consider the 82nd psalm as one of the most difficult of all the psalms to interpret, stating that although the idea may be perennial, its meaning has vanished.

Now, you have heard the expression time and time again: "Oh, he is reaching for the moon." It could be an ambition based upon your social desire. You want to transcend the limitation of your world where you were born. Or it could be some financial ambition, and friends who know your limitations will say of you: "He is reaching for the moon." Or it could be some tyrant trying to conquer the earth.

If you awake in a dream and know exactly who is imagining it, you can control your dream. The same thing is true in this world. Become aware that it, too, is a dream. Awake! Remember who is imagining it, and control your day. Then one day you will completely awake to find yourself in that body which is the Lord Jesus Christ, to know that everything is your imagination pushed out.

I am quite sure you are going to find this an interesting series. Tonight it is "The Law of the Identical Harvest." In the very beginning, God established the Law of the Identical Harvest. And God said, "Let the earth put forth vegetation: Plants bearing seed and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, and it was so." (Genesis 1:24)

The dream of life unfolds on this level, as well as on a higher one. On this level we see things happen and are given reasons for wars and revolutions, as well as the geological causes for the convulsions of nature. But we do not know and cannot perceive their hidden cause, for it lies in the imagination of man. All things spring, not from the ostensible causes to which they are attributed, but from that which is hidden - man's own wonderful human imagination!

We are told that when Jesus found Philip, he said, "Follow me."

Then Philip told Nathanael, "We have found him of whom Moses and the law and the prophets wrote."

Philip is one who is interested in the workings of the mind. Looking for one who is searching for the source of the phenomena of life, Jesus finds one in whom he can reveal himself.