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FEEL DEEPLY
What you feel deeply is far more important than what you are thinking. You may think about doing something for a long time and never do it, but when you feel something deeply you are spurred to act – and God acts! He who is the cause of all life acts through the sense of feeling. You can think of a thousand things, yet not be moved to act upon one of them. A deep conviction – felt, is far more important than anything you could ever think.
Let us turn to the first chapter of the epistle of James. “Ask in faith with no doubting, for he who doubts is like the wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. Let not that person believe that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, shall receive anything from the Lord. But be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourself. For if you are a hearer only and not a doer, you are like a man who observes his natural face in the mirror and then goes his way, forgetting what he is like. But if you are a doer of the word and not just a forgetful hearer, you will look into the perfect law of liberty, and persevere. That man shall be blessed in all his doings.”
How do you go about being a doer in place of a hearer only? By acting in faith. Scripture‟s central character, called Jesus, set no limit upon the love of God and the power of faith. In fact all of his great deeds were prefaced with the words: “According to your faith.” Now, faith encompasses feeling. If you have faith you will act, and if you act God in you is acting, for God is your own wonderful human imagination whose eternal name is I AM. He acts only when you feel it. This is true even in the most practical way.
If I tell you what I would like to be and you tell me to go my way, as I am already it – and for one fleeting moment I see the world as I would see it if it were true, then turn and walk away, forgetting what the world looked like only a moment before – I am a forgetful hearer. But if I am a doer of the word and not a hearer only, I persevere; or – as the word is translated in the King James Version – I “continue in” the state, for all things are possible to the power of the word.
Look in a mirror and you will see your face reflected there, but you have another mirror which you can look into. That is the mirror of your friends; if they heard your good news, their faces would reflect it would they not? Assume your desire is now a fact. Feel its substance and reality. Then let your friends see you in that state. They are your living mirror.
Now persevere in that state and do not turn away and quickly forget what you are like. Walk through this door tonight in the assumption that you are the man (or woman) you want to be. It doesn‟t make any difference if the outside denies it; you have seen the expression on the faces of your friends and heard their congratulations on the inside, with faith. Now, carry this feeling into the deep and persevere. Conjure a living mirror of friends and acquaintances who have heard your good news and accepted it as permanent. See your face reflected in theirs. If they love you, you will see empathy. They will be rejoicing because of your good fortune. Now, persevere in that awareness and do not forget what you have seen in your living mirror. If you do, you will be blessed in the doing, as you are told in the first chapter of the Book of Psalms: “Blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord; the perfect law of liberty, for in all that he does, he prospers.”
Were you not liberated from your past when you saw your friend‟s faces reflecting what you wanted them to see? If you had left the state of poverty, sickness, or weakness behind and moved into the state of wealth, health, or strength – and your friends knew it – you would be set free from your former limitation. So, looking into the perfect law of liberty and persevering, you are blessed in all that you do.
I tell you from personal experience that this works, but we are the operant power. It does not operate itself. You may have heard this law by the hearing of the ear and read of it in a book, but do you know that the law works from experience? Have you put it to the test? Have you proved it? If you have, then you can speak with an authority, which was not yours prior to the proving. May I tell you: through the use of this law you are completely set free.
I have been in many places where I was forced to test this principle. While on the little island of Barbados, which had only two small ships servicing it as well as the hundreds of islands nearby, I made a commitment to give a series of lectures in Milwaukee on the first of May. When I called, the shipping agent informed me that due to the fact that the ship sailing out of New York City carried only sixty passengers and the one from Boston carried only one hundred, that there was no passage available before the first of September. He promised to put my name on the waiting list, but gave me no encouragement as the list was very long.
I hung up the phone and sat in my chair in the hotel room, closed my eyes and assumed I was aboard a ship heading toward New York City. I assumed eight or ten of my family were coming aboard with me, and that my brother Victor was carrying my little girl. I could feel the motion of the plank. Having no stateroom committed, I remained on deck and placed my mental hands on the rail and felt the salt of the sea there. Then I looked back nostalgically at the little island. I repeated that action over and over again, feeling every step I made on that gangplank. I felt the rail and smelled the salt of the sea. I did everything that feeling could be brought to bear upon, and when my actions seemed natural, I broke it.
The very next day I received confirmation that I would be sailing on a ship which would land in New York City one week before my commitment in Milwaukee, which I did. When I asked the agent how I obtained the tickets, he said they had a cancellation in New York and the one person he had called on the waiting list felt that the timing was inconvenient; so – knowing he could accommodate my wife, our little daughter and myself in one cabin – he let us in. I never heard why someone canceled in New York or why the one he called in Barbados could not take the ship at that time, or why the agent did not call all the others on the waiting list. I only know that I got the reservation I had imagined.
I have told this story before, and someone in the audience once said; “Was that a Christian thing to do? You might have caused someone to cancel their trip.” But I tell you, as I told her: it was the only Christian thing to do, for I used the Christian principle of fulfilling God‟s law.
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