You are being led forth. You have crossed the Red Sea. Your wilderness wanderings are nearly over. Behold I make all things new.
A new birth, a new heart, a new life, a new song.
Let this time be to you a time of renewal.
Cast away all that is dead. Truly live the Risen Life. In mind and spirit turn out all that offends.
Yield to My demands.
Obey My Will, that is God’s Will, for My MEAT was ever to do the Will of Him that sent Me. Obeying that Will, making it yours, all you will must be granted.
That Will is creative, secures perfect achievement, and, being of God (One and indivisible), secures all that is of God — Love, Peace, Joy, Power, in the measure that one of His creatures can absorb them.
It is not in the crowd that lovers learn to know and cherish each other. Is in the quiet times alone.
So with My own and Me. It is in the tender alone-times that they learn all that I can be to each.
Shut out the world with its all too-insistent claims. Then, because of the power and the peace and the joy that come to you, you will crave to be alone with Me.
“Whom do men say that I am?” That is the first question I put to each man. My Claim, and the world’s interpretation of My Mission and its culmination must be a matter of consideration.
Then comes My second question, and upon the answer to this depends the man’s whole future. Here we have left the realm of the mind. Conviction must be of the heart. “Whom do you say that I am?”
“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God,” was Simon’s answer. Then, and not till then, was it possible, without infringement of man’s right of Free Will, to add to that profession of faith, the confirmation of My Father, “This is My Beloved Son.”
I had lived My Life naturally, as a man among men. But always with the Longing that those I had chosen might have the eyes to see, the faith to penetrate the Mystery of Incarnation, and to see Me, the God revealed.
The faith of a personal conviction is always cemented by the assurance of My Father. It is that which makes the faith of My true followers so unshakable.
In performing the simple duty, and in the restraint you achieve in doing it, and not in the feverish looking for the answer to your prayer for the big thing — maybe you learn the one thing needful before I entrust you with what you desire.
With Me, and in obedience to My Will, you have now become suited for that answer.
These are learning-times, rather than testing-times.
When you long for your prayer to be answered, when your need is great and you ask great things, then your way is so clear.
Take the next simple duty that lies to your hand and seek to do that thoroughly . . . and so with the next.
As you do it, remember My Promise.
Be faithful in that which is least, and I will make thee ruler over many things.
This has ever been My command to you. Love and Laugh. There is a quality about true Love to which laughter is attune.
The Love that does not pulse with joy (of which laughter is the outward sign) is but solicitude. The Joy of Heaven is consciousness of God’s Love.
It was that Love that brought Me to your world.
Consciousness of that Love called forth your joy. Study My Words in the Upper Room — “Loved of My Father”; “I will love him”; “That your Joy might be full.”
He that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life everlasting, that both he that reapeth and he that soweth may rejoice together.
Do you not see that if you are careless about the reaping you have prevented the harvest-joy of the sower?
If by your life and character you do not reap to the full that which they have sown, you are robbing them of the well-earned fruit of their labors.
Further learn this lesson. There are many of My workers and servants in different spheres of the activity to whom you owe the seed of word or example or loving help that has influenced you.
It is a sacred trust. Use it fully.
True religion is that which binds the soul to God, and supplicatory prayer binds the soul less than any other form of approach.
It is necessary, how necessary, but how often it can fail to bind truly. Meditation and Communion are of infinitely more value.
Meditation is man’s line thrown out. It links the soul to God. Communion is God’s line thrown out. It draws and unites the soul to Him.
Treat all as those about whom I care.
You would visit the poor, the sick or those in prison, knowing full well I would see it as done unto Me.
I want you now to go still further along the way of my Kingdom. You contact many who are not poor, not sick, not in prison.
They may be opposed to you. They may disregard much that you consider of value, they may not seem to need your help. Can you treat these, too, as you would wish to treat Me? They may be in need greater than the others you long to aid.
To you their aims may seem unworthy, their self-seeking may antagonize you. When I said, “Judge not,” was I not including them too?
Can you limit My words to suit your own inclinations?
This is not an easy task I set you, but your way is the Way of Obedience. I did not suggest to My followers one they could take or not as they willed. My “Judge not” was imperative, and a new commandment I gave unto them that they should love.
For those who do not yet name Me Lord, Love is the only magnet that will draw them to Me.
Be true, be strong, be loving.
