Good Morning and welcome to Dr Ing’s Sunday Soul Connection,
As always, I’d like to applaud you for taking the next 45 minutes or so out of your busy Sunday as we conscious choose to come into communion and connection with the Ground of Being God in us as us.
This Sunday I kind of want to continue on from the Easter story; and so I’m going to kick off with a story which is from the Bible, John 20: 19 to 31
Story
John 20:19-31
20:19 When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."
20:20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
20:21 Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you."
20:22 When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit.
20:23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
20:24 But Thomas (who was called the Twin), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came.
20:25 So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe."
20:26 A week later his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were shut, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you."
20:27 Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe."
20:28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!"
20:29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe."
20:30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book.
20:31 But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.
So there's kind of three parts I want to share to that story and break it down. As always we like to look at the metaphysical and then I'll jump into the sacred text behind it.
So we know when we studied the 12 faculties of man, the 12 powers that are represented by the 12 disciples, that Thomas represents understanding. But he's understanding that can be both that which is discerning and the understanding that is based on knowledge and sometimes unable to comprehend.
The true power of understanding is that its ability to discern and comprehend and on its deepest level, it really is about spiritual understanding and the thing that we need to we need to understand about this reading this morning, is that here is a faculty and important faculty that when it is filled with fear, mistrust, understanding in the spiritual deepest sense, is no longer uppermost, and is no longer current, is no longer capable we can see that understanding when filled with fear is doubtful, is mistrusting, is unable to accept.
Let's bear in mind, Thomas is one of the 12 one that was chosen. He travelled with Jesus for the three years that Jesus was doing and practising his ministry. So he saw Jesus not only raised Lazarus from the dead, but Jairus’ daughter from the dead.
He saw Jesus feed the 5000, he saw Jesus when on the Sea of Galilee say to the wind and the wave “Peace be still”.
He saw all of these things, and yet he did not have the spiritual understanding, to believe an accept.
Now remember that is the Last Supper, Jesus washed all of their feet, because he said it it was important that He do this and we know that feet is the representation of, again, gaining understanding it’s what you stand upon what you stand for.
So he was removing any doubts and fears and worries from them when he was washing their feet and yet, as he predicted, they were all going to scatter and be fearful.
Here, He, presented himself. This is the second part that I want to talk about. We know that the disciples were holed up in a room in Jerusalem and Jerusalem is a representation of the consciousness of peace. But peace was far from them, because they were hiding from the Jews, from the Sanhedrin, from the Pharisees, from the people that had crucified Jesus.
They were the very ones that they were afraid of and so we're hiding in this room and the first thing that Jesus says to them, upon entering into that space, “peace, be with you”.
It's important that we understand that declaration, because we cannot experience understanding, we cannot experience wisdom, we cannot experience anything from God when we are displaced and frazzled and discombobulated with what's going on around us.
So his immediate work, His instructions, his declaration, is affirmation that his disciples was to state for them what they needed, which was peace, peace; so that they could be and receive that which he was sharing with them, that which he wanted them to know.
He had foretold everything that was about to happen, before it happened and it happened, as he said, and yet they were confused and yet they were distressed and distraught, and yet they were fearful.
The third thing that I want to point out is that the overriding thing that is necessary to experience peace and understanding and everything else that goes with this, is a level of faith. When we have faith!
When we have Faith as Jesus said, as a mustard seed and do not doubt, all things are possible. You see when the Bible says it is impossible to please God without faith, it's not because God is someone whimsical, capricious, old man in the sky. It is because faith is the number one key, to control, to master to be able to express and experience, the Power, the Presence, the Life that is in you, that is God.
It's impossible to please God, because it is through our faith that we can acknowledge God, it is through our faith we can express God it is so our faith we can experience God. So the pleasing isn't about somehow making God feel worthy or satisfied. The pleasing God is our way of accessing the divine.
It's our way of accessing and utilising the Presence and the Power.As the disciples were huddled in this room, faith were far from them. They'd already been emboldened to go out and heal Jesus had sent them out before he told them, You can do this. But when our faith is shook, as the disciples faith was shook after His crucifixion, understanding went out the window, peace went out the window, belief went out the window, everything had gone out the window.
Sacred Text
Acts 1:8 says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This power that comes from the Holy Spirit allows you to stand strong for the things of God.
I love that last line. “The power of the Holy Spirit allows you to stand strong for the things of God” and that's definitely something we will be looking at in the weeks to come. What are the things of God, but we know give me we know from our story, that Jesus breathed upon them, for them to receive the Holy Spirit.
I believe that the Holy Spirit was there from the get go. Because there's nowhere, where the spirit is not. But what Jesus was doing was quickening, that awakening in them, the realisation that just as He was one with the Father, so were they one with the Father. Just as He could do these things, so that they could do these things. He says, You are going to have this power so that you will stand strong in things of God. The things of God that is peace, that is faith, that is understanding, that is wisdom that is life.
It seems that we too, like the disciples, when things are going right in our life stand strong in our faith. We can stand strong in the things of God. We have our understanding, we have our faith. We have our peace, we have our faculties that are firing on all cylinders; and yes, it's easy when things are going right to be bold and brave and strong in God. But that's not when we need the faculties the most. We need our faculties the most, we need our powers, we need these representations of Spirit, when things are at their hardest and things are at their most challenging when things are at their most desperate.
That's when we need to quicken faculties. Let's see now, Thomas always been known as Doubting Thomas. Because he made that stipulation that irrespective of what his colleagues, friends and fellow disciples had shared with him that they had seen Jesus. He was adamant that unless he could see the nails in his hands for himself or see where he was stabbed at his side he wasn't accepting, he wasn't believing; and Jesus said, Blessed are those who could believe without seeing. You see, blessed are we when we trust and believe in His words that are same and true yesterday, today world without end.
He demonstrated, He lived and expressed for us so that we can understand so that we too, can realise the Spirit of God within us as the Christ consciousness to be awakened and quickened and invigorated by it. I love the text that I shared yesterday from Joyce Meyers that “faith means you have peace, even when you don't have the answers”.
You see the story and our sacred texts this morning is coming back to this realisation and remembrance that if nothing else,
if we can strengthen, embolden, enlarge and expand our faith everything else falls into place. We don't need to know the answers, because the Bible says that “we walk by faith and not by sight”.
We don't need to know what it's going to look like at the end. We don't need to know how we're going to get there. We don't need to know how it's going to happen. We don't need the answers, but we do need faith to know that there is a God, there is a Presence, there is a Power that knows the answers for you and for your life.
What we need to do, is to surrender and trust and have faith in that Presence that Power, that Life-Force that is unchanging and unchangeable, so It can express through us, far us, what it needs for us to experience.
If we've been hiding out like the disciples, from fear of whatever is ongoing in our lives, for fear of, not enough-ness, or whatever it is and it’ll be different for each one of us; we need to recognise the Christ right where we are. We need to come back to the remembrance of all of the teachings, of all of the truths, of all of the commandments.
Poem
My poem this morning, something I hadn't shared from a long time from Ted Loeder’s Guerrillas of Grace.
It's all moments when our spirituality, our spiritual practice our spiritual truth goes out the window. When in the moments whatever it is that is causing us distress brings up the most most in consciousness. I shared to my women's group on Friday that the spiritual journey the spiritual path is one where we are consciously having to practice not just on a daily basis but on a moment to moment basis, these truths that were taught many 1000s of years ago, that is still applicable now. Each and every one of our lives. As I often say that spiritual journey is not for the faint hearted because it does require that we change it requires that we effort it requires that we have a spiritual practice that keeps this highlighted, anchored in the truth that is unchanging that we allow our Thomas back of understanding our determined power to operate and fire on all cylinders, cylinders. We require our faith faculties to be uppermost and consciously in effect, or whatever it is we are facing. We have to embrace and express our faith in every condition or circumstance we find ourselves in and if you do not or are not able to rally your face, that address you must be able to affirm that God did not give you the spirit of fear but the power of love another sound mind find an affirmation for me it's always always it's usually a Bible quote. That's been corrected me and bring me back to the remembrance of the truth that is unchanging the truth that is the same yesterday, today well without the truth that Jesus said once you know that you might be loved. The Universe requires us not to be like that in the universe requires us to embolden our faith that we can experience the peace that possible human understanding. Peace that doesn't crumble when things do not seem to be going our way or as we would like it. Was we planned or wished or desired or envision. If you haven't already, I invite you to close your eyes.
Science of Mind Reading
SUNDAY SOUL CONNECTION PRAYER
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BODY MEDITATION
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BUDDHIST REFLECTION
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MOVEMENT PRAYER 4
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Rumination
“But listen to me. For one moment quit being sad. Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you.”Rumi
Benediction
May God unearth the unsettled and unhealed places in your life so He can heal renew and restore you.
May he reveal a fresh revelation of His love and a new assurance of His grace.
May he pour the oil of joy and gladness over your head.
May he give you pools of blessing to splash your feet in.
May his unfathomable greatness bring a fresh mystery to your powers and perspectives.
And today, throughout the day, may you look up above your circumstances, and remember that you’re somebody that God loves
Treasures, equips and calls.
He will make a way, where there’s been no way.
Trust him and choose Joy choose faith choose peace choose understanding.
Song: All things New by Big Daddy Weave