Good Morning and welcome Dr Ing’s Sunday soul connection. As always, we like to begin our time together by setting the intention with Naturally 7 and Let it be.
I applaud you for taking the next 45 minutes or so out of your busy Sunday to to consciously choose to deepen in communion with the Ground of Being God in you as you and we conclude our series, the deeper themes of God.
Today as we dive deeper from the inspiration of our original texts, which reminded us that it was “the Spirit that searches all things. Yes, the deepest things of God” and so we started to examine what were the deepest things of God that only His Spirit could reveal to us.
Well, we were all familiar with the themes but I think as we dive down deeper we've got an even more clearer understanding. We started by looking at love, the adoration of God, that God has for all of us each and every one of us without exception whether we think we are lovable or unlovable.
Followed by light, the Light of God which illuminates our consciousness, so that we can have a deeper awareness and understanding; followed by the word of God, the wisdom with which we co create.
Today we are ending with the Grace of God; that which I believe, as we allow in our lives, can transformed our lives. I think it's very hard sometimes to shift away from the theological, and even that of the dictionary definition of God, which is “unmerited and undeserved”. According to Webster’s dictionary, “it’s granted to humans for the regeneration and sanctification.“
People like to talk about grace as if it's something that we are undeserving of, and that it's the opposite of karma, which is about getting what you deserve, your comeuppance whereas grace is according to theology, is about getting what you don't deserve and not getting what you do.
God's benevolence towards us, is irrespective of who are deserving or undeserving. It's because God is so generous and loves us so much, that even though we may think we are just so lowly.
I would like to shift to shift that limited and lowly understanding of what God's grace is and how it is we receive it. To do that, we need to look a bit deeper as to the metaphysical meaning as we always like to do how you see the grace of God is something that is a part of the law. When you read the Old Testament you will constantly see the word the Lord and the reference to the Lord as Jehovah. But if we were to exchange those words, and replace it with the Law, we start to see a different connotation about what it is telling us.
We are all familiar with the law of cause and effect. I don't think there's anyone here that is unfamiliar with that terminology. The idea that we are formulating our experiences by the thoughts, the beliefs, the words that we hold, and we manifest as the effect according to the level of faith and where we are in consciousness.
We manifest the effect of whatever the thoughts and beliefs and words were. But the truth is, whilst we are under that law, and it is only a part of the law, God's Grace, is beyond what we are able to think believe and speak for ourselves for our lives. God's grace, totally overrides that.
You see, God's grace is beyond the idea of if we pray hard, if we believe hard, if we whatever it is, you want to think or speak for yourself.
It's beyond all of that. It's an expansion of consciousness when we understand that God's grace is beyond cause and effect. It's that level of consciousness with which God works in and it doesn't mean we don't have to watch our thoughts or words or our beliefs, or we don't pray anymore.
But it's an acceptance that we do, as we surrender and let go and trust God's Grace, because God's Grace is bigger, more than and more comprehensive than anything we can conceive of.
When we are able to move beyond that idea, that we're only going to receive God's Grace if we're worthy, even though we think we're not then, we can move away from that limited theological concept of God's Grace that comes to us unmerited. When we can move beyond that belief that somehow It’s a whimsical thing.
We need to understand that God's Grace is greater than the law of cause and effect. God's grace is far superior to anything we can conceive and believe. Yes, as we continue to do that we do not allow the idea that God's Grace somehow, maybe, it might come to us if we're deserving.
I'm going to give several sacred texts this morning because I want us to look and understand the teaching that Jesus was clearly demonstrating about God's grace. And I'm going to start off with the parable of the workers in the vineyard.
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard - Mathew 20: 1-16
20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2 He agreed to pay them a denarius[a] for the day and sent them into his vineyard.
3 “About nine in the morning he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. 4 He told them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.’ 5 So they went.
“He went out again about noon and about three in the afternoon and did the same thing. 6 About five in the afternoon he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, ‘Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?’
7 “‘Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.
“He said to them, ‘You also go and work in my vineyard.’
8 “When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.’
9 “The workers who were hired about five in the afternoon came and each received a denarius. 10 So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 12 ‘These who were hired last worked only one hour,’ they said, ‘and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.’
13 “But he answered one of them, ‘I am not being unfair to you, friend. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? 14 Take your pay and go. I want to give the one who was hired last the same as I gave you. 15 Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
16 “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”
First of all, the householder, or the Lord of the Vineyard represents, of course, the law. The law of our highest good. The law of our being. Jehovah of the Old Testament. God indwelling Christ in the New Testament.
The Vineyard is our consciousness and the life we are living, they are one.
“Now the labourers in the Vineyard represent our thoughts, our feelings, our words, and our prayers, which we go to work in consciousness to produce the fruit of the Vineyard. The fruits of consciousness.
The wages paid to the labourers represent the results that we get according to our thoughts, feelings, and prayers, and words. Words and prayers could be synonymous. In another words the wages paid to the labourers represented the answers to our prayers.
Now the first group of labours go to work after making an agreement for a penny. They were depending upon their agreement rather than their Lord’s judgment as to what what was right. Or what he willed to give them. They did not trust at that. Instead, they trusted their agreement which was for a penny. They laboured all day and they got exactly what they had agreed to. There was no cheating, there was no turning away from the agreement, it was paid. But they were not satisfied.
This represents, folks, these thoughts and feelings and these prayers which we utter or except which are depending upon the law of cause and effect. In other words, praying for something specific because this is what I think I want. Be it a car, husband job etc - you can receive it but it may not satisfy
So I make an agreement with my lord for what it is I want
I’ll get it. But it won’t to satisfy me. It won’t. It can’t. Because it is a thing and things never truly satisfy. I can even get a healing that way.
Well, we all know what this is. This is when we go into a prayer under an agreement. Trusting the law of cause and effect, I wanted, I affirm it, I keep the picture in my mind, yes, I will get the form that I have a great two. But it won’t satisfy me. This is the bread which does not satisfy. And the water that one drinks then thirsts again. Jesus talked about it many times.
But now we have something else shown us in the story. Here we have a group of labourers who do not bind their selves to an agreement. We go into the vineyard to work, trusting 100% to the will of the Lord of the Vineyard. They don’t make any agreement. They don’t have any outlines in their head. They’re not telling that Lord what he must pay them because of the work that they are doing. They go into work and to trust the will of the Lord of the Vineyard. And as a result they get far more than they deserved and much more then they personally expected.
This is a perfect description of one who prays in this manner: praying under the Grace of God rather than according to the law of cause and effect. In this case, one who would pray, would go into his inner chamber and turn everything over to his God.
Not only the need that he may be praying about but he will also turn his present state of consciousness over to God. He will turn his doubts, his fears, his belief over to God. In other words, lock, stock, and barrel over to God.
God will answer my prayer in his perfect way because he loves me, because he understands me, and if this is true regardless of the state of consciousness I may be in at this moment. I am not depending upon my state of consciousness, the agreement, I am depending on God, and God only. When a person does this he is under the Grace of God and his answer will be something far greater than he thinks he deserves, and far greater than his present state of consciousness would have admitted possible.”
When you know, that this grace of God supersedes the law of cause and effect. Then you start to think differently, believe differently, pray differently. You know, that we can truly come to this understanding, this awareness that God's Grace that is greater than the law of cause and effect. That God's desire for you is greater than any desire you may have for yourself.
Another sacred text that I wanted to show you, it's so Second Corinthians 12:9, which simply says, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” When you are not driving, steering, directing, or dictating how God should work for you, in that humility or weakness Gods’ power works.
God's grace supersedes the law of cause and effect. My final sacred text I want to share with you is from Ephesians 2:8, which says “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.” Isn’t dependent on us being worthy or being withheld for thinking we’re unworthy. You do not need to manage, cajole or beg It. We simply need to understand and receive it
Poem by J.I. Packer
I am graven on the palms of His hands. I am never out of His mind. All my knowledge of Him depends on His sustained initiative in knowing me. I know Him, because He first knew me, and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, One who loves me; and there is no moment when His eye is off me, or His attention distracted for me, and no moment, therefore, when His care falters."
This speaks to the free flowing, unconditional Grace of God. The quote that I shared yesterday from Thomas Adams Grace comes into the soul, as the morning sun into the world; first a dawning; then a light; and at last the sun in his full and excellent brightness."
You see that's a bit like our journey in understanding God. First, we understood just to pray and beg and cajole; then be understood to recognise our thoughts and beliefs and have them in alignment and trust the law of cause and effect and now we understand more fully that even beyond the law of cause and effect, even beyond the prayer is God's Grace that is able to do more than we can ask.
Job Search Solution, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Getting to Yes. The more I flipped through the titles on the shelves at the mall bookstore, the more depressed I got.
Why had I migrated to the self-help section? I’d come to the mall for an escape, a few moments to not have to think about the job I desperately needed, my dwindling bank account, my wife’s medical expenses. But everywhere I looked I was reminded of my troubles.
I’d done everything I could. Tried every way I could think of to get my name out there, sent out dozens of resumes, made follow-up calls, haunted the job placement office. Nothing. There was no getting around it. I was in a bad way. The pressure weighed on me from the moment I woke in the morning until I went to bed at night. I was a loser, a failure. No book was going to change that.
Weeks earlier I was home with the flu when my boss called. For 18 years I’d written computer programs used to manufacture wind turbines. It was delicate work, every part produced to exact specifications.
That day I was needed to measure a 2,000-pound gear we were about to put into production. I had to be sure of the specs before I could do my programming. I had the part suspended on a hoist when I started feeling dizzy. Just need to sit down for a second, I thought. I went to the break room—without lowering the gear to the floor. That was a safety violation. And I’d made it just at the moment my boss walked in. “I’m writing you up,” she said.
“You’re being ridiculous,” I replied. My second mistake. Hours later I was fired.
“It will be okay,” my wife, Samantha, said when I told her. “We just have to put it in God’s hands.”
I shook my head and turned down the next aisle. I hated when she talked that way. I didn’t believe in all that mumbo jumbo. Answered prayers. Divine intervention. Angels flittering about. I put my trust in things that were real, that I could see with my own two eyes. And what I saw now wasn’t pretty.
Samantha was diabetic and couldn’t work because of neuropathy in her hands and feet. Without insurance, her insulin alone cost $1,000 a month. Because I’d been fired I couldn’t draw unemployment. Yet she continued to put her faith in God. It felt like it was all on me, the worry, the guilt, landing a new position, figuring out how to cut expenses.
One thing for sure, hanging out at the bookstore wasn’t doing anything for me. I turned toward the EXIT sign. You need to get home and back to the computer, I told myself. Loser. Failure. The words seemed to follow me right out of the store.
I stepped out the door and standing just feet away was a grizzled, older looking man in jeans and a faded flannel shirt. He looked at me as if he knew me, but I didn’t recognize him. Had he been in the bookstore? I tried to skirt past him when I heard a voice say, “Are you okay?”
I turned and our eyes met. Was it that obvious I was hurting, that a complete stranger would ask about my welfare? Maybe he’d noticed me in the self-help aisle. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine.”
The man pointed a finger at me. “Remember this. God loves you.”
With that, he turned and walked away. I didn’t know what to think.
“Something kind of odd happened,” I told Samantha when I got home. Of course she had an explanation. “It’s a sign,” she claimed. “Everything’s going to work out.”
I didn’t know about that, but I had to admit, there was something about those words, something about the way the stranger said them, the conviction in his voice. The whole experience. “Like I said, Samantha, it was odd.” I couldn’t get the incident out of my mind. There was something strangely comforting about it.
With Samantha’s encouragement and positive thinking, I continued my search. The stranger’s words played in the back of my mind. I had just been remembering the encounter when I got a call. A firm that made wind turbines, wanting to interview me. The day of my appointment, a Friday, I put on my best suit and kissed my wife. I was out the door when I stopped, and turned. “Say a prayer for me,” I said. Samatha beamed. I was leaving nothing to chance.
The interview was going great. Until the manager looked down at my resume. “Why did you leave your last job?” he asked.
My heart pounded. I reviewed the answers I’d rehearsed on the drive over. Looking for a change. Wanting more of a challenge. I opened my mouth. Then I thought of Samantha. Her trust in God. The faith she had in me. No, I couldn’t lie.
“Well, it’s like this,” I said. When I’d finished the manager stared down at my resume, the room deadly silent. Finally, he looked up.
“I know what you’re going through,” he said. “Almost the exact same thing happened to me.” He got up, shook my hand and showed me out. I guessed that was the last I’d hear from him. But I felt like a winner for telling the truth. Somebody, eventually, would find value in that.
First thing Monday morning the firm’s HR manager called. “When can you start?” she said. I almost threw the phone in the air! She went over the benefits, the company’s health insurance—way better than my old job. Samantha wandered in and I mouthed, “I got it!”
I hung up, literally jumping for joy. “Do you really think God cares what happens to me?” I asked my wife. “I mean, I searched for the job. I sent in my resume. It’s not as if God just sent an angel to…” Samantha widened her eyes.
To the mall? It really had seemed like that man had been there just for me, with the very words I’d needed to hear. An angel? I wasn’t sure about that. But one thing I was certain of, he’d been heaven sent.
Story
Job Search Solution, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, Getting to Yes. The more I flipped through the titles on the shelves at the mall bookstore, the more depressed I got.
Why had I migrated to the self-help section? I’d come to the mall for an escape, a few moments to not have to think about the job I desperately needed, my dwindling bank account, my wife’s medical expenses. But everywhere I looked I was reminded of my troubles.
I’d done everything I could. Tried every way I could think of to get my name out there, sent out dozens of resumes, made follow-up calls, haunted the job placement office. Nothing. There was no getting around it. I was in a bad way. The pressure weighed on me from the moment I woke in the morning until I went to bed at night. I was a loser, a failure. No book was going to change that.
Weeks earlier I was home with the flu when my boss called. For 18 years I’d written computer programs used to manufacture wind turbines. It was delicate work, every part produced to exact specifications.
That day I was needed to measure a 2,000-pound gear we were about to put into production. I had to be sure of the specs before I could do my programming. I had the part suspended on a hoist when I started feeling dizzy. Just need to sit down for a second, I thought. I went to the break room—without lowering the gear to the floor. That was a safety violation. And I’d made it just at the moment my boss walked in. “I’m writing you up,” she said.
“You’re being ridiculous,” I replied. My second mistake. Hours later I was fired.
“It will be okay,” my wife, Samantha, said when I told her. “We just have to put it in God’s hands.”
I shook my head and turned down the next aisle. I hated when she talked that way. I didn’t believe in all that mumbo jumbo. Answered prayers. Divine intervention. Angels flittering about. I put my trust in things that were real, that I could see with my own two eyes. And what I saw now wasn’t pretty.
Samantha was diabetic and couldn’t work because of neuropathy in her hands and feet. Without insurance, her insulin alone cost $1,000 a month. Because I’d been fired I couldn’t draw unemployment. Yet she continued to put her faith in God. It felt like it was all on me, the worry, the guilt, landing a new position, figuring out how to cut expenses.
One thing for sure, hanging out at the bookstore wasn’t doing anything for me. I turned toward the EXIT sign. You need to get home and back to the computer, I told myself. Loser. Failure. The words seemed to follow me right out of the store.
I stepped out the door and standing just feet away was a grizzled, older looking man in jeans and a faded flannel shirt. He looked at me as if he knew me, but I didn’t recognize him. Had he been in the bookstore? I tried to skirt past him when I heard a voice say, “Are you okay?”
I turned and our eyes met. Was it that obvious I was hurting, that a complete stranger would ask about my welfare? Maybe he’d noticed me in the self-help aisle. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine.”
The man pointed a finger at me. “Remember this. God loves you.”
With that, he turned and walked away. I didn’t know what to think.
“Something kind of odd happened,” I told Samantha when I got home. Of course she had an explanation. “It’s a sign,” she claimed. “Everything’s going to work out.”
I didn’t know about that, but I had to admit, there was something about those words, something about the way the stranger said them, the conviction in his voice. The whole experience. “Like I said, Samantha, it was odd.” I couldn’t get the incident out of my mind. There was something strangely comforting about it.
With Samantha’s encouragement and positive thinking, I continued my search. The stranger’s words played in the back of my mind. I had just been remembering the encounter when I got a call. A firm that made wind turbines, wanting to interview me. The day of my appointment, a Friday, I put on my best suit and kissed my wife. I was out the door when I stopped, and turned. “Say a prayer for me,” I said. Samatha beamed. I was leaving nothing to chance.
The interview was going great. Until the manager looked down at my resume. “Why did you leave your last job?” he asked.
My heart pounded. I reviewed the answers I’d rehearsed on the drive over. Looking for a change. Wanting more of a challenge. I opened my mouth. Then I thought of Samantha. Her trust in God. The faith she had in me. No, I couldn’t lie.
“Well, it’s like this,” I said. When I’d finished the manager stared down at my resume, the room deadly silent. Finally, he looked up.
“I know what you’re going through,” he said. “Almost the exact same thing happened to me.” He got up, shook my hand and showed me out. I guessed that was the last I’d hear from him. But I felt like a winner for telling the truth. Somebody, eventually, would find value in that.
