Your Faith Is Your Fortune

Chapter 8

NO OTHER GOD

I am the first, and I am the last; and beside Me is no God. – Isaiah 44:6

I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other gods before Me. – Deut. 5:6,7

“Thou shalt have no other God beside Me”. As long as man entertains a belief in a power apart from himself, so long will he rob himself of the being that he is.

Every belief in powers apart from himself, whether for good or evil, will become the mould of the graven image worshipped.

The beliefs in the potency of drugs to heal, diets to strengthen, moneys to secure, are the values or money changers that must be thrown out of the power [Matthew 21:12; Mark 11:15; Luke 19:45; John 2:14,15] he can then unfailingly manifest that quality.

This understanding throws out the money changers Temple. “Ye are the Temple of the Living God” [1Corinthians 3:16; 6:19 “And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people”, 2Corinthians 6:16], a Temple made without hands.

It is written, “My house shall be called of all nations a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves” [Matthew 21:13; “…for Mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people”, Isaiah 56:7].

The thieves who rob you are your own false beliefs. It is your belief in a thing not the thing itself that aids you. There is only one power: I AM He. Because of your belief in external things, you think power into them by transferring the power that you are to the external thing. Realize you yourself are the power you have mistakenly given to outer conditions.

The Bible compares the opinionated man to the camel who could not go through the needle’s eye [Matthew 19:24; Mark 10:25; Luke 18:25]. The needle’s eye referred to was a small gate in the walls of Jerusalem, which was so narrow that a camel could not go through it until relieved of its pack.

The rich man, that is the one burdened with false human concepts, cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven until relieved of his burden [Matthew 19:23] any more than could the camel go through this small gate.

Man feels so secure in his man-made laws, opinions and beliefs that he invests them with an authority they do not possess.

Satisfied that his knowledge is all, he remains unaware that all outward appearances are but states of mind externalized.

When he realizes that the consciousness of a quality externalizes that quality without the aid of any other or many values and establishes the one true value, his own consciousness.

“The Lord is in His holy temple” [Habakkuk 2:20].

Consciousness dwells within that which it is conscious of being.

I AM is the Lord and man, his temple.

Knowing that consciousness objectifies itself, man must forgive all men for being that which they are.

He must realize that all are expressing (without the aid of another) that which they are conscious of being.

Peter, the enlightened or disciplined man, knew that a change of consciousness would produce a change of expression.

Instead of sympathizing with the beggars of life at the temple’s gate, he declared, “Silver and gold have I none (for thee), but such as I have (the consciousness of freedom), give I unto thee” [Acts 3:6].

“Stir up the gift within you” [“Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee”, 2Timothy 1:6].

Stop begging and claim yourself to be that which you decide to be. Do this and you too will jump from your crippled world into the world of freedom, singing praises to the Lord, I AM.

“Far greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” [“Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world”, 1John 4:4].

This is the cry of everyone who finds his awareness of being to be God.

Your recognition of this fact will automatically cleanse the temple, your consciousness, of the thieves and robbers, restoring to you that dominion over things, which you lost the moment you forgot the command, “Thou shalt have no other God beside ME”.