FAITH
| Chapter 8 |
“And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief; for verily I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” [– Matthew 17:20]
This faith of a grain of mustard seed has proved a stumbling block to man [1Corinthians 1:23]. He has been taught to believe that a grain of mustard seed signifies a small degree of faith. So he naturally wonders why he, a mature man, should lack this insignificant measure of faith when so small an amount assures success.
“Faith,” he is told, “is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” [Hebrews 11:1]. And again, “Through faith… the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear” [Hebrews 11:3].
Invisible things were made visible. The grain of mustard seed is not the measure of a small amount of faith. On the contrary, it is the absolute in faith.
A mustard seed is conscious of being a mustard seed and a mustard seed alone. It is not aware of any other seed in the world. It is sealed in the conviction that it is a mustard seed in the same manner that the spermatozoa sealed in the womb is conscious of being man and only man.
A grain of mustard seed is truly the measure of faith necessary to accomplish your every objective; but like the mustard seed you too must lose yourself in the consciousness of being only the thing desired.
You abide within this sealed state until it bursts itself and reveals your conscious claim.
Faith is feeling or living in the consciousness of being the thing desired; faith is the secret of creation, the VAU in the divine name JOD HE VAU HE; faith is the Ham in the family of Noah; faith is the sense of feeling by which Isaac blessed and made real his son Jacob. By faith God (your consciousness) calleth things that are not seen as though they were and makes them seen.
It is faith which enables you to become conscious of being the thing desired; again, it is faith which seals you in this conscious state until your invisible claim ripens to maturity and expresses itself, is made visible.
Faith or feeling is the secret of this appropriation. Through feeling, the consciousness desiring is joined to the thing desired.
How would you feel if you were that which you desire to be?
Wear the mood, this feeling that would be yours if you were already that which you desire to be; and in a little while you will be sealed in the belief that you are. Then without effort this invisible state will objectify itself; the invisible will be made visible.
If you had the faith of a grain of mustard seed you would this day through the magical substance of feeling seal yourself in the consciousness of being that which you desire to be.
In this mental stillness or tomblike state you would remain, confident that you need no one to roll away the stone [Matthew 28:2; Mark 16:3; Luke 24:2; John 20:1], for all the mountains, stones and inhabitants of earth are nothing in your sight [Isaiah 40:17; Daniel 4:32]. That which you now recognize to be true of yourself (this present conscious state) will do according to its nature among all the inhabitants of earth, and none can stay its hand or say unto it, “What doest Thou?” [Daniel 4:32]. None can stop this conscious state in which you are sealed from embodying itself, nor question its right to be.
This conscious state when properly sealed by faith is a Word of God, I AM, for the man so seated is saying, “I AM so and so,” and the Word of God (my fixed conscious state) is spirit and cannot return unto me void but must accomplish whereunto it is sent. God’s word (your conscious state) must embody itself that you may know: “I AM the Lord… there is no God beside Me” [Isaiah 45:5]. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” [John 1:14], and “He sent His word and healed him” [Psalm 107:20].
You too can send your word, God’s Word, and heal a friend. Is there something that you would like to hear of a friend? Define this something that you know he would love to be or to possess. Now with your desire properly defined you have a Word of God. To send this Word on its way, to speak this Word into being, you simply do this. Sit quietly where you are and assume the mental attitude of listening; recall your friend’s voice; with this familiar voice established in your consciousness, imagine that you are actually hearing his voice and that he is telling you that he is or has that which you wanted him to be or to have.
Impress upon your consciousness the fact that you actually heard him and that he told you what you wanted to hear; feel the thrill of having heard. Then drop it completely. This is the mystic’s secret of sending words into expression – of making the word flesh. You form within yourself the word, the thing you want to hear; then you listen, and tell it to yourself. “Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth” [1Samuel 3:9,10].
Your consciousness is the Lord speaking through the familiar voice of a friend and impressing on yourself that which you desire to hear. This self-impregnation, the state impressed upon yourself, the Word, has ways and means of expressing itself of which no man knows. As you succeed in making the impression you will be unmoved by appearances for this self-impression is sealed as a grain of mustard seed and will in due season mature to its full expression.