“Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted. But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands;” (Isaiah 49: 13-16 to ;). “And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment: For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.” (Matthew 9: 20-22, my underlining). ”In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33).
Nearly every religious person has had at least one faithful experience; that is, a time of trial when, despite all the ill-health or stressful situation pressing down on them, they turned to their own perception of God and felt a love and peace, not of this world. Material healing of the body, or discordant situation, soon followed. In this turning to the divine presence, one often feels the love that flows eternally from God to humanity. Perhaps a mental light comes on, and one also perceives other truths about this invisible deity, such as, the infinite intelligence and wisdom that could create a universe; or, possibly, a sense of Spirit as the substance of the divine creation, and all that dwell within it, governed by spiritual laws that underlie and have authority over material so-called laws. Perhaps one feels a strong perception that we don’t have to fear what’s ‘going on’ in the outer world of physics—the presence and authority of God is capable (even though we don’t understand how) of handling the externals. Whatever enlightenment comes to us in these healing moments of faith, one thing is sure: God, and all the laws of good and eternal life that pertain to the Almighty, are completely invisible to the five, physical senses. We don’t find God, or God’s laws, as physical in any way, shape, or form. God’s realm is the realm of Spirit. God is an invisible presence and sovereign, and so are the forces of God. For, just as when the invisible wind blows and we see its effects in the rustling of leaves, so can we see the effects of God’s presence and sovereign power in the healing of bodies and discords—conditions that seemed physically entrenched before calling upon Spirit to reveal Its laws of wholeness, health and harmony. There is no question that we have tribulation in our lives in the flesh. Yet, in the last quotation at the beginning of this article, Jesus is telling us that the ‘I’ of our true being (that spiritual identity which is called, the Christ identity) can overcome all the tribulations of this material experience, not just a stray one, now and then. Getting the correct identification of the ‘I’ of being is important in calling the power of God into the human condition or dimension. It was not a physical man, Jesus, who called upon the invisible power of God to heal all the ills of the flesh; rather, it was the Christ of his being—that spiritually true identity of Jesus, and all of us—which was able to heal all the evils of this corporeal realm. Realizing our true, spiritual identity (this higher ‘I’ of our being) brings healing to our daily lives, even though we’re still ‘in the flesh’. It does so because having faith in our higher self, still living and moving within God, still at one with our very Source of being, brings the same effect that having faith in anything brings. What we deeply believe, with conviction, is faith. Faith, a mental state, produces change without. Faith in God’s loving care for us works. It operates because the evils of this dimension are produced from the shared beliefs of a material existence, separated from God, and our own acceptance of these material, worldly beliefs. When we change these beliefs about ourselves and where we dwell, our human experience and our human countenance changes for good. Changing our own sense of identity from a material to a spiritual basis, then, is a powerful thing to do for ourselves. Realizing, with deep conviction, our immortal, spiritual selfhood, always safe in God’s spiritual realm, despite all material evidence to the contrary allows our consciousness to transform the physical body from sickness to health, and our daily lives from discord to harmony. Conditions of ill-health and un-wholeness of the material body are then ‘healed’ (also discordant situations) because our faith in the invisible kingdom of God actually replaces our belief in the material realm and physical ‘laws’ of disease and discord. We can’t believe in Spirit’s sovereign power over us, and yet believe in material law and power over us, at the same time. We must choose with conviction. Now, since faith is a powerful thing, our faith in anything has an effect in or on the external world of form. Faith in the negative or bad things (when they make a physical appearance) allows these appearances to stay in our experience in proportion to our acceptance of them. We didn’t conjure them up; evil took every kind of human form before any of us made our entry here. Yet, we are each free to accept or reject, whatever our highest sense of right reveals to us. It’s also wise to recognize that faith is not human will. Trying to heal with human will is useless. Faith is a state of consciousness where we deeply believe something to be true, or real, or right. We can’t force ourselves to believe something we don’t really believe. What we hold to be true, deep-down inside ourselves (consciousness) is what we express in the material world of form. We’re the masters of our own human experience due to whatever beliefs we trust in and hold within our own psyche. Since we are taught most of our human beliefs from birth right on through the educational process, we’re each likely to become afflicted with the collective, world beliefs quite often. During these times, when universal beliefs of disease, tribulation, poverty, and all the other ills of the flesh, make their appearances, faith in God’s ever-present, loving control over us is the remedy, defeating whatever beliefs in other powers claim to be operating in our lives. Recognition of spiritual law and power, although invisible to our physical senses, is logical. We trust invisible forces all the time. I’m a swimmer, and yet I’ve never seen, physically, the buoyancy of the water which keeps me afloat. Frequent flyers on airplanes have never seen, physically, the aerodynamics that keeps a plane in flight. We trust these things because we believe them to be invisible, physical laws. Just so, we must learn to trust the presence of spiritual laws which, when appealed to, will prove to be sovereign over what is accepted as unbreakable, physical laws. St. Paul once said, “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8: 37-39). I think this means that God’s love for our real identity, our Christ identity, keeps us ever-lastingly whole, sound, sufficient, balanced, ordered, and functioning perfectly, (just as it kept Christ Jesus and his followers) no matter what level of existence of thought we’re dwelling in. On this side of the grave, or the other, it makes no difference. Material life and death are both illusions of a lower level of consciousness…a level where perceptions of reality are altered, just as in our nightly dreams. Evil is never spiritually true or present, at all. We were never sick, because we were never material. Our body, soul and mind substance is spiritual. Likewise, we were never really poor because we’re always at one with our eternal Source of all substance and good. Our spiritual provision is always with us—we each have our own from God. When our faith is centered in a deep conviction of God’s, (Spirit’s) invisible, loving presence and control over all, and we begin to accept our own spiritual identities, still living in the Kingdom of God, we will reap the effects of having faith in these invisible things, and the true ‘I’ of our being, just as Jesus, and many of his followers throughout time, have proven. It might seem like miracles occur, but miracles only tap into the divine invisible. So, appearances of illness, discord and lack change back to physical appearances of health, harmony and abundance, not because we were physically sick and God steps in to make us well, or poverty stricken and God now sends us our abundance; but rather, they transform for the physically better because these spiritual provisions from God have never left us in the first place. They are always invisibly present. God is the ever-lasting Source of our health and wholeness; we take it with us, wherever we are, even in our next life experience beyond the grave. Physical birth changes nothing of that spiritual truth; that’s why so-called birth defects can be healed. Spirit, not matter, carries and forms us. Now-popular, universal beliefs in material genetics cannot affect that truth; that’s why so-called physically inherited conditions can be healed. Spirit, not matter, is our Source and Origin—not material parentage. For those who have never experienced spiritual healing of the body, I do not advocate attempting to heal with human will or blind faith. Stay with whatever makes sense to you and whatever system of healing you trust, be it medical, holistic, acupuncture, etc. We’re educated to trust these things, and we shouldn’t abandon them until we’re ready; otherwise, without the understanding of spiritual healing (how and why it works) fear will still be present in thought, and one can’t be in two states of mind at the same time. Faith must conquer fear, or no change in consciousness has taken place to result in external healing. Showing that those of us who regularly rely on spiritual healing still encounter as many trials as the next person, here’s one case where physical sensation and belief held me for quite a while: While swimming, one day, I came out of the pool, slipped on the metal ladder, and fell back into the water. I quickly claimed that “Spirit can’t be hurt,” and I dismissed the sharp pain in my knee, knowing it would leave soon. It did, so I showered and left the building. Outside, while I was going down the steps to the sidewalk, my knee completely buckled. I began to fall, grabbing onto the railing. Suddenly, the pain was back in force. I couldn’t move. I held the rail and declared my spiritual freedom from all physical injury. Within about two minutes, the pain left me again. At home, I found that my knee had swollen quite a bit. I could walk, but it was clearly twisted or physically injured in some other way. I prayed (saw all the spiritual truth I felt I needed to perceive), and by the next day, it seemed better and I could walk easily. Thoughts of visiting the doctor kept coming to me. I even found her name (the physician I was registered with in the health system). But I resisted, because the claim of injury wasn’t a life-threatening belief. So, over the next week, the pain would come and go persistently…first here, then seemingly healed. Finally, I earnestly asked God to open my spiritual eyes so that I would, permanently, see the truth. What came to my thought was that, although it was intermittent, I already knew the truth; it was just that I wasn’t speaking to the lie of material existence with authority. These words from the Bible suddenly came to thought, “Strengthen the feeble knees.” I looked these words up in the Bible and found this quotation in Isaiah 35: 3 & 4: “Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.” Now, since I’d been asking the Christ Consciousness within to reveal to me whatever spiritual truth I needed, I immediately got the message. I was being told, not to strengthen my physical knees, but to mentally strengthen my spiritual legs so that I wasn’t saying ‘yes’ to this material condition at all. I was being told to stand up spiritually, firmly declare God’s presence and sovereign power over me, and let go of all fears of a material knee, leg, or body. I was to put on my Christ identity—the true ‘I’ of my being. In this true identity, I would find my wholeness again. Then came that wonderful peace I often talk about. When thoughts of injury pestered me again, I refused to listen. I declared that as God’s image and likeness, I had never been injured. God cares for my legs eternally, whatever their spiritual form. I refused fear of what any universal, flesh-belief might do to me. And that was the end of it. My knee was better by the end of that day, and the swelling receded. No bouts of pain returned. That was two or three years ago, with no reoccurrence of knee problems. Had it been a life-threatening claim which I felt too fearful to heal spiritually, I might have visited the doctor or tried some other remedy available “out there” in the world. If I had, it wouldn’t have been that I was wrong; it would only have been that I was accepting a temporary fix instead of a real fix. I still take advantage of human beliefs every day. I eat, sleep, and try to enjoy the good that this human experience has to offer. But when it comes to the tribulations that come from the false, material sense of this world and all within it, I’d rather run to the arms of Spirit. So, to begin having faith in the divine, invisible presence of God, it’s best to practice on discordant human situations first and see how they transform. Success in spiritual remedies builds confidence for the greater challenges. Recognize the presence of God, the divine Intelligence, Wisdom, Love, and Will, and realize that there is only One, true Mind, and we’re all connected to it. “Let that mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2: 5). Don’t begin your spiritual path expecting to handle everything spiritually. Certainly do not condemn yourself for not rising above material belief—it’s all we’ve known since our entry here, and we awaken, rather slowly, out of it. But here’s something to consider: If God’s will for His/Her children isn’t love, ever-lasting provision, a right place in God’s creation, and eternal health and life, then Christ Jesus couldn’t have healed disease, poverty, and even death through God’s power, no matter what Jesus believed. If the spiritual laws aren’t present to call upon, then spiritual healing of all the evils of the flesh won’t occur, simply because we change our thought about ourselves. When healing occurs through spiritual realization of the truth of God’s Authority, above and beyond all human beliefs, then fear vanishes, and the healing of that particular thing is permanent. More importantly, one has moved forward on the path of spiritual awakening, never to return to that particular belief. No doubt, Jesus knew this spiritual truth of being and eternal life, before he even attempted to heal all the forms evil takes in the human scene. Knowing the divine sovereignty which lies beneath the illusion of materiality, and knowing the power which faith in anything produces in the human dimension, Jesus was showing us where to put our faith, for our deliverance from the trials and tribulations of this human experience. He once pointed out the power of belief to a centurion who came to him for the healing of the centurion’s servant: “And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.” (Matthew 8: 13). This false, worldly sense of creation we entertain in thought will never perceive the ‘you’ or ‘I’ that God has kept forever free of any material contamination. This false, physical sense will never find, or awaken to, the ‘you’ that is always safe in God’s love, whatever material affliction claims to be attached to you. It will never realize God’s Authority over every instant of your life, on every level. It will never know that God doesn’t allow physical beliefs to affect Its own spiritual children, because matter cannot affect Spirit. It will never recognize the immortal you that even physical death cannot touch. Being healed from a physically-mental standpoint will never introduce you to the divine Self that will never need healing. Reliance in any material person, place or thing, keeps one on the level of material, rather than spiritual existence, for as long as one chooses to be there. To experience the transformation of the Christ identity, one must leave the old for the new—the Adam dream of material existence for the Christly knowledge of spiritual existence. Faith, as Jesus taught, must begin and stay on a spiritual basis to be permanent. Oh, it doesn’t happen in a day. We awaken gradually, leaving the worldly way every once in a while, joyfully finding that trusting the divine invisible does work. Those whose faith remains on the material level should continue to seek their remedies on this level, until their deep beliefs of materiality begin to leave. Otherwise, they will be fearful. Fear and faith cannot exist together, and no fearful consciousness will heal the outer form. Most of us still eat, sleep, follow the human rules of health, and do many ordinary physical things, because we don’t know the way to do otherwise, as yet. But when the evils surrounding us here seem aggressive, we must remember that there is another way to go, or try. Our kingdom is not of this world—it only seems to be.
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