Holding The Truth For One Another

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blessings, faith, God, meditation, miracle, prayer, Spirit, thanksgiving, truth

“I thank God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you.” (Philippians 1: 3-4)

One of the most beautiful acts we can perform for another is to lift them up in prayer. It is something we can do at any time, in any place, and in doing this we can realize God’s beautiful presence not only in their lives, but also in our own.

In the midst of the “stuff” going on in our lives it can be so difficult to see the truth of God’s blessing and answer. I know this for a fact, for I have felt it on many occasions.   The burden seems especially heavy, the sky seems unusually dark and the pain feels as though it has come to stay. In these times, as much as I know God is right here, and I am never alone, it can be tough. We all feel that at times and in reaching out to God it helps to allow others to assist us in seeing God’s perfection.

There is such power in having others lift us up to God in sincere and faithful prayer. As others lift us up they can see beyond our concerns and burdens and they can see the reality of God’s blessing for us. I have always found it helpful to know that another is “holding that space of perfection” until I can see clearly enough to recognize it myself. When we pray for another we have a wonderful opportunity, and responsibility, in holding that sacred space of Gods truth for them.  In our prayer, we are to be crystal clear in our own minds that the power of God is present and moving in that, and every situation. The more belief we, as the prayer, have in the power of God’s blessing, holding that space in absolute truth, the more we will be able to help those with whom we pray begin to see that truth as well.

The always inspiring Rev. Amy Butler has written, “None of us ever does the work of the Gospel community alone.” How true, and how magnificent. With one another, and with God, the miracles we seek for another become a gift to us as well.

Affirmation: “The truth of God’s beautiful miracle is at hand. It is revealed to me perfectly and I am ready to receive it.”

Rev. Jefferson Beeker

http://jefferson340.wix.com/index

We live our lives one thought at a time. Let each of those thoughts really count for something wonderful.

Be prepared to change your thinking and change your life.

Please join us each Sunday for our SpiritSong service at 5:30 PM in our Social Hall at First Christian Church, North Hollywood, CA. This Contemporary Celebration and Praise service is an hour of great music from our wonderful band and singers, inspiring messages and good fellowship. Those things in life that you have been seeking have also been seeking you. Now is a good time to receive them. We will lift one another to live exciting, abundant new lives of possibility and purpose.

Also, join me on Wednesday evenings from 7 to 8 PM for an hour of guided and silent meditation, reflection, affirmation and prayer. As always, we will share communion together. Everyone is welcome. We are an open and affirming congregation.

First Christian Church, North Hollywood, 4390 Colfax Avenue, Studio City, CA 91604. http://www.fccnh.org

Follow me on Twitter @jeffersonbeeker

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Good Tidings Of Great Joy

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affirmations, beliefs, blessing, change, Christ, Divine, gift, healing, hope, Jesus, meditation, miracle, possibility, prayer

“Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people.” (Luke 2: 10)

Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy. We think of this saying at Christmas time, and good tidings were indeed brought forth with the coming of the Christ child. But I can see these words being proclaimed before much of our sacred scriptures for the stories of Jesus life were indeed great tidings of joy as he walked the earth, touched people with his message of hope and possibility, and healed the hurts and discomforts of a broken world. These words could have also been uttered by the angel at the tomb on that Easter morning, “I bring you good tidings of great joy for Jesus is not dead, but he has risen.” They could be proclaimed as Jesus encountered the blind man and gave him the miracle of sight, or the leper as he restored his life back into society as a man healed of his affliction. Behold, there were great tidings visited upon the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years without hope that she would ever be restored and made whole. Our scripture is telling us, not just on an occasion in December, but always, that we are not to be afraid of life and not to be discouraged by the seeming limits to our humanness. We are to know that whenever we encounter the Christ it is an event of great joy and a life-changing blessing.

I have to wonder, how would our life be different if each morning we started out the day knowing that our ever present and loving God was calling us into a new day by saying, “Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy,” and we then went forth knowing God’s perfect peace walked with us, breathed in and through us, and surrounded us throughout our every activity. I think perhaps our expectation and our outlook on life would be quite different.

Behold this day there are good tidings of great joy upon you because wherever you are in life Jesus is also there. Your very heartbeat is a reminder that whatever you experience Christ is there to walk you through, over or around that place and to fill you with a new awareness and greater experience of his divine presence.

Affirmation: “Behold good tidings of great joy abound in my life through the ever present spirit of the Christ right where I am.”           

Rev. Jefferson Beeker

http://jefferson340.wix.com/index

We live our lives one thought at a time. Let each of those thoughts really count for something wonderful.

Be prepared to change your thinking and change your life.

Please join us each Sunday for our SpiritSong service at 5:30 PM in our Social Hall at First Christian Church, North Hollywood, CA. This Contemporary Celebration and Praise service is an hour of great music from our wonderful band and singers, inspiring messages and good fellowship. Those things in life that you have been seeking have also been seeking you. Now is a good time to receive them. We will lift one another to live exciting, abundant new lives of possibility and purpose.

Also, join me on Wednesday evenings from 7 to 8 PM for an hour of guided and silent meditation, reflection, affirmation and prayer. As always, we will share communion together. Everyone is welcome. We are an open and affirming congregation.

First Christian Church, North Hollywood, 4390 Colfax Avenue, Studio City, CA 91604. http://www.fccnh.org

Follow me on Twitter @jeffersonbeeker

Experiencing The Answers We Seek

Tags

God, meditation, miracle, prayer, Spirit

“Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and protecter of our faith.”  (Hebrews 12: 2)

Let go and let God. I’ve read that for years, but what does it mean? As we go to God in prayer it’s natural to have certain expectations, but those expectations can all too quickly turn to frustration as we look about and don’t see the answer to our prayers. We’ve done our part, we prayed. What about God? Well, what we need to know is God not only heard our prayer, but answered. It’s up to us to provide the mental awareness of recognizing God’s answer. And, the best way to do that is to release our hold on the appearance that no answer has been provided and let go and let God reveal it to us in the proper timing. Easy? Not always. Frustrating? It sure can be. The measure of our renewed faith and trust in a God through whom all things are possible? You bet!

When we truly let go and turn things over to God we can do so with the assurance that having offered up our prayer the answer is immediately in the process of being formed. On the unseen side of human life God is moving and creating our answer in all of Spirit’s perfection. Knowing that God has everything under control and creating miraculous things for us can bring comfort and peace to our time of waiting to see our answer. Knowing that the answer is being formed can release our hold on whether or not our prayer was heard and give us the comfort that God’s love is with us now and always.

So, in the stillness of our prayer time, let us affirm that we recognize God’s answers to our prayers as they occur. Our eyes are on God’s promises. Everything else is taken care of. As Oswald Chambers, an early twentieth century Scottish minister wrote, “We have to pray with our eyes on God, not our difficulties.”

Affirmation: “I choose to let go and let God. In the process I recognize what seem to be miracles all around me.”

Rev. Jefferson Beeker

http://jefferson340.wix.com/index

We live our lives one thought at a time. Let each of those thoughts really count for something wonderful.

Be prepared to change your thinking and change your life. Please join us each Sunday at 5:30 PM in our Social Hall at First Christian Church, North Hollywood, CA for our Contemporary Celebration and Praise service. Come as you are and enjoy an hour of great music from our wonderful band and singers, inspiring messages and good fellowship. Those things in life that you have been seeking have also been seeking you. Now is a good time to receive them. We will lift one another to live exciting, abundant new lives of possibility and purpose.

Also, join me on Wednesday evenings from 7 to 8 PM for an hour of guided and silent meditation, reflection, affirmation and prayer. As always, we will share communion together. Everyone is welcome. We are an open and affirming congregation.

First Christian Church, North Hollywood, 4390 Colfax Avenue, Studio City, CA 91604. http://www.fccnh.org

Follow me on Twitter @jeffersonbeeker

Six Point Meditation

Tags

blessing, God, manifestation, meditation, miracle, prayer, Spirit, thanksgiving, visualize

Recently at our Wednesday evening meditation service we did a visualization meditation to clear some of our old limiting and destructive thinking and to open up a space within ourselves to welcome new revelations of Spirit/God’s magnificent presence.

The meditation was a step-by-step process that involves the following:

RECALL – RELEASE

VISUALIZE – ACCEPT

CLAIM – THANKSGIVING

In the RECALL we bring something to mind consciously, seeing it as clearly as we can and naming it, something in our life that we are willing to give up. Perhaps it is feelings of unforgiveness, pain, discord, anxiety or worry. Our intention here is to clear away negative vibrations that have prevented us from moving forward in our lives. Sometimes, however, this negative block can be so deep that we have trouble knowing just what it is. We may need to spend more time trying to recognize and name it, but we also don’t want to get stuck at that point. Just knowing that negative blocks and energies are moving toward being released can go a long way in helping us move forward. After we become clear on this step we move on this we…

RELEASE it to God. We let it go and we allow God to take it and transmute it into nothingness. Having given it to God we can know that it no longer has any effect on our lives. Really experience the feeling that whatever has been preventing your forward motion in life is no longer an energy that can hold you back. From here we move on to…

VISUALIZE and seeing what it is we want. What is it that we desire to experience? Now see this clearly and name this. Is it love, peace, abundance and security? Maybe what you wish to visualize is the fulfillment of a new opportunity. Be specific in how you see it while also leaving room for God to mold it into the perfect manifestation of Spirit’s divine creation created just for you. Being specific doesn’t mean it has to look exactly like we see it in our minds. Our minds are limited.  God’s blessings may be greater than we had ever thought possible and we never want to limit the manifestation of God’s perfect gift. So, know what it is you wish to experience and then leave room for God to make it even more magnificent than you ever thought possible. The God who is universal individualizes blessings specifically for each of us. Scripture speaks of this when it says there are many parts, but one body. (1 Corinthians 12: 14-21) Having visualized the desire it is now important to…

ACCEPT. Receive it. So often the things we wish to experience we block from our experience by failing to accept God’s gift when it is given. Accept the gift allowing it to become a new part of your experience. You are God’s divine creation and you are loved unconditionally by a God who longs to bless you abundantly. Next…

CLAIM it. Affirm it as an experience that now is a part of your life. How does it make you feel?  Maybe you now see it fully manifest in your experience, or maybe not, but God is preparing the way and things are moving majestically in the universe toward the full manifestation of your prayer. And in doing this be sure to give God

THANKSGIVING. It is to be with gratitude that we experience God’s miracles in our lives. Again as we give thanksgiving we can affirm that we recognize God’s miracles in our lives as they appear. The answer and the miracle we seek may come in a way we had never thought possible and so we don’t want to miss it because it came to us in a way we hadn’t expected. Give gratitude to God for blessing you in ways that expand your understanding and faith of Spirit’s love.

This exercise can be done over and over as we release those things that have been holding us back while we allow God to move us forward.

This is a form of prayer that is specific, while still leaving room for God to be all that God can be in our lives. God is always so much greater than we can ever imagine and God’s unlimited blessing should never be limited because our human minds are limited.

I have often said to people when they pray for something specific, “great, now finish that prayer with “this God, or something better.” After all, wouldn’t you wish to experience more of God’s bounty in your life rather than less as the answers to your prayers?

Rev. Jefferson Beeker

http://jefferson340.wix.com/index

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