Click HERE to view Rev. Rogers’ guided meditation during the service.
Amen. If you could embody any one word, what would it be? If you could hold one word and be the living expression of that word, what would it be? Sometimes I ask families, as I’m preparing for a memorial service, to give me five words that describe their loved one. It’s always interesting, you know: five words. If you could boil someone’s life down to five words, what five words would you pick to describe your loved one?
And if you think about that for yourself — if you got five words to describe you — what would those five words be? Cranky? [Congregants laugh] Happy? Light-filled, joyous, positive? What would those five words be? Because I want us to really look at this idea.
You know, I’ve been doing this series this year on Unity fundamental teachings. And last week I did the Law of Mind Action, which states thoughts held in mind produce after their kind. And what I really want you to see — and I made a case last week — that the purpose of the mind is to not have 80 million thoughts. You know, most of us have worked our mind in such a way that we want to be so smart and we want to be thinking about every possibility, every option. And we want to outthink life, outthink the moment, outthink the people around us. And we can tune our mind up so that it’s working so fast.
But the problem is, when we’re operating from that point of view, we’re just barely covering the surface. And I believe that the real gift that the mind offers us is the ability to hold the ideas of God. But I invite you to slow that down. If you could hold one idea — if you could be the embodiment of one idea — what idea would you want to embody? What would you want to hold on to? In good times and in hard times, and all the activities of life, if you could live and move and fully express one divine idea, what would that divine idea be?
Because I think the very best use of our mind is laying hold of that one idea and bringing that idea around over and over again. And no matter what is in front of us, no matter what the circumstances or circumstances may be about, to bring that one idea so completely in your mind that we embody it. We meditate on it, we think on it, we pray on it, that we live that one idea.
And what I want you to see today is that you actually get to choose what you focus on! That’s a radical idea! That you actually get to use your mind to decide what you’re going to focus on. And whatever you decide that you’re going to focus on, you actually begin to embody that. Let me read from Scripture. In my Bible it said, “The Word became flesh” — John 1:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And he was in the beginning with God. And all things were made through him, and without him not anything was made. And in him was life and the life that was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness could not overcome it.”
Verse 5 down to verse 14:
“And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, the glory of the only son of the Father. For from this fullness, we have received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; but grace and truth came through Jesus. Christ. For no one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.”
See, what I want you to look at is: I believe the foundation of our spiritual life is this one idea that is a foundational idea: that we have the ability with our mind to lay hold of one idea – one spiritual idea – and to allow that idea to be so focused in everything that we do that we actually begin to embody that idea. That we become that word made flesh. We become love made flesh. We become joy made flesh. We become power made flesh. We become kindness made flesh. That we take an idea in mind and we hold on to that idea until everything within us aligns with that idea, and that idea then becomes physically manifested as us. And that is one of the most powerful things that we can do!
And that’s not what most people use their mind for. Their mind is so busy on this and that, trying to solve this problem and taking care of that situation, and worrying about this or that. And our mind can do all those things! But what it is designed for, I believe, is to lay hold of one spiritual idea and hold on to that spiritual idea until it fully expresses in and through us, as us, so that we are that idea being made flesh in the world.
And what’s so profound about this is that you get to pick. You have complete free will! You get to decide: What is the idea that I want to embody? What is the concept? What is the idea that I want to live in and through me? Is it peace? Is it power? Is it abundance? What is the spiritual idea that I want my mind to lay hold of and hang on to, no matter what’s going on in front of me, until I can embody that idea. That I am the Word of God being made flesh!
Charles Fillmore, the co -founder of Unity, wrote this:
“In pure metaphysics, there is but one word, the Word of God. It is the original creative Word or thought of being. It is the ‘God said’ of Genesis. The Greek original reference to it in the first chapter of John is ‘logos.’ The Greek word cannot be adequately translated into English. In the original, it denotes wisdom, judgment, power, and in fact all the inherent potentialities of Being. It is all states of being. This divine Logos was and always is in God; in fact, it is the creative power of God. Divine mind creates through law, that is, spiritual law.”
So the Logos is the original version, right? The word became flesh. And what I want us to begin to see is: If you could embody any word, what would it be?
[Mimics someone responding to him:] “Well, Richard, I’ve just got to pay my rent.” Got it. Right? I mean that’s true! We have to pay our rent. We have to take care of business. We have to take care of all the details that we have to take care of in our life.
But what I want you to see is that, if we get so focused on just the physical reality, that we miss the opportunity that we all have on really taking our next spiritual step and being the embodiment of the next level of good: the next level of God; the next level of possibilities that are available to all of us. But we often just miss it.
See, I believe that your soul was with God in the beginning. You have always been the embodiment of God’s word. That most people react to life and life happens to them. They don’t create who they’re going to be in the world. They allow life to define them. They allow to their friends and family to define them. They allow past experiences to define them. They allow the mistakes of the past to define them.
But I want you to be responsible for defining yourself. Who do you want to be? What word do you want to bring forth as your essence, as your truth, as the power of God in you? Because the moment we get clear about that — and it’s not something we can do in just a few minutes! For the spiritual process really is an eternal process of us laying hold of the Word of God and embodying it in greater and greater and greater ways until we express the very power of God that’s been within us since the beginning of time.
George Bernard Shaw said it this way:
“This is the true joy in life, being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.”
I want you to hear that: for a purpose that you recognize as a mighty one! That, in this process of expressing the fullness of God, you get to decide. You are the master of your destiny! You decide what word you’re going to express, and you have to have the discipline and the commitment to come back to that word over and over and over again, until it takes root in you! Until they cannot tell where the word stops and you begin. With every great spiritual teacher, people could not tell where they stopped and God began. It was fluid. It was a living expression of the Divine!
Going back to George Bernard Shaw:
“… recognized by yourself as a mighty one. Being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clog of ailments and grievances, complaining that the world does not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community. And as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment, and I want to make sure it burns as brightly as possible before it is handed on to future generations.”
That’s something! It is something! Like I want us to really look at the very basic way that you were living. Because for most of us, we are still reacting to life. We are allowing every day what happens to us to be the most important thing. And I will tell you, it’s not! The most important thing is: Who are you going to be moment after moment after moment? And you get to decide that! Are you going to be love? Are you going to be joy? Are you going to be crankiness personified? Who are you going to be moment after moment? And you get to decide.
And when you make the decision that you’re going to embody any of the qualities of God, the full power of God becomes available for you to express that divine idea in a way that’s totally unique and personal to you.
You could have two people that both take on love as the idea and the commitment for their life. And each one of them is going to express love in a way that’s unique to them. It’s one word, but it’s so much more than that! It really becomes the organizing principle of your life. It becomes bigger than all the grievances, all the upsets, all the grievances, the errands, all the duties. Because you now have a guiding principle, an organizing principle in everything that you’re about. And you get to decide!
Now, I believe it’s more powerful if you pick something and stick with it. If you pick a new divine idea every day … “Well, today it’s joy.” Right? And that’ll be impactful. That day, joy will be impactful. But if you pick joy again day after day after day, it will do something so deep and so profound within your soul. Because joy will call you out.
Because there are going to be days when you living joy is just hard. And you have to decide in that moment: Am I going to live joy anyway?
How many of you have had an experience that it was very hard for you to be joyful in? [Congregants laugh] Has everybody had one of those, right? And if you pick joy, even in those moments that are hard for you to live joy, and you choose to live joy anyway, it is going to carve a deeper place in your soul.
If you pick love and, in that moment, in that situation, with that person in front of you — when everything in you doesn’t want to be love — and you choose love anyway, it is going to carve a deeper place in your soul.
The reason that we have this ability of our mind to lay hold of an idea is that we can hold that idea day after day after day until our soul becomes greater for it.
So what divine idea? What aspect of God? What word do you want to embody and become the living expression of that? I invite you to take a stand for that: to that word, to that idea. To take a stand.
Ink Magazine said taking a stand — standing in a possibility — is a term that refers to a leader’s ability to support a result that may be currently impossible. It also involves staying committed to the possibility, even when it gets knocked down, thrown off course. You are taking a stand for a possibility that seems greater than you are!
When we take a stand — when we hold an idea, a spiritual idea; when we when we commit to a spiritual divine idea — that divine idea is actually empowering us to live in a new way. To live in a more powerful way; to live in a greater way. That we have the ability to take a stand and do it day after day, even when it feels impossible to be joyous or loving or kind or abundant. Even when those realities say that this is not possible!
But when you take a stand for that divine idea, and choose to live it anyway, the possibility reveals itself and the way is made clear. Whether it’s health or wholeness or abundance or joy or peace or kindness …when you pick a word and you stand in that day after day after day, it changes you. And what begins to happen is the people around you can begin to feel it.
And you know it’s working when God drops people into your life and they say, “You know, I just see you as love.”
And it’s like, “Really? I’ve been working on love for months! I felt like the most unloving person in the world. And I made this inner commitment to love and it’s hard, because I’ve got all these interesting people in my life that I don’t want to love! And God keeps bringing more interesting people in my life, and I don’t want to love any of them! But I made this commitment to love, so every day I’m about love. And sometimes I don’t want to be about love, and it’s hard. And I want to complain, and nobody cares. But I’m committed to love anyway!” [Congregants laugh]
And then somebody says, “Oh, you’re so loving.”
“Really?????”
And it just makes all the difference in the world. That when we make a stand for any spiritual quality, there will be a day when an angel whispers to you and you’ll see, “I’ve done it. I’ve done it! I’ve lived that. I am that person. I have become my greatest desire.” And it will empower you to go deeper and deeper into that word to be more than you’ve ever been before. To call it forth in your times of prayer and meditation, in every situation: “How will I live love this day? How does God want me to live love this day?” And every day the path will be revealed and love will be fulfilled in and through your soul. And you will be the word made flesh. You will be the expression of the Divine. You will be that light unto the world.
So, tonight, it’s kind of the question I asked last week. Tonight, what spiritual idea would you be willing to embody day after day, week after week, until it becomes your divine truth? Until it becomes the fullness of your nature? Until it just comes bubbling out of you in every situation? Pick it, whatever it is. And know that, as you live it, it will be done unto you.
Will you pray with me?
I invite you to open your minds, your hearts, your soul to the activity of God. That, today, we claim one divine idea. We hold on to one divine idea, and we speak the Word.
We declare it: “I am. I am the infinite possibilities of God.”
Together: [with congregation] “I am the infinite possibilities of God.”
One more time: [with congregation] “I am the infinite possibilities of God.”
“I am the Word made flesh.”
Together: [with congregation] “I am the Word made flesh.”
In the name and through the power of the living Christ, it is done. Amen.