Now, whether you’re new to Unity or whether you’ve been around for a long time, please know that when we talk about prosperity, we’re talking about a prosperous life in every aspect of your life… not limited to financial prosperity. So, we will be talking about a LIFE of prosperity. I also want to say that many times ministers begin talking about prosperity when the spiritual community’s financial outlook appears bleak.
This tribe has done an amazing job of supporting our community. Your giving is much appreciated. You have shown up Sunday, and you have given above and beyond. Your love for our community shows up in your actions, your smiles, your notes and cards of encouragement. You have been generous on so many levels. It is so refreshing to see this as a minister.
Your Board of Trustees has kept a watchful eye on our financial well-being. We are prosperous! Our prayer chaplains, LUTs, Youth Director, and office staff have been working diligently to provide support during this pandemic. All of you contribute to making my job an easy one. It’s so easy, that I am not speaking to you about prosperity from a place of lack!
I am not here to beat you over the head about giving. Our community is supported by you, those who already understand the abundance that come forth from giving. So, this series is not given out of need for our spiritual community. We are prosperous, and we are blessed, and the Divine delightfully surprises us over and over again. This series on prosperity is meant to be a support and an encouragement to you. Maybe you’ll hear something in this series that will inspire you in your spiritual practice or moves you out of your current comfort zone into a more expansive way of being in the world. I invite you to open your heart and mind to the possibility of a new idea for your life!
Ideas Are The Spiritual Tender
I think most of us are interested in living life prosperously. Part of the appeal of Unity is the belief that each of us is a beloved child of God – and that all of our needs are met by God who is our source.I want to share the concept that prosperity comes to us in the form of ideas. In his book Like A Miracle Ernest Wilson said “Prosperity is basically an attitude of thought and feeling, only secondarily a matter of money. For ideas are coin in the mind realm.” Dollar bills and coins are the legal tender here on earth – but, when we are praying for prosperity, God doesn’t open a heavenly billfold and hand out bills and coins.
Ideas are the Spiritual Tender of the universe. To be prosperous, we can’t discount or throw away divine ideas.
Once there was a man who couldn’t come up with any new ideas. This man was a cartoonist, and this occurred in 1950. He had a little cartoon column in a local paper, but he wasn’t making enough money to support his wife and small son. He sat at his drawing table and prayed “God, I know that you are the giver of all good ideas. Now I have my pencil in my hand, and I know through you I can have a cartoon strip that will be successful not only here in this town, but will be successful all across the country. I give myself to you. Here is my hand. Here is my pencil. Here is my mind. Give me the idea.” He didn’t even have the chance to open his eyes before his wife came storming into the room shouting. She said, “Your son is a menace!” He said, “You mean Dennis?” A light bulb went off in his head, and he drew all day and all night long on the comic strip “Dennis the Menace.”
The cartoonist’s name is Hank Ketcham. He prayed for an idea, and a simple ordinary event; his son misbehaving, triggered something really big.
A Cry for Action – Matthew 17:24-27 (NIV)
After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma temple tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”
“Yes, he does,” he replied.
When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own children or from others?”
“From others,” Peter answered.
“Then the children are exempt,” Jesus said to him. 27 “But so that we may not cause offense, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”
In this morning’s scripture, Jesus told Peter to go fish and take the coin from the mouth of the first fish that comes up. Metaphysically, fish represent ideas in which there is great possibility of increase. Jesus frequently used fish to illustrate his teachings because he was a living demonstration of ideas and that all that Jesus did was in the realm of ideas rather than in the realm of effects. The miracle of the coin being in the fish’s mouth emphasizes the fact that divine substance is at hand to meet all needs. Gold in the fish’s mouth tells us that plenty exists in the most unexpected places. We should never limit supply channels by our thoughts, but we should keep our consciousness receptive to the idea of abundance so that good can manifest in any of God’s ways.
Turning Thoughts to Things
So how do we get and capitalize on these divine ideas? For us to be prosperous in any area of our life, we must pay attention to the ideas that come to us. Then we must spend time with the idea until it becomes a clear picture in our mind. And then we must take action to bring the idea into manifestation. Before Unity Village existed physically, it was an idea in God Mind – and then it became an idea in the Fillmore’s minds. Before the Unity Church of Melbourne existed, it was an idea in God Mind – and then it became an idea in the founder’s minds. Before the chair you are sitting on existed physically, it was an idea in God Mind – then it became an idea in the mind of the inventor.
The Fillmore’s saw visions of what could be on a country parcel of land – they had to have the idea and see ‘Unity farm’ as they called it then, before Unity Village could become a reality. The founders of this church had to have the idea and see the vision of this church community before it could become a reality. The inventor of the chair had to have the idea and see the vision or a picture of a chair in their mind before it could become a reality. Then in each case they had to take action. This is called turning your thoughts to things through inspired action.
One of my favorite lines from Eric Butterworth’s book Spiritual Economics is “You are never further than one idea away from all the wealth in the Universe.” In case for these ideas to be profitable, the person who had the idea let it grow in their own minds until it became a clear picture, and then they had to take action. Have you ever had an idea that you didn’t do anything with – and later you saw where someone else did? God mind is full of wonderful ideas! And the Universe will keep sending out the ideas whose time has come at this point of human consciousness. God is always trying to get a message through to us, but we have to be aware and willing to listen and then to do what it takes, if we want the rewards. Many of us who pray for prosperity in any area of our life, think that God will answer by dropping a purse in our laps.
Not that that can’t happen, but generally our prayers will be answered with an idea. How many of you have heard Rev. Robert Schuller on television? He encouraged people to be possibility thinkers. And that’s what we have to become. We have to trust that this great universal mind will supply the idea, and when God gives us an idea, we need to take action.
Ideas can come to us as an intuition or as an a-ha experience, but sometimes they come to us in the form of a dream or from something someone else says. Different ideas require different amounts of effort – different amounts of work to bring them into manifestation. Sometimes the action we need to take is really simple. Like going to a meeting or speaking to someone you don’t know. Whatever our prosperity need is, whether it’s for money, or love, or happiness, or health, God will prompt us with ideas.
It is our job to be open and receptive to letting God’s perfect idea express through us. This week’s everlasting truth is that the Spiritual Tender of the Universe is Ideas. And the next idea we get, might be the next Dennis the Menace success, or it might be the urge to say hello to someone who connects us with our next job or someone who is destined to be our best friend. May it be so for each one of us today and in the days to come.