Unity Church of Castro Valley
Sunday Message for April 11, 2010
EVERY DAY IS JUDGMENT DAY
This month we are studying the faculty of Wisdom, Discrimination or Judgment. This is represented by the disciple James the son of Zebedee. And the color that coordinates with this faculty is Yellow, which is great because yellow is my favorite color.
What we want to embody this week is that our Wisdom or Judgment faculty is our power to choose. God is not now, never has been, and never will be our judge. God created us perfect, and called it good. You will not have to stand before God and account for everything you did - you are doing that now. Our sins and mistakes punish us and limit our life; we are not punished for them. So we want to learn to "judge with right judgment."a
CALL IT WHAT YOU WILL
What do you want your life to look like, what do you want your life to be? Then start calling it that. Call life what you will have it be. (Joshua 24:15) "...choose this day whom you will serve, ... as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord."b
Our choices create our lives. We are the umpires in the game of life. The way we "call them" is the way they are for us. So what do you call yourself? Winner or loser? What do you call others? Are they out to get you or out to help you. What do you call your day, your work, and your surroundings? It is extremely important to use good judgment.
In Genesis it says, "So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; ..."c
In the Bible the name of a thing signifies its nature. The name of every person or thing represents its character. So when Adam named "every living creature" he was deciding what it would be to him. He was deciding what it's meaning in his world would be. Whatever he called it was what it became to him.
Every name in the Scriptures has an inner meaning. They give much importance to the naming and numbering of the prophets and peoples. The Lord always gave the wise men and leaders new names when they achieved some spiritual victory.
So what we call things is what they will be to us in our experience. You will fulfill your purpose here, and you have complete choice about whether to view the experience as a blessing or a burden. You get to choose whether to learn by wisdom or by woe.
Here are important guidelines for "calling" the experiences we have:
We teach cause as effect - not magical thinking. We don't ask you to become a Pollyanna. Many truth students think that they are supposed to call everything that happens to us "good." But that goes against everything we know and against plain common sense! Everything that happens is not "good" but we are basically good. There is good in us as a divine potential no matter what happens to us or what we have done.
The second guideline is based on a truth that we say out loud in this church every week. "There is only One Presence and One Power active in our lives and in the Universe: God, the good, Omnipotent." We need to base our thinking and judgment on that statement. And we use this One Power according to our understanding. We use this Energy in our lives at the level of our spiritual understanding of God. In fact we interpret everything that happens according to our understanding. We know that the basic Power is "Good," but we also know that not all of the manifestations in the world are desirable, just, healthy, or the best that can be
YOU ARE THE JUDGE IN THE COURTROOM OF YOUR MIND
You are the judge in the courtroom of your mind. God is not our judge. God has endowed us with the spiritual faculty of judgment. Our judgment faculty is our ability to choose or make choices. The choices are ours, and we always have a choice as to what we are going to think and do. There is a Spanish proverb which states: God says, "Choose what you will and pay for it."
Carolyn Myss wrote, "... I believe that we have a deeply intimate relationship with the Divine and a very impersonal relationship with cosmic order." The laws of the universe such as cause and effect and magnetic attraction apply equally to all. We actually embody the laws of the universe whenever we exercise our power of choice: I make a choice, and it has a consequence, regardless of who I am. But, I can influence the quality of that consequence if I am mindful in my intention.
The fact that we can determine our own motivations reflects our intimate connection with God. My intentions do not change the laws, because all my choices will still have consequences. But if my motivations are compassionate and sincere, the consequences are more likely to be positive. And a single action can result in an immeasurable cascade of physical, emotional, and spiritual effects.
THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IS IN THE STATE OF MIND
We all want to be in the Kingdom of Heaven and none of us wants to end up in Hell. So we have to understand what these terms really mean. The Kingdom of Heaven is in the state of mind. There is no place called "hell" where some go after death. There is no heaven "up there" in the skies. There is no "last judgment." We are not going to be punished for our sins. God does not judge and punish us. There are no pearly gates. These states of heaven and hell do exist, but they are here and now conditions, and we have the ability to enter them according to choices (judgments) we make.
It was reported in the newspapers and on TV in 1999 that a week after telling Roman Catholics that heaven is not a place up in the clouds, Pope John Paul declared that hell was not a physical place either. The Pope said that it exists, but it is more a state of mind than a place. It was reported that he said, "Hell is not a punishment imposed externally by God, but the condition resulting from attitudes and actions which people adopt in this life" He said that the heaven and hell that artists have depicted throughout the ages as literal places, does not coincide with the Catholic teaching.
TODAY IS ALWAYS THE "DAY OF JUDGMENT"
So many people have believed in and have been waiting for the "Judgment Day." Well, today is always the "Day of Judgment." If you read about Jesus' life and wisdom you will see that it is not in agreement with the old hell-fire and damnation teachings. We are the judges in the courtroom of our minds. According to the choices we as individuals and as humanity make, we live a "heaven" or a "hell" of a life.
The "king"d in Jesus' story read this morning from Matthew is not God but each of us. The "king" who makes the choice is each of us. We are appointed as rulers in the state of our minds, emotions, actions and reactions. We are not punished for our sins or mistakes, but by them.
The king is the Christ within us, the I AM which approves of our spiritual ideas and promises us all good, but condemns unworthy thoughts and warns us of trials ahead if we indulge in negative thinking. We don't have to worry about a judgment if we preserve our divine ideas and deny error thoughts.
We are carried along by all types of thoughts until we reach the consciousness of our I AM power. We do not know we are building ourselves, our environment, our world, until we reach this consciousness. Then judgment of our world begins and is passed on to our thought creations.
All things are in the consciousness, and you have to learn to separate the erroneous from the true, darkness from light. The I AM must separate the sheep from the goats. This sifting begins right now and goes on until the perfect child of God is manifest and you are fully rounded out in all your Godlike attributes.
Notice also in the scripture reading the strong imperative to feed, clothe, visit, be concerned, help, shelter, and serve.
The "Day of Judgment" is every day because we must choose the quality and nature of our thoughts in every single day and minute. The point is for us to use "kingship" or divine authority given to us by God in wise, loving, and constructive ways. We choose what is worthwhile, helpful, healing, wise, for the highest good of all concerned, and peace making.
The parable of the sheep and goats says, "When the Son of Man comes in his glory" This portrays the action of man as he begins to realize his divine sonship and develop his faculty of discernment and wisdom. So we must learn to separate the true spiritual thoughts from the unredeemed vicious ones, even as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
During these wisdom lessons, we will not look on God "as my judge," but on God as being the Intelligence in which we derive the wisdom to discern, evaluate, make decisions, judge rightly and compassionately what is best for each of us, all humanity and Mother Earth.
If any thought arises which tells us that we do not know, or tells us we cannot accomplish, we have to silence the negative arguments by using ones which are directly opposed to them. We need to hold on to our consciousness that there is but One Presence, One Law, and One Power. This Presence, Law, and Power is ours in Its entirety.
A prayer is not complete until you know that all the Power there is, is flowing through it. There can't be a sense of chance about it. When Jesus, standing at the tomb of Lazarus, said, Take away the stone, he was communing with the Spirit within him and establishing the consciousness that Lazarus was not dead. Then he was able to tell Lazarus to come forth.
We are continually standing before the grave of some inactive thought, some dead hope, some apparently lost cause whose door is sealed with fear, doubt, despair, and uncertainty. So how do we roll away the stone and tell the dead hope to come forth, to be resurrected, to be born again? We speak with assurance and certainty.
We can't pray with despair or uncertainty, for the tomb gives up its dead not to the dead, but to the living. Scripture says that Jesus spoke as one who had authority - and we, too, must speak with authority if we are to raise the dead hopes and dreams that we have sealed away.
SOLOMON
One of the representations of Wisdom in the Old Testament is Solomon. Though his name means "peace" or "prosperity" - King Solomon was internationally revered as being exceptionally wise and just.
Not long after he ascended the throne, the young king, perhaps about 20 years old, received his first divine vision at the ancient altar at Gibeon, where he often made 1,000 burnt offerings at a time.
In a dream, God said, "Ask what I should give you." Solomon requested an "understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil."e The Lord was so pleased that he not only granted the wish but also promised riches and honor that would be unsurpassed among all the other rulers of the day.
An example of King Solomon's wisdom in judging his people is given in the famous story of the two harlots. These women gave birth to male infants at the same time; when one boy died, each claimed the living child as her own. Solomon listened to their stories, then asked for a sword, "Divide the living boy in two; then give half to the one, and half to the other."f he said. One woman agreed to this decision, but the other offered to give up the baby rather than see it slaughtered. It was the latter, of course, who was the real mother, and she was awarded the child.
When we develop our power of wisdom, then we, too, can trust God to give us direction and wisdom when we need it.
CONCLUSION
I would like to close with a quote from Og Mandino's book A Better Way To Live. He writes that these are the 10 rules to live by:
- Count your blessings.
- Today, and every day, deliver more than you are getting paid to do.
- Whenever you make a mistake or get knocked down by life, don't look back at it too long.
- Always reward your long hours of labor and toil in the very best way, surrounded by your friends or family.
- Build this day on a foundation of pleasant thoughts.
- Live this day as if it will be your last.
- Laugh at yourself and at life.
- Never neglect the little things.
- Welcome every morning with a smile.
- Search for the seed of Good in every adversity.g
a Twelve Powers In You David & Gay Lynn Williamson and Robert Knapp
b Joshua 24:15
c Genesis 2:19-20
d Matthew 25:31-46
e I Kings 3:5-9
f I Kings 3:25
g A Better Way To Live Og Mandino
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