Chapter 16
THE
APPROPRIATION OF DIVINE LIFE
Charles Fillmore
Keep a
True Lent
GOD IS LIFE, and
wherever the pulse of life beats, there
God is. Man cannot give nor take life,
but so long as he thinks he can slay
the living and so long as he proceeds
to slay either man or beast, he will be
at enmity with life. Those who would
lay hold on eternal life must seek in
every way to preserve the forms in
which it manifests.
We all have life, and it
is God's eternal life, but it does not
become ours in reality until we
consciously realize it. The one who
enters into eternal life, as did Jesus,
must lay hold on that omnipresent life
and make it one with his body. This is
the secret of inheriting eternal
life.
So long as man continues
to lose his body through death he will
be in doubt as to the reality of
eternal life. Eternal life means to be
eternally conscious of life in its
fullness. By his very belief that life
can go out of his body, man shows that
he is not in the consciousness of
eternal life. In theory he may see that
life is omnipresent, and may reason to
himself that he cannot therefore get
outside of life, yet the appearance is
that he lets it slip away from him. To
entertain thought that life can even
temporarily slip away will rob man of
the consciousness of eternal
life.
The remedy is: Lay hold
on eternal life. Have compassion on the
life in the body of every living
creature, and especially in your own
body. Declare life perpetually abiding
in the organism. Erase some of the ways
through which you are dissipating the
life of your organism. Robbers are at
work on your body every day. They are
the lusts of passion and appetite.
Resolutely drive them off. Give life
the sanctuary of your present thought
and pay the price of
overcoming.
God is life, and they
who worship Him must worship Him in the
life consciousness; that is, in Spirit.
When I worship Him in this way, I am
vitalized immediately. In order to
build up the real, permanent life
consciousness I must touch the great
inner life current. There is no other
way.
The first step in the
realization of life is always to know
that God is life, abundant,
omnipresent, eternal, and the second
step is to make positive connection
with God life by declaring oneness with
it.
Within my body is the
center where pure life is generated.
This center is the fountain from which
shall spring rivers of living water.
When quickened by Spirit through faith
in the indwelling Lord, the source of
life, the waters of life are set free
and purified
By keeping my mind
steadily on the pure, sweet, redeeming
life of Christ, and refusing to allow
any thought to come in that stops the
consciousness of the universal life
flow, I increase my power to
appropriate more life, and every cell
in my body thrills with the new life of
Spirit.
Go in mind to the
spiritual place that can be described
only as I AM. When you touch I AM, it
changes the whole course of your
thought and your life. You are the
offspring of God, of life. In life you
live, move, and have your
being.
In Scripture the divine
life combined with divine substance is
termed "the Lamb of God." This phrase
carries the symbology of the lamb's
purity, innocence, and guilelessness.
Its nature is to vivify with perpetual
life all things it touches.
The pure life of God
flows into man's consciousness through
the spiritual body. This is the "river
of water of life, bright as crystal,
proceeding out of the throne of God and
of the Lamb," referred to in the 22d
chapter of Revelation.
Jesus came proclaiming,
"I am the way, and the truth, and the
life"; "I came that they may have life,
and may have it abundantly"; "I am the
bread of life . . . which cometh down
out of heaven, that a man may eat
thereof, and not die."
The whole race groans
waiting for the redemption of their
bodies. Jesus gave us the one and only
way to redemption, which is to
incorporate the great I AM into our
consciousness. "I am the resurrection,
and the life." Make the resolve that
you are master over all the life forces
of your being. Do not look away off for
help; you will never find it outside
your own consciousness. God's power
must be incorporated in your
consciousness, and you must understand
how it works and work with it. Through
thought you must work Truth into every
part of your body temple. This is not
too difficult, but it requires
attention and persistence. The body
requires spiritual quickening, because
it carries on a line of action beyond
the realm of conscious thinking. If I
live in a temple that belongs to me I
should know what is going on in
it.
The lifting up of the
life forces and resurrection have the
same significance. One who has
discovered the Truth of Being is
raised, lifted up in consciousness,
resurrected daily out of old
subconscious negative thought
conditions into the one positive
reality.
The body is the fruit of
mind. Do not talk about the body as
being a low vibration, or as material.
In the study of mind action, take the
body into consideration as the fruit of
thought, and affirm that it is pure,
holy, undefiled.
The life source is
spiritual energy. It is deeper and
finer than electricity or human
magnetism. It is composed of ideas, and
a man can turn on its current by making
mental union with it.
The higher life is a
higher state of mind. It exists as the
soul of God; and you know it when you
realize, "I am the Son of God." You
bring this life into manifestation by
acting from the divine life idea. The
consciousness of eternal life places
one in the stream of life that never
fails.
Through repeated and
constant affirmation in mind of the one
and only pure substance of God
everywhere present, we change the life
currents in the organism until the
corruptible flesh puts on
in-corruption.
