February is a lovely month, that is, if you consider love as Divine Love and practice it divinely. You can believe us when we say there is a difference in how we see love. This is the express reason that we give three Pre-marital Conferences before we marry any couple. It is a wise decision if you desire your marriage to be a lasting and loving experience.

Love requires trust, faith and honesty. Without those virtues, you may be filling your love life with distrust, fear or doubt. Thus, if fear knocks at your door who or what will answer?

When we look around, what do we see? Is it joy, peace, harmony or is it sadness, uproar or discord? It may be very difficult to see the love, wisdom and care that Our Father is faithful in giving, but it is there all around each of us. That is His pleasure to us and for us.

If you will choose to become involved in Our Father, you will never be disappointed. He is Divine. He shares that divinity with us in many different ways. After reading our articles this month, it would be wonderful to write down everything that you see that is around you and is Divine Love. It is there.

God Loves You and So Do We,

Your Ministers,

Rev. Fred and Rev. Pat

Part I by Rev. Pat

This year we will study the Disciples of Jesus, which we know as "The Twelve" since he had many, many disciples, but only twelve that traveled with him.

It appears that we forget exactly what The Lord Jesus Christ was doing and explaining to all of us about the aspects that are in each of us. Real people of the Jewish faith represent the aspects that are in each of us. When we think about it, we hear that word-FAITH, which is very important for us to understand.

What is FAITH? How do we acquire FAITH? What do we have to do to use it as Jesus used it? Let us look at the person who represents the aspect or power of FAITH. I will use the word "Disciple" sometimes and capitalize it when it represents one of The Twelve.

We do not use the word "apostle", because the English term "apostle" comes from the Greek term "apostolos" and we must understand that Jesus was Jewish, not Greek and spoke the Ancient Aramaic Language, not Greek.

If you will consider leaving the idea of criticizing each of these Jewish Disciples and listen closely to what Our Lord Jesus Christ taught, we will realize Truth is at hand.

Jesus was speaking about the INNER qualities that require great attention when teaching The Twelve. He knew that in order to set our foot on the path of salvation, there has to be a Savior.

In the words of Dr. Ernest Holmes, "....for the Spirit of God is a law of elimination and obliteration to everything unlike Itself!" "....The more exalted, the more heavenly, the more boundless, the more Godlike or Christlike the thought is, the more power it will have. This is why the greatest teacher became the Savior. A spiritual genius would have to be a Savior." You will find this on page 186.4 in the Science of Mind Textbook by Dr. Ernest Holmes.

You see, if you truly believe in God, Our Father, you will believe in Jesus Christ, for he said, "When you see me, you have seen The Father." Peter was very close to him. It is said that he was the first of The Twelve. Why is it right for him to be first and for what reason would Jesus love him so much? The simple answer is that without FAITH nothing is possible! Peter represents FAITH.

Love can never be unless one has FAITH to believe in it. Love can be spurious if it is selfish or egotistical. Remember, one of the seven deadly sins (or as we say errors) is one who is proud. Wisdom can never be unless one has FAITH to believe that it is in him or her to be wise. Strength can never be unless one becomes strong enough to allow FAITH to work in him or her to move mountains! The rest of The Twelve goes the same way.

Now let us look at Peter this month, the month of Divine Love and understand Truth, the truth of whom and what Peter is to each of us. When we look at Peter and his actions, many see Peter as violent, impetuous and fearful. Is that what we are truly to focus our attention and have we been hard on the "man" Peter? Are we so busy criticizing that we miss the lesson we are to learn?

The character Peter actually teaches us what FAITH is and how it works through us until it is established on a rock-true FAITH. Thus, if you are looking only at the "man" Peter, you are missing the mark. What then is the lesson? We are to seek out, understand and practice spiritual FAITH, for intellectual faith only opens the door to doubt and hope. It is a faith, which trusts, but even that is better than mistrust.

Jesus gave to Peter the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven meaning that he knew much that he was never to reveal and that he had the understanding of what Jesus taught. We must understand that Peter, James and John were very, very close to Jesus and that they knew more than the remaining nine Disciples did. However, Peter was closer to Jesus, because of what he represented-FAITH.

It has been revealed to me that Peter is a very complex character and cannot be explained in a short article and FAITH cannot be explained in a short article, as it too is a complex power. Therefore, we will continue this article in March. Please join us in March for Part II, as FAITH is very important to us.

Loving the Lord can be a big problem for many of us, as we must first understand what loving the Lord requires.

1. Honesty
2. Truth
3. Peace
4. Peace of Mind
5. Harmony
6. Joy in the Heart
7. Trust

These seven requirements are just a few and already the very first requirement may be the stopping point that keeps us from loving the Lord.  Please understand that pointing fingers or criticizing we renounce as part of our actions.  It is simply part of that second requirement Truth, which is one of the great virtues integrity.

One really has to have veracity in order to love the Lord.  Without it, he or she may see the Lord as limited and imperfect.  We all know that the Lord is Perfect.  Of all the emotions, love is the most difficult.

Harmony requires peace of mind.  It requires an agreement of beauty and goodness as primary virtues and this is where the problem resides.  It may be that we fail to understand The Law of Attraction.  All the Cosmic Laws are involved or rest upon the other.  If we break one, we break them all.  That is a hard Truth.

Thus, we come to joy and trust.  Each of these requirements takes residence in joy and trust.  If we are joyful, we trust something as the foundation of that joy.  It is truly Our Father, the Lord.  The Truth here is that it is impossible to live one miniscule moment without the Lord.  Thus, it is wise simply love Him deeply and dearly.  It is foolish and playing with fire if we fail to understand this Truth.

The Aaronic Blessing

By Rev. Pat 

It is wonderful to sing for The Lord and praise His Holy Name. There are many who would love to do that, but may not know how to praise His Holy Name. When we sang in the Choir at our Home Church, at one point in the Service we sang the Aaronic Blessing and Rev. Fred and I never knew that was what we were doing.

I believe it was to bless every person attending the Sunday Services with a blessing that came directly from The Lord. The Lord spoke to Moses to ask him to speak to Aaron and give him this blessing to bless the children of Israel. You will find this blessing in Numbers 6:23-27. Always remember that The Lord is God and it is He who directs everything that we do. He is God and we are His servants who manage His belongings with delight!

Israel has many different meanings. Its metaphysical connection with Jacob's name changed to Israel, Israel as a nation, Israel relating to man and the relationship of animals, Saul as the first king of Israel and David representing love.

However, let us focus on the meaning of "prince of God" and the highest significance, which symbolized spiritual consciousness.

It is very important that we understand that the Bible is about the conscious, the subconscious and the Superconscious of the individual. It tells us how to live in unity with the whole Earth and the Universe. Yet, we have a tendency to think that it only speaks about the people of that time. We also have the tendency to believe that those who were wealthy in the Bible is what we are to do. We forget about the parable, which Jesus told about Lazarus and a certain Rich man.

This story truly gives us a lesson of putting Our Father before everything else. It may be that we think it has nothing to do with us. Thus, it appears that we have become crazed over the idea of money solving every problem man has on Earth.

Check out our Event for the Third Sunday of each month Gathering of Minds and what it does to help with this problem.

In Divine Love and Delight,

Rev. Pat 

The Prosperity of Joshua 

By Rev. Pat    

Before we begin this, we must ask if you know the story of Joshua. In case you never heard of him, Joshua was the one who took the Israelites into the Promised Land after Moses was overwhelmed with anger. He was one who had confidence and power and he was one of the millionaires of the Old Testament.

We can be Joshua by knowing and understanding the law of spiritual demonstration, which will give us all the courage to act. This is the reason that a well-developed faith in Spirit is so very important.

Let us look at something that may be puzzling to each of us and that is if a married couple is having trouble with finances, one may be dependent upon the other. In out studies a married couple must work together especially when it comes to finances. We are to understand that everything belongs to Our Father. Thus, we can never refer to money as "my" money or "your" money. It is God's money and we simply are managers.

This is where the problems arise. If one of them has the answer and it is not worked out together as soon as the answers begin to work-boom, it stops.

What may be wrong is that the wife or the husband is not the answer for the other, but that God is! If the husband is depending upon the wife to get God to work for the finances, then nothing will work, because the wife is NOT the husband's God. If the wife is depending upon the husband to get God to work for the finances then nothing will work, because the husband is NOT the wife's God.

Joshua worked with God. He knew that God was His Deliverer. He learned this by being under the instruction of Moses. We all must learn from another before we understand Truth.

The statement, "The husband is head of the household," means this: The conscious mind (husband) is the directive force for the mind and the subconscious (wife) is the servant! The very big problem will be in opposition to the one that fails to depend upon God. However, the spouse will try to defend herself and that is where the finances will stay until one of them realizes the truth of the matter.

Joshua was God's Servant and he took the job seriously. He knew he had to listen to what God told him to do. Those of his group were more accustomed to doing what they wanted or complaining. He held to the task and obeyed God. His obedience led to breaking the Walls of Jericho.

You may wonder why such an article for the month of February, which contains Valentine's Day, a day of love. Let us understand that finances are one of the biggest problems for a married couple. It is also a big problem for single persons. Generally, in a marriage, one or the other is depending upon the other to bring prosperity to the marriage and some even marry because they believe the other has money.

Since the male believes he is the head of the household, his thoughts may be that he will be taken care of by his wife. The wife may believe that since she is the one who will be loved by the male, she feels she has nothing to worry about. This is a deception from the very beginning.

Let us get this straight from the very beginning to assist many who have these thoughts right away. It is man made that the woman is to take care of the man! That we know many mothers teach their boys. Think!! When your child was born and someone asked you what the newborn baby was, what was your answer? You exclaimed, "It's a boy!" Yes, you were delighted and others exclaim and repeat it by saying, "It's a boy!" with great excitement.

However, when a daughter is born and they ask what is it? The answer is. "Oh, it's a girl." Mothers say it as if a great disappointment has come to be. Some act as if life did them a disservice or did them wrong.

Until the exclaiming comes with the mother, "It's a healthy child, a handsome boy, or it's a healthy child, a lovely girl" this process of making boys feel happy by being born and girls sad as if to say, "Well, what did I have this child for" or "Why didn't God give me a boy?" We will continue with this subconscious thinking pressed down that, "The subconscious is just a saboteur".

What if God only allowed boys to be born for generations and generations and generations? The answer is that there would be no one left to bring forth a new generation (God's Plan) when all the boys die out! Girls are very important. A race cannot continue without a girl. Perhaps, that is what cloning is all about or trying to create a human being through a test tube. Or, maybe that is why so many men are "coming out of the closet". They are answering your desires-NO MEN!

It would be wise to begin to look at girls in another way-God's answer to continue the race. It is equally significant to understand that girls are very important to the health of Our Father's Kingdom. I heard three very large Black men in an elevator and they were criticizing women. The elevator was slow and I had heard enough! I said to them, "You should be ashamed of yourself. Do you realize you would not be here if it had not been for your Mother, a woman! With that statement, the elevator reached my floor. I left them with their faces in shame. They yelled out, "We are sorry."

Have you given any thought to the idea that even the "boy" would not be here if it had not been for a woman, your mother? Let us see boys and girls as Our Father sees them-the continuation of His Kingdom!

In Divine Love and Great Delight,

Rev. Pat