Prosperity Sunday 5 of 12

          Since this is Prosperity Sunday #5, let’s talk about your assets.

What, in your opinion, is your most important asset?

I’ll let ruminate on that question as we review the first four chapters of SPIRITUAL ECONOMICS, by Eric Butterworth.

Our first chapter was about substance, that invisible, universally present creative stuff that, when mixed with your thoughts, initiates a creative, substantive, chain-reaction that produces according to the belief/ the emotion/ the expectation which your thought carries. As an aside, you may not yet believe/ deeply feel/ expect something “good” to be true for you in your life, but I would say that if you believe, feel, expect as if it were true… that this is an ‘up-leveling’ of your thoughts and that your resultant experience is also “up-leveled.”

Chapter two was YOUR FORTUNE BEGINS WITH YOU and the point of that chapter is that there is a creative law at work which we would describe as “Thoughts held in mind produce after their kind.” The thoughts that you hold in mind are up to you, thus your fortune begins with you!

Chapter three is THE LAW OF VISUALIZATION and its summation is, “Having seen and felt the end you have willed the means to the realization of the end.” We all know the idea that there is a means to every end. Visualizing that end; holding it in your mind… those are the means to the realization of end. Again, your fortune begins with you.

Chapter four was IF YOU CAN BELIEVE and here we see the same theme as the previous three chapters, just said in a different way; (Butterworth), “…you will always receive what you actually expect. So, we hold thoughts in mind, and visualize the end as already being so… and that will produce according to our expectation.”

 If that is so, then I suggest you check your expectation in any and all areas of your life. Where things are not as you would hope they’d be, change your thinking, change your belief (or at least, “be open to the possibility of…”) of the power of the Law of Mind-Action and be grateful that you know that you have the power to be, as Walt Whitman refers to it, not a slave but a ruler of life.

Before we begin this week’s chapter, I ask you again, what is your most important asset?

In the opening paragraph of this week’s chapter, THE GRATEFUL HEART, Butterworth gives us his answer: (page 85, P1) “What is your most important asset? Conditioned as it is to materialistic values, your mind might begin weighing the relative usefulness of things. However, if you carefully search within yourself, you may come to the awareness that your most important asset is the conscious control of your own life. Nothing else can satisfy or fulfill… unless you enjoy the freedom that comes from control of your inner world of mind and emotions.”

Butterworth tells a story about a man who was ill and went to the doctor. The doctor told him he had six months to live, people asked him what will he do with the time he has left? His answer was, “I will do what I have always done; live with a grateful heart one day at a time.” Ten years later when Butterworth is writing is the book, he writes that the man was alive and well. One might say, “Well this man has plenty which to be grateful for. What did he have ten years ago?” To think this way is to miss the whole meaning.

This man lived a controlled life… living with a grateful heart one day at a time. Living with a grateful heart is a conscious choice; it’s taking conscious control of your life; living with a grateful heart is a causative energy.

Remember: the conscious control of this causative energy is your greatest asset.

Butterworth says, “…though normally overlooked, living with a grateful heart is a key element in the process of achieving prosperity.”

Did you hear that? Did you take that in? Living with a grateful heart is a key element in the process of achieving abundance.

Perhaps you’ve thought that God is disturbed if you don’t return thanks. If “God is Love’” then it is God’s nature to Love and (possible blasphemy waning) God doesn’t (dare I say “can’t” when we’re talking about “The Almighty? J) do anything other than extend love. Thus God can do only one thing where you are concerned, extend love to you.

Butterworth (page 87) “You are not obligated to thank God for your life, for your job, for your prosperity. However, giving thanks is an important state of your consciousness that keeps you in awareness of oneness with divine flow. When you understand this, you see that a grateful heart does not need something to be grateful for… it simply flows forth from within and becomes a causative energy.”

In 1 Thessalonians 5:18-19 Paul is counseling the people to, “give thanks in all circumstances.”

Please do not misunderstand this. The counsel is not, “Be thankful for all circumstances,” but, “be thankful in all circumstances.” These are two very different suggestions.

Paul is not suggesting we be thankful for a car that doesn’t run, or for not having warm clothing for the winter, or the fact that you don’t a thin dime, a plug nickel, or two cents to rub together. Here’s what it’s about, plain and simple: be thankful for the awareness of the ever-presence of substance.

Now here we are, connected right back to chapter one and ever-present creative substance.

Knowing this and knowing that you can choose to be aware of the ever-presence of substance (i.e. be grateful) is your most important asset because now you know you have conscious control over your own life!

Let me give you a way to extend gratitude on a day-to-day basis that activates the ever-present substance and initiates the process of achieving abundance: bless everything.

(pages 92-93) “The power of blessing is not reserved for the holy places, or for the specially ordained persons. It is an act of tremendous power that can be used by anyone. …to bless… means “to confer prosperity upon.” You are always projecting some kind of thought toward everything you have or hold. Sometimes it is negative, limiting, restrictive. But you can bless your home, your job, or your money supply, and thus confer a consciousness of abundance upon them. It is not something you do to these things. Rather, it is a correction of the mentality [you hold]. And the law is that things become to you, that which you see them as being.”

Take a moment right now engage in the experience of gratitude, just as we did earlier in our meditation. Close your eyes and just feel grateful. Don’t cast about for something or another to be grateful for, just feel gratitude. This is an exercise in feeling causal energy. Just feel grateful. Let the spirit of thanksgiving flood your whole being with its healing warmth.

          This week, make a commitment to keep alive your awareness of substance through gratitude in all things. If you are willing, write 10 times each day until our next prosperity Sunday, “Feeling gratitude is a key element in the process of abundance.”