Key
1
NOTE: This is an excerpt from the book, Master
Keys to the Abundant Life.
Let us begin with a reality check. Let us look
at the statement, “It is the Father’s
good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
Although you may have heard that statement many
times before, have you really spent the time
and the attention to consider what this truly
means? If you look at this statement, you will
see that there really is only one meaning. It
is the Father’s good pleasure to give
you the kingdom, and this must mean that God
really wants you to have his kingdom. God really
wants you to have the abundant life. It is his
good pleasure to give it to you.
So if you look at your life and see that you
do not have abundance, then you must reason
that something has gone wrong. Something is
preventing you from having the abundant life
that God wants you to have. And now we can begin
to reason together and consider what could possibly
have prevented you from having the abundant
life—if it truly is God’s desire
and God’s will that you should have that
abundance. What could possibly have gone wrong?
What could possibly prevent you from having
what God wants you to have? What could possibly
prevent God’s will from being a manifest
reality on planet Earth?
Let us now take a look at planet Earth. There
is great beauty in nature on this planet. Your
scientists are continually discovering how intricate,
how complex, and yet how wondrous this world
is designed. There are so many interwoven and
complex systems on Earth that even the most
materialistic scientists cannot help but once
in a while feel a sense of wonder and awe over
the intricacy, the beauty and the symmetry they
discover in nature. And if you are a spiritually
inclined person, you will tend to agree with
me when I say that this intricacy must have
been designed by a mind that is very capable
and that has great imagination and reasoning
ability. So what you see in nature is that God
truly has designed a very beautiful and wondrous
creation, a creation that has great abundance.
Yet when you look at the area of human affairs,
you see a different picture. Even though the
human body is the most complex of all of God’s
creations, human beings seem to have trouble
figuring out how to use their bodies without
destroying themselves, without destroying others
or without destroying nature. And whereas you
often see abundance and balance in nature, you
do not see the same abundance or the same balance
in human affairs. Think about the words of Jesus,
when he said that you are of greater value than
the sparrows (Matthew 10:31), meaning that if
God is capable of clothing and feeding the birds,
he is surely capable of giving you everything
you need. Yet there are many people on Earth
who look at the birds with envy because the
birds are free to fly wherever they like and
they always seem to find food just for the taking.
In contrast, many people are trapped by various
circumstances and can hardly move. They must
struggle their entire lives just to make a living
and feed themselves and their children. And
so many people long for the carefree life of
the birds and feel that in contrast their life
is only one long struggle.
Yet when you look at the beauty and the abundance
that God has built into nature, does it seem
logical to you that God would not be able to
design a planet that can sustain human life
with the same abundance and carefreeness that
you see in the life of birds? Is there really
any reason why God should not be able to design
a planet that can give you the same freedom
and the same carefree living as you see in the
life of the many creatures that have far less
intelligence and, as Jesus said, far less value
than yourself.
You have only limited options when you start
reasoning this through in a logical manner.
You cannot deny the reality that human beings
do not have the abundant life. And when you
consider the concept that it is the Father’s
good pleasure to give you the kingdom, you must
say that if God wants human beings to have the
abundant life, then something must have gone
wrong either on God’s end or on your end.
One option is to reason that apparently God
was able to create a wonderful and intricate
planet that is able to sustain a carefree and
abundant life for the birds and other creatures
with less intelligence than humans. Yet when
it came to humans, God somehow was not able
to engineer the planet so that it could sustain
your life in the same abundance and freedom
from care, lack or suffering. So you can reason
that God’s ability to design must somehow
be flawed, and when it came to human beings,
he made a mistake.
There are indeed many people who have reasoned
this way. Some of them are religious people,
and having been brought up to fear going to
hell if they blaspheme God, they quickly push
such thoughts aside. Others are willing to acknowledge
the thoughts and some have even used them as
a reason to reject all religion or reject the
concept of God.
If you are inclined to think this way, I ask
only one thing of you. The next time there is
a clear night where you live, please go outside
and look up into the night sky. Look up into
the Milky Way and contemplate how many stars
there are. You don’t need to look up in
a scientific book that tells you how many billions
of stars scientist have calculated to be in
existence. You just need to look with your eyes
and see that there are more stars than you can
count. And then ask yourself, “If God
was able to create a universe of such incredible
vastness and complexity, does it seem logical
that on this small planet, that we call Earth,
God was not able to provide an abundant and
carefree life for the highest life form on this
planet?”
My beloved hearts, if you will contemplate this,
I think you will realize the absolute truth
that God is fully capable of designing planet
Earth in such a way that every human being on
this planet can enjoy an abundant and carefree
life with the same freedom as that enjoyed by
the birds. And so the very fact that most people
do not have this life cannot be caused by a
problem on God’s end. And this leaves
only one logical conclusion. The lack and the
poverty found on Earth must be caused by a problem
on your end. Something must have happened on
Earth that prevents God’s desire from
being manifest here. Something must have happened
that altered God’s original design for
this planet, so that the highest and most complex
life form often encounters a less abundant life
than what is enjoyed by many of the creatures
of far less intelligence.
If
you step back from this issue, you might find
reason to question the image of God that you
have been given since childhood. You might consider
these questions:
-
If God truly is the almighty and infallible
God that he is portrayed to be by many religions,
and if it truly is God’s desire that
human beings have the abundant life, then
how can it possibly be that God’s
desire is not manifest on Earth?
-
What
could possibly prevent the desires of an
all-mighty and all-powerful God from being
manifest?
-
If
it is God’s good pleasure to give
people the kingdom, how could they possibly
fail to have that kingdom?
You
now reach another logical conclusion. Either
there is something wrong on God’s end
or there is something wrong on your end, meaning
that either God has a flaw or the image of God
upheld by many people on Earth has a flaw.
Once
again, if God can create such an intricate and
vast universe, is it likely that he is unintelligent?
The logical conclusion is that there must be
something wrong in the image of God that has
been painted by certain religions on this Earth.
This leads us to a fruitful area of discussion
because we can now begin to consider what might
be missing in the image of God that you have
come to accept.
We have seen that God is quite capable of designing
a very vast and complex universe. We have reasoned
that a God who can create such an incredible
universe is fully capable of creating a small
planet that can provide the abundant and carefree
life for every human being living upon it. Yet
despite the fact that God is able and willing,
the current reality on planet Earth does not
reflect God’s desire and God’s ability.
Therefore, something must have come between
the design for Earth that God holds in his mind
and the reality that is currently outpictured
on this planet. As I have said, what could possibly
prevent the desire of an almighty God from being
manifest? Well, it is logical that nothing can
prevent God from having his will fulfilled.
So the only possible conclusion is that either
God is not almighty or he has chosen to set
aside, at least on a temporary basis, his almighty
powers on Earth.
This opens the possibility that God has given
human beings dominion over the Earth, as the
Bible clearly states (Genesis 1:26). What does
it mean that God told people to take dominion
over the Earth? Does it not seem reasonable
to assume that God has given human beings an
ability to not simply live on this planet and
adapt to the natural circumstances, as you see
in animal species? God has given human beings
the ability to not simply adapt to their environment
but to take dominion over that environment and
to actively and consciously alter that environment
to suit their needs. In other words, human beings
have the ability to choose how they will live.
They are not simply slaves of their environment
that must either adapt or become extinct.
When you look at nature, you will see that all
animal species are adapted to a certain type
of environment. Although there is great adaptability
in nature, there is a limit to how much an animal
species can adapt to different types of environments.
The reason is that an animal does not have the
consciousness and the creative ability to either
alter its environment or to insulate itself
from that environment. Yet human beings do have
that ability, and therefore you will see that
no animal species has the same ability to live
in many different environments as is the case
for human beings. This alone should make you
realize that God has given human beings abilities
that are far beyond what is found in the animal
kingdom. Therefore, human beings are more than
simply sophisticated animals. Human beings are
not simply highly evolved animals because humans
are, to use a modern expression, a quantum leap
above any animal species.
The logical conclusion is that God created human
beings in his own image and likeness (Genesis
1:26), meaning that humans have a consciousness
and self-awareness so sophisticated that instead
of simply adapting to their environment, they
have the ability to imagine that their environment
could be changed and that such a change could
enable them to have more abundance than what
their environment currently provides. Human
beings also have the ability to freely choose
that, instead of adapting to a particular environment,
they will actively seek to change that environment.
So what sets a human being apart from animals
is self-awareness, imagination and free will.
On
the positive side, these creative abilities
give human beings the potential to act as extensions
of God on Earth. This might give us a new view
of the story of creation told in Genesis. It
is explained how God spent six days creating
the Earth, the animal kingdom and human beings.
And then on the seventh day, God rested. Could
it possibly be that God resting means that God
temporarily stopped his creative work on planet
Earth? He did this because he had created beings
that were meant to act as his hands and feet
on Earth, as extensions of himself on Earth,
so that they could finish the creation of Earth?
Is it possible that God created human being
in his image and likeness because he wants them
to finish the creation of Earth, so that, instead
of passively living here, they could take active
part in God’s creation, they could feel
that they played an active role and that they
could take part in bringing God’s kingdom
into full manifestation on this planet?
Yes my beloved, I know these ideas go far beyond
what you were told in Sunday school, and they
go far beyond what your scientists are willing
to even consider. Yet these ideas can explain
the reality that you see in your own life and
in the lives of billions of people on this planet,
namely that you do not have the abundant life.
If you think deeply, you will realize that somewhere
deep inside, you know that you should have abundance,
you know that life should be different, that
life should be better than it is right now.
And you can understand this by looking at the
flip side of the coin, because the fact that
God has given people imagination and free will
has a dark side, a negative potential. It is
possible that people can use their imagination
to envision something that is less than what
God wants for them. And it is possible that
they can use their free will to choose to manifest
something on this planet that has less abundance
than God’s original design. As I have
tried to explain, God originally designed this
planet to give human beings the same carefree
living as enjoyed by animals. God wanted humans
to build upon this foundation, so they could
create even more abundance for themselves than
what nature is designed to provide. Yet human
beings can also go in the opposite direction
and tear down the foundation built by God, whereby
human society enters an unnatural state of lack
that leads to poverty and inequality.
If you will go deeply within your hearts and
consider these ideas, you will see that they
can indeed explain why there is so much inequality,
so much suffering, so much lack, so much poverty
on this planet. And these ideas can also explain
why, deep within your heart, you have an inner
knowing that this is not natural, that this
is not right, that this is not what God intended,
that this is not the way life is supposed to
be.
In conclusion, we have now seen that it is truly
the Father’s good pleasure to give you
the abundant life. This is the natural state
of affairs on planet Earth, namely that all
human beings have abundance of every good and
perfect gift. As Jesus said, “That ye
may be the children of your Father which is
in Heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on
the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on
the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).
The
conclusion is that human beings have done something
to obstruct the natural state of affairs on
Earth, to obstruct the flow of God’s abundance
and to prevent it from reaching every human
being. Once you reach this conclusion and begin
to accept it – in the inner reaches of
your being as well as in your outer mind –
you gain an entirely different perspective on
life and the possibility of attaining the abundant
life. You now see that instead of thinking you
are living on a planet where suffering and lack
are somehow inevitable, the reality is that
abundance is the natural state of affairs. This
is what God wants and he has designed a planet
with the full capacity to provide that abundance.
Oh yes my beloved, I know you have been brought
up to think that what prevents the abundant
life on Earth is a lack of natural resources,
but this is not so. God has designed this planet
so that it has every resource necessary to provide
the abundant life for all people. In fact, the
Earth can provide this abundant life for more
people than are currently living upon it. The
problem on Earth is that human beings have used
their minds, the power of their imagination
and free will, to limit, to divert, to obstruct
the natural flow of God’s abundance.
When you reach that conclusion, you can take
your thoughts about the abundant life in a new
direction. You can being to consider how you
can personally stop obstructing the natural
flow of God’s abundance, so that you can
truly inherit your Father’s kingdom and
experience the abundant life while you are still
here on Earth.
You see my beloved, you can take two approaches
to the abundant life. One is the passive and
one is the active approach. When you take the
passive approach, you might accept that God
wants you to have abundance but since you do
not currently have it, your only option is to
reason that for some unknown, mystical, unknowable
reason God does not want to give you the abundant
life right now. And since you cannot understand
why – and you cannot explain why because
there is no logical explanation – your
only option is to simply wait and hope that
at some future time God will change his mind
and give you that abundant life. This puts you
in a waiting position and it turns you into
a helpless victim of circumstances and forces
beyond your control.
On the other hand, when you take the active
approach, you reason, as I have just explained,
that it is natural for you to have abundance.
Thus, if you do not have it, something is blocking
it. If you can find out what is blocking it,
you might be able to remove those blocks and
then God’s abundance will naturally start
flowing into your life. My beloved, if you can
accept this possibility, you are truly ready
to receive the next keys to the kingdom that
I will give you in the following chapters.
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Copyright
© 2005 by Kim Michaels |
