You will find the text of Neville Goddard's lecture "This Is Your Future" located below.
A funny thing happened to me in 1975. I was a Christian who was just getting into the occult, when in a meditation I encountered a deceiving spirit, a demon, who was trying to trick me into lowering my natural authority over it, to allow it to enter me. I did not know that that was what was going on, until my mind's eye was suddenly enabled to see the demon for what it really was. It was not lost on me that the deceiving spirit needed my permission to enter me, and that the one who opened my mind's eye, being higher, did not. Needless to say, I did not allow that spirit to enter me, and I went back to church. Subsequent to this, I was saved, baptized in the Holy Ghost (an ardent tongue speaker!), and Jesus Christ spoke audibly directly into my brain.
What I got from all these things is that the Bible world, the spiritual one, is the real world we are in. The physical world we all are familiar with--from school and practical experience--is our mistaken view of the Biblical reality. It is THAT stuff, the Biblical world, that is really going on. We, in our ignorance, just do not see or understand it.
I decided to find out what else Jesus had spoken to other men. He somehow got me matriculated as a junior in Melodyland School of Theology, in their three-year upper division Bachelor of Theology program. As a theologian, I just want to find out what God is, and what He is doing. In a theology class at Melodyland, the professor went over some of the crazy things people think about God, and he noted that some people even think that the imagination could be God. Everyone laughed. I laugh at that now, as I conclude after 50 years of study and contemplation that God is our imagination. Our wonderful, human imagination is the Milta (the "Word" in Aramaic), God's assumed manifestation, becoming actualized.
In the lecture below, Neville Goddard, who everyone seems to believe was a New Thought teacher, expresses extreme disdain toward the philosophy of New Thought, for it completely misses the point of the Biblical theology: we are OF the Ineffable Most High. We are God becoming generated into His own Manifestation; not next to Him, but Him in literal reality--the unmanifest . . . manifested. We have been temporarily "ignoranced" to facilitate the Ineffable's creation of Himself, as He in this way expands.
I find Neville Godard to be a superlative Christian theologian, an exceptional Bible teacher teaching what he knew from experience, and not what he had just read. I could not find a text of this lecture, so I decided to cut and paste and correct a transcript provided on YouTube. The machine provides no punctuation, capitalization or paragraph divisions, and has a LOT of misheard words and errors. I made my best guesses to make it readable, and suggest that IF YOU READ TRANSCRIPTIONS OF NEVILLE'S LECTURES, BE CERTAIN TO LISTEN TO THE AUDIOS AS WELL. I purchased a book of some of his lectures, and counted in it over six hundred mistakes or "editings" varying from what Neville actually said. Anyway, all the mistakes in this text are mine. I claim no copyright--Neville's works are public domain, and my mistakes are free.
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Neville Goddard
THIS IS YOUR FUTURE
Suppose you heard the most incredible story in the world, the story of Jesus Christ, and someone sat you down and told you the most fantastic story, and then told you, "This is your future." Would you believe it? For that is the story--you are destined to play the part in detail of Jesus Christ. Forget the crucifixion. It is over. That's over. You are now crucified on the garment that you're wearing. So when Blake said, "Teach me, O Holy Spirit, the testimony of Jesus. Let me comprehend wondrous things out of the divine law," he is asking for all the testimony. For we are told in scripture, "The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." He poured out doctrine as prophecy, and left it to all the ages, forever and forever. So his story is your story: "Christ in us is the hope of glory." You could not breathe were he not within you. So the story as told in the Gospels is your future. So listen to "his" story, and everything said by him you are going to experience. For it is all a prophecy of man, but every man.
Now he said, "I am the only way--I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by me. If you had known me, you would have known my father also. Henceforth you know my father, and you have seen him. For if you've seen me, you have seen the Father. Believe me, I am in the Father, and the Father in me, or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. For he who believes me, the works that I do, he will do also, and even greater works than these, for I go to the Father. In that day you will know that I am in my father, and I am in you, and you are in me. In that day, you'll know it."
Now, what are the works? Then listen to all the statements that he made: he inspired the prophets, therefore you inspired the prophets; the book is all about me, therefore it is all about you. "In the volume of the book, it is all about me." I have come to fulfill scripture, therefore you are here for one purpose--to fulfill scripture.
Tonight at some party, if someone is present, and they claim they can read the future, everyone becomes so excited. "What does he do?" or "What does she do?" Well, he reads or she reads palms . . . and so they're all stretching out their hands. Or if he read teacup leaves, or coffee grounds, or maybe the stars, or maybe something else. That's not your future. Your future is to fulfill what you foretold. You foretold through your servants, the prophets, what you would come to do. You came down. You are the Word of God. For we are told the name by which he is called is the Word of God, and the Word of God is God. "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was* God," and "The word that goes forth from my mouth shall not return unto me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purposed, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it."
You sent yourself! There was no one else to do it but yourself. You foretold it, and you came into this world to fulfill what you foretold. But you had to completely forget that you had done it. You couldn't pretend--you had to completely forget that you had foretold all that you are going to fulfill. Then came that moment in time where you erupted. And the eruption is taking place, and it will continue to take place in each--and the identical story will repeat itself in everyone.
So it was you who inspired the prophet to write: "I will tell of the decree of the Lord. He said unto me, 'Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee.'" It is you who dictated the words; it is you now, who have come to hear him confirm it; it is you before who he will stand and call you, "Father," and call you, "My Lord." So everything written in Scripture is all about you.
So the real prophecy is not, "You're going to have this debt," or the other. What does it matter? Read the obituary columns this morning. There are those who are making all kinds of plans for their future. They called that their future. One, he dropped dead at 49--a very brilliant mind, doing a wonderful job in this world, head of the urban league--only 49. Swimming in the surf on this tour in Africa, and then the old heart gave out. His future is to play the part of Jesus Christ--not what the papers will tell you.
Every one must play the part of Jesus Christ, and it is not as is told from our pulpits. Jesus Christ is actually buried in every child born of woman. He will rise in every child born of woman, and every one in whom he rises will experience the entire story of Jesus Christ. He'll be born in the same manner that he is supposed to have been born--from above. He will rise in that tomb, and unaided he will come out of that tomb. He will encounter the one that he foretold to be his son, which is the sum total of all the parts of humanity. For David simply symbolizes humanity. He became humanity, and playing all the parts. Then the essence of all parts is David, and that's the son who calls him, "My father."
So everything told of him, and all of his doctrines--he poured out doctrine as prophecy, and left it to us and all the ages forever and forever. He doesn't differ from himself in you. That's not the Greater Christ, and the one in you the Lesser. There is only Christ. So don't think for one second there is one child in this world that is more important, or will be more important. For what man accomplishes in this world, whether he be a president, a dictator, a king--that's not important. That's all rubbed out--that hasn't a thing to do with the reality of your future. Your future is to fulfill scripture. Your future is to completely play the part of Jesus Christ, and he's not seen by mortal eye.
"Had you known me, you would have known my father also. Henceforth you know him, and you have seen him, for he who sees me has seen the Father. But have you seen me?" And he told them, "No, you haven't yet seen me. I have not yet displayed myself to you, but one day I will, and you will have the same form, and you will display it to another and to another, for in the end we're all transformed into the one body, the one spirit--we will be the one Lord; we will be the one God and Father of all. So not one will be greater than the other. All equally great, all God the Father." So that is your future. Dwell upon it.
Instead of dwelling upon what tomorrow's going to hold for you concerning dollars and cents, and everyone in this morning's paper, save this one gentleman who died, everyone who got any notice in the obituary column was because they left money. "This one left so much . . .this one left so much"-- it's all money, not their accomplishments, but they left money--didn't take it with them. So don't you think for one second your future can be seen in the palm of your hand, or in the teacup leaves, or in the stars. It is not there. Your future is in scripture, and you came here for one purpose: to fulfill what you yourself dictated through the prophets. You were the God who inspired the prophets; you prepared a way for your own return; you prepared it, and that preparation was all mapped out in the life as defined for us in the story of Jesus Christ.
So your future is the fulfillment of the Gospel. And when you read the story, carefully find out what he's talking about. He tells you, as he told me, and I told it to myself, because I was the one dictating it: "You must be born again. You must be born from above. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must you, the Son of Man, be lifted up. All that I am telling you, you must eat, and you call it my flesh, call it my body. Drink my blood, make it alive within you, and then as you accept it, and you believe it, it will unfold within you."
Well, I'm talking to myself. I had to come down and completely forget it, and then hear the story from below, and have faith in what I have heard. And so memory is returning. For he tells me, "I will send now the Holy Spirit, called "the Comforter" in some translations, called "the Counselor" in others--but it's the Holy Spirit--he is called the Spirit of Truth, "And when the Spirit of Truth comes, he brings to your remembrance all that I have told you." He's bringing to my remembrance all that I told myself that I would do. It's really memory returning. I can't explain it to you in any better way. In some strange way when it happened, well, you've always known it. The thing actually comes back. You've always known who you were, but you'd forgotten it and suffered complete and total amnesia. And all of a sudden the whole thing is coming back.
Who could tell a man in this century, the 20th century, that a child born three thousand years ago, that is now part of history--dead history--that that child is alive, and you promised that child that you would raise him from the grave and not leave him in hell, and that he is your child. You, born in this age, in the 20th century, and one born 3000 years ago, and that you are his father? Who for one moment would accept such an incredible story? And it's a true story, that here is this something coming out of the nowhere untouched, untarnished, not corrupted--the same beautiful creature that he was when you declare to him, "You are my son. Today I have begotten you." But now I must now sleep, and dream the dream of life, and go through hell in order to bring you out, and bring you back as my son. And then you and I play all these parts. And we played all the horrors of the world, and we're still playing them. And then in the end, he comes up, and here he stands before us, and we fulfill what we ourselves predicted that we would do, and that was for a purpose.
What was the purpose? For self-expansion. God is forever expanding himself, and this play is for one purpose: to expand God beyond what he was prior to the conceiving of the play. And then he took upon himself the limit of contraction--the human form--this body; and the limit of opacity--a complete, complete forgetfulness, darkness. And then, playing all these parts, he breaks the shell, and he comes out of that tomb. As he comes out, all that he said he would experience, he begins to experience, and everything unfolds within it.
Night before last, I seem to go from one teacher to the other in this country, those who are teaching what is called New Thought. And I said to them, one after the other "You call it New Thought? There is no such thing as New Thought. You have a great, great shock in store for you. There's not a thing new that you're talking about. And may I tell you it's all false, that you're talking about. This is not what you were here for. Not for one moment did you come for this purpose. This little -ism, and that little -ism, and the other little -ism--all this will be forgotten. You only came to fulfill scripture. You're all my brothers, and you're sound asleep listening to one who has awakened from the dream of life.
They could only smile. No, they could not for one second accept it. They're about their own little business, making a dollar. Making a dollar, and teaching nonsense to the whole vast world, if the world will listen to them. And it's only a matter of moments, just a matter of moments when you all depart, to find yourself restored in the same grand illusion that you are now lost in. And then I went from one to the other, and then returned to this state.
I can see their faces before me now. Some--most of them are still here--a few were gone to find themselves still in the same grand illusion, but they could not see me. They heard me, saw me, but not the being that I am. The transformed body they could not see. You cannot see it until it actually erupts within you, and there as it erupts within you, you are clothed entirely differently in your new body--the being that you were "before that the world was."
For the being that you really are is God. You are God: "I in them, they in me, and I in thee, and thou in me." That's what he's telling us! So if God is in me, God is in Christ, and Christ in me, is not God in me? Where would I go that if I'm going to God the Father when I depart? I'm only returning to myself. But I can't return to myself until I reach the limit here and explode--then I can return to the source of my being. Until I reach, then, I can only reproduce the pattern here--restore myself to life in a terrestrial world. I have to first reach the limit and break it, and when I break the shell and come out, then I return to myself, who is God the Father. Return to the source, but I can't return to the source until I am born from above. I cannot enter that state called heaven, I can't be clothed in that body that makes everything perfect as I walk by clothed in that body, until I am born from above.
So I'm telling you who you are, your real future. Let no one hold your hand to tell your future. What future? Don't go to any medium to find your future. Your future is in scripture. You are the Lord Jesus Christ--that's who you are. You have already been crucified, and may I tell you, it was ecstatic. It was joy beyond measure, far from pain as the world paints it--wasn't pain at all. You deliberately did it. No one took away your life. You laid it down yourself, because you knew you had the power to lay it down, and the power to take it up again. And it is just as told: six points, as you're told in scripture: the hands, the head, the right side, and the two feet. And they are vortices; they're not nails--each is a vortex. Now when you're nailed on this by these six vortices, it is sheer ecstasy. That I know from experience. And then you forget. As you enter this, having been nailed, purposely nailed by your own self--I would say, self-committal, for the purpose of which I've just told you, and now you've come in, having foretold it. You come to fulfill it, for no one in the world could fulfill it but God himself.
So God became man, and then he raises himself out of man, bringing with him the experiences of man. Therefore in a way he raises the nature of man and transforms it into that which is God himself, because it is God begetting himself. For nature is simply that principle upon which we depend for sameness of form in transmitted life. Therefore man transmits man. Man transmits man, God transmits God, and so when you come up above, it is simply God's begetting God. Bring(ing?) yourself out once more, plus the experience of having been man in this world, glorified beyond your wildest dreams.
So tonight, dwell upon your future as Christ Jesus. Not some little thing you're going to leave behind you, it'll all be rubbed out. All the accomplishments of man will be completely forgotten, completely wiped out. Not a thing will be left. But you are immortal, and your future is the fulfillment of your own prediction. You predicted the Word, because you are the Word, and you foretold it through your prophets, your servants. Then, finding no one who could fulfill it, you came down yourself. You are the Word, and the Word is God, and the Word became flesh, and dwells within us. And now the Word is flesh, and you're going to fulfill your own prediction. And everything said about Jesus, you are going to experience. And you'll know exactly who you are.
I am not flattering you. I rather this very moment drop before you than to flatter you for any purpose whatsoever. I am not flattering you. I could not, because you're great beyond the wildest dream of man. You're not some little pygmy, no matter what part you're now playing, you are the Lord God Jesus Christ--you are! And the day will come you will know it, and everyone will know it, but you will not then be playing the little part of John and Peter, and this and the other. You are the Lord Jesus Christ.
So your future . . .all right, as far as this world goes, assume a dignified state for yourself. Why shouldn't you? If you're in need today, because you are truly the Lord Jesus Christ, assume that you have what you need. Because it's yours for the assumption. Yours for the taking. Yours for the appropriation. It is all yours. You don't go to steal it; you simply appropriate it. What would the feeling be like, if it were true? Dare to appropriate it by simply catching the feeling that would be yours were it true. You aren't stealing it. In a way that no one knows, everyone must play a part and bring to you what you've assumed.
Whatever one in this world could be used to play their part to bring it, they'll bring it. But I would not make money my goal. But if you want to make it your goal, may I tell you, it's perfectly all right. No condemnation at all. But whatever you want in this world, dare to assume it, that you have it, and live as though it were true, and walk in that assumption, that it is true. Sleep in it, but don't forget the story that is your true story: you are the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't be ashamed of it. Don't be embarrassed. Let no one offend you. It doesn't make any difference. Hit this little thing called Neville--perfectly all right, but the being that is wearing it--you can't touch it. That being you cannot offend, because he knows who he is. So this little thing related to some physical little background, Oh, you could offend the family. Would I be that stupid to react because you have some remark about the physical background the thing called Neville? No, but the thing that I really am you do not know. That being I know, and that being . . . why talk about it, because who would believe it?
This morning's paper, some lady, prominent through her very prominent brother--she has two very prominent brothers--and she was offended because someone spoke at one of the colleges, and she went up and made an attempt to slap her face, because it offended her concept of the Virgin Mary. And you look at this thing, and you wonder, what on earth? And they're supposed to be prominent--socially prominent, very, very wealthy. And that she could react in this manner of violence, because someone made the statement concerning the Virgin Mary from the platform of a college in our country, and she dared to become violent about it. And here is the one who is speaking love--nothing but love, and the forgiveness of all things. And she's going to defend the Virgin Mary?
If she only knew who the Virgin Mary really is. If I told her as a man, "I am Mary, and birthed the God--not 'must give'--I have given birth to him, and don't look outside to see where he is. I gave birth to myself. God only gives birth to himself." She would then possibly jump up here and slap me. But I am telling you who you are, and I do hope that you will actually accept it and dwell upon it. Your dreams will change, your visions will change, your whole nights will change--they're conscious all through the night, and yet you are rested when you wake in the morning. Your teaching, as Paul said, "My gospel, let no one, even if I myself changed it, do not believe me, for this came by revelation, so let no one change it." And he was writing these words before we had four gospels. He said, "Mine came all by revelation. "So, "I preach only Christ, and him crucified. I came before you knowing nothing but Christ, and him crucified." And he's talking to you, because he makes the statement, "And I have been crucified with him. If I've been united with him in a death like his, I certainly shall be united with him in a resurrection like his".
So he admits the crucifixion is over--the union with him is over. Look at it this way: Christ is a pattern; God is buried in Christ, the pattern; God, in the pattern, buried in man. The pattern fulfills itself. Who is fulfilling it? God is doing the works. So buried in the pattern in the fullness of time, the pattern unfolds. Like a seed is a pattern, and in the fullness of time the seed breaks, and then the pattern unfolds. So Christ is a pattern, the pattern man. It's buried in man, and in that pattern is the author of it all--it is God the Father. So he unfolds within the pattern, and it's a definite pattern, and you can't change the pattern. And it begins with resurrection. And the second side of that same knife is birth from above. Then the discovery of his promise to David: "You are my son. I've got now to actually fulfill what I told you that I am--I'm your father. I'm humanity's father, and you are the symbol of humanity, having played all, now you must stand before me and actually fulfill my prophecy, and call me father." And he does. He stands before you, he calls you father, and now I who became man and came out of man, I am therefore the Son of Man.
Now, the Son of Man must rise like a serpent into heaven, just as I foretold it through my servant Moses. But he only had a copy of the reality, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy, not the letter. It's the spirit of prophecy, as you read it in the 19th chapter of the Book of Revelations. His testimony is the spirit, for the letter kills, the spirit makes alive. So he comes to give life, and to make real, for I am not only the Way and the Truth of the Life, I am the True and Living Way. I give life and reality to the dead letter. For my testimony is the spirit, not the letter. So, "Teach me, O Holy Spirit, the testimony of Jesus. Let me comprehend wondrous things out of the divine law," because if he is the spirit of truth, well then let me find it. Well, he comes from within. He can't come from without. As he comes from within, he reinterprets the letter in terms of his own living experience. And then he tells it, and those who will believe his testimony believe in him. Then from one to the other it carries on. And then within them the same thing happens, proving there's only Christ.
So that one pattern is in all. It's not a different pattern. It has to be duplicated in everyone, and the one who is working it is God. As we are told, "He who began the good work in you, he will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." So at that day you will know: "I am in my father, and I am in you, and you are in me." That's what he tells us, and then, when it happens in a man, I can't tell anyone the awe, the thrill; there he had been waiting and waiting, turning on the outside, listening to words on the outside, and all of a sudden you realize all on the inside. It was always all about you. You foretold it, and then deliberately became contracted and lost all consciousness of what you foretold. But you wrote it through your servants, and there was the written record of what you had foretold. You've come now to make it alive, and then, within you the whole thing becomes alive.
So you reinterpret scripture in the light of your own experience. And those who have not had the experience, they can't believe it. That's not what they were looking for. They were looking for a savior to come from without, not knowing he was buried within, that the crucifixion was over before the whole thing began, that the whole thing began with the crucifixion, and then the resurrection is the beginning of the interpreting of the word, and you are the Word. And you dwell upon your greatness, and may I tell you, all other things will fall into place. You don't have to sit down and work upon this problem and that problem, and the other problem, just dwell upon who you really are, and memory begins to return.
And then you walk differently. You walk in an entirely different state of consciousness. You don't brag about it, you don't talk about it, for the simple reason everyone that you meet in the world is also going to have the same experience. So you can't be a better-than. You see them asleep, sound asleep, but buried in that sleeping being is the Lord, and then you know the words of the 44th Psalm: "Rouse thyself. Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Do not cast us off forever. Awake!" And the call is to God in man to rouse himself and awake. And the minute he rouses and he awakes, the pattern unfolds. And the pattern is the identical pattern, as told us in scripture. There is no other pattern.
So your greatness is not in any physical accomplishment in this world. It is only in the fulfilling of your own words. You willed it so to be, and then you came in to fulfill it, for there's no one to play the part. God only acts, and is in existing beings or men. He is the actor in man, and that actor in man is your own wonderful human imagination. And it's a person, may I tell you. It's not an intangible something; it's a person, a real person, and when awakened and clothed in his glorified body, no mortal eye could see it. No mortal eye could ever even conceive of it--the glory of that body. And wherever it is, everything is made perfect: "I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfectly one," as told us in the 17th chapter of John. "I in them, Thou in me, that they may be made perfectly one." So the one speaking is in humanity, and the one speaking--God is in him, directing. And that one speaking--bear in mind, it's the pattern.
Now when you hear the word 'Christ,' think of it as a pattern. It's the pattern man. It's the only way to the Father, and until that pattern unfolds in man, he cannot find the Father. He may search for him forever. He cannot find him save through the pattern, and the pattern has to become alive and unfold and awake within man. And as it awakes within man, he discovers himself as God the Father. You're not going to find him outside of self, and you aren't going to find him as something on the outside looking at you. You only find him when you fulfill your word to David. You told David, "Thou art my son. Today I have begotten thee." Not in eternity will you ever know you really are God the Father, until you fulfill that word to David. You are the God who inspired the poet to write those words. And you will keep your word, because "thy word is truth," and you've got to fulfill your word to David. And only when David stands before you will you know why it is stated in the Gospel, "No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."
So until you fulfill your word to David, you will not know who you are. But you will fulfill it, for your word is yourself. For in the beginning was the Word, the Word was the God, and the Word was God, and that Word became flesh in your flesh. So you will fulfill your word because your word cannot return unto you void. You must accomplish that with your purposed, and prospering the thing for which you sent it, and so you've sent yourself to fulfill it. And the day will come, he will stand before you, and you'll fulfill your word-- you've kept your promise that he is your son, and he calls you "Father," and then you know you are God the Father. And then you will tell it to your brothers, and you will say to your brothers, I'm going unto my Father and your Father. I'm going unto my God and your God, my brothers. For they're all brothers. The way for the sons to return as God the Father has been prepared, and that was the grand state: calling one person who was God's son, your son. And so you predicted that he would call you father. And then came the day he calls you father. And then memory returns, and you know who you are.
I can't tell you the feeling when you see him. I trust my two wives implicitly. I've been married twice. My first wife bore me a son, and my second wife bore me a daughter. I do believe 100 percent I sired that, that is now my child and my daughter, that they are really my offspring. But I know when I see David with such certainty. There is no uncertainty when he stands before you and called you Father. None whatsoever. Not that there has ever been one moment of doubt in my mind that my two children are my children, but when it comes to this son, there is no uncertainty. I can't describe the feeling of certainty when you stand before him and you've fulfilled your promise, for you were the one who dictated those words. It is you who inspired him to write it down, when he said: "I will tell of the decree of the Lord; he said unto me, 'Thou art my son. Today I have begotten Thee.'"
You inspired those words, and you came in to fulfill it, and you're going to fulfill it, for you dwell this night on your true being, your essential being, and whatever bothers you will not bother you anymore. But if you really know and feel you are the Lord Jesus Christ, accept no challenge from any person in the world to convert stone into bread and to cast yourself down to satisfy his curiosity. Do nothing for it. You do not accept any temptation whatsoever to prove your identity. You walk in the knowledge of who you are, and you do not have to prove it to anyone in the world. The day will come, the pattern will unfold, and you will know it. I am telling you what I know from experience, and I am not different--there's only one Christ in the world. I would not have it otherwise.
I would not have for one moment the feeling that I would transcend my brothers. We're brothers--all one. My earthly mother is my brother; my earthly father is my brother. As told scripture: "Who are my brothers? Who is my mother? Who is my father?" Well, they said, "Your father and mother are waiting for you, and your brothers." "Who are they? Those who hear the word of God--these," and he pointed, "these are my brothers," including his mother, including his father, including all who would hear. We're all one. So let no one feel superior. Then, when they asked, "Who will be the greatest in the kingdom? "It is not mine to give you." He hushed that argument right away. When the mother insisted that James and John be placed top of the list.--"It is not mine to give." We're all brothers, we have a common father, and we're moving towards fatherhood. And so we're moving towards being the Father himself. And you could only have the one Father.
So when tonight you dwell on it, I hope when you go to bed you always have some pleasant thought, rather than the cares of the day, that it will occupy the mind as to who you really are. For I'm not lying to you. I'm telling you who you are: you are the Lord Jesus Christ, and buried in that pattern is the being that you really are: God the Father. And one day that pattern will unfold, and at a certain point of unfoldment your promise has been kept to your son, who is the only one that can reveal you. For no man has ever seen God, but his only son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. That's how much you actually completely forgot when you came down and assumed this garment of flesh and blood.
Now if you think this is not practical, may I tell you it's the most practical night you could have, for while you were taken away from the cares of the day and listening to who you really are, some great, great work is taking place within you. For your father knows your needs far more than your conscious reasoning mind knows, and he knows your needs. And while you listen to his Word, his revealed Word as it came to you through one in whom he awoke, the work was going on. So your needs will be met. He knows far greater than your rational mind knows what you really need.
Now let us go into the silence.
* Was = Hayah? i.e., the Hebrew for "become" (Strong's 1961). See Bullinger, Companion Bible, comment on Genesis 1:2's 'was.' The earth wasn't void and chaos in Genesis 1:1, and then it was void and chaos in Genesis 1:2. I see the implication of transition anywhere hayah is used--the Ineffable is becoming manifest: that's the Milta (Miltha). GPZ (Ground Point Zero) of His transition from man into God is YOU.
This two-cents' worth, too: Genesis 1:26 says, "Let us make man in our image," or as I have in Alexander, "We shall make the human being in the image of our likeness." When someone says 'us' or 'we', he is inferring the inclusion of YOU. This is the point in Deuteronomy 6:4, that ISRAEL IS INCLUDED IN THE ONE THAT GOD IS.
