The Power of Oneself. Charles Fillmore

      Lesson Eight

      Faith

       Table of Contents

      1. Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen. . . . By faith we understand that the worlds have been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen hath not been made out of things which appear.

      2. In the 11th chapter of Hebrews, we find the achievements of faith piled mountain high:

      By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death. . . . By Faith Noah . . . prepared an ark to the saving of his house. . . . By faith Abraham, being tried, offered up Isaac. . . . By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months by his parents. . . . By faith the walls of Jericho fell down. . . . And what shall I more say? for the time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah; of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned to flight armies of aliens. Women received their dead by a resurrection.

      3. The idea that faith is something that has to do only with one's religious experience is incorrect. Faith is a faculty of the mind that finds its most perfect expression in the spiritual nature, but in order to bring out one's whole character it should be developed in all its phases. That it is a power is self-evident. People who have faith in themselves achieve far more than those who do not believe in their own ability. We call this self-faith innate confidence, but confidence is only a form of faith. Belief is another of the expressions of faith. Jesus apparently made no distinction between faith and belief. He said, "Believe ye that I am able to do this?" and "Whosoever . . . shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that what he saith cometh to pass; he shall have it." In an analysis of the constituent parts of man's consciousness, we locate belief in the intellect, working in the thought realm without contact with the more interior substance of Spirit, upon which true faith is founded.

      4. In Spirit, faith is related to omnipresent substance or assurance. Jesus used the same illustration when He referred to Peter, a type of faith, as a rock upon which He would found His church. Here is proof that faith is closely allied to the enduring, firm, unyielding forms of earth substance. But free faith has power to do, and power to bring about results in the affairs of those who cultivate it.

      5. Like the other faculties, faith has a center through which it expresses outwardly its spiritual powers. Physiologists call this center the pineal gland, and they locate it in the upper brain. By meditation man lights up the inner mind, and he receives more than he can put into words. Only those who have strengthened their interior faculties can appreciate the wonderful undeveloped possibilities in man. The physiologist sees the faculties as brain cells, the psychologist views them as thought combinations, but the spiritual-minded beholds them as pure ideas, unrelated, free, all-potential.

      6. Faith can be extended in consciousness in every direction. It will accomplish wonderful things if quickened and allowed free expression in its native realm. When Jesus said, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you," He referred to faith's working in spiritual substance. Such results are possible only to the faith that co-operates with creative law. Where faith is centered in outer things, the results are not worthy of mention. Men have named them luck, accident, chance, and the like. Such charms seem to work for a little while, then suddenly change, so it is evident that they are not under any enduring law.

      7. When faith is exercised in the intellectual realm, the results are usually profitable to the man of brains. If he has faith in his art, or his science, or his philosophy, it answers his purpose, for a time at least, but it never gets beyond the traditions and experiences of precedent. Intellectual people do no miracles through faith, because they always limit its scope to what the intellect says is law. It is when faith is exercised deep in spiritual consciousness that it finds its right place, and under divine law, without variation or disappointment, it brings results that are seemingly miraculous. 8. Faith has always played a very large part in the experiences of religious people because they have given it free scope, expecting great things through it from the Lord. But nearly all faith demonstrations have been the result of a sort of blind confidence that God would carry out whatever was asked of Him. Sometimes a petitioner has been disappointed, and a series of disappointments has usually led to doubt and to the conclusion that God has in some way changed His law. The early Christians were taught by Jesus and His disciples to have faith in God, and they did wonderful, so-called miraculous, works. As time went on and their attention was more and more drawn to worldly things, the Christians of a later day became separated from the spiritual forces within them, and their faith lost its energy. Then they began teaching that miracles were no longer necessary; that God had given them to the early Christians because they did not have the Bible or an organized church. They also taught that the miracles had been given to prove that Jesus was the Son of God.

      9. Now we have a fuller understanding of the law of God, and know that whatever has been done once can be done again under like conditions. If Jesus and His disciples and the early Christians did marvelous things through the prayer of faith, we can do likewise. All that is required is perseverance in our use of faith until we make connection with the higher realms of consciousness, where, as Jesus said, though our faith be as small as the smallest of seeds, it will spring forth and demonstrate its power to carry out every desire into which we infuse it. "Nothing shall be impossible unto you," if your faith is in Spirit, and if your work is in harmony with Divine Mind.

      10. The Christian religion has been a great factor in the development of faith in the inner realms of man's being. "Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." The power to see in Spirit is peculiar to faith. In its outer expression this power is sight; interiorly it is that which perceives the reality of the substance of Spirit. Mental seeing is knowing; when we perceive the truth of a proposition, we say, "I see, I see," meaning that we mentally discern.

      11. Faith in the reality of things spiritual develops the faith center in the brain, called the pineal gland. When this mental eye is illuminated with spiritual faith, it sheds a radiance that hovers like a halo around the head and extends in lessening degree throughout the whole body. "When thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light." The halo that the early artists painted around the heads of saints was not imaginary, but real. This illuminating power of faith covers the whole constitution of man, making him master of all the forces centering about spiritual consciousness. Faith and prayer go hand in hand.

      12. "The faith which thou hast, have thou to thyself before God. Happy is he that judgeth not himself in that which he approveth." Have faith in what you do, and after it is done do not condemn yourself. We all are seeking happiness, contentment, and we know by experience that we are happy when we are in tune with our environment. There