I can't say till I know what's in it

Dear reader, in these times there are thousands of bad books published, and herds of bad teachers sent forth to deceive the unwary; you must be on your guard, lest you be led into error. Take nothing for granted, enquire into things for yourself, and try every new doctrine, and professedly old doctrine too, by the Word of God.
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But reader, is your own present religion good for anything? Do you know what's in it, and what it is made of? May it not be mischievous and false? Search thyself, and do not take a hope into thy soul till thou knowest what it is made of.
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Whatever may be the ground of trust which men may offer you, take care to KNOW WHAT'S IN IT before you accept it.

The Meek and Lowly One

January 7
 You have wondrous sympathies, and philanthropy. Carry out your greatness   by determining: "I am meek and lowly of heart." Emma Curtis Hopkins

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."—Matthew 11:28-30.

A Sermon (No. 265)

Delivered on Sabbath Morning, July 31st, 1859, by the
REV. C.H. Spurgeon
at the Music Hall, Royal Surrey Gardens.

Here are the Unhappy Results of Believing Only What You Want to Believe

by Vernon Howard

1. You will be nervous and uncertain and afraid.

 2. You will try to cover up your nervousness by bluff and bluster and one lie after another.

 3. You will be in a state of self-deception, a state which angrily refuses self-honesty.

 4. You will be desperately eager to claim that other people, especially prominent authorities, support your false claims.

 5. You will be unable to see the strain and the unnaturalness of believing that untruth is truth.

 6. You will receive a neurotic thrill from the inward burning of your confusion.

 7. You will have no hesitation in attacking and hurting anyone who threatens to expose your deceit.

 8. You will be unaware that you are believing only what you want to believe, for your preferences for delusion has succeeded superbly.

 9. You will be the self-chosen victim of repeated mental movies in which you see yourself as heroically right and everyone else as wrong.

10. You will refuse to see that the sense of doom you feel is caused by your own refusal of the light.

11. You will be inwardly tortured, while pretending outwardly to other people that you are free and happy.

12. You will continue to fall and get hurt unless you stop believing only what you want to believe, and have the courage and the decency to  receive what is true and good.

You are the creator not the creation.

Why you don’t need to forgive anyone

 We have to come face-to-face with the fact that most of the knowledge we have accumulated over the years is false. I’m not talking about the practical things, but all of the other ‘stuff’ from which we live. We have ideas about what our priorities should be in life, how we should handle relationships, how we should be treated, etc. We have ideas about what it means to be ‘spiritual’. In fact, we are being told what to believe at every turn. One lie that has recently been circulated and is no doubt being absorbed into the belief system of many people is that in the near future, there is going to be a sudden and dramatic increase of collective or global consciousness on earth; that the entire planet is somehow going to ‘wake up’. It’s just a more modern version, in today’s jargon, of the rapture. The reality is that, as time goes on, there is more and more of a collective and global mass hypnosis taking hold. Vernon Howard once said that there is no such thing as instant salvation, that the idea itself is a cruel hoax. There can only be individual awakening, the ‘individual victory’ mentioned above. http://www.anewlife.org/html/points_archive_1.html

 Vernon Howard mentions the Four Golden Keys to New Freedom and Happiness. They are: 1) A sincere desire for inner change, 2) Contact with workable (genuine) principles, 3) Self-honesty, 4) Persistence. http://www.anewlife.org/html/points_archive_3.html

Remember Something You’ve Forgotten

Once upon a time a poem was written. A marvelous poem called “Recessional” written by British author Rudyard Kipling. It became immensely popular because it had a spiritual message.
 In addition, the poetry and writing are excellent. For example, there is one line that says, “God gave us dominion over palm and pine.” The British Empire was mighty in those days, and had conquered a good part of the world from palm to pine — “palm” representing the warm countries and “pine” the cold.

 The poem told of man’s conquest of other men. And it has this beautiful and marvelous lesson:

Imagination

This is a word which means something or nothing. The way it is used makes it everything or nothing, but if it is applied to the power of invention or imitation, it can be understood. It is wrong, however, to apply it to deception, for a person must first be acted upon before his imagination can produce a phenomenon; otherwise it would apply equally to all operators. But to apply it to one phenomenon and not to another of the same kind is not right.

The Secret Weapon That Guarantees Victory

 

 Vernon Howard told the following story:

 There was a serious inner-life student whose favorite spiritual action was to read books that told him all about himself, the world and higher principles.
 One afternoon because he was out of reading material, he went down to a very special kind of bookstore, which specialized in books about the higher life. He went into the store and asked the owner, “What do you have that’s new that I haven’t seen before?” The owner responded, “As a matter of fact, a new and rare book just came in the other day. It’s solid, very inspiring and the title is ‘The Secret Weapon that Guarantees Victory.’”

Let Truth Decide for You

 Think about yourself as a human being here on earth and therefore not all those “I am this”, “I am that” identities. This takes you in a different direction. Think of yourself as a human being and find out where that will lead you. If you do that, something else will happen that never happened before.

Also, agree to let God, spiritual powers, decide for you what you’re going to admit into your mind. Slam the door to hell and open the door to heaven.
VH
http://www.anewlife.org/html/lessons.html