If we would just make a commitment to spend as much time doing inner work, meditating, praying, talking about spiritual things as we do shopping or looking on Amazon or the internet or whatever, could you imagine what would happen to our life? It would be amazing. I'm not saying don't shop and don't do all that. I'm saying balance it with going within, balance it with the gifts of spirit. Now, some people say, well, how can I learn to receive the gifts of spirit or I already spirit and I have those gifts and which is a good question. Today we're going to talk about joy, peace, and power. Yes, joy, peace and power are part of the qualities of spirit, but it's sort of like to imagine that you're 20 years old again or going to be 20. If you're younger than that and you've lived in the woods for 20 years and you come out of the woods and you see a house and you go up and you see a person standing there and say, I am thirsty. I need some water, and they bring you into the house and they show you the sink and they said there's filtered water over on the side and you stand there. What's filtered water? How do I get it? I've never seen a faucet and we have to be taught to go use the faucet so you can receive the water. That's what prayer and meditation is about. Treatment, affirmations. It's about turning on the faucet so that we could use.
Those qualities of spirit that we already have. Joy is the first one I want to talk about. How many of you know somebody that's so joyful you light up when you think about them? I do. Yeah. Sherry, raise your hand because we have That's my sister. Well, it's because we have a niece that recently passed away that was named Vicky, and she literally was the most joyful person I'd ever met in my life. She was always smiling; she was always making us laugh. She had a story for everything. She had five children, and if you were pregnant, she could tell you the most amazing stories about being pregnant. If you had children, she'd tell you about the most amazing stories of how she could get those kids out of any trouble that they were in. And she had you almost laying on the floor in stitches because her stories were so funny.
I'll never forget. The one that come to mind was when she was having your fourth child and the nurse came in and said, now we want you to wake up your baby every two hours to feed him. And she's like, why? We don't want him to starve. She's like, wait a minute, this is my fourth child. If a child is sleeping, you do not wake them up. How many of them parents are you? Yeah, yeah. But she always exudes joy. And I was thinking about it today. If there's nothing else we do this holiday season, get into that feeling of joy. Joy for everything. As I was reading, my sister Lizette did the eulogy for my niece, Vicky, and she sent me the eulogy and I was reading it this morning again and it just brought tears to my eyes. That's the eulogy I want all of us to have, a eulogy that when people read it, they cry because it was so heartfelt. Because you were so genuine, you were so loving. How would you like to have that? Yeah, because that's why we're here. We're here to live from the qualities of spirit. We're here, tore, receive, open up that tap up. I mean, throughout the Bible, it talks about joy.
It says, for the joy of the Lord is your strength, tick, knock, hung said. Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. Here's an affirmation today. I have fun. Let's say it together. Today I have fun and God laughs.
By means of me. God laughs by means of me. Let's say that again. Today. I have fun and God laughs by means of me. Me. Yeah, it's an energy. It's our life. It has to laugh when we laugh and it's going, oh, thank you, thank you. You've been so down and so troubled and I was wondering if you were ever going to get out of it, but you went to the center for spiritual living and now you are joyful. So that presence, that power that we are wants to expresses joy. And I know that all of us have days that are not joyful. I know we have days where we worry. We think that life will never be any different. It's not the way we wanted it, especially not the way we thought it would be. And yet if we can in the midst of that, go, wait a minute, there's a joy within me that wants to be released. So we let go of anything that's going on outside of us and move into that joy.
So another quality of spirit is peace. Peace is one of those that do you ever have to work on being peaceful? Some people? Yeah. The peace that path is understanding. There is a peace that we can live from that is no matter what is going on around us, we just go Tata, tata or puff, puff. We could just let it go. Puff it out of our experience. We don't have to get stuck and what isn't working in our life or in our neighbor's life or in our ex's life or in the planet's life, we don't have to get stuck there. If we know that peace is a quality of spirit and the divine power expresses itself through us and as us, then one of our jobs is to live from peace so that when we walk around in a room with people, people can feel that peace and all of a sudden they get peaceful. If you ever hugged somebody that was so peaceful, actually Tony does this on Sunday morning, Tony can give you a hug. And if anything's going on, if I'm running around here on Sunday morning, lighting the lights and making sure I just hug him and I sink into peace, have you ever done that with somebody? You can be the one that does that to other people. Let them sink into your peace. There's a saying in the course of miracles that says, here's the question, will this thought bring peace or
Turmoil to my life? Which one? Peace or turmoil. But the course a miracle says I must have chosen wrongly because I am not at peace. So whatever thoughts we're choosing, if we're not at peace and it's creating an agitation, we aren't choosing the right thoughts of spirit or we would be at peace. Yeah, sometimes it's just the littlest things. We say that we make life hard and when we make it hard, we aren't thinking wisely. We aren't coming from that spirit of God. We're forgetting there's like an ego that also wants to be right. Have you ever noticed that anybody, they want to be right. They want other people to know that you're right and you want to just live from being right. And if you have to be right all the time, then you have to make other people wrong. Anybody ever done that?
Sometimes we do because we say, oh, well, I'm just human. You are just human. But the journey is to let go of some of that thinking and shift into the new person of spirit that is peaceful, that is powerful. See, it's the power of God that allows us to move forth in new directions. So notice when you say something is really hard that that creates turmoil. If you're thinking something's really hard, how can you heal it? If there's somebody that's really sick, it's not hard to heal them. If you can keep your thoughts on knowing the perfection of spirit, it's easy. And it doesn't always mean we heal it in the physical body, but we can heal the spiritual, the emotional, the mental body. We can prepare for a deepening just that power and presence of spirit. That is our very life. If we keep God at the center of our life, remember what John said in 1427, peace I leave with you.
My peace, I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled and do not be afraid. The way I give is through you. I give the peace through you. We aren't here to give up our life to an idea outside of us to save us. We are here to use the ideas of being saved, which means shifting our thinking in different ways, responding rather than reacting, and then we're saved from our ego, running our life in a way that doesn't bring peace. That's what being saved is. If you come up to me and say, I'm saved, I'm saying, great. You're saved from the thinking that keeps you separate from other people. Wow, that's fabulous. I don't actually use the words I'm saved. You may probably recognize that, but we use the words. I made a demonstration.
I demonstrated that I can change my thinking from this being horrible or separation or they're not liking me or that's not working, or I don't have enough money or I don't have. I can change my thinking from all that turmoil to want a peace. Recognizing there's a power and presence of spirit. That's your very life. And as you speak your word for greater good, it unfolds, and it has to unfold because spirit knows itself through me and through you. Isn't it a fabulous way to live, to know that, to get up every day and give thanks? How many of you get up every day and go?
God, let's practice it. Thank you, God, what a great day. What a great day. And then allow the greatness to keep unfolding and guiding and moving us forward and new opportunities come forward. I mean, actually I have to say, being in this center, I watch miracles constantly, constantly. We'll say something like we had a tree in Scott Hall that last year. I put it on Facebook with somebody to come and help. It took so long to put that tree together. Some lady that I actually don't know and have never seen since we came over and spent two days putting up the tree and putting lights around it and we didn't have enough. So she went out and bought more lights. So this year I'm like, we need a pre-lit tree in Scott Hall. Well, guess what?
I happened to be at a memorial for Joy mother, who passed away last Sunday. And at that memorial, a friend of mine, pat said, I need a little tree. I'm going to go buy a little tree. I said, pat, don't buy a little tree. I have a little tree. I'll give it to you. She goes, well, I have this pre-lit tree that I can't use. I said, guess what? If you give the church the pre-lit tree, I give you that other tree and it's a win-win. It's win-win. Good. That's how the universe works.
So I followed her home from after we did our visitation and we picked up the tree and the room looks beautiful, and then she even came over and helped decorate it with Ruth and with Michelle. So those are like miracles. That's like the oil burning for eight days is the same thing as we need a pre-lit tree. And there it is. That's how spirit works. Is there something you want? Maybe it's in my basement and you can have it or my garage. Get clear. Is there anything that you want? I now have angel wings. If you want to have a picture taken with the wings, they're in my office so we can take pictures. Our intention is to. There's a lady that goes around the country painting wings and people take their pictures all over. Have you seen that? Anybody? Well, we want to put angel wings on both sides. We want her to come and paint them like a photo op them.
And then you can stand in front and have your picture taken with your angel wings that you all have because you are angels for somebody. You're an angel for somebody. So that power and presence of spirit that is your very life is just urging you to fully express it, to get clear on what you want. The more you trust in spirit, the more you notice your demonstrations. Just write 'em down. I wanted to have a cruise and guess what? I went on a cruise or I wanted a tree. And guess what? I got the tree. Write them all down because it develops your belief system because Jesus said it's done unto you as you believe. And since we're honoring the Christian, a part of this celebration is to honor the birth of Jesus. Even though he wasn't born in December, he was born in the springtime, but that's okay.
It's dark. And what else is there to do? So the lights look better in the winter. Do you notice that? They do. So whoever thought of it, we're doing it in December, but to honor the birth of Jesus is to honor your birth. Also, that birth of a light within you, the birth of that Christ within you that knows your whole complete and perfect and whatever you're going through, I guarantee there is something greater at the other end, is that power and presence of spirit that lives in us as us and through us who we are is so much greater than we ever dream possible. So allow yourself to close your eyes for a moment and just allow yourself to receive the gift of joy. Just feel that joy throughout your whole body. That's your natural state.
Feel that joy and now begin feeling that peace from your toes on up through your head. Feel that peace swarming through your body its balance. And then feel that power of spirit, that one divine energy that is whole, complete and perfect and know that we are becoming the thing itself. We become that divine energy of spirit. So you can open your eyes now, it's not time for your nap. And as you go forth, go forth with that, knowing if there's something in your life you need help with, go see our practitioner or prayer team after service. Go write a prayer request in the box. Go ask people for prayer. Prayer is so powerful. We are here to demonstrate and receive the gifts of spirit. So I know for each person here that you receive the gift of joy, you've received the gift of peace, and you receive the gift of power, for it is your divine birthright. I bless you. I love you. Let's celebrate this holiday season together and have an amazing day today. God bless you. So it is, thank you. Thanks.