How to Have a Joyful Life | Rev. John Riley

What a joy it is to be a precious child of God. Yes, yes. Even if the mic pack doesn’t work, the mic pack works fine. It’s just my fingers. I don’t call it working right today. Good morning. Good morning. That experience of, of that, Deborah was just singing about that feeling, that presence of God in the sanctuary, feeling that energy of Spirit as it moves in through and as us, and feeling the, the synchronicity between us. It’s just a wonderful thing. My slides aren’t working. Joe, would you be willing to, to advance my slides today? You are so kind. We are at the end of a of our four-part series talking about the, the book, discover the Power Within You, which is the book a great unity book written by Eric Butterworth. You can hit the next slide.

Thank you. Who was really a wonderful unity minister and author. He wrote many books, and this is one of the seminal books about unity that really talks about the basics of, of how we experience life. And it’s okay. Maybe just hit escape and just ignore it. I’ll I’ll see what I can do without any notes. So, okay, so here’s, here’s what’s happening. So last night we had our gala. If you raise your hands, if you were here at our gala, that was a pretty good response, Russell, thank you very much. So, throughout the gala, not throughout, but towards the end of the gala, I’m asking different people like Russell and Debra and Rusty and Joe. Hey, you know what’s you’re talking to me about tomorrow morning? And so this is karma. When my, you know, my, my little slides aren’t working this morning because it’s like, okay, what’s my talk?

Everyone’s like, “John, don’t worry about it.” It’ll just come to you and here’s my opportunity for a discomfort me. So we began, we began three weeks ago with the great discovery that Jesus made, the great discovery that God is everywhere present in you as you, and the great discovery that you are that expression of God. You are the hands and feet of God. You are, as Joe said, you have to put it into action. And that was the, that’s our second principle. And that was part of the great discovery. That God isn’t separate from us out there somewhere in the sky. God is here present among us in the, in the consciousness of God, that kingdom of God is within. And that idea of heaven is that consciousness when we are in Unity with that kingdom of God, when our thoughts, our words, and our actions become part of that living flow, part of that energy.

Miracle Mindset

And then we talked about the idea of the great, having a miracle mindset of opening our eyes to, to all of the miracle, miraculous expression of God all around us. The the miraculous expression of Spirit as it moves through us. And a miracle isn’t something that is, is something that we don’t know of it. Well, what a miracle is, is that we just don’t know everything that’s working underneath it. The miracle of science is beginning to, we we’re starting to reveal and understand the inner workings and the complexity of this physical world and back if it lies the Spirit and energy of God. And that miracle is just something that we just haven’t quite gathered yet. And so when we have the miracle mindset, we are opening ourselves up to infinite possibility in our lives to allow that energy to flow through us and as us any moment of the day.

And the best way to do that, as Joe talked about, is through meditation and affirmative prayer. And that was last week, taking prayer, true prayer, affirmative prayer as Unity practices. It isn’t a, beseeching isn’t an asking for something, it’s an affirming of truth. And it is taking the highest point of view of your life, taking the highest point of view. So not looking at it, not looking at your life as if you know everything’s wrong, all of the problems and situations, but rather looking at the, having that miracle mindset of seeing where is all the good in in my life, even amongst the situations, even amongst the star, the storms. Where is the divine? Where’s that peaceful presence that is always available, that joy that is always available, that wellspring of joy that comes from being in alignment and being in unity with that divine essence.

And today, we’re talking about being in the flow of abundance. And this was really one of Jesus’ biggest teachings when he talked about this idea that and it comes from this really lithic teaching is knock and the door shall be open. I think it starts with ask. And you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock. And the door shall be open for you. For those, for anyone, anyone, not just people who are agreeing with me, not just people you know from this side of the track who are following this path. Everyone, everyone who who seeks will find everyone who asks will be answered. And everyone who knocks the door will be open unto you. And that’s the great mystical teaching of abundance that Jesus taught. That we live in an universe, an opulent universe that is here to agree with you. There’s a great saying, we learn in ministerial school, right Joe, it’s what does God say to you? Yes.

What’s Your Mindset? 

Whatever you’re asking for, God says yes. Whatever your mindset is, God says yes. So if our mindset is filled with lack and limitation and viewing all of the stress and strains in our life, what are we gonna experience in life? Anyone? Stress and strain, limitation, lack. That’s gonna be our mindset. And that’s the only thing that we can see. So when we start to change our lens and look at things from that higher point of view and opening ourselves up to that miracle mindset, all we need to do is ask. Now, the great lesson here was well, before I get to that, the second great lesson because at this point, this is normally the point where all of the ya butts start to come up in us. Anybody have any “ya butts” in their life? Yeah. It’s like, oh, this is an opulent universe. And it just says yes. Yeah, but look at you. You don’t know my life. Yeah. You don’t know my boss. All of our musicians were saying earlier, right? You don’t know what’s happening in my life. And, and when we have that mindset, all we’re going to experience is more of that.

And so when those mindsets, those “ya-buts” come up, I think it’s in the Bible, right next to the “should haves” – they’re the “ya-buts.”. Hey ya-buts. Anyway, they’re, that’s the part of us that’s, that’s losing, that doesn’t, that doesn’t quite want. Hmm. That’s a strong word that isn’t quite grasping it. I’m not gonna say want, but sometimes it’s a want because it’s sometimes easier for us to live in the Yeah, but I’m just human. Yeah, but I’m having fun being just human. And so that can take over us if we let it, and that becomes our experience, that becomes our limitation, that becomes our lack. And then our prayers always become beeching because we really don’t want to move forward. We really don’t want to grow. But what I’ve discovered is once you start down that path of letting go of the yabos, letting go of all of those limitations, those thoughts of lack the way opens up. And it is easier.

How to Step Into the Kingdom of God

But it takes a little, it takes that first step to head in that direction before we start to realize that that’s the truth of it. And the first step, as Jesus put it, was seek first the kingdom of God. And then all other things will be added unto you. Seek first the kingdom of God. Seek first that understanding that God is there present in you in this moment, regardless of what’s happening in your life. Yes, yes. Because if God isn’t in it, in the same way as the ocean is in the wave in all of those moments, then God isn’t everywhere present, then all of a sudden we’re separate again. We have that dualistic victim, victim consciousness. But when we get back to the idea that Spirit is moving in through and as me, the divine love, that harmonizing energy of the universe is flowing as me, then I have the ability to step into that kingdom of God. And when I come from that place seeking first that kingdom of God seeking first, that, that divine wisdom, then everything else is added onto me.

And the great teaching here is that it’s not about the stuff in life. The stuff is fine. The stuff is fun. We all like stuff. It’s true. We all like the stuff. Oh, what? I can’t hear you. The car. Oh yes. The stuff, the car I like it was a McLaren, a burnt orange, McLaren, just so everyone, so full disclosure. And then it became that beautiful yellow lotus. And I love my little gray car, my little gray electric car. So the stuff is fun, but that’s not the focus of life. And when we put our meaning of ourselves in that focus, whatever we’re making our jobs or the things that we have, when we make that demeaning of life, then we’re separating ourselves. We’re closing ourselves off. And that’s what it means to seek first the kingdom of God. To first be in that presence and power. Know that that wisdom was, is within you. And that it comes to you in the form of divine inspiration, in the form of creative ideas, in the form of new ways to see the world, new paths. And you start to see the miracles in the world and in your life.

Abundance in Your Life

And gratitude is that acknowledgement of, “oh, look at all the good that I have in my life.” Look at all the good in my life. And when I come from that place, what do we see? What do we start to experience more of, more good, more love, more joy. If you seek first that understanding. Now, Charles Fillmore, I’m not gonna remember the quote because it was on my slides. Charles Fillmore talked about this idea of substance. And substance is the, is the fabric really the energy of the divine, the energy of the universe that is always present. And when we have faith, the faith that we can have that idea of that kingdom of God within us, and then bring, begin to bring that, those ideas into manifestation. This is the path. It’s through faith. It’s through that power within us to bring these ideas out into the world and to create and to create the stuff and to create the experiences and to create the joy. Now I’m gonna ask again, if you were here at the gala, I want to hear how much fun you had. So if you wanna talk about abundance, abundance is is the allness of the universe. Prosperity is how we express it. But if you want to talk about living in abundance you, you should have come to the gala.

And someone asked me, well, because it was part fundraising, we had a wonderful auction it, whether it was successful or not. I, a few people will, did you consider the su a success? Because we all had that stuffed mindset, right? We have that by default, if it’s a fundraiser, well, did you raise enough money? I have no idea how much money we raised. Was it a, a success? Absolutely. And we saw the success in the, the 30 people dancing with their hands in the air. I wish I had that photo, but I promised somebody I wouldn’t show their photos, photos of them if they don’t show photos of me. But I’m sure they’ll all fo all surface on Facebook. So let’s just, we’ll keep an eye out for that. It was amazing. We had so much fun. It was a beautiful dinner. We had a wonderful time to connect. We had some wonderful performances. Hank’s dinner was performed several songs for us. Deborah performed. Margot performed, and then the cap it off Hank, well, Russell of course performed. He was our pianist. Ronnie was performing, he was our drummer.

And then to cap it off, Hank and Catherine hammer down our gala chair sang a duet from Phantom of the Opera. It was amazing. So a big thank you to Catherine because she basically makes this happen for us. And it was an amazing event that that created a sense of abundance, that created a sense of community. That that’s, that’s what real abundance is about, is being able to connect to each other. Cuz when we connect with each other, God is that kingdom of heaven exists within us when we’re open to it and we’re unified with it. And you know, it took us probably, I think it was probably around nine 30 before we were dancing with our hands in the air. Like, we just don’t care. Nope. Not gonna tell ’em about the fire alarm. Nope. Nope. We didn’t have the smoke. It, the, the cops, the cops didn’t have to come. Nope. Wasn’t that kind of party. Okay, there was a fire alarm, but we’ll talk about that later.

That’s, that’s the after party. But you see, it’s that expression when we let go of all of the stuff, all of the stuff that we brought in with us, right? All of the, am I dressed good enough? You know, I don’t dance very well. What’s everyone gonna think? You know? Well here we are. Was it a success or not? And when we let go of all of that and we just lived, we just allowed that energy to flow and to dance and to celebrate community and to celebrate each other and to celebrate Spirit. And that’s really what the gala was all about. For some people, this was the first time that they were out For the last three years, for some people, this was the first time out after being in the hospital for weeks and weeks, for some people, this was the first time to, to come back to our spiritual community and to see each other. It was, it was a wonderful emerging simply because we were allowing ourselves to be present that divine essence of life and to allow that life flow through us.

Be Willing to Live Life! 

So living in the flow of abundance is about being willing, being willing to take that step, being willing to say yes. Because we all have the option to say no. We all have the option to go to whatever that lesson is for us to learn. And when you’re done with that lesson, you know, you can come back to the next one. Or just allow life to flow. That’s the one great thing that I learned over this last three years, is that you can’t control a whole lot of things in life. Have you noticed? And we talked about how when we closed from the pandemic and how we just pivoted into, you know, everyone coming into my bedroom every Sunday morning, or my backyard, or my living room or my dining room and just being present, being willing to, to show up. And now some people are like, yeah, I’m not ready to come back.

But I really got used to this live streaming thing and it’s wonderful. You know, someone said, yeah, we were at Park City getting ready to ski, but wait, we gotta watch church. So they watched church first and then they went on the slopes. I love it. That’s like, that’s like living the flow of abundance, just allowing that flow to move through you if you choose. And we do it by opening up to that ever present substance that’s within us. Now, there may be stuff going on in our lives. There are things that are going on all the time because we live in this human, this manifest world. And so our expectations aren’t always met anybody have their expectations not always met in life. Yeah.

But what we have to realize is that, in fact, I had a wonderful conversation, is that in that experience, whatever it is, you are the conductor of your life. You conduct the, the noisy, you know, violin section when they’re starting to squeak, you conduct the horn section when they need to be a little louder. You set the tempo, you set the rhythm, you command the performance. You’re the one with the baton in your life. You were the conductor of your life. And no matter what’s happening in your life, no matter what the situation is, you have the opportunity to move through it with grace. And that was the, that was the teaching, the great teaching of Jesus, that abundance teaching that you have within you, everything you need. And if you’re not sure what to do next, stop trying stop efforting and just go back to being, go back to getting present with that Spirit, with that energy going back into your meditation so you can let go of all of the stuff so that you can be present and, and look at life from that highest point of view.

Because in that process, the next step will come, even if you don’t know how it’s gonna end, go with that flow of loving energy. Cuz Spirit is always, it will, you’ll know it because it’s that loving flow of, okay, this is the right way. I always know when I’m, I’m trying to fight upstream against Spirit, it’s a struggle. But if I say, okay, this is the way to go. We move with Spirit. And when we move with Spirit, we are in the flow of abundance and we’re getting to where we need to be. We’re able to conduct life as we move through it and we’re able to experience that higher sense of self. Felix, would you put our affirmation on the screen? I’m going to affirm this once and then invite you to affirm it with me. With that. Get a sense of it in your, in your, in your body as Joe says, right? Get a sense of it. I let go of the clutter of my mind. I let go of the clutter in my mind and allow my divine self to emerge. Would you affirm that with me together I let go of the clutter in my mind and allow my divine self to emerge.