I recently watched a movie (The Princess Diaries) which depicted a young girl who was little known or cared about, unpopular, picked on by classmates, one who had little self esteem or self worth, mostly living a life that she declared she wanted, and that was one of being invisible. The first portion of the movie sets the stage as all of the above characteristics are portrayed as the life of this fifteen year old girl.
The film changes directions when a visit from her long-lost grandmother, whom the young girl had been intentionally sheltered from (she found out later), reveals that this almost nameless young lady was actually a young princess and by the recent death of her absentee father (she lived with her divorced mother), she was the sole heir to the throne of a small country. Upon finding out this very upsetting news, she quickly rejected the idea as nothing short of a joke. As reality won out, she hastily reviewed her life in the matter of seconds and quickly surmised she was not, or ever could be, a princess, especially as heir and ruler of a country!
As
the film continued to unwind, she persistently rejected the idea of sitting on a
throne, ruling a country, at a mere fifteen years old. Not so much the age
issue, but rather, her candid synopsis of a mental life review which she
constantly reminded herself…she was NOT qualified!
After
mounting a seemingly fine defense of her self-declared position, she sought
seclusion in her “tower” (room on the top floor) she often resorted to when
the desire to be invisible bore heavy upon her.
In
the meanwhile, the grandmother arrived the next morning to hopefully persuade
the mother to join forces with her and convince her daughter to accept this
noble position. After several minutes of debate, the young girl finally agreed
with her mother and grandmother that she would at least consider the options and
would tell her decision of accepting or abdicating the throne at the annual
royal ball to be held not many days hence. In the meantime, she agreed to begin
lessons to at least familiarize herself with the prospect of becoming the
princess she did not believe herself to be, and to do so anonymously so as to
not attract the press.
The
conversion process machine was set in motion. Turning a seemingly “geek”
into a princess demanded a complete transformation. Wardrobe changes were
implemented, proper etiquette and protocol initiated, and beauticians,
chauffeurs, and security became an overnight sensation to such a young girl’s
mind. The completed makeover provided proof that there really was a princess
behind all the “nerdy” appearance. However, the transformation was so
becoming, that even her closest friend would not accept her any longer as “one
of the gang.” Accusations of trying to be “popular” and “pretty” began
to fly, all founded upon the drastic appearance change which was only initiated
by the discovery of royalty within.
At
first, she was embarrassed by such a radical change of appearance and attempted
to conceal the changes by hiding her hair, once long and frizzed now beautifully
flowing around her face, with a cap which was jealously rejected by the
“in-crowd” because it was supposedly against school policy. When she
hesitantly removed it, letting her now long, beautiful, silky hair fall out, the
signs of conversion began to reveal itself.
As
her best friend began to distance herself from her, she hesitantly revealed her
closely guarded secret, hoping to regain her friendship and explain the recent
changes since “grandma” came to town. Although she gained the admiration and
respect once again from her friend, it was only a matter of time before the
secret was out.
Met
by a host of reporters and television crews when she arrived at school, she
immediately suspected her best friend had broken their secret pact of trust and
squealed on her. But it was not her friend who had ratted on her, but her
hairdresser!
Her
best friend was very happy for her and especially grateful to be best friends
with a princess, but the happiness was short-lived as the story continued to
unfold.
As
I sat and watched this story line unfold, I found myself consciously realizing
that God is everywhere and within everyone and to those who have eyes to see and
ears to hear He is most obvious. With heightened interest, I found myself
spiritually amused by the subtle expression He had placed Himself throughout
this picture story. Just as my life has been apprehended for Christ for the past
several years and the realization of my TRUE BE-ing, I found myself witnessing a
drama played out on the silver screen of the awakening of one to the same
consciousness, even though it detoured through Hollywood.
Here
is the story of a young girl who has lived for fifteen years with not even a
hint that she was born royalty. As I look around me, I see many more, young as
well as old, ladies and men, girls and boys, living a life for many years having
not yet realized they are born royalty! The reasoning presented in the movie for
not telling her was “for the sake of the girl.” The mother of this young
girl knew the truth, but decided not to tell her. Sound familiar? Also
interesting is the fact the mother was separated and divorced from the father of
the girl. Sound familiar? Eve, called specifically the “mother of all
living,” separated herself from Adam. Eve knew the Truth, yet has refused to
reveal it and has kept an entire world full of people wandering around like a
complete failure, fantasizing about hopeless relationships and dreams, waiting
upon death to redeem this wandering spirit to a better place. Sound familiar?
It
has been said that every ministry is put through two tests. I would like to modify
that statement a little and say EVERY SON OF GOD is put through two tests in
life. The order is not necessarily important, but usually we find the
first is the test of failure. This test is the easy one and high scores
are fairly predictable. Even though one doesn’t like to fail, it appears each
one has been conditioned to accept failure as part of life and deal with it
accordingly, usually becoming best friends with it. Remember the old saying,
“Misery loves company.” The girl depicted in the afore-mentioned movie,
sustained this “failure” lifestyle as normal activity for a budding young
lady. Even though her life (as well as most of ours) was nothing short of a
disaster, she perceived it (failure) as a friend she did not want to lose when
her true identity was revealed. In not so many words, she opted for the life of
failure rather than the life of a successful princess. The greater part of the
movie is consumed revealing the struggle found within the life of this young
girl attempting to avoid her true heritage in exchange for her familiar life of
failure, or better said, her refusal to recognize her authority as a princess.
The failure test is not conducted to see how you would survive and the tactics used to overcome that condition. Rather, the resulting attitude is where the grade is achieved. God does not have to stoop to evil conditions to prove His Ways to you as we have been told He does. So failure is only a word that is familiar to one who lives according to a carnal mind. In other words, the earthly man perceives failure as bad or evil, whereas one who is ruled by Spirit sees only the outcome of good. The perception of evil stemming from the sense man results in the one cursing his circumstances, whereas the spirit man rejoices in the fact he was chosen to experience this fire of purification. I can remember hearing a story of two small boys which illustrates this so well.
The
one boy was considered a pessimist. In order to try and help change his outlook
on things he was placed in a room full of every toy imaginable. Thinking this
would help, they left him there for a while and when later checking up on him,
he was discovered to be sitting in the middle of all these great and wonderful
toys crying his eyeballs out. When asked why he was crying his response was,
“I have all these wonderful toys to play with but I know if I pick one
up…it’s gonna break!”
The
other boy was an optimist. This boy was put in a room filled only with hay.
Leaving him there a while they figured that he would soon be bored stiff and
crying because of nothing there but the hay. When looked in on, they found the
boy jumping up and down, digging in and throwing the hay into the air very
excitedly. Puzzled they asked why the excitement? The boy responded, “I know
that with all of this hay that’s in this room, there’s bound to be a horse
in here somewhere!”
You
see, you can have the best of all circumstances and still be found crying your
eyes out because of your own perception of the situation. Or, you can be in a
much less desirable environment, yet anxiously waiting and anticipating the
hidden horse in the hay even though there is no horse! But you can bet the boy
in the hay was in heaven whereas the other boy considered himself in a hell of
his own making.
I
remember hearing someone say that “your attitude determines your altitude.”
As we respond to the tests of life, our attitude is where the grade is made. It
appears that our attitude is somewhat easier to correct when failure emerges on
the screen of your life. If could
be that way because that is the time you (your personal self) are closest to the
realization of how powerless you really are without the God Power back of it
all. You are most susceptible to Truth at this point, hence the reason this is
called the “easier” test.
Life’s
second test is viewed as much harder and it is the test of success. One’s
reactions to these tests, reveal the true character of the individual. If
one’s motives are pure and upright, then that is revealed. If not, that will
also shortly surface. The test of success appears to cause at least three things
to happen to the applicant.
It appears the first thing involves the removal of both eyes (not physically) so as to make one blind to the conditions surrounding themselves from that moment on, especially the one who has just recently passed the “failure” test! To the “pure in heart,” the immediate blindness produces protection from the illusionary appearance of the handsome gentleman of success, thus providing one with pure motives, instead of egotistical fantasies of one’s own worth. Whereas on the other hand, the “proud in heart” immediately perceives the blindness as a curse rather than a blessing. The only redeeming attribute (in this twisted mindset) suggested of this sightless condition would be the resultant blindness as to who they were before which results in the casual dismissal of people, places, and things which are no longer considered “good enough” for the new “success story.”
The
second part of the success test
suggests that a “success magnet” is evidently placed somewhere beneath the
skin of one’s person creating an obvious attraction of many things much like
the magnetic pull of the north pole. This captivating force creates an
allurement that is felt near and far and by most all. This “success” magnet
offers the opportunity to unite together with like forces creating an even
greater attraction, or, on the other hand, the prospect of “using” those
attracted for the promotion of the individual ego.
When
we look a little closer, we discover not only the fact that magnets attract, but
they also have the characteristic of repelling. So it is simple to see that also
at work is a repelling action that will repel the “opposite” of what is
attracted. Once again, this test divulges the true character by “what” is
attracted, since all magnets either repel or attract “like-kind” material.
For
instance, in the movie, the young girl (before her knowledge of being a
princess) was attracted to a popular boy in school and often fantasized about a
relationship with him but one that was only in her dreams. But once the news
leaked out and the “success magnet” was successful transplanted under her
skin, the girl turned princess NOW attracted him to her and her fantasy moved
from dreamland to manifestation. Since he was, to a degree, portrayed as
“successful, yet viewed by her as complete opposites”—she being a nerd and
him being the most popular boy in school, it is no wonder why the attraction
manifested so quickly; hence the old saying, “opposites attract.”
Turning the coin over, we also find her true love, (the one who liked her
when she was considered a failure), was “repelled” by her new found
popularity and success, just as quickly as she was repelled by “Mr. Popular”
before she became princess. These invisible forces are the results of the
“success” magnet. Depending on the way the magnet is turned, it will
attract. But by reversing the position, it will now repel. The movie also bears
witness of this fact. For just as the young girl’s fantasies were manifested
by the attraction and the popular boy was accepted and the other boy rejected,
when the true nature of “Mr. Popular” was revealed, the magnet was turned
around and now Mr. Popular was repelled, and “Mr. Right” was attracted. It
all depends upon the position of the magnet. This is a poor illustration but
hopefully you can understand the point at hand.
The
third and final lesson involves YOUR participation in the death of
“failure.”
As
was said earlier, failure is fairly simple to do. It requires little effort on
your part other than just following the current down the stream of life, bobbing
up and down on the beliefs and teachings of the sense-filled life. They will
tell you how much of a failure you are, how you came to be a failure and even
reveal the way to continue to be a failure. So it is important to realize that
failure and success are NOT bedfellows and never will be! You can never be
successful if you believe you will fail, otherwise, you would convince yourself
it was not worth the effort…if you were going to fail anyways. So you must die
the death of failure. As long as you keep resuscitating failure by the carnal
act of thinking and worry, success will never show up at your door.
However,
in an hour when you THINK NOT…the manifestation appears.
It
was said before that the test of success was viewed as the harder of the two. A
further explanation is needed as well as clarification.
In
the absolute, both tests are exactly the same. It is only the slothful, carnal
mind that reckons one harder than the other. So in that regards, it must be
stated that to be successful is just as simple as failing. It follows naturally!
Is it any harder for a child born to a “failure” to be a “failure” than
it is for a child born to “success” to be “successful?” None in any way!
The work begins when either the “failure” attempts to become
“successful,” or the “successful” attempts to be a “failure.” Either
way it will require concerted effort and generally produces little results.
Rather a few simple demonstrations will be mustered up only to find the need for
more the next day. So to clarify the statement that the test of success is the
harder one, one must realize that success is not something to be sought after to
be obtained, it is something you “are,”…NOT SOMETHING YOU BECOME, only
waiting to be recognized!
This
is why this test is perceived as hard, yet in reality, it is as simple as
failing, because it requires no more effort to fail than it does to succeed.
Because one has to “believe” to fail just as one has to “believe” to
succeed. What you believe is the strongest, highest, widest, and deepest thing
in your life. Strongest, because it can literally hold you back from the
grandeur of your vision. Highest, because it is a wall you have erected so high
you feel you cannot possibly scale over to reach that pinnacle of desire.
Widest, because you have constantly stacked one excuse next to another until
your aspiration has been declared unreachable by your thick mountain of
“excusable justifications.” Deepest, because it is a bottomless pit
where your most darkest fears and worries lurk, hidden in the dismal dungeon of
doubt and despair, keeping your dream imprisoned in chains of darkness… a hell
without hope, a hell without joy, a hell without peace. Can you see why it’s
perceived as hard?
Yet
one day, when grandma shows up…Success rides in on a white stallion (actually
a limo in the movie) and seizes the strongman and binds him, instantly releasing
you to fulfill your destiny. Then the mountain of unbelief is suddenly hurled
into the sea of forgetfulness, and your walls fall to the ground and the
fortified city of “beliefs” are set on fire and each excuse is burned up
like the grass of the field. Then a key is discovered that unlocks the
bottomless pit of doubt and despair and the smoke of years of doubt and despair
is released and Success descends into that dungeon to set free the captive
dream.
Now
that Success has captivated your attention and liberated your destiny, the
command for retrofitting is heard. Lost in the flurry of endless attention, one
finds themselves slowly separating and severing all past relationships of no
value. (This is referred to the Father plucking up that which He did not plant.)
However, one finds themselves being drawn into new relationships never before
attainable. These relationships are some of the luggage you attempt to bring
with you. While as a confessed “failure,” your potential appeared as only a
fantasy you believed to never be attainable. Yet since Success has arrived and
set free your captive dreams, you find that those fantasies are attainable and
you set out to fulfill what you perceive is your dream, not realizing that the
fantasy itself is part of producing the “pure in heart.” In other words,
when exercised, those relationships are found to only be just another stronghold
being removed from the shell of human experience in order that Success might
fully come. These fantasies are part of the removal from the one who has been
told by grandma that they are royalty. For if a fantasy proves to be reality,
was it really fantasy or destiny? It is “fantasy” that is removed so that
destiny can reign! When fantasies, doubts, beliefs, etc. (the illusion) are
removed all that is left is the PURE IN HEART which shall SEE God.
Much
has been wrote about the Book of Revelation. But in actuality, it is the
revealing (seeing) of the Christ that is in you! I heard one say that the book
is really a revelation of the removal of everything within us that is NOT
CHRIST, rather than all types of holocausts and giant multi-headed beasts that
will one day descend upon mankind to make life miserable. However, when viewed
from the correct perspective the book is nothing to fear but rather one to
embrace and gratefully look expectantly toward that day when those events take
place within us!
Towards the end of Revelation, it reads of heaven and some have been wishfully longing for the day of rapture so they will be caught up together in the air to get to go to heaven. However, this book is not about a future event! The opening verse declares these events “must shortly come to pass!” That verse was written many, many years ago. How short is “shortly come to pass?” The problem has been (and still is for most), most have relegated this book to the so-called future. God does not know anything about future! Neither is He aware of the time-conscious awareness of the “past.” We are the ones who dwell in this time-space environment. God dwells in the Eternal NOW! Everything in God is NOW! Today is the day of salvation, not tomorrow or yesterday! It is impossible to do anything tomorrow or yesterday. You can only do anything NOW! You cannot even do anything a second ago, only right NOW! Neither a minute from now, only NOW! So if you are waiting to be carted off somewhere in the “future” you will be disappointed. God is not a big disappointment. He loves you and wants you to have everything NOW! The problem is you can’t receive it!
Jesus
said I AM the WAY the TRUTH and The LIFE! There is only ONE WAY. There is only
ONE TRUTH. There is only ONE LIFE. And Jesus said I AM is that way, truth, and life. Who is I AM?
If
we rewind back to Moses talking to God at the burning bush he asked God for a
name to tell the children of Israel when they asked Moses who sent him to
deliver them. God told him to say I AM hath sent me. But before God told Moses
that, He revealed to Moses who that was. He said it this way: “I AM THAT I
AM!”
In
case you didn’t hear what God said to Moses, let me say it this way. I AM
“THAT” (that particular) I AM. To those with ears to hear and have
recognized who I AM is, they will quickly agree that I AM is the Christ of God
in you! Just as God told Moses to say I AM will deliver you, it came from the
mouth of MOSES! Yet it was not the personality we know as Moses, but the Christ
of God in Moses! And just as Jesus said, I AM the Way, he was not in any way
referring to himself the carpenter, but the Christ of God in Jesus.
Hopefully
now you can handle this: You, too, have the CHRIST of God in YOU! Just as Moses,
Jesus, Paul, Peter, John, etc., etc., etc. Christ is ALL and in ALL. CHRIST is
the ONLY WAY, THE ONLY TRUTH, AND THE ONLY LIFE!
I
heard one say, “That is why you are a hopeless success!” The failures you
accept are only failures because you believe them to be. You have little trouble
“accepting” failure, so why can you not accept success? Remember what was
wrote earlier, God wants you to have it all NOW, only you can’t accept it.
Jesus said if you do not doubt in your heart, but shall “believe” those
things which you say, it shall come to pass and you will have “whatsoever”
you say! If failure is what you say and believe you are, that is what you will
be. If trouble is what you say and believe, then trouble is what you will have.
If peace is what you say and believe, then peace will encircle your life.
When
you finally discover that Christ and you are ONE and you believe it and confess
it with your mouth, you shall have what you say and Christ will come again just
as He said He would. It was not Jesus (the man) talking when He said I will come
again, and receive you unto myself; that where I AM, there ye may be also. No it
was I AM talking, the Christ in Jesus! And just as He went away, He said He
would come again. I don’t know about you, but as for me, HE DID GO AWAY and HE
DID COME AGAIN and received me unto HIMSELF that where HE IS,
I AM THERE ALSO!
You
are a hopeless success and don’t know it! You are a rich man in the hell of
your own making and don’t know it if you have not yet discovered that within
you dwells the Christ of God! It is not contained by just a certain few. No, not
hardly, but this Christ is within all mankind, waiting for recognition. Just as
mentioned above, Christ may be hidden in your deep dark dungeon of fear and
doubt, or the I AM may be just beyond that stack of excuses, or even beyond the
high walls of “beliefs” you’ve built, or bound up by the strong
personality of “your” life, but rest assured, Christ is there!…waiting to
be discovered and recognized. In other words, “grandma” will show up one day
when you think not… like a thief in the night and the son of man
(manifestation) will come and show you the Christ of God within you waiting to
become Christ in you! You are hopeless success waiting for manifestation!
Here
is the hardest part for those who have been schooled by the best religion has to
offer. We find this enacted also within the life of Jesus when He was accosted
by the religious order of His day. Accused of making himself God, Jesus reminded
them of the scripture that stated, “Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye
are gods?” As they picked up stones to stone him, Jesus said, “I and my
Father are ONE!”
YOU
MUST ARRIVE AT THAT SAME RECOGNITION!
Paul
described this same event by saying, “ I am crucified with Christ:
nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me….”
John
the Baptist described it this way: “He (Christ) must increase, but I
(personality) must decrease.”
This
will continue until the personality is dead and Christ has become the I AM! This
is stated more completely by Paul when he stated, “Therefore if any man be in
Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are
become new.”
To
Christ was given dominion over the earth and all contained therein. When Christ
has dominion in your earth, over your beasts, fowls of the air and fish of the
sea, then this event describes the completed work of Christ in you when you have
reached the consciousness of not only Christ in you, but rather, YOU IN CHRIST!
In other words, you have realized your purpose is to express God. That is, bring
an invisible God into visibility for all to see. That is the purpose of the
Christ in YOU! The I AM!
God said, I AM that particular I AM!
May the Spirit of Truth quicken these words to your spirit!
The
Treasure Hunter