#161: The Life-Giving Word

The Life-Giving Word

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

Can man decree a thing and have it come to pass? Most decidedly he can, when the word he speaks is not the sound that falls from his lips but the conviction that lives in his heart. You have discovered that the repeating of words and the making of affirmations do not of themselves bring to pass the things you desire. You have found that no matter how many times you may declare a thing to be so, if you are not convinced of it in your own consciousness, your world remains unchanged. This is because the word that gives life is not the word that is uttered. It is the word that is accepted. It is the settled conviction, the inner feeling that the thing desired is already an accomplished fact.

The scriptures declare that in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. This beginning is not a time in the distant past. It is the eternal now in which you live. The word is the desire that stirs within you. God is your awareness of being, the I AM that is the only reality. When your desire is united with this awareness, when you feel yourself to be the very embodiment of that desire, then the word is with God and the word is God. The desire has become flesh. It has taken on the form of your world. And it must appear, for things have no reality other than in consciousness, and consciousness is ever out-picturing that which it is conscious of being.

You do not command things to appear by your words or by loud affirmations. Such vain repetition is more often than not the confirmation of the opposite. The dumb man without using words is conscious of being dumb. Therefore he is decreeing himself to be dumb. So it is with every man. You are at every moment decreeing that which you are conscious of being. The man who is conscious of being poor has decreed poverty, though he may repeat the words of wealth a thousand times a day. His consciousness is his word, and his word is poverty. He has not the conviction of wealth. He has not felt himself to be wealthy. The outer words are but empty sounds if they are not the echo of an inner conviction.

You are told that you shall decree a thing and it shall come to pass. The decreeing is done in consciousness. You rise in consciousness to the naturalness of being the thing desired. When you can feel yourself to be wealthy, though there is no evidence of wealth in your world, you have decreed wealth. When you can feel yourself to be free, though the bars of your prison seem so real, you have decreed freedom. The feeling is the decree. The conviction is the life-giving word. When you can walk in the assumption that you are already the man you would be, you have spoken the word that cannot return void.

In the first chapter of John it is written that in the beginning was the word. The urge, the desire, is the word. And the word was with God. The desire must be united with the awareness of being. You are conscious of being. That is the I AM. Now you become conscious of being the particular thing. That is the word made one with God. And the word was God. The awareness and the desire have become one, and that oneness is God in expression. Two must agree as touching anything if it is to be established on earth. This agreement is not between two persons. It is the agreement between your awareness of being and the thing you desire to be. When you can say in the feeling, I AM that, the agreement is made, and the child is born. The manifestation appears.

This is the spiritual marriage where two shall agree upon being one, and their likeness or image is established on earth. Your world becomes the image of your conviction. The man who has the conviction of health walks in health, though the senses may deny it for a time. The man who has the conviction of freedom walks in freedom, though the walls of his prison may seem so solid. The conviction is the substance. It is the evidence. It is the word made alive. And the world must conform to it, for the world is but the out-picturing of consciousness.

Many pray and are not answered because they pray to a God outside of themselves. They petition a God that does not exist as they conceive him. But when you pray, you pray by recognizing yourself to be that which you desire. You assume the nature of the thing. You rise in consciousness to its level. This is prayer. And this prayer is always answered, for it is the word of God in you coming to expression. The father within you does the work. Your awareness of being is the father. When you have felt the desire to the point where it is natural, the father sees it in secret and rewards it openly. You do not need to tell the father what to do. You need only be the thing in consciousness.

The life-giving word is this inner feeling. It is not a formula of words. It is not a prayer of petition. It is the assumption of the wish fulfilled. When you assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, you have spoken the word that gives life. For the assumption is the conviction, and the conviction is the word of God. You are told, When you pray go within in secret and shut the door. The door is the door of the senses. You shut out the evidence of the senses that deny your desire. You go within to the awareness of being and there you feel yourself to be the thing you desire. This is the secret place. And that which your father sees in secret, that will he reward you openly.

The feeling must become natural. It is not something you do with effort. It is something you become. You become the man who is healthy. You become the man who is free. You become the man who has the thing. And when you become it in consciousness, you are it in expression. The effort is only in the beginning. Once the conviction is there, it is effortless. You simply are. And in that being, all things are possible. You do not speculate as to how this conviction will embody itself. For the I AM, or the newly attained consciousness, has ways that you know not of. Its ways are past finding out. Do not speculate as to the how. Speculation is proof that you have not attained to the naturalness of being the thing desired and so are filled with doubts.

You are told, He who lacks wisdom let him ask of God, that gives to all liberally, and upbraideth not. But let him ask not doubting, for he who doubts is as a wave of the sea that is tossed and battered by the winds. And let not such a one think that he shall receive anything from the Lord. You can see why this statement is made, for only upon the rock of conviction can anything be established. If you have not the consciousness of the thing, you have not the cause or foundation upon which the thing is erected. A proof of this established consciousness is given you in the words, Thank you, father. When you come into the joy of thanksgiving so that you actually feel grateful for having received that which is not yet apparent to the senses, you have definitely become one in consciousness with the thing for which you gave thanks.

God, your awareness, is not mocked. You are ever receiving that which you are aware of being, and no man gives thanks for something which he has not received. Thank you, father, is not a magical formula. You need never utter aloud the words. In applying this principle, as you rise in consciousness to the point where you are really grateful and happy for having received the thing desired, you automatically rejoice and give thanks inwardly. You have already accepted the gift which was but a desire before you rose in consciousness, and your conviction is now the substance that shall clothe your desire.

This rising in consciousness is the spiritual marriage where two shall agree upon being one, and their likeness or image is established on earth. Whatsoever you ask in the name, the same is given unto you. Name means nature. To ask in the name is to rise in consciousness and become one in nature with the thing desired. Rise in consciousness to the nature of the thing, and you will become that thing in expression. Therefore, what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall receive them. Praying is recognition. The injunction to believe that you receive is first person, present tense. This means that you must be in the nature of the things asked for before you can receive them.

To get into the nature easily, general amnesty is necessary. Forgive if you have aught against any, that your father also, which is in heaven, may forgive you. But if you forgive not, neither will your father forgive you. Consciousness being God, if you hold in consciousness anything against man, you are binding that condition in your world. But to release man from all condemnation is to free yourself so that you may rise to any level necessary. There is therefore no condemnation to those in the conviction of the fulfilled desire.

This brings us to that much abused statement of the Bible on tithing. Teachers of all kinds have enslaved man with this affair of tithing. But remember, I AM the Lord. Your awareness of being is the God that you give to and that you ever give in this manner. Therefore when you claim yourself to be anything, you have given that claim or quality to God. And your awareness of being, which is no respecter of persons, will return to you pressed down, shaken together, and running over with that quality or attribute which you claim for yourself. Awareness of being is nothing that you could ever name. To claim God to be rich, to be great, to be love, is to define that which cannot be defined. For God is nothing that could ever be named. Tithing is necessary and you do tithe with God. But from now on give to the only God, and see to it that you give him the quality that you desire as man to express by claiming yourself to be the great, the wealthy, the loving, the all wise.

Do not speculate as to how you shall express these qualities or claims, for life has a way that you as man know not of. Its ways are past finding out. But the day you claim these qualities to the point of conviction, your claims will be honored. There is nothing covered that shall not be uncovered. That which is spoken in secret shall be proclaimed from the housetops. That is, your secret convictions of yourself, these secret claims that no man knows of, when really believed, will be shouted from the housetops in your world. For your convictions of yourself are the words of the God within you, which words are spirit and cannot return unto you void but must accomplish whereunto they are sent.

You are at this moment calling out of the infinite that which you are now conscious of being. And not one word or conviction will fail to find you. I AM the vine and ye are the branches. Consciousness is the vine, and those qualities which you are now conscious of being are as branches that you feed and keep alive. Just as a branch has no life except it be rooted in the vine, so likewise things have no life except you be conscious of them. Just as a branch withers and dies if the sap of the vine ceases to flow towards it, so do things in your world pass away if you take your attention from them. Your attention is as the sap of life that keeps alive and sustains the things of your world.

To dissolve a problem that now seems so real to you, all that you do is remove your attention from it. In spite of its seeming reality, turn from it in consciousness. Become indifferent, and begin to feel yourself to be that which would be the solution of the problem. For instance, if you were imprisoned, no man would have to tell you that you should desire freedom. Freedom, or rather the desire of freedom, would be automatic. So why look behind the four walls of your prison bars? Take your attention from being imprisoned and begin to feel yourself to be free. Feel it to the point where it is natural. The very second you do so, those prison bars will dissolve. Apply this same principle to any problem.

Your answer to Whom do you say that I AM? ever determines your expression. As long as you are conscious of being imprisoned or diseased or poor, so long will you continue to out-picture or express these conditions. When man realizes that he is now that which he is seeking and begins to claim that he is, he will have the proof of his claim. This cue is given you in words, Whom seek ye? And they answered, Jesus. And the voice said, I am he. Jesus here means salvation or savior. You are seeking to be salvaged from that which is not your problem. I am he that will save you. If you are hungry, your savior is food. If you are poor, your savior is riches. If you are imprisoned, your savior is freedom. If you are diseased, it will not be a man called Jesus who will save you, but health will become your savior. Therefore, claim I am he. In other words, claim yourself to be the thing desired. Claim it in consciousness, not in words, and consciousness will reward you with your claim.

You are told, You shall find me when you feel after me. Well, feel after that quality in consciousness until you feel yourself to be it. When you lose yourself in the feeling of being it, the quality will embody itself in your world. You are healed from your problem when you touch the solution of it. Who has touched me? For I perceive virtue is gone out of me. Yes, the day you touch this being within you, feeling yourself to be cured or healed, virtues will come out of your very self and solidify themselves in your world as healings.

It is said, You believe in God. Believe also in me for I am he. Have the faith of God. He made himself one with God and found it not robbery to do the works of God. Go, you, and do likewise. Yes, begin to believe your awareness, your consciousness of being, to be God. Claim for yourself all the attributes that you have heretofore given an external God, and you will begin to express these claims. For I am not a God afar off. I am nearer than your hands and feet, nearer than your very breathing. I AM your awareness of being. I AM that in which all that I shall ever be aware of being shall begin and end. For before the world was I AM, and when the world shall cease to be, I AM. Before Abraham was, I AM. This I AM is your awareness.

Except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it. The Lord being your consciousness. Except that which you seek is first established in your consciousness, you will labor in vain to find it. All things must begin and end in consciousness. So blessed indeed is the man that trusteth in himself, for man’s faith in God will ever be measured by his confidence in himself. You believe in a God, believe also in ME.

Put not your trust in men, for men but reflect the being that you are and can only bring to you or do unto you that which you have first done unto yourself. No man taketh away my life, I lay it down myself. I have the power to lay it down and the power to take it up again. No matter what happens to man in this world, it is never an accident. It occurs under the guidance of an exact and changeless law. No man, manifestation, comes unto me except the father within me draw him, and I and my father are one. Believe this truth and you will be free. Man has always blamed others for that which he is and will continue to do so until he finds himself as cause of all.

I AM comes not to destroy but to fulfill. I AM, the awareness within you, destroys nothing but ever fills full the molds or conception one has of one’s self. It is impossible for the poor man to find wealth in this world no matter how he is surrounded with it until he first claims himself to be wealthy. For signs follow, they do not precede. To constantly kick and complain against the limitations of poverty while remaining poor in consciousness is to play the fool’s game. Changes cannot take place from that level of consciousness, for life is constantly out-picturing all levels.

Follow the example of the prodigal son. Realize that you yourself brought about this condition of waste and lack, and make the decision within yourself to rise to a higher level where the fatted calf, the ring, and the robe await your claim. There was no condemnation of the prodigal when he had the courage to claim this inheritance as his own. Others will condemn us only as long as we continue in that for which we condemn ourselves. So, Happy is the man that condemneth himself not in that which he alloweth. For to life nothing is condemned. All is expressed.

Life does not care whether you call yourself rich or poor, strong or weak. It will eternally reward you with that which you claim as true of yourself. The measurements of right and wrong belong to man alone. To life there is nothing right or wrong. As Paul stated in his letters to the Romans, I know and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus that there is nothing unclean of itself, but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. Stop asking yourself whether you are worthy or unworthy to receive that which you desire. You, as man, did not create the desire. Your desires are ever fashioned within you because of what you now claim yourself to be.

When a man is hungry, without thinking, he automatically desires food. When imprisoned, he automatically desires freedom and so forth. Your desires contain within themselves the plan of self-expression. So leave all judgments out of the picture and rise in consciousness to the level of your desire and make yourself one with it by claiming it to be so now. For, My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness. Have faith in this unseen claim until the conviction is born within you that it is so. Your confidence in this claim will pay great rewards. Just a little while and he, the thing desired, will come. But without faith it is impossible to realize anything. Through faith the worlds were framed because faith is the substance of the thing hoped for, the evidence of the thing not yet seen.

Don’t be anxious or concerned as to results. They will follow just as surely as day follows night. Look upon your desires, all of them, as the spoken words of God, and every word or desire a promise. The reason most of us fail to realize our desires is because we are constantly conditioning them. Do not condition your desire. Just accept it as it comes to you. Give thanks for it to the point that you are grateful for having already received it. Then go about your way in peace. Such acceptance of your desire is like dropping seed, fertile seed, into prepared soil. For when you can drop the thing desired in consciousness, confident that it shall appear, you have done all that is expected of you. But to be worried or concerned about the how of your desire maturing is to hold these fertile seeds in a mental grasp, and therefore never to have dropped them in the soil of confidence.

The reason men condition their desires is because they constantly judge after the appearance of being and see the things as real, forgetting that the only reality is the consciousness backing them. To see things as real is to deny that all things are possible to God. The man who is imprisoned and sees his four walls as real is automatically denying the urge or promise of God within him of freedom. A question often asked when this statement is made is: If one’s desire is a gift of God, how can you say that if one desires to kill a man that such a desire is good and therefore God sent? In answer to this let me say that no man desires to kill another. What he does desire is to be freed from such a one. But because he does not believe that the desire to be free from such a one contains within itself the powers of freedom, he conditions that desire and sees the only way to express such freedom is to destroy the man, forgetting that the life wrapped within the desire has ways that he, as man, knows not of. Its ways are past finding out. Thus man distorts the gifts of God through his lack of faith.

Problems are the mountains spoken of that can be removed if one has but the faith of a grain of a mustard seed. Men approach their problem as did the old lady who on attending service heard the priest say, If you had but the faith of a grain of a mustard seed you would say unto yonder mountain be thou removed and it shall be removed and nothing is impossible to you. That night as she said her prayers, she quoted this part of the scriptures and retired to bed in what she thought was faith. On arising in the morning, she rushed to the window and exclaimed, I knew that old mountain would still be there! For this is how man approaches his problem. He knows that they are still going to confront him. And because life is no respecter of persons and destroys nothing, it continues to keep alive that which he is conscious of being.

Things will disappear only as man changes in consciousness. Deny it if you will, it still remains a fact that consciousness is the only reality and things but mirror that which you are in consciousness. So the heavenly state you are seeking will be found only in consciousness, for the kingdom of God is within you. Tonight, as you go to your bed, take your attention from all that seems to deny your desire. Become indifferent to the evidence of the senses. And in the deep of yourself, feel yourself to be the man you would be. Do not condition it. Do not wonder how it will come to pass. Simply feel it. Feel it until it is the only reality to you. Feel it until you are lost in the feeling. And in that moment the word will be spoken, and the world will begin to conform.

You will find that circumstances will change. People will change. Events will arrange themselves to bear witness to your new consciousness. For there is no one to change but self. And when self is changed in consciousness, the world, which is but self pushed out, must change with it. This is the great secret. This is the principle of expression. It is not a new discovery. It is the eternal truth that has been known to the prophets and the mystics of all ages. But it is new to you if you have not yet proven it in your own experience. And you prove it by doing it. Not by talking about it, but by assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled and living in that assumption until it becomes your conviction.

Then you will know what it means to speak the life-giving word. For your word will not return unto you void. It will accomplish that whereunto it is sent. And you will go on your way in peace, knowing that all things are possible to him who believes. And belief is but the conviction that the thing is so. You are the awareness of being. You are the I AM. And whatever you attach to the I AM in feeling, that you become in expression. So attach to it only that which you desire to be. Let your word be the word of life, the word of health, the word of abundance, the word of freedom, the word of love. And let it be spoken not with the lips only, but with the heart, with the conviction that cannot be shaken.

For the word that is spoken with conviction is the word that creates. It is the word that was in the beginning. It is the word that is with God. It is the word that is God. And it is your word, when you have the courage to feel it and the faith to live it. You are not the man who speaks words in the hope that they will come to pass. You are the awareness in which the word is alive, and because you are, the world is. You are the word made flesh when you embody the conviction. And in that embodiment, all things are possible to you. For all things are possible to the I AM that you are.