Faith in Action

By Edna Lister

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” – Hebrews 11:1. This verse is a very mystical answer to the question, What is faith? Faith is a substance. What substance? you ask.

We move into the second statement in the verse, still puzzled over how faith can be called evidence. Of course, in the beginning, God created form from Light, so we must consider faith as Light.

Through science we learned that Light condenses into energy, and energy into mass, and we know that mass can become form. Faith is a mystical, spiritual word, yet it must be related to material form. In this verse it is called both substance and evidence.

We know that there is a magical mystery connected with the word faith. Therefore, let us declare it a keyword that man may use to open a vibration that allows Light to condense through many different degrees until it is ready to become form solid enough to be seen with physical eyes.

Faith, as the evidence of things not seen, is still puzzling, but it is becoming clearer. Because of the confidence with which this statement was made, we perceive that it hides its mystery from the student, that it is the first great challenge that should cover overall the doubts and fears in the minds of men.

Man is now challenged to accept that there must be, that there is, a divine Mind behind all Creation. This challenge should be the number one greatest possible choice in our lives. It is to show us man’s complete freedom to make a choice at any time, either of acceptance or repudiation of anything. Every individual lives daily under the necessity of choice.

Man may avoid the application of choice to the matter of faith, but escape from choice is an attitude of repudiation. Putting off choosing is, in itself, an act of rejection. To avoid accepting the challenge of faith as evidence of the Power behind all creation is repudiation, an attitude assumed by the one who repudiates.

Repudiation is an act of belligerency, and a fighting attitude assumed by some to proclaim their independence, with no need for either man or God. To reject or repudiate anything presented at any time before considering it is an act indicating an escape desire, all covered up under the surface of the conscious mind. Repudiation signals an ingrowing, or even a shrinking mind-consciousness. This is referred to in the Bible verse that says, “to him who hath not, the little he hath shall be taken.”

To repudiate before accepting is an act of pushing the world away, and usually is born from a life attitude of self-satisfaction. To accept everything presented to us for consideration before rejecting it meets the challenge of faith as evidence of things not seen in an active, seeking, alert way that opens doors before us and bestows added things upon us.

To accept faith as such evidence is a deep inner belief to see the glory of the Lord. To repudiate means that the individual must see before he can believe or accept faith as evidence of God. The implication following acceptance as a choice is that we know faith has become the outer expression of the principle of nonresistance.

Light invoked enfolds itself completely in this greatest of all principles. Nonresistance is the first absolute principle, which in man becomes a relative principle, but never changing or becoming less as action. Nonresistance is all-powerful from Light to outer form, even though the vibration is lower than the substance is condensed on every level as it descends to become form.

Of course, since all things are formed of Light, it is present in all things, as all things, and is found in all places; and there is no level where anything can be left out. Every smallest combination of substance and energy contains all that is of Light. Science declares that we cannot add to or take from universal energy. It is forever the same in quality and quantity, but we can change its manifold combinations. All conditions, all healing miracles are based upon these facts.

You can only accept faith as your evidence when faith becomes your outer expression of an inner comprehension of your identity with your Source of life. Through acceptance, faith becomes the base upon which you stand, as upon a footstool, when you reach for the stars.

Faith is also the live wire of omnipotence, which reaches above you to meet the vibration of the principle of nonresistance descending as substance and energy. When the two make contact, an explosion takes place within you, which mystics call an illumination.

When you accept this challenge of faith as "the evidence of things not seen," and move up into the Light, you actually become this evidence to the world. As you reach for more Light, it shines upon you, and your faith becomes a reflection shining back up to your Source of Light, causing a stronger flow of substance and energy to move down to you to fill and condense in all your creative molds.

To move into the Light is your signal of acceptance, and “the evidence of things not seen” appears before the world as a beautiful attitude of inner stillness, of poise and power. This attitude of poise and power becomes your challenge against all darkness in the world and, all unconsciously, you become a rebuke to those who still desire above all things to reject anything which curtails their self-satisfaction and self-indulgence.

Standing still while saying, “Let there be Light,” is your answer to the challenge of faith as the evidence of things not seen. Standing still becomes the actual practice in the use of the active power of nonresistance, which instantly begins to work things together for your good. It also sets into motion the law of just appraisal, and you find it easy to stand still and know before moving or speaking.

“First seeking the Light, then standing still in that Light without speaking is the most powerful weapon of faith in action under the principle of nonresistance.”

You are also waiting upon the Lord for your answer before passing in judgment upon another, and you find disagreeable things turning into miracles. Sometimes you call this attitude of standing still and letting God do the work for you, placing your burden upon an altar of Light, knowing that the Light invoked from the Source can absorb all the weight of any burden.

Remember that first seeking the Light, then standing still in that Light without speaking is the most powerful weapon of faith in action under the principle of nonresistance. It is not only the faith that moves mountains, it is also the power that turns away wrath, which is a mystical way of saying, “This faith absorbs spiritual debt.”

You find yourself alive and more alert in your ability to vision and think. Your vibration of expectancy grows more and more potent, more powerful. You find that to reject and repudiate anything as an instantaneous action leads you into nothing, while the attitude of acceptance leads upward into greater strength, and you soon reach that place where world things cannot disturb you or bind you into slavery. Anything that you allow to cause you heartache or hurt you is self making you its slave. You must stand untouched by what the world does, or you are not free.

Since all life is based upon the same laws of expansion and contraction, you realize that you must choose each day which law of life to live under. According to your choice, you raise or lower the vibration of substance allotted to us for our creations while our thinking determines the form. Our choice either expands our form or causes it to shrink. What is our choice?

By tuning in on the fundamental laws of all creation, you can take everything that comes to you under the Power contained in and issuing from a just appraisal. Exactly what is and what do we mean by just appraisal? You are not supposed to allow yourself to be made over or pushed around by anything or anyone. Unless you stand in poised stillness you can grow suspicious of anything or anyone, even descending into judgment of another.

To make a just appraisal of anyone, anything or any situation, you must not react in repudiation to it, even though you feel or may know it to be wrong. You accept Light and say, “Let there be Light,” then stand still and wait. The right words of refusal to be moved or touched are not rejection or counted as a judgment, and right words will be put upon your lips.

Standing still and waiting does free others from you and you, in turn, become free of all others under this just appraisal, which takes the place of all need to judge. Without your complete inner conviction that faith is only another name for divine Mind in action, you can never move into your full expression of perfect acceptance and your standing still while God does the work. And it is while divine Mind is doing through you and living as you that just appraisal can take over.

All divine Mind is now waiting to use you as a Creator with all Power, all substance, ready to move into the visible form of your creations. “I accept” opens the new vibration and the words “Let there be Light” begins the filling of your molds.

Remember that when you become deeply convinced that faith is the evidence of things not seen, but just waiting to become visible, it is inevitable under divine action that they shall assume the outer vibration of form. As you learn to stand still, power-as-substance takes on color, and you show forth and express more animation and beauty.

Your reactions become snappy, and everything you do has more life to it. As you continue standing, power-as-substance lowers to another, more condensed level, and the whole tone of your life accelerates, and your dull personality begins to glow with the song of the soul, and you begin to radiate a sort of divine music your soul is singing.

The evidence of faith shows in your face, as your name and number is stamped upon it by the Power of the great vibration of nonresistance, which can only stamp you with such a look of immortality when you learn to stand still. So does Light descend through color, tone and number, to become the individual in form. All this comes from and through accepting your identity with your Source of the full Power of divine Mind. You have become your own miracle!

Once you have moved up into this full power of faith through accepting, you begin to comprehend all the things mysticism has for you to know. Nonresistance, as your Source of Life, finds you following Light as it was bestowed upon you in the beginning, when you were created in the image and likeness of God.

To stand still allows the use of all your original faculties, their use becoming easier to follow, and you have no need to continuously remind yourself of your identity to your Source. The wasted time spent in reminding yourself that you are a descended creator god can now be redeemed with Light from above.

“The Logos, or the Word, contains a million or more unborn new ideas to draw upon.”

The Logos, or the Word, contains a million or more unborn new ideas to draw upon. It is the Source of divine Mind, and as you draw upon it for your vision, your ideas and your plans, you open the faculty of reason to apply the powers of organizing your plan into practical and material ways for the outer world.

All this is under divine Mind using you as an instrument, but we also call it working out your own salvation. From applying logic and reason under thinking, your great creative tool, it becomes easy to move higher into the Light.

Make it a rule to apply discernment, discrimination, and discretion to your analysis under a just appraisal before you speak or act. When you are lifted in consciousness into this timeless, spaceless place of nonresistance, you move where the “impossibles” of man are absorbed by the Light and the “possibles” of God as divine Mind move forth through you as miracles.

When faith has convinced you that God is still in charge of His creations, all power and substance become available in an instant, and no idle words from man can shake your faith in miracles. Any word spoken from this unshakable vibration of Light must produce the evidence in you that will cause the world to see and so believe.

The principle of nonresistance is absolute in its ability to breathe from the endlessness of space the small life sparks of Light to condense and fill a great center of Light, which is the Source of all life. From this same center Source, all universes receive their life.

Since this great center Source of Light is constantly recharged, it is always ready to send Power forth at any call. When you, as a surrendered servant of all Power and as an ambassador of Light, reach up in faith and call, “Let there be Light,” the words become an invocation and Power and Substance moves forth into your creations.

The great principle of nonresistance, although the Source of All Light as Power and Substance also contains and is the Source of all the potential attributes and qualities of God, still has no power to become form just as itself, but must be acted upon by divine Mind, the all-controlling power behind and the cause of all Creation.

In the very beginning, divine Mind acts upon nonresistance independently. Then, after the Seven Ages of Creation, when the begotten creators are in form, divine Mind acts upon it through the faith vibration.

Faith that “believes to see” reaches up from man to contact the faith vibration as evidence that becomes outer form. You, by the use of your faculties of logic, reason, discernment, discrimination and discretion applied as a just appraisal, draw all the potential powers of Light from the vast center of the principle of nonresistance to operate under the glory and the faith of your spoken Word.

You must become the perfect channel and instrument through which the evidence of things not seen can be expressed. Each must stand on his own Mount of Transfiguration, face shining as the sun, radiant with Light from above. Then shall the world be convinced that there is an overall supervising, controlling God whom you reach through the exercise of faith.

This Being of Light, this divine Mind, now makes of us a creator, already immortal. Let there be Light!