Prayer of Faith for Spiritual Healing.

This is a delightful episode with James Willis who has received a prayer of faith for spiritual healing; a gift for those of us on a conscious path of spiritual growth. For the past 40 years each day for James has been a day with prayer through meditation as well as spiritual growth study with A Course in Miracles and A Course of Love.

Although James was educated in a Christian school where the Lord's Prayer was regularly chosen at prayer time he explains that after he left school his spiritual journey and growth expanded his Christian life. He followed the call of his heart for a deeper understanding of who he truly is and his relationship to all that is.

This episode is very beneficial for those of us who are answering that same call of our heart and reaching for a deeper spiritual connection to the divine truth of being in Christ consciousness.

How Life Becomes a Prayer

A full prayer life is one that includes prayer at times of joy, times of sorrow, times of need, times of contentment and even the mundane times. Prayer is, at its core, a process of using words that focus our mind and open our heart to experience our union and relationship with God in every thing we do. This is why prayer is an act of devotion (A Course of Love C:25.1) - devotion to being who we really are, children of God.

New Testament - James 5:13-20 Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. 14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

This request to make our life a devotional prayer reveals the purpose of prayer - to share our life with God. A Course of Love clarifies this by saying ...prayer must be redefined as the act of consciously choosing union. With this definition, you can see how your life can become a prayer. This does not negate the fact that a prayer is also a constant dialogue of asking, being answered, and responding. This is the aspect of prayer that makes of it an act of creation. (A Course of Love T1:6.3)

Sharing our life with God in prayer as an act of creation rests on our ability to choose union which requires a spiritual understanding of our relationship to and with God. We enter relationship by accepting that God is a Spirit (John 4:24) and our (human) being is of Spirit (Job 33:4) which is how we are made in the image and likeness of God (Gen. 1:26). Thus, the basis of prayer is stated in John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Prayer and worship in spirit and truth has long been a stumbling point because our life experience is so tangible and so compelling that we convince ourselves we've been separated from God. And, to make it worse, we look for tangible physical changes as evidence of effects of prayer and the power of prayer. For example, when we pray with a focus on healing a sick person we use physical healing to measure how effective prayer was and give no or little attention to healing spiritual relationship.

Yet we are called to trust in and experience spiritual unity with God in all that we do, even in our physical orientation. A Course of Love again brings clarification ...you can only come to know your Self through relationship, you can only come to know God through relationship. Christ is the holy relationship that exists between all and God, providing the bridge that spans the very concept of between and provides for the connection of unity. Thus your relationship with Christ always was and always will be. (A Course of Love C:27.8)

You could say our gift of Christ is our gift of faith. Eloquently written in A Course of Love C:3.16 ...realize that our light shines from within our heart, our altar to the Lord. Here the Christ in us abides... and in Ephesians 3:17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love.

Many have said that those of us willing to set doubt aside and choose faithful prayer to make life a devotion to relationship and unity with spirit and truth through Christ are those with courageous hearts.

A Course of Love specifically says Union is the mind and heart being joined in wholeheartedness. It is your union with your Self. Union with your Self is union with God. Thus your concentration must not stray back to old concepts of prayer or of reaching God through the intercession of prayer as if God were separate from you and accessible only through a specific means of communication. (A Course of Love T1:6.4)

How Can I Make My Faith Stronger?

Hebrews 11 - Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation. 3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

Prayers of faith give us the words we need to strengthen our union and relationship with God through Christ. All it takes is a willingness to have as much faith as a grain of mustard seed (Luke 17:6). It is our faith in our spiritual understanding of our relationship with God, our willingness to offer our entire heart to God and the power of prayer to focus us into unity that strengthens us into a steadfast faith.

Steadfast faith could also be called wholeheartedness. For it is in wholeheartedness, when the mind is focussed in a way that it can receive our Christ connection through our heart, that all doubt departs and we feel certain of our spiritual relationship with God, Love.

A Course of Love C:25.17 Living in love in every instance is what occurs when the whole Self is involved in the love of life. There are no “parts” of the Self fractioned off and holding resentments. There are no “parts” of Self living in the past or the future. There is not a “mindful” Self living separately from a “soulful” Self. There is not a “worker” Self living separately from a “prayerful” Self. All Selves are joined in wholeheartedness. The one Self is solely involved in living love.

Steadfast faith gives us all the certainty and assurance we need, even in uncertain times, that we are never separate from God our Father/Mother.

Short Prayer for Faith

Many people have been raised with a Christian influence or exposure great enough to be familiar with the Lord’s Prayer. The lines of this popular prayer are most likely coming to mind now…. Our father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven……

Have you ever noticed or felt that the words suggest a separation between heaven and earth, God and ourselves, the Kingdom and our everyday life experience? A Course of Love encourages us not to use prayer for steadfastness but instead to pray in wholeheartedness by saying To use prayer only as a means of reaching out to a god seen as separate is to attempt to use what cannot be used. ... Prayers such as these emanate from either heart or mind and have not the power of the wholehearted. (T1:6.5)

In wholeheartedness we realise the truth in this promise that we... are neither separate nor alone and never were and never can be. (A Course of Love C:6.3)

In wholeheartedness James would like to share with you this new Lord's Prayer as a short prayer for strengthening your faith and expanding your spiritual journey and spiritual healing. It is a beautiful prayer that gives us the words that hold our prayerful attention in spirit and truth. In my opinion, they are the perfect words for an effective prayer life in union and relationship with God our Father/Mother.

A New Lord's Prayer.

Our Father, my constant friend and guide,

Help me to see Your Light in every brother and sister I meet,

And to live in the knowing that Thy name is Love.

Thy Kingdom is within me, and Thy Creation is unfolding, here and now, as I speak.

Consciously living in the flow of Loving Creation fulfils all needs to perfection,

And the only forgiveness required is by me, of myself,

And then I can know who I truly AM.

Living as who I truly AM, I know not of temptation,

And what I once saw as evil, is a call for love that I can help to answer.

For in reality You and I, Father, are one, and OURS is the Kingdom,

And WE are the Power and the Glory.

In this eternal moment of NOW,

I AM one with Thee. Amen!