Neville Goddard Lectures: “Put On The Lord Jesus Christ”

02 Jun Neville Goddard Lectures: “Put On The Lord Jesus Christ”

4/7/67

If you opened the Bible and you read “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires,” what would it mean (Rom.13:14)? I couldn’t put him on were he a physical being, could I? If Jesus Christ is a man, as we are, could I put him on? I’ll put it in that light. How could I put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh? Well, first of all, the word flesh, as Paul uses it, is the body as opposed to the Spirit. I will now change the word Spirit to Imagination, and leave the word flesh, meaning, say, my body and all of its senses, and one is opposed to the other. Then I could see some light, how I could put on the Lord Jesus Christ and ignore the evidence of my senses.

But, would it work? Well then, try it. I’m called upon to try it. Test it. “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” Well, if he is in you, then he cannot be a being of flesh and blood. It cannot, if he is in me. Now I’m invited to test it, “Test yourself and see. Do you not realize Jesus Christ is in you?” (2Cor.13:5). Now we are told all things are possible to him; there is nothing impossible to him. Now I can see how I can put him on. And so, I see a world and my senses anchor me. I would like to transcend them, I would like to be other than what my senses and my reason dictate. Can I put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision, now, for the flesh? I can, you can, and we are called upon to do it, to transcend the limitation of the flesh by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.

We’ll understand it better if we’ll take a story in scripture, one of the first stories that’s told in the Book of Genesis. Here…first let me go back and quote the last Book of the Old Testament, Malachi, “Is not Esau Jacob’s brother? Yet I have loved Jacob but I’ve hated Esau” (Mal.1:2). Now, this is said of the Lord. Well, here the Lord is the Lord of love. And this is not a conclusion reached philosophically, this is the countenance of a self-revelation of God, when you stand in the presence of infinite love, and it is God. Yet, here are the words, “I have hated Esau.” How could I hate Esau? Yes, I can say I have loved Jacob, but don’t say you hate Esau. Can it be hate as you and I understand it? Don’t you dislike the limitations of the flesh? You find yourself locked in a prison, for instance, and you don’t like the confinement of a prison, don’t you hate what this pledge is telling you? Don’t you hate the sentence that reason tells you that you heard: six months, hard labor or maybe life, hard labor? You heard something and reason tells you that is it, and your senses confirm it, for here are the bars and here is this place where you are. Now, could I put on the Lord Jesus Christ and escape? Do I really believe that all things are possible to him? Now, that’s what I’m called upon to do and to exercise this right of mine. But, when I exercise it I must believe in what I am doing, believe in him. What must I do? Believe in him whom my Father sends, and I and my Father are one, so I gave him to you. I am in you. You and I are one.