Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Mystery of Grace”

08 Nov Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Mystery of Grace”

1/10/69

Tonight is “The Mystery of Grace.” Grace is so unlike what man is taught to believe. Grace is God’s gift to man, a gift that is unmerited, unearned. It is not man’s due, it is not conferred as a reward, it’s a free gift by God to man. We are saved by grace. We are told that God chose us in him before the foundation of the world. Before the physical creation he chose us, chose all that you see in this world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. He destined us in love to be his sons through Christ Jesus, according to the purpose of his will. Therefore, no one in eternity can stop that purpose from coming to its fullness. God himself is present in the historical struggle directing the course of human history toward his own end.

Now we are given different gifts, all varied endowments that you and I bring. And we are able to bring it because we received it as a gift to the corporate life of the body of the risen Lord. They are called gifts of grace. The greatest of these gifts—far outstripping more spectacular gifts such as tongues—is love. Just imagine you face an audience of a thousand, no two speak the same tongue, they cannot communicate…and you address an audience of a thousand who cannot communicate and each hears you in their own tongue wherein they were born, as told us in the 2nd chapter of Acts. Each present of the thousand hears you in their own tongue wherein they were born. That’s a spectacular gift. But the gift of love is God’s gift of himself, for God is love; for all the other gifts are attributes of God and they are essential to the corporate life of the risen Lord. But when God gives you love, he gives you himself…for God is love. Power, wisdom, all these are attributes of God. The gift of prophecy, even that of the apostle, all these are attributes of God and all these, wonderful as they are and essential to the body of the risen Lord, are attributes. But when God gives you love, he has actually given you himself.

Now let me share with you the experience I had in 1929. I certainly did not expect it, and to this moment I feel unworthy of the gift. I felt then as I feel now not equipped to express that gift. Nevertheless, I was taken in spirit into the divine council, the assembly of the gods. I was taken first to the recording angel and there she checked off my name written in the book of life. Then I was taken before the risen Lord and he asked a simple question, asked me to name the greatest thing in the world. I quoted from the works of Paul, the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, “Faith, hope and love, these three, but the greatest of these is love.” With that the risen Lord embraced me, we became one body, we became one Spirit. It was not the Lord and the speaker; I became the one body of the Lord, the one Spirit of the Lord, I became the Lord. Then I was commanded, ill-equipped as I was and still am, to tell the story. I came out and my room was filled with light. There was no reason for it. There was no light lit in my room, no moonlight, just radiant light. It did not subside for the longest while. It seemed to have no source…it was simply light in the wee hours of the morning.