Sharing In Creativity

Neville Goddard 06-10-1968

There is no greater thrill than sharing in divine creative activity! This activity, however, cannot be earned, for it is given by grace. When someone proclaimed: “I am of Paul and I am of Apollo,” Paul asked, “Who is Paul and who is Apollo? I have planted and Apollo has watered, but God gives the growth.” An idea is a seed which can be planted in the mind; but having no life in itself, the thought will remain dormant unless God gives it birth.

Speaking of a remnant, Paul said: “When Elijah petitioned God against Israel because they had killed his prophets and destroyed his altars, and I alone am left, what did God say? He said: ‘I have seven thousand men who have not bent their knee to Baal.’” Then Paul added this thought: “So, too, at this time there is a chosen remnant, chosen by grace; and if it is by grace, then it is not based on works – otherwise, grace would no longer be grace.” (Romans 11) The remnant is chosen by grace, yet no one knows the secret of God’s selective love, and therefore cannot boast if he is elected. I, like Paul, say that at this time also a remnant has been chosen.

Now, although Paul speaks of seven thousand men, these are not people, but the number seven – which means spiritual perfection, a perfection which cannot be earned. Fitness for the kingdom is the consequence, not the condition, of God’s grace. The moment an individual is called, embraced, and has union with the Holy Spirit, he is spiritually perfect. Prior to that moment in time he is not fit, therefore he is chosen by grace.

The entire epistle to the Romans rests upon Paul’s argument for the paramount importance of faith in God’s plan of salvation. To Paul, Christian teaching was teaching Christ as a great mystery. He defines Christ as God’s power and wisdom wrapped in a pattern which unfolds within an individual. And the faith of which Paul speaks is faith in the pattern he calls Christ. The churches have distorted Paul’s faith in Christ, making it a person; yet Paul asked: “What came you out to see, a man that can be tossed by the wind? How can men call upon him in whom they do not believe? And how can they believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how can they hear unless there is a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news.’” Using Isaiah as his marvelous argument, Paul asks: “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” Then he concludes: “Therefore, faith comes from hearing, and hearing comes by teaching Christ.”

Paul is speaking of his faith in the vision of the end, when he told Timothy: “I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith.” No matter what happened to Paul, whether he was in prison or shipwrecked, he held aloft the mighty works of God, which must come to the individual at the end of this age of death. Your departure from the age of death and entrance into the age of life occurs when the power of God and the wisdom of God is born in you individually. This act fits you to function consciously in an entirely different age – a world which is unknown to anyone here, as nothing here relates to what is seen there. Although perceived, that age is unknown until your garment of death is removed for the last time.

Now, those who are sent are conscious of being sent. They are aware of that moment of union with God, as well as every event which takes place thereafter. Paul tells us that only the sent can be the preacher. But as we are told in the gospels: although some bring forth a hundred-fold, others sixty-fold and still others thirty-fold, all are qualified to enter the kingdom of heaven, and exercise their creative power of different levels.