Test Yourselves

Neville Goddard 09-25-1967

Faith is not complete until through experiment it becomes experience. God’s promise cannot be tested. It cannot be earned, for it is given by grace. But your faith will be increased when you experiment, when you test God’s law. It is easier to accept the Christian faith than to live by it, but you must live by it for your faith to grow!

In his 2nd letter to the Corinthians, Paul is speaking to the whole world when he says: “Examine yourselves to see if you are holding to the faith. Test yourselves! Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? – unless of course you fail to meet the test. I hope you will discover that we have not failed.”

Now, in the earliest gospel, the Gospel of Mark, we find these words: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of heaven is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.” The word “repent” means “a radical change of attitude (of thinking) towards anything that you either dislike or want to change.” A radical change on your part will produce a corresponding change in your outer world. So now you are urged to examine yourself to see whether you are holding to the faith. Are you accepting as facts the headlines you see in the paper? The telephone call you just received! The morning’s mail or the news on TV which suggest unlovely, horrible things to you? A friend calls, and pouring out all the bilge in the world tells you how bad things are and how they are destined to get worse. As you listen, their woes enter and are assumed by you. Now, if you understand this law that imaging creates reality, you should, like a computer, choose what you are going to allow to enter. And when the conversation is finished and your friend’s voice is still fresh and clear in your ear, hear her changed words, the changed tone of her voice, and feel the joy emitted there.

Let me now share three stories of a lady who is here tonight. She said: “I have found my telephone technique infallible. It never fails me. One day a friend called to tell me she wanted to take an examination to become a court reporter. Giving me nine reasons why she could never pass the test, I changed every one as I heard it, and when the conversation was finished I imagined an entirely different one. I heard her tell me she had passed the test with flying colors. My friend took the test, and although during the interval of six weeks she remained negative, I continued to believe she had passed. Then one day she called, saying: ‘Do you remember when I took the test?’ and I replied: ‘Yes, and you passed.’ Then she said: ‘Yes, but aren’t you surprised?’ I have been trying to tell her that imagining creates reality, but she cannot understand how an imaginal act unseen by the human senses can be held onto and produce results, but I know it always does!”

Her letter continued in this manner: “My telephone technique never fails. I can give you dozen of stories of the results I have received through its use. Here is another. A friend, in her 50’s desired to change her job for financial reasons. She wanted to return to the electronic plant where she formerly worked but felt that because of her age she would not be accepted. Ignoring all of the negative thoughts, I simply heard her excited voice tell me she had the job! One week later she called, saying: “They not only gave me the job with a large salary increase, but I am receiving credit for the ten years I worked there before, which will be added to my retirement.”

Now in the third story, she said: “My friend’s maid weighed 25 pounds more than she wanted to, and her doctor had told her she must lose this additional weight. Desiring to weigh 140 pounds, she told me how she had tried and tried but could not lose a pound. I ignored her comments regarding her past attempts and heard her tell me she had reached her goal. That she now weighs 140 pounds. Soon after that I left the city for two months, and when I returned the maid called again, saying: “I have been trying to contact you to tell you that I have lost weight. I couldn’t find you when I weighed 140 but now I weigh 139!”