Sermon for October 16, 2011

Comm-Unity On the Hill Congregation, Washington, D.C.*

Rev. Robbins S. Hopkins, Ed.D.

Thank you for asking me to speak.  It is delightful to be here this morning. The question I am exploring today is, “What is authentic prayer”?  Just plain and simple, authentic prayer is prayer that works.  It is prayer that brings results. It is prayer that produces energy shifts.  Authentic Prayer is powerful business.  Well then, how do we accomplish this?

The Bible has a few things to say to us about prayer.

“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15).

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds ….” (Philippians 4:6-7).

“And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. (Ephesians 6:18).

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express” (Romans 8:26).

The week before Hurricane Irene, exactly 7 days before it hit this area, we decided last minute to book a house in North Carolina for the week for my husband and myself.  We have been going to the beach in August for 41 years and we realized we were not going to go because none of our family were free to join us.  We discussed this at length and decided to make a reservation and take a weeks’ vacation just for us. That felt very wonderful, celebratory in fact! One day later, we realized that there was a Tropical Storm in the Atlantic. We thought, we had better arrange for trip insurance in case something more serious became of this storm. We called for the insurance and were told that we could not get insurance now because there was a named storm in the Atlantic, specifically now called IRENE.  So, my energy was very focused on this storm not only because of this reservation but also because I had been going to the North and South Carolina coasts literally all my life except for 4 years when were lived overseas.

So the prayers began in earnest.  Every time I went into prayer, I got the feeling I was simply nipping at the heels of Hurricane IRENE. I did all the things I usually do in working at the global level but I could not feel any shifts in energy which is how I know the prayers have been effective.  One day about the 4^thday into the prayer effort, I finally asked in sacred space, “How do we do this?” I was feeling overwhelmed and completely under effective.  Someone had shared with me that the Hurricane itself covered an area as large as Arizona.  This left me totally amazed.  I could feel the power and strength of Irene when in prayer and something I called powerful fury but I did not know how to address it in prayer.

To continue reading this sermon, follow this link to the full  text.  http://www.robbinshopkins.com/sermons/authentic-prayer-and-global-healing/

*Comm-Unity on the Hill, through November 2011,  meets in Hearst Hall on the grounds of National Cathedral at the corner of Woodley Ave. and Wisconsin Ave, NW in Washington, D.C. Services are weekly on Sundays at 10 A.M.  

As of December 4 we will be moving to 10 and G Street, N.W. to join First Congregational Church of Washington D.C. in jointly shared space.  Services here begin at 1 PM on Sundays.  Comm-Unity can be reached at cothdc@verizon.net or  703-379-4450 . All are welcome.

** This sermon was preceded by a guided meditation for the congregation.

The vast majority of us barely use our spiritual power at all.  This may be because we don’t know we have it, because we don’t know how to use it or because we don’t believe we are “authorized” to command our spiritual power being the “small humans” we imagine ourselves to be.

One of the many gifts and blessings Saint Germain gave us is a way to decree and activate our spiritual power.  His series of teachings published by Saint Germain Press, contained in over 20 green leather bound books, is a complete lifetime course in how to actualized our spiritual power.  We are going to look at one specific way to call forth our fuller spiritual power.  The power of decree is under used in general.  It is an awesome way to command greater spiritual power for the good of all people including ourselves.

Of course, decrees can be said over and over again without any heart energy present and they will accomplish little.  However with determination and heart felt energy, decrees become powerful commands of spiritual power.  This is true for matras and prayers as well. Our heart’s desire for change for the good, activates that energy in this dimension. The effective use of decrees comes from the fact that each and everyone of us is created from Divine Love and Energy.  We are indeed made in the Image of All That Is and at these times in our lives, that image is in our bodies and lives.  Though we are made in this Divine Image, we may not be feeling that in the daily process of our lives.

Nevertheless, when we decree for good, we are moving beyond our mind’s limitations about who we are and embracing our Eternal, All Powerful, All Knowing Selves to which each and every one of us is connected even while in body.  For most of us, we are not consciously aware of this ever present connection.  Thus it is very unlikely that we have with intent, commanded our spiritual power for the good. Never mind, it works even if our minds don’t get it! We don’t have to know how this will happen or when.  The decree is enough to change the energy around us in profound ways.  A decree is a command from ourselves for good to come forth in its full power in this dimension now.

More fully activating our spiritual power can also begin when we realize that we are the keepers of our own Light. We can grow it or ignore it.

Aura 2007 08 23 by kairin simo

One interested in growing it might ask,   How do I call forth my full ‘I AM Power’ into my daily human life?  The following decrees and commands are from the “I AM” Decree Booklets of the Saint Germain Press*. They are very powerful in actually shifting energy in this human dimension.  These decrees are one way to call in our full Spiritual Power.

These commands given from Saint Germain are a means for us to cast out that which is humanly created and draining us.  At the same time they can also be a means for us to call forth Divine Presence in all its loving power into our lives.  The “Mighty I Am Presence” is the part of us that is fully One with All That Is.  We are speaking to our highest selves and to all of the highest Divine Presence in all forms when we give these commands.

Change your thinking from being separate from God to being One with God as you envision the greatest power on Earth waking up and actualizing in your daily lives. Select the following decrees that are needed in your life.  Repeat your chosen ones out loud, a minimum of three times, each time you focus on them. Then set down the issues and conditions you are dealing with. If you are called to focus on these again, repeat the process.

We have the power to stop our dwelling on appearances which results in our feeling fearful.

STOP! YOU HAVE NO POWER!  GET OUT OF MY WORLD!  I will have no more of this Human Nonsense. (speaking to the appearances and yourself)

BELOVED MIGHTY I AM PRESENCE , dissolve, consume, annihilate this fear of darkness showing up as ( fill in with your issue) within me and lift me out of this.

We have the power to call forth presence, power and reinforcements of the Divine Love and Light right into our being.

BELOVED I AM PRESENCE!  Give me Divine Order through Divine Love and Justice in my mind, in my home, affairs and world.  I place myself and my affairs lovingly in the hands of the Father/Mother with childlike faith.  That which is for my highest good shall come to me.

Hey, owhl, owhl, brrrrrrrrawl by exper - Giovanni Rubalteli

We have the power and the authority to call forth the Sacred Flame to clear and consume all our humanly developed feelings and thoughts that are draining us of our peace of being.

BELOVED MIGHTY I AM PRESENCE!  Pass your Violet Consuming Flame through my mental and feeling world!, my mental and emotional bodies! and sweep out, dissolve, and consume all imperfection! Pour Your Mighty Current of Energy through, filling my mind and body with Your Mighty Health, Strength, Energy and Buoyancy, everywhere  forever!

We have the power and the right to call forth Divine Energy into discordant conditions.

BELOVED MIGHTY I AM PRESENCE! Forgive it, and blaze the Violet Consuming Flame through it! Take it out of the Universe swiftly, so it cannot touch any other part of Life: and let no more of anything exist that dishonors God or desecrates the Beauty that is within the Light, which is ever offering Itself through Love into my outer use and manifestation.

We have the power to call forth our own health and healing.

MIGHTY I AM PRESENCE!  Take command of this mind and body! Direct it by your mighty intelligence! Put it in its own right activity , and do it now!

BELOVED I AM PRESENCE!  Free me from the human darkness I carry which is manifesting as illness and imbalance  in my body ( mind, relationship, affairs).

After you come to a stopping point with these decrees, take time to close your eyes and rest in the healing energy of All That Is.   Saying these decrees brings powerful healing vibrations for needed shifts within your own energy field.

When you feel your calls are not answered:

“Either you are not using the Violet Consuming Flame to keep dissolving your own human accumulation which comes forth, or your feeling is not following your attention. These are the only two things that can produce any failure in the application of this Law.  The Law never fails, but you can obstruct your way by allowing these conditions to exist.”  ( I AM Decree Booklets, Book One pg. 142.)

* “I Am” Decree Booklet, Saint Germain Press, Schaumburg, Illinois, www.saintgermainpress.com

I had a neighbor once who when asked how things were going would sometimes reply, we have the neggies.  I loved that because it was so expressive.  The neggies can overtake a whole group when complaining, arguing and bickering breaks out.  For me, the neggies often show up when my body hurts, when I am feeling overwhelmed, unproductive or when I have no time to take care of myself.  This looks like washing my hair at 12:45 AM or trying to dry clothes at 6 AM for the coming day!

Grumpy Rainbow by Jenn and Tony Bot

Frequently when these thoughts and feelings begin to invade my space, all the above feelings come at the same time.  It is as if, when I open that doorway to one little neggie, all the other little neggies lurking in the background gang up on me and have to get their kicks in as well. Recently for example, I was “over” solid booked for weeks with clients.  I contracted a sinus infection, then a major virus over Christmas (ugh) and t0 top it all off, I fell while cross-country skiing and badly sprained my knee.  I think sometimes these things come all together to get me to pay attention and ask what in the world is going on here with me?  The neggies are invading!

Seriously though, when this happens I am not a happy camper.  I frequently am anxious and prickly and don’t sleep well and can’t even be dressed up to be taken out anywhere. That’s the biggest clue that I have succumbed, when I can’t  even be roused to put on a good face to go out.  Alas, time for serious self-searching.

Though I can write about this state of affairs with levity, I assure you when I am in that state, I am really not centered and in serious need of clearing and balance.  I have also noticed people taking wide berths around me and the wearing of velvet gloves.

365:60 ARGH by seq

So having been recently in an expanded state of the neggies, here is what Divine Guidance came up with for me.  Be quiet, have a day of doing little or nothing, get frustrated, get angry, get sad, be quiet again, and then finally ask  WHAT AM I DOING TO ATTRACT THESE EXPERIENCES TO ME ??

Looking at attracting the neggies and manifesting imbalance comes from the spiritual view that we create our own experiences of our lives.  We can be as angry, sad, depressed, fearful, joyful, grateful or as accommodating as we can imagine.  It is our choice. When my body hurts, I have a choice to obsess about the pain or to get some help from preparations, pills or from people.  I also have a choice about how I react to hurting.  I can attend to it and then do something that focuses my mind differently or I can feel sorry for myself and eat.  I can complain to whomever will listen or I can be still and call forth new balance in my body.  I usually do a mixture of haranguing and harumphing before I realize that this does not help me at all.  Then I try to move directly to the deep well within, which is very patient with me I have noticed, until I remember to call forth my I AM Energy for the re-balancing of whatever is setting me off.

Here is what that looks like for me.  There is only One Power, One Presence, One Energy Source.  That Energy and Presence is pure, unadulterated Love which is waiting for me to call it forth.  I say something like this.

I call forth my I AM Energy (Highest Self) to infuse my mind, my heart, my body, my affairs and my home with Love, Light and Balance.  I release all the blocked energy I am carrying which is manifesting as my hurting body and my complaining self.  I command out my blocked emotional, mental, thermal ( self-protective) and spiritual energy which is producing this imbalance in my body and my mind.  I ask forgiveness of my body for creating this imbalance and this hurt I am experiencing.  Come forth.  Let there be balance in my body.  And So It Is.  My thanks.

Why does this work?

It works because we are all, everyone one of us,  Divine Energy regardless of the circumstances of our lives here.  We can command this I AM Energy, our Highest Self, because we are eternally connected to this energy even though we may not be conscious of this.

This works because I am calling out the blocked negative energy which I have created my very own self in my human life.  If my intention is for that stuck energy to go, it will go.  I command it out and that stuck energy goes because I am the total creator of that energy in the first place.

This approach works because I am taking full responsibility for the neggies, I am feeling.  In doing that, I re-engage with my own power and redirect it to the source of the negative feelings and the source of the imbalance or pain.

This way of working with imbalance recognizes the Divine Presence within which is eternal and on call, 24-7.

Try a different approach to the imbalances in your life. Try something you may not have tried before or may have tried not believing it could work for you.  The first time I worked with deep pain in my back in this way,  the pain instantly subsided.  In complete astonishment, I burst into tears.  I could hardly take it in.  The pain was completely gone for 1 entire day.  I was so overcome though by self-” neggie” talk that I began doubting that the shift had taken place at all. I could not trust the shift in energy.   So, the next day the pain was back.  That was a HUGE learning for me.

Enthusiasm by h. Koppdelaney

Stand fully in the knowing that you have all the power, right, authority, intention and all the chutzpah necessary to command your I AM Energy to manifest balance in your life. When I was learning to do this for myself ,  I tried to embrace infinite possibility with a measure of humility, two nods of passion, a thimble of mystery and a shot of gratitude.  See what works for you and let us hear from you.

For nearly a year, I have been working with a group of folks to publish a newsletter on conditions and areas of the globe needing prayers.  We have over 85 people getting this newsletter through email.  Recently I was asked how I pray for global healing and what my thoughts are about such processes.

NASA Blue Marble by By NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

As our bodies indicate imbalances in the form of infections, viruses, diseases and pain, so Mother Earth indicates her own set of  imbalances when unseen energy is out of balance. Our globe is a vibrant alive organism much as our bodies are vibrant alive organisms. Global imbalances  manifest as violence, corruption, terrorism, war, poverty, epidemics, economic instability, air, earth and water pollution, ethnic hatred, religious hatred, subjugation, slavery, sexual trafficking, volcanic eruptions, tectonic plate shifts, earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes and many other imbalances.

When the unseen energy of a given city, state,  nation or a continent is out of balance, Mother Earth visually indicates imbalances at the physical level of the Earth.  All global imbalances no matter how deeply flawed or seemingly intractable can be affected by prayer.  Our prayers can directly affect the re-balancing of  chronic imbalances around the globe.

How do we as a people, for example, heal from prejudice, hatred and subjugation of those different from ourselves? We have ethnic and religious hatred the world over.  Each geographic area of the world has its own form of hatred and darkness history unique to that area of the world manifesting as ethnic hatred, prejudice and subjugation.  However at the root of all hatred and violence against others are humanly created thoughts, feelings and fears which we may have carried for centuries passed down from generation to generation.

Through the calling in of Divine Presence, we can clear the old stagnant, gnarled energies of the past and present.  All fear, thoughts and feelings which are out of Right Relationship with All That Is, can be cleared beginning with us. Even centuries of blocked fear and blame can be cleared through our partnering with God for our people now living around the globe.  Our prayers can hold the intention for global peace and healing in infinitely powerful ways.

The blue flame by Artnow314

To begin any and all healing prayers, I open a sacred space with Divine Beings including the Angelic Host, Ascended Masters, Highest Divine Cosmic Light Beings, Divine Ancestors, Divine Physicians and Nature Intelligences.  I then listen.  I work with the Sacred Flame image of the Divine Presence.  This concept is helpful for consuming all blocked, humanly created energy manifesting as global imbalances.

Let’s take the energy of  hatred between Jews and Christians as our example of imbalance in the Americas. Here is one way to pray for this clearing.  I say these prayers out loud to give more power to their form in our earthly dimension.

Sunset Flames by Brian Auer

Sacred Flame, come forth in all your power.  Clear all blocked emotional, mental, thermal(self-protective) and spiritual (fear and doubt) energies originating from the 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21st centuries now manifesting as the energies of hatred between Christians and Jews in the Americas. Clear all blocked emotional, mental, thermal and spiritual energies,  back through all time and space manifesting as the peoples of the Americas, attracting hatred energy to themselves between Jews and Christians.  Let there be full Forgiveness, Peace and Love with regard to these imbalances.   And So It Is.  Our thanks, Amen.

Sometimes I am then guided to take these same prayers to the rest of the globe. I work with six geographic areas as given by Divine Presence in supporting me in global prayer.  The other five areas of the globe beyond the Americas which I work with include Africa, Europe and Eastern Europe, India and China, [Russia, Middle East and Asia], and [Oceania, Oceans and the Poles].

When I complete this process,  I go back and ask if these geographic areas are in Right Relationship with All That Is in regards to the energy of hatred between Christians and Jews for this day.   If not, I continue until there is Right Relationship indicated for the day with the issue being addressed.  When balance for a given day is indicated, healing at the physical level can begin.

Let’s use the AIDS epidemic in Africa as our next example. This is one way to call for the clearing of the old compromised and blocked energies which are fueling the present imbalances we see as the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

Sacred Flame, come forth in all your power.  Clear all blocked emotional, mental, thermal(self-protective) and spiritual (fear and doubt) energies originating from the 18, 19, 20 and 21st centuries now manifesting as the AIDS epidemic in Africa.  Clear all blocked emotional, mental, thermal and spiritual energies,  back through all time and space manifesting as the peoples of Africa attracting an AIDS epidemic to themselves.  Let there be Balance, Healing and Wholeness with regard to the AIDS epidemic in Africa and So It Is.  Our thanks.  Amen

The core blocked energies from the past for a government, nation, condition or group of people contribute to the visible imbalances in the country or region in current times.  If these old patterns of energy are cleared back through centuries, then the present imbalances can clear.  I ask how far back the imbalances go and usually I get a century. If you are not sure, pick a century and call for the clearing from that century forward. Anything we do to clear the present of old blocked energies from the past allows for balance to be restored.

Apophysis-Globe by HocusFocusClick - Johanne

All clearing of this sort will contribute to balance.  So, whatever you do will be helpful. When we work in Divine Space with Divine Beings our prayers can be significantly amplified and are therefore more powerful than if we think we are working as lone individuals.  When we pray in earnest from our hearts, all that is needed is provided and so we are truly contributing to the greater whole within the world.

Let us hear from you.  May powerful praying be actualized by us all!!

*Part one of this blog can be read at http://www.robbinshopkins.com/2010/08/the-dark-or-the-absence-of-light/

We can choose to be afraid or trusting.   We can choose to be selfish or generous.  We can choose to be welcoming or restrained.  Each and every choice we make for the goodness of the greater whole produces more balance.  Each and every choice we make which is not for the goodness of the greater whole produces more imbalance.

Free Child Walking on White Round Spheres by D. Sharon Pruitt

The greater the imbalance we feel within ourselves, the greater these imbalances manifest in our lives.  There is however no dark entity of dark power to be reckoned with sometimes known as the dark side.  We can know we are connected in one part of our lives to the Light and we can feel disconnected in other parts of our lives from the Light.  In my case, I was very surprised that I felt attacked by something I envisioned as dark energy.  I had not felt that fearful energy for years and years and yet there it was showing its ugly head right after our car accident. (spoken about in part 1)

Regardless of where we are in our journey, what we  feel,  see,  sense, and experience is a reflection of the choice to be connected to the Light or the choice to be separated from the Light.  This leads us back to the accident.

Why did that accident really happen to us?  I kept asking this in my mind and had a hard time not getting an immediate answer.  I wondered if I had attracted that accident to us through some means, if I needed to pay a karmic debt that I was not aware of, or if I was being attacked by the dark. I gave a lot of power to this last thought.

There are multiple true answers to this question.  Each of us involved, my husband, the truck driver, and me experienced this same accident for different reasons.  I now feel that I had this accident to give me a chance to directly face my deeply hidden fear about some force I thought of as the dark.  This was not something I might take a Sunday afternoon to contemplate! As with most of us, I would probably always choose to engage in something else, anything else, actually.  I needed a deeply shocking experience to go into my own darkness and wrestle my way through all of that old stuck energy.

Next Dimension by By h.koppdelaney- Hartwig HKD

Even though I slogged through the darkness after the accident, I sensed the minute we were hit, at some unconscious level, that we were not hurt.  Immediately after the impact, I was led to pray for the complete and total healing of  our fear from our energy fields.  I felt an insulating energy drop in around us as the accident occurred and as the  investigation was taking place.  I also had the dawning thought with increasing certainty that the impact of the truck’s energy on our van was buffered by Divine Presence.  We were surrounded immediately by that Divine Energy of Light. We were protected from harm’s way.

This experience of the Divine Presence with us at the accident continued to be present while I wrestled with my own created fear of the darkness. That powerful knowing just stayed within my energy field through all my stages of anger, frustration, uncertainly and questioning I felt I needed to feel. During one phase of my deeply questioning and anger tinged state about this accident,   I asked about all the times I had been killed from this dimension.  I was told the number.  Then immediately following this exchange I heard, “but you agreed to that”.  I started to laugh knowing deeply that this was true.  Further, if this is true for me, then it is true for every one of us.  Even the “innocent bystander” leaves when it is his or her time to leave.  At the same time, an innocent bystander does not leave before it is his or her time either.

Yet the question remains, why do some come here and physically suffer and others come and mentally or emotionally  suffer? Our entire journey is about coming into balance within our own energy.  When we begin to experience this inside, it begins to manifest all around us in all our affairs.  Many of the challenges, problems, conflicts, situations we get into are a result of imbalances we have chosen in our lives.  If we need to “atone” or re-balance, from some past transgression we have caused, we have infinite ways that we can do that in a lifetime.

Balanced Rocks by By squarewithin- Matthew Trentacost

Parts of our lives can appear like suffering until we get that we are One with the Light and that we are being given our specific life circumstances so that deep imbalances in our human selves can be re-balanced with the Love of the Universe.  We may also have a life in which we are given the option of being here in illness or disability as a way to re-balance some huge transgression of our past or as a way to develop compassion for ourselves and others, or as an example of living with joy and grace with our disability for others to learn from.

We are given whatever we need to come into a more loving and whole space with All That Is.  We cannot judge by appearances for ourselves or for others. There is a Divine and Holy Order within this Earth dimension even though we may not be able to discern it. The process of re-balancing for the Goodness of the Whole is taking place, all the time for all people everywhere.

If you think you have brought imbalances, fears and transgressions of the past with you,  you can work them out before you are required to do so, in some totally WAKE UP fashion.  I recommend all the preemptive work we can do to clear the darkness, fear and imbalance we feel inside ourselves.

• You can pray and ask forgiveness for all the people you have hurt throughout all space and time.
• You can ask for all the debts of imbalance you have brought about in your times of  separation from the Light to be made whole in all ways by Divine Grace.
• You can literally call in the healing energy of the Light for all those you have specifically hurt.
• You can call for the fear of anything you know you are facing to be consumed by the Light of God/All That Is.

Of course, one has to have the feeling that restoring balance is important.  We are loved beyond all measure but knowing that at the soul level requires our acting in this energy. We need to embrace the fact that we can clear our old stagnant energies and past misdeeds by calling for this to happen.

We have to embrace a new intention for being here, one that embraces that all living is for the purpose of healing and thereby for coming into the Energy of the One, the Whole, the Eternal Community of Life. Then all is possible.