Unity's basic metaphysical principles begin with the affirmation that God is the source and creator of all. There is no other enduring power in our lives or in the universe.

If God is God, Then Why..?
Unity Basic Principle #1
Rev. Don Jennings - Past Minister

Unity, over the years, has distilled the teachings we hold as fundamental to a successful life to five statements:

1. God is the source and creator of all. There is no other enduring power. God is good and present everywhere.
2. We are spiritual beings, created in God's image. The spirit of God lives within each person; therefore, all people are inherently good.
3. We create our life experiences through our way of thinking.
4. There is power in affirmative prayer, which we believe increases our connection to God.
5. Knowledge of these spiritual principles is not enough. We must live them.

Today I want to focus on the first of these statements, and see if there is any real, practical reason for including this statement as a part of our individual or collective credo.

When I was a child, I attended a Unity Sunday school, the one in Seattle, one of relatively few Unity churches in the Pacific Northwest. I did not know how lucky I was. Today I hear from others how they wish they, or their children had grown up in Unity. While I have to say that growing up in Unity did not make life devoid of challenges, I do believe that we who have been life-long Unity students learned early how to meet life's little bumps with a smile rather than a frown. I also believe that we have many times been blessed with many more positive results than some of our neighbors.

One of the reasons for this, I believe, is how we view God. Now, to make my life easier, and not bore you with the way I phrase things, I want to let you know that I am going to tell you what I believe today. Sometimes I call this the Gospel according to Don. So I want your permission to not use the phrase 'this is what I believe', knowing that you will understand that it applies to most everything I say from this point forward, ok?

Unity has sometimes been called a bridge between traditional Christianity and New Thought Christianity. This is, in part, because we use the Bible, The teachings of Jesus, and many traditional Christian terms. This often makes the transition from an understanding of God as "big guy in the sky" to Spirit, easier. It also, for some, makes it more difficult to understand just what our belief system really is.

I want to go back to my childhood for a moment to illustrate my point. In Sunday school, I was told that God is within me, that God is Good, and that God loves me. While those things are true from a traditional Christian point of view, they were confusing to me. If God was good, then it meant that God was never bad. If God loved me, then by implication, God never hated me. If God was within me, and everywhere else too, then God was either magic, or very big and very small at the same time.

Here's where I am going to rattle a few cages, and hopefully, make a few people uncomfortable. (Remember the part about 'I believe..?) Here we go: God is not omnipresent (everywhere all at the same time. ) God is not good, if by that you mean that God is never bad. And God does not love me.

There are two other things I want to say about God also: God is not omnipotent (all powerful) and God is not omniscient (all knowing of all things). Now, having said that, I want to Make apologies to Charles Fillmore, to Jesus, and to countless church scholars for having said that. But my reasons are not as malicious as they might seem. I think that a lot of the problem with our understanding of God today is not that we don't know who or what God is, but that we language our understanding badly.

Let me see if I can redeem myself a little. I believe in God, I encourage you to believe in God, because I know without a doubt, that belief will serve to help you live a better life. Better for you, and better for everyone around you. I think that is true, no matter how you believe in God, however: I know that how we believe in, and practice our relationship with God will increase or decrease that effectiveness.

Does God Love You?

First: Does God love you? In a sense, It feels like it, yet actually it is not the truth.

1 John 4:16 says 'God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 1 John 4:16 (NRSVA) Not God Loves You, but God is love itself: that is why it feels so right and so good when we either express love or have love expressed toward us: it is the conscious realization of God within you, around you, and in another. If a great God could love someone, then, by implication that same God could choose to not love someone. That is not a part of our belief system. God cannot not love: because God is love itself.

Second: In the same way, God is not good, in the same sense that God is not bad. There are two ways in which Unity folk use the word good: one is that opposite thing: good here, bad there. The other is best described as absolute good, good with no opposite. When we talk about the first, we say good is relative: good for me might be bad for you. Ice cream is good, unless it has attached itself to your best blouse or shirt.

Good in reference to God does not mean God is good to you and not to me, or is on our side in the war. Good means 'seeking and supporting the best for everyone and everything without prejudice toward or against the recipient. That is why we say: God is good…. All the time. It also means we may not always appreciate how God's good shows up.

Third: Those omni's people throw around about God: God is not all-powerful. To be all powerful indicates a thing or being with power. Unity believes that God is not a being at all, but the presence of power in all beings. God is not all-knowing, but the body of all knowledge that is available within every one of us. God is not everywhere at the same time, but is the very 'stuff' of everything and non-thing everywhere. God is the 'where of everywhere'.

Yet at the same time, we acknowledge that no one knows what the reality of God is, no matter how many times they (we) say so. The real truth is, they don't know, we don't know, only you know! It has been said that "if there were no God man surely would have to create one", and in a sense, we have, only many descriptions of God. It has also been said that the most accurate interpretation of the passage from Genesis 1:27 "So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."… is: "So humans created God in their image, in the image of man they created God…"p;

Creating God

The truth is: you have always had the task of creating God in the way you want God to show up in your life, and the wonderful thing is: God shows up in that way! That is why there are so many different working relationships with God in the world. None of them are wrong: we just like some better than others. So get used to it: you are, in a very real sense, the creative energy that is creating the creator that created you! Got it?

The bottom line of this lesson is this: if you do not like the God you have, or if God is not meeting you at least half way, or God is not listening to your prayers, or saying 'no' too often, or is the wrong gender, or something else, do something about it. God does not care. If God wants anything, it is for you to be happy, successful, and fulfilled as a spiritual being.

So your assignment for this week is to think about your God. Maybe you are happy with it. Glory to God. It will be a wonderful added experience to really contemplate why you love your God so much.

Maybe you just don't think about God. Now is a chance to start something that will change your life for the better forever! Thinking about God, and where God fits in your life, and where you fit in God's creation is going to add a dimension to your life that is positive beyond measure as well.

Perhaps you are one of those who is mad at God, or has felt abandoned by God, or don't know if you believe at all. Think about what I have suggested here today, and see if you might not do better with an image of God that is a little less personal in the negative sense, and a little more approachable in the positive sense. I will say: I believe that You have God on your side right now, pushing to express as love and creativity and health and perfection in you right now, just like the energy in the seeds are pushing up through the earth without them thinking about it. But in your case it is up to you to say 'yes' to that energy.

Say 'yes'. Have you ever seem that painting of Jesus standing at the garden gate knocking, but there is no handle? Look at the interpretation: It is like the power of God is wanting to be active in every part of your life, but you always have the choice to say 'no' or 'yes'. You are not an instinctual being or a plant: you have the power of rational thought. That both sets us apart from most of creation and has become our greatest challenge.

One more analogy, and than I will quit: God is like a radio or television station broadcasting 'on-demand' programming to you, the receiver 24/7. But are you listening? Or have you tuned out the most powerful, progressive, empowering information you could ever desire. The choice is yours.