Living Freedom By Rev. Christine Emmerling D.D. 7/13/2025

On July 4th we celebrated the birth of our country. Declaring our independence from under the rule of England. Our founding Father’s wrote The Bill of Rights to guarantee our freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom in our pursuit of happiness. These men had a great vision, and an understanding of spiritual law. The foundation of this country is based upon spiritual Truth principle. Its no wonder that the New Thought movement began in America.

John Adams our 2nd president said, “Our constitution was designed only for moral and religious people.”

Thomas Jefferson, our 3rd president said “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty Gods, or no God.”

These quotes by Jefferson and Adams give an idea of what they thought about our Constitution and its ideals. I have to remind myself that the government is an institution for operating the business of the country, but is not the soul of our country — we the people are! Through our visions and adherence to truth principle we can and do make change in our worldly environment and affairs.

Many people of today are wanting freedom from something rather than in something. True freedom isn’t running from something, but rather being free right where we are in whatever we are doing. Many of today’s youth want freedom from work, from education, from responsibility and moral ethics. Instead they are looking for a system that will take care of them — complete dependency rather than independence.

Freedom in something gives independence in thought, action, and feeling. Self responsibility, self-authority, self-realized are qualities of the free person. Many people of today have forgotten that with freedom comes responsibility.

We can exercise our freedom of choice to the point where we lose our freedom. When we believe in lack or illness are we free? When we run up large debts in credit cards and loans are we free? When we believe in predictions of disasters and end of the world are we truly free?

Einstein said, “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.” Another way of looking at this is, do we see life as a cup ½ empty or ½ full, or do we see the world through the eyes of a victim? These attitudes toward life are taken on at a very young age. These limiting fearful attitudes and beliefs determines a whole lot about how we experience life, unless we change our belief system.

Back in the late 1960s I belonged to a group who had been following Edgar Cayce’s predictions that included California falling into the ocean. The core group I was part of decided we should move to other parts of the country to be safe and to spread our spiritual knowledge. I first moved to the outskirts of Reno, Nevada and then to North Lake Tahoe. Then I came to the realization that I had some underlying fear of death, and needed to walk my talk of eternal life. I moved back to San Jose, and shortly thereafter, a whole new life opened up for me. I’m not saying it was easy, I had my work to do both spiritually and physically.

The limitations we set are based upon our own beliefs. Starting in our early childhood we create our set of rules to live by consciously and unconsciously taking on from our family. When we make choices out of fear and limitation we are no longer free. Instead our emotions are ruling and we give our power over to appearances, to the worldly scene.

There is a saying that one must learn how to die before they can truly live life. I take this to mean that we must get over our fears before we can take that quantum leap of faith to truly expand our horizons to become all that we have the potential to be.

The book of Genesis in our Holy Bible tells the story of Adam and Eve living in the Garden of Eden, and in this garden everything they need is provided. Then they fall out of grace, are exiled from this Garden of Eden into a land where they now had to work and till the ground. What changed? Everything, from a life of no cares, to work and struggle for survival. Adam and Eve had eaten of the fruit of the forbidden Tree of Knowledge of good and evil or the belief in duality. Then Adam blamed Eve for having tempted him which led to their leaving from the Garden of Eden.

Looking at this metaphysically: Adam and Eve represent one soul, we are that soul. This soul expresses both male and female attributes. Eve represents our soul’s subconscious mind, desire nature, emotions, love, compassion, and intuitive and physical senses. Adam represents our soul’s conscious mind, judgement, mental thinking, physical action, personality. The Garden of Eden represents our soul living in a state of Divine Consciousness. In this Divine state of being all is peaceful, joyful and harmonious.

Eve tempting Adam is the soul’s desire nature overtaking the mind of right judgement. In other words, our soul’s desire nature overruled what we know to be right. Then we take no responsibility for our action, and point blame as in, “That fruit was just too tempting and I couldn’t help myself.” Then our inner judge begins to guilt which brings shame and suffering. Our soul chose freedom from responsibility, and fell victim to its own actions. Thus experiencing the knowledge of duality of good and evil we expel ourselves from this Divine state in consciousness, or the Garden of Eden.

The rest of the Bible is a road map to gather wisdom, awaken our Christ Consciousness, which leads us to the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. All of which is within us.

In the book of John 8:31-32: “Then said Jesus to the Jewish people who believed in him, If you continue in my word, then you are my disciples indeed; And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

What is his word? This word are his teachings in spiritual matters. Such as, “You are gods.” God is an all powerful loving presence within us that is a creative principle. That we love one another as He has loved us, to forgive and love our enemies and do good by them. Nothing of this world has power over our true Christ nature. That we too can do these works and even greater works than these shall we do.

True freedom is an inside job. We have our housekeeping to do to clear out our subconscious mind of layers upon layers of beliefs based upon fear, superstition, observation, our past experiences, and the opinions of others. The old physical sciences no longer hold true in a world based upon Spirit as substance - God as all, both visible and invisible.

A term that has become quite popular is “interdependence.” We are dependent on an inner level within ourselves; an inner source that is also, inter connected with all life. There is a greater realization of our connectedness with one another. We have become more aware of our footprint upon our earth. There is a greater sense of responsibility for our actions that is pushing us to globally work together to resolve the problems of the world.

All true freedom comes from our knowing our connection with our Source. For us we call this Source, God, or Infinite Spirit, Divine Presence, Creator and Great Spirit to name a few. There is the same Divinity and life within everyone, and in all life everywhere. It is this Divine Presence that connects us all – and is calling us forth, urging us to a greater level of understanding of our environment and of our inner divine self – the Christ consciousness.

This very life of God is living each and everyone of its creations. There is no separation in God, there is no duality of good and evil. There is just goodness, love, life, peace, creativity, intelligence, abundance, and harmony.

Being free is then knowing who we are, the very life that we are. As Jesus said, I didn’t come to destroy the law, but to fulfill it. Jesus the Christ was a master teacher, a prophet, an avatar, a fully Self realized person. He mastered the appearance world of suffering, limitation, and nature itself. Christ Jesus demonstrated this by healing, multiplying substance, walking on water, calming the storms, and raising the dead.

Christ Jesus said, that we cannot serve two masters; that of Spirit and the material world. Serving spirit is really being free from our belief in a world of matter and separation, for a world of Spirit, and of Love that we get to create and play in. It is having faith in the invisible Divine Spirit. The laws of Infinite Spirit are “Love God with all your heart, mind and soul.” and “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” From more contemporary teaching we can add: “What you do to another you are doing to yourself” and “Where you put your faith you create.”

Believing in a physical world of matter as cause, is really servitude or slavery of our soul and spiritual life. It is a belief in death, limitation and suffering of all kinds. The law of matter is “Survival of the fittest,” “Resources are limited,” and “Everyone dies.”

Through the Christ consciousness within us we have dominion of our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs and feelings, which gives us mastery of our life. We understand cause coming from within us, that we are cause in this 3D world. Thus we have the freedom to change our thoughts, to change our attitudes, to change our beliefs, and to change our actions and our life. We then forgive, and choose again based on the law of love and our oneness with all life everywhere. The more self-responsible we are for our thoughts and actions, the freer we are to express our true divine Self.

Let us affirm: “Today I have the freedom to be a fully Self-Realized expression of God.”

This time of year I like to share the following essay as a reminder to us all. It’s by Emmet Fox’s from The Historical Destiny of the United States and The Mystery of the American Money:

“Unless you are seeking to embody the American Spirit in your own personal life and conduct, you are no true American, even though you may have authentic Mayflower ancestry.

If you allow yourself to judge the worth of a man by anything except his character, if you discriminate against him for any reason that is outside of his own control, you are no true American. If you judge him by his parents, or his connections, or his external conditions, instead of by himself, you are no true American.

If you allow yourself to be hampered by any question of precedents or traditions, you are no true American. If you think that any kind of honest work can be degrading, you are no true American. If you would not rather be independent in plain surroundings, than dependent in luxury, you are no true American.

If you allow yourself to be dazzled by any exalted Office, or intimidated or hypnotized by pretentious titles or gorgeous uniforms of any kind, you are no true American.

And, unless you believe that the poorest boy or girl doing chores around the farm, or playing on the sidewalk of a great city is just as likely — given the opportunity — to turn out to be the greatest soul in the nation, as the child who is reared in the lap of luxury, you are no true American.” (End)