Lent 2024: BELIEVE!

Transform Your Life with the

‘Lent 2024: Believe!’ Spiritual Intensive

SPECIAL HOLY WEEK PRICING – PAY WHAT YOU CAN FOR THE WEEK.

The cost for this program is only $50. That’s just about a dollar per day for a transformative experience. In honor of this being our 11th year of studying together, register by Monday, February 20 for an $11 discount using coupon code: LENT1111 bringing your cost down to only $39!

Imagine a Life Where You Believe in Your Infinite Potential

Signing up for ‘Lent 2024: Believe!’ will help you unlock your potential and achieve your heart’s desires.

Will you dare to BELIEVE?

Believe more deeply in God.

Believe more deeply in yourself.

Believe more deeply in your dream.

Watch the Kickoff Lesson Sermon

Lent 2024 Kickoff Lesson with Rev. Sheree Thompson

What is Lent?

The purpose of Lent is to cleanse and discipline both mind and body toward the end of making them more receptive to Christ ideas. When we fast from negativity and focus on a God idea, we open the way for more of that God idea to express in our lives.

In our 46-day experience, we fast, feast and focus!

How to get the most out of this experience?

You will get the most from this journey if you join the Consciousness Builder calls every morning, do the Soul Maintenance Work in the kit and engage in our Facebook Group.
Purchase The Book: Greater Works: Miracles, Signs & Wonders by Dr. Doral Pulley
Prayer: Your Spiritual Toolbox is the text for class. We will work with this each day. You can purchase it from Amazon in paperback or Kindle format.

Join the BELIEF Builder Every Morning

Belief Builders are 30-minute interactive Zoom calls occurring live at 7 a.m. Pacific on weekdays and 8 a.m Pacific on weekends. Calls begin Wednesday, February 14 and occur daily through Easter Sunday, March 31.

Do your Soul Work

You will receive your Weekly Toolkit that includes the daily inspiration and activities and resources for the week. This will be uploaded to our online classroom.

Join the Facebook Group

For interactive discussion with everyone in the experience, please join the Facebook Group. It’s the easiest way to stay connected and receive information.
Click here to join our Facebook Group: Lent 2024: Believe

What if I miss the Morning Belief Builder?

Every call is recorded and will be uploaded our online classroom to registered participants and uploaded to the private Facebook group.

WHAT HAPPENS ON SUNDAYS?

Sunday are special fast and feast days during Lent. Each call will feature a powerful mind treatment and a new covenant. Join us at UP Church on YouTube for the Weekly Sermon.
If you are having any technical difficulty, please email RevSheree@upchurch.org.

Mar. 28, 2024 – I IMBIBE NEW IDEAS FROM THE CREATIVITY OF GOD 

MARCH 28   

I IMBIBE NEW IDEAS FROM THE CREATIVITY OF GOD 

…The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.  John 5:19

Emerson tells us that the Ancient of Days is in the latest invention.  In other words, since God is all there is, the only Presence, the only Power and the only Mind or Intelligence, when we conceive a new idea we are thinking directly from the creativity of God.  It is not our isolated, limited human personality that projects this new idea.  We are merely the instrument through which this projection takes place.  But we are in partnership with the Projector.  God really is in the latest invention, in the newest song, in the latest novel, in the last picture that was painted, and in that feeling which we have of new and greater and better things to come.  For God is all there is – there is nothing else besides.  God is both the inventor of the game and those who play in it, the author and actor, the singer and the song.

Today I imbibe new ideas from the creativity of God.  My whole consciousness is alive and awake and aware.  It is impregnated with Divine ideas and shall bear fruit after the image of the impression conceived within it and the Divine imprint made upon it. Today, then, I expect new ways of doing things; I expect to meet new people, form new friendships; I expect more good that I have ever experienced before, and today I expect from myself a more gentle approach to life, a more kindly feeling, a more beneficent impulse.  New thoughts, new ideas, new people, new situations, new ways of doing things and a new influx of the Divine shall make this day perfect, glad and an expression of limitless bounty from the storehouse of the Infinite Good.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

Mar. 27, 2024 – I EXPERIENCE THE WHOLENESS OF GOD  

MARCH 27   

I EXPERIENCE THE WHOLENESS OF GOD  

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.  But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 

I Corinthians 13: 9 – 10

How true it is that we do see as through a glass, darkly, or only in part.  But to all of us there come fleeting moments when our inward vision is opened and we seem to look out upon a newer and broader horizon.  The Apostle tells us that when that which is perfect shall come, then that which is in part shall be done away.  What he really is saying is that we are all at a certain place in our evolution but that there is a complete certainty before us.  We shall continuously expand and experience more and more of that Life which already is perfect.  But there is no reason why this awakening shall not come now.  For we are not really waiting on God – God is waiting on us.  “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”  All nature waits our recognition and even the Divine Spirit must wait our cooperation with It.

Today my eyes are open more widely and I look out upon a broader horizon.  Across all the experiences I may have had which were limited or unpleasant; I now see the rosy hue of a new dawn.  Letting go of that that which is little, I now enter into a larger concept of life.  Dropping all fear, I entertain faith.  Realizing that every form of uncertainty is seeing only in part, I open my spiritual eyes to that which is wholeness.  And even as I do this, the limitation, the fear and the doubt slip away from my experience, taking their departure in quietness and in peace as I turn to that which is greater and better and fuller of eternal life, of happiness and of peace.  Today my eyes are open to the breadth and the height and the depth of that Life which is good, and the Law which is perfect.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

Mar. 26, 2024 – I LIVE IN THE LIFE OF GOD

MARCH 26   

I LIVE IN THE LIFE OF GOD   

…as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.  John 5:26

All life is One Life.  Just as every physical substance known derives from one universal energy, so there is but one Life Principle, which is God, in which we all live from which infinite Source our individual lives are drawn.  If this one Life is present everywhere, It is also within us.  To say that the Life of God is the only life there is, means that my life is not only in God and of God and from God – it is God, in and through me.  If this were not true I would have a life separate from God, which is unthinkable and impossible.  But if it is true that the Life of God is my life now, how wrongly I must have been thinking about this life.  I have judged it falsely and condemned it unnecessarily and in every way, shape and manner, in my ignorance, have denied the very thing I should be affirming.

There is one Life, that Life is God, that Life is my life now.  In Him I live and move and have my being, and He lives in me and moves through me.  I deny, then, that there is any life separate from Good, and I affirm that every organ, action and function of my physical body is animated by the Divine Life which created and sustains it.  It is this Life that is circulating through me now, in happiness, in harmony and with perfect rhythm.  I am one with the Whole, therefore I say to my mind: “You are to live and think and feel this truth until it is spontaneous and natural.  And when you say, ‘God is my life,’ you are to know that the entire life of the Divine and Perfect presence is now flowing through you.”  I affirm this today – the Life of God is the only life there is; that Life is my life now, complete and perfect.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

Mar. 25, 2024 – I AM CLEANED BY THE PURITY OF GOD

MARCH 25 2015   

I AM CLEANED BY THE PURITY OF GOD   

Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity… Habakkuk 1: 13

When the prophet said that God is of too pure eye to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity, he was proclaiming one of the most profound concepts the human mind has ever entertained.  For he was really saying that God, who is the originator of all things and the first principle of all life, can never experience evil, nor see it, nor know it.  “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.”  What could be plainer or more evident than that he was saying that God neither creates nor experiences evil; that we are cleaned by the purity of God.  Suppose we liken this purity of God to a clear stream of water which knows no impurity and in which we bathe.  The very act of our entering the stream purifies us without contaminating the stream itself.  And so it is in our relationship with the Divine, who is free from all evil, and the Law of Good that knows no limitation.

Today I enter into the stream of pure Life, knowing that as I bathe in the spiritual waters of perfection, my whole being is cleaned, purified and made whole.  Today I turn from all evil, from every sense of limitation, of fear or uncertainty, and bathe in the waters of freedom, purifying myself from the belief or experience of want or need.  Today, as I bathe in the waters of pure Spirit, I loose every negation of the past.  I am cleaned of all fear of the future.  I am purified from all uncertainty in the present.  I enter a new, a complete and a perfect Life, here and now.  Today is God’s day.  I shall rejoice in it.  I shall sing a song unto that which is beyond all evil.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

MARCH 25 2015   

I AM CLEANED BY THE PURITY OF GOD   

Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity… Habakkuk 1: 13

When the prophet said that God is of too pure eye to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity, he was proclaiming one of the most profound concepts the human mind has ever entertained.  For he was really saying that God, who is the originator of all things and the first principle of all life, can never experience evil, nor see it, nor know it.  “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.”  What could be plainer or more evident than that he was saying that God neither creates nor experiences evil; that we are cleaned by the purity of God.  Suppose we liken this purity of God to a clear stream of water which knows no impurity and in which we bathe.  The very act of our entering the stream purifies us without contaminating the stream itself.  And so it is in our relationship with the Divine, who is free from all evil, and the Law of Good that knows no limitation.

Today I enter into the stream of pure Life, knowing that as I bathe in the spiritual waters of perfection, my whole being is cleaned, purified and made whole.  Today I turn from all evil, from every sense of limitation, of fear or uncertainty, and bathe in the waters of freedom, purifying myself from the belief or experience of want or need.  Today, as I bathe in the waters of pure Spirit, I loose every negation of the past.  I am cleaned of all fear of the future.  I am purified from all uncertainty in the present.  I enter a new, a complete and a perfect Life, here and now.  Today is God’s day.  I shall rejoice in it.  I shall sing a song unto that which is beyond all evil.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

MARCH 25 2015   

I AM CLEANED BY THE PURITY OF GOD   

Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity… Habakkuk 1: 13

When the prophet said that God is of too pure eye to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity, he was proclaiming one of the most profound concepts the human mind has ever entertained.  For he was really saying that God, who is the originator of all things and the first principle of all life, can never experience evil, nor see it, nor know it.  “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.”  What could be plainer or more evident than that he was saying that God neither creates nor experiences evil; that we are cleaned by the purity of God.  Suppose we liken this purity of God to a clear stream of water which knows no impurity and in which we bathe.  The very act of our entering the stream purifies us without contaminating the stream itself.  And so it is in our relationship with the Divine, who is free from all evil, and the Law of Good that knows no limitation.

Today I enter into the stream of pure Life, knowing that as I bathe in the spiritual waters of perfection, my whole being is cleaned, purified and made whole.  Today I turn from all evil, from every sense of limitation, of fear or uncertainty, and bathe in the waters of freedom, purifying myself from the belief or experience of want or need.  Today, as I bathe in the waters of pure Spirit, I loose every negation of the past.  I am cleaned of all fear of the future.  I am purified from all uncertainty in the present.  I enter a new, a complete and a perfect Life, here and now.  Today is God’s day.  I shall rejoice in it.  I shall sing a song unto that which is beyond all evil.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

Mar. 24, 2024 – I AM SECURE IN THE EVERLASTING ARMS OF GOD   

MARCH 24         

I AM SECURE IN THE EVERLASTING ARMS OF GOD   

The eternal God is thy refuse, and underneath are the everlasting arms. 

Deuteronomy 33: 27

The everlasting arms suggest Divine protection, complete certainty, and the assurance that all is well with the soul.  And how could it be otherwise since the spirit of man is God.  Therefore, when we say that we are secure in the everlasting arms of God, we are realizing that our spirit, being one with His, and never separated from its Source, must be, and is, as secure as God.  It is this inward sense of our union with the Whole that binds us back to the eternal Presence and gives us the joy of knowing that there is nothing to be afraid of, either out of the past, from the present, or in the future.

I am secure in the everlasting arms of God.  I feel the Divine Presence in, around and through me, and all people.  A great sense of calm and peace flows through my whole being, in confidence and in light.  Realizing that there is no separation between the Spirit within me and the Spirit which God is, and knowing that there is but one Spirit, which is God-in-me and God-in-everything, I feel confidence and safety and security in that Presence which evermore wraps itself around me and flows through me.  I am indeed secure today in the everlasting arms of good, of peace, of joy and of life.  I am secure in the consciousness that today, and every day, I shall be guided and guarded and protected.  And I am secure in the consciousness that all people are protected by the same Divine Presence, governed by the same Law of Good, and guided by the same Infinite love.  I am one with all, both visible and Invisible; one with the seen and the Unseen; one with God and one with man.  I bless this unity.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

Mar. 23, 2024 – I AM HAPPY IN THE HARMONY OF GOD   

MARCH 23   

I AM HAPPY IN THE HARMONY OF GOD   

Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit… And there are diversities of operation, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. 

I Corinthians 12: 4, 6

We do not all have the same gifts because no two people are ever alike.  Nature never reproduces anything identically.  And there are diversities of operations.  We are all engaged in different types and sorts of activities which express the unique individualization which each one of us is.  But it is the same God working in all of us. This is one of the most terrific concepts we could entertain – that out of all the variations of life, the infinite variety of color and form and people – the rosebud, the elephant, the snow-capped mountain, the tiny mouse in the field – one Power is working in and through us now, not as big or little, or hard or easy, but merely as spontaneous self-expression.  Back of our smallest act is the strength of the universe.  Behind all our thoughts is the Infinite Thinker.  Diffused through every human activity is the Divine Presence.

Today I am realizing that all my thoughts are formulated in the Divine Mind; all my actions are sustained by the Infinite Energy; all the Power there is and all the Presence there is, is right where I am.  Therefore I open the channels of my thought to the influx of this Divine Presence which is now doing something unique and different through me.  I feel the impact of this Presence in my own mind.  I sense Its feeling and imagination in my own thinking.  I see It operating through all my actions.  And since there is no big nor little, everything becomes important because everything is the self-expression of That within me which doeth all things well.  Therefore I surrender myself completely to that one Power that one All-knowing Mind, that one Presence, which is beauty and love and peace and joy.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

Mar. 22, 2024 – I PARTAKE OF THE NATURE OF GOD   

MARCH 22 

I PARTAKE OF THE NATURE OF GOD   

The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. 

Job 33:4

No one can doubt that God is perfect.  But Jesus said, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”  And he had already located heaven within.  He also said, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven,” by which he meant that when we do the will of God, earth will be like heaven, that is, the without will be like the within, for the two really are one.  Therefore our claim, our affirmation, our prayer and our acceptance, our communion with the Infinite, should always be based on the realization that God is in and through His creation as well as around and about it.  When we make this claim we are not speaking from the standpoint of the little, isolated ego that we appear to be, but rather, we are acknowledging, accepting and agreeing with a perfection that already exists. You and I had nothing to do with the creation of this perfection – we did not think it up or plan it out or cause it to be. For this we should be profoundly grateful.  For the human mind is finite and limited.  Our claim, rather, is one of identifying ourselves with the Divine, recognizing Its Presence, and accepting Its action in our lives.

Realizing that God is all there is, that God is perfect, and that God is right where I am; I gratefully acknowledge and accept my own perfection.  Seeing and knowing myself as God must see and know me, I boldly claim the perfection of God to be my own perfection.  There is nothing separate from the Divine. I am one with It. I am one in It.  I am one of It.  It flows through me and is my life.  I am rooted in Its completion, Its wholeness.  God is my life and my life is God – there is nothing else.  Therefore anything that claims to be something else I repudiate, I deny.  I separate myself from everything that contradicts the nature of my being, and simply and sincerely, and with complete relaxation, accept that which God has given – myself. 

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

Mar. 21, 2024 – I RELAX IN THE PEACE OF GOD

MARCH 21  

I RELAX IN THE PEACE OF GOD   

And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. 

Philippians 4:7

We often wonder if peace really exists anywhere.  In a world distraught with so much confusion and chaos we deeply need an inner, abiding sense of calm and tranquility.  Peace of mind really is what the world is searching after because without it we have only a sense of insecurity and loneliness.  Without peace, deep and abiding, there can be no happiness nor contentment, no sense of security, no confidence.  And yet, Jesus said, “My peace I give unto you,” and the Apostle said, “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”  This means that in such degree as we attain peace, Christ, or the Anointed of Heaven, the true and Divine Sonship, makes itself known to us.  For He is not met through confusion, but only when the mind is tranquil, and, like an unruffled body of water, reflects the Divine images of peace and perfection.

Today I enter into the Peace of God.  My mind is stilled from all confusion, and I feel a deep and abiding inward poise.  Christ, the Son of the living God, the One Son begotten of the only God, is real to me.  I keep my mind stayed on this Divine inner Presence, and, letting every thought of discord slip away, I meet the Reality of myself, the eternal and changeless Truth about me, which is that I am the Son of God, I am one with Him forever more, within me, there is a voice that says: “Peace.  Be still and know that I am his God; God in me, around me and through me, the Divine Son forever incarnated and forever kept in the bosom of the Father.”  I glorify the name of this Son; I exalt his presence.  “I am that which thou art; thou art that which I am.”  And that which I am, and that which Thou art, is one and the same.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker

Mar. 20, 2024 – I HONOR THE PRESENCE OF GOD   

I HONOR THE PRESENCE OF GOD   

… If I honor myself, my honor is nothing: it is my Father that honoreth me…

John 8:54

If I honor myself alone, not realizing that I am one with the Divine Presence, then I shall quickly exhaust the small portion of good that I, as a human being, can at any one moment contain.  But if I honor the Presence of God in me, of God around and through me, of God in and through everything, then I am indeed honoring the Presence of God, for One Spirit is over all, in all and through all, and One Presence is all. There can be no separation from this Presence, no apartness, no division.  It is one, complete and total, equally distributed and everywhere available.  To feel this Presence in things, in people and in human events, and to sense that it is all-inclusive, really is to honor God and to provide in one’s own self a place where the Divine can go forth anew into creation.

Today I am honoring the Presence of God.  I feel His beauty in the rose-tinted dawn and in the glow of the evening sunset.  In the rose I find the loveliness of His beauty.  In the mountains I see His Strength.  In the quiet of the evening I feel His Presence.  And throughout the night I know that this Presence overshadows me, therefore I sleep in peace and wake in joy and live in a consciousness of good.  Seeing God in others, I enter into companionship with the Divinity in all people.  In the outstretched hand, in the smile of recognition, and in the warm embrace of friends, I feel the One Presence, the One Power and the One Life.  And so I give thanks – with a song in my heart and with a joy unspeakable I give thanks to this Presence.  May I ever more embrace and be embraced by the love, the beauty and the goodness of God.

Mar. 19, 2024 – I AM GOVERNED BY THE LAW OF GOD  

MARCH 19   

I AM GOVERNED BY THE LAW OF GOD   

For I delight in the law of God, after the inward man: 

Romans 7: 22

This scriptural passage tells us of all that we should have delight in living.  All creation is a manifestation of the delight of God – God seeing Himself in form, God experiencing Himself in His own actions, and God knowing Himself in us as us.  For the highest God and the innermost God is one God, and not two.  But the passage also suggests that in addition to delight, the enjoyment of realizing that we are alive and awake and aware, we are also subject to the exact law that must govern everything – the Law of the Lord that is perfect.  We are, then, to combine our idea of delight with the concept of law, for Love and Law are the two great realities of life – Love as the outpouring of the Spirit; Law as Divine Government.  Let us, then, find delight in the Law of the Lord which is perfect, as we say daily to ourselves:

I am one with the Infinite Spirit of Love, one with the outpouring of the Divine Life.  I am governed by the perfect Law of the inward man, made in the image and likeness of That which is pure, whole and perfect.  My whole life finds its impulsion in Love and all my actions are governed by the Law of Good.  As I meditate upon this perfect Law of God, I realize that it is operating in my affairs, in my body, in my mind and in my spirit.  I know that the Law of Good is absolute; it is complete; it is operating in and through me now, bringing about everything that is good, everything that is right, everything that is happy.  And since this Law must be perfect as well as exact, and since it must know how to bring everything about that is necessary to my good, I place my whole trust in it.  And so I say today, and every day: The perfect Law of Good is governing everything I think or do and all my relationships with others.  I delight in this Law and I delight in the Divinity within myself and all people.

Taken from “ 365 Days of Richer Living” by Ernest Holmes and Raymond Charles Barker