OVERVIEW
We welcome back Rev Roderick Norton. Sometimes we can become so attached to things and situations that we unknowingly block ourselves from fully experiencing the divine flow of abundance. We need to spiritually and practically clean house, so we can free ourselves up, and be fully engaged with the Divine Flow.
TRANSCRIPTION
I’m Reverend Amy Daniels. I’m the spiritual director here for anyone I don’t know and it’s my pleasure to introduce Reverend Roderick Norton this morning. I was on vacation when you were here the last time, so I missed it. And we had technical difficulties that day, so I didn’t even get to hear your talk. But I wanna share a little with you about Reverend Roderick’s bio because I think it really informs who he is as a person and kind of sets the tone for you to hear his words today. So since childhood, he has felt a special connection with God and considers it part of his life’s work to assist others in making their spiritual connection express their highest spiritual aspirations and live their best life. Now Roderick is the founder and spiritual director of the Empowerment Center for Better Living and Independent New Thought Ministry here in Chicago where he teaches the better living message that it’s God’s will, that every individual on the face of the Earth should have live a healthy, happy, and prosperous life. I say amen to that. And Reverend Roderick is also a staff minister at Christ Uni Universal Temple here in Chicago where he was ordained through the Universal Foundation for Better Living in 2004. So without further ado, I’d love to welcome Reverend Roderick.
You got it? Okay,
Thank you Reverend Amy. Good morning, city side. Good morning. How are you this morning? I’m doing fantastic. Yeah, it’s good to be back here. I really enjoyed the first time I was here some months back and glad to get an invitation again. And Reverend Amy reached out to me a couple months ago about speaking today and I’m like, in my head, I didn’t tell her this, but in my head I’m thinking, Wow, you guys really are on the ball. You guys really playing ahead, <laugh> I you do. I love it. I love it, I love it. I’m still still trying to get to that point where I can do that kind of plan at least three months in advance. So that’s awesome. I truly take my hat off to you. I love the spiritual community. I tell you this whenever I come, I tell Amy one on one, I hold several of you this one on one, but I truly mean it.
I love the spiritual vibe I feel in this place. I love the whole community aspect of this ministry and it is just simply something that’s awfully, awfully wonderful. Let me begin this talk with prayer. Can we do that? Yeah. So let’s just turn with them for a moment as we turn within them for a moment. I just wanna say thank you, father, mother, God, for another opportunity for us all to come together on this morning in a collective consciousness so that we can continue to learn more about you. And as we learn more about you, we learn more about ourselves. So keep on doing what you do God, and that is continue to express through us in such wonderful marvelous ways. Keep on doing what you do. God, continue to embrace us the way that you embrace us because that’s part of your nature. That’s all how to do is love us because you are love. So we say thank you, God for this and for so much more. And so it is. Amen. Yeah, I love this book. I love this book. It’s not your money. It’s not your money. How to live fully from the vine.
Abundance. I love talking about abundance. I love talking about prosperity. I love talking about the oldness of the universe. And when I think of the topic itself is of the name of the book itself, it’s not your money. When I first saw that, I had to think for a moment, What do you mean it’s not my money? Whose money is it? It’s not my money. <laugh>. And then as I began to get into the book and began to further even get into my own lesson, I began to understand what the title was really all about. It truly is, truly is not my money. It’s truly is not your money. It’s really, it is really the money. It’s really the abundance of the universe. It’s the money, it’s the abundance of the universe. So it’s not mine and it’s not yours, but it’s ours to share. It’s ours to give. It’s ours to receive. It’s ours. So I want to talk this morning about releasing self and engaging fully in the abundance, releasing self and engaging fully. I believe that the universe has fully provided for our wellbeing.
I believe that the universe has fully provided for our wellbeing. I don’t believe there’s any lack in the universe. I don’t believe there’s any lack in the universe. Even though you might turn the television or even though you might hear other people talk about lack, lack or what’s not available, I don’t believe there’s any lack in the universe. I believe the universe has provided very well for all of our needs. The only lack there is there’s a lack in awareness of what exists. There’s a lack in awareness of what the universe has provided for us. There’s a lack in awareness that it doesn’t belong to me personally, but it belongs to the universe. I am just here to share it. But when I get into this mindset that it is mine, then I separate myself from the universe itself. I separate myself from others because it prevents me from sharing the way that I need to share because I believe that there’s a lack. And if I have to give up something then I am losing something. And the truth of the matter is as I give up something, I’m not really giving up anything. I’m expanding myself to experience more.
So the universe has fully provided for our wellbeing. I want you to affirm this with me. The universe has fully provided, has fully provided for my wellbeing, For my wellbeing cause I need us to make that personal because God the divine is personal. I love how the author uses different terminologies throughout the book and she tells us ahead of time that I’m going to use different terminologies. I’m going to use he, I’m going to use she, I’m going to use divine. I’m going to use source all referring to God, God. Because the one reason I like that so much because it does not put limitations on God. Too often we put God in a box and when we begin to put God in a box, we put our abundance in the box. And when we put our abundance in the box, we put ourselves in a box.
There’s a divine flow of abundance that is ever circulating and operating in the universe. We are in the very midst of a universe that is always given and always given its best. It withholds no good thing from us. See for me, I think that’s good news. The universe is always flowing with abundance and the universe is never looking to withhold any good thing from me. Whatever it is that I am supposed to have, then the universe is ready to provide it for me. And one of the key words that I say, whatever it is I’m supposed to have, you see I have to get myself in alignment with the universe. I understand what is it that the universe desires for me to have. Not what it is that my ego desires for me to have, but what is it that the universe, what is it that God desires for me to have?
You see, this is all part of the releasing of self and engaging fully. As we begin to release self begin to release, ego begins to release personality, begin to begin to engage fully with the divine presence, begin to engage fully with our God presence, begin to engage fully with that whole part of us. We begin to open ourselves up to even more. See sometimes I believe also we get the ego or the personality wrong. We look at that as being something as the ego or the person that has been something bad. The ego and personality is nothing. It’s nothing bad. We need the ego. We need the personality. But it’s how we use the ego or the personality. You see, the divine seeks to express itself through the ego, but too often we allow the ego to black out the divine from expressing itself through it. So there’s a divine flow of abundance that’s ever circulating and operating throughout the universe. Too often we do not receive the bounty or the good we say we desire because we have unknowingly or unconsciously blocked ourselves from fully experiencing the divine flow of abundance. I love the quote that the author uses at the beginning of chapter three and she gets this quote from Jill walk and Jill walk says, You can’t water the roses if you’re standing on the garden hose and holes. <laugh>, <laugh>,
I love that. Hit me. Nothing else ever hit me before concerning abundance. You can’t water the roses if you’re standing on the garden hose cause no water can get through as long as I am standing on that which is trying to flow through the holes she says, the author says, she says, Sometimes I think becoming abundance means I’m blocking the holes that the divine flows through. See, I believe that the holes that divine flows through is our consciousness. The great mystic and off the Joe Goldsmith will say, Consciousness is what I am. See I am the vehicle that God has chosen to flow is abundance through and not just me, but you are the vehicle that God has chosen to flow. It’s abundance through. You see the God needs. God needs channels for abundance to come through. I am the channel. You are the channel.
The thing is, are we opening ourselves up to be the channels that God has created us to be? Are we opening ourselves up for the divine flow to flow through us? Are we opening ourselves up or have we, how we put our foot on the hose that the divine is trying to flow through? Have we created things in our consciousness that’s preventing the divine from flowing through us to so that we can receive the abundance that the divine has for us? Sometimes we set up blockages in our own consciousness, which is the hose. And what are some of these blockages sometimes worrying? It’s the blockage that we have set up. You can’t receive the abundance that God has for you if you keep blocking the flow. A filling of unworthiness blocks the flow. Do I feel worthy of that? Which divine is trying to flow through me? Do I feel worthy of abundance? Do I feel worthy that I should have or do I feel or do I feel some unworthy and I’m not deserving of all this good? I have actually heard people say they are not deserving of the good that the universe is trying to flow through them. I say, Why?
And they come up and with they answer, Well, I see what other people are going through that that should not make you feel unworthy because you see what other people are going because you see what other people are going through. Understand that there’s enough for them as well. You don’t have to reduce who you are because of what of something that someone else is going through. Not lower our divine standard. Let’s continue to hold the divine standard but also hold the divine standard for others as well. The same abundance that God has for me is the same abundance that God has for everyone. So if anything, let me help to teach other folks how they can also experience the divine flow in the universe so that they can also rise above whatever limitations they might be experiencing. I’m worthy. I’m worthy of that which God has for me. Let me never tell God I am not worthy of that which God has for me. I am God. I am worthy of everything that you have for me. I am worthy of love. I’m worthy of love. Let me not block love. Let me not block the abundance of love coming into my experience. I am worthy of love because God is love and I was pressed out of love. I was born out of love and I’m not willing to give that back. <laugh>.
We blocked the flow through worrying our doubts, our fears and our resentments. Let me speak on resentments just for a moment cuz this is a big one that sometimes we don’t think about too often. When we resent what someone else has and how they have been blessed, we are really working against ourselves and blocking the flow. We have set up limitations in our minds that we can’t experience similar types of blessings. Our focus should never be a focus, a resentment because of what someone else has. Just as the universe has blessed that person because that person opened themselves up to the universal flow. Let me not resent what they have because now my focus is in the wrong place. Now all my energy is going towards what that person has and my judgment on whether that person deserves what they have.
I need to redirect my energy and redirect my flow. Focus to that. What God has for me is for me. Let me get myself in alignment to what God has for me. Let me begin to fully engage God. Let me begin to fully engage God. Okay, God I know you have something good for me. I know you have something great for me. I know you have an overflowing abundance for me. Let me work with you. God, let me stop working on somebody else and what somebody else has. But let me work with you. Let me become fully engaged with you so that I will no longer have any blockages so that I can get my foot off of the hose <laugh> so that I can get my foot off of the hose and allow your divine abundance to simply flow freely, freely.
Let’s stop chasing after abundance and begin to offer ourselves up to abundance. Let’s stop chasing after abundance and begin to offer ourselves up to abundance. You see, whenever we chase after something, then we’re saying that it is fleeing from us, it is running from us. So let us stop chasing after abundance or I gotta do this so I can become, so I can can get the bounty of the universe I got. I’m keep chasing my dreams. I’m keep chasing after abundance. I’m keep chasing these. I stop chasing. Stop chasing. Get that. Don’t allow that to be a part of your mindset. Don’t allow that to be a part of your consciousness. Your abundance is not fleeing from you. We just must learn how to offer ourselves up to it, accept it, invite it into our experience. God is not fleeing from you. Remember, God is your abundance. God is not fleeing from you. Whenever we think abundance is fleeing from us, whenever we feel that we are chasing after abundance, then we have set ourselves up for a period of separation. We believe that. We believe that we are separated from absolute good. We are never separated from absolute good. We are separated from our abundance. We are never separated from God. It is all one and we are one with it.
It becomes a matter. It becomes a matter of us accepting, accepting. We must offer ourselves up to it of myself. I can’t do nothing. But as I become focused, as I become more aware of the abundance of the universe, as I become more aware of what God is trying to express through me, I open myself up. I invite it into my experiences. Say come and have iron on way. One of the ways that the author talks is about, and I Amy Reverend Amy, this hit home as I was studying the particular chapter, the author was talking about how we have to clear out some space and I like the way she framed it. We have to clear out some space physically and also spiritually within our souls.
Sometimes we have too much clutter going on in our life and in our mind. And I really found myself doing this after I was as preparing for this lesson. I’m like, I’m looked around my home and I looked around my work environment. I’m like, I need to get some, I get some more stuff in order here. <laugh>, I need to begin. I release some stuff I’m holding. I see I’m a person that holds on to a lot because, because I look at stuff and I say, I look at stuff and I think about memories. I think about the significance they might have or the significance they might not even have. And and the thing is, I will throw them in a box and I will throw them in storage. And the bad part about is this, is that not only do I put it in my storage, but I put it in other people’s storage as well. <laugh>
And the other people store who I put it in, they joke with me cuz they don’t mind it being there, but they team on town. We’re gonna throw some of this stuff out, <laugh>. So I put myself in a position right now where there is some stuff I need to release so that I can open myself up to more of what the universe is offering. But I cannot open myself up to more of what the universe is offering as long as I’m holding on to stuff that needs to be released. So the releasing takes place in the physical and the releasing also takes place in the mental spiritual because there’s some cleansing of the soul that needs to take place. We carry some stuff around, we carry some stuff around and we call the soul consciousness and the soul. We carry some stuff around that that we just simply need to release and be okay with releasing it. Because as we release it, one of the things we’re telling the universe is that I’m offering myself up for greater abundance. I don’t know is necessarily what that abundance is gonna look like and tell you the truth. That’s not. That’s none of my business. But I do know that you have more for me. You want me to and you want me to experience more.
So there’s a cleansing that needs to take place in our physical space and also in our soul space. And I’m ready. Me personally, I’m ready for that to happen because I’ve experienced some great things in life. I’ve experienced some great good in life, but I know this is God is not through with me yet. I know God is not through with you yet. And I know there is greater things that God wants to experience, wants you to experience. I know there’s greater good that God wants all of us to experience. So we say clean your house and clear your psyche.
I’m gonna leave you, I’m gonna leave you with this. Release yourself a self torture. The author says, Many people blame themselves daily for certain financial mistakes from the past. But as you offer to the divine, you may lose your passion for this as well. Just forgive yourself, forgive yourself, forgive yourself. Don’t continue to blame yourself for past, for natural decisions. Oh, I should have done that 10 years ago. I should have made that investment 10 years ago. I used to own some Amazon stock when Amazon was first coming out back in the nineties, I believe late nineties. I want some Amazon stock owned about a thousand shares of it. I got the paperwork to prove. It paid about $10 a share at that time. And the bubble bubble, I got myself in a position of fear. Cause then they were talking about the internet bubble’s gonna burst and all that stuff.
And I ended up selling that. I ended up selling that stock. Now, <laugh>, if I had held all to that stock, those thousand shares of Amazon, you might not be seeing me right now, <laugh> that I right now, I would be worth, I would be on someone’s island under someone’s under a coconut tree. Okay? <laugh>. But I used to think back and like, Oh, why did I make that decision? Why did I sell it? God didn’t tell me to sell it. I was going off of fear and all that. And I was beating myself up for a while over that. And I had to tell myself, it’s okay. It’s okay. For God still has blessings for you. God still has good for you all yourself up right now. Rod. Offer yourself up right now to the current abundance of the universe. There is no lack in the universe. The divine flows still wants to flow through you. The divine has set up residency in you. The divine has set up residency in you. The divine. The divine isn’t going anywhere. It’s just gonna do what it does and it does and it does it so well.
So continue to fully engage with the divine, Continue to fully engage with your abundance. Is here for you, is here for you. And I wanna close with a prayer. So as we turn with that right now, Father, mother, God, we offer ourselves up to you right now. We offer ourselves up to the universal flow of abundance right now. We offer ourselves up and we give it back to you. Father, anything that we took from you for the money, it is not ours. The money is yours. Abundance is not ours, but abundance is yours. The dream is not ours, but the dream is yours. You know what to do, God. So we offer ourselves up as open channels right now, willing to listen as you speak to us, as you guide us, and as you tell us exactly what it is that you need us to do. Our response to you, God is simply yes, Simply yes, Simply yes. We move from the past, we operate in the present and our future is grand. Thank you God. And so it is. Ah, Amen.