Serving God - The Science of Being Great - Wallace Wattles

Listen Ad Free https://www.solgoodmedia.com - Listen to hundreds of audiobooks, thousands of short stories, and ambient sounds all ad free!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Serving God. I have brought you thus far through the
two preceding chapters with a view to finally settling the
question of duty. This is one that puzzles and perplexes
very many people who are earnest and sincere, and gives
them a great deal of difficulty in its solution. When
they start out to make something of themselves and to

(00:21):
practice the science of being great, they find themselves necessarily
compelled to re arrange many of their relationships. There are
friends who perhaps must be alienated. There are relatives who
misunderstand and who feel that they are in some way
being slighted. The really great man is often considered selfish
by a large circle of people who are connected with him,

(00:41):
and who feel that he might bestow upon them more
benefits than he does. The question at the outset is
is it my duty to make the most of myself,
regardless of everything else? Or shall I wait until I
can do so without any friction or without causing loss
to any one. This is the question of duty to
so versus duty to others. One's duty to the world

(01:04):
has been thoroughly discussed in the preceding pages, and I
give some consideration now to the idea of duty to God.
An immense number of people have a great deal of uncertainty,
not to say anxiety, as to what they ought to
do for God. The amount of work and service that
is done for Him in these United States, in the
way of church work and so on, is enormous. An

(01:26):
immense amount of human energy is expanded in what is
called serving God. I propose to consider briefly what serving
God is and how a man may serve God best,
And I think I shall be able to make plain
that the conventional idea as to what constitutes service to
God is all wrong. When Moses went down into Egypt

(01:47):
to bring out the Hebrews from bondage, his demand upon Pharaoh,
in the name of the Deity, was let the people go,
that they may serve me. He led them out into
the wilderness, and there instituted a new form of worship,
which has had many people to suppose that worship constitutes
the service of God, although later God himself distinctly declared

(02:08):
that he cared nothing for ceremonies, burnt offerings, or oblation,
and the teaching of Jesus, if rightly understood, would do
away with organized temple worship Altogether, God does not lack
anything that man may do for him with their hands,
or bodies or voices. Saint Paul points out that man
can do nothing for God, for God does not need anything.

(02:31):
The view of evolution that we have taken shows God
seeking expression through man. Through all the successive ages in
which his spirit has urged man up to the height,
God has gone on seeking expression. Every generation of man
is more god Like than the preceding generation. Every generation
of man demands more in the way of fine homes,

(02:52):
pleasant surroundings, congenial work, rest, travel, and opportunity for study
than the preceding generation. I have heard some short sighted
economists argue that the working people of today ought surely
to be fully contented, because their condition is so much
better than that of the working man two hundred years ago,
who slept in a window less hot on a floor

(03:13):
covered with rushes, in company with his pigs. If that
man had all that he was able to use for
the living of all the life he knew how to live,
he was perfectly content, and if he had lacked, he
was not contented. The man of today has a comfortable
home and very many things indeed that were unknown a
short period back in the past. And if he has

(03:34):
all that he can use for the living of all
the life he can imagine, he will be content. But
he is not content. God has lifted the race so
far that any common man can picture a better and
more desirable life than he is able to live under
existing conditions. And so long as this is true, so
long as a man can think and clearly picture to
himself a more desirable life, he will be discontented with

(03:57):
the life he has to live. And rightly so that
discontent is the spirit of God, urging men to do
more desirable conditions. It is God who seeks expression in
the race. He works in us to will and to do.
The only service you can render God is to give
expression to what He is trying to give the world
through you. The only service you can render God is

(04:20):
to make the very most of yourself in order that
God may live in you to the utmost of your possibilities.
In a former work of this series, The Science of
Getting Rich, I refer to the little boy at the
piano the music in whose soul could not find expression
through his untrained hands. This is a good illustration of
the way the spirit of God is over about, around

(04:42):
and in all of us, seeking to do great things
with us, so soon as we will train our hands
and feet, our minds, brains, and bodies to do his service.
Your first duty to God, to yourself, and to the
world is to make yourself as great a personality in
every way as you possibly can. And that, it seems
to me, disposes of the question of duty. There are

(05:05):
one or two other things that might be disposed of.
In closing this chapter, I have written of opportunity. In
a preceding chapter, I have said in a general way
that it is within the power of every man to
become great, just as in the Science of Getting rich,
I declare that it is within the power of every
man to become rich. But these sweeping generalizations need qualifying.

(05:28):
There are men who have such materialistic minds that they
are absolutely incapable of comprehending the philosophy set forth in
these books. There is a great mass of men and
women who have lived and worked until they are practically
incapable of thought along these lines, and they cannot receive
the message. Something may be done for them by demonstration,
that is, by living the life before them, But that

(05:51):
is the only way they can be aroused. The world
needs demonstration more than it needs teaching. For this mass
of people, our duty is to become as great in
personality as possible, in order that they may see and
desire to do. Likewise, it is our duty to make
ourselves great for their sakes, so that we may help
prepare the world that the next generation shall have better conditions.

(06:13):
For thought, one other point, I am frequently written to
by people who wish to make something of themselves and
to move out into the world, but who are hampered
by home tides, having others more or less dependent upon them,
whom they fear would suffer if left alone. In general,
I advise such people to move out fearlessly and to
make the most of themselves. If there is a loss

(06:36):
at home, it will be only temporary, and the parent
for in a little while. If you follow the leading
of spirit, you will be able to take better care
of your dependence than you have ever done before.