Progress that cannot be held back

Unjustly accused. Beaten in Public. Put in prison – in stocks.

At midnight they prayed. They sang hymns of praise to God. The other prisoners listened.

"Suddenly there was a violent earthquake, which shook the prison to its foundations. At once all the doors opened, and the chains fell off all the prisoners.” (Acts 16:26).

This is the story of Paul and Silas – at least part of it – as told in the book of Acts in the Bible (Acts 16:16-40). They were followers of Jesus Christ. Their experience has a lot to tell us about progress, the kind of progress that cannot be held back.

We usually think of progress in terms of someone moving forward from one place, condition, or circumstance to another – a movement that results in advancement or improvement. Yet the progress that moves us forward in the most significant way is more fundamental. This is where Paul and Silas come in.

Spirituality impelled their progress. Their hearts and minds were wide open to God’s love and to its expression in their lives. They knew from the life and work of Jesus Christ that there is no limit to the power of God of divine Truth and Love. In fact, they were devoting themselves to spreading the Christian gospel of love, regeneration, and healing through their own practice of it and through sharing it with others. And spiritual progress occurred wherever they found receptive hearts. But those who were not receptive to the good they were preaching and practicing tried to stop progress.

Let face it: “Opposition, criticism and antagonism are companions to the truth. Whenever the truth with regard to the purpose and destiny of man is revealed there will always be a force to oppose it. Adam and Eve, Christ, Joseph Smith down to our day, there has always been and will ever be an effort to deceive, derail, oppose, and frustrate the plan of life – Elder Lawrence E. Cornridge – Liahona, May 2014, P.104.

For example, the reason Paul and Silas had been beaten and thrown into prison was that Paul had cast an evil spirit out of a slave girl whose owners had been profiting from her as a fortuneteller. When they saw that she was healed, and would not be making money for them anymore, they became angry. They dragged Paul and Silas through the streets to the Roman officials and publicly accused them of having broken Roman law by their Christian preaching. Spurred on by the excitement of the crowd, the officials beat them and locked them up in jail without so much as a hearing.

To their accusers, the progress of Paul and Silas seemed definitely to have been stopped. But not Paul and Silas. They went right on doing what they had been doing – praising God, with their hearts open to His ever-active, all-powerful goodness. There were no chains and doors intended to hold back their progress could not do it. The chains fell off. The doors opened. Even the jailer opened his heart to God. Asking Paul and Silas how he could be saved, he took them into his house, where he and his family listened to them preach the word of God; then he washed their wounds; and he and his family were baptised. The next morning Paul and Silas were officially released, and continued on with their ministry, which, as we have clearly seen, had never actually been interrupted.

What does all this have to do with our own progress?  It illustrates that when we open our hearts to God and expressed His Love in our lives, nothing can hold us back.

Right now, wherever we are, whatever we are doing, whomever we are with, we can let the love of God be expressed in us. There is nothing to prevent us from doing this. And no claim of limitation – be it of heredity, age, health, experience, education, opportunity, or resistance – can stand up to the infinitude of ever-active divine Love. This Love cannot be held in bonds. Nothing can keep it from setting us free to move forward in any right endeavor.

But in this progress there may be new, and sometimes quite unexpected, demands on us each day to love our way out of the supposed restrictions trumped up by the carnal, mortal mind. Day by day we need to prove such restrictions to be false, powerless – through our faithful adherence to Truth and Love. “Every day makes its demands upon us for higher proofs rather than professions of Christian power. These proofs consist solely in the destruction of sin, sickness, and death by the power of Spirit, as Jesus Christ destroyed them. This is an element of progress, and progress is the law of God, whose law demands of us only what we can certainly fulfil”.

The basic lie of mortal mind is that we are encased in and restrained by matter. This is a lie because God makes man in His image, spiritual and without limitations. Man is progressive because God is work, through perfect and complete, never comes to a stop. God is continuously expressing Himself, unfolding His idea of completeness and perfection in man. “God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis.

There is no end, then, to the new and fresh ways we can express the boundless love, intelligence, and goodness of God in our lives. Only the unjust, restrictive claims of mortal mind can come to an end – because they had no beginning in God, the divine Mind, or in His idea, man. The expression of Truth and Love cannot be, and never has been, held in bonds by false beliefs. Such errors of thought suffer from their own injustice. They are encased in their own limitations. And they break down and fall away from us in proportion as we understand, rejoice in, and unite wholeheartedly with the truth of spiritual being.

So, be just to yourself. Go forward today. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, whomever you are with, fling your heart wide open to God and sing praises to Him. Devote yourself to His service. Let Him express His love in you. You will find yourself breaking free from limitations. Your health will be improved. Latent talents and abilities will be evident. New opportunities will become apparent. Claims of heredity and age will lose their grip on you. Your progress will be unlimited. And no doubt about it, others will find the free love of God through your living of it. (Remember the prisoners, the jailer, and the jailer’s family?)

Nothing can resist the unfolding expression of Truth in man. Every claim of limitation on you and me and everyone must eventually yield to the law of God, the law of progress. As the Bible says, “the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.”

So shall it be in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, amen.