Your Call to Action
by O.C. Smith & James Shaw
 
God's little green apples are yours for the picking. They are always ripe and sweet, eternally in season, and waiting for
you. You could feast on them forever, for you stand in the most
spacious, splendid, and magnificent apple orchard in the Universe.
Picking the "green apples" — following the recommendations
below — will place and keep you on the path to ever-abundant and lifelong
success. Whether you reach above your head for the green apples, or
whether they fall at your feet, you must do the picking.
It is only then that you can "bite into" (have) your new and changed
experiences. God's green-apple tree will always be in the orchard of
your life. Pick quickly and pick continuously. Start now!
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Greet each day by first greeting the God within you. Thank God for
granting you a brand new day in which to live. Ask God, as the
Australian Aborigines are said to do daily, to "show me your will for
me, in the wonder and splendor of today."
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Approach life like the successful and wealthy gold prospectors.
"Prospect" means to go forth and find that which you envision. "Pro"
means to support or represent, and "spect" means view or sight. So, prospecting means going and doing that which supports your vision.
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Rid yourself of any false beliefs that life is meant to be difficult
and that you must endure some suffering in order to really appreciate
any blessings you expect to receive. Instead, go forth and claim your good. Order the good into your life. Take the scriptures literally when they quote God as saying, "Command thou me!"
Tell God exactly what you want and go out and get it. Your good awaits you
but will come to you only when you realize and believe that inside you
is an infinitely loving God who is so very thoughtful that It has
arranged for you to order the good into your life.
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Banish guilty thoughts or feelings of suspicion about your accumulating good, by being ceaselessly thankful for it.
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Life cannot be limited, so don't even try. If you do, life will only
limit you back. So, live life to the fullest—in full faith—and be
fulfilled.
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Count your blessings and watch them multiply. Use this blessing exercise: bless the "less" and "sing" your gratitude and life's praises for the more that comes to you.
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Start each day with positive, pure, and productive thoughts. Keep
this up throughout the day, seeing yourself always as a ray of sunlight
that simply beams and beams and beams—everywhere.
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Break the habit of negative thinking. Realize that you are the
thinker who thinks the thoughts that shape your life. Thoughts, like
clay, are meant to be shaped. So, make new "molds" for your thoughts.
And change the molds as often as you wish. There is absolutely no limit
to the size of your molds or the frequency with which you change them.
Let each mold serve your purposes—that is, to make positive and
progressive growth—and let it be the "mode of transportation" that
takes you to your next success.
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Realize that you are constantly "writing," "producing," and
"directing" the story of your life. Whatever "picture" life is playing
back to you, you wrote the script for it. If you don't like
this picture, you need to write, produce, and direct a new script.
Change your life by changing your life-script.
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Stay in touch, in tune, and united with the God in you. Thus you are
consciously and constantly unified with the answer to all your needs.
Live in the solution, not in the problem.
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Be generous with your love as the Universe is generous with you.
Love, the most potent spiritual force, is a healer and a balm that
takes away all pain. Let God's pure and free love channel through you
as the sunlight filters through the clouds. Make your rainbow seen
everywhere.
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Have high goals. Stretch forth and reach toward them as though you
were plucking the highest and sweetest fruit from the tree. Low goals
require no real energy and simply do not take you very far. Remember:
You go where your goals are.
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Live from the highest mountains of your thought. Do not descend into
the valley of victimhood. Constantly upgrade your thinking and watch
your life become upgraded.
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Acknowledge that the good you seek already exists. Then live in the constant expectation of receiving it.
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Talk to the God-in-you constantly with your thoughts. Make this a
habit. Don't wait until a special day, such as a regular day of
worship, to do this. God lives in you because It wants you to
communicate with It. So communicate, don't procrastinate.
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Guard the door of your mind and the gateway of your mouth. Pay
strict attention to what you think, and think only good, clean, pure,
and profitable thoughts. That which you think becomes your word. Watch
your word because it becomes your action. Watch your action because it
becomes your habit. Watch your habit because it shapes your character.
Watch your character because it makes your destiny.
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Know that in this journey called life, your faith is the fuel that
ignites the engine of your belief that drives you in either the garbage
truck or the limousine of your destiny. So watch where and in what you place your faith, for your faith leads to your fate!
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The Bible says that your word "is made flesh." That means it is your word that makes real
("flesh") your experience. Take great care to say only good words that
come from good thoughts, and do not judge others. What you say is what
you pay in the boomerang effect of experience. Put another way, words save or words slay.
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Meditate daily, at least three times a day. Meditation is spiritual medication
that connects you with your Higher and Healing Power. Prayer can be
described as talking to God, and meditation as listening to God.
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Decide that your mind is a castle, not a casket; a tower, not a
tomb. Control the thoughts you allow inside it, for they will either
frustrate you and fence you in, or free you. Climb the ladder of live
and liberating thoughts. Never ally yourself with mummified, "stinking
thinking." Constantly think new and different thoughts.
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Know that you were born to bring God into full expression in and
through your life. You are not—nor have you ever been—alone. Build a
fortress-like, impenetrable consciousness around the truth that God
works for you by working with and in you.
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Your mind was created to be attuned to the energy of the entire
Universe. Your mind is light-years more than what lies between your
ears. Therefore, do not limit your thinking. Instead, know that you think with the unlimited power and energy of God, with whom you are united.
God cannot be limited and can only grant you what your
thought-consciousness has expanded to and embraced. This relationship
can be thought of as a principle of expansion-and-contraction: God
cannot contract (reduce) to you; therefore, you must expand (grow) to God.
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Take charge of your emotions and realize that you are a part of God, not apart from
God. Know in your quiet, undisturbed consciousness that your
Creator-God lives inside you and deliberately "partners" with you to
ensure your success, despite outward appearances.
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The only time you have is NOW. Do not worry about yesterday or fret
about tomorrow. Yesterday was "now" when it was here; tomorrow will be
"now" when it appears. So, concentrate your thought and energies on now: today, the present time. Now
is all there is. Live in the now. Do not be a "wish-fit," caught
between wishing yesterday had never been and tomorrow would never come.
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Stay "prayed up"—make prayer a daily, constant practice. Know that
prayer changes your mind—not God's mind. You are the special ingredient
that, when changed, adds—like salt—to the Universe's "recipe" for your life. It is your will to change that causes the wheels of life to roll for you.
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Develop a giving consciousness and thus overcome lack and
limitation. The more you give, the more you receive; that is the law of
the Universe. Giving and receiving are the same thing opposite sides of
the same yardstick. Your wealth flows to and through you, activated by God in
you. You cannot beat God at giving, nor can you out-give the wealth
that God imparts to and through you. So give and live abundantly.
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Always look around you and count your good—a powerful
exercise for improving your vision. Think, know, and live positively.
You are a majority of ONE, instantly and intimately connected to God.
This is what makes humans so "ONE-derful." Our unified and eternal connection to God is wonderful for all God's creation to behold!
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Release and let go of things that are not working for you. If
allowed to remain, they can add pollutants that drain energy from your
life. Use your power to decide what stays in and what goes out of your
life. Remember: it is your life.
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Practice the habit of forgiveness. Since life is always for you—including everything that happens to you—absolutely no one can stop you, hurt you, or hold you back. So,
forgive and bless that/those person(s) and move on. Consciously do this
when you pray and meditate. And consciously request the Universe to forgive you for any hurts, disappointments, and betrayals you may have caused.
Forgiveness is both freedom and pure power. It is like a special fuel
additive that launches your life's rocket like nothing else can.
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Just as you give more time and energy to the flowers and not
the weeds in your garden, you should constantly focus on and live in
the energy of the solution to the seeming problem. Thus the problem
disappears for lack of attention and care.
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Never look back, for, as the great baseball player Satchel Paige
said, "something might be gaining on you." Always have a
forward-looking attitude. It is the Christ Consciousness of knowing
that "greater things than I do, you shall also do" that gives you the competence to acquire all the abundant good your heart desires. You need never look back. Keep your mind's gear in "Drive," not "Reverse."
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Know and believe what the Master Teacher Jesus declared: "All that
the Father has is yours." Just as the food is already stocked for us on
our supermarket's shelves—ours, literally, for the taking—all the good that God has prepared for us is ready and waiting for us to acknowledge and accept it for our lives.
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Practice the "attitude of gratitude." Be like Jesus, who always
lifted his eyes (consciousness) to the hills and expressed his thanks
to God the Father, knowing that his need was already fulfilled. You must have this kind of knowing, for it is this sort of faith that establishes its dominance over your life.
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Silently bless the presence of God in everyone you meet: "The presence of God in me salutes and blesses the presence of God in you." The electrostatic "current" you thus set in motion will be felt by others, and they will give glory to the God in themselves.
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Realize that it is the God-light that glows within you, and let it shine, shine, and shine. Meet and greet and go with this glow!
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Decide to be a victor and not a victim. Realize that it is
you who deal life's cards. If you do not like the cards you are
holding, reshuffle the deck. If you still do not like your "hand," get
a new deck.
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Travel on your own path and live for your own destiny, not somebody
else's. Know your mind, trust your heart, and take your own course in
life—not somebody else's.
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Always know that God is in you. The larger question then becomes: Where are you?
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You are greater than you know; otherwise, God would not have
invested Its time and energy to create you. Accept your God-ness and
soar to the heights of the unprecedented success you were meant to have.
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Recognize that there is no power in outward appearances. These
"external effects" are the byproducts of thought. And that is where the
correction effort must take place: in thought. You bring it because you think it. If you brought it up, it is because you thought it up. Decide to change your thinking and thereby change your experience.
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You can do only what your level of awareness enables you to do. Like
the eagle, your strength lies in your vision. So, increase your level
of awareness—by increasing your faith in and acceptance of God's
already-prepared blessings for you—and thus increase your life's
"strengths" (success and prosperity).
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Know that the Divine Presence within you reveals Itself to you when
you take your mind off "external distractions" and turn within. So turn
within constantly. Stop giving your power to these external
distractions and outward appearances.
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Realize that you were born to live in abundance, not in abandonment.
Decide to blossom like the rose, shine like the sun, and let wealth
into your life like a mighty river.
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Know that God's attention is always on you—you are It's most favored creation.
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Know that life gives you (back) what you give life. Give only the best and highest good.
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Realize that the Universe is friendly and operated for you,
24 hours a day, 365 days per year—forever. Plant your good thoughts
back into the Universe and reap an abundant and constant harvest of
good in all areas of your life.
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Be a high-level, high-grade being, constantly in tune with the
Divine Presence within you. Guard your time and keep your presence away
from individuals whose consciousness "vibrates" at lower levels, as
evidenced by their gossip and criticisms, their jealous comments, their
in-the-gutter opinions, and their nagging negativism. As Solomon says
in the scriptures, "He [or she] who remains in the company of the wise,
shall be made wise, but the companion of fools shall be destroyed."
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Look at yesterday only to determine how you arrived at where you are
today. Take a "page" out of the book of yesterday to use as a blueprint
for change and continued success.
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Know and accept that the content of your "inner space" determines your contentment in "outer space."
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Arrange your life in and with God. That is your guarantee for
spectacular success and avoiding a deranged, destitute, frustrating,
and unsatisfying life experience.
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What you have your attention on, also has its attention on you. Focus the power of your attention only on what you truly desire. Do not leave your attention "on idle," unattended, or on "auto-pilot," picking up both trash and treasure on its "screen."
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You must recognize and accept that you are created by God in Its image and likeness. You are both divinity and royalty. Rise up and own your throne, and rule life from inside your royal court!
 This article was excerpted from:
Little Green Apples
by O.C. Smith & James Shaw.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Devorss & Company, Publishers. ©2003. www.devorss.com
Info/Order this book.
About the Authors
Ocie Lee Smith, Jr. (O. C. Smith) attended East Los Angeles Junior College and then
returned to his roots in Louisiana to attend Southern University in
Baton Rouge, majoring in psychology O. C. would tell you with a smile,
"This was not a bad preparation for life in show business." Following
college, he joined the Air Force and Special Services as an entertainer
on military bases all over the world. Once his `hitch' was over, he
headed for New York and a full-time career as a singer.
James Shaw has been a speechwriter for Chicago Cubs legend and
Baseball Hall of Famer Ernie Banks and is a frequent media commentator
who lectures throughout the United States on public school law and
socially urgent issues regarding children and families. He earned his doctorate from the Claremont Graduate
University and received Phi Delta Kappa's Best Dissertation of the Year
award for 1997. In 2000, the California State Legislature honored him
with its Certificate of Recognition for his writings on children and
families.
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