PART V
“Fear is weakness. Let us illustrate this. A lad is lost in the woods. You go to that lad and say to him: “I will show you the way out.” But he says: “This wood is filled with wild beasts that are seeking to destroy me.” Then you say to him: “Come with me; I will protect you and lead you out.” You start out with him, but he becomes frightened and runs away; he runs away from you into danger. The only way you could lead him out would be to bind him and force him to stay with you. Why did the Father come to you and demand this covenant of you, this covenant of absolute obedience? Simply because he knew the dangers that surround you on every side – dangers brought to light in the teachings of the Christ.
It is because of these dangers that God requires this promise from you, and he requires that you keep this promise faithfully, and when fear arises, as surely as it dominates you, so surely do you fail to keep your part of the promise – so surely do you fail to keep the path of safety. Therefore, it becomes necessary that you should, as it were, take your life in your hands and place it in the hands of the Father, and have no more care for your life, knowing that God only is immortal, dwelling in perfect light.
You will soon become aware that there are invisible, and to your external self, intangible powers, dark forces, which the Christ called “devils”, that meet you and would deceive you in every conceivable way. These you must meet and overcome by your faith in God.
If a son would possess the inheritance of his father, it is necessary that he should begin at the bottom of the business interest and serve in every capacity, until he becomes master of the entire business. So God, in his wisdom, made it necessary that you should begin the work of overcoming, for, “He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.”
First you must have dominion over the basic principles of your own body, and then over the dark souls from the invisible side, and as you go on step by step through this borderland that lies between the world of creation and the world of eternal sabbath – rest with God – by the power of God you can conquer and subordinate to yourself every creative law, headed and personified by dark intelligences. And when you have overcome your own body, your own sense desires, and all the dark forces of the subjective realm, then you enter in through the door, and as the angel said to John, you “go no more out forever.”
Hiram Butler
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 