When you ask most people what their concept of God is, you invariably get the description of a grand old man with a white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up in the sky, arbitrarily deciding whether or not to answer Yes or No to the many requests that come His way on a daily basis.

It would appear from the general consensus that He is not very amenable as the majority of requests meet with a ‘No’. This, in turn, is translated into the doctrine that it is ‘not God’s will’.

But is that really a true perception of who God really is or is this some religious gobble-gook dreamed up by the church in order to cover their shortcomings and put the blame on God.

Part of the problem is our misconception of God as a man. God is not a man, God is spirit. Even that statement will raise some controversy as most people’s bibles will say that ‘God is A spirit’, thus identifying Him as a single entity and thus separate from everything else. But if anyone cares to look into the original Greek text, you will find that the ‘A’ does not exist, making the true reading – God is Spirit. This fact is borne out by another reference which states that ‘God is ALL and in ALL’.

So, having established who God is, let us examine our original question – Where is God?

Well, if ‘God is all and in all’, then He is obviously everywhere, but let’s get a bit more specific. Most people will recognise God’s dwelling place as the Kingdom of Heaven, which is true. So that genders the question – where is the Kingdom of Heaven? Jesus answers that question for us when He plainly states that ‘the Kingdom of Heaven is within us’. If we accept this statement of Jesus to be true (and why should we not) then logic would tell us that if God’s abode is the Kingdom of Heaven and that Kingdom is within us, then God must be within us as well. This, of course, is borne out by the words of Jesus when He said, “I of myself can do nothing, it is the Father IN ME that does the works”.

So, to recap we recognise that God is Spirit, His abode is the Kingdom of Heaven, and that kingdom is within us. Logic leads us to the conclusion that the Creator is within us, thus making us partners or co-creators with Him.

If we could only realise the power of this truth, then, in partnership with God, nothing would be impossible.

Mathew 19:26… “but with God all things are possible”

Luke 1:37… “for with God nothing shall be impossible”

When the movie ‘The Secret’ came out some years ago, it was an overnight success. All of a sudden there was this ‘breakthrough’ in new information that had the ability to change people’s minds and circumstances for the better.
But, of course, this was not new information, ‘The Secret’ has been in the Bible all along. Look at this verse found in Mark 11:24 ‘Whatsoever things you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them’.
The thing we have to be mindful of when we discover scripture verses like this, is to be careful our religious mindsets do not interfere with the truth we are reading. This verse is referring to a spiritual law. Spiritual laws work for anyone who works with them. You do not have to be ‘good’ or attend a certain church before a spiritual law will work, this is our religious mindset working. We have no problem believing that physical laws work for everyone – the law of gravity works for both saint and sinner – so why do we think spiritual laws are any different?
Now, there are a couple of points I would like to bring out in this particular verse of scripture. First of all it states that ‘whatsoever things you desire’. There is no restriction on this, it literally means anything. There is something very subtle here and it lies in the difference between the ‘things you want’ and the ‘things you desire’ So what’s the difference?
One example which demonstrates this difference concerns an individual who was quite ill and was being looked after by their family. They said they wanted to be well and they were prayed for but with no result. It transpired that even though they consciously wanted to be healed, they did not want to give up the attention they were getting from family and thus they had a subconscious desire to remain sick. Their desire overrode their want.
You want to have more money but if your inward thoughts tend to poverty then the ‘inner desire’ for poverty will supersede the ‘conscious want’ to be rich.
How we overcome this is laid out in the last part of the verse. We have to believe or see ourselves with the desired outcome. This means changing the inner image of our circumstances which then defines our desire.
So, on our journey towards manifesting this desire, when problems arise, the fact that we have a new image on the inside – a desire rather than a want – will carry us through until the desire we have  is manifested.