Always when the human mind begins to suggest that there is a contradiction, there is the place to be most careful to examine the basic factors and to keep it in alignment within the scope of the Law; for when the human being begins to respond to the Lord, and to recognize the Lord as the Savior, what is it that the human being can legitimately hold back and say, “This is mine and not Thine, O Lord”? Can he hold back his money? No, that comes first. Once the human being begins to respond, money and the possessions of all sorts, and the land, everything, the whole land of Egypt, individually and collectively, belongs to the Lord. And the Lord brings it into Pharaoh's house; that is, within the range of direct control of the king. The manifest king is the mind, the mind, the conscious mind of the individual, or from the standpoint of focalization. So here we see that once the human being begins to truly respond to the Lord, if he is going to function correctly and be truly saved, he cannot hold anything back, in a recognition of receiving the Bread of Life, in a recognition, as they put it here, “Thou hast saved our lives.” The human being reaches a point where he, and all that he is, becomes the servant of the Lord. As the Master put it, we must first be servants and then we reach a point, developing through the servant pattern, to a place where we can be classified as friends. The human being who remains so centered, so faithful and true as a servant, that he never violates the trust reaches the point of being a friend. And a friend is what? A friend is the closest relationship possible to human beings.
Friendship. I am not talking about the casual acquaintances and the so-called patterns of friendship that are really not properly so classified. I am talking about true friendship. A marriage to have any meaning must become a basic friendship. If it does not, it does not have any true meaning in any lasting sense. Friendship signifies that pattern of unified understanding, agreement, harmony, trust, oneness, the oneness of the inner and the outer, the fact that the outer has been received into the oneness of the inner. We see such a pattern of friendship between Joseph and Pharaoh, one of the most outstanding illustrations of friendship to be found anywhere. Pharaoh accepted Joseph. He did not undertake to interfere with the Lord's rule, and the Lord, or Joseph, did not fail in his responsibilities to Pharaoh, and the pattern of correct relationship between the Lord and the conscious mind, individually speaking and collectively speaking, is here revealed. It is one of the most graphic and excellent portrayals of the principle to be found anywhere.
So the pattern of friendship was established. First it appeared that Joseph was Pharaoh's slave. Because he may have been a slave in the house of Potiphar, or somewhere else, fundamentally he was Pharaoh's slave in outer appearance. But because of the integrity of Pharaoh there was in season a deliverance from the state of slavery and imprisonment to the state of effective function on earth for Joseph. And then in actual fact, in that pattern of function as Pharaoh turned all authority over to Joseph, the principle was that Pharaoh was a servant to Joseph. He did not relinquish his throne, but in actual fact Pharaoh put his whole future, not just part, his whole future, the whole future of his kingdom, everything, into Joseph's hand, a complete, absolute trust. And that trust was proven over and over again. Joseph became ruler in the land of Egypt, Lord of all Egypt.
So, in friendship what do we begin to see? In friendship each is the servant of the other, and neither imposes upon that fact and neither violates the trust so established. In friendship, true friendship, each is the servant of the other, on the basis where the relationship is never imposed upon and the trust is never violated. Here you begin to see the true nature of friendship as the Master was speaking of it while He was on earth, and as it is necessary to us; for we cannot function effectively on earth unless the Lord serves us, and we cannot find any fulfilment on earth unless we serve the Lord. The pattern of this relationship is not immediately clear when the human being first begins to reach the point of being a servant, a true, trustworthy servant. And as long as the human being keeps violating his responsibilities as servant he will never reach the point of friendship, where it is an interrelated pattern of servitude, each the servant of the other. We see that so beautifully portrayed here, because Joseph could not have accomplished what he did without Pharaoh. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/if-world-can-help-it-no-leader-shall.html] Pharaoh was absolutely essential to Joseph and Joseph was absolutely essential to Pharaoh, and neither ever violated the trust. So Joseph brought all of these things into Pharaoh's house, and the response to the Lord through Pharaoh, or by reason of Pharaoh, was not just something in part, just to give a little time or a little money, or a little of what one thinks he possesses. In this outworking there was a complete yielding, a complete process of turning one's whole being over to the Lord, so that the human being as such was not in a position of owning something without regard to Pharaoh or Joseph. This is that which is necessary to you if you would know it.
What does the human being give up? Sometimes it is pictured as a sacrifice, supposedly a sacrifice, to turn all of these things over to the Lord. Was it a sacrifice for the Egyptians actually? Well what was better? To live or die? And it comes back to that question with us, doesn't it? For the human being who seeks to retain to himself his money, his flocks, his lands and himself will always die in the famine; he will starve to death spiritually speaking. He may exist for a little time but he will be full of woe and misery, and his so-called possessions will give him no satisfaction. Until the human being reaches the point where he retains nothing for himself he cannot think of himself as a servant of the Lord. To retain anything, no matter what it is, is to deny himself the privilege of becoming a servant of the Lord, and until you have become a servant of the Lord you most certainly cannot become His friend. So the pattern is established on a basis where the Lord is your servant and you are the Lord's servant, when you let it balance out and come to a level in the function of service.
Now the Lord is serving you, no matter what you do, or you would not be alive. You would not have anything, you could not breathe, you could not think, you could not have any pleasure whatsoever, you could not have any consciousness, any awareness, nothing. Only by reason of the fact that the Lord is serving you do you have any privilege or right or opportunity in life on earth. The pattern of service, then, is way out of balance. The Lord is serving you so much more than you are serving Him, even yet, but you are here learning to be a server, learning to serve the Lord. There is no other purpose here but to learn how to serve, to learn to understand the principles back of service, the basis of service, so that first you can begin to serve the Lord, and then you can begin to let your pattern of service rise up, ascend, be resurrected into a level where, under the Lord's grace and blessing, it is allowed to balance out.
As you are the Lord's servant He is then your servant; neither imposes upon the other and neither violates the trust of the other. And there you have friendship. While you are a servant, in the sense of serving only a little, according to your capacity, according to your potentiality, you are not a friend; you have not proven yourself as a friend yet. Until you have reached the point of being a servant without any reservation whatever, you cannot be a friend. The only reason why any human being holds back is because he simply does not trust the Lord, and while you do not trust the Lord how can you be classified as a friend? How can you prove that you trust the Lord other than to yield all to Him? If the Lord required that your service to Him should equal His service to you, you would be in a bad way. It wouldn't ever work out.
What does He require with respect to your service? That you begin to function on the basis of your true potentiality, your true capacity, to fulfil that for which you came into the world. That is all He requires. It is much less, actually, than the Lord's service to you, but it is on that basis that the level of service is allowed to balance out. And once it comes to balance, you are friend and not servant. If you are neither servant nor friend, what are you? A stranger? A foreigner as far as the kingdom of heaven on earth is concerned. And if we would enter into the kingdom of heaven on earth, and know what it is, we must of necessity begin to experience this pattern of service which will allow us to reach the point of becoming friends.
So this is clearly portrayed here. And the Master was asked, “What is the greatest commandment?” He answered correctly, wisely. “To love the Lord thy God with ninety percent of your spiritual expression. That will not bother you very much, if you do not have more than ten percent. About fifteen percent of your heart you can use to love the Lord. You will need the other eighty-five percent to continue on in self-activity. And about three percent of your mind, so that you can have the other ninety-seven percent to do as you please, think about whatever you want to, in the way you want to. And about one percent of your physical expression in life. And your God will be perfectly satisfied. And the second is like unto it: Be sure you love yourself more than you love anybody else.” Or did I get it mixed up somewhere? Seems to me I did.
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, thy mind, thy soul, and with all thy strength,” which certainly includes the body—the soul signifies the body also—with your whole being, all, and all is one hundred percent. Now if we had been studying this portrayal of the Divine Pattern and had not found here an indication, in this drama on the stage of life, an actual outworking with respect to that principle, could we have very well trusted this portrayal? No! It is because this portrayal is there that we can trust it, because it reveals the fact that not just part but all must be yielded to the Lord, so that the Lord can bring it into Pharaoh's house, under the control of Divine mind. But until all the land of your Egypt, no matter what its nature or quality or characteristic, until all the land of your Egypt is without any reservation yielded to Joseph, you cannot share in the pattern of friendship between Joseph and Pharaoh, you cannot enter into that pattern of agreement—what was it the Master said, about agreeing on earth as touching these things, two or three of you?—you cannot share the pattern of agreement which allows the power of God to actually manifest on earth. And that agreement is already established on earth; it is already here. It is. It does not have to become. All that is necessary is to share that which already is. It has been for a long time.
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