Text of the meditation
To dwell in love always and toward all is to live the true life, is to have Life itself. Jesus so lived, and all people may so live, if they will humbly and faithfully carry out His precepts. So long as they refuse to do this, clinging to their desires, passions and opinions, they cannot be ranked as His disciples; they are the disciples of self. "Verily, verily, I say unto you: whoever commits sin is the servant of sin" is the searching declaration of Jesus.
Let people cease to delude themselves with the belief that they can keep their bad tempers, their lusts, their harsh words and judgments, their personal hatreds, their petty contentions and darling opinions, and yet have Christ. All that divides person from person, and people from Goodness, is not of Christ, for Christ is Love.
Sin and Christ cannot dwell together, and whoever accepts the Christ-life of pure Goodness ceases from sin.
James Allen (1864–1912), Book of Meditations for Every Day in the Year (1913) – public-domain text, gently modernised.
The original 1913 text is in the public domain.
