Dominion Over All

Wednesday Bible Readings

Arpril 2nd, 2025

From The Bible

Job 33:4

The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. 

Gen. 1:26 (to dominion), 26 4th over (to 6th ,)

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion ... over all the earth, …

Prov. 8:22, 23 (to 2nd ,), 26 (to 1st nor), 27 (to 1st :), 30 (to :), 30 rejoicing

The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, ...While as yet he had not made the earth, nor ...When he prepared the heavens, I was there: ...Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: ... rejoicing always before him; 

Isa. 35:4 (to :); 52:12 2nd for

Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: ... for the Lord will go before you; and the God of Israel will be your rereward. 

Matt. 4:23, 24 2nd and

And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. ... and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. 

Matt. 9:18 behold (to 3rd ,), 18 saying, 23 (to 1st ,), 24 (to And), 25 he

... behold, there came a certain ruler, ... saying, My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live. ...And when Jesus came into the ruler’s house, ...He said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And ...... he went in, and took her by the hand, and the maid arose. 

John 11:1 (to 3rd ,), 4 (to 4th ,), 7 (to ,), 11 Our, 12, 14, 15 nevertheless, 17, 30 (to ,), 34, 38 It, 39 (to 1st .), 41 And, 43, 44 (to :), 44 Jesus, 47

Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus, of Bethany, ...When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, ...Then after that saith he to his disciples, ... Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. ...Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead. ... nevertheless let us go unto him. ...Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already. ...Now Jesus was not yet come into the town, ...And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. ...... It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. ...... And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. ...And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: ... Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go. ....  Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. 

John 8:12, 51 (to 2nd ,), 51 If, 52 (to 1st ,), 52 Abraham (to 2nd ,), 52 2nd and, 53 (to 1st ?), 53 whom, 54 (to 1st ,), 56–58; 10:30

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. ...Verily, verily, ... If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto him, ... Abraham is dead, ... and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? ... whom makest thou thyself? Jesus answered, ...Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. ...I and my Father are one. 

Rom. 8:16, 17 (to 2nd ;), 35, 37

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; ...Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ...Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 

Acts 17:28 (to ;)

For in him we live, and move, and have our being; …

Ps. 118:17

I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord. 

Eph. 5:14 Awake

... Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light

SH 70:1 (only), 2–5

MORTAL existence is an enigma. ... The testimony of the corporeal senses cannot inform us what is real and what is delusive, but the revelations of Christian Science unlock the treasures of Truth. 

SH 475:7–9, 23–24 (to dominion), 26 2nd over

The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God. ...
And God said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion ... over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” 

SH 497:3 As

... As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life. 

SH 557:18

Divine Science rolls back the clouds of error with the light of Truth, and lifts the curtain on man as never born and as never dying, but as coexistent with his creator. 

SH 333:26–30 (to ;), 32–2 By (to ;); 334:4–6 but (to ;)

The divine image, idea, or Christ was, is, and ever will be inseparable from the divine Principle, God. Jesus referred to this unity of his spiritual identity thus: “Before Abraham was, I am;” “I and my Father are one;” ...... By these sayings Jesus meant, not that the human Jesus was or is eternal, but that the divine idea or Christ was and is so and therefore antedated Abraham; ... but that the spiritual idea, Christ, dwells forever in the bosom of the Father, God, from which it illumines heaven and earth; ...

SH 429:31–3

Jesus said (John viii. 51), “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” That statement is not confined to spiritual life, but includes all the phenomena of existence. Jesus demonstrated this, healing the dying and raising the dead. 

SH 14:25–28

Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man’s dominion over the whole earth. 

SH 42:19–23, 25–28

The belief that man has existence or mind separate from God is a dying error. This error Jesus met with divine Science and proved its nothingness. Because of the wondrous glory which God bestowed on His anointed, temptation, sin, sickness, and death had no terror for Jesus. ... This demonstrates that in Christian Science the true man is governed by God — by good, not evil — and is therefore not a mortal but an immortal. 

SH 75:12; 76:18

Jesus said of Lazarus: “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.” Jesus restored Lazarus by the understanding that Lazarus had never died, not by an admission that his body had died and then lived again. Had Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of belief as those who buried the body, and he could not have resuscitated it. ... Suffering, sinning, dying beliefs are unreal. When divine Science is universally understood, they will have no power over man, for man is immortal and lives by divine authority. 

SH 303:28–30; 304:5–9

Spiritual man is the image or idea of God, an idea which cannot be lost nor separated from its divine Principle. .... Understanding this, Paul said: “Neither death, nor life, . . . nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.” 

SH 304:9–11 (to ;), 12–14 that

This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; ... that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind nor life result in death. 

SH 406:20–25 We

We can, and ultimately shall, so rise as to avail ourselves in every direction of the supremacy of Truth over error, Life over death, and good over evil, and this growth will go on until we arrive at the fulness of God’s idea, and no more fear that we shall be sick and die. 

SH 428:23–26, 30–32; 429:2–6 Life

We must hold forever the consciousness of existence, and sooner or later, through Christ and Christian Science, we must master sin and death. ... The author has healed hopeless organic disease, and raised the dying to life and health through the understanding of God as the only Life. ... Life must be brought to light by the understanding that there is no death, as well as by other graces of Spirit. We must begin, however, with the more simple demonstrations of control, and the sooner we begin the better. 

SH 368:14

When we come to have more faith in the truth of being than we have in error, more faith in Spirit than in matter, more faith in living than in dying, more faith in God than in man, then no material suppositions can prevent us from healing the sick and destroying error. 

SH 200:9

Life is, always has been, and ever will be independent of matter; for Life is God, and man is the idea of God, not formed materially but spiritually, and not subject to decay and dust. The Psalmist said: “Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet.” 

SH 430:7–9

When man gives up his belief in death, he will advance more rapidly towards God, Life, and Love. 

SH 517:30–2; 518:3–4 himself (to 1st .)

Divine Love blesses its own ideas, and causes them to multiply, — to manifest His power. Man is not made to till the soil. His birthright is dominion, not subjection. ... himself subordinate alone to his Maker. 

SH 69:13

Spiritually to understand that there is but one creator, God, unfolds all creation, confirms the Scriptures, brings the sweet assurance of no parting, no pain, and of man deathless and perfect and eternal. 

SH 516:19–21

Man, made in His likeness, possesses and reflects God’s dominion over all the earth. 

Hymn. 382

What is thy birthright, man, / Child of the perfect One; / What is thy Father’s plan / For His beloved son? 

Thou art Truth’s honest child, / Of pure and sinless heart; / Thou treadest undefiled / In Christly paths apart. 

Vain dreams shall disappear / As Truth dawns on the sight; / The phantoms of thy fear / Shall flee before the light. 

Take then the sacred rod; / Thou art not error’s thrall; / Thou hast the gift of God— / Dominion over all. 

Words: Emily F. Seal

Music: Leighton G. Hayne

Hymn. 542

O Life that maketh all things new, / The blooming earth, the thoughts of men; / Our pilgrim feet, wet with Your dew, / In gladness hither turn again. 

From hand to hand the greeting flows, / From eye to eye the signals run, / From heart to heart the bright hope glows, / The seekers of the Light are one: 

One in the freedom of the truth, / One in the joy of paths untrod, / One in the heart’s perennial youth, / One in the larger thought of God;— 

The freer step, the fuller breath, / The wide horizon’s grander view; / The sense of Life that knows no death,— / The Life that maketh all things new. 

Words: Samuel Longfellow, alt.

Music: Andrew D. Brewis, alt.

Hymn. 524

REFRAIN / Like a river that runs to the ocean, / Like a ray reaching out from the sun, / Like a branch and the tree, a drop and the sea, / I and my Father are one. 

And may each of us claim it as truly / As Jesus, who came as God’s son, / And may each of us know in the depths of our soul, / I and my Father are one. 

One in beauty, one in truth, / One in the asking, one in the proof, / One in time and one in space, / One in the goodness that flows from God’s grace. / / REFRAIN / Though our fears may estrange and divide us, / May we seek to dissolve them through love. / We are sister and brother, each bound to the other, / One with our Father above. 

One in purpose, one in power, / One in the Spirit, blessing each hour, / One in kindness, one in peace, / One in the Mind that makes all trouble cease. / / REFRAIN 

Words: Mindy Jostyn, alt.

Music: Mindy Jostyn; arr. CSPS

We are children of the day, the “light of the world”

Wednesday Bible Readings

March 12th, 2025

From The Bible

How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings….For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.

(Psalms 36:7, 9)

God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea: ...
And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night:
(Exodus 13:18 God (to :), 21)

And gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, ...Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them, ...Yea, forty years didst thou sustain them in the wilderness, so that they lacked nothing; their clothes waxed not old, and their feet swelled not.
(Nehemiah 9:15 (to 2nd ,), 20 (to 1st ,), 21)

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. ...For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: ...
(Isaiah 9:2, 6 (to 2nd :))

In the beginning was the Word, ... and the Word was God. ...In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. ...That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.
(John 1:1 (to 1st ,), 1 2nd and, 4, 5, 9)

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
(John 8:12)

And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, ... and from beyond Jordan.
(Matthew 4:24, 25 (to 2nd ,), 25 5th and)

Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. ...While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. ...Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; ...
(John 6:28, 29; 12:36 (to 1st .); 14:12 (to 2nd ;))

This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.
(John 10:6)

When the Son of man shall come in his glory, ... before him shall be gathered all nations: … And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: ... I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? … And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, ...For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: ... sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, or athirst, ... or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
(Matthew 25:31 (to 1st ,), 32 before (to 1st :), 33–35, 36–38 I (to 1st ?), 40, 41 (to 4th ,), 42, 43 (to 1st :), 43 sick, 44 (to 5th ,), 44 4th or, 45)

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. ... The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning. ...He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, ... If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.
(I John 2:1 (to .), 7 2nd The, 9, 10 (to ,), 24 If, 25)

My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: Bind them continually upon thine heart, ...For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life:
(Proverbs 6:20, 21 (to ,), 23)

Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
(I Thessalonians 5:5)

Then said Jesus unto them again, ...
(John 10:7 (to 1st ,))

Ye are the salt of the earth: … Ye are the light of the world. … Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
(Matthew 5:13 (to :), 14 (to 1st .), 16)

DAY. The irradiance of Life; light, the spiritual idea of Truth and Love. ... The objects of time and sense disappear in the illumination of spiritual understanding, and Mind measures time according to the good that is unfolded. This unfolding is God’s day, and “there shall be no night there.”

(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 584:1, 4)

The Bible declares: “All things were made by Him [the divine Word]; and without Him was not anything made that was made.” This is the eternal verity of divine Science. ... Man is tributary to God, Spirit, and to nothing else. ...Material sense never helps mortals to understand Spirit, God. Through spiritual sense only, man comprehends and loves Deity.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 480:26–29; 481:2–3, 7–9)

Light is a symbol of Mind, of Life, Truth, and Love, and not a vitalizing property of matter. Science reveals only one Mind, and this one shining by its own light and governing the universe, including man, in perfect harmony.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 510:27–1)

As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness:
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.
For with Thee is the fountain of life;
In Thy light shall we see light.

The brain can give no idea of God’s man. It can take no cognizance of Mind. Matter is not the organ of infinite Mind. As mortals give up the delusion that there is more than one Mind, more than one God, man in God’s likeness will appear, and this eternal man will include in that likeness no material element. As a material, theoretical life-basis is found to be a misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine Principle of man dawns upon human thought, ... to the spiritual sense of being and of what Life includes. Thus the whole earth will be transformed by Truth on its pinions of light, chasing away the darkness of error.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 190:28–10 (to ,); 191:12 2nd to)

Only by losing the false sense of Soul can we gain the eternal unfolding of Life as immortality brought to light.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 335:22)

In the illusion of life that is here to-day and gone to-morrow, man would be wholly mortal, were it not that Love, the divine Principle that obtains in divine Science, destroys all error and brings immortality to light.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 305:22–27)

Man, being immortal, has a perfect indestructible life. … Mind, supreme over all its formations and governing them all, is the central sun of its own systems of ideas, the life and light of all its own vast creation; and man is tributary to divine Mind.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 209:1–2, 5–8)

This spiritualization of thought lets in the light, and brings the divine Mind, Life not death, into your consciousness.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 407:26)

The Revelator symbolizes Spirit by the sun. ... The light portrayed is really neither solar nor lunar, but spiritual Life, which is “the light of men.” ... of the Fourth Gospel it is written, “There was a man sent from God . . . to bear witness of that Light.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 561:25–26, 27–29, 30 of)

JESUS. The highest human corporeal concept of the divine idea, rebuking and destroying error and bringing to light man’s immortality.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 589:16)

The Christ was the Spirit which Jesus implied in his own statements: “I am the way, the truth, and the life;” “I and my Father are one.” This Christ, or divinity of the man Jesus, was his divine nature, the godliness which animated him. Divine Truth, Life, and Love gave Jesus authority over sin, sickness, and death. His mission was to reveal the Science of celestial being, to prove what God is and what He does for man.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 26:10)

He knew that matter had no life and that real Life is God; therefore he could no more be separated from his spiritual Life than God could be extinguished. His consummate example was for the salvation of us all, but only through doing the works which he did and taught others to do. His purpose in healing was not alone to restore health, but to demonstrate his divine Principle.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 51:15–23)

From the infinite One in Christian Science comes one Principle and its infinite idea, and with this infinitude come spiritual rules, laws, and their demonstration, which, like the great Giver, are “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever;” ...
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 112:16–20 (to ;))

The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus’ time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation. Now, as then, these mighty works are not supernatural, but supremely natural. They are the sign of Immanuel, or “God with us,” — a divine influence ever present in human consciousness and repeating itself, coming now as was promised aforetime,
To preach deliverance to the captives [of sense],
And recovering of sight to the blind,
To set at liberty them that are bruised.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. xi:9)

If we would open their prison doors for the sick, we must first learn to bind up the broken-hearted.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 366:30–31)

If we turn away from the poor, we are not ready to receive the reward of Him who blesses the poor. … We should examine ourselves and learn what is the affection and purpose of the heart, ... If selfishness has given place to kindness, we shall regard our neighbor unselfishly, and bless them that curse us; but we shall never meet this great duty simply by asking that it may be done. There is a cross to be taken up before we can enjoy the fruition of our hope and faith.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 8:22–24, 28–29 (to ,); 9:11)

Step by step will those who trust Him find that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 444:10)

The harmony and immortality of man are intact. We should look away from the opposite supposition that man is created materially, and turn our gaze to the spiritual record of creation, ...
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 521:12–15 (to ,))

When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 495:14)

Truth and Love enlighten the understanding, in whose “light shall we see light;” and this illumination is reflected spiritually by all who walk in the light and turn away from a false material sense.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 510:9)

Whatever is governed by God, is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 215:12)

A Christian Scientist occupies the place at this period of which Jesus spoke to his disciples, when he said: “Ye are the salt of the earth.” “Ye are the light of the world. ... Let us watch, work, and pray that this salt lose not its saltness, and that this light be not hid, but radiate and glow into noontide glory.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 367:17–20, 21)

Who was that man in Galilee, / Healing and teaching beside the sea? / What was the power that made him strong? / How can we learn to sing his song?
He told us, / I am the light of the world, / I am the light of the world, / So follow me and shine out / For I am the light of the world!
Why are we here, and who are we? / What is his purpose for you and me? / Our little light seems small and dim / Next to the blaze that comes from him!
He told us, / You are the salt of the earth, / You are the light of the world. / So follow me and shine out / For you are the light of the world!
Christ is the light with which we shine, / Lit from within by this love divine. / Step out with courage, dare to go, / Give from the heart the love you know.
He told us, / We are the salt of the earth, / We are the light of the world. / We follow him and shine out / For Christ is the light of the world!
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 600)

Love divine, Your healing presence / Lifts us to the holy place, / Where we see Your whole creation / Filled with light and crowned with grace. / We Your children know Your glory, / See Your power from above / Sweep away the shade of darkness / With the healing tide of love.
Humble hearts accept Your blessing, / Turn from sorrow, want, and sin, / Turn the page, rewrite that story, / As the Christ is welcomed in. / Now we know our true relation, / Perfect God and perfect child, / We can live in joy and freedom, / Loved, and pure, and undefiled.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 529)

Brood o’er us with Thy shelt’ring wing, / ’Neath which our spirits blend / Like brother birds, that soar and sing, / And on the same branch bend. / The arrow that doth wound the dove / Darts not from those who watch and love.
If thou the bending reed wouldst break / By thought or word unkind, / Pray that his spirit you partake, / Who loved and healed mankind: / Seek holy thoughts and heavenly strain, / That make men one in love remain.
Learn, too, that wisdom’s rod is given / For faith to kiss, and know; / That greetings glorious from high heaven, / Whence joys supernal flow, / Come from that Love, divinely near, / Which chastens pride and earth-born fear,
Through God, who gave that word of might / Which swelled creation’s lay: / “Let there be light, and there was light.” / What chased the clouds away? / ’Twas Love whose finger traced aloud / A bow of promise on the cloud.
Thou to whose power our hope we give, / Free us from human strife. / Fed by Thy love divine we live, / For Love alone is Life; / And life most sweet, as heart to heart / Speaks kindly when we meet and part.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 453)

The Leaven of Truth is Ever at Work

Wednesday Bible Readings

March 5th, 2025

From The Bible

¶ Then said he, Unto what is the kingdom of God like? and whereunto shall I resemble it? ...

It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.
(Luke 13:18, 21)

¶ When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do. Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little. One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, saith unto him, There is a lad here, which hath five barley loaves, and two small fishes: but what are they among so many? And Jesus said, Make the men sit down. Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, in number about five thousand. And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would. When they were filled, he said unto his disciples, Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. ...

Then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said, This is of a truth that prophet that should come into the world.
(John 6:5–12, 14)

Jesus answered them and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles, but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed. Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. They said therefore unto him, What sign shewest thou then, that we may see, and believe thee? what dost thou work? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world.
(John 6:26–33)

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: ...

All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; ...

For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. ...

And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: ...
(John 6:35 (to :), 37 (to ;), 38, 40 (to :))

... Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
(I Corinthians 5:6–8 Know)

Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us. And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God: And they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple: and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him.
(Acts 3:1–10)

¶ And it came to pass on the morrow, that their rulers, and elders, and scribes, And Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye done this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole; Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. ¶ Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.
(Acts 4:5–14)

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
(II Corinthians 5:17)

A little leaven leavens the whole lump. A little understanding of Christian Science proves the truth of all that I say of it. Because you cannot walk on the water and raise the dead, you have no right to question the great might of divine Science in these directions. Be thankful that Jesus, who was the true demonstrator of Science, did these things, and left his example for us. In Science we can use only what we understand. We must prove our faith by demonstration.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 329:5)

God is Spirit; therefore the language of Spirit must be, and is, spiritual. Christian Science attaches no physical nature and significance to the Supreme Being or His manifestation; mortals alone do this. ...

Ear hath not heard, nor hath lip spoken, the pure language of Spirit. Our Master taught spirituality by similitudes and parables. As a divine student he unfolded God to man, illustrating and demonstrating Life and Truth in himself and by his power over the sick and sinning. Human theories are inadequate to interpret the divine Principle involved in the miracles (marvels) wrought by Jesus and especially in his mighty, crowning, unparalleled, and triumphant exit from the flesh.

Evidence drawn from the five physical senses relates solely to human reason; and because of opacity to the true light, human reason dimly reflects and feebly transmits Jesus’ works and words. Truth is a revelation.

Jesus bade his disciples beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees, which he defined as human doctrines. His parable of the “leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened,” impels the inference that the spiritual leaven signifies the Science of Christ and its spiritual interpretation, — an inference far above the merely ecclesiastical and formal applications of the illustration.

Did not this parable point a moral with a prophecy, foretelling the second appearing in the flesh of the Christ, Truth, hidden in sacred secrecy from the visible world?

Ages pass, but this leaven of Truth is ever at work. It must destroy the entire mass of error, and so be eternally glorified in man’s spiritual freedom.

In their spiritual significance, Science, Theology, and Medicine are means of divine thought, which include spiritual laws emanating from the invisible and infinite power and grace. The parable may import that these spiritual laws, perverted by a perverse material sense of law, are metaphysically presented as three measures of meal, — that is, three modes of mortal thought. In all mortal forms of thought, dust is dignified as the natural status of men and things, and modes of material motion are honored with the name of laws. This continues until the leaven of Spirit changes the whole of mortal thought, as yeast changes the chemical properties of meal.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 117:6–10, 14–25 (np))

How are veritable ideas to be distinguished from illusions? By learning the origin of each. Ideas are emanations from the divine Mind. Thoughts, proceeding from the brain or from matter, are offshoots of mortal mind; they are mortal material beliefs. Ideas are spiritual, harmonious, and eternal. Beliefs proceed from the so-called material senses, ...
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 88:9–15 (to ,))

The human mind has no power to kill or to cure, and it has no control over God’s man. The divine Mind that made man maintains His own image and likeness. ...

That mortal mind claims to govern every organ of the mortal body, we have overwhelming proof. But this so-called mind is a myth, and must by its own consent yield to Truth. It would wield the sceptre of a monarch, but it is powerless. The immortal divine Mind takes away all its supposed sovereignty, and saves mortal mind from itself. The author has endeavored to make this book the Æsculapius of mind as well as of body, that it may give hope to the sick and heal them, although they know not how the work is done. Truth has a healing effect, even when not fully understood.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 151:21–24, 31)

A little leaven causes the whole mass to ferment. A grain of Christian Science does wonders for mortals, so omnipotent is Truth, but more of Christian Science must be gained in order to continue in well doing.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 449:2)

The broadcast powers of evil so conspicuous to-day show themselves in the materialism and sensualism of the age, struggling against the advancing spiritual era. Beholding the world’s lack of Christianity and the powerlessness of vows to make home happy, the human mind will at length demand a higher affection.

There will ensue a fermentation over this as over many other reforms, until we get at last the clear straining of truth, and impurity and error are left among the lees.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 65:13–23)

Marvels, calamities, and sin will much more abound as truth urges upon mortals its resisted claims; but the awful daring of sin destroys sin, and foreshadows the triumph of truth. God will overturn, until “He come whose right it is.” Longevity is increasing and the power of sin diminishing, for the world feels the alterative effect of truth through every pore.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 223:28)

Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies. Christian Science acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 162:4)

Through divine Science, Spirit, God, unites understanding to eternal harmony. The calm and exalted thought or spiritual apprehension is at peace. Thus the dawn of ideas goes on, forming each successive stage of progress.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 506:10)

The necessity for uplifting the race is father to the fact that Mind can do it; for Mind can impart purity instead of impurity, strength instead of weakness, and health instead of disease. Truth is an alterative in the entire system, and can make it “every whit whole.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 371:27)



Come, Thou all-transforming Spirit, / Bless the sower and the seed; / Let each heart Thy grace inherit; / Raise the weak, the hungry feed; / From the Gospel, from the Gospel / Now supply Thy people’s need.

O, may all enjoy the blessing / Which Thy holy word doth give; / Let us all, Thy love possessing, / Joyfully Thy truth receive; / And forever, and forever / To Thy praise and glory live.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 42:1, 2)

O Jesus, our dear Master, / Thy works, now understood, / Reveal their full effulgence / Through love and brotherhood. / Today Christ’s precious Science / Thy healing power makes plain: / With joy may all obey thee / And cast out sin and pain.

The Christ, eternal manhood, / As God’s own Son beloved, / A tender ever-presence / Within each heart is proved. / O God, our Father-Mother, / Thy name we see expressed / By man, who in Thy Science / Is perfect, holy, blessed.

O Science, God-sent message / To tired humanity, / Thou art Love’s revelation / Of Truth that makes us free. / Thy kingdom, God, within us / Shows forth Love’s sweet control. / God’s idea, man, rejoices; / He knows the reign of Soul.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 221:1–3)

O God, our help in ages past, / Our hope for time to come, / Our shelter from the stormy blast, / And our eternal home.

Before the hills in order stood, / Or earth received her frame, / From everlasting Thou art God, / To endless years the same.

A thousand ages in Thy sight / Are like an evening gone, / Short as the watch that ends the night / Before the rising sun.

O God, our help in ages past, / Our hope for time to come, / Thou art our guard while ages last, / And our eternal home.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 213:1–4)

Fear Not …

Wednesday Bible Readings

February 26th, 2025

From The Bible

TIn the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. ...And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. ...... ¶ And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion ... over all the earth, ...And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. ...Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
(Genesis 1:1, 2 (to 1st .), 3, 26 (to dominion), 26 4th over (to 6th ,), 31 (to 1st .); 2:1)

But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. ...And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? ...
(Genesis 2:6; 3:9–11 (to 1st ?))

And Job spake, and said, Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived. Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it. ...For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me.
(Job 3:2–4, 25)

Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. ...Where is the way where light dwelleth? ...Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart? ...Then Job answered the LORD, and said, I know that thou canst do every thing, ...I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
(Job 38:1–4, 19 (to ?), 36; 42:1, 2 (to ,), 5)

The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple. ...
Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. Deliver me from the oppression of man: so will I keep thy precepts.
(Psalms 119:130, 133, 134)

Thus saith the LORD that made thee, ...Fear ye not, neither be afraid: ... ¶ I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: ... Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me. … I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: … Look unto me, and be ye saved, ... for I am God, and there is none else.
(Isaiah 44:2 (to 1st ,), 8 (to :); 45:5 (to 1st :), 11 Ask, 13 (to :), 22 (to 2nd ,), 22 for)

And Jesus entered into Jerusalem, ...
(Mark 11:11 (to 1st ,))

¶Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he went into a ship with his disciples: and he said unto them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. ... ¶ And they arrived at the country of the Gadarenes, … And when he went forth to land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had devils long time, ...When he saw Jesus, he cried out, ... What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God most high? I beseech thee, torment me not. (For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. ...And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: … And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: ...Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked. When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, … and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: ...
(Luke 8:22, 26 (to ,), 27 (to 3rd ,), 28 (to 2nd ,), 28 What, 29 (to 1st .), 30 (to :), 32 (to :), 33, 34 (to 2nd ,), 35 and (to :))

¶ If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; ...
(Ecclesiastes 5:8 (to ;))

In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me. ...The LORD is on my side; ...
(Psalms 56:11; 118:6 (to ;))

And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. … These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, ...... ¶ Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues; ...Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
(Matthew 10:1, 5 (to 3rd ,), 16, 17, 34)

But when ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; ... Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: … And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake. But there shall not an hair of your head perish.
(Luke 21:9 (to ;), 10 Nation, 17, 18)

... I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, … Even the Spirit of truth; … Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
(John 14:16 I (to 2nd ,), 17 (to 1st ;), 27)

... God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. …

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: ...
(I John 4:16 2nd God, 18 (to :))

“Let there be light,” is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order and discord into the music of the spheres.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 255:3–6)

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” (Genesis i. 1, 2.) In the vast forever, in the Science and truth of being, the only facts are Spirit and its innumerable creations. Darkness and chaos are the imaginary opposites of light, understanding, and eternal harmony, and they are the elements of nothingness. ... Paul says: “For the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made.” (Romans i. 20.) When the substance of Spirit appears in Christian Science, the nothingness of matter is recognized. Where the spirit of God is, and there is no place where God is not, evil becomes nothing, — the opposite of the something of Spirit.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 479:18, 29–5)

Truth has no beginning. The divine Mind is the Soul of man, and gives man dominion over all things. Man was not created from a material basis, nor bidden to obey material laws which Spirit never made; his province is in spiritual statutes, in the higher law of Mind. Above error’s awful din, blackness, and chaos, the voice of Truth still calls: “Adam, where art thou? Consciousness, where art thou? Art thou dwelling in the belief that mind is in matter, and that evil is mind, or art thou in the living faith that there is and can be but one God, and keeping His commandment?”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 307:25–4)

The parent of all human discord was the Adam-dream, the deep sleep, in which originated the delusion that life and intelligence proceeded from and passed into matter. This pantheistic error, or so-called serpent, insists still upon the opposite of Truth, saying, “Ye shall be as gods;” that is, I will make error as real and eternal as Truth. Evil still affirms itself to be mind, and declares that there is more than one intelligence or God. It says: “There shall be lords and gods many. ... makes evil minds and evil spirits, and that I aid Him. ...This error has proved itself to be error. Its life is found to be not Life, but only a transient, false sense of an existence which ends in death.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 306:32–9; 307:10 makes (only), 14–16)

The true theory of the universe, including man, is not in material history but in spiritual development. … It is this spiritual perception of Scripture, which lifts humanity out of disease and death and inspires faith. ... Christian Science separates error from truth, and breathes through the sacred pages the spiritual sense of life, substance, and intelligence. In this Science, we discover man in the image and likeness of God. We see that man has never lost his spiritual estate and his eternal harmony.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 547:25–27, 31–32; 548:2)

Genesis i. 31. And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. … The divine Principle, or Spirit, comprehends and expresses all, and all must therefore be as perfect as the divine Principle is perfect. ... Human capacity is slow to discern and to grasp God’s creation and the divine power and presence which go with it, demonstrating its spiritual origin.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 518:24–25, 27–29 (to 1st .); 519:11–14)

The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 470:32)

Christian scientific practice begins with Christ’s keynote of harmony, “Be not afraid!” Said Job: “The thing which I greatly feared is come upon me.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 410:29)

FEAR. ... inflammation; anxiety; ignorance; error; ...
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 586:11 (only, to .), 11 inflammation (only, to 4th ;))

Fear, which is an element of all disease, must be cast out to readjust the balance for God. Casting out evil and fear enables truth to outweigh error. The only course is to take antagonistic grounds against all that is opposed to the health, holiness, and harmony of man, God’s image.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 392:5)

Every trial of our faith in God makes us stronger. The more difficult seems the material condition to be overcome by Spirit, the stronger should be our faith and the purer our love. The Apostle John says: “There is no fear in Love, but perfect Love casteth out fear. . . . He that feareth is not made perfect in Love.” Here is a definite and inspired proclamation of Christian Science.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 410:14)

No hypothesis as to the existence of another power should interpose a doubt or fear to hinder the demonstration of Christian Science.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 445:5–8)

Job said: “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee.” Mortals will echo Job’s thought, when the supposed pain and pleasure of matter cease to predominate. ... Starting from a higher standpoint, one rises spontaneously, even as light emits light without effort; ...
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 262:17–20, 24–25 (to ;))

The procuring cause and foundation of all sickness is fear, ignorance, or sin. ...
Always begin your treatment by allaying the fear of patients. ... The great fact that God lovingly governs all, never punishing aught but sin, is your standpoint, from which to advance and destroy the human fear of sickness. ... The power of Christian Science and divine Love is omnipotent. It is indeed adequate to unclasp the hold and to destroy disease, sin, and death.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 411:20–21, 27–28; 412:1–4, 13)

It is recorded that once Jesus asked the name of a disease, — a disease which moderns would call dementia. The demon, or evil, replied that his name was Legion. Thereupon Jesus cast out the evil, and the insane man was changed and straightway became whole. The Scripture seems to import that Jesus caused the evil to be self-seen and so destroyed.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 411:13)

The history of our country, like all history, illustrates the might of Mind, and shows human power to be proportionate to its embodiment of right thinking. ... The despotic tendencies, inherent in mortal mind and always germinating in new forms of tyranny, must be rooted out through the action of the divine Mind.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 225:14–16, 25)

Discerning the rights of man, we cannot fail to foresee the doom of all oppression. ... “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” Love and Truth make free, but evil and error lead into captivity. Christian Science raises the standard of liberty and cries: “Follow me! Escape from the bondage of sickness, sin, and death!” ... The illusion of material sense, not divine law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs, crippled your capacities, enfeebled your body, and defaced the tablet of your being.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 227:14–15, 18–23, 26)

The enslavement of man is not legitimate. It will cease when man enters into his heritage of freedom, his God-given dominion over the material senses. ... Dropping their present beliefs, they will recognize harmony as the spiritual reality and discord as the material unreality.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 228:11–13, 17)

As light destroys darkness and in the place of darkness all is light, so (in absolute Science) Soul, or God, is the only truth-giver to man. ...God, good, being ever present, it follows in divine logic that evil, the suppositional opposite of good, is never present. ... Not personal intercommunion but divine law is the communicator of truth, health, and harmony to earth and humanity.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 72:9–12 As, 21–23, 30–32)

Divine Science, the Word of God, saith to the darkness upon the face of error, “God is All-in-all,” and the light of ever-present Love illumines the universe. ... This also shows that there is no place where God’s light is not seen, since Truth, Life, and Love fill immensity and are ever-present.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 503:12–15; 504:11–14)

To hold yourself superior to sin, because God made you superior to it and governs man, is true wisdom. To fear sin is to misunderstand the power of Love and the divine Science of being in man’s relation to God, — to doubt His government and distrust His omnipotent care. To hold yourself superior to sickness and death is equally wise, and is in accordance with divine Science. To fear them is impossible, when you fully apprehend God and know that they are no part of His creation. Man, governed by his Maker, having no other Mind, — planted on the Evangelist’s statement that “all things were made by Him [the Word of God]; and without Him was not anything made that was made,” — can triumph over sin, sickness, and death.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 231:20–2)

Thou whose almighty Word / Chaos and darkness heard, / And took their flight; / Hear us, we humbly pray, / And where the Gospel-day / Sheds not its glorious ray, / Let there be light.

Christ, thou dost come to bring / On thy redeeming wing / Healing and sight, / Health to the sick in mind, / Sight to the inly blind; / Ah, now to all mankind / Let there be light.

Spirit of truth and love, / Life-giving, holy dove, / Speed forth thy flight; / Move on the waters’ face, / Bearing the lamp of grace, / And in earth’s darkest place / Let there be light.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 401)

Abide with me; fast breaks the morning light; / Our daystar rises, banishing all night; / Thou art our strength, O Truth that maketh free, / We would unfailingly abide in Thee.

I know no fear, with Thee at hand to bless, / Sin hath no power and life no wretchedness; / Health, hope and love in all around I see / For those who trustingly abide in Thee.

I know Thy presence every passing hour, / I know Thy peace, for Thou alone art power; / O Love divine, abiding constantly, / I need not plead, Thou dost abide with me.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 7)

A glorious day is dawning, / And o’er the waking earth / The heralds of the morning / Are springing into birth. / In dark and hidden places / There shines the blessed light; / The beam of Truth displaces / The darkness of the night.

The advocates of error / Foresee the glorious morn, / And hear in shrinking terror, / The watchword of reform: / It rings from hill and valley, / It breaks oppression’s chain. / A thousand freemen rally, / And swell the mighty strain.

The watchword has been spoken, / The light has broken forth, / Far shines the blessed token / Upon the startled earth. / To hearts and homes benighted / The blessed Truth is given, / And peace and love, united, / Point upward unto heaven.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 2)

Be … Loved

Wednesday Bible Readings

February 12th, 2025

From The Bible

The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.
(Jeremiah 31:3)

For thus saith the LORD, ...As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; ...
(Isaiah 66:12 (to 1st ,), 13 (to ;))

I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: ... I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
(Isaiah 45:2 (to 1st :), 5 2nd I)

... the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? … Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: ...When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up. ...Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: ...
(Psalms 27:1 2nd the, 3 (to :), 10, 14 (to 2nd :))

And all the people said unto Samuel, Pray for thy servants unto the LORD thy God, that we die not: … And Samuel said unto the people, Fear not: ... turn not aside from following the LORD, … Only fear the LORD, and serve him in truth with all your heart; for consider how great things he hath done for you.
(I Samuel 12:19 (to :), 20 (to 1st :), 20 turn (to 2nd ,), 24)

The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; ...
(Deuteronomy 33:27 (to ;))

There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. ...Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, ... askest drink of me, ... for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. ... whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. … The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the city, and saith to the men, Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this the Christ?
(John 4:7, 9 (to 2nd ,), 9 askest (to 4th ,), 9 for, 10, 14 whosoever, 28, 29)

And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked with the woman: yet no man said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her?
(John 4:27)

Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, … I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, ...And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.
(John 10:7 (to 4th ,), 14 (to 2nd ,), 16)

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, ...
(Isaiah 55:1 (to 3rd ,))

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. ...Then saith he unto his disciples, ...
(Matthew 9:35, 37 (to 1st ,))

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. … Give to him that asketh thee, and … do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
(Matthew 5:6, 42 (to and), 44 do, 45)

Ye are the light of the world. … Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.
(Matthew 5:14 (to 1st .), 16)

These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; ...I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: ...I pray for them: ... for they are thine. And all mine are thine, ...
... Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. … Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; ... that they also may be one in us: ... and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
(John 17:1 (to ;), 6 (to :), 9 (to :), 9 4th for, 10 (to ,), 11 Holy, 20, 21 2nd that (to :), 23 2nd and)

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: … Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. .... God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.
(I John 3:1 (to :); 4:11, 16 2nd God)

“God is Love.” More than this we cannot ask, higher we cannot look, farther we cannot go.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 6:17–18)

Asking God to be God is a vain repetition. God is “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever;” ...
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 2:31–32 (to ;))

... the all-knowing, ... all-loving, ... Principle; Mind; ...
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 587:5 2nd the (only, to 1st ,), 6 all-loving (only, to ,), 6–7 Principle (to 1st ;))

The creative Principle — Life, Truth, and Love ... There is but one creator and one creation. This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 502:27–28 (to Love), 29–3)

God fashions all things, after His own likeness.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 516:9 (only))

Man is not the offspring of flesh, but of Spirit, — of Life, not of matter.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 289:31–32)

Man is idea, the image, of Love; ...He is ... the conscious identity of being as found in Science, in which man is the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal; that which has no separate mind from God; that which has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which ... reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker. ...

Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 475:13–14 (to ;), 14 (only, to is), 16–20 the (to which), 22 reflects, 28 (only))

Man is the family name for all ideas, — the sons and daughters of God.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 515:21–22 Man)

All nature teaches God’s love to man, but man cannot love God supremely and set his whole affections on spiritual things, while loving the material or trusting in it more than in the spiritual.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 326:8)

The supremacy of Spirit was the foundation on which Jesus built. His sublime summary points to the religion of Love.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 138:14)

Out of the amplitude of his pure affection, he defined Love. With the affluence of Truth, he vanquished error.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 54:3–5)

Jesus aided in reconciling man to God by giving man a truer sense of Love, the divine Principle of Jesus’ teachings, and this truer sense of Love redeems man from the law of matter, sin, and death by the law of Spirit, — the law of divine Love.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 19:6)

Experience teaches us that we do not always receive the blessings we ask for in prayer. ... That which we desire and for which we ask, it is not always best for us to receive. In this case infinite Love will not grant the request.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 10:22–23, 28–31)

The sharp experiences of belief in the supposititious life of matter, as well as our disappointments and ceaseless woes, turn us like tired children to the arms of divine Love.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 322:26–29)

Divine Love corrects and governs man.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 6:3 (only))

Waking to Christ’s demand, mortals experience suffering. This causes them, even as drowning men, to make vigorous efforts to save themselves; and through Christ’s precious love these efforts are crowned with success.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 22:6)

Through the wholesome chastisements of Love, we are helped onward in the march towards righteousness, peace, and purity, which are the landmarks of Science.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 323:6–9)

In divine Science, God and the real man are inseparable as divine Principle and idea.

... God is the Principle of man, and man is the idea of God. Hence man is not mortal nor material. ...

Learn this, O mortal, and earnestly seek the spiritual status of man, which is outside of all material selfhood.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 476:4, 9–11, 21–22)

Let us rid ourselves of the belief that man is separated from God, and obey only the divine Principle, Life and Love. ...

Absorbed in material selfhood we discern and reflect but faintly the substance of Life or Mind. The denial of material selfhood aids the discernment of man’s spiritual and eternal individuality, and destroys the erroneous knowledge gained from matter or through what are termed the material senses.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 91:5–7, 16)

Understanding this, Paul said: “Neither death, nor life, . . . nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.” This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind nor life result in death.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 304:5–14)

To be “with the Lord” is to be in obedience to the law of God, to be absolutely governed by divine Love, — by Spirit, not by matter.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 14:9)

In divine Science, where prayers are mental, all may avail themselves of God as “a very present help in trouble.” Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 12:31)

Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need. ... to all mankind and in every hour, divine Love supplies all good.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 494:10–11, 13 to)

Universal Love is the divine way in Christian Science.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 266:18 Universal)

Brood o’er us with Thy shelt’ring wing, / ’Neath which our spirits blend / Like brother birds, that soar and sing, / And on the same branch bend. / The arrow that doth wound the dove / Darts not from those who watch and love.

If thou the bending reed wouldst break / By thought or word unkind, / Pray that his spirit you partake, / Who loved and healed mankind: / Seek holy thoughts and heavenly strain, / That make men one in love remain.

Learn, too, that wisdom’s rod is given / For faith to kiss, and know; / That greetings glorious from high heaven, / Whence joys supernal flow, / Come from that Love, divinely near, / Which chastens pride and earth-born fear,

Through God, who gave that word of might / Which swelled creation’s lay: / “Let there be light, and there was light.” / What chased the clouds away? / ’Twas Love whose finger traced aloud / A bow of promise on the cloud.

Thou to whose power our hope we give, / Free us from human strife. / Fed by Thy love divine we live, / For Love alone is Life; / And life most sweet, as heart to heart / Speaks kindly when we meet and part.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 30)

Love one another,—word of revelation; / Love frees from error’s thrall,—Love is liberation. / Love’s way the Master trod; / He that loves shall walk with God. / Love is the royal way.

Love knows no evil, neither shade of sadness; / Love casts out every fear, lifts the heart to gladness. / Love heals our every ill, / All the law does love fulfill. / Love is our answered prayer.

Love now is dawning over every nation; / Showing true brotherhood, publishing salvation, / Love bids all discord cease. / Conquering hate, enthroning peace, / Love, Love alone is power.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 179)

Let there be peace on earth, / and let it begin with me. / Let there be peace on earth, / the peace that was meant to be. / With God our creator, we are family. / Let us walk with each other / in perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me; let this / be the moment now. / With every step I take, let this / be my solemn vow: / To take each moment and live each / moment in peace eternally! / Let there be peace on earth, / and let it begin with me.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 521)

Wilderness experiences

Wednesday Bible Readings

February 5th, 2025

From The Bible

Hi Skye and Julia

Hope all is well with you both.  

Here are readings from last night.

thx

John

Topic:  Wilderness experiences

O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever. ...

To him which led his people through the wilderness: for his mercy endureth for ever.
(Psalms 136:1, 2, 16)

And Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and withal how he had slain all the prophets with the sword. Then Jezebel sent a messenger unto Elijah, saying, So let the gods do to me, and more also, if I make not thy life as the life of one of them by to-morrow about this time. And when he saw that, he arose, and went for his life, and came to Beer–sheba, which belongeth to Judah, and left his servant there. ¶ But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: ...
(I Kings 19:1–4 (to :))

And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the LORD came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. ¶ And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
(I Kings 19:5–12)

... And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, ... I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. And the LORD said unto him, Go, return on thy way to the wilderness of Damascus: ...

Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him. ¶ So he departed thence, and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen before him, and he with the twelfth: and Elijah passed by him, and cast his mantle upon him. ...

... Then he arose, and went after Elijah, and ministered unto him.
(I Kings 19:13 4th And, 14 (to 1st ,), 14 2nd I, 15 (to 1st :), 18, 19, 21 Then)

The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is full of majesty. ...

The voice of the LORD shaketh the wilderness; ...
(Psalms 29:4,8 (to ;))

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone. Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.
(Matthew 4:1–11)

And straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship, and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida, while he sent away the people. And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray. And when even was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land. And he saw them toiling in rowing; for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them. But when they saw him walking upon the sea, they supposed it had been a spirit, and cried out: For they all saw him, and were troubled. And immediately he talked with them, and saith unto them, Be of good cheer: it is I; be not afraid. And he went up unto them into the ship; and the wind ceased: and they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure, and wondered. ...

And when they had passed over, they came into the land of Gennesaret, and drew to the shore. ...

And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole.
(Mark 6:45–51, 53, 56)

... walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them; And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God.
(Ezekiel 20:19 walk, 20)

... it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
(Luke 12:32 it)

I was suddenly left alone, with many troubles and trials, and I took up the study of the Bible. ... I had attended all sorts of churches from my childhood up, but never could find any that met my need. As time passed on, my condition became very alarming. ...

About this time I made some inquiries of my sister in reference to Christian Science, as she had already turned to that faith, and I soon found that it was just what I had been looking for. I saw at once that it declared the truth and nothing but the truth. I commenced reading Science and Health, also the New Testament. I wanted to find out what Jesus said, as I did not expect then to live long. I did not go to the meetings, nor did I read Science and Health to be cured, — not thinking of that, — but to be saved from an everlasting hell hereafter. My sister urged me to have a practitioner, but I kept on reading, and praying to God in silence, and what happened? Where had the diseases gone? I persisted in reading Science and Health, together with the Bible, with the knowledge that God as revealed by Christ Jesus can do everything, that He made everything that was made, that He can and does heal the afflicted. He has healed me, thanks to His most holy name. — G. J. H., Charleston, Ill.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 615:22–23, 25–28; 616:9)

WILDERNESS. Loneliness; doubt; darkness. Spontaneity of thought and idea; the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 597:16 Wilderness)

If we pray to God as a corporeal person, this will prevent us from relinquishing the human doubts and fears which attend such a belief, and so we cannot grasp the wonders wrought by infinite, incorporeal Love, to whom all things are possible. ...

Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man’s dominion over the whole earth.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 13:20–24; 14:25–28)

As a material, theoretical life-basis is found to be a misapprehension of existence, the spiritual and divine Principle of man dawns upon human thought, and leads it to “where the young child was,” — even to the birth of a new-old idea, to the spiritual sense of being and of what Life includes. Thus the whole earth will be transformed by Truth on its pinions of light, chasing away the darkness of error.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 191:8)

We are sometimes led to believe that darkness is as real as light; but Science affirms darkness to be only a mortal sense of the absence of light, at the coming of which darkness loses the appearance of reality. So sin and sorrow, disease and death, are the suppositional absence of Life, God, and flee as phantoms of error before truth and love.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 215:15)

We cannot fathom the nature and quality of God’s creation by diving into the shallows of mortal belief. We must reverse our feeble flutterings — our efforts to find life and truth in matter — and rise above the testimony of the material senses, above the mortal to the immortal idea of God. These clearer, higher views inspire the Godlike man to reach the absolute centre and circumference of his being.

... They will then drop the false estimate of life and happiness, of joy and sorrow, and attain the bliss of loving unselfishly, working patiently, and conquering all that is unlike God. Starting from a higher standpoint, one rises spontaneously, even as light emits light without effort; for “where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 262:9,20)

Now is the time for so-called material pains and material pleasures to pass away, for both are unreal, because impossible in Science. To break this earthly spell, mortals must get the true idea and divine Principle of all that really exists and governs the universe harmoniously. This thought is apprehended slowly, and the interval before its attainment is attended with doubts and defeats as well as triumphs.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 39:22)

Every trial of our faith in God makes us stronger. The more difficult seems the material condition to be overcome by Spirit, the stronger should be our faith and the purer our love. The Apostle John says: “There is no fear in Love, but perfect Love casteth out fear. . . . He that feareth is not made perfect in Love.” Here is a definite and inspired proclamation of Christian Science.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 410:14)

When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 495:14)

The “still, small voice” of scientific thought reaches over continent and ocean to the globe’s remotest bound. The inaudible voice of Truth is, to the human mind, “as when a lion roareth.” It is heard in the desert and in dark places of fear.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 559:8–12)

As the children of Israel were guided triumphantly through the Red Sea, the dark ebbing and flowing tides of human fear, — as they were led through the wilderness, walking wearily through the great desert of human hopes, and anticipating the promised joy, — so shall the spiritual idea guide all right desires in their passage from sense to Soul, from a material sense of existence to the spiritual, up to the glory prepared for them who love God.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 566:1–9)

There is to-day danger of repeating the offence of the Jews by limiting the Holy One of Israel and asking: “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” What cannot God do?
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 135:17)

When God is seen with men to dwell, / And all creation makes anew, / What tongue can half the wonders tell, / What eye the dazzling glories view?

Celestial streams shall gently flow, / The wilderness shall joyful be; / On parched ground shall lilies grow / And gladness spring on every tree;

The weak be strong, the fearful bold, / The deaf shall hear, the dumb shall sing, / The lame shall walk, the blind behold, / And joy through all the earth shall ring.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 384)

Shepherd, show me how to go / O’er the hillside steep, / How to gather, how to sow,— / How to feed Thy sheep; / I will listen for Thy voice, / Lest my footsteps stray; / I will follow and rejoice / All the rugged way.

Thou wilt bind the stubborn will, / Wound the callous breast, / Make self-righteousness be still, / Break earth’s stupid rest. / Strangers on a barren shore, / Lab’ring long and lone, / We would enter by the door, / And Thou know’st Thine own;

So, when day grows dark and cold, / Tear or triumph harms, / Lead Thy lambkins to the fold, / Take them in Thine arms; / Feed the hungry, heal the heart, / Till the morning’s beam; / White as wool, ere they depart, / Shepherd, wash them clean.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 574, Words by Mary Baker Eddy)

Breaking through the clouds of darkness, / Black with error, doubt, and fear; / Lighting up each somber shadow, / With a radiance soft and clear; / Filling every heart with gladness, / That its holy power feels, / Comes the Christian Science gospel, / Sin it kills and grief it heals.

Christlike in its benedictions, / Godlike in its strength sublime; / Conquering every subtle error, / With a meekness all divine, / It has gone across the ocean, / It is known in every land, / And our sisters and our brothers / Are united in one band.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 29)

Unwavering Faith

Wednesday Bible Readings

January 22nd, 2025

From The Bible

O Lord my God, in thee do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me:
(Psalms 7:1)

... in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
(Psalms 5:3 in)

And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, LORD, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.
(Psalms 9:10)

But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation.
(Psalms 13:5)

Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust. ...

Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
(Psalms 16:1, 11)

For thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.
(Psalms 18:28)

And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction, yet shall not thy teachers be removed into a corner any more, but thine eyes shall see thy teachers: And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
(Isaiah 30:20, 21)

And Abraham sojourned in the Philistines’ land many days.
(Genesis 21:34)

And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. ¶ And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me. And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
(Genesis 22:1–13)

And the sons of the prophets said unto Elisha, Behold now, the place where we dwell with thee is too strait for us. Let us go, we pray thee, unto Jordan, and take thence every man a beam, and let us make us a place there, where we may dwell. And he answered, Go ye. ...

... ¶ Then the king of Syria warred against Israel, and took counsel with his servants, saying, In such and such a place shall be my camp. And the man of God sent unto the king of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not such a place; for thither the Syrians are come down. And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice. Therefore the heart of the king of Syria was sore troubled for this thing; and he called his servants, and said unto them, Will ye not shew me which of us is for the king of Israel? And one of his servants said, None, my lord, O king: but Elisha, the prophet that is in Israel, telleth the king of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber. ¶ And he said, Go and spy where he is, that I may send and fetch him. And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan. Therefore sent he thither horses, and chariots, and a great host: and they came by night, and compassed the city about. And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. And when they came down to him, Elisha prayed unto the LORD, ...
(II Kings 6:1, 2, 8–18 (to 2nd ,))

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. ...

... he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; ...

By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. ...

For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. ...

By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac; and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, ...

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was a-dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. ...

By faith Moses, when he was born, was hid three months of his parents, because they saw he was a proper child; and they were not afraid of the king’s commandment.
(Hebrews 11:3, 6 he, 7 (to ;), 8, 10, 17, 20, 21, 23)

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
(Hebrews 12:1)

... The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. ...

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever.
(Hebrews 13:6 The, 8)

... let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, ...

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
(James 1:4–6 let (to ,), 17)

¶ Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
(Matthew 15:21–28)

... If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
(Matthew 17:20 If)

Trials teach mortals not to lean on a material staff, — a broken reed, which pierces the heart. ... Trials are proofs of God’s care.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 66:6–7, 10–11)

The trials encountered by prophet, disciple, and apostle, “of whom the world was not worthy,” await, in some form, every pioneer of truth.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 28:29)

If they keep the faith, they will have the crown of rejoicing.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 29:5)

The truths of immortal Mind sustain man, and they annihilate the fables of mortal mind, ...
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 103:25–26 (to ,))

No hypothesis as to the existence of another power should interpose a doubt or fear to hinder the demonstration of Christian Science. ... You render the divine law of healing obscure and void, when you weigh the human in the scale with the divine, or limit in any direction of thought the omnipresence and omnipotence of God.

Christian Science silences human will, quiets fear with Truth and Love, ...
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 445:5–8, 15–20 (to ,))

A grain of Christian Science does wonders for mortals, so omnipotent is Truth, ...
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 449:3–5 (to ,))

Who, that has felt the perilous beliefs in life, substance, and intelligence separated from God, can say that there is no error of belief?
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 450:27–29)

Man-made doctrines are waning. They have not waxed strong in times of trouble. Devoid of the Christ-power, how can they illustrate the doctrines of Christ or the miracles of grace?
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 134:14–17)

Maintain the facts of Christian Science, ... that all causation is Mind, acting through spiritual law. Then hold your ground with the unshaken understanding of Truth and Love, and you will win.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 417:10–11 (to 1st ,), 13–16 that)

Science relates to Mind, not matter. It rests on fixed Principle and not upon the judgment of false sensation.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 128:27–28)

ABRAHAM. Fidelity; faith in the divine Life and in the eternal Principle of being.

This patriarch illustrated the purpose of Love to create trust in good, and showed the life-preserving power of spiritual understanding.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 579:10–14)

The understanding of Truth gives full faith in Truth, and spiritual understanding is better than all burnt offerings.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 286:6)

Faith, if it be mere belief, is as a pendulum swinging between nothing and something, having no fixity. Faith, advanced to spiritual understanding, is the evidence gained from Spirit, which rebukes sin of every kind and establishes the claims of God.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 23:16)

Faith is higher and more spiritual than belief. It is a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual evidence, contradicting the testimony of material sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the ever-present, is becoming understood.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 297:20–24)

Having faith in the divine Principle of health and spiritually understanding God, sustains man under all circumstances; ...
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 319:7–9 (to ;))

All that really exists is the divine Mind and its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found harmonious and eternal. The straight and narrow way is to see and acknowledge this fact, yield to this power, and follow the leadings of truth.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 151:26)

To admit that sickness is a condition over which God has no control, is to presuppose that omnipotent power is powerless on some occasions. The law of Christ, or Truth, makes all things possible to Spirit; but the so-called laws of matter would render Spirit of no avail, and demand obedience to materialistic codes, thus departing from the basis of one God, one lawmaker.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 182:30–4)

Truth never destroys God’s idea. ... Corporeal sense, or error, may seem to hide Truth, health, harmony, and Science, as the mist obscures the sun or the mountain; but Science, the sunshine of Truth, will melt away the shadow and reveal the celestial peaks.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 299:24 (only), 26)

When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 495:14)

Then hold your ground with the unshaken understanding of Truth and Love, and you will win.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 417:14–16)

Truth is always the victor. Sickness and sin fall by their own weight. Truth is the rock of ages, the headstone of the corner, “but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.”
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 380:4)

The Healing Power of Meekness and Humility

Wednesday Bible Readings

December 4th, 2024

From The Bible

For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. ...

I have seen his ways, and will heal him: ...
(Isaiah 57:15, 18 (to :))

¶ Wherewith shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?
(Micah 6:6–8)

At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
(Matthew 18:1–5)

Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. ...

But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.
(Matthew 23:1–4, 8–12)

... when Mary was come where Jesus was, and saw him, she fell down at his feet, saying unto him, Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled, And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto him, Lord, come and see. ...

Jesus therefore again groaning in himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. ...

Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.
(John 11:32–34 when, 38, 40–44)

Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. ...

I can of mine own self do nothing: ...
(John 5:19, 30 (to 1st :))

¶ When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: ...

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungered, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
(Matthew 25:31, 34–40)

¶ And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. ...

And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.
(Matthew 8:5–10, 13)

¶ Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
(Matthew 11:28–30)

Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering; Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
(Colossians 3:12, 13)

... the meek shall inherit the earth; ...
(Psalms 37:11 the (to ;))

By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, and honour, and life.
(Proverbs 22:4)

A higher and more practical Christianity, demonstrating justice and meeting the needs of mortals in sickness and in health, stands at the door of this age, knocking for admission. Will you open or close the door upon this angel visitant, who cometh in the quiet of meekness, as he came of old to the patriarch at noonday?
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 224:22)

If we would open their prison doors for the sick, we must first learn to bind up the broken-hearted. If we would heal by the Spirit, we must not hide the talent of spiritual healing under the napkin of its form, nor bury the morale of Christian Science in the grave-clothes of its letter. The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love.

This is what is meant by seeking Truth, Christ, not “for the loaves and fishes,” nor, like the Pharisee, with the arrogance of rank and display of scholarship, but like Mary Magdalene, from the summit of devout consecration, with the oil of gladness and the perfume of gratitude, with tears of repentance and with those hairs all numbered by the Father.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 366:30–16)

When the human element in him struggled with the divine, our great Teacher said: “Not my will, but Thine, be done!” — that is, Let not the flesh, but the Spirit, be represented in me. This is the new understanding of spiritual Love. It gives all for Christ, or Truth. It blesses its enemies, heals the sick, casts out error, raises the dead from trespasses and sins, and preaches the gospel to the poor, the meek in heart.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 33:18)

Praying for humility with whatever fervency of expression does not always mean a desire for it. If we turn away from the poor, we are not ready to receive the reward of Him who blesses the poor. ...

We should examine ourselves and learn what is the affection and purpose of the heart, for in this way only can we learn what we honestly are.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 8:20–24, 28–30)

If we feel the aspiration, humility, gratitude, and love which our words express, — this God accepts; ...
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 8:14–16 (to ;))

... God knows our need before we tell Him or our fellow-beings about it. If we cherish the desire honestly and silently and humbly, God will bless it, and we shall incur less risk of overwhelming our real wishes with a torrent of words.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 13:15 God)

We can do more for ourselves by humble fervent petitions, but the All-loving does not grant them simply on the ground of lip-service, for He already knows all.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 2:11)

Spirit diversifies, classifies, and individualizes all thoughts, which are as eternal as the Mind conceiving them; but the intelligence, existence, and continuity of all individuality remain in God, who is the divinely creative Principle thereof. ...

God creates all forms of reality. His thoughts are spiritual realities.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 513:17, 26–27)

Mind, joyous in strength, dwells in the realm of Mind. Mind’s infinite ideas run and disport themselves. In humility they climb the heights of holiness.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 514:6)

It is neither Science nor Truth which acts through blind belief, nor is it the human understanding of the divine healing Principle as manifested in Jesus, whose humble prayers were deep and conscientious protests of Truth, — of man’s likeness to God and of man’s unity with Truth and Love.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 12:10)

There is no power apart from God. Omnipotence has all-power, and to acknowledge any other power is to dishonor God. The humble Nazarene overthrew the supposition that sin, sickness, and death have power. He proved them powerless.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 228:25–29 (to 2nd .))

Teach the great possibilities of man endued with divine Science. Teach the dangerous possibility of dwarfing the spiritual understanding and demonstration of Truth by sin, or by recourse to material means for healing. Teach the meekness and might of life “hid with Christ in God,” and there will be no desire for other healing methods.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 445:9–15)

A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive. The new idea, conceived and born of Truth and Love, is clad in white garments. Its beginning will be meek, its growth sturdy, and its maturity undecaying. ... By this we know that Truth is here and has fulfilled its perfect work.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 463:12–16, 19)

... my father asked me to help him, as he was suffering so much from constipation, dyspepsia, and neuralgia. He had been subsisting on bran, nearly starving himself until he was most miserable, and his limbs seemed so cold that they were kept wrapped in blankets. I felt very humble as he asked me, and told him I would have a practitioner help him, as I had never treated any one; but he would not consent to have any one but myself, and I finally told him I would try, but that he must not hold Science responsible if he were not benefited, for my lack of understanding, and not Science, would be at fault. At my request he read Science and Health, ate whatever he wanted, and used no medicine in any form. After two treatments I received word from him that he was healed of that bondage of thirty years’ standing. In view of all these signs which followed my acceptance of Christian Science, I knew it must be true. — R. L. A., Chicago, Ill.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 687:14 my)

Trust the Eternal when the shadows gather, / When joys of daylight seem so like a dream; / God the unchanging pities like a father; / Trust on and wait, the daystar yet shall gleam.

Trust the Eternal, for the clouds that vanish / No more can move the mountains from their base / Than sin’s illusive wreaths of mist can banish / Light from His throne or loving from His face.

Trust the Eternal, and repent in meekness / Of that heart’s pride which frowns and will not / yield, / Then to thy child-heart shall come strength in weakness, / And thine immortal life shall be revealed.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 359)

Shepherd, show me how to go / O’er the hillside steep, / How to gather, how to sow,— / How to feed Thy sheep; / I will listen for Thy voice, / Lest my footsteps stray; / I will follow and rejoice / All the rugged way.

Thou wilt bind the stubborn will, / Wound the callous breast, / Make self-righteousness be still, / Break earth’s stupid rest. / Strangers on a barren shore, / Lab’ring long and lone, / We would enter by the door, / And Thou know’st Thine own;

So, when day grows dark and cold, / Tear or triumph harms, / Lead Thy lambkins to the fold, / Take them in Thine arms; / Feed the hungry, heal the heart, / Till the morning’s beam; / White as wool, ere they depart, / Shepherd, wash them clean.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 574)

O dreamer, leave thy dreams for joyful waking, / O captive, rise and sing, for thou art free; / The Christ is here, all dreams of error breaking, / Unloosing bonds of all captivity.

He comes to bless thee on his wings of healing; / To banish pain, and wipe all tears away; / He comes anew, to humble hearts revealing / The mounting footsteps of the upward way.

He comes to give thee joy for desolation, / Beauty for ashes of the vanished years; / For every tear to bring full compensation, / To give thee confidence for all thy fears.

He comes to call the dumb to joyful singing; / The deaf to hear; the blinded eyes to see; / The glorious tidings of salvation bringing. / O captive, rise, thy Saviour comes to thee.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 412)

Bringing your Gift to the Altar

Wednesday Bible Readings

November 27th, 2024

From The Bible

Ps. 68:4 (to :), 19 who (to 2nd ,)

Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: ...who daily loadeth us with benefits, ...

James 1:17, 18

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Ps. 34:3

O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.

Ps. 103:2 and, 3, 4 2nd who

... and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; ... who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies;

Acts 10:38 God; 20:35 remember

... God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. ... remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Matt. 10:1, 5 and (to 3rd ,), 8

And when he had called unto him his twelve disciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. ... and commanded them, saying, ...Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

Luke 6:38 (to 5th ,), 38 For

Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, ... For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.

Matt. 18:21, 22

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

Luke 4:4 (to 2nd ,)

And Jesus answered him, saying, ...

Matt. 18:23 the, 24, 26–28 (to :), 29, 30 (to ,), 32 (to 1st ,), 32 said (to 4th ,), 33, 34 (to 2nd ,), 35

... the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king, which would take account of his servants. And when he had begun to reckon, one was brought unto him, which owed him ten thousand talents. ...The servant therefore fell down, and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt. But the same servant went out, and found one of his fellow-servants, which owed him an hundred pence: ... And his fellow-servant fell down at his feet, and besought him, saying, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, ... Then his lord, ... said unto him, O thou wicked servant, ... Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow-servant, even as I had pity on thee? And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, ... So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.

Matt. 5:22 (to 1st :), 23, 24

But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: ... Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath aught against thee; Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

II Cor. 9:7

Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loveth a cheerful giver.

Matt. 5:1 (to 1st he), 2 taught, 7; 6:9 (to ,), 10 2nd Thy, 12; 7:12

And seeing the multitudes, he ... taught them, saying, ... Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. ... After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, ... Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. ...
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. ... Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

Col. 3:12 (to 6th ,), 13 (to 2nd ,), 13 even, 15 (to ,), 15 2nd and

Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, ... Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, ... even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. ...And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, ... and be ye thankful.

Eph. 2:8

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God

SH 17:6 forgive

... forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. /And Love is reflected in love; ...

SH 11:1 Jesus’, 8–10

Jesus’ prayer, “Forgive us our debts,” specified also the terms of forgiveness. When forgiving the adulterous woman he said, “Go, and sin no more.” ...
... The moral law, which has the right to acquit or condemn, always demands restitution before mortals can “go up higher.”

SH 22:3

Vibrating like a pendulum between sin and the hope of forgiveness, — selfishness and sensuality causing constant retrogression, — our moral progress will be slow. Waking to Christ’s demand, mortals experience suffering. This causes them, even as drowning men, to make vigorous efforts to save themselves; and through Christ’s precious love these efforts are crowned with success.

SH 262:10

We must reverse our feeble flutterings — our efforts to find life and truth in matter — and rise above the testimony of the material senses, above the mortal to the immortal idea of God. These clearer, higher views inspire the Godlike man to reach the absolute centre and circumference of his being.

SH 276:19

When we learn in Science how to be perfect even as our Father in heaven is perfect, thought is turned into new and healthy channels, — towards the contemplation of things immortal and away from materiality to the Principle of the universe, including harmonious man.

SH 518:13–20 (to 3rd ,)

God gives the lesser idea of Himself for a link to the greater, and in return, the higher always protects the lower. The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother’s need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another’s good. Love giveth to the least spiritual idea might, immortality, and goodness, ...

SH 469:30–5

With one Father, even God, the whole family of man would be brethren; and with one Mind and that God, or good, the brotherhood of man would consist of Love and Truth, and have unity of Principle and spiritual power which constitute divine Science.

SH 276:1

Having one God, one Mind, unfolds the power that heals the sick, and fulfils these sayings of Scripture, “I am the Lord that healeth thee,” and “I have found a ransom.” When the divine precepts are understood, they unfold the foundation of fellowship, in which one mind is not at war with another, but all have one Spirit, God, one intelligent source, in accordance with the Scriptural command: “Let this Mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Man and his Maker are correlated in divine Science, and real consciousness is cognizant only of the things of God.

SH 112:16–20 (to ;), 32–2 As (to be); 113:2–3 rules, 5–6

From the infinite One in Christian Science comes one Principle and its infinite idea, and with this infinitude come spiritual rules, laws, and their demonstration, which, like the great Giver, are “the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever;” ... As there is but one God, there can be but one divine Principle of all Science; and there must be ... rules for the demonstration of this divine Principle. ... The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love.

SH 260:7

The conceptions of mortal, erring thought must give way to the ideal of all that is perfect and eternal. Through many generations human beliefs will be attaining diviner conceptions, and the immortal and perfect model of God’s creation will finally be seen as the only true conception of being.

SH 387:27

The history of Christianity furnishes sublime proofs of the supporting influence and protecting power bestowed on man by his heavenly Father, omnipotent Mind, who gives man faith and understanding whereby to defend himself, not only from temptation, but from bodily suffering.

SH 19:6

Jesus aided in reconciling man to God by giving man a truer sense of Love, the divine Principle of Jesus’ teachings, and this truer sense of Love redeems man from the law of matter, sin, and death by the law of Spirit, — the law of divine Love.

SH 192:27

We walk in the footsteps of Truth and Love by following the example of our Master in the understanding of divine metaphysics. Christianity is the basis of true healing. Whatever holds human thought in line with unselfed love, receives directly the divine power.

SH 454:17–18, 19–21

Love for God and man is the true incentive in both healing and teaching. ... Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action.

SH 138:17–18, 27–2

Jesus established in the Christian era the precedent for all Christianity, theology, and healing. ...Our Master said to every follower: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature! . . . Heal the sick! . . . Love thy neighbor as thyself!” It was this theology of Jesus which healed the sick and the sinning. It is his theology in this book and the spiritual meaning of this theology, which heals the sick and causes the wicked to “forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts.”

SH vii:27–2 (to ;)

Since the author’s discovery of the might of Truth in the treatment of disease as well as of sin, her system has been fully tested and has not been found wanting; ...

SH x:15–17

By thousands of well-authenticated cases of healing, she and her students have proved the worth of her teachings.

SH 55:15–16, 22

Truth’s immortal idea is sweeping down the centuries, gathering beneath its wings the sick and sinning. ... The time for the reappearing of the divine healing is throughout all time; and whosoever layeth his earthly all on the altar of divine Science, drinketh of Christ’s cup now, and is endued with the spirit and power of Christian healing.

SH 600:6–7 (to republished)

For the assurance and encouragement of the reader, a few of these letters are here republished ...

SH 621:9–11, 20–23 (to ,), 29–30 after; 622:12–16, 17

For fifteen years I was a great sufferer physically and mentally. Eminent physicians treated me for hereditary consumption, torpid liver, and many other diseases. ...  Sick, weary, doubting, and despairing, I accidentally went into a Christian Science church in New York City, on a Wednesday evening, ... after investigation I procured a copy of Science and Health, promising I would read it carefully. ... Many things were made plain to me. I saw that there is one Fatherhood of God and one brotherhood of man; that though “once I was blind, now I see;” that there was no more pain, nor aches, no fear, nor indigestion. ... There are now no traces whatever of my former complaint and I feel like a new being. — L. P., New York, N. Y.

SH 691:18–19; 692:5–10, 11, 19–21, 24–26; 693:9 A

Words cannot express my gratitude to God for Christian Science. ... When I read, “Give us this day our daily bread,” and its spiritual interpretation, my tears began to flow; all the years of bitterness, hate, and fear melted away. I knew then, as I know now, that nothing satisfies but Love. That day began the outward and inward conscious healing, — mental and physical. ... I absolutely knew that Christian Science was and is the truth. Money, friends, materiality, are nothing beside the conscious knowledge of God, man, and the universe.
... For ten years I have not had to lie down in the daytime from any sickness. I am now, and have been all these years, the picture of perfect health. ... This physical health is not to be compared to my happiness, — my harmony that nothing can take away, — because it is the gift of God. ... A. C. L., Kansas City, Kans.

SH 684:18–19 (to ,); 686:4

I became interested in Christian Science some five years ago, ... I have since seen the power of Truth overcome error of many forms, including croup, whooping-cough, tonsilitis, etc. I am thankful for all these proofs, but far more grateful am I for the spiritual teaching to love, to forgive, to curb my tongue, and cease my criticism. — M. A. H., Brockton, Mass.

Hymn. 585

This is the day the Lord has made; / Be glad, give thanks, rejoice; / Stand in God’s presence, unafraid, / In praise lift up your voice. / All perfect gifts are from above, / And all our blessings show / The amplitude of God’s dear love / Which every heart may know.

The Lord will hear before we call, / And every need supply; / Good things are freely given to all / Who on God’s word rely. / We come today to bring Love praise / Not for such gifts alone, / But for the higher, deeper ways / In which God’s love is shown.

For sin destroyed, for sorrow healed, / For health and peace restored; / For Life and Love by Truth revealed, / We thank and bless the Lord. / This is the day the Lord has made, / In praise lift up your voice. / In shining robes of joy arrayed, / Be glad, give thanks, rejoice.

Words: Laura Lee Randall, alt.

Music: Jonathan Roberts

Hymn. 163

Jesus, what precept is like thine: / Forgive, as ye would be forgiven; / If heeded, O what power divine / Would then transform our earth to heaven.

So from our hearts must ever flow / A love that will all wrong outweigh; / Our lips must only blessings know, / And wrath and sin shall die away.

For it is Mind’s most holy plan / To bring the wanderer back by love; / Then let us win our brother man, / And glorify our God above.

Words: Mary A. Livermore, adapted

Music: Ralph Harrison

Hymn. 310

Sing, ye joyous children, sing, / Glorious is the Christ, our king, / Truth has come again to earth, / Through the lowly Saviour’s birth. / Men and angels, anthems raise; / Hymns of joy and shouts of praise. / Hear th’ angelic song again: / Peace on earth, good will to men. / Sing, ye joyous children, sing, / Glorious is the Christ, our king.

When the stars together sang, / Then the Truth triumphant rang: / Be there light; And there was light. / Gone are chaos, fear and night; / Truth hath rolled the mists away; / Dawns on earth harmonious day. / Hear th’ angelic song again: / Peace on earth, good will to men. / Sing, ye joyous children, sing, / Glorious is the Christ, our king.

Words: John Randall Dunn

Music: Mendelssohn—Cummings

Anchored in hope

Wednesday Bible Readings

November 13th, 2024

From The Bible

Rom. 15:4 whatsoever

... whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. 

Ps. 43:5

Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God. 

Ps. 130:7

Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. 

Ps. 61:1, 2, 8 (to ,); 62:1, 2 (to 2nd ;), 11

Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. ...So will I sing praise unto thy name for ever, … Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; ...God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God. 

Matt. 4:23 (to 1st ,), 24 2nd and

¶ And Jesus went about all Galilee, ... and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. 

Matt. 9:20–22

¶ And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment: For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour. 

Heb. 11:1

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 

Matt. 17:14 (to 1st And), 14 there, 15, 18–20

¶ And ... there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatic, and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. … And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out? And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. 

Gal. 5:5

For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. 

Rom. 5:5

And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. 

Acts 3:1 (to ,), 2, 3, 5–7 expecting (to :), 8, 11–13 (to 1st ,), 13 2nd the (to ;), 16 (to 1st ,), 16 yea

Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, … And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple; Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked an alms. ... expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: … And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God. … And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering. ¶ And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? The God of Abraham, ... the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; … And his name through faith in his name hath made this man strong, ... yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. 

Ps. 62:5

My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. 

John 13:36 (to ;); 14:1 (to :), 15, 16

¶ Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; … Let not your heart be troubled: ... ¶ If ye love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 

Lam. 3:26

It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. 

Heb. 6:10 God (to 1st ,), 11, 19

... God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, … And we desire that every one of you do shew the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end: … Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil; 

Rom. 15:13

Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

SH 361:25–27 (to ,)

A germ of infinite Truth, though least in the kingdom of heaven, is the higher hope on earth, ...

SH 588:7 (only, to ;)

Holy Ghost. Divine Science; ...

SH 107:1–3, 7–10; 108:3, 19–24 (to ;), 30

IN the year 1866, I discovered the Christ Science or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and named my discovery Christian Science. ...
This apodictical Principle points to the revelation of Immanuel, “God with us,” — the sovereign ever-presence, delivering the children of men from every ill “that flesh is heir to.” ... According to St. Paul, it was “the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of His power.” It was the divine law of Life and Love, unfolding to me the demonstrable fact that matter possesses neither sensation nor life; that human experiences show the falsity of all material things; and that immortal cravings, “the price of learning love,” establish the truism that the only sufferer is mortal mind, for the divine Mind cannot suffer. … When apparently near the confines of mortal existence, standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, I learned these truths in divine Science: that all real being is in God, the divine Mind, and that Life, Truth, and Love are all-powerful and ever-present; … My discovery, that erring, mortal, misnamed mind produces all the organism and action of the mortal body, set my thoughts to work in new channels, and led up to my demonstration of the proposition that Mind is All and matter is naught as the leading factor in Mind-science. 

SH 109:11–13 (to ,), 15–16 (to ,), 16–24, 28–29, 31 John

For three years after my discovery, I sought the solution of this problem of Mind-healing, searched the Scriptures and read little else, ... The search was sweet, calm, and buoyant with hope, ...I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration. The revelation of Truth in the understanding came to me gradually and apparently through divine power. …  Jesus once said of his lessons: “My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me. ... (John vii. 16, 17.) 

SH xi:1–7 (to 1st ,), 9–14

Many imagine that the phenomena of physical healing in Christian Science present only a phase of the action of the human mind, which action in some unexplained way results in the cure of disease. On the contrary, Christian Science rationally explains that all other pathological methods are the fruits of human faith in matter, … The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus’ time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation. 

SH 332:19 Jesus

... Jesus demonstrated Christ; he proved that Christ is the divine idea of God — the Holy Ghost, or Comforter, revealing the divine Principle, Love, and leading into all truth. 

SH 171:14

Jesus illustrated the divine Principle and the power of immortal Mind by healing sickness and sin and destroying the foundations of death. 

SH x:22–23

The divine Principle of healing is proved in the personal experience of any sincere seeker of Truth. 

SH 152:5

The author has endeavored to make this book the Æsculapius of mind as well as of body, that it may give hope to the sick and heal them, although they know not how the work is done. Truth has a healing effect, even when not fully understood. 

SH 40:25–28, 31

Our heavenly Father, divine Love, demands that all men should follow the example of our Master and his apostles and not merely worship his personality. … The nature of Christianity is peaceful and blessed, but in order to enter into the kingdom, the anchor of hope must be cast beyond the veil of matter into the Shekinah into which Jesus has passed before us; and this advance beyond matter must come through the joys and triumphs of the righteous as well as through their sorrows and afflictions. Like our Master, we must depart from material sense into the spiritual sense of being. 

SH 298:4–7 (to Science), 13–17 (to 2nd ,), 17–18 never, 20–21 (to 1st ,), 21–23 start (to 2nd ,)

As a cloud hides the sun it cannot extinguish, so false belief silences for a while the voice of immutable harmony, but false belief cannot destroy Science ...Spiritual sense, contradicting the material senses, involves intuition, hope, faith, understanding, fruition, reality. Material sense expresses the belief that mind is in matter. This human belief, alternating between a sense of pleasure and pain, hope and fear, ... never reaches beyond the boundary of the mortal or the unreal. ... Spiritual ideas, ... start from Principle, and admit no materialistic beliefs. Spiritual ideas lead up to their divine origin, God, ...

SH 12:1–9 (to ,), 10–11 (to ,)

“The prayer of faith shall save the sick,” says the Scripture. What is this healing prayer? A mere request that God will heal the sick has no power to gain more of the divine presence than is always at hand. The beneficial effect of such prayer for the sick is on the human mind, making it act more powerfully on the body through a blind faith in God. This, however, is one belief casting out another, ... It is neither Science nor Truth which acts through blind belief, ...

SH 167:3–7

If we rise no higher than blind faith, the Science of healing is not attained, and Soul-existence, in the place of sense-existence, is not comprehended. We apprehend Life in divine Science only as we live above corporeal sense and correct it. 

SH 368:10

Against the fatal beliefs that error is as real as Truth, that evil is equal in power to good if not superior, and that discord is as normal as harmony, even the hope of freedom from the bondage of sickness and sin has little inspiration to nerve endeavor. When we come to have more faith in the truth of being than we have in error, more faith in Spirit than in matter, more faith in living than in dying, more faith in God than in man, then no material suppositions can prevent us from healing the sick and destroying error. 

SH 1:-10

For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. 

SH 297:20–24

Faith is higher and more spiritual than belief. It is a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual evidence, contradicting the testimony of material sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the ever-present, is becoming understood. 

SH 279:3

A New Testament writer plainly describes faith, a quality of mind, as “the substance of things hoped for.” 

SH 278:32–3

Which ought to be substance to us, — the erring, changing, and dying, the mutable and mortal, or the unerring, immutable, and immortal? 

SH 468:17–22 Substance

... Substance is that which is eternal and incapable of discord and decay. Truth, Life, and Love are substance, as the Scriptures use this word in Hebrews: “The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Spirit, the synonym of Mind, Soul, or God, is the only real substance. 

SH 301:6–13

To himself, mortal and material man seems to be substance, but his sense of substance involves error and therefore is material, temporal. 
On the other hand, the immortal, spiritual man is really substantial, and reflects the eternal substance, or Spirit, which mortals hope for. He reflects the divine, which constitutes the only real and eternal entity. 

SH 496:15

Hold perpetually this thought, — that it is the spiritual idea, the Holy Ghost and Christ, which enables you to demonstrate, with scientific certainty, the rule of healing, based upon its divine Principle, Love, underlying, overlying, and encompassing all true being. 

SH 393:32

It is well to be calm in sickness; to be hopeful is still better; but to understand that sickness is not real and that Truth can destroy its seeming reality, is best of all, for this understanding is the universal and perfect remedy. 

SH 253:9–14

I hope, dear reader, I am leading you into the understanding of your divine rights, your heaven-bestowed harmony, — that, as you read, you see there is no cause (outside of erring, mortal, material sense which is not power) able to make you sick or sinful; and I hope that you are conquering this false sense. 

SH 125:12–16

As human thought changes from one stage to another of conscious pain and painlessness, sorrow and joy, — from fear to hope and from faith to understanding, — the visible manifestation will at last be man governed by Soul, not by material sense. 

SH 45:17

Christ hath rolled away the stone from the door of human hope and faith, and through the revelation and demonstration of life in God, hath elevated them to possible at-one-ment with the spiritual idea of man and his divine Principle, Love. 

Hymn. 437

All my hope on God is founded; / Day by day my trust is new. / Through the trials of life He guides me, / Only good and only true. / God alone, dearly known, / Calls my heart to be His own. 

Earthly treasures, pride and glory, / Human power and worldly trust, / Though with care and toil are builded, / In the end will fall to dust. / But God’s power, hour by hour, / Is my temple and my tower. 

Daily does th’almighty Giver / Bounteous gifts on us bestow. / Love’s desire our soul delighteth, / Joy attends us where we go. / Blessings stand at God’s hand, / Healing flows at Love’s command. 

Now from man to God eternal / Endless thanks and praise be sung. / Hearts made new are anthems raising / Through the love of Christ, His Son. / Hear God’s call, one and all, / We who follow shall not fall. 

Words: Joachim Neander; tr. Robert Bridges; adapt. Fenella Bennetts, alt.

Music: Herbert Howells

Hymn. 518

Know, O child, your full salvation; / Rise o’er sin and fear and care; / Joy to find, in every station, / Something still to do, or bear. 

Think what spirit dwells within you; / Think what Father’s smiles are yours; / Think what Jesus did to show you: / Spirit’s promise lifts, restores. 

Hasten on from grace to glory, / Armed with faith and winged with prayer; / Heaven’s eternal day before you / God’s own hand shall guide you there. 

So fulfill your holy mission, / Safely pass through pilgrim-days, / Hope shall grow to full fruition, / Faith to sight and prayer to praise. 

Words: Henry Francis Lyte, adapt. alt.

Music: Nicholas P. Schliapin

Hymn. 508

I’ve got peace like a river, / I’ve got peace like a river, / I’ve got peace like a river in my soul. 

I’ve got joy like a fountain, / I’ve got joy like a fountain, / I’ve got joy like a fountain in my soul. 

I’ve got love like an ocean, / I’ve got love like an ocean, / I’ve got love like an ocean in my soul. 

I’ve got faith like an anchor, / I’ve got faith like an anchor, / I’ve got faith like an anchor in my soul. 

Words: African American spiritual

Music: African American spiritual; harm. CSPS

Topic is Right is Radical

Wednesday Bible Readings

november 6th, 2024

From The Bible

And God spake all these words, saying, I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: ...

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; ...
(Exodus 20:1–5 (to :), 7 (to ;))

These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel ...
(Deuteronomy 1:1 (to Israel))

Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the LORD my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the LORD our God is in all things that we call upon him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day?
(Deuteronomy 4:5–8)

¶ And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. ...

And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.
(Matthew 8:5–10, 13)

... Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judæa, and from beyond Jordan.
(Matthew 4:23–25 Jesus)

And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
(Matthew 5:1, 2)

¶ Again, ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths: But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool: neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. ...

... ¶ Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. ¶ Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
(Matthew 5:33–35, 38–48)

Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
(Matthew 22:35–40)

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. ...

Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

... now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
(Romans 13:8, 10, 11 2nd now, 12)

It is not wise to take a halting and half-way position or to expect to work equally with Spirit and matter, Truth and error. There is but one way — namely, God and His idea — which leads to spiritual being. The scientific government of the body must be attained through the divine Mind. It is impossible to gain control over the body in any other way. On this fundamental point, timid conservatism is absolutely inadmissible. Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 167:22)

The conservative theory, long believed, is that there are two factors, matter and mind, uniting on some impossible basis. This theory would keep truth and error always at war. Victory would perch on neither banner. On the other hand, Christian Science speedily shows Truth to be triumphant. To corporeal sense, the sun appears to rise and set, and the earth to stand still; but astronomical science contradicts this, and explains the solar system as working on a different plan. All the evidence of physical sense and all the knowledge obtained from physical sense must yield to Science, to the immortal truth of all things.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 492:29)

Right is radical. ... We soil our garments with conservatism, and afterwards we must wash them clean. When the spiritual sense of Truth unfolds its harmonies, you take no risks in the policy of error.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 452:18 (only), 20–23)

The belief of sin, which has grown terrible in strength and influence, is an unconscious error in the beginning, — an embryonic thought without motive; but afterwards it governs the so-called man. Passion, depraved appetites, dishonesty, envy, hatred, revenge ripen into action, only to pass from shame and woe to their final punishment.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 188:4)

To break this earthly spell, mortals must get the true idea and divine Principle of all that really exists and governs the universe harmoniously. This thought is apprehended slowly, and the interval before its attainment is attended with doubts and defeats as well as triumphs.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 39:25)

The world could not interpret aright the discomfort which Jesus inspired and the spiritual blessings which might flow from such discomfort. Science shows the cause of the shock so often produced by the truth, — namely, that this shock arises from the great distance between the individual and Truth.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 53:16–21)

Who is ready to follow his teaching and example? All must sooner or later plant themselves in Christ, the true idea of God. That he might liberally pour his dear-bought treasures into empty or sin-filled human storehouses, was the inspiration of Jesus’ intense human sacrifice. In witness of his divine commission, he presented the proof that Life, Truth, and Love heal the sick and the sinning, and triumph over death through Mind, not matter. This was the highest proof he could have offered of divine Love.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 54:8–17)

He to whom “the arm of the Lord” is revealed will believe our report, and rise into newness of life with regeneration. This is having part in the atonement; this is the understanding, in which Jesus suffered and triumphed. The time is not distant when the ordinary theological views of atonement will undergo a great change, — a change as radical as that which has come over popular opinions in regard to predestination and future punishment.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 24:11)

The history of our country, like all history, illustrates the might of Mind, and shows human power to be proportionate to its embodiment of right thinking. A few immortal sentences, breathing the omnipotence of divine justice, have been potent to break despotic fetters and abolish the whipping-post and slave market; but oppression neither went down in blood, nor did the breath of freedom come from the cannon’s mouth. Love is the liberator.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 225:14)

God has built a higher platform of human rights, and He has built it on diviner claims. These claims are not made through code or creed, but in demonstration of “on earth peace, good-will toward men.” Human codes, scholastic theology, material medicine and hygiene, fetter faith and spiritual understanding. Divine Science rends asunder these fetters, and man’s birthright of sole allegiance to his Maker asserts itself.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 226:14)

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” (Exodus xx. 3.) The First Commandment is my favorite text. It demonstrates Christian Science. It inculcates the tri-unity of God, Spirit, Mind; it signifies that man shall have no other spirit or mind but God, eternal good, and that all men shall have one Mind. The divine Principle of the First Commandment bases the Science of being, by which man demonstrates health, holiness, and life eternal. One infinite God, good, unifies men and nations; constitutes the brotherhood of man; ends wars; fulfils the Scripture, “Love thy neighbor as thyself;” annihilates pagan and Christian idolatry, — whatever is wrong in social, civil, criminal, political, and religious codes; equalizes the sexes; annuls the curse on man, and leaves nothing that can sin, suffer, be punished or destroyed.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 340:15)

The Christian Scientist wisely shapes his course, and is honest and consistent in following the leadings of divine Mind. He must prove, through living as well as healing and teaching, that Christ’s way is the only one by which mortals are radically saved from sin and sickness.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 458:25 The)

Thousands of letters could be presented in testimony of the healing efficacy of Christian Science and particularly concerning the vast number of people who have been reformed and healed through the perusal or study of this book.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 600:1)

I was a great sufferer from a serious form of rheumatic trouble, my hands being affected to such an extent that it was impossible for me even to dress without assistance. ... I became very lame and had to be assisted in and out of bed. ... I then consulted a celebrated specialist, who after a thorough examination said my condition would continue to grow worse and that I would become completely helpless.

At that time a copy of “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mrs. Eddy was loaned me. ... As the truth was unfolded to me, I realized that the mental condition was what needed correcting, and that the Spirit of truth which inspired this book was my physician. My healing is complete, and the liberation in thought is manifest in a life of active usefulness rather than the bondage of helpless invalidism and suffering. ... E. B. B., Pasadena, Cal.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 600:12–14, 15–16 I; 601:3–8, 10–15, 22 E)

O, sometimes gleams upon our sight, / Through present wrong, th’ eternal right; / And step by step, since time began, / We see the steady gain of man.

For all of good the past hath had / Remains to make our own time glad, / Our common, daily life divine, / And every land a Palestine.

Through the harsh noises of our day, / A low sweet prelude finds its way; / Through clouds of doubt and creeds of fear / A light is breaking, calm and clear.

Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more / For olden time and holier shore: / God’s love and blessing, then and there, / Are now and here and everywhere.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 239)

O gentle presence, peace and joy and power; / O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour, / Thou Love that guards the nestling’s faltering flight! / Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.

Love is our refuge; only with mine eye / Can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall: / His habitation high is here, and nigh, / His arm encircles me, and mine, and all.

O make me glad for every scalding tear, / For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain! / Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear / No ill,—since God is good, and loss is gain.

Beneath the shadow of His mighty wing; / In that sweet secret of the narrow way, / Seeking and finding, with the angels sing: / “Lo, I am with you alway,”—watch and pray.

No snare, no fowler, pestilence or pain; / No night drops down upon the troubled breast, / When heaven’s aftersmile earth’s tear-drops gain, / And mother finds her home and heav’nly rest.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 539)

Rock of Ages, Truth divine, / Be Thy strength forever mine; / Let me rest secure on Thee, / Safe above life’s raging sea. / Rock of Ages, Truth divine, / Be Thy strength forever mine.

Rock of Truth, our fortress strong, / Thou our refuge from all wrong, / When from mortal sense I flee, / Let me hide myself in Thee. / Rock of Ages, Truth divine, / Be Thy strength forever mine.

Christ, the Truth, foundation sure, / On this rock we are secure; / Peace is there our life to fill, / Cure is there for every ill. / Rock of Ages, Truth divine, / Be Thy strength forever mine.
(Christian Science Hymnal, No. 293)

Unconditional Trust

Wednesday Bible Readings

October 17th, 2024

From The Bible

Psalms 42:8 the
... the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.

Psalms 112:1 Blessed, 7
... Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, that delighteth greatly in his commandments. ...
He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD.

Psalms 18:6 (to :)
In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: ...

Psalms 30:10
Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me: LORD, be thou my helper.

Psalms 69:13 my (to :), 16 (to :)
... my prayer is unto thee, O LORD, in an acceptable time: ...
Hear me, O LORD; for thy lovingkindness is good: ...

Psalms 112:8 (to 2nd ,)
His heart is established, he shall not be afraid, ...

Psalms 112:7 his
... his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD.

Daniel 3:1, 2, 4–6, 8, 12–14, 15–19 who (to he), 20, 21, 24–26 (to 1st .), 28 (to 7th ,)
Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and the breadth thereof six cubits: he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the princes, the governors, and the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counsellors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. ...
Then an herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, That at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up: And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. ...
... ¶ Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and accused the Jews. ...
There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed–nego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. ¶ Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed–nego. Then they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed–nego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?
... who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed–nego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. ¶ Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed–nego: therefore he ...
And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed–nego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and their other garments, and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. ...
Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. ¶ Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed–nego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither. ...
Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed–nego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, ...

I Timothy 2:5 there, 8
... there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; ...
I will therefore that men pray every where, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.

Matthew 14:22, 24–31
¶ And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. ...
But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

Mark 11:23
For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

Psalms 34:22
The LORD redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.

Psalms 91:2
I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

Proverbs 3:5, 25, 26
¶ Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. ...
Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh. For the LORD shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.

Hebrews 3:14
For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end;

Psalms 62:5–8
My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.

Psalms 46:1
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Science and Health 495:2–3
Truth casts out error now as surely as it did nineteen centuries ago.

Science and Health 494:15
The miracle of grace is no miracle to Love. Jesus demonstrated the inability of corporeality, as well as the infinite ability of Spirit, thus helping erring human sense to flee from its own convictions and seek safety in divine Science. Reason, rightly directed, serves to correct the errors of corporeal sense; but sin, sickness, and death will seem real (even as the experiences of the sleeping dream seem real) until the Science of man’s eternal harmony breaks their illusion with the unbroken reality of scientific being.

Science and Health 495:14–20, 28–31
When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious — as Life eternally is — can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. ...
... Adhere to the divine Principle of Christian Science and follow the behests of God, abiding steadfastly in wisdom, Truth, and Love.

Science and Health 234:26–27
You must control evil thoughts in the first instance, or they will control you in the second.

Science and Health 1:1–3 (to 2nd ,)
The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God, — a spiritual understanding of Him, ...

Science and Health 228:25–29 (to 2nd .)
There is no power apart from God. Omnipotence has all-power, and to acknowledge any other power is to dishonor God. The humble Nazarene overthrew the supposition that sin, sickness, and death have power. He proved them powerless.

Science and Health 23:23
One kind of faith trusts one’s welfare to others. Another kind of faith understands divine Love and how to work out one’s “own salvation, with fear and trembling.” “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief!” expresses the helplessness of a blind faith; whereas the injunction, “Believe . . . and thou shalt be saved!” demands self-reliant trustworthiness, which includes spiritual understanding and confides all to God.

Science and Health 567:3–6
These angels deliver us from the depths. Truth and Love come nearer in the hour of woe, when strong faith or spiritual strength wrestles and prevails through the understanding of God.

Science and Health 511:13
In the eternal Mind, no night is there.

Science and Health 70:5–6
Whatever is false or sinful can never enter the atmosphere of Spirit.

Science and Health 71:1
Nothing is real and eternal, — nothing is Spirit, — but God and His idea. Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense.

Science and Health 130:9–19
It is unwise to doubt if reality is in perfect harmony with God, divine Principle, — if Science, when understood and demonstrated, will destroy all discord, — since you admit that God is omnipotent; for from this premise it follows that good and its sweet concords have all-power.
Christian Science, properly understood, would disabuse the human mind of material beliefs which war against spiritual facts; and these material beliefs must be denied and cast out to make place for truth.

Science and Health 418:5–9
Stick to the truth of being in contradistinction to the error that life, substance, or intelligence can be in matter. Plead with an honest conviction of truth and a clear perception of the unchanging, unerring, and certain effect of divine Science.

Science and Health 419:4
Your true course is to destroy the foe, and leave the field to God, Life, Truth, and Love, remembering that God and His ideas alone are real and harmonious.

Science and Health 421:15–18 (to 1st .)
Insist vehemently on the great fact which covers the whole ground, that God, Spirit, is all, and that there is none beside Him.

Science and Health 234:9–12, 26–27, 31–3
We should become more familiar with good than with evil, and guard against false beliefs as watchfully as we bar our doors against the approach of thieves and murderers. ...
... You must control evil thoughts in the first instance, or they will control you in the second. ...
Evil thoughts and aims reach no farther and do no more harm than one’s belief permits. Evil thoughts, lusts, and malicious purposes cannot go forth, like wandering pollen, from one human mind to another, finding unsuspected lodgment, if virtue and truth build a strong defence.

Science and Health 174:9–14
The footsteps of thought, rising above material standpoints, are slow, and portend a long night to the traveller; but the angels of His presence — the spiritual intuitions that tell us when “the night is far spent, the day is at hand” — are our guardians in the gloom.

Science and Health 151:18 (only), 26
Fear never stopped being and its action. ... All that really exists is the divine Mind and its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found harmonious and eternal. The straight and narrow way is to see and acknowledge this fact, yield to this power, and follow the leadings of truth.

Science and Health 224:29
The power of God brings deliverance to the captive. No power can withstand divine Love. What is this supposed power, which opposes itself to God? Whence cometh it? What is it that binds man with iron shackles to sin, sickness, and death? Whatever enslaves man is opposed to the divine government. Truth makes man free.

Science and Health 66:10–14
Trials are proofs of God’s care. Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth.

Science and Health 275:6
The starting-point of divine Science is that God, Spirit, is All-in-all, and that there is no other might nor Mind, — that God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle.

Science and Health 537:15–16
Truth guards the gateway to harmony.

Science and Health 249:1, 6–9
Let us accept Science, relinquish all theories based on sense-testimony, give up imperfect models and illusive ideals; and so let us have one God, one Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence.
... Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy. Let us rejoice that we are subject to the divine “powers that be.”

Science and Health 444:10
Step by step will those who trust Him find that “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”

Hymn 201
O do not bar your mind
Against the light of good;
But open wide, let in the Word,
And Truth will be your food.

Truth will from error free
Your long enslaved mind,
And bring the light of liberty
Where it shall be enshrined.

Hid treasures it reveals
To all who know its power;
And all who will may light receive
In this most gracious hour.

Then open wide your heart
To Truth and Light and Love;
You then shall know your life is hid
With Christ in God above.

Words: Charles Parsons
Music: Henry J. Gauntlett

Hymn 240
O Spirit, source of light,
Thy grace is unconfined;
Dispel the gloomy shades of night,
Reveal the light of Mind.

Now to our eyes display
The truth Thy words reveal;
Cause us to run the heavenly way,
Delighting in Thy will.

Thy teachings make us know
The mysteries of Thy love;
The vanity of things below,
The joy of things above.

Words: Benjamin Beddome, adapted
Music: Arr. from G. F. Händel

Hymn 29
Breaking through the clouds of darkness,
Black with error, doubt, and fear;
Lighting up each somber shadow,
With a radiance soft and clear;
Filling every heart with gladness,
That its holy power feels,
Comes the Christian Science gospel,
Sin it kills and grief it heals.

Christlike in its benedictions,
Godlike in its strength sublime;
Conquering every subtle error,
With a meekness all divine,
It has gone across the ocean,
It is known in every land,
And our sisters and our brothers
Are united in one band.

Words: Florence L. Heywood
Music: Henry Smart

Keeping Watch

Wednesday Bible Readings

october 9th, 2024

From The Bible

I Kings 19:11 Go (to 4th ,), 11 a, 12

... Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, ... a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. 

Isa. 59:19 When

... When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him. 

Ps. 69:13 2nd O (to 5th ,), 14 (to 1st ,), 14 2nd and, 15 (to 2nd ,)

... O God, in the multitude of thy mercy hear me, ...
Deliver me out of the mire, ... and out of the deep waters. Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, ...

Gen. 6:13 (to 1st ,), 17 behold (to 5th ,), 18 (to ;)

And God said unto Noah, ...
behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, ...
But with thee will I establish my covenant; ...

Ps. 107:15, 20, 29, 30 so

Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! ...
He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions. ...
He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. 
... so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. 

Mark 1:9 it (to 2nd ,), 34 (to ;); 3:7 (to :)

... it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, ...
And he healed many that were sick of divers diseases, and cast out many devils; ...
But Jesus withdrew himself with his disciples to the sea: ...

Mark 4:37–40 (to ,), 40 how, 41 (to they), 41 said

And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full. And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish? And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. And he said unto them, ... how is it that ye have no faith? And they ... said one to another, What manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? 

Matt. 24:1 (to ,), 1 3rd and, 2 (to 1st ,), 2 verily, 3 2nd the (to 1st ?), 4 (to ,), 6 see (to ,), 7, 11, 34, 37, 42, 43

And Jesus went out, ... and his disciples came to him for to shew him the buildings of the temple. And Jesus said unto them, ... verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down. 
... the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? ...
And Jesus answered and said unto them, ... see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, ...
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. … And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. ...
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled. ...
But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. ...
... ¶ Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. 

Luke 21:36 (to 3rd ,)

Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, ...

I John 4:1

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. 

Eph. 5:14 Awake

... Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. 

Rev. 3:2 (to 1st ,)

Be watchful, ...

Rev. 12:7 (to :), 15, 16 (to 1st ,), 16 3rd and

And there was war in heaven: … And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, ... and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. 

Rev. 12:10 (to :)

And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: ...

Rev. 19:6 Alleluia

... Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.

SH 1:-1

Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him. — Christ Jesus. 

SH vii:1–2

To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings. 

SH 454:5–7 (to 2nd ,)

The understanding, even in a degree, of the divine All-power destroys fear, and plants the feet in the true path, ...

SH 254:10–12

When we wait patiently on God and seek Truth righteously, He directs our path. 

SH 180:27

The only way to this living Truth, which heals the sick, is found in the Science of divine Mind as taught and demonstrated by Christ Jesus. 

SH 162:9

The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind. 

SH 275:20

Divine metaphysics, as revealed to spiritual understanding, shows clearly that all is Mind, and that Mind is God, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, — that is, all power, all presence, all Science. Hence all is in reality the manifestation of Mind. 

SH 122:1–7

The evidence of the physical senses often reverses the real Science of being, and so creates a reign of discord, — assigning seeming power to sin, sickness, and death; but the great facts of Life, rightly understood, defeat this triad of errors, contradict their false witnesses, and reveal the kingdom of heaven, — the actual reign of harmony on earth. 

SH 494:19

Reason, rightly directed, serves to correct the errors of corporeal sense; but sin, sickness, and death will seem real (even as the experiences of the sleeping dream seem real) until the Science of man’s eternal harmony breaks their illusion with the unbroken reality of scientific being. 

SH 96:12–13, 15

This material world is even now becoming the arena for conflicting forces. ... The breaking up of material beliefs may seem to be famine and pestilence, want and woe, sin, sickness, and death, which assume new phases until their nothingness appears. These disturbances will continue until the end of error, when all discord will be swallowed up in spiritual Truth. 

SH 288:3

The suppositional warfare between truth and error is only the mental conflict between the evidence of the spiritual senses and the testimony of the material senses, and this warfare between the Spirit and flesh will settle all questions through faith in and the understanding of divine Love. 

SH 118:26

The definitions of material law, as given by natural science, represent a kingdom necessarily divided against itself, because these definitions portray law as physical, not spiritual. Therefore they contradict the divine decrees and violate the law of Love, in which nature and God are one and the natural order of heaven comes down to earth. 

SH 293:13–16, 21

The material so-called gases and forces are counterfeits of the spiritual forces of divine Mind, whose potency is Truth, whose attraction is Love, whose adhesion and cohesion are Life, perpetuating the eternal facts of being. ...
There is no vapid fury of mortal mind — expressed in earthquake, wind, wave, lightning, fire, bestial ferocity — and this so-called mind is self-destroyed. The manifestations of evil, which counterfeit divine justice, are called in the Scriptures, “The anger of the Lord.” In reality, they show the self-destruction of error or matter and point to matter’s opposite, the strength and permanency of Spirit. Christian Science brings to light Truth and its supremacy, universal harmony, the entireness of God, good, and the nothingness of evil. 

SH 369:5

In proportion as matter loses to human sense all entity as man, in that proportion does man become its master. He enters into a diviner sense of the facts, and comprehends the theology of Jesus as demonstrated in healing the sick, raising the dead, and walking over the wave. All these deeds manifested Jesus’ control over the belief that matter is substance, that it can be the arbiter of life or the constructor of any form of existence. 

SH 149:29–31

We need to understand the affirmations of divine Science, dismiss superstition, and demonstrate truth according to Christ. 

SH 182:32–4

The law of Christ, or Truth, makes all things possible to Spirit; but the so-called laws of matter would render Spirit of no avail, and demand obedience to materialistic codes, thus departing from the basis of one God, one lawmaker. 

SH 97:7–13

According to human belief, the lightning is fierce and the electric current swift, yet in Christian Science the flight of one and the blow of the other will become harmless. The more destructive matter becomes, the more its nothingness will appear, until matter reaches its mortal zenith in illusion and forever disappears. 

SH 480:1–2, 3–5 the

When the substance of Spirit appears in Christian Science, the nothingness of matter is recognized. ... the spirit of God is, and there is no place where God is not, evil becomes nothing, — the opposite of the something of Spirit. 

SH 592:22 (only, to .), 22 knowledge

Noah. ... knowledge of the nothingness of material things and of the immortality of all that is spiritual. 

SH 264:20–21

Spirit and its formations are the only realities of being. Matter disappears under the microscope of Spirit. 

SH 450:19–22

The Christian Scientist has enlisted to lessen evil, disease, and death; and he will overcome them by understanding their nothingness and the allness of God, or good. 

SH 568:13–15 (to :); 569:3

Revelation xii. 10–12. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ: ...
... Every mortal at some period, here or hereafter, must grapple with and overcome the mortal belief in a power opposed to God. 

SH 567:18–21 (to ,), 21–23 and

That false claim — that ancient belief, that old serpent whose name is devil (evil), claiming that there is intelligence in matter either to benefit or to injure men — is pure delusion, ... and it is cast out by Christ, Truth, the spiritual idea, and so proved to be powerless. 

SH 570:8–11 (to 1st ,), 11 2nd and, 18–21, 24

Revelation xii. 15, 16. And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood, after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood. And the earth helped the woman, ... and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth. 
... What if the old dragon should send forth a new flood to drown the Christ-idea? He can neither drown your voice with its roar, nor again sink the world into the deep waters of chaos and old night. ... The waters will be pacified, and Christ will command the wave. 

Hymn. 183

Make haste, O man, to do / Whatever must be done; / Thou hast no time to lose in sloth, / When all to Truth must come. 

The useful and the great, / The thing that never dies, / The silent toil that is not lost,— / Set these before thine eyes. 

Up, face the task and work; / Fling ease and self away; / This is no time for thee to sleep; / Up, watch, and work, and pray. 

Words: Horatius Bonar, adapted

Music: Mason and Webb’s Cantica Laudis, 1850

Hymn. 539

O gentle presence, peace and joy and power; / O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour, / Thou Love that guards the nestling’s faltering flight! / Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight. 

Love is our refuge; only with mine eye / Can I behold the snare, the pit, the fall: / His habitation high is here, and nigh, / His arm encircles me, and mine, and all. 

O make me glad for every scalding tear, / For hope deferred, ingratitude, disdain! / Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear / No ill,—since God is good, and loss is gain. 

Beneath the shadow of His mighty wing; / In that sweet secret of the narrow way, / Seeking and finding, with the angels sing: / “Lo, I am with you alway,”—watch and pray. 

No snare, no fowler, pestilence or pain; / No night drops down upon the troubled breast, / When heaven’s aftersmile earth’s tear-drops gain, / And mother finds her home and heav’nly rest. 

Words: Mary Baker Eddy

Music: Lisa Redfern; arr. CSPS

Hymn. 10

All power is given unto our Lord, / On Him we place reliance; / With truth from out His sacred word / We bid our foes defiance. / With Him we shall prevail, / Whatever may assail; / He is our shield and tower, / Almighty is His power; / His kingdom is forever. 

Rejoice, ye people, praise His name, / His care doth e’er surround us. / His love to error’s thralldom came, / And from its chains unbound us. / Our Lord is God alone, / No other power we own; / No other voice we heed, / No other help we need; / His kingdom is forever. 

O then give thanks to God on high, / Who life to all is giving; / The hosts of death before Him fly, / In Him we all are living. / Then let us know no fear, / Our King is ever near; / Our stay and fortress strong, / Our strength, our hope, our song; / His kingdom is forever. 

Words: Frederic W. Root based on hymn by Martin Luther

Music: Martin Luther