Category: Love/relationships

Unity of Our Human Family

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This week’s Christian Science Bible Lesson is called “Doctrine of Atonement”.  It has wonderful ideas about our oneness with God, good, and our unity with all of God’s ideas, man.  I found myself praying today for a sense of unity and peace between all religions, that we may work together realizing the same hopes and desires and seeing them fulfilled.

I had the privilege of working with an organization called Interfaith Youth Core founded in Chicago by Eboo Patel, an Indian Muslim.  He has a very inspiring and spiritually activating book called Acts of Faith.  There are wonderful ideas in it about the need to work together, to break down the barriers of ignorance and fear, and to get to know and support one another.  What he has found in his work with youth in interfaith groups is that each one’s faith is strengthened, not lost, through getting to know others in conversation and service.  Those who aren’t of a particular faith have also joined because they have perceived the need for religions not to be divided against each other.

The Christian Science Organization (CSO) at Northwestern University has sponsored an interfaith panel the last 2 years.  It has been very successful and well attended.  They had a sponsor from Christian Science and from these different faiths: Baha’i, Catholic, Hare Krishna, Buddhist, Islam and Evangelical Christian.  It was a joy to sit together and hear about everyone’s beliefs and faith, and realize we are more similar than we may think – all wanting universal harmony, health, balance and order.

The Bible says, “Christ is our peace. He made both Jews and Gentiles into one group. With his body, he broke down the barrier of hatred that divided us. He canceled the detailed rules of the Law so that he could create one new person out of the two groups, making peace” (Contemporary English Bible, Eph 2:14, 15).

Isn’t that beautiful!  The Christ gives us the true sense of God, of who and what God is and of God’s will – health, happiness, peace, and abundance for all creation as well as unity and brotherhood – and the true sense of who we are, God’s eternal image and likeness.   Spirit, God, made us in His/Her/It’s own image, therefore we are made in the image of Spirit, the image of Divinity.  The diversity of Spirit’s creation can be perceived through culture, race, and religion but these aren’t dividing lines or boundaries.  Each one of us is a whole and complete spiritual creation including masculine and feminine qualities and we reflect all of the infinitude of God.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus” (KJV, Gal 3:28).

Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer and founder of Christian Science in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, defines the Christ as universal, “the divine message from God to men speaking to the human consciousness. The Christ is incorporeal, spiritual, — yea, the divine image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses; the Way, the Truth, and the Life, healing the sick and casting out evils, destroying sin, disease, and death” (Science and Health, p. 332).

Yes, we have to come out from any materiality (or sin) and this is what enables us to live spiritually and gives us all of God, Infinite Spirit’s radiant blessings.  The Bible Lesson points out that we can’t go it alone.  We have to walk with God to be successful.  And walking with God enables us to more lovingly support each other in true brotherhood.

Mrs. Eddy also writes, prophetically:

“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, p. 340)

Wow!  That one infinite God, good, does a lot, clearing up all of our problems as a human race.

Malachi says, “Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother…” (KJV, Mal 2:10)

We can go forward with the spirit of love, patience, meekness, and humility in learning about one another – appreciating, respecting and being considerate.  We don’t need to be ignorant or fearful of each other, but can go live in love, peace, and faith in and an understanding of God, good.

Our Relationship With God

Published on by lindseybiggsLeave a comment

Each of us has an unchanging, permanent relationship with God.  God loves us, nurtures and cares for us, and supplies all that we need.  The Bible says, “God is of purer eyes than to behold evil” (KJV, Heb 1:13).  God is pure Spirit, divine Love, who is all intelligence, goodness, and perfection.  God is ever-present and constant in our lives.  In fact, God is our life.  God is Life itself therefore Life is free, infinite, spontaneous, and not bogged down by worry and fear.

Generally, every evil suggestion that comes to our thought is a lie about our relationship with God.  And being aware, or conscious, of this relationship naturally destroys the lie, which dissipates fear with peace and love and an assured sense of harmony.

When we feel our relationship with God, we can’t feel anything else.  We only feel the love, peace, joy and dominion that God is imparting to us each moment.

Mary Baker Eddy describes God as Mother, and coined the phrase Father-Mother as describing God’s whole nature.  She recognized God as Love and thus described God as representing Mother Love that we each know and feel in our hearts.

By constantly communing with this Mother Love in our heart and thoughts throughout the day, we are able to shield any evil suggestion or fear of limitation, ill-health, or lack.

Our relationship with God becomes the most important thing to us, which follows Jesus command “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength” (Mark 12:30).

The Book of Deuteronomy has many references to this:

“love the Lord thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway” (Deut 11:1).

“love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days” (Deut 30:20).

“I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply: and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in the land whither thou goest to possess it” (Deut 30:16).

This is really a protection and blessing to us.  It keeps us safe because it guards our thought, our life, our motives, and the direction in which we walk.  It in turn blesses everyone around us.  “…All whom your thoughts rest upon are thereby benefited” (Miscellany, Eddy, p. 210).

When we feel secure in our relationship with God we are kept safe, prosperous, fulfilled and satisfied.  Our relationships are effortless and harmonious because we have all the happiness and completeness we need in God.  Our bodies work more concordantly because we recognize God as Life and therefore the source and cause of our health.  And when we are on the pathway with Him/Her we can never be sick or lack what we need.  We have more fulfilling work because we are about our “Father’s business” (Luke 2:49) or our Mother’s business in this case – the business of loving and giving, of expressing our Mother Love.  “…Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matt 10:8).

So let’s start each day with our relationship to God – with our Mother Love – and see how that blesses our day and everyone around us.

Man is not the creator.

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When we think man is a creator, we think that man is responsible for creating health; he or she must have perfect genetics to make up the perfect child.  Man has to maintain and sustain himself through a job, money, right connections, exercise, healthy eating, and at the same time try to fulfill his own hopes and dreams.

This is a lot of stress on man.  And it has side-effects such as stubbornness, human will, manipulation, deceit, as well as selfishness, competition, and fear.

Fortunately, this picture is not accurate.

Spirit, God created man, perfect in His own image and likeness.  Man has all the qualities and characteristics to do and achieve that which he needs.  They are including in his being.  All of his hopes and aspirations are given to him by God and therefore fulfilled and satisfied through Him.  God blesses his children with beautiful relationships that are loving, kind, and caring.  God supplies all of man’s needs and wants because man’s purpose is to glorify and express God (Life, Truth, Love).  Man’s sufficiency comes from God.

“Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;”[i]

All beauty, fruitfulness and plenty come from God and are the attributes of His government.  There is no lack or limitation to the infinite, supreme, all good, God.

“And the Lord shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers to give thee.”[ii]

When we are conscious of this Truth, we are governed by divine Mind.  We hear God’s direction and are one with God’s thoughts, which are always good, lovely, assuring angel messages.  We are governed obediently, following and yielding to the divine will, which includes and blesses all with infinite intelligence.

“Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.”[iii]

So we can be reassured and rest in God’s love.  We can yield to this spiritual sense of things, which is telling us this truth each moment, uplifting and blessing us.

And we can make more space for God, Spirit, in our lives.  God, good, is already governing and controlling things.  Our duty is to be conscious and aware of this.  This takes daily prayer to quiet the limited human sense of things for the spiritual and true sense of what God sees and knows.  As we yield to this we will be governed by divine Mind and we will experience the fruits of this government in our lives.  This includes more consistent health, a greater sense of energy and purpose, better family relationships, a more stable structure, and abundant supply that comes with ease.

Spirit, which is infinite intelligence, governs all things perfectly and It’s reign is here and now.  Let’s yield to this in our thought and feel the blessings that are included for all mankind.

For more helpful ideas visit www.christianscience.com or read “Science and Health” by Mary Baker Eddy.

[i] The Holy Bible, King James Version, II Cor. 3:5

[ii] The Holy Bible, King James Version, Deut. 28:11

[iii] The Holy Bible, King James Version, Psalms 100:3