STAND FAST

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Gal 5:1) We must meet all our responsibilities without deviation – see that everything is your own Christ, being. Nothing inharmonious could enter God and man has his being in Spirit. This is where we stand fast. This is the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free!

“The enslavement of man is not legitimate.” (S&H 228:11 only) Are we letting mortal mind run us around? What is it that needs changed? What is it that requires a healing or a demonstration? Divine Mind knows nothing about lack or inharmony, so if we are acknowledging discord as a reality and then trying to heal it, we have been caught in the trap of mortal thinking and we may remain there.

“If sickness is true or the idea of Truth, you cannot destroy sickness, and it would be absurd to try.” (S&H 495:6 only) The law “God is All” is the same as saying to all forms of discord “you are not”. If we find ourselves vacillating between the Allness of God and the discords of the human mind, then our understanding is but a theory that must be demonstrated to be proven. Declare “He is all and there is nothing beside Him” and hold to it!

THE SCIENCE OF CHRIST

"Master, which is the great commandement in the law?" Jesus answered "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and will all thy mind." Loving God in this way is the first and easiest step. As old beliefs about a God that loves and hates give way to the oneness of being, God and His idea man as one and inseparable being, the task of loving Life, Truth, and Love is made easy. We rejoice in the beauty of Soul filled days, as spiritual progress unfolds in health, supply, protection, and in many other tangible ways. While we are grateful for this good already received, we must not forget the second great commandment, which is the same in essence as the first "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself."

It is comparatively easy to meditate on, pray about, and love God, Life, which is supplying all Good continuosly, but can we truly say we are loving our neighbour (all of them) as ourself? Do we love the politician that we don't agree with? What about the person with the physical infirmity or the businessman caught in a scandal? Are these neighbours any less outside of God's government? Do we deny evil in general, but leave in our thought that on a 'relative' or 'human' plane evil has a reality at least where so and so is concerned?

Mrs. Eddy explains her hope for mankind in Science & Health pg 55:16 "My weary hope tries to realize that happy day, when man shall recognize the Science of Christ and love his neighbor as himeslf, -- when he shall realize God's omnipotence and the healing power of the divine Love in what it has done and is doing for mankind." The understanding of the Science of Christ takes us beyond our own personal needs to see the entire world as in reality under the harmonious government of divine Principle.

EMANCIPATE THE HUMAN CONCEPT

Jesus pointed out the way for us in his Sermon on the Mount to reach the Science of celestial being and to prove what God is and what He does for man. In Mrs. Eddy's Message for 1901 she states that "To my sense the Sermon on the Mount, read each Sunday without comment and obeyed throughout the week, would be enough for Christian practice." ('01 11:16-19)

In Matthew 5:14 Jesus tells us that we are the light of the world. This light is our degree of understanding of the revelation of the Science of Life found in the Scriptures and illuminated by the writings of Mary Baker Eddy.

"Spiritual rationality and free thought accompany approaching Science, and cannot be put down." (S&H223:21) Knowing the Truth or adopting the Christ idenity frees us from any human concept. "They will emancipate humanity, and supplant unscientific means and so-called laws." (S&H223:23) As we consciously identify ourselves as Divine Truth, Life, and Love, we are no longer in bondage to a human mortal identity, because we are disproving it. Then Jesus instructs us to "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Mat 5:16)