Has Spirit resigned to matter the government of the universe?
The purpose of the Hebrew allegory, representing error as assuming a divine character, is to teach mortals never to believe a lie.
Friday, September 30, 2011
Day 269: Genesis iv. 1
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Day 268: Genesis iii.22-24
Error excludes itself from harmony. Sin is its own punishment. Truth guards the gateway to harmony.
The literal meaning would imply that God withheld from man the opportunity to reform, lest man should improve it and become better; but this is not the nature of God, who is Love always,-- Love infinitely wise and altogether lovely, who "seeketh not her own."
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Day 267: Genesis iii. 16-19
Passions and appetites must end in pain. They are "of few days, and full of trouble." Their supposed joys are cheats. Their narrow limits belittle their gratifications, and hedge about their achievements with thorns.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Day 266: Genesis iii.11-15
The seed of Truth and the seed of error, of belief and of understanding,—yea, the seed of Spirit and the seed of matter,--are the wheat and tares which time will separate, the one to be burned, the other to be garnered into heavenly places.
Monday, September 26, 2011
Day 265: Genesis 5-10
Knowledge and pleasure, evolved through material sense, produced the immediate fruits of fear and shame.
Fear was the first manifestation of the error of material sense. Thus error began and will end the dream of matter.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Day 264: Genesis iii.1-5
The history of error is a dream-narrative. The dream has no reality, no intelligence, no mind; therefore the dreamer and dream are one, for neither is true nor real. First, this narrative supposes that something springs from nothing, that matter precedes mind. Second, it supposes that mind enters matter, and matter becomes living, substantial, and intelligent. The order of this allegory--the belief that everything springs from dust instead of from Deity--has been maintained in all the subsequent forms of belief. This is the error,--that mortal man starts materially, that non-intelligence becomes intelligence, that mind and soul are both right and wrong.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Day 263: Genesis ii.16-22
Here falsity, error, credits Truth, God, with inducing a sleep or hypnotic state in Adam in order to perform a surgical operation on him and thereby create woman. This is the first record of magnetism. Beginning creation with darkness instead of light, --materially rather than spiritually,--error now simulates the work of Truth, mocking Love and declaring what great things error has done. Beholding the creations of his own dream and calling them real and God-given, Adam--alias error--gives them names. Afterwards he is supposed to become the basis of the creation of woman and of his own kind, calling them mankind,--that is, a kind of man.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Day 262: Genesis ii.7-15
Sin, sickness, and death must be deemed as devoid of reality as they are of good, God.
Man is God's reflection, needing no cultivation, but ever beautiful and complete.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Day 261: Genesis ii.6-7
God becomes "a man of war," a tribal god to be worshipped, rather than Love, the divine Principle to be lived and loved.
Could Spirit evolve its opposite, matter, and give matter ability to sin and suffer?
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Day 260: Genesis ii.6
The Science of the first record proves the falsity of the second. If one is true, the other is false, for they are antagonistic. The first record assigns all might and government to God, and endows man out of God's perfection and power. The second record chronicles man as mutable and mortal,--as having broken away from Deity and as revolving in an orbit of his own. Existence, separate from divinity, Science explains as impossible.
Although presenting the exact opposite of Truth, the lie claims to be truth. The creations of matter arise from a mist or false claim, or from mystification, and not from the firmament, or understanding, which God erects between the true and false.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Day 259: Genesis ii.2-5
The highest and sweetest rest, even from a human standpoint, is in holy work.
growth is the eternal mandate of Mind
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
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Day 258: Genesis i.28-Genesis ii.1
Divine Love blesses its own ideas, and causes them to multiply,--to manifest His power.
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.
Mortals can never know the infinite, until they throw off the old man and reach the spiritual image and likeness. What can fathom infinity!
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Day 257: Genesis i.26-27
As the reflection of yourself appears in the mirror, so you, being spiritual, are the reflection of God. The substance, Life, intelligence, Truth, and Love, which constitute Deity, are reflected by His creation; and when we subordinate the false testimony of the corporeal senses to the facts of Science, we shall see this true likeness and reflection everywhere.
Man and woman as coexistent and eternal with God forever reflect, in glorified quality, the infinite Father-Mother God.
The life-giving quality of Mind is Spirit, not matter.
Even eternity can never reveal the whole of God, since there is no limit to infinitude or to its reflections.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Day 256: Genesis i.23-25
Advancing spiritual steps in the teeming universe of Mind lead on to spiritual spheres and exalted beings.
God creates all forms of reality. His thoughts are spiritual realities.
Understanding the control which Love held over all, Daniel felt safe in the lions' den, and Paul proved the viper to be harmless.
Patience is symbolized by the tireless worm, creeping over lofty summits, persevering in its intent.
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Day 255: Genesis i. 17-22
The changing glow and full effulgence of God's infinite ideas, images, mark the periods of progress.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Day 254: Genesis i.14-16
So-called mineral, vegetable, and animal substances are no more contingent now on time or material structure than they were when "the morning stars sang together."
turn away from a false material sense
Love alone can impart the limitless idea of infinite Mind.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Day 253: Genesis i. 11-13
Creation is ever appearing, and must ever continue to appear from the nature of its inexhaustible source.
The intelligent individual idea, be it male or female, rising from the lesser to the greater, unfolds the infinitude of Love.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Day 252: Genesis i.6-10
Spirit imparts the understanding which uplifts consciousness and leads into all truth.
Spiritual sense is the discernment of spiritual good. Understanding is the line of demarcation between the real and unreal. Spiritual understanding unfolds Mind,--Life, Truth, and Love,--and demonstrates the divine sense, giving the spiritual proof of the universe in Christian Science.
Understanding is a quality of God, a quality which separates Christian Science from supposition and makes Truth final.
Through divine Science, Spirit, God, unites understanding to eternal harmony.
Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as He opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Day 251: Genesis i. 2-5
In the universe of Truth, matter is unknown. Hence the eternal wonder,—that infinite space is peopled with God's ideas, reflecting Him in countless spiritual forms.
God creates neither erring thought, mortal life, mutable truth, nor variable love.
Was not this a revelation instead of a creation?
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Day 250: Genesis i.1
This creation consists of the unfolding of spiritual ideas and their identities, which are embraced in the infinite Mind and forever reflected.
Friday, September 9, 2011
Day 249: Today’s Questions
How can I progress most rapidly in the understanding of Christian Science? answer
Study thoroughly the letter and imbibe the spirit. Adhere to the divine Principle of Christian Science and follow the behests of God, abiding steadfastly in wisdom, Truth, and Love.
You will learn that in Christian Science the first duty is to obey God, to have one Mind, and to love another as yourself.
Ask yourself: Am I living the life that approaches the supreme good? Am I demonstrating the healing power of Truth and Love? If so, then the way will grow brighter "unto the perfect day."
Have Christian Scientists any religious creed? answer
The tenets of Christian Science:
- As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life.
- We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness.
- We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts.
- We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death.
- We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eternal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter.
- And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure.
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Day 248: Today’s Question
Will you explain sickness and show how it is to be healed?
Read the chapter Christian Science Practice starting on page 362
Mind must be found superior to all the beliefs of the five corporeal senses, and able to destroy all ills. Sickness is a belief, which must be annihilated by the divine Mind. Disease is an experience of so-called mortal mind. It is fear made manifest on the body. Christian Science takes away this physical sense of discord, just as it removes any other sense of moral or mental inharmony. That man is material, and that matter suffers,--these propositions can only seem real and natural in illusion. Any sense of soul in matter is not the reality of being.
Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need. It is not well to imagine that Jesus demonstrated the divine power to heal only for a select number or for a limited period of time, since to all mankind and in every hour, divine Love supplies all good.
God will heal the sick through man, whenever man is governed by God. Truth casts out error now as surely as it did nineteen centuries ago.
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.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Day 247: Today’s Question
Do the five corporeal senses constitute man? (day 1, day 2)
For right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence. In reality there is no other existence, since Life cannot be united to its unlikeness, mortality.
Science says: All is Mind and Mind's idea. You must fight it out on this line. Matter can afford you no aid.
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.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Day 246: Today’s Question
Do the five corporeal senses constitute man? (continued from yesterday)
Outside the material sense of things, all is harmony. A wrong sense of God, man, and creation is non-sense, want of sense.
Will-power is but a product of belief, and this belief commits depredations on harmony. Human will is an animal propensity, not a faculty of Soul. Hence it cannot govern man aright.
Matter cannot connect mortals with the true origin and facts of being, in which all must end. It is only by acknowledging the supremacy of Spirit, which annuls the claims of matter, that mortals can lay off mortality and find the indissoluble spiritual link which establishes man forever in the divine likeness, inseparable from his creator.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Day 245:
You speak of belief. Who or what is it that believes? answer
The Hebrew and Greek words often translated belief differ somewhat in meaning from that conveyed by the English verb believe; they have more the significance of faith, understanding, trust, constancy, firmness. Hence the Scriptures often appear in our common version to approve and endorse belief, when they mean to enforce the necessity of understanding.
Do the five corporeal senses constitute man? answer
Christian Science sustains with immortal proof the impossibility of any material sense, and defines these so-called senses as mortal beliefs, the testimony of which cannot be true either of man or of his Maker.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Day 244: Today’s Question
Is materiality the concomitant of spirituality, and is material sense a necessary preliminary to the understanding and expression of Spirit?
Emerge gently from matter into Spirit. Think not to thwart the spiritual ultimate of all things, but come naturally into Spirit through better health and morals and as the result of spiritual growth.
If thought yields its dominion to other powers, it cannot outline on the body its own beautiful images, but it effaces them and delineates foreign agents, called disease and sin.
In reality man never dies. The belief that he dies will not establish his scientific harmony. Death is not the result of Truth but of error, and one error will not correct another.
Sight, hearing, all the spiritual senses of man, are eternal. They cannot be lost. Their reality and immortality are in Spirit and understanding, not in matter,--hence their permanence.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Day 243: Today’s Questions
Is it important to understand these explanations in order to heal the sick? answer
In order to heal by Science, you must not be ignorant of the moral and spiritual demands of Science nor disobey them. Moral ignorance or sin affects your demonstration, and hinders its approach to the standard in Christian Science.
One must fulfill one's mission without timidity or dissimulation, for to be well done, the work must be done unselfishly.
Does Christian Science, or metaphysical healing, include medication, material hygiene, mesmerism, hypnotism, theosophy, or spiritualism?answer
Not one of them is included in it. In divine Science, the supposed laws of matter yield to the law of Mind.
Science must triumph over material sense, and Truth over error, thus putting an end to the hypotheses involved in all false theories and practices.
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Day 242: Today’s Question
Does brain think, and do nerves feel, and is there intelligence in matter? (answer cont’d from yesterday)
Consciousness, as well as action, is governed by Mind,--is in God, the origin and governor of all that Science reveals.
The forbidden fruit of knowledge, against which wisdom warns man, is the testimony of error, declaring existence to be at the mercy of death, and good and evil to be capable of commingling. This is the significance of the Scripture concerning this "tree of the knowledge of good and evil,"--this growth of material belief, of which it is said: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Human hypotheses first assume the reality of sickness, sin, and death, and then assume the necessity of these evils because of their admitted actuality. These human verdicts are the procurers of all discord.
When reading the Scriptures, the substitution of the word sense for soul gives the exact meaning in a majority of cases.
As used in Christian Science, Soul is properly the synonym of Spirit, or God; but out of Science, soul is identical with sense, with material sensation.
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