WHEN Christ Jesus sent the twelve on a healing mission, he linked heaven with healing. He said (Matt. 10:7, 8): "As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give."
The Christian Science practitioner is one who accepts these directives and follows them in full confidence that they are capable of fulfillment. The Scientist has freely received healing through the Christ-power, and his desire is to give as freely as he has received. He has been deeply touched by the Science of being, because it has made him conscious in a measure of God's kingdom, in which the true idea of everything created exists. He has learned that the material senses are false, that matter, which they perceive, is a limited and materialistic mode of thinking, and that he can reverse the evidence of these senses by utilizing his spiritual senses, which perceive creation as God makes it. This is a process of translation, and, to the extent that the practitioner actually discerns what God has created, he is able to heal the sick and the sinning.
Mary Baker Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 25), "Science, understood, translates matter into Mind, rejects all other theories of causation, restores the spiritual and original meaning of the Scriptures, and explains the teachings and life of our Lord." A little later she adds, "It gives God's infinite meaning to mankind, healing the sick, casting out evil, and raising the spiritually dead."
